Greg and I start off the conversation with some hot sports opinions! We connected over his love of sports. What a fun conversation this was! This is what an interview looks like when you just follow where the conversation leads. Greg brings a young, important, balanced perspective to our conversation. During his free time, he records and produces his very own podcast called: On The Spot where he discusses all things sports, entertainment and music.

I was really surprised and impressed with Greg's view on politics in sports. He completely and reasonably sees both sides. I appreciate and learned from his balanced perspective on this issue. He taught me to be non-dualistic even in this. And he brought that same mentality to his insight on how black and white athletes are stereotyped. I'm so glad he brought that up. I know I have been guilty of thinking one athlete is just naturally talented while thinking another must have to work extra hard. This is an area I need to learn to reframe my thinking because my thinking is wrong, racist, and over-generalized. Thank you, Greg, for bringing this to my attention.

Greg really educated me on colorism within the Black community. I've read a little bit about it over the years, but he fleshed it out for me where I could see and feel it's nasty effects through his eyes. I have some article links in the show notes if you're interested in continuing to learn more about the history of colorism in the U.S. Black people are not 

immune from acting like a racist, hurting others because of their faulty assumptions regarding colorism, or showing descrimination towards others. We are all in the process of learning and growing and we all have the tendency to try to preserve our own self interests over the benefit of others despite our ethnicity, religion, race, socio-economic  standing, or our sexual preferences..

Greg mentioned how one of the coaches he admired the most, Coach Thompson from Georgetown, expressed the opinion that black coaches and individuals in the sporting industry are never really given the opportunity to fail. What an impossibly high standard to live up to as a Black athlete or coach.  But as another legendary coach, Louisville’s Rick Pitino  recognizes, "Failure is good. It's fertilizer. Everything I've learned about coaching, I've learned from making mistakes." What a sad double standard we've set in sports and life if one group of people are allowed to learn from their mistakes and another are punished, banished, or damned because of them. This is an example of how our systemic racism problem has seeped into every area of society and wraps it's ugly claws around the most basic ideas we hold as "normal." May we all have the wisdom to critique and extol both sides of a perspective and learn from our failures….as Greg has. 

Greg's quote:

If you don't start now, one year from now, you'll regret it. - Anonymous

Articles:
The Roots of Colorism
Why black people discriminate among ourselves: the toxic legacy of colorism

Social Media:
Where you can find Greg online