Nike: Equality has no boundaries

LeBron James during the filming of Nike's "Equality" commercial. /
"We can be equals everywhere."

On Sunday evening during the nationally televised Grammy Awards program, Nike debuted a short film about #EQUALITY. It's message was clear: Equality has no boundaries.

This extraordinary 90-second spot, filmed in black in white, was directed by Melina Matsoukas who has two Grammy Awards for her work on Beyoncé's "Formation" and Rihanna's "We Found Love." It features NBA great LeBron James and co-stars American athletes Serena Williams, Kevin Durant, Megan Rapinoe, Gabby Douglas, Victor Cruz, and Dalilah Muhammad.

"Equality" has already received more than 4 million views on YouTube.

The central theme of "Equality," which also features actor Michael B. Jordan in a cameo as well as narrating the script, and singer Alicia Keys covering Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," is this: "The Equality and fairness prevalent in major professional sports should transcend into broader society."

As part of Nike's Black History Month campaign, their initiative aims to "inspire people to take action in their communities."

The voice over in the film (Jordan) says "if we can be equals here," referring to a basketball court, then James says "we can be equals everywhere."

Writing in ESPN's "The Undefeated" sports, race and culture website, writer Clinton Yates said: "Using a street art metaphor to make a point about in-your-face activism is not only effective, but for many who'll likely see this ad, perhaps familiar."

It made an impact with me; I hope it makes an impact with you.

#EQUALITY
Is this the land history promised?
Here within these lines.
On this concrete court. 
This patch of turf.
Here, you're defined by your actions, not your looks or beliefs.
Equality should have no boundaries.
The bonds we find here should run past these lines.
Opportunity should not discriminate.
The ball should bounce the same for everyone.
Worth should outshine color.
If we can be equals here, we can be equals everywhere.

A postscript: Nike has released a behind-the-scenes look at "Equality," which is worth a good look. It showed what equality means to each of the athletes involved. Said Rapinoe: "Being a woman in sport, first of all, equality is not always something that we're privy to. And being a gay woman in this country, in sport, wherever I am in the conversation, it's there. It's my responsibility of making sure that I speak up about it, and speak up for other people. Hopefully, it can grow that movement in that way."

Adds James: "At the end of the day, we're always just trying to find a way that we can all feel equal, we can all be equal, have the same rights, have the same feelings, being able to be in the same place no matter the color."

• Nike, which plans to air the "Equality" film during next Sunday's NBA All-Star Game, is currently promoting "Equality" t-shirts on its website. According to Adweek, Nike will donate $5 million during this calendar year to "numerous organizations that advance equality in communities across the U.S., including Mentor and PeacePlayers."

Beyond black and white: searching for a new equality

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar / A great American thinker.

Growing up in the valley suburbs of Los Angeles in the 1960s, one of my childhood heroes was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Back then, as Lew Alcindor (his birth name before he changed it after converting to Islam), he was the dominating force in men's collegiate basketball in leading UCLA to three consecutive NCAA championships. I've always been fascinated by Kareem, not only as an athlete but as a human being because he's shown himself to be so much more than a basketball player. He's also a great American thinker.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's new book
focuses on many paramount issues
facing our society, including:
racism, war, death, love, hope

My current reading project is Abdul-Jabbar's latest book, Writings On the Wall: Searching For a New Equality Beyond Black and White. Co-authored with Raymond Obstfeld and published this fall, it's an insightful book that's full of wisdom and conviction and a must read as we transition from eight years of steady and thoughtful leadership by Barack Obama to the chaos-induced "post-truth" presidency of Donald Trump. In Writings On the Wall, Abdul-Jabbar explores how today's America "is a fractured society, sharply divided along the lines of race, gender, religion, political party and economic class." The book is filled with plenty of fresh reporting and serious thinking.

Writings On the Wall focuses on many paramount issues facing our society: racism, abuse of women, why politicians attack the media, war, growing old, death, love, hope. He approaches these issues with both insight and passion and draws upon his life experiences not only as superstar athlete but also as a scholar, celebrity, parent, education advocate, journalist, charity organizer, African-American and a Muslim.

