Kevin:
Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of Yo….is this. I am your host, Kevin Walsh with the dot number dot 708. And today I’m going to be filling in for Andrew and Tawny. I am so excited because they are on vacation right now. And they appointed me to be the host for the show to talk about some of my ideas and the things that I’ve experienced. So I’m going to talk to you for the next 10 to 12 minutes. And boy, am I excited for this. So first off, I’m going to be talking about two different situations going on in our world, one dealing with racism and one dealing with sexism. So first, let me ask you the question, yo, is this racist? So here’s the situation. I grew up in Upper Arlington, Ohio. And I grew up here and I’ve been here my whole life. I’m living there right now. And I wonder, I’m wondering right now, why my demographic is so Caucasian, I went to high school and it felt like I graduated with about five African Americans, maybe five Indian, maybe five, Asian. And it did not feel like I had a very diverse crowd in my high school. And I was wondering why. And then what’s crazy is I stumbled upon an article actually this year, and it was very interesting. And it said that in 1970, a house in Upper Arlington had a deed that said that the house is not allowed to be sold to anyone of non Caucasian, Caucasian. So this is very interesting and actually blew my mind honestly, because I can’t believe that that is actually something that took place in my dad’s lifetime considering he was born in 1968. The fact that happened while my dad was alive, is actually very horrific for me to hear, especially making me as we talk about this stuff in my humanities class, it definitely makes me even more conscious to really think about how horrible this is. So according to UA archives, over the last 40 years, my City of Upper Arlington has had a population of 92%, Caucasian, which leaves only 7.9% to the minorities. And honestly, I attest a lot of this to the, to the situation with the housing deeds back in 1970. Because back then, I really think that people were not wanting to move to Upper Arlington that were minorities, because of these deeds. And that is definitely very frustrating to me, because I wanted to grow up with people of a diverse background. And I didn’t really get this because of these housing deeds in a city that I am not proud of to say that that actually happened. And I think this is a big part of systemic injustice. Because the City of Upper Arlington actually allowed this like that is horrible to think that the City of Upper Arlington allowed these deeds to take place back in 1970, when my parents were alive, and they were born already. And it’s horrible to see because I do not think that the City of Upper Arlington should be allowed to allow that. And I do not feel proud to live in a city that allows these housing deeds to happen. Obviously, I’m pretty positive. This is not a thing anymore. I’m almost hundred percent sure. But it’s horrible to see that this actually took place in my city. It definitely makes me feel a little less prideful about where I grew up. So when it comes to this situation, it really reminds me of The Leavers by Lisa Ko because the struggles you know, with immigration that come from immigration, I think, with the immigration Lisa Ko, The Leavers kind of relates to the people wanting to come to Upper Arlington, however, they’re not allowed, and they’re not really welcome. You know, it can be very hard to be accepted when you’re coming to a new community. And the fact that that’s tied with where I grew up is definitely very concerning. And very frustrating to me, because, honestly, I wasn’t really as awoken to a lot of these things that happen in my own city. And nowadays, like I started to think about a lot more just because of hearing people talk about this stuff and humanities class and having to write about it and really think about it just really has changed my mindset on all this. And growing up. This relates to my feelings playing for a baseball team on the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio, I grew up in Upper Arlington, a very Caucasian, very, you know, preppy school, in a sense, people kind of had a certain stigma about us. And when I was trying out for the team, the players had a certain belief about me, they were thinking that I was kind of like a city boy. And they kind of thought that I was someone who couldn’t relate to them and would normally talk down on them. And it’s mainly because most people from Upper Arlington are the first people to make assumptions about them. So my teammates on my team on the outskirts of Ohio, if you guys know Pataskala, Ohio, they judged me because they assumed that I would judge them first. And I know this isn’t really a race thing here. But this is just the whole idea of not really understanding where someone else grew up in and really being supportive of that. And this is the first time I’ve ever felt kind of like not accepted, but it’s in large part because people that come from where I came from, are normally not accepting of them. So this is definitely an experience that I had and really relates to kind of this housing deed thing in the sense that the city of Upper Arlington has always had this situation where we’re super closed off into a bubble. They call it the UA bubble. And it makes sense. They’re super closed off. And going through classes this semester, it’s really showed me how much racism really takes place in our world, like reading through people’s showcases on their diary of systemic and justices. Reading through the showcases, really, really was hard to read at times, because I really did not want to accept the fact that this stuff is real. And this stuff actually takes place. And it’s important for me to understand this stuff. So it’s good that I’m reading it. I’m glad I’m reading it. But at the same time, I just wish this wasn’t stuff I had to read about. Because it’s so unfortunate, even though it is important that I understand it. And it’s great that I, it’s great that I understand it now.
