EP94: THE MAKING (and re-making) OF LARRY JOHNSON PART 3 with Dr. Kwame M. Brown, Neuroscientist and Former Psychology Professor

About the Guest:

Dr. Kwame M. Brown is a neuroscientist holding a PhD from Georgetown University and a BA in Molecular Biology from Hampton University. With an eight-year tenure as a professor of psychology at Hampton, Dr. Brown is widely recognized for his work as the "Neighborhood Neuroscientist," where he combines science, movement, and activism. Throughout his career, he has emerged as a respected scientist and a beloved educator, significantly contributing to his field and the lives of his students.

Episode Summary:

In this episode of "Becoming UnDone," hosted by Toby Brooks, we delve into the cultural and racial impacts of sports superstars, focusing on Larry Johnson. We start with a flashback to Johnson's rise to fame with the Charlotte Hornets, transitioning into a discussion about Toby's personal experiences that shape his view on growth, fear, and overcoming obstacles, inspired by Carol Dweck's work on mindset. We then segue into addressing prevalent societal issues such as racism and stereotypes, seen through the lens of Toby's admiration for black athletes and artists, against the backdrop of his predominantly white upbringing.

The latter half features an engaging conversation with Dr. Kwame M. Brown, exploring the intersection of nineties' hip-hop culture and basketball. Dr. Brown shares insights from his experiences growing up in Virginia, amidst prodigious talents like Allen Iverson and Michael Vick. The discussion also touches upon the influence of Larry Johnson, the cultural shifts in NBA and college sports, and the complexities of addressing racial stereotypes in advertising campaigns like Johnson's "Grandmama." The episode closes with reflections on the profound impact these cultural phenomena had on society and individual mindsets during the transformative early nineties era.

Key Takeaways:

• Growth vs. Fixed Mindset: Toby discusses Carol Dweck’s research on mindset and how shifting from a fixed to a growth mindset can profoundly affect one's success.
• Cultural Influence: The blend of hip-hop and sports in the nineties significantly impacted popular culture, with figures like Larry Johnson and Allen Iverson representing a shift towards authentic self-expression.
• Racial and Social Dynamics: The episode examines how racial stereotypes and cultural representation in advertising and sports impact perceptions and social dynamics.
• Advocacy and Activism: Dr. Brown emphasizes the ongoing struggle against racial stereotypes and the importance of ownership and expression in the black community.

Notable Quotes:

1. Toby Brooks: "What I saw in Larry Johnson in 1991 was, in my mind, a superhero."
2. Dr. Kwame M. Brown: "The NBA slowly changing despite its own intention."
3. Dr. Kwame M. Brown: "No longer will you make money off our backs without us being able to express ourselves."

Resources:

• Carol Dweck's Research on Mindset (For further reading on growth vs. fixed mindset).

Join us for this enlightening episode and stay tuned for more riveting conversations that unravel the untold stories and insights from our guests. Listen to the fu

Transcript

0:00:03 - (Toby Brooks): This is becoming undone.

0:00:09 - (Toby Brooks): Welcome back to another episode of Becoming Undone, the podcast where we examine the lives of high achievers and learn about how sometimes things have to fall apart before they can come together. In part one of our docuseries on the making and remaking of Larry Johnson, we checked in with former Charlotte Hornets VP of public relations Harold Kaufmande. He shared his stories of the cultural phenomenon that was Larry Johnson in Charlotte beginning in 1991.

0:00:35 - (Toby Brooks): In our last episode, part two, we heard from Larrys High School coach, former Dallas Skyline head coach JD Mayo, who shed some light on LJS upbringing in the Dixon Circle housing projects of south Dallas and his illustrious high school career. Coming up next week, well hear from Larrys first college coach, Odessa College's Dennis Helmsenhe. But first, I thought wed take a bit of an expedition of sorts and examine some of the social and racial impacts a superstar like Larry Johnson had when he burst on the scene in the NCAA in 1989 and then later in the NBA in 1991.

0:01:09 - (Toby Brooks): But just like last time, first things first. A simple request. Stay with me. I promise this episode really is about Larry Johnson. Eventually it might take me a minute to get there, but I swear ill get there. So stick around. I dont recall all the details, but I do remember some of the specifics with crystal clarity. I cant remember who we were playing. I couldnt tell you the score either. But I do know that I was a sophomore on the varsity basketball team and we were getting our teeth kicked in.

0:01:41 - (Toby Brooks): And red. I remember lots of red. Specifically, the red I remember was glowing from my coachs face. Coach Lonnie Duttons face was the throbbing, glowing cherry color you usually only see in fruit flavored hard candies or immediately before somebody has an aneurysm. In that moment, he was as close to Bobby Knight as id ever seen in my life. I felt the heat of his breath on my face as he grabbed me by the jersey, pulled me closer, and shouted a profound truth during a timeout.

0:02:13 - (Toby Brooks): Either play or dont. You aren't helping us by being so damn timid, he said emphatically. The blood in his cheeks told me all I needed to know before he'd even said a word. I'd never really been coached hard before, and this was somewhat out of character for our white haired, normally mild mannered, pretty even keeled coach. And like Bobby Knight, he'd hold a rolled up piece of paper in his hand and slap it into the opposite palm while he was chewing on an official from time to time.

0:02:42 - (Toby Brooks): But I knew if he was that upset, there had to be a reason. That reason was simple. I wanted to be on the floor, but I was so afraid of making a mistake that I couldnt well stop making mistakes if I wasnt willing to play unrestrained. It would be better for everyone if I found my spot on the bench and let somebody else give it a shot. As it turns out, that lesson on fear was one I needed to hear, and I need it regularly. Even today, renowned Stanford researcher Carol Dweck, the professor of mindset, has established herself as the world's foremost authority on the idea that how we think is a critical determinant of our likelihood of success.

0:03:25 - (Toby Brooks): It goes something like this. There are two primary mentalities that we tend to embrace during childhood and early adolescence, the fixed or the growth mindsets. What's more, our preferred mindset tends to be carried with us, for better or for worse, into adulthood. In the fixed mindset, we tend to be focused mostly on the outcome. Students, athletes, artists who find early success and are praised heavily for their gifts are prime suspects for the fixed mindset.

