[music]

Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Don't be a quitter. It's a line that's been drilled into all of us since childhood. If you want to get good at something you have to keep at it. Our negative connotations with the idea of quitting are so strong, that it can be hard to sort out when quitting something might actually be better for us than staying in the game. Enter Naomi Osaka. When she quit the French Open last week citing mental health concerns, it spurred conversations about why we push ourselves to keep going despite pain we might be feeling.

My next guest goes one step further to say that at least when it comes to Naomi Osaka, quitting wasn't just about protecting her mental health, it was about sending a message to the establishment. With me now is Lindsay Crouse, a writer and producer for the New York Times opinion section. Among her projects is the Emmy-nominated series Equal Play, which is helping to bring widespread reform to valuing women's sports. Her latest piece for the section is called Naomi Osaka and the Power of 'Nope'. Lindsay, welcome to WNYC.

Lindsay Crouse: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian: Just to begin on the news. Just yesterday, Naomi Osaka bowed out of a second tournament, one coming up in Berlin. What reasons, did she give for that compared to the French Open?

Lindsay: They're the same at this point. She is basically making a statement that she's not able to participate until she can do things on her own terms, but she's not giving a lot of details right now. She has the power and she is using it. Right now, we've got Wimbledon, which is coming up, in flux. She's scheduled to be there and of course, Tokyo Olympics, but I don't think anyone really knows what she's going to do.

Brian: Your notion that by quitting, she was sending a message to the establishment. What's the message and who's the establishment?

Lindsay: Basically, this is a total a seismic inversion of power dynamics here. In the past, you've got athletes who are almost like bottom feeders in this vast ecosystem, where owners, and brands, and frankly, the media, control the power, and that's totally inverting now. In addition to being one of the most talented tennis players of all time, the highest paid female athlete of all time, she is a celebrity in her own right. With the platforms that celebrities have at this point, she can tell her own story. She doesn't need others the same way that athletes used to to be able to, to have the platforms that that they needed.

Brian: What about accountability in the traditional journalist and source sense? If any athlete is a public figure out there, and then performing, and then typically answering questions from the press that covers that sport about how they did, about what they might do in a coming match, or tournament, or game? I know, one of the things that bothered Naomi Osaka was the fact that she kept getting asked about how she's weaker on clay, which is where they play in the French Open, than on other surfaces. She felt that that was actually having an effect on her confidence.

If a journalist were to ask, "Well, what about accountability? These are public figures. They should answer questions from the media after the game or whenever, about their performances." What would she say and what do you think as a member of the media, but who has has a lot of sympathy, obviously, for Naomi Osaka?

Lindsay: That absolutely, is the pushback that she has been getting from a lot of media, and I think what we're seeing here is that how this game is played, and frankly, promoted is changing. I think the question is, are those questions accountability questions, or are they about promotion? Are they about promoting a game, and treating her as talent, or is she a public servant? She's not. She's not a government, she's not a publicly-elected figure. This is not a press conference, where accountability is quite as needed as anything else.

I think her accountability, first and foremost, is to play well, and if she's saying that answering questions about her performance is detracting from her performance, then it's worth thinking about that.

Brian: In that sense, not like a politician or the leader of a corporation, let's say, in the public context, she's an entertainer. Any professional athlete in a certain respect is, so the pushback to the media could be, well, if an entertainer wants to just put on their show, and then not sit for press conferences, that should be their right.

Lindsay: That's exactly right. We've seen this in media among entertainers, particularly powerful entertainers. Beyoncé is the obvious example here. She doesn't give press interview. She's one of the most famous women and most powerful women by many measures in the world, in terms of her influence. I think that's what we're seeing here with Naomi as well. She didn't say anything out loud, or in an interview, but we've arguably discussed her with the statements that she put out, probably using the notepad app on her Instagram, on her iPhone that she posted to her Instagram feed.

We're discussing her more than ever, and I think that is the power that someone with the platform and the following someone like her has, and it makes sense that not everyone's going to want that to happen. Journalists want access, that's understandable, but that doesn't mean that she's beholden to them, or has to give it to them.

Brian: I think you pointed out an example of why the media might need reform in the context of sports. The example was a question posed to 17-year-old tennis sensation, Coco Gauff, what happened there?