U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, himself a former NBA basketball player, Rhodes Scholar and author, wrote that Abdul-Jabbar "brings his unusual and unique life story to bear on the issues of our day and adds insight for all of us in the process."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar used his trademark
"sky hook" shot to help win six NBA
championships during his 20-year
Hall of Fame career. 

Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA's all-time leading scorer and a Basketball Hall of Fame inductee. In retirement, he has been an activist and an in-demand speaker, a basketball coach and the author of nine books for adults and three for children, including What Color Is My World?, which garnered the author the NAACP Image Award for Best Children's Book.

As an essayist for such publications as the Washington Post and TIME magazine, Abdul-Jabbar has written on a wide range of subjects, including race, politics, aging and popular culture.

In 2012, he was selected as a U.S. Cultural Ambassador. Last month, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a White House ceremony.

"My real passion for history is in using it as a critical guide to our future, both personal and cultural," writes Abdul-Jabbar.

"History illuminates the safest path in front of us by revealing the pitfalls of the past. It is a secular bible of cautionary and inspiring stories that distills the wisdom of thousands of years of human endeavor into practical lessons about humanity's morals, politics and personal relationships. It is the ultimate self-help book. And right now, given the political and social turmoil in America, we need all the help we can get."

Abdul-Jabbar integrates a lot of popular-culture references in illustrating his ideas. He's a fan of the many artistic ways that our society chooses to communicate both its darkest fears and its brightest hopes. "Pop culture visualizes the public discourse in myriad ways: through music, movies, TV shows, poetry, comic books, literary novels, plays, YouTube, graffiti and new forms of expression that come along every day," he writes. "It provides the embraceable melody of our cultural song – it doesn't matter how profound the words of the song are if no one wants to listen. Whether Tarantino or Truffaut, all points of view and creative presentations have a place. Popular culture is a language that bridges generations, economic statuses and ethnic backgrounds. It provides a common heritage-in-the-making that brings our diverse community closer."

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar spoke during the 2016
Democratic National Convention.

Why did he write this book? "For me, there would be no point in writing a book like this unless I had some hope that it might help improve life for Americans," writes Abdul-Jabbar. "I don't imagine anything grand, just that some contentious issues might be clarified, that some people might hear a reasonable voice that isn't from the same background as others they listen to.

"Maybe they will become a little more understanding. Mostly, I hope to expand the discussion about what America is and what it means to be an American. Not with waving flags and sentimental speeches but with a return to exploring the document that defines who we are and what we stand for: the U.S. Constitution."

With his book, Writings on the Wall, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
hopes "to shine a flashlight on the path back to the
Age of Reason and the ideals of the U.S. Constitution."

What does he hope to gain? "Many Americans, as evidenced by the 2016 presidential campaign, abandoned these founding principles of reason to voice their fear, anger, frustration and rage. They openly and proudly expressed their racial bigotry, religious intolerance and misogyny as if the past 100 years of history of incremental social progress had never happened.

"Without even knowing it, they have dragged the American flag through the mud by rejecting all the principles it represents. As cartoonist Walt Kelly said in Pogo: 'We have met the enemy and he is us.' With this book, I hope to shine a flashlight on the path back to the Age of Reason and the ideals of the U.S. Constitution."

Will it work? Abdul-Jabbar is hopeful. "Each generation has to confront these challenging ideas and find ways to incorporate them into their personal belief systems as they go about their daily lives. ... I hope people choose to answer the call and together we ring about the miracle and wonder."

That, I believe, is an American dream worth dreaming.

We A.R.E. Pride: Leveling the playing field

We A.R.E. Pride / If you can play, you can play.

It started with a dialogue between rivals on the basketball court, but off it they are athletes reaching equality.

Now, seniors Mikayla Lyles of the University of California, Berkeley and Toni Kokenis of Stanford University are standing front and center, together, creating a shared space for inclusion and a conversation about acceptance.

After all, there is no rivalry in equality.

Lyles, a co-captain of her Cal team, who's been writing an insightful blog for espnW.com this season about her life as a student-athlete, isn't afraid to speak out about social change. She and Kokenis, who was forced to give up basketball after suffering a pair of concussions during her three seasons at Stanford, have worked together for the past five months on a series of programs which were held last week on their respective campuses to connect their schools in support of LGBTQ inclusion in sports called We A.R.E. Pride, Athletes Reaching Equality. 