0:03:54 - (Toby Brooks): And here's why everyone loves to be praised. For example, a child who performs well in school at an early age quickly discovers that getting good grades leads to teachers, classmates, parents, and others pointing out how good they did. Hungry for more praise, the student's motivated more by the next positive outcome or the next good grade than by the challenge of attempting or potentially failing at newer, more difficult concepts.

0:04:21 - (Toby Brooks): As a result, tasks that could lead to deeper understanding and mental growth get avoided. After all, the student would most likely do poorly, and that failure wouldn't lead to praise. It may even lead those same people to wonder if the student was really gifted to begin with. The natural consequence is that the student looks for simple tasks that will continue to feed that narrative that they are naturally gifted, and as a result, they preserve their self concept and everyone's opinion of them in the process gets supported.

0:04:53 - (Toby Brooks): Count me as a recovering fixed mindset sufferer. In first grade, I was selected for a once weekly gifted class with a teacher who traveled among several area schools to provide select students with extra work. I participated in an annual physical education show. I won a few awards early in my schooling at our annual art show, and consistently the praise I heard was that the skills I was showing in any prowess that I might be displaying was most likely due to some God given ability.

0:05:25 - (Toby Brooks): It wasn't something that I had worked to acquire. It was something people either had or didn't. And lucky me, I thought I had it. Now don't get me wrong, I certainly do believe that God gifts us with special skills, abilities and preferences. I think that's supported in scripture, and I've also seen plenty of examples of those gifts in others on display. Theres nothing at all wrong with acknowledging that you or someone in your world has a gift.

0:05:51 - (Toby Brooks): However, theres a darker side to this idea. If you didnt really have to do anything to acquire it, then in many ways it isnt something that can be developed. Instead, its more likely that it is a label you get that might someday be proven untrue or even taken away. That fear of loss leads the fixed mindset holder to progressively learn to avoid challenge, to run from potential failure, and to protect that perception of giftedness at all costs.

0:06:21 - (Toby Brooks): My freshman year of college, I was thinking about pursuing either a medical degree or career as a physical therapist. My fear of failure had led me to apply to exactly two schools and settle for the safer and cheaper community college option. The pre med and the pre PT curricula at my school were exactly the same for that freshman year, so it made for an easy decision. Keep my options open and head vaguely down that path.

0:06:46 - (Toby Brooks): After squeaking through pre calc with an 89.5 average graciously rounded up to an a by my professor, I had nearly completed calc one when I met with that same professor for some extra work. Class was hard. I had two jobs, financial hurdles, girl problems. I was struggling pretty mightily, so I sought out his help. He was an intimidating mountain of a man who stood six six and had a voice so soft you had to squint and lean in just to hear him teach.

0:07:17 - (Toby Brooks): He was tough, too. He had a belt buckle the size of a trash can lid, and he was missing three fingers. That all pointed to his history as a competitive calf roper. What's your major? He asked as I settled into his office to try to shore up my ailing grade. Pre med or pre physical therapy, sir, I replied pretty timidly. Now, at that time, getting accepted into a physical therapy program, at least in my part of the world, was pretty much as competitive as getting into med school.

0:07:45 - (Toby Brooks): Neither were sure things by any stretch, but naively, I had believed in this idea that I'd been fed all along, that I was a gifted student. Once my talent, my skill, bubbled to the surface, I was sure that somebody on an admissions panel somewhere would see that and give me a shot. Looking back, I had no idea. As he studied his handwritten gradebook through his heavy rimmed glasses, I could smell the coffee on his breath as he quietly and matter of factly spoke that first arrow right through my heart without so much as looking up.

0:08:18 - (Toby Brooks): So what are you going to change it to after this semester? He questioned. I wasn't quite sure what he meant. I'm sorry, sir. What? I replied. What are you going to change your major to after this semester? He repeated. You arent going to get an a in my class, and youll have no shot at getting into either med school or pt school after that. You know, I think I would have preferred it if he would have pulled the sawed off shotgun from under his desk and unloaded it straight into my chest.

0:08:48 - (Toby Brooks): No one had ever been so blunt, so apparently uncaring, so honest. I'm not sure, sir. I struggled to get out. I didn't say much else for the rest of the meeting, and truth be told, I was struggling to fight back tears. I trudged out of there. I never went to his office again. I couldn't. True or not, what he said had not only hurt me to hear, it had cut me right to the core of my identity at a time when I wasn't even sure what my identity was.

0:09:22 - (Toby Brooks): My professor's words helped reinforce what I wasn't. I wasn't med school or PT school material. Up till then, I'd always believed that I was a gifted student, and I'd bought into the lie that gifted students would somehow just be successful. And as embarrassing as it is to admit, back then, the thought never even crossed my mind to buckle down, dig deep, overcome this setback through sweat, through tears, through pain.

0:09:52 - (Toby Brooks): Someone who obviously knew more about the world, or at least calculus, had examined me and found me lacking. I wasn't gifted enough, and there was nothing I could do about it except change my major and accept my fate. As I look back, I wish I could hop in the DeLorean and give 18 year old me a stern talking to, because that fixed mindset is nothing but a lie. I just hadn't yet come to fully understand how hard work can be a great equalizer.

0:10:22 - (Toby Brooks): That's what those with the growth mindset seem to understand right up front. It's a liberating and blissful indifference to failure along the way. As long as the challenge provided along the way helps elevate me toward improvement, then all's well. It ends well. Such students are rarely praised for giftedness as much as their effort, because it's effort that fuels growth. This focus on the process, without an overemphasis on the outcomes along the way, helps the student, the athlete, or the artist liberate themselves from the shackles of fear, and to be free to experiment, discover truly become all they were destined to be. The opposite of that encounter was undoubtedly my high school band director, Alan Brickhouse.

0:11:05 - (Toby Brooks): We called him Mister B, and despite the small size of our school, he ran an incredible program that regularly saw up to a third of the entire school population participate in band, flag corps, or color guard. He saw in that little country school in our humble student population what few music teachers would have potential. He always addressed each of us as mister or miss as a sign of respect. He was the first person I can remember who ever called me Mister Brooks.

0:11:33 - (Toby Brooks): I was just 14 years old. It was his way of building us up to do our best, to speak truth into existence at a time when we didn't even realize it. But of all the lessons and prophetic truths Mister B spoke into us, none would have a more lasting impact than a simple phrase he had drawn with a big black marker in scissor clip bubble letters that he pinned in the front of the classroom. In all caps it said, be your own best.