Lindsay: That was a question at the French Open. Coco Gauff, she's 17 years old. She's a young Black woman or girl really, at 17. At a news conference, this is just one example. She was told, you are often compared, I'm just remembering what it was, you are often compared to the Williams sisters, maybe it's because you're Black, but I guess it's because you're talented, and maybe American, too.

This is the kind of thing where if you're a younger woman, particularly if you're a woman of color, you're operating again, within an ecosystem that was set up for men, and particularly white men, especially in an elite sport, like tennis, and it makes sense that the media isn't necessarily going to treat you with the sensitivity, or the sensitivity and the perspective that you might have.

That's the question that Coco face just then, but Serena faced questions that have been insulting for her, or that she hasn't want to handle. I'm sure Naomi's experienced questions that she doesn't want to answer, and they're basically just athletes saying, "Look, I finally have the power. I'm going to do this on my terms." You can absolutely imagine a conversation between Naomi Osaka and a therapist saying like, "Look, if you don't want to do this, just say no, you don't have to say no to all of it. Say no to the part that isn't working for you." That's what she did here.

I think it's actually, it's sad to hear that when she did say no, to the part of it that wasn't working for her, that isn't the core of her job, she didn't actually get what she wanted. Now, she's dropped out.

Brian: Listeners, I want to expand this beyond sports. Hhave you ever quit something in protest or because you weren't being treated fairly? Call in and tell us about it. 646-435-7280. Maybe you left a job, or a sports team because you weren't being compensated fairly, because others weren't being treated well, and you wanted to show your solidarity, anything like that. When was the time you quit something that you had worked hard for, for the greater good that you quit and how did you know it was time to leave? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.

We can even expand this beyond jobs, to relationships. Maybe you stopped being friends with someone who you found out had a history of abuse, or quit a relationship with a close family member because they didn't accept your or someone else in the family's sexual identity. When was there a time that you quit or left a situation that prompted changes for the better? Obviously, the lay person doesn't have the monetary power, or the clout in many respects of somebody like a professional athlete, but absence is a powerful thing. How did your absence change the situation after you left. If you have a story like this, 646-435-7280.

You can also ask a question about sports, and sports equity, sports mental health, sports gender equity, from my guest, Lindsay Crouse, she's a writer and producer for the New York Times opinion section and her latest piece for the section is called Naomi Osaka and the Power of 'Nope'. Lindsay, while calls are coming in, since Osaka's departure, I see that tennis pro Roger Federer also declared he was leaving the French Open so he could rest up for Wimbledon. Do you see those cases as connected, and did the establishment respond differently to Federer's exit versus Osaka's?

Lindsay: I don't think that the cases are related. I think the concern of someone like Naomi Osaka who's so young, has her whole career ahead of her, is quite different than-- I think they're similar in that they're two luminaries at the top of their field, but different in terms of power dynamics. I don't think that he's getting, by any means, the same sort of critique that she's getting.

The difference there is that he's pulling out, and giving very different reasons from what she was saying. Part of the outrage around Naomi Osaka is that she was using, as an excuse or as a reason, her mental health, and it made the media feel like they couldn't touch her, or comment on that without appearing to be part of the problem that she's talking about. That's very different than what Federer encountered.

Brian: Although you've also written about the different value that the pro sports world gives to people's mental and physical health. If we were to start from square zero on the Federer and Osaka stories, in a way, you could say they both pulled out of the French Open for their health. The only difference is Osaka for her mental health, and Federer for his physical health, to rest up for Wimbledon, but we treat those things very differently.

Lindsay: Absolutely. That's a really big difference between someone who's Osaka's age, in her early 20s, and Federer, who I believe is 39. Someone like him, who's looking after his physical health, that's going to be understood. There's a wide, a vast understanding in the sports world, that one needs to take care of their body, particularly as they get up there in years. With someone like Osaka saying, "Hey, look, my brain is a body part, too. It's a muscle and it can get injured just as much as anything else, as any other body part like an ankle or a wrist. This is also something that I need to look after and to really nurture in order to be at the top of my game." That's pretty new.

That's also in the piece I wrote about Mary Cain stepping away from Nike because of her the mental health issues that she was incurring while working for famed coach, competing for famed coach Alberto Salazar there. These are decisions that younger athletes are making more and more. I've also written about, Lexi Pappas coming out about her mental health issues. These are younger, and also often women really taking this issue on and saying, "Look, we need to take care of our brains as much as are the rest of our bodies. They're really no different."

