The Pursuit Of Truth In A Changing Society With Sports Journalist, Jason Whitlock

In a world full of turmoil, despair and darkness, you need to carry the light. Season three of the Get Attitude Podcast is where we will ignite your mind, your heart and your attitude. And welcome to the Get Attitude Podcast, the Gap. I am your host, Glenn Bill, international best selling author, keynote speaker and host of the Get Attitude Podcast where we have somebody that's going to share the light with us. Somebody that is in the spotlight quite a bit. You'll see him on Fox News quite a bit. You'll see him on his podcast, the Fearless Podcast. He was a former teammate of mine at the Ball State University. He was a big time football player. We can talk about that. I saw Jeff Georgia the other day. Ladies and gentlemen, Gappers, I want to introduce you and welcome Mr. Jason Whitlock to the Good Attitude Podcast. What's up?

My own crowd noise.

I like it. How are you, my man?

I'm good, Glenn. Thanks for having me.

Well, it's great to follow you and see where you have become. As I told you, we help people. People tune into this podcast to find the answers on attitude and on mindset on how to get from where you are to where you want to be and from who you are to who you want to become. And the fact that me and you used to drive back and forth from Muncie, Indiana weekly almost, you know, we were two different people back then. And so talk to us a little bit about the challenge that you've been through over the past 30 years. I know you were in Kansas City reporting on the news. You've always been able to make a splash. You are fearless. You get people talking, which is important. But what do you think the biggest difference is between you now and you back in the day? And what, what about your attitude maybe has changed?

I'm not sure if my attitude has changed as much as it's been refined with age and wisdom and life experience and, you know, some self analysis and reflection and it's like a deeper understanding of who I am and where my opinions come from. I think early, you know, just graduated from college in 1990 and then getting a opportunity to write a column for the Kansas City Star in 1994. Everything I was doing was just off instinct and it's just off of like, hey, this is what I think I should be doing. This is what I felt like I learned from Mike Royko, who was a columnist for the Chicago Tribune and one of the greatest newspaper columnist of all time. And so I was just going off of instinct and a desire to be great, whereas you Know, you get older and it's like, oh, this is why I do this. These are the seeds that were planted in me years ago that make me the way that I am. And it's funny, you talk about carry the light. It's like, I feel like I've come into the light of all the seeds that my grandmother planted in me at 25th Street Baptist Church and how those values and my church upbringing actually informed and led my journalism career. And it's why I had such a passion for journalism and the seeking and exposing of truth. It was actually very consistent with a biblical worldview. Even though at that time I wasn't remotely thinking, like, hey, I'm operating in a biblical way, because I really wasn't. I was. You know, when I was younger, I was hanging out in strip clubs and drinking and chasing and just being. Trying to, you know, thinking money and being wealthy would define me, whereas, you know, now I just have a much more mature perspective.

We always ask our guests, what is your definition of attitude? And who was your first attitude coach? You maybe already mentioned her, but I'd love to know what your definition of attitude, how important is attitude and the people that you work with? And then who was your first attitude coach? Who made you the way you are?

I think attitude for me is your approach to life, your outlook on life, what it's an understanding of, hey, I think this is my purpose in life. And so again, I think early on, my attitude wasn't very mature. It was healthy and instinctive because of the seeds that were planted in me. But once you come into understand, oh, this is my purpose. This is what God intends for me to do. These are the skills God gave me to execute my purpose. That's what I think informs my attitude, shapes my attitude. And it's why my show is called Fearless, because, you know, my attitude is fearless. And it's. It's. Again, I wasn't aware of this at the time, but it's like, I always. I used to repeat this to people that would, well, why are you doing that? Or why? And I'd say, well, you know, if God's on my side, what do I have to fear?

Right?

So I would just say that, but I really didn't understand it. But that was my attitude. And that came from my grandmother and 25th Street Baptist Church and her constantly telling me and, you know, sharing her life story and sharing things she experienced and how her relationship with Jesus Christ allowed her to overcome family. You know, my grandmother, very old, grew up in the South. She's passed away now, but my grandma would probably be close to 100 years old now and grew up in the south and her father was nearly lynched by the KKK in Kentucky and avoided being lynched by the kkk. And, and then they moved up to Indianapolis. And my, my grandmother always told the story about how she carried a lot of animus towards white people from the experiences in her childhood. But once she came into understanding of Jesus Christ as her Lord and savior, all of that animus went away. And, and she just lived a beautiful life despite, you know, obviously never being rich or anything like that. Or she was just a factory worker and a worker at 25th Street Baptist Church. But she was very happy, very content. Her life had a purpose and her life was about spreading love. And I feel like my life, it's about trying to spread truth.

I like that. And so is that your mother's mother?

Yes, sir.

And then we often get into this, people say, oh yeah, well my mom and dad were really the ones that were my first attitude coaches. And then I always like to go deeper because the lessons of our grandparents tend to be more impressive to our audience. They're like, oh, I love when people talk about their grandparents. I always tell people, you got to go back a generation to learn. Were you fortunate enough to have a relationship with your three grandparents or was it just your grandma?

No, I had a relationship with my other grandmother. My grandfather on my mother's side died when I was 5 or 6 years old. Knew him a little bit. My grandfather on my father's side never met my father, never met his father. And so my last name really isn't even Whitlock, but you know, that. And so I don't know who my grandfather is on the other side, but my other, my grandmother on my father's side was a Christian and a believer as well. I wasn't as close to her as I was with my mother's mother. And it just, they had two different spirits.

Yeah. Yes.

My grandmother on my father's side, a bit more negative. Just being quite honest. And, and, but, but you know, I had relationship with both my grandparents. And then I, I will say that, you know, I do consider my grandmother Lovey Kennedy the, the strongest influence on my life. But both of my parents had incredible influence on me. You know, my father is about as fearless and self reliant a person as I ever knew. And my mother is incredibly humorous and bold. She, she's pretty fearless as well. And so my sense of humor and my boldness and kind of in your face probably comes from my mother. The reflective side of me probably comes from my father. My father was very smart. He didn't. He didn't finish. I think he didn't, he didn't finish high school. May have only made it through the eighth grade. I can't. But very, very smart man.

And he was a bar owner, wasn't he?

Yes. He owned neighborhood bars on east side of Indianapolis. You know, one called the Triangle Club that was right next to West Montgomery park in Indianapolis when I was a little, little kid. And then just around the corner from where he owned Jimmy's J Bar J. And then by the time I got to college, he had bought a bar called the Masterpiece Lounge that was on 38th and Sherman Drive. And it's probably my favorite place on earth.

Is it still in operation?

Yes. Yeah, my dad has passed, but, you know, I ended up selling it. And it's been passed around several times since then, but I ended up, when my dad passed, I sold it, but it's. Yeah, it's still in operation.

What did the bar business teach you as a, as a kid looking into that business? And did you ever used to work there? Did you learn any attitude lessons in that time of your life or in that business?

Never worked there. My brother did, but I did. My brother's a couple years older than me. But what I learned is the wisdom of working class Americans and factory workers and guys that guys and women that didn't really have a strong interest in a college education, but had a strong interest in developing their kids through factory work and providing their kids the opportunity to go on to college and improve their life. And so it's, it's, you know, I consider, you know, I grew up in a golden era for working class people. You know, you could have a good, your parents could have a good union job and you could do a lot of fun things. You know, you're not going to be rich by any stretch, but you're going to be fed. You're going to get to go to Kings Island. You're going to, you're going to have decent clothes to wear and you're going to be surrounded by just like real people. And so, you know, the biggest impact the Masterpiece Lounge had on me is just like, I can't. I have an extreme distaste for elites. I like working class people. I like Ball State graduates. I don't like Ivy League graduates. I don't like corporate people. I like factory workers.

What. And so what would you say the attitude, what, grab Gravitates you to the attitude of the factory worker. Right. Your grandma was a factory worker? Obviously.

My mother was a factory worker. My dad started out working for Chrysler before he started his own business. All of my dad and mom's friends were predominantly working class people. And I just saw people that made a lot of sacrifices for their kids and, and work really long hours, worked a lot of overtime to push their kids forward. You know, I'm bothered by how much, you know, we don't have that manufacturing base. We don't have that strong opportunity for working class people to push their kids forward the way they did when, when I was growing up. All the jobs have gone overseas and, you know, every, oh, you got to have a college education, blah, blah, blah. And you know, I got a college education and Ball State's a great school and all that. But Glenn, I don't know if you know this, but I majored in socializing at Ball State more than I did academics. Right. I take those working class values and apply them to my journalism career.

Yeah. So, yeah, I never, I never got graduated, Jason.

You didn't.

Never. School of hard knocks.

I do remember you leaving Ball State and. But I assumed you would have, you know, finished up at IUPUI or something like that. But, you know, I almost did, but.

I started a business that. And became the top real estate agent in the city of Indianapolis. And I was sitting in college classes looking at the professors going, I make 10 times more than you. Why am I listening? I need to go.

Hold on. You were already doing real estate when you were at Ball state?

I was 19 when I got my license. So, yeah, we started our family at a very young age. And so that, that pushed me into the real estate game after I left Ball State.

Yeah, I mean, I know you started losing hair around age 20, so you looked a lot older than most people. And so that's probably how you could sell so much real estate.

That is. That is true. Plus, I have a great attitude and a good magnanimous personality. I'm able to relate to people. Let's. I want to ask.

We had you pegged more for selling used cars than real estate. Gl commit overachieved. I see.

Yeah, the commissions aren't big enough. That took me about one second to figure out if I can make a sale. I'm gonna get five digits in the commission, not three. I'm a five digit guy. What I want to go back to. Has journalism changed from when you were at Kansas City to now?

And no question.

Right.

Dramatically. And not about. Not about the truth at all anymore.

Right.

It's clicks and social media relevance and going viral, and it's about narrative. It's a pursuit of narrative more than it is a pursuit of truth. If, if I were coming out of Ball State now, no one would ever hear of Jason Whitlop. I. I don't have the right attitude for corporate media. Corporate media is intended to protect the elite, reflect the values of the elite, you know, make sure the elite are comfortable. You know, it's. It's totally betrayed the core principles and values that allow me to have a great career. You know, being objective and being outspoken and speaking hard truths. In the 90s and 2000s, all of that was respected and rewarded, and I got rewarded for that and got a lot of opportunities and made a lot of good money and built a great reputation doing that. And. And now, you know, I had to leave corporate media because, you know, I still want to represent the non elites in the working class. And you just can't do that from inside corporate media.

And so are the founder of the Blaze Podcast Network?

No, no. Glenn Beck founded it and then sold it to a group of guys. And so the Blaze is its own entity. I'm the founder of the Fearless podcast and everything we do related to Fearless. But the Blaze is like a host site or different podcasters like myself or Steven Crowder or Ali Best Stuckey or people like that.

So what are you trying to do with your podcast? I know, you know, the pursuit of truth sounds like a big goal. The pursuit of truth is much the same as carrying the light, shedding light on the truth. How do you plan to do that and what is your podcast all about with your guests? What's the point of it?

The point of the show actually is to inspire men to stand up and accept their biblical responsibility.

Nice.

Male leadership is under attack globally and in particular here in the world. I believe in the patriarchy. I believe in male leadership. And I believe much of the chaos we're seeing in the world is men surrendering their responsibility to lead. And the show is particularly directed at black people to try to wake us up that the matriarchal culture that we have is at the root of many of the problems plaguing the black community. The violence we have in our community is because of the absence of male leadership. The dysphoria that many of our kids are going through as it relates to gender, the criminality, many. It's all related to a lack of male leadership in the home, in communities. And so there's a. There's there's obviously plenty of wisdom in the Bible about, you know, male leadership. And so when, when things went chaotic in the garden, God, you know, came looking for Adam. He did not come looking for Eve, and he. He came asking Adam questions like, hey, what are you doing, man? You know, what. What's going. And so that's kind of what we like to do on the show every day. Not that I'm God. I certainly talk about my sins and certainly talk about my failures, but I'm just trying to. Until we got a slogan that I love to use that bearing witness requires courage, not perfection. And. And so you can bear witness to God's eternal truth without being a perfect person. I think secular people try to silence biblical people with our sin, and I reject that. And that's why I talk transparently about my sin and the life I used to live and being out in LA and making a lot of money and, and making really bad decisions and chasing the wrong kind of women and things like that. And. But so bearing witness to the truth of Jesus Christ, again, it requires courage. You know, there's only one perfect person, and he's not back yet, as far as I know. Can't wait till he gets here. But the rest of us are pretty flawed, and we need the courage to stand on his truth. And. And so I like to confess my sins, repent, and. And try to inspire other men. Don't be ashamed. You can stand on this truth. And yes, you've made mistakes. Maybe you drink too much, maybe you cheated on your wife once. But those sins of the past don't define who you can be tomorrow and what kind of representative you can be for God's truth tomorrow. And we need to inspire each other to be that truth, to be that light.

Yeah. So they all say, what, the last perfect man was hung on a cross.

Yes.

That's what being perfect will do for you.

Yes.

Crucifixion, the. So you have a middle ground after Kansas City. Right. You were. You've always been considered somewhat of a controversial writer and journalist. How do you deal with that? How do you deal with the haters? And what do you have? If you could be President of the United States tomorrow, or if somebody could hand you a wand and say, jason, you know, how do we help black America get better? Is there a policy that you could do? Is it education?

There's no political solution to spiritual problems.

Right.

And we, the. The secular, we're in a battle right now globally, but in particular in America, a battle between good versus evil. And we need to recognize that and realize that all of our problems are spiritual. And again, this is why not. I'm just being factual. I'm not trying to toot my horn. I'm not trying to put myself on a pedestal. But I walked away from a lot of money to come to Nashville and start my own media outlet so I could speak the truth. And I had to get out of la. It was, you know, a den of madness and chaos and immorality for me. And I needed to relocate and reconnect on a much stronger basis with my Lord and Savior. And that's the path for all of us. Black, white, green, yellow. Everything that's going on in America is a spiritual problem. The secular.

Who.

I'm just sorry. They're Satanists. They got drag queens sexualizing our kids at schools and libraries. That someone's. Someone's gonna pay a real price for that, for allowing that. And so, you know, when I look at the music that I listened to when I was in college and much of my young life, it's all very satanic. It's all very denigrating of black people and of culture and of women and. But it's all promoted again when I look at. And I listen to every bit of NWA Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre. But to see these guys at halftime of the super bowl on the biggest platform we have to offer. And Snoop Dogg Crip walking. The Crips got more bodies on them than the KKK could ever dream of having. And Snoop's Crip walking at halftime of the Super Bowl. We have a sick culture that needs a spiritual reawakening, and that's the only solution for black people, white people. Anything that we see in the culture that. That is like, wow, how did we get here? That every television show is filled with sex again. And I used to watch. I can remember when I was a kid, because we're the same age. You remember the movie Porky's?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I can remember as a kid, being so excited. They had that bathroom scene where the girls were showering and they looked through the peephole. And me and my brother, I'm a little kid, we thought that was the coolest thing. Oh, my God. You could. Naked women and you saw them for six seconds.

Yep.

And. And now we've moved to. Every movie has extended sexual scenes, and it's just too much, and we've lost balance. There are no Leave it to Beavers. There are whole Fathers Knows Best. There's no Cosby Shows. And I know people hate to bring up Bill Cosby, but that was a great show. It was. There's no Fresh Prince of Bel Air. There's no shows with any moral value. Inspiring everything. And I love the Sopranos, but Tony Soprano as the replacement for Andy Griffith. Yeah, that, that's a big or from Mr. C from Happy Days. Or James Evans on Good Times. Tony Soprano, a murderer, you know, a misogynist, totally irresponsible person. He's basically, you know, this generations Mr. C from Happy Days. Culture's not going a good direction. It's just way too negative and way too immoral.

Well, that makes a good argument for Mike Pence. I mean, I heard him on CNN the other night and I was like, damn, he's doubling down on the religion, which is great and needed. Do you have a goal in mind? You come back to Nashville, you start your own network and your own podcast. You're obviously doing great things. Do you have a goal where you can say, hey, I, I did what I came to do. I made a shift. I educated 100,000 black kids. I mean, do you have anything like that that you're shooting for?

Yeah. We're going to do something in April called Roll Call. And it's like our answer to, you remember the promise keepers, Bill McCartney?

Sure.

Football coach. And, and we want to inspire among all races of men a new version of Promise Keepers. Cool. And so we're going to do our first one in April. And so I just want to touch as many men and inspire as many as fallen men to stand up and stand on some truth and righteousness because, you know, we're losing this country. Freedoms that we used to take for granted are being violated and discarded at a record pace. You know, all of us are having our free speech limited. Look, I, I, Glenn, I've never voted. I'm not proud of that, but I've never voted. But I'm not somebody hyper political partisan. Right. But to be living in a time when a former president is banned from social media apps, that's ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous that everybody thinks there's these certain people who have to be silenced or democracies at risk. That's, that's fascism, man. And my whole career has been based off of speaking, writing, saying uncomfortable truths. And I look at a guy like Bill Maher on hbo, he's built a career on saying uncomfortable truths. And he's a left wing guy.

Yeah.

And he's upset about the exact same thing that I am. Like, wow, they're trying to cancel guys like me that, you know, like to speak unvarnished truth. And we're acting like, oh, my God, if Whitlock or Bob Mars says that, everybody's going to commit suicide. And Glenn, I mean, again, we both grew up at the same time, but sticks and stones used to break bones and words wouldn't harm us. And, you know, we've got a cowardly society that's pretending like words do irrevocable damage to the human spirit, and that's just not true.

Do you have hope that the tide will turn, or do you think we are destined for that? Cancel culture will win.

Well, God's truth is going to win out eventually. May not be here in America, though, and. And I've kind of made peace with that. And so I. I'm not hopeful, but I'm not cynical either. And maybe it's because I'm 55 and just like, screw it, you know, I had my good time. And this is what these people want. If they wanna, you know, live in their house, mask up, pretending that someone saying an uncomfortable truth kills them. Good luck with that. For the next 55 years. It won't look nothing like how my 55 years went. My 55 years were great. For the most part. I. I engaged, met a lot of interesting people, people that, you know, I didn't agree with on everything, but we still find that was the thing about football, man. You know, you didn't have to like everybody on the team, but you could find common ground with virtually everybody on the team over something, and you could pursue a goal of winning and putting those differences aside. And now everybody. Oh, you're the Florida kid that was committed to the University of Florida, that had a scholarship pulled because he rapped some rap song, some popular rap song that used the N word, and Florida pulls a scholarship. I'm just like, are you kidding me? I just don't want to let this world here. I just. No forgiveness, no empathy, no letting you know how many dumb things I did, Glenn, right? How many incredibly dumb things that I did. I. I could sit here, I've told a story about some of the dumb stuff I did in high school, but I'm sitting here right now thinking about at Ball State, my senior year, college, I beat up some kid at the Tug, right, for dancing with some girl who had promised to go home with me that night. I got all liquored up, and this. She's dancing with a kid from her high school, right? It's some friend of hers from high school. And I'm all liquored up, and I think, oh, my God, he's gonna. And I beat the kid up, and I'm just like, oh, my God, thank God. And, you know, the next day, I sobered up. I apologized to the kid, I bought a new shirt, apologize profusely. But I'm just like, thank God. I lived back then when you could apologize and be granted forgiveness and not, you know, oh, my God. Whitlock is this brutal terror and branded for life and unworthy of a second opportunity.

Well, we could still see the video, too, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, God. Thank God there were no cell phones.

Now, you've met a lot of interesting people. I know you've interviewed a lot of interesting people. I'm curious, like, on the Fearless podcast, were there one or two guests that really hit a home run with you that made you think or ask different questions or said something that just blew you away?

I'm not going to say that as it relates to the fear of. Look, the best interview I ever did is I went to the White House and interviewed Trump, you know, three, four months before the election of 2020. You know, fat kid from Indianapolis, mother was a factory worker, dad didn't graduate high school. I'm at the White House interviewing the president.

How in the world did that come down?

I don't know.

Did you, like, call, or was it.

That I would be somebody that would interview him fairly? He probably wanted to do some outreach to black voters and knew that I wouldn't come in with a bunch of gotcha questions. And so.

So he sought you out?

I don't know if that's accurate. Yeah, maybe someone on his staff did. I can't remember. Wow. I think someone on his staff did, to be honest with you. She was from Kansas City. I think her name's Mallory Blunt, either. Her boyfriend was from Kansas City and was familiar with my work, but that was going to the White House and interviewing the president. There's not very many sports writers that will ever get to say they did that.

What. What was the prep like for that? Like, I mean, were you flying in, like, damn, I'm getting ready to interview the president. Did what? What was your mindset? What was your attitude? Walking in, preparing.

I'll tell you a funny story. More so than I'll answer. Seriously. I put on the wrong clothes to interview him. You know, there are some stereotypes about us black dudes that are true. And we like to dress a little flashy. Yeah. If we can put on a red sports coat and. But anyway, we like to dress A little flashy. And so I put on an outfit that made sense for the Masterpiece Lounge. Oh, makes sense for the White House. And once I put it on and got over to the White House, I realized that I just started looking around like I look like a clown. I look like I'm going to the Masterpiece Lounge and I'm interviewing the president. And so I started sweating profusely.

Oh, my gosh.

Wet pouring. I pitted out. I did just. I mean, I just couldn't stop the sweat out of nervousness. And so luckily, there was somebody there that I work with that went to my hotel and brought me a different suit, and I changed clothes and, yeah, put on a black suit and interviewed Trump. Oh, look, my hair was dyed through the gray in my hair. But so, yeah, I look pretty good, except, you know, I'm fatter back then that I am now. But anyway, if you had seen me before that I look like a clown. I look like someone that was.

Would you have some velvet on? You had some velvet and on or what?

Nah, it was just. I can't even. It was just two different colors. Maybe a red shirt and black pants and a gray jacket and some shoes that were red or maroon or something. It was just too much.

That's ballin. You had some Stacy Adams working, didn't you?

Now, they were Lonvin shoes, but it was too much.

What. What. What was the one response that you got out of him? Or what? What set you back and you went, holy crap, I can't believe he said that. Or, I can't believe I asked it, or what? What was it?

The thing people remember was me giving him debate advice.

Oh.

And I. I said, hey, man, pipe down and let Joe Biden hang himself. Don't. Don't take up all the oxygen in the room. Let Joe Biden talk. He'll hang himself. And he kind of giggled and laughed, and people. People remember me giving him that advice. Yeah.

He said, no, that won't happen.

He actually did. He's like, that second debate.

Oh, he did. He quieted it up a little bit.

Yeah.

Is he gonna. Is he gonna. Do you think he'll have any chance of getting the nomination in 24?

Yeah, I think he'll get. I think he can get the nomination. I'm not sure if he can get elected again. I'm not. I don't know what I think about any of this. I'm. I'm. Everybody's jumping on the Ron DeSantis bandwagon, and that makes me want to be cautious, because when the whole establishment started, oh, this guy's the greatest. It makes me go, okay, what are they hiding from us? Trump's been through the wars. Trump, despite being a wealthy, snotty, rich kid his whole life, he seems to be on the side of the working class. His. His 2016 inauguration speech is one of the greatest speeches I've ever heard. It was about manufacturing jobs. It was talking about people like my mother and father and all the people I grew up with on the east side of Indianapolis that parents worked at Western Electric and how we need to bring that back. And so it just reminded me of my childhood and just all the black white kids that I knew whose parents were factory workers, and they provided a good life and a good opportunity for their kids. And so, you know, I'm. I'm not remotely anti Trump. I'm not ready to bury Trump. I know that may bother some people listening to this deal because Trump tweets mean things, but, you know, mean tweets don't bother me. And.

And he's been. He's been reinstated. Have you ever got to interview Elon Musk, or is he on your list?

He's on my list. I would love to interview Elon Musk. He's definitely on my list. That would be a nice goal for 2023. Who.

Who's the most famous person besides Trump? You interviewed sports wise?

I mean, seems like in sports, I've interviewed everybody but Michael Jordan, probably. So I can't think of anybody besides Michael Jordan. You know, I've talked with Ali, and he wasn't that sharp at that time. Became friends with Jim Brown.

You know, Jim Brown was a. He was the captain of the Syracuse team with my uncle.

Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Was friends with Jim Brown for a long time, and just Magic Johnson spent some time with him and friends with Charles Barkley and, you know, knew everybody in the NFL having to interview Tom Brady in a real way.

Right.

But he's. Tom Brady's become kind of. I used to really like Tom Brady, but he's become kind of phony, so off my list.

What. What sports person possibly influenced you or was a lot deeper than you thought that maybe taught you something, you know, as you were engaged with these people.

That you said, it's Jim Brown without question. Right, Jim Brown. And Jim Brown was incredibly brutal and rude to me when I first met him. I was working. First year out of college, I was working for the Bloomington Herald Times. Jim Brown came to Indiana University to give a speech, and I'm all excited to meet Jim Brown. And he just dumped on me. It was very condescending and rude and. And I literally told. I was like, hey, Jim, you gotta meet my father. There's nothing you can say to me that's gonna bother me. My father's already done all that. You remind me just like my father, you know, let it go, bro, you can't hurt me. And so that was the first time I meet him. And that's probably 91, 92, I can't remember. And then I would think by 94, 95, we had actually become friends. And, you know, guys, very wise, very committed to same cause as me. Uplifting men, in his case particularly black men, work with the LA gangs and trying to give those guys a better outlook, worldview on life or whatever. Jim Brown is someone I respect in the sports world tremendously. He is 1000% authentic and real. You know, he's probably 86, 87 years old now. He's kind of lost his fastball. But I will always love Jim Brown.

I watched that Maurice Claret 6060 and what he went through at Ohio State and how they positioned him and how they controlled him. And it was interesting that Jim Brown was the one that really tried to work with him and do great things with him. Did you ever watch that? Did you see it?

The 30 for 30? You called it a 60 for 60, but you're old. I get that he screwed up, but. No, I don't remember that. I probably saw it, but.

Crazy.

I watch a lot of things, Glenn.

Yes, yes, I get it. What, what's it like being. I mean, you're. You got a good mainstay on the FOX News Network, right? The most watched network. What a platform for you. I mean, at any given time, what is it, 10 million people watching that network at night? I mean, it's, it's up there.

Yeah, I go on Tucker Carlson show a lot. I like Tucker. I think Tucker's brilliant. His monologues are brilliant. I make it a point to watch virtually all of his monologues. Smartest guy on tv. I did. He's another guy that's kind of like shocked me. He comes from a very privileged, wealthy background, but he's worked really hard to be a voice for the working class, and I respect that. I'm not someone, again, having grown up the way that I did at the Masterpiece Lounge and my dad's bars. Working class black people, they don't understand it, but they're no different from maga. White people. Right. I'll think the same thing. They all Got it in common. They all same gripe, same everything. But the media has convinced black people that, oh, they're your enemies. They're the worst people on the planet. They're not. And so that's kind of the synergy between Tucker and I. He's speaking for MAGA Republicans and I'm speaking for working class black men who may not even realize that that's who I'm speaking for, but I am. We're being emasculated. They're, you know, putting our men in dresses and promoting the matriarchy and everybody's supposed to follow behind. Stacey Abrams, give me a break, right? If you think that's leading anywhere, give me a break. And, and no one has the balls. Hey, look at this matriarchal culture we got, Glenn. Look at the crime rate, look at the education rate of our kids. Look at the success rate of black boys. That's all on the matriarchy. You can play. Oh, it's racism. Is this, is that now the Bible has spoken, right? You run the man up out of the house, you tear down the family. If 75% of your kids are growing up in single parent homes, chaos and dysfunction will follow every single time. And so black men have to be woken up to that. And someone has to stand up to black women who think, you know, they're making all these movies. The Woman King and Wakanda Forever and Equalizer and Queen Latifah, 250 pounds at 50 years old, running around beating up men. You believe that shit, right? You burn. I'm not, right? I'm just not. I'm not. Queen Latifah is not going to save me. She's not going to jump off any balconies and beat up men. It's not happening.

But do have you ever had death threats against you or. Certainly there's some people that just hate your ass.

Yeah, I've had it, but I've had it. And there's probably been a couple times where I've taken it seriously. But for the most part, people are just running their mouth. And if my time, it's my time, you know, it's just going to happen regardless. God's not going to let me go until he's done with me.

So, you know, as a percentage, I was just talking with a gay black guy this morning and he said, you know, Glenn, I've traveled the world and he said 99.9% of people are really good people. And we're just magnifying this 0.1% and glorifying them and that's all that they're pushing. But you know, his, his whole point where people generally are pretty good people.

Well, Glenn, if you follow my Twitter feed, you would think everywhere I went there was this chaos and tension and animus.

Yeah.

And it's just not the case. I lived out in LA for 10 years. That's one of the woke capitals of the world.

Right.

And if, if you followed me around la, people treated me tremendously. And so it's like social media creates this false reality. People used to talk about it as it relates to Chris Berman, the ESPN broadcaster. If you listen to Twitter or the blogosphere, oh, Chris Berman is despised. I dare anybody to go anywhere with Chris Berman around. Sports fans, right? The guy gets mobbed and treated like a king. People love him. But social media creates this false reality. And you know, same thing happens with me. I've run into, I've had dudes tell me, man, I tweeted some negative stuff at you. But you know, now that I meet you, I actually see that I was wrong and blah, blah, blah. And so it's all phony. Social media is a stage.

Yes.

So you do on a stage, you perform. It's. It baits you into an inauthentic performance. Everybody's an actor on a stage.

Yes.

And people need to understand that. That's why I always say, hey, judge my columns, enjoy my tweets. Yeah, these tweet. This isn't reality. This is a performance. You're performing. I'm performing just my columns. Look at what I say in writing, in long form pieces or look what I say on television on my real platform. No one's paying me for Twitter. No one's paying any. These bots. And well, they are actually getting paid. But anywho, Glenn, I'm. I'm starting to lose my voice, bro.

It's all good. Well, listen, Jason, we thank you for being here. I encourage all of you guys to follow Jason on, at Whitlock, Jason on Twitter. Read Jason's articles. I'm sure you can source them. He is extremely thoughtful, but he's, he's extremely intelligent and extremely smart and I think he's a force for good. I believe that he's carrying the light. Jason, I'd just like you to finish the show and just talk personally to our gappers. Who is our audience as they're walking on the beach or sitting in their car. Just, just a message of hope from you to them and then we'll close it up.

Well, I, I guess I will say that if they're believers, God is still in control despite how chaotic things look. And even if things get rough, they're getting rough for a reason. And there's a cleansing process that's gonna have to go on. And, you know, some of us may have to ante up. And, you know, we take this freedom in this country so for granted, and we don't respect the people that made incredible sacrifices for all of us to live these great, privileged lives that we do here in America. Everybody in the world's beating down their doors to get into America for a reason, because of our ancestors made incredible sacrifices and pushed this country forward. And. And so it may be time for some of us to Annie up again. And. And, you know, that's. I'm trying to inspire men, even my old fat buck. I'm willing to sacrifice. I'm willing to make the same sacrifices Lincoln and Martin Luther King and JFK and Civil War or Civil War veterans and World War II veterans made. You know, this is God's country, and I want to be a servant of God.

Does that mean you'll run for office?

No.

You will not make that sacrifice. All right, Jason. Well, thank you so much. This is Glenn Bill with the Get Attitude podcast with the one and only Jason Whitlock. And we're signing off. See you later.

Thank you.