0:12:03 - (Toby Brooks): At Pope County High School, we didn't have anyone headed for juilliard. As a freshman, I wasn't even aware of anyone from my school who had gone to a college anywhere other than the two nearest community colleges or the two nearest four year schools. The likelihood of us going toe to toe with those big schools that boasted several times our enrollment and finding success of any sort would seem crazy.

0:12:27 - (Toby Brooks): By all accounts, we should have been scared to even try. But Mister B wouldn't allow it. He wanted us to grow, and growth only comes through challenge. He wanted us to be our own best. Doing our best would have meant trying hard once in a while. Being our own best meant weeks of practice before school started and rehearsals every day. As percussionist, my unit had additional practices. On top of that, we had recorded playing tests.

0:12:58 - (Toby Brooks): We had a culture of accountability. That meant that it wasn't just coming from him, either. It also came from within. As the upperclassmen ensured that the underclassmen upheld that standard of excellence. We held each other to higher standards, and as a result, we eventually found success as powerful as being your own best can be. Too often, the perfectionist with the fixed mindset can get that idea all twisted up.

0:13:24 - (Toby Brooks): This distortion tries to convince us that the most important goal is not effort, but rather performance. Outcome is what matters. The person with the fixed mindset has one prime objective, protect that image of perfection and capability at all costs. The fixed mindset person doesnt want to face challenges. They want to run from them anything to defend that golden calf of perfection. But in a world not far removed from a global pandemic and remote learning thats still eyeballs deep in racial injustice and social upheaval and any of a dozen other awful realities, being the best is darn near impossible.

0:14:04 - (Toby Brooks): And the guilt of not being the best is just extra baggage to load on an already overburdened set of shoulders. And these days, being our best may be impossible. Instead, trying our best is pretty much all any of us can muster. You know, we live in a world that is literally being torn apart by isms, sexism, classism, ableism, ageism, and perhaps the most volatile and destructive of all in that dumpster fire that was 2020 is racism.

0:14:35 - (Toby Brooks): I remember having long discussions with my students about George Floyd and about race protests and about systemic problems in our society. Preceding each ism is a prefix that defines an entire group of people. Thing is, people are notoriously messy, hard to define creatures. But the word boxes we tend to store them in are neatly stacked. They're orderly. Tragically, most of the time, the isms are just more specific and convenient handles we use to lift our hate.

0:15:09 - (Toby Brooks): Suzanne Farr once wrote, in North America, our defined norm is male, heterosexual, white, christian, temporarily able bodied, youthful, and has access to wealth and resources, and increasingly, as unpopular as that may be, to acknowledge such defines the world's current preferred villainous. The problem is, if you just so happen to be most or all of those things, you can find yourself wondering who you should hate.

0:15:36 - (Toby Brooks): Oliver Hazzard Perry once wrote, we have met the enemy and they are ours. And in my case, it was me. While most of Farr's list suited me just fine, I spent my adolescent years wanting to be anything but white and just able bodied. All my heroes were black and extraordinary in their mental and physical abilities. I wanted to be able to write about social injustices like W. E. B. Dubois. I wanted to drum like living colors. Will Calhoun when I was younger, I wanted to sing and dance like Michael Jackson.

0:16:07 - (Toby Brooks): And as I got older, I wanted to dunk and rebound like Larry Johnson. I took pride in the verbal sparring matches that I would have with my beloved history teacher, Mister Bramlett, pointing out the obvious omissions and political leanings of our racist and white centric textbooks. My reading list was black. My music list was black. My wardrobe, at least I thought, was black to the extent I could. I made my sense of style black, but alas, I was still undeniably, painfully, pastely white.

0:16:44 - (Toby Brooks): In my senior class of 43 students, all of us were white. In my high school of less than 150, all but three were white. If there were privilege to be had, we weren't sure where to find it. Our county was one of the most impoverished in the nation. The mean income of our residents ranked 87th out of 102 counties in the state and in the bottom 5% nationally. More than half of our students qualified for free or reduced lunch, which is an important indicator of childhood poverty.

0:17:17 - (Toby Brooks): So growing up in that environment, I thought everything would change when I went to college, where I could finally study and live in a more diverse world than I had ever known. In a previous episode, I talked about the no reign bee girl and how happy she was when she finally found her people. I couldn't wait to find mine. Let's just say it didn't go as planned. Early on in my freshman year, I noticed that most of the guys I wanted to be like at my new school were on the basketball team.

0:17:47 - (Toby Brooks): Most were tall, six six or more, dark skin, they had shaved heads. Seemed like a simple thing, right? So I decided it would be best for me to do likewise. Maybe I'd fit in. Sadly, I heard them laugh in the hallways and call me a Nazi. Racism and damaging stereotypes aren't relegated to unidirectional offense. They can cut anyone. And in my attempts, and in looking back, as dumb as they were to draw closer to guys who were part of the culture I wanted so desperately to be a part of, I'd somehow managed to instead widen the divide between us.

0:18:27 - (Toby Brooks): They probably took one look at me and made a quick assumption based on their experience. And in the same way I'd failed to recognize the potential message I'd be sending. And heres why we both did. Self preservation. You know, its easier and far less risky to simply make an assumption. Its much more difficult to take the time to see into another persons soul. Sure, we notice people. How tall they are, what color their skin is, their gender or their likely sexual orientation, the clothes they wear, the car they drive.

0:19:01 - (Toby Brooks): But more often than not, we dont really see them. We share platitudes and ask simple questions. How are you? What's up? In Africa, the Zulu greet one another with a traditional greeting. Sayubona translated I see you. In greeting you with Sayubona, I'm not just acknowledging that you're here, I'm telling you that for this moment, you are the most important thing. You are the center of my attention.

0:19:31 - (Toby Brooks): I see you and that's what isms like racism rob us of that clear full vision back then. I was ignorant of my perceptions. From the perspective of the present, I can look back and see that back then I was absolutely ignorant and that my perceptions were too simplistic in my attempts to somehow connect with the people I wanted to be. Like I'd accidentally actually push them away with a haircut. They push back.

0:20:02 - (Toby Brooks): Consider the simple phrase black lives matter. Say it aloud. It's hard to imagine anyone taking issue with the simple statement that black lives do in fact matter. However, posting this phrase in any public forum like social media is almost certain to lead to at least some responses that all lives matter or blue lives matter. Never in the history of social media have these differing viewpoints found some sort of middle ground or mutual agreement.