Brian: Caitlin in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Caitlin.

Caitlin: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. I just wanted to share. I am in the middle of trying to make one of these decisions about a job, and I think that's happened to a lot of people, where I'm in what should be my dream job. I've worked for a decade to get here. So many people would love to have my job, and I know if I leave, I'll be easily replaced, but with the new supervisor and changing expectations, it's really taken a toll on my mental health. Trying to make that decision as to what to prioritize, my career or my mental health has been really difficult.

Brian: How will you make it?

Caitlin: I don't know. I'm still in the middle. I need some therapy sessions maybe, to start parsing this out. I think a lot of people want to try their hardest. It's really hard to leave an opportunity and change is difficult. I think there's this expectation that if you put a lot of time into something, you should continue and stick with it, but maybe that's not always the best option.

Brian: Caitlin, thank you for your candor about that. Micheline in Floral Park, you're on WNYC. Hi, Micheline.

Micheline: Hi, Brian. I am. thanking you for all you do for me, especially during the pandemic last year. Thank you so much. I'm saying that I can understand what happen to a person who, working, and love his or her job, her position or his position, to move on. I'm going to make it very short because it's a long story. I was working at the place that I feel that there are no fairness.

At 60, I left the place I was working for 26 years, and that's because they are unfair to me. I went back to school, I have a baccalaureate, I become a master in nursing, and go for my nurse practitioner, but I left, and go to another place. I was so liberated when I left. I do not regret. This is what I'm saying, that I feel honored that I could do that. That worked for me.

Brian: What was the hardest part about making that decision when you made it?

Micheline: What happened, I was in charge, and they we'll take somebody else who is not, has the degree I have, as the experience I have. The person, because with the name matter more, the person point of view matter more than me as a nurse who was working there for 26 years. They give me award every year, I was nurse of the month, nurse of the year, nurse of this or that, but when it comes for a man to make a decision--

Brian: He was more respected, so it was insulting.

Micheline: Yes, very insulting. He wasn't a white person. I am Haitian American. He wasn't a white person, he was a Black person, but because the person is a man, so I felt that it's fine for me, and with the help of my daughters, they tell me, "No more. No, you're not happy." After 26 years, to tell you, when I worked in the place. I just retired now. That's another story about health issue. I felt that I made the best decision of my life.

Brian: Micheline, one more question about this. Do you think that because you left, and for the reasons that you left, that it helped made your supervisors see things differently with respect to gender or anything else?

Micheline: Oh, yes. Oh yes. Because for a while, they didn't talk to me, and one time, one of the doctor call me and tell me, "I respect you. I understand what you did, but I miss you." I say, "Thank you, but I'm good where I am and I'm going to stay there." I make them understand that because I was there for so long, and they always praise me, but when it come for decision-making that I was good at, but a man who is not on my position, was below me, can have the priority.

Brian: Micheline, thank you so much for your story. We really appreciate you calling in. Call us again, okay?

Micheline: Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much.

Brian: We're going right to another caller, Amiel in New Rochelle. Hi, Amiel, you're on WNYC.

Amiel: Hi, Brian, how are you?

Brian: Good, thank you. You got a story for us?

Amiel: Yes. I can't thank you enough for this segment. I think it's really important and we don't talk about it enough. Like your previous color, I'm African-American descent, Caribbean by nature. I respect what Naomi did. We don't oftentimes consider how hard it must've been for her to have practiced for something the way she has had to do, and then walk away the way she needed to do that.

Mine is a little bit different. It wasn't work-related, but I've had to walk away from friendships, and quite frankly, family. I'm going to talk about the family part first. My daughter is gay and my family by descent is Caribbean. The Caribbean have a healthy, homophobic tendency. I'm not sweeping a broad brush. It really is so. I have family members.

Brian: When you say healthy, you mean it's significant, right? You don't mean it's good.

Amiel: It is significant. I don't mean it's healthy in a good way. It is vibrant. It's in the music, it's in the culture, it's in the history. I'm not saying something that's not honest, I love the show too much to say something that is terrible. I would not disparage my own culture, but it's embedded in the culture in a way that some of the most famous music we listen to, talks about killing homosexuals.