The Cal & Stanford Edition events also included video documentaries and photo galleries featuring candid shots of recent and current Cal and Stanford student-athletes.

A rivalry of equals / This candid shot featuring
Layshia Clarendon, Mikayla Lyles, Toni Kokenis and Avigiel Cohen
was included in a photo gallery of Cal and Stanford athletes.

"In particular, we wanted to focus on bringing awareness to the inequality of LGBTQ inclusion in sports, with the hopes that if we could prove that two student-athletes could spearhead an initiative such as this, then we could inspire communities, cultures, and generations to take the progression of any inequality into their own hands," Lyles and Kokenis wrote in a welcoming letter that was handed out to forum attendees at both the Field Club in Memorial Stadium at UC Berkeley and Burnham Pavilion at Stanford last week.

"As we have taken the necessary steps to put our vision into fruition," their letter continued, "we have been humbled enough to realize that in order to progress any inequality, one must understand that the fight is bigger than the self. ... No war was ever won by battles fought alone."

In the spring of 2012, Kokenis helped found Stanford Athletes and Allies Together (StAAT), a student group dedicated to supporting LGBTQ and allied athletes. Through her association with StAAT, Kokenis initiated a dialogue with her university's athletic department, which led to "You Can Play," a video which featured 28 Stanford athletes, coaches and administrators. Last summer, after she saw Lyles' participation in a Br{ache The Silence public service announcement that featured former Cal star Layshia Clarendon, she contacted Lyles. Soon after, the two decided to work together on We A.R.E. Pride.

Mikayla Lyles has been
outspoken about inclusion
and acceptance in athletics:
"No war was ever won by
battles fought alone."

While both have been vocal activists on their own campuses, Lyles was instrumental in the idea of bringing two rivals together. "Every school has a rival, but that doesn't mean you can't unite on the ground level, wanting to fight for something together," Lyles told espnW.com's Michelle Smith. "We want to start the conversation because in the athletic culture, there's been a lot of silence to this point. It's been extremely silent."

According to Kokenis, silence isn't equal to acceptance. "The only way to make sports more accepting is to talk about it. I feel like we have perfect opportunities as student-athletes at some of the top schools in the country. Athletics still has to catch up with the rest of the world," she said in an espnW.com interview.

Together, Lyles, an interdisciplinary studies major who is straight and calls herself "naturally an ally, naturally inclusive," and Kokenis, a human biology and sociology major who came out to her teammates before her basketball career was cut short, said they wanted to show that the "essence of tradition and rivalry can be more than just a symbol of competition; it can serve as a platform for unity and progress."

"This isn't about making athletes come out, it's about fostering an environment where it doesn't matter," said Kokenis. "We need to deal with it, instead of pretending it doesn't exist."

Lyles and Kokenis enlisted the support of an impressive group of educators and activists for last week's panel and audience Q & A discussions. The panelists at the UC Berkeley event, which I attended with my wife and friends, included: moderator Pat Griffin, a national LGBTQ and athletics educator and activist; Wade Davis, a nationally recognized speaker, educator and former NFL player; Helen Carroll, director of the National Center for Lesbian Right's Sports Project, which aims to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender players, coaches and administrators receive fair and equal treatment free of discrimination; and Nevin Caple, co-founder of Br{ache the Silence, which advances LGBTQ inclusion in sports through professional and college campus integration initiatives and public awareness campaigns.

Griffin asked the panelists questions about LGBTQ inclusion in sports and other issues touched on racism, religion, sexism and homophobia.

A courage of their convictions / Mikayla Lyles (L) and Toni Kokenis
have worked together to connect their respective schools,
Cal and Stanford, in support of LGBTQ inclusion in sports.

Both Lyles and Kokenis were asked about their reasons for their project, and both were frank and eloquent in speaking out about inclusion. According to Lyles, college athletes have a unique voice that needs and should be spoken louder. "Acceptance can be achieved only through understanding, and understanding can be achieved only when athletes speak up to share their opinions on this important social issue," she said. Adds Kokenis: "Acceptance is acceptance. We can leave a legacy of inclusion."

I'm very proud of the leadership that Mikayla and Toni have shown in speaking out about social change -- inclusion and reaching equality -- in athletics. It was a pleasure to be in the UC Berkeley audience of about 200, which included Lyles' basketball teammates and coaches; many male and female Cal student-athletes, alums, and several UC professors and administrators. Hearing Mikayla and Toni speak out and contribute to a lively discussion of these important issues meant a lot and it showed me not only their leadership qualities, but also a courage of their convictions.

In an e-mail sent to event participants last week, Lyles wrote that the panel members were impressed with the Cal and Stanford communities, "and we have all been inspired to continue using student-athletes and rivals as a platform to really bring people together all over the country. ... It is one of my greatest college and life memories that I will never forget.

"The aura you get in a room when you allow people to be completely themselves makes for an experience of human connections; that is incomparable."

Photographs of Mikayla Lyles and Toni Kokenis by Michael Dickens, 2014. Creative images courtesy of We A.R.E. Portrait Gallery (originals by Mollie McClure of McClure Images).

Teaching her children well: The remarkable life of Fawzia Koofi and her fight for a better future

Fawzia Koofi / The Favored Daughter

"As you grow older you will learn about loyalty," writes Fawzia Koofi in her courageous memoir The Favored Daughter: One Woman's Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future. In a letter to her daughters, Shurha and Shaharzad, that precedes the chapter entitled "The War Within," Koofi says: "Loyalty to your faith, to family, to friends, to your neighbors, and to your country. In times of war our loyalty can be sorely tested."

Indeed, these are challenging times for everyone throughout much of the world. For some of us, our homelands are facing political upheavals, while others are battling through the economic reality of uncertainty. 

Our loyalty is being tested every day.

In Afghanistan, one of the world's poorest and most volatile countries, Koofi, 38, who is her country's first female Parliament Speaker and a noted activist for women's and children's rights, is currently a leading candidate for the 2014 presidential elections. Mind you, in a country where women have been struggling for generations just to achieve gender equality, a woman has never been elected president of Afghanistan.

Recently, Koofi appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and spoke at Harvard Law School as part of a visit to the U.S. to drum up support for her candidacy as well as to promote her book. Immediately, after seeing Koofi's interview with Jon Stewart, I went online to put a hold on her book, and checked it out from my local public library by the weekend.

Since obtaining a copy of Koofi's book, I have not been able to put it down. It has been my reading companion at home and at work, even at the gym. It is both a highly fascinating and riveting read. And, I highly encourage anyone wanting to learn more about her life's journey ~ from being rejected at birth and left for death to becoming an author and a presidential candidate ~ or what life in Afghanistan is really like, as seen through this remarkable woman's eyes, should read Koofi's book.

In a review of The Favored Daughter: One Woman's Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future, which Koofi wrote with Nadene Ghouri, an award-winning journalist and former Al Jazeera and BBC broadcaster, the Kirkus Reviews wrote: "An affecting inside look at the making of an Afghan woman leader, in spite of the repression by traditional Islamic society and the Taliban ... With moving letters to her daughters opening each chapter, Koofi delivers an important message."

The Globe and Mail wrote: "A powerful and moving book, not just for Koofi's daughters, but for all the daughters of the world."

Indeed, Koofi's message is an important one that needs to be shared and passed along from one generation to the next. And while her letters to her two teenage daughters focus on life in Afghanistan, I think it is a message that is germane to us all no matter where in the world we reside, and it's one we can all appreciate reading and learning from.

Koofi continues in her letter to her daughters about the importance of loyalty: 

"You must be loyal to the true and good nature of your Islamic faith, helping and loving those around you even when you might feel you cannot.

 "It is important to be loyal to your family, both those alive and dead. Our bonds of family do not cease at the grave, but we must also be careful not to remember the dead at the expense of the living.

"You must be loyal to your friends, because it is the action of a true friend. And if they are true friends then they will also be loyal to you, and ready to act when you need their help.

"You must be loyal to your fellow Afghans. There are many of us and we are not all the same. But you must be able to see past those ethnic and cultural differences and remember the thing that unites us together ~ Afghanistan.

"And you must be loyal to your country. Without loyalty to our country we have nothing as a nation. We must work hard and wisely to improve our country for your children and their children."

Loyalty can be a hard lesson to learn sometimes, as Koofi has reminded us. Yet, there are few lessons more valuable.