0:20:29 - (Toby Brooks): Instead, things get heated, nasty, frequently personal. Sometimes these types of disputes escalate beyond just verbal and erupt into violence. So how do we combat this? We do as our Zulu brothers and sisters would suggest we see. What I saw in Larry Johnson in 1991 was, in my mind, a superhero. A tall, powerful, electric basketball player with dazzling dunks and a 10,000 watt smile. And despite my all white school, I wore a Charlotte Hornets hat and an LJ jersey in my senior pictures.

0:21:07 - (Toby Brooks): And I can tell you in 1991, a goofy hayseed like me from middle America who had chosen a black man with a gold tooth for a hero. That wasn't exactly a popular proposition from the establishment, as public enemy so awesomely described in their 1990 album, fear of a black planet.

0:21:26 - (Kwame M. Brown): Where is public enemy?

0:21:27 - (Toby Brooks): What's the deal? What's your latest hit, brother?

0:21:29 - (Kwame M. Brown): Fear of a black planet.

0:21:41 - (Toby Brooks): Those systemic social constructs that had kept this machine of racism churning along for more than 150 years of oppression were finally starting to face some resistance. Sure, I love the beats. I love the samples. The audible experience was fantastic. But the message resonated with me, too. It matched and supported the readings I'd been doing of Frederick Douglass Dubois, Huey P. Newton, which I will say was hard to find in a pre Internet era with my white local libraries.

0:22:34 - (Toby Brooks): But I loved it all. I just wasn't sure what to do with it when white kids at all white schools in the flyover states out in rural America are listening to public enemy and making heroes of black authors and artists and athletes, that racism machine had a problem my senior year. My teammates and I snuck shut em down into the cd player that played the song on the gym's PA system when we took the floor.

0:23:02 - (Toby Brooks): Hold it now. Come on. Come on. All right, Joe.

0:23:24 - (Toby Brooks): If I recall correctly, we did that one time, and one time only, before our principal, ironically, shut that practice down. Now, I'll say Larry Johnson didn't set out to be a black revolutionary, but in my world, you could make the case that he was the middle part, the gold tooth, that south Dallas edge. And not long after that, Allen Iverson came along with cornrows, tattoos, unmistakable swagger, and a palpably harder edge.

0:23:54 - (Toby Brooks): So I didn't set out to be a wannabe. It wasn't my goal to appropriate anyone's culture. And I sure as heck didn't mean to give myself what turned out to be a highly unfortunate haircut that led to some hurtful comments. I just wanted to be a part. I just wanted to be seen, you know? Tahibona.

0:24:16 - (Kwame M. Brown): Friends, welcome back to becoming undone. This week, we're fortunate to have a fantastic guest, a friend who goes way back. Doctor Kwame Brown is a neuroscientist who holds a PhD from Georgetown and a ba in molecular biology from Hampton University. And previously, he spent eight years as a professor of psychology at his alma mater, Hampton. In addition to being an accomplished scientist and a leader in a variety of fields, he's also widely known for his work as the neighborhood neuroscientist, where he connects his training and his own personal story to merge science, movement, and activism. Doctor Brown, thank you so much for joining me today.

0:24:53 - (Toby Brooks): Thank you, Doctor Brooks.

0:24:55 - (Kwame M. Brown): We'll dispense with all of those pleasantries. Kwame and Toby are here to talk. No more doctors. You won't hear that anymore. But, Kwame, we were talking before the show, and I'm really excited to get your insights on this era of american pop culture and the kind of collision that occurred between hip hop and sports and those things. We'll. We'll talk about Larry Johnson and starter and that convergence of nineties culture.

0:25:24 - (Kwame M. Brown): What were you up to in the late eighties and early nineties, and what do you remember about the era?

0:25:29 - (Toby Brooks): Oh, um, what was I up to? Uh, being 135 pounds with a high top feet, I think, uh, trying to try to figure out, you know, life. But so certainly hip hop was a soundtrack to that. You know, I have my low head theory.

0:25:49 - (Kwame M. Brown): Nice little tribe. Yep.

0:25:52 - (Toby Brooks): Right, right. I think that for me, given where I grew up, it's a special kind of conversation to have to. I mean, we produced from my area, bubba chuck, who y'all know as the answer AI. We call him bubba chuck back home. You know, mike vick, aaron brooks, mike tomlin, the new coach. Jared mayo of the patriots is also from my area. So we had this outsized. And in terms of hip hop, timberland, missy.

0:26:27 - (Toby Brooks): All of them were down there in virginia. Usher was even training down there with the name we shall not mention, but pharrell, neptunes, virginia beach, right across 30, 30 minutes from where I grow. So our area kind of had an outsized influence on hip hop and sports. Right. So that was cool for me to watch and to be a part of. I have had to guard Iverson in a pickup game. It did not go well for me.

0:27:08 - (Toby Brooks): And a lot of us, by the way, have that story.

0:27:11 - (Kwame M. Brown): Right. Well, one of the reasons, as I was kind of culling my contact list, you know, Kwame gripped not far from Charlotte. North Carolina is not Virginia, but it's not far. I mean, it's geographically a couple hours away. And so this Charlotte Hornets phenomenon of the early nineties. And I kind of made light of the fact that, you know, there are the memes where, you know, at some point in your history, every kid you knew had a Charlotte Hornets starter jacket. Like, it was a phenomenon. It was a thing that purple and teal, where I was, was everywhere. Did you sense that or did, was that your experience growing up in Virginia?

0:27:50 - (Toby Brooks): I saw a lot of that, and I really think that that had a lot to do also with, you know, it followed from UNLV. Right. You know, running rebels and that whole cultural phenomenon there. You know, we had a fab five. Right. I really think it was all part of the same thing. But then you had this protein that created this confluence for all of us, a cultural phenomenon. But I really feel that Bubba Chuck opened the door a lot of that by being unapologetically himself.

0:28:20 - (Toby Brooks): And so I saw that, and I remember the commercials and the NBA slowly changing despite its own intention.

0:28:31 - (Kwame M. Brown): Right.

0:28:32 - (Toby Brooks): There were David Stern and all this stuff about the dress code and all that kind of stuff. But I was so happy. I mean, you're dealing with a league that was mostly, most of the moneymakers for that league were black and being asked to conform to something that didn't necessarily speak to them. And so I was glad to see that kind of ownership that we could feel in our neighborhoods of what was going on. NBA, right?