When you're raising a child who is homosexual, and you know your family is Caribbean, you start fortifying yourself immediately. My daughter is amazing and she's about to be married in July. I'm so excited. It's unfortunate that there are family members who can't be happy for us, but it was very important to me at that time, for her health and for my own, to walk away from those family members and say, this is way too important, way too important. I've made peace with those decisions, and I don't regret them.

Brian: Have the family members been changed by your walking away from them?

Amiel: No, they have not been changed. Initially, they thought I was kidding. I gave them a number of chances. When she was younger, I would say to them, "Don't make me choose, you are going to lose. Do not do that." As it became a situation where I was watching gay children take their lives, or just not be happy, I thought to myself, "This is really an important decision. She has to have an ally, and that ally has to be at the house." I can't send her out to look for that ally, it has to be here every day. That was why the decision was so easy.

My daughter is the most important human being on the planet to me, and Brian, you would love her, she is amazing. She's gone on to do some amazing things. It hurts me that this one part of her dismisses her in a group when she is, I'm telling you, fantastic. You would love to know her.

Brian: Amiel, thank you so much for that story, and congratulations on your daughter's impending wedding next month.

Amiel: Thank you. Have a good one. Love your show.

Brian: Thank you very much. As we continue with Lindsay Crouse, New York Times opinion writer, whose latest piece is called Naomi Osaka and the Power of 'Nope'. Wow, Lindsay, those were some three stories, including the last caller. I know we could get pushback and I'm just acknowledging, I don't want to get in the middle of it, of whether she was stereotyping her own culture too much, but those were some three stories that we just heard.

Lindsay: Yes, absolutely. I think it is really interesting with all of these cases about the idea of saying no, and then-- to me, what strikes me the most is when you say no to part of it, and then feel like you have to walk away completely. I think what someone like Naomi, and a lot of these callers are looking for is to meet somewhere in the middle. I think we live in a pretty binary culture, and I think that is hopefully what some of these conversations will get to is, how do we compromise? How do we make everyone happy without having to just go in one extreme direction or another?

Brian: Before you go, you've been reporting on the unequal treatment of women in pro sports for a while. One example and there are so many, is that while Naomi Osaka herself is the world's highest-paid female athlete, I gather, she is still behind 14 men. Do you think individual athletes quitting or protesting is a way to make real change in the sports industry in that particular respect?

Lindsay: With regard to salary or earnings?

Brian: Yes, earnings.

Lindsay: With pay? Well, I think in this case, first of all, I'm going to have to remember the name of the company, but a mental health organization did make a donation for $15,000, the amount that Osaka was fined in her name, and her sponsors are sticking by her. I think if you look at her earnings, most of them are based on endorsements, and what she stands for beyond just her performance as an athlete.

I think what she's showing is that someone like her is more than a metal rack, and that's something that athletes her age, particularly female athletes, and athletes that don't necessarily feel like they came up through a system that was made for them. That's something that they're eager to prove, is that they're not just part of the system, but they're changing it and that is very appealing to anyone who wants to have their brand or be attached to that. I think that's going to be only the kind of thing where she can make more money. The question is, can she continue to preserve her public profile outside of the tennis court? So far, the answer looks like yes.

Brian: This also makes me think of the Simone Biles story, didn't she leave Nike in protest over how they were penalizing pregnant athletes?

Lindsay: Simone Biles?

Brian: Yes.

Lindsay: That's actually not-- a different athlete we did. Allyson Felix did a story with me back in 2019 about how she had just had her baby, and Nike wasn't protecting her. What was so striking about that two athletes and, frankly, a huge-- Allyson Felix is one of the top track and field athletes of all time, so people were shocked that if Nike wasn't supporting her, it was like, who were they supporting? The answer was nobody. There was no policy to support pregnant athletes and so Allyson left and went to Athleta and then, very recently, Simone Biles also left Nike for Athleta.

She didn't actually say specifically why she left. She was more tactful in that case because she's still-- well, I can't actually speak to her reasons, but she said that Athleta was eager to support her, not just as an athlete, but as an individual, and I think that's something that athletes, particularly younger athletes, are really eager to have.

Brian: We will leave it there for now with a lot to think about from Lindsay Crouse, New York Times opinion section writer and producer. Her latest piece is called Naomi Osaka and the Power of 'Nope'. Thanks for saying yes to us, and leading this conversation. Thank you very much.

Lindsay: Thanks so much.

Copyright © 2021 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.