Joe Rogan and Ben Shapiro on the Current State of Race in America

Well, this is where we get into sort of the deep philosophy point. And this is actually really the biggest problem right now in the racism point is the shifting definition of racism. So I had the unfortunate experience of actually reading one of the best-selling books in the country, Robin DiAngelo's White Fragility. And let me just tell you, a greater pile of horseshit has never been produced by a bevy of horses. It is an awful book, and it is basically rooted in the same theory as Ibram Kendi's How to Be an Antiracist. The basic definition of racism changes in this theory. So racism, you and I were sitting here discussing racism. And the way I define racism is probably the same way you define racism. You believe in the inferiority or superiority of a group based on race, of an individual based on their membership in that group too. Right? That would be racism. I believe that you're inferior or you're superior based on your race. End of story, right? That's racism. So Robin DiAngelo and Ibram Kendi redefined racism to mean any societal structure that results in a racial inequality is itself racist. So any structure that results in a not exact proportion between whites and blacks… Does that make the NBA racist? Exactly. Exactly. The answer is kind of yes, except that the NBA is not racist because obviously it benefits black people, right? I mean, now the NBA is not racist except… It's because it's a meritocracy, is the reason the NBA is not racist. But Robin DiAngelo and Kendi both suggest that meritocracy is an aspect of whiteness. They say that meritocracy and individual are aspects of whiteness because these institutions, things like meritocracy and individualism and not seeing people's colors, these just reinforce hierarchies that end with disparate outcomes. And so what they say is in order to be anti-racist, you have to want to tear down the entire system. They literally say this. I'm not really… I know that I'm not misidentifying the argument because again, I've read their books. The basic notion that to be anti-racist, you have to tear down free markets or you have to tear down free speech or you have to… And what that means is, of course, that any time there's rioting and looting, that's really just an expression of outrage at the broader American system. And so it justifies that sort of stuff. This is why you saw Nikole Hannah-Jones, the de facto editor of the New York Times, 1619 Project Lady, tweeting out that she appreciated that people were calling these the 1619 riots. Because once you say America is rooted in slavery and rooted in evil and a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad place, then robbing a shop is just the latest iteration of you fighting the system. Explain the 1619 correlation to people, if you would. Sure. So the 1619 Project is something put forward by the New York Times. It's not good history. There are four Pulitzer Prize-winning historians who have said this is not good history. The basic argument is the United States was not founded in 1776 with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The country was actually founded in 1619 with the importation of African slaves to American shores because that's when the first African slave arrived in the United States, was 1619. So the idea is that the entire history of America is a history of a system that is endemically white supremacist. And that all of the Declaration of Independence is basically a lie, that the principles of all men are created equal. That was a lie when it was written, and it's a lie now, that the idea that we have rights that pre-exist government, that's a lie, all of these things are lies. The Constitution was built in order to enshrine white supremacy. And no evolution has taken place. So they essentially make the argument that from 1619 to 2020 is a continuum. That has gone underground a little bit, but it's still there and it's still implicit in all of our systems. So the 1619 Project has essays blaming literally everything on racism. So disparities in maternal mortality between black women and white women, which by the way exist in Europe and in Canada, that's due to American racism. Traffic patterns in the United States is due to systematic American racism. Every racial disparity is attributable to a system that was rooted in slavery. Now the traditional notion of America is that America was founded in 1776 and that the story of America is that America did tolerate the great original sin of slavery up until the Civil War and then tolerated Jim Crow up until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. And that is a great stain and a blot on America. But the story of America is trying to fulfill the promises of the Declaration of Independence over time, make those promises available to everybody. And this isn't my argument. This is Martin Luther King Jr.'s argument when he talks in the March in Washington about fulfilling the promise or a note of the Declaration of Independence. He says, we're here to catch the check, right? You issued us the check and then you didn't let black Americans be Americans. We're here to catch the check. This is the argument Frederick Douglass, the freed slave, makes in 1852. He makes a famous speech before slavery is ended. And he says, July 4th doesn't mean anything to black Americans because we're not included in the bargain. Include us in the bargain. The story of America is the Declaration of Independence, those principles that we should all basically still agree on because they're pretty good principles, free speech, free assembly, all the things you see in the Constitution, that those things brought about greater freedom and prosperity than anything else and helped us overcome the sins that are present in all human societies and were present in the United States in extreme ways as well. But that's the counter narrative, right? The 1619 Project says that all that was basically nonsense and that America is just a history of whites keeping blacks down and that no progress has essentially been made. If there is progress, it's mostly a lie. And so every disparity now can be attributed to historic disparities between white and black. Now, so if we look at 1776 and we look at the Declaration of Independence and we look at America today in 2020, there clearly is some impact in the echoes of slavery. And then after that, Jim Crow, there's clearly some impact in these deeply impoverished communities that don't seem to advance. Yes. So to make the argument about institutional racism, there's a couple of ways you can read this. If you look at institutional racism or institutional racism, I usually ask them to be a little more specific in what they mean because there are a few ways you can read that. One is history has impact. Of course, that's true, right? That's true for everybody. It's true in your family history. And if you have a grandfather who went to prison on a particular charge, that leads to poverty for your parents, which led to more poverty for you, right? People have histories. Those histories are embedded in their life experiences. And that's true for societies as well. All of that is for sure true. Then there's the question as to whether the institutions today are racist. And that's not quite the same thing, right? Because history has consequences. It's not the same thing as saying the rules today are racist because the rules today are not racist actually. The rules today are quite not racist. So historically, it's fairly recent. If you go from the civil rights movement to 2020, we're really not talking about that much time. We're talking about 50 plus years. 