Since Colin Kaepernick took a knee, the terms “stick to sports” and “shut up and play” are often regurgitated by those who are willfully ignorant or want to remain in the dark about the undeniable and current connection between politics and athletics.
Coming off the heels of last week’s twitter meltdown directed towards the World Cup-winning US Women’s National Soccer Team and his latest rant against 4 congresswomen of color, there was no better person to talk about Trump and his historic insecurities against the “other” than MSNBC’s Joy-Ann Reid.
A consistent MSNBC on-air presence since the killing of Trayvon Martin, Reid puts points on the board for challenging, debating and exposing the hypocrisy of those who profit off spreading fake news.
In an hour-long discussion at the Shadow League office with host Kyle Harvey, The Man Who Sold America author, compared 45’s warped brand of American demagoguery to an 80s villain among other things, specifically Batman’s eternal nemesis the Joker.
“The reason why I open the book up by calling him the Joker is because most of the time, the Joker is this really rich guy, who’s angry about the existence of Batman,” Reid begins at 15:15 min mark. “The two are both rich, both angry, and what Batman decides to do with his anger is to fight criminals.
“He doesn’t like the fact that people are abusing the ‘little guy’. And what the Joker decides to do is fight Batman. In fact, he doesn’t really kind of exist without Batman. There’s no real purpose for the Joker other than messing with Batman. He hates the fact that Batman is popular, that people love him, he just hates him“.
Every villain needs a foil. If Trump is just a clown with an agenda, it’s not hard to figure out who Bruce Wayne is.
“Obama could be his Batman, the culture could be his Batman…like all these things he wanted for himself, like growing up in Queens and wanting to be respected by the Anna Wintours of the world, they never let him in,” Reid elaborated on Trump’s view of fame.
“So now he hates that. He started hating the thing he wanted the most.”
Do you agree? Check out the full podcast and let us know what you think in the comments below and make sure to get a copy of Joy’s latest book The Man Who Sold America here.
Highlights
- Reid’s time as the managing editor at theGrio
- Trump’s WWE Bravado
- Covering every major black death (Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Jordan Davis) as a black mother for cable news
- The art of politely eviscerating ill-prepared political talking heads
- The greatest hip hop activists of this generation
- Why Heath Ledger is the greatest Joker of all time
- The first hip hop, r&b albums you give your kids
- Versus: Dru Hill vs 112
And More
On The Points On The Board podcast, we interview the closers and finishers from every discipline. Each week, digital producer, journalist Kyle Harvey sitdowns with rising athletes, sportswriters and creatives to breakdown the lessons they learned from the field of competition and how they applied to dominate it their crafts. Subscribe here for the latest episodes.