0:29:03 - (Kwame M. Brown): Yeah.

0:29:04 - (Toby Brooks): And I've always, as an aside, Toby, I have never understood why we want an athlete to wear a suit. What is that about?

0:29:13 - (Kwame M. Brown): Yeah.

0:29:13 - (Toby Brooks): Why do the coaches wear suits in a gym? You're dog like. Why are you wearing a suit?

0:29:20 - (Kwame M. Brown): Yeah. Well, it's interesting you mentioned that because in my mind, there's, I mean, in the Venn diagram of this cultural era, Iverson is on one end and like you said, authentically himself, he wasn't going to cover his tattoos or not rock cornrows, like, he was who he was, and that was revolutionary. And then maybe on the other end, you had Michael Jordan, who famously talked about how he wasn't going to ostracize one side of the electorate or not, because they both bought shoes.

0:29:51 - (Kwame M. Brown): And I really feel like Larry lived somewhere in the middle because he wore a gold tooth and he rocked apart. But he also wasn't covered in tattoos, so it's almost like a continuum of sorts. And. And for me, I wore a Larry Johnson jersey in my senior picture. Like, he was transformational. I wanted to be big and strong and athletic and all the things he was and dynamic and. And undeniably hip hop. Like, he. He came from the inner city of Dallas. And there was an appeal to that. As a middle America hayseed like myself.

0:30:25 - (Kwame M. Brown): What would you say were your most important cultural influences in the era in terms of film and music and literature and sports that helped shape who you were as a young man?

0:30:35 - (Toby Brooks): Oh, man, that's a really good question. For me, the native tongues had a big influence because I got a life.

0:31:22 - (Toby Brooks): Because I gotta like it.

0:31:27 - (Toby Brooks): Because I gotta. Mirror, mirror on the wall tell me mirror, what is wrong? Can it be my daylight close or is it just my day last song. Cause they extended past this tradition of conscious lyricism that really you can hearken back to the last poets and Gil Scott Heron. So my father would play them in the house. Like I. You know, I heard a lot of Gil Scott when I was growing up. A lot of, you know, last poet stuff when I was little.

0:32:11 - (Toby Brooks): And so really connecting through that part of the culture. And then I think byte bike Lee and the movies he created obviously do the right thing, but. But less obvious, more better blues. It was a celebration of jazz culture. By the way, it still hurts when I think about that scene where bleak got his lip cut by the. By his old trumpet, you know? Oh, but, yeah, I mean, all those. All those with Malcolm X, with Denzel playing Malcolm X. I mean, you can't get a more perfect cultural moment than that.

0:32:49 - (Toby Brooks): So, yeah, and then being a student at HBCU and being, you know, historically black college, university is kind of my family thing. My father was an HBCU president. My mom, my uncles, my stepmom, my uncles, they were all HBC grads, my cousins. And so that culture too. And that really intersected with hip hop and black basketball now, right? People were wearing, and we're starting to see that again now. In the last few years, but in the nineties, people were wearing HBCU shirts on shows, on television shows on tv, and at hip hop concerts, and, you know, performers would be wearing HBCU sweatshirts. Hampton.

0:33:30 - (Toby Brooks): Uh, it always pains me to mention the name, but. Howard Morehouses.

0:33:35 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:33:36 - (Kwame M. Brown): And as I think back to that era, I mean, obviously the hornets are a little south, and it's really more ACC country, but you get your PhD at Georgetown. Big east basketball is a thing. It's a powerhouse. It's storied in that era. And I always wondered that era, why then, why all of the sudden did the NBA and. And certainly collegiate underwent this massive transformation? And it went from being kind of, like you said, suits and ties to the game and shorty shorts and all about team to being flashier and being a little bit more uptempo and brazen and all those things. And you mentioned the Fab five, those UNLV teams, Georgetown with Allen Iverson.

0:34:21 - (Kwame M. Brown): Whydeh that convergence? Why then? Why our generation, as opposed to earlier or later, and that embrace of mainstream black youth and hip hop culture?

0:34:36 - (Toby Brooks): I want to say because we were dope, right? But the truth is, Toby, that people make decisions based on economic advantage in terms of people occupying power structures, right? And eventually, they saw that this hip hop thing, that this culture was a moneymaker, right? That it can make them money as much as they wanted to resist it. I mean, you can see in the way I used to at Hampton, we hosted a partner with my friend Adonia Barrett to host this hip hop summit. We did that for four or five years, and we would bring in people that were part of the initial surge of hip hop, and they would talk about traveling all over the world, and you see people that identify.

0:35:29 - (Toby Brooks): And I'm not talking about what most people see as hip hop. Like, most people really see rap, and they see the rap that's on the radio. Right? But I'm talking about, like, real hip hop culture, the four elements, right? Feeding, breaking, mc ing, djing. Right? You can add a fifth fashion. Right? So that was that approach to fashion that I. Okay, so I don't have much, but what I do have is my spirit.

0:35:53 - (Toby Brooks): What I do have is my expression, and that's spread throughout the world. And so when you see a global phenomenon, you're kind of stupid not to allow it to take hold, because look at how much money they've made since. And yes, Michael Jordan was a part of that. But in terms of what you see now in the league, cool people grew up. You can talk to players now. And they will talk about the influence of Alan Harrison on the Bubba Chuck on, on their whole demeanor, their whole outlook.

0:36:22 - (Toby Brooks): They had and won basketball, right, which Dave Chappelle had that amazing sketch that he did where he did every sport with a one. Bowling.

0:36:33 - (Kwame M. Brown): Right. Yeah. It was a, a pre Internet era. And in some ways you miss the monoculture. And in other ways, it's so great that people have access that they didn't before. But you're right. Those power structures were really the gatekeepers of what most of the youth in America were going to see anywhere from MTV, bet. Those determined to a large extent, what people collided with. It wasn't like you could go google it. You had to be exposed to it in some way.

0:37:05 - (Kwame M. Brown): And there was an outlay of cash involved in that. We couldn't just stream unlimited music. If you wanted to own music, you had to plop down 15 or $20 of your own hard earned money. And if it sucked, it sucked. Like, sorry about you, there were no returns. So at this time, we had Larry come on the scene early nineties. He's the high school player of the year, two time junior college player of the year, becomes a national champion at UNLV. They go undefeated.

0:37:32 - (Kwame M. Brown): I remember that iconic cover of Slam magazine where it's the inaugural issue and he's there just throwing one down. And that's in the supermarket of middle America, across the country, coast to coast, this black man with an electric smile, with a gold tooth who is everywhere. Grandmama campaign. So talk to me about the broader influence of the social impact of middle America being exposed and the power structures.

0:38:05 - (Kwame M. Brown): Yeah, they did it for money, but the reality is that led to an influence in culture that was never seen in generations before.

0:38:14 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah, yeah. I mean, although you could liken it to rock and roll, right? That, you know, as a cultural phenomenon and how fast the speed is spread. But I think, I mean, if you look at, so sometimes people are responding to an attitude and this kind of, how can I put this? This kind of spread can be problematic in some ways because some of that attitude of hip hop came from growing up in a certain place. I mean, you had all this, the insurance fraud, building burning in the Bronx and the, the highways cutting off neighborhoods and people just being trapped and sort of trying to make something positive out of that. And so, but that what people do respond to that. I mean, as much as people talk about Christian Laetner, Christian Laetner had that kind of attitude, like, you're not going to stop me, whatever. He was harder than people really.

0:39:10 - (Kwame M. Brown): Disclaimer that will be the only positive comment about Christian Laiter. And heard. Heard, 100% heard, right?

0:39:18 - (Toby Brooks): But like. And then Larry Johnson, too. There's. There's a lineage. So there's this lineage from hip hop culture, right? But there's also this lineage in basketball. So, like, people talk about LeBron, but like, before LeBron, there was Larry. Before Larry, there was bark around, out of rebound, right? I mean, he played. People don't realize, like, they look at him as this, you know, he's a portly gentleman, right? But they forget.

0:39:44 - (Toby Brooks): Dude was like thick and fast, right? Like, he was a big dude, but he was crossing people up, dunking on folks. Like, shooting threes was ridiculous. And so he also, I think a lot of people identified him. Cause he was against type, you know, and he brought, like you said, being a bigger guy, I can't relate to that. I was like, I was like 135 back then. So, yeah, I remember that the first time I was over 200 pounds, I was in my late thirties, I think.

0:40:15 - (Toby Brooks): And I remember the first time I posted somebody up and I felt that they couldn't move me. I was like, oh, this is what that feels like. But, yeah, I mean, it's just this being unapologetic, I think, is what people respond to. Right. I can't speak for middle America, right. Cause I didn't grow up in middle America. I think that that's the part of it that people respond to is this.

0:40:40 - (Kwame M. Brown): Yeah, yeah, I think you're spot on. And as you're talking, I'm kind of processing for myself. And. And that was it. It was this willingness to just be authentically me. And I wore a Charlotte Hornets baseball cap to my 8th grade graduation as an usher and got chewed out for it. Like, we don't wear hats indoors, sir. That's disrespectful. And in retrospect, I see that. Like it was. But I was going to do me and that was, I think that was for our generation, that's about.

0:41:13 - (Kwame M. Brown): Well, I don't want to speak for the entire generation, but it was certainly a different way of expressing self than maybe the boomers that came before us did. So Larry is famously remembered in this grandmama campaign. And I've in the years since been exposed to whether it's short form videos, YouTube clips, whatever, where he's talked about this campaign and how he initially signed with converse. There was this wonderful campaign cooked up with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, who were both converse signed athletes at the time.

0:41:49 - (Kwame M. Brown): And they were like frankensteining the greatest basketball player. And Larry Bird wants to call him Larry, and magic Johnson wants to call him Johnson, like, it's genius. But that. That ad campaign never saw the light of day. Instead, we get a Larry Johnson in a dress and a hat, and he's portrayed as, you know, these shoes are so light and fast that your grandma can beat you in. And this has been, by some, labeled as buck breaking. This is a strong, athletic, fresh on the scene superstar.

0:42:22 - (Kwame M. Brown): And now America's ad execs are putting him in a. Dressed as a young black male in that era. What did you think of that campaign then? And then maybe now what. What do you think about it?

0:42:35 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah, it's interesting because I thought it was hilarious. I. It's. It's interesting to think about buck breaking, right? I mean, this is that practice of emasculating male slaves during the period of slavery in this. This country period of chattel slavery. I always want to know how he feels about it. Right. And I don't know that. Right. I love to, like, get in a room with him and talk to him about how he felt about it and how he feels about it now. Right.

0:43:16 - (Toby Brooks): Because it's also true that some people just like doing funny things, and that is a funny contrast. Like a big, strong dude, but he's your grandma. I mean, that gave us Uncle Drew. Right. I mean, it's the same kind of contrast in that respect that, you know, it's this old man breaking you down. And that's funny. Cause it's really Kyrie Irving. Right. I mean, it's. It's a. It's contrast humor. But I also do have an uneasiness about it in terms of the way ad execs, league executives, want to see and treat black Mendez in general.

0:43:52 - (Toby Brooks): So my view on it is that. I don't know. I don't know. Right. That. I mean, that's my honest answer.

0:43:58 - (Kwame M. Brown): Yeah. And just like you, I was. I don't know. I'm in. In my teens at the time, and I thought it was hilarious. And it wasn't until years later that I had even encountered the term. And I'm like, was that unintentionally offensive? Was that intentionally, subvertively offensive? Like, what was the play here? And I'd love to think that, you know, it was a campaign just cooked up by somebody trying to be funny, but in 2024, it feels like we don't give the benefit of the doubt the way we did in the early nineties, and for good reason. I mean, there are no shortage of examples of intentionally offensive campaigns of this nature.

0:44:40 - (Kwame M. Brown): So what, in your opinion, is the biggest impact a player like Larry Johnson could leave on the game and more broadly on the world?

0:44:50 - (Toby Brooks): That's the hell of a question, Toby. I think it's that opening up of the NBA to. And I'm going to use the term ownership, and I don't necessarily mean ownership in a financial sense, although that, too. But this, okay, we own this. We have been the drivers primarily of your economic success. We own this. We're going to shape it. And so if I'm to extend that to the world, that general attitude and things like, no longer will you make money off our backs without us being able to express ourselves. Right. And that was.

0:45:31 - (Toby Brooks): That's been seen several times over and across different leagues, right across NFL. You can see it in college, and now you can see it, too, from the financial sense, in terms of more black people owning, or at least being part owners of teams. The nil phenomenon. I used to teach sports psych when I was at Hampton, and we would often have discussions about athletes getting paid, not just from a mechanistic point of view, but from a psychological point of view, like, how do we feel about athletes?

0:46:05 - (Toby Brooks): I am often, and I will be very frank, I am often disturbed by how white men view black athletes and the way in which they talk about black athletes with the sense of, you are here to entertain me. That's your primary purpose on this earth. If you do anything other than that, you're a horrible person, you're the worst thing that could ever happen to. And then it's really this vitriol. Like, I see it towards La James.

0:46:36 - (Toby Brooks): Like, I'm, like, looking at this dude, like, I mean, yeah, he says he's great, but he is. But. But this is a family man. He's been married to the. With the same woman since high school. You know, say whatever you want about Ronnie or whatever, but this is a man who tries to nurture and create opportunities for his kids. And I see the vitriol towards him, and it seems to me like this backlash. Black power.

0:47:02 - (Toby Brooks): I know that's a loaded term, but that's kind of what I see as that contribution. But that part of sports in general, and not just black men. I think it's primarily and most intensely focused on black men, but really athletes in general, that attitude towards that. I own your body. Your body is here for my enjoyment, and that disturbs me to no end.

0:47:29 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:47:29 - (Kwame M. Brown): Like, you have to earn the right to have an opinion worth listening to. And I think of it. Like, you know, the king and the jester is a clear power structure, and the king isn't interested in what the jester has to say about the conditions of the kingdom. Just entertain me. But in 2024, many times we would place ourselves as the king and the athlete or the entertainer is the jester. And just simply because they don't have a PhD in political science, that somehow we invalidate what they're saying.

0:48:00 - (Kwame M. Brown): And so I see both ends of that in that, you know, I'm going to listen to the people that have studied this and seek out their opinion, but that doesn't mean that an athlete that I either disagree or agree with can't have an opinion on the matter either. And so this was an era where athletes kind of steered clear of anything political in the nineties, like Michael Jordan was the blueprint. He wasn't going to say or do anything that would divide and ultimately harm commerce.

0:48:30 - (Kwame M. Brown): And in this era, I think maybe the access of the Internet has made it so that you can have a very clear, biased platform. And your hope is you don't appeal to everybody, but you appeal more to the people. You appeal more to it's depth, not breath.

0:48:50 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah, yeah, I think that. And that always has been a particular approach to business and to marketing. Right. There's been any number of products or services that have focused in on a particular demographic. Right. I mean, I don't think there's any shortage of things that focus on selling to white males. I mean, gun shows, I mean, you.

0:49:24 - (Kwame M. Brown): Know, but as a white male, it's taken me a long time to realize that if it's not overtly marketed towards me, that might just be the default factory setting. And. And yeah, there's not a white history month. There's a black history month, but that doesn't mean we don't talk about white history all the time.

0:49:45 - (Toby Brooks): White History Month?

0:49:46 - (Kwame M. Brown): If that's the default. Yeah, if that's the default setting, then I grew up in an era thinking like, well, why isn't my culture ever celebrated? I mean, that's the definition of what white privilege is. And I grew up relatively poor, kind of off and on. And so privilege frequently gets kind of painted as an economic thing. And it's taken me a long time to start to come to terms with the fact that you didn't have to be rich to grow up where the default factory setting was your culture, but it's also intersectional.

0:50:17 - (Toby Brooks): Right? Like, I didn't grow up in a great neighborhood, but I may have had more advantages than you both my parents were educators, so I had an. I had an educational advantage, right? My parents knew how to teach, and so I had an advantage coming into school, right? But, yeah, I mean, you can be black and in a suit and still accosted by the police. And for anybody listening to this podcast who doubts that, I watched that happen to my father with college administration tags on his car, hands on guns, flashlights, and you fit the description of somebody who robbed a liquor store.

0:50:55 - (Toby Brooks): And my sister and I are in the backseat. My mom's in the passenger seat. My dad's in a suit. Houseway watched it happen to my best friend, who, if you met this dude, he's the most polite person you ever meet in your life. Like, I can call him that. We've known each other 30 something years, and I can call him and be like, hello, kwame, how are you? Right? Like, stop, man. But this guy watched him get slammed up against the wall by a plainclothes officer, right? And so I have seen that, right? And so that's the privilege part, is that the privilege to walk around in your own skin and you could change the way you dress and the way you speak and people like, all right, you're including. You're good.

0:51:40 - (Toby Brooks): Come on in. Man versus somebody else can change the way they dress, as they're speaking. They still seen as an outsider, right? And, yeah, that's the. And privileges is a clumsy word, right? But for that. For all of that, right? And we're going to boil it down into one word. You know, that's part of the problem with that conversation, because if you grew up poor and you're like, I didn't. I had to scratch a fight.

0:52:05 - (Toby Brooks): Are you going to use that word on me? Like, that's. That's tough to hear. Like, as a kid, right? Like, I'm not talking about somebody who's study poli sci or work in politics. And those folks know better. They know, as my father would say, good and damn well exist, right? But you're gonna tell a kid that's had to scratch all his life, you're privileged. That's not gonna. That's not gonna ever sit well. So I think we need to continue to do a better job of open dialogue and explaining what things like that mean. And by the way, that was the mission of Martin Luther King before he was shot.

0:52:51 - (Toby Brooks): Poor people's movement. It was not just for black folks. That was the mission of the Black Panthers. Fred Hampton was pulling all kinds of folks together for workers rights. That's what that was about. Right. And so our most successful movements that scared people the most are when we. And this is the key to that privilege conversation is get it is getting white people, especially white males, to see that, hey, you are supposed to be with us.

0:53:24 - (Toby Brooks): They're making you think that you wanted them to exploit you, so you hate us, but in reality, you're supposed to be beside us. And that's the conversation. Right. But, you know, racism. And it intersects with this conversation we're having. I mean, racism is such an infectious virus, right? It multiplies on your inside. Right. So that's kind of the problem there is. It makes it so hard to tease apart.