60 years, yeah. I mean, it's 50 plus. In the world of, you know, in the vast span of human history, it's not a very small amount of time. Right. It's not a very small amount of time. But it's also a really real impact of both racism and Jim Crow laws. Absolutely. So that that's where I'm saying there's a middle ground. Yeah. And it's it is important for people on my side of the aisle conservatives to acknowledge and recognize the importance of history in people's living situations now. And it's important for people on the other side of the aisle to at the same time not attribute every single thing to history because people who are born in something like that, there's always like extremes on each position and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. But I don't think that it lies as far in in the dead center of that as people I think want it to What I mean by that is the problems that have played communities in the United States Not just the black community in the United States But problems of racism or problems of sexism the way those get alleviated is people making better choices over time All right That is the problem that that's the way that those issues get alleviated when Jews arrived in the United States in the in the early 20th century to talk of my people when they when they came they were impoverished they didn't speak the language They're banned from country clubs. There was open discrimination against them They were banned from Harvard right Harvard Law School had quotas on Jews the the way to fight against that is to make good decisions and so the You fight against the system to make sure that the system has rules that apply equally to everyone right but you clearly see that There's a big difference between people coming over here willingly and doing so in order to better their lives Versus someone whose ancestors were dragged over here to be sold as property what and then dealing with the repercussions of that being your family history and Redline laws and all the other things that were put in place to sort of keep them in very specific areas Which to this day remain crime ridden gang ridden deeply impoverished communities Well, that's true But the question is how much of that is historic redlining and how much of that is an 18 year old kid today deciding to Pick up a gun and shoot somebody but how much of that 18 year old kid today Deciding to pick up a gun and shoot somebody is based on him Growing up in this fucked up environment where that's what he models where everything around him is crime and gangs and you imitate your atmosphere Which what all humans do right? But the answer is there's only one way to break that chain What what ways that that way is to not pick up a gun and shoot somebody? I think that a simplistic way of looking at it if you're on the outside of that community And you're not one of those 18 year old kids that grows up with the incredible influence of all the people around him And that's all you see and that's all you know Well, but the problem is the only way that's gonna be the thing that your kid doesn't know is for you not to do it At some point personal agency has to come in some it does because it what's a shin education and teaching them about personal agency and Letting them understand that there's a way out of this and that the path that they see Being replicated over and over again by these people that wind up dying young that wind up going to jail that there are other options There's a lot of kids that never get that other information or if they get it they get little blips of it But the vast majority of the information the vast majority of the influence they get is terrible Well, I totally agree with this and this is why I think the worst thing that you can say to a kid is you're born behind The eight ball and no matter what you do, you're not gonna succeed That's literally the worst thing can say to a kid What you should be saying is look at how your grandfather was born behind the eight ball and look how hard he had to work In order to get ahead and look at all the operates true though. But if your grandfather wasn't Ahead didn't get ahead if your grandfather was in and out of jail if your father was in and out of jail everyone around You is like that if there's literally no influence that's positive in your life The idea of saying to a kid like that. Hey, don't pick up a gun and shoot somebody It's way that's way too simplistic a version of their future in my in my well I mean the problem is I don't see an alternative solution I think an alternative solution is there has to be some sort of large-scale Intervention in these communities to do something about What what what has already been set in motion and the momentum that keeps continuing decade after decade that I don't know what could be done Well, but that that's the problem is that I think that a lot of the solutions that have been proposed have already been tried Meaning that first okay So for example LBJ thought that the way to alleviate a lot of these inequalities was the war on poverty And he openly talked about this he talked about he gave a speech very famously in which he said we're trying to guarantee equality Of outcome not just equality of opportunity equality of outcome and you can't hold the race where somebody is starting 20 yards behind And then fire the gun and say okay, then it's an equal race, right? So you have to get the person who's 20 yards behind to actually get up to the starting lines that they're equal And so the idea was we're going to fight this war on poverty and alleviate poverty largely through transfer payments and and through the government taking a Forcible step in favor of alleviating people's lives We've now spent 22 trillion dollars in the war on poverty and we have about the same number of black Americans living under the poverty line as we're living under the poverty line by the late 70s the the The real issues that that are inter that are creating intergenerational poverty everyone knows this but remains true The number one predictor of intergenerational poverty in the United States remain single motherhood the single motherhood rate in the black community was 20% in 1960 it is upward of 70% today That's not unique to the black community by the way It's true in the white community as well the five percent of white kids were born out of wedlock in 1960 today It's upward of 40% That is not something has happened and it is not a matter of increased racism that's not happening because of increased racism right that is happening because there has been a Cultural change that does not place tremendous emphasis for black or white or for anybody on personal responsibility and personal agency There needs to be a mindset change we do this by the way in all other areas of American life except for the most important decisions In the area of sports nobody does this routine in the area This is a point Shelby steel mix in the area of sports if a kid is not does not have a good jump shot Nobody says to him You know what you don't have a good jump shot because your father didn't have a good jump shot his grandfather didn't have a good Jump shot and the game is biased against you we say okay if you want to be on the team You're gonna have to learn to shoot a jump shot right that that sounds harsh that sounds bad But sports are different and here's why sports are different because sports you enter them independently of your culture you you you you base What you're trying to do on the parameters of the rules and the people that you're competing against That's how you look at it So you whatever culture you're from you you walk into this new thing with this very rigid set of rules Point line only white people or Jews or Asians have a monopoly on valuing education or a monopoly on hard work or punctuality or anything I think that black people have exactly the the same Capacity as any people of any other race to do all of these things and those are the preconditions for success You either meