Memorial Day And Common Ground!

Memorial Day isn’t just a date on the calendar, it’s a gut check. We step away from the usual live sports rhythm to talk about honor, memory, and what we owe the people who served and never came home. Then a modern flashpoint pulls us into the tension a lot of fans feel right now: Giants teammates Abdul Carter and Jackson Dart reportedly trading shots after a political appearance. When athletes speak, when teammates disagree, and when the internet piles on, what happens to the locker room and to us?

We wrestle with sports and politics without pretending it’s new. From the 1968 Olympics Black Power salute to the NFL’s take a knee debates, protest and symbolism have always collided with games. We talk about free speech, why some moments feel sacred to people (especially the national anthem), and why political differences don’t have to become personal exile. The real target is the everyday ugliness: refusing to work with someone, eat near them, or treat them like they belong because of a vote or a viewpoint.

The conversation turns personal and historical, from Ellis Island family roots and “No Italians Need Apply” signs to a story we think every New Yorker should know: Mount Moor Cemetery in Rockland County. It’s an African American burial ground created when Black people couldn’t be buried in white cemeteries, and it holds veterans from the Civil War through the world wars. It now sits beside the Palisades Center mall, and it survived attempts to move it or pave it over. If you’re looking for a reason to reflect this Memorial Day, start there.

Subscribe, share this with a friend who sees things differently, and leave a review if this hit home. Where do you draw the line between protest, respect, and keeping a country together?

Transcript

Memorial Day Setup And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to uh this Memorial Day weekend. Uh, today's Memorial Day. You know, we always do a live show on Mondays at five for uh sports talk live with uh Steven Justin. This week we're gonna do just a recorded show. We didn't want to do a live show because of Memorial Day to honor um honor the memories of people who who risked and lost their lives for our country, for what it stands for,

Giants Teammates And Political Blowback

SPEAKER_00 0:51

for our differences, and how we don't let them uh interfere with our everyday life. I wasn't even going to do this today, but I saw in the news today that Giants Abdul Carter and Jackson Dart have a little bit of a riff going on because Jackson Dart spoke at one of the political events leading to be conservative or the right side. I'm not gonna mention any names, it ain't worth it. And obviously, uh Abdul Carter has a a different viewpoint, and there was originally a posting on X, and it was gonna

Protests In Sports And The Anthem

SPEAKER_00 1:40

be a little bit of a thing. And I have to say, sports on a whole usually doesn't get involved in these things. I mean, they were great in '68. You had the Black Power, you know, the fists in the air in 1968, Mexico City, during the Summer Olympics. Uh, there was a protest by raising your hand in the air, which isn't much of a protest, but it's certainly symbolic of the Black Power movement at that time in the United States. But you had a win, right? Russia not on the the podium. And then, of course, you know, famously, we've had the take a knee movement, which went through the NFL. Uh some owners stood for it, some didn't. The I I think the main complaint for people, and if I had some complaint about it, which I think everybody has free speech, but I think taking a knee during the national anthem is inappropriate. There are definitely right sides and left sides to all these stories. And at the end of the day, as Americans, we have to realize that our country means more than our differences. That our, you know, as JFK said, we're more alike than we are different. There are different viewpoints, and at the end of the day, we can't ignore other people. We can't say we won't associate with them because their views are different. To me, that's not America. And the important part of our country is that at the end of the day, we come together and put our differences in our pockets and save them for the appropriate time. And yes, do we have conversations? Of course. That's what America is about. It is those conversations. We we're able to talk about them at the appropriate time. They don't infiltrate every part of our lives. They're talk to the appropriate time where they make a difference. And yes, protesting in America is a way of life, and that's fine, because that's the appropriate time. No question about it. I mean, we have protests at abortion clinics, we have protests at church, we have protests at cities, you know, unions protest uh their employers. It's the American way to some extent. But when it gets nasty and