So moving on to our next question. This one is interesting for me to talk about as a huge NFL fan. And we’re at the halfway point of the NFL season, I’m really enjoying the NFL season so far. And it’s kind of interesting to think about some situations that involve like injustices in the NFL in an entertainment industry. So my favorite entertainment industry, and I spend a lot of my time I run social media on it. And this is a really important topic to me. So let me ask the question, Yo, is this sexism? So currently, in the NFL, there are only three women who hold positions directly involved with on field operations on the football field. So there are only two team personnel employees that are women, are female. And there’s only one woman referee in the NFL, and the first full time referee came in 2015. And her name is Sarah Thomas. And I actually see her a lot. And I actually love when I get to watch the NFL games that have her on the field, because I’m just a huge supporter of seeing her out there. And it’s not that it’s funny, because I’ve actually been watching games with people in the past, and they’re like, oh, wow, there’s a woman on the field. And I’m like, Yeah, there is. And that’s awesome. Because we need that I want a woman on every single game. There’s like four referees per game on the field. So why can’t at least one be a female? Why can’t least one be a woman? This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. And I actually love when I’m watching a game that actually has her on the field, because I want more of her on the field. And she’s super inspiring to a lot of the women that watch football nowadays. But the question is, is this lack of women represented the NFL systemic injustice? And honestly, I do believe so. And this is because the NFL was founded in 1920. So 100 years ago, they just celebrated their 100 year anniversary. And guys, it took very long to get women involved into this, it took a very long time. And that’s very concerning. I understand that, over the history of America, this took time in general. But there’s been plenty of time ever since I was born to really get this involvement happening. And the fact that when I was born, there still wasn’t this stuff. And there still wasn’t women really involved in the NFL. It’s kind of crazy, and they’re getting really late to the action, and they need to really keep moving it forward. So what’s interesting is that the average owner, the average age of an owner in the NFL, is actually 68. And I think this is their systemic injustice by the owners against women. I honestly think as you can tell, it’s a very high age of owners, which makes sense, more of like, the wealthier people are older people, because they have more time to build up their wealth, which makes sense. But also there are only two owners of color. So there continues to be domination by technically old white men, and they’re going to be super, super big on what they believe and what they grew up in. Like, when you have the average age of a 68 year old owner, they’re going to have these beliefs that they grew up in, and it’s gonna be a lot harder for them to really get women and get people of color involved in operations around the league, because this is not what they grew up in. And they’re definitely okay with just having a lot of white men involved at the NFL. So one subtle thing that I picked up on, though during the semester was kind of the effect of your environment, on your beliefs. The fact that the people you surround yourself with and the ideas that you’re surrounding yourself with really have a strong influence on who you are and the beliefs you have. So for example, me taking a humanities class, I think is a good environment to surround myself with, because it’s surrounding myself with people in these discussions and things of that nature, that really bring in the idea of needing to really fight against these injustices of racism and sexism, and all of those things. So surrounding myself with people that really believe in the same type of things is super important. And I’m really happy that even if I find myself in situations that are with different minded people, my humanities class can always bring me back to what I believe in. Old NFL owners, as I said, like the old NFL owners grew up in different times. So they’re going to surround themselves with similar minded people, other old people, white men, just people with the mindsets that aren’t, you know, revolving and changing and adapting to our current times. And as a big NFL Fan I’m super concerned for the future of the league when it comes to support from women. I think that the NFL needs women involved and needs women fans and considering half of our population is women. And it’s super concerning, because I know for a fact that the NFL needs to last because I’m a super big fan of the NFL. But for it to last, it’s important to make everyone feel included and make our society feel super engaged in the NFL and make everyone come together, enjoy football, have complete representation from everywhere, really diversify. And I think that this act of systemic injustice against women needs to change. The NFL is doing a better job maybe right now to move forward. But they need to really ramp this up a lot faster because I’m sorry, but three women with on field operations is super concerning to me. And I hope this concerns you guys too. And it’s something guys pay attention to when you’re watching the NFL games. But guys, I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode I was so happy to fill in, for Andrew and Tawny today. I hope I was able to really help you guys out and really open up your mind to some of these ideas. I always love getting on here and talking about these ideas and my opinions and hopefully I was able to open your mind and really get you thinking about these problems that we have and how we can fix them and things you should be looking out for in your day to day life. I hope you guys enjoyed this one and I’ll see you guys in the next episode.