0:53:53 - (Kwame M. Brown): Yeah, for sure. And I think for me, kind of bringing it all back home is where Larry Johnson impacted me the most at the time was all my heroes were black at the time. Whether they were hip hop artists, whether they were athletes. I gravitated towards those. My son has even made the comment, we'll be watching March Madness. He's like, you're so racist against white basketball player. Like, I didn't want to be a goofy, lumbering oaf. I wanted to be athletic. And to me, in my mind at that time, the black guys like Larry Johnson, and you mentioned Charles Bart, like, they moved in a way. I wanted to move, and they did things I wish I could do.

0:54:32 - (Kwame M. Brown): And aspirationally, I just. So I was enamored by that culture, even though it was completely foreign to my lived experience, because there were very few people of color in my school. And so it was hard at that time to seek out those influences because there was a monoculture. You were very much a product of where you were raised. And Larry Johnson was transformational for me in that respect, in that he was kind of the first person I really kind of locked in and said, that guy plays the way I wish I could play. And there's a charisma about this guy that made me want to emulate him.

0:55:13 - (Toby Brooks): It's so interesting, this conversation to me, especially with the Internet, the way people interact at me, everything is so final, right? But as I listen to you talk about Larry Johnson, there were things that had. I won't say had nothing to do with, but weren't focused on his skin color that you identified about him. So, like, sometimes we act like the only characteristic of somebody is that they're black or white or latino or asian.

0:55:55 - (Toby Brooks): But by the way, those are weird cultural designations, those last two, because last I checked, culture in El Salvador didn't have much to do with the culture of Puerto Rico. Right? So that's an aside. Right. But like you, he was an idea team, right? An idea you identify with because of part of who you were. And I think the more we get to see that part of things, right. So somebody can identify with Charles Gambino. Right. Donald. Because he's kind of nerdy. Right.

0:56:32 - (Toby Brooks): And, like, somebody might identify with that, not cause he's black. That's part of who he is. Don't strip that away from him. But they might identify with that element. People are composed of elements, right? If I use that term loosely. Right. I mean, yes, that, too. But if you to look at people like that, we can find things to identify with in one another. Right.

0:57:02 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:57:04 - (Kwame M. Brown): Well, it's been a fascinating conversation. I really appreciate your insights, Mandy. There's so much more depth here. Like, we could turn this into a whole show, and I would love it like this. This, for me, is where healing in our nation can occur, when people can just pull up and say, this was my lived experience. How's that compared to yours? Because I wasn't there for years and you weren't there for mine.

0:57:25 - (Kwame M. Brown): But if we can share that common ground and then spotlight how we were different, that's where the learning occurs. It's when we get so worried about the side of the bird or the color that we're going to wave on our flag that it's not binary. I don't have to just automatically disagree with someone because of one aspect of their bio. And this has been really insightful for me.

0:57:54 - (Toby Brooks): That's awesome. LJ, if you ever hear this podcast, please send this dude a jacket, grandma. Larry Johnson. Send this guy a jacket, man. I think that would. I think that would make his month and his years, whatever year it is. That's my best.

0:58:14 - (Kwame M. Brown): Well, we're hopeful that we're actually zeroing in. The episode prior to this will be Larry's high school coach. The episode after this is Larry's junior college coach. So we are. We are kind of steadily moving closer in the concentric rings of the Larry Johnson sphere of influence in the. In the grandmama cinematic universe, I guess you call it. Well, Kwame, how can listeners connect with you if they want to follow your work or see some of the stuff you've been up to?

0:58:44 - (Toby Brooks): Oh, man, don't. I am so much further under the radar. I mean, people can connect with me on LinkedIn, at Kwame and Brown on LinkedIn if you want to connect with me professionally. But in terms of advertising, anything at this, you know, this point in my life, I really. I try to focus on my family. My work that I do with physicians is very important to me and every once in a while I poke my head up to connect with a friend like you. So I really appreciate you inviting me.

0:59:24 - (Kwame M. Brown): Well, I'm going to plant a seed, my friend, and I'm sure your past students who hopefully will listen to this or if not, you know, intersect with you. The world needs more of your insight, so laying low might be the comfortable thing, but that doesn't make it the right thing, my friend. So I appreciate your unique perspective and I'm hopeful that we'll get a chance to do something like this again.

0:59:53 - (Toby Brooks): Thank you, my brother. I have always appreciated your thoughtfulness and your just how multitalented you are. For one, I've watched you just branch into things and just become great at them pretty much every time. Everything you touch. And so I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with this too.

1:00:14 - (Kwame M. Brown): Appreciate that.

1:00:16 - (Toby Brooks): My name is Kwame M. Brown and I am undone.

1:00:23 - (Toby Brooks): For Doctor Brown. He's proven himself to be a high achiever, a respected scientist, and a beloved educator in a career that spanned more than two decades in county. I'm thankful to Doctor Brown for dropping in and sharing his perspective, and I hope you enjoyed our conversation. New this week I want to hear your insights. If you'd be willing to text me what you thought about this week's episode, or even better, record a voice memo and send it to me.

1:00:47 - (Toby Brooks): Tell me what your life was like in 1991 and how culture was colliding with your world. I'd love to include it in next week's episode. You can text it to me@tobyndonepodcast.com and yes, I checked. You can text to an email address. If you can send it by August 14, I'll include it in part four. Speaking of part four, next time on the becoming undone docuseries, the making and remake of Larry Johnson.

1:01:13 - (Toby Brooks): I'll talk with Larry's first college coach, Dennis Helms from Odessa College, as we dig in and analyze the pony excess death penalty scandal that rocked SMU, where Larry originally signed and sent him west to junior college. Also working on an interview with Larry's former agent, George Bass, as well as former converse executive Roger Morningstar. And will we ever get to hear from Larry himself? Maybe.

1:01:37 - (Toby Brooks): Im happy to say he connected with me on LinkedIn this week, so I promise Im working on it. Stick around and find out. I know there are great stories out there to be told and Im always on the lookout. So if you or someone you know has a story that we can all be inspired by. Tell me about it. Surf on over to undonepodcast.com comma. Click the contact tab in the top menu and drop me a note. I'll see you again next Thursday.

1:02:17 - (Toby Brooks): Becoming undone is a nitro hype creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. Tell a friend about the show and follow along on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at becoming undone pod and follow me obijbrooks on X Instagram and TikTok. Check out my link tree at Linktr ee tobyjbrooks. Listen, subscribe and leave me a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:02:43 - (Toby Brooks): Until next time. Keep getting better. It.