Immigration Roots And Old Prejudice

SPEAKER_00 4:15

when it comes to work, people won't work with people, people won't eat with people, people won't go to restaurants because of people's views, people are thrown out of restaurants because of their views. You know, that that's over the top. It's the differences that make us great. You know, certainly it was a time in our country in New York, and my heritage, my mom's family came from Italy, and my father's family came from Eastern Europe. And with nothing. Everybody had nothing when they came here. Very little. At that time, they came through Ellis Island. And I remember my grandmother telling me that of signs in the windows when they grew up in the village or down in uh downtown Manhattan in the Lower East Side, where there were signs in the windows, no Italians need apply when they were looking for jobs. And across the street was the same thing, no Irish need apply. So that was a big thing in Manhattan, the Italians and the Irish during that time period. And it certainly was more than more than you would remember. I mean, for one thing, Italians couldn't understand the English that the Irish spoke, and the Irish couldn't understand the English that the Italians spoke. So there was it was very easy to, you know, pick out these differences. But to bring it to a head that you're, you know, there's going to be some kind of conflict on your football team because someone introduced someone else. That doesn't mean you take the whole, you know, you you support everything they do. I mean, myself, I vote for people and not parties. So there are things, people, things that are done by certain people that I like and some that I don't. That's the way of America. That's the power of the voting. And I just want to show

Mount Moor Cemetery And Hidden Veterans

SPEAKER_00 6:30

you, I'm kind of getting back to working on this documentary that I've been working on for so many years, I can't even begin to tell you. But just I just want to want you to take a look at this little clip here. So this is the Mountmoor Cemetery in Rockland. It's an African-American burial ground. And when it was purchased, this ground, it was purchased by it was in the middle of the woods at the time. Matter of fact, it was more like swampland. And it was a place that African Americans could be buried because at that time it was illegal to bury African Americans in white cemeteries. So this cemetery, and at that time, Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln had asked African Americans to start their own troops. They became soldiers in segregated battalions. Segregated soldiers. But African Americans and Frederick Douglass thought African Americans have an apat opportunity to fight for their own freedom. That's what it was about. So this cemetery is in Rockland County, New York, for those of you far away. And it was at one time in the middle of the woods. It is no longer in the middle of the woods, as you can imagine. It's actually in the parking lot of the Palisade Mall Center. And for those of you who have gone there, I urge you to find this lot and go experience it and pay your respects. Because there are soldiers who are buried here who fought for the Civil War. There's soldiers who buried here that fought for World War I. And I believe there's a World War II veteran as well. When they built the mall, the developer tried to move it and it was a fight. The developer tried to cover it over with cement and bury it and wanted to just put a plaque. The developer wanted to do a lot of things that dishonor these veterans who served for our country and fought for what we believe in. At a time where the differences of viewpoints of Americans was much different. That there was this riff that brought us to civil war. And I urge you all to remember today, to remember our veterans, our family. I mean, my family, my dad and my uncle both fought, and they were both in on aircraft carriers. My other uncle fought a gua canal and had malaria, got very ill, and had it his whole life. My whole family fought in World War II and and in Korea. So it's it's it's important that we honor them and others, our family members, who suffered and struggled and fought and risked their lives for the freedom of ourselves and the freedom of others. You know, when you say World War II, you think about that we we fought for others. We fought no, there were financial interests, don't get me wrong, I understand that. But still the we fought in countries not our own. So

Final Memorial Day Message And Updates

SPEAKER_00 10:14

having said that, I I just uh thought it needed mentioning since I saw this this morning in the newspaper. Uh we're gonna do our regular show, we'll be recorded this week. I don't know if we're gonna do it tomorrow, we're gonna do it Wednesday, but keep your eye out, it'll be out there. Please like and subscribe. And our regular live show will be back next Monday. Thank you all for listening to my diatribe here, and I appreciate everyone. Have a great memorial day, be safe, and let's try to revel in our differences. Go nicks tonight. Go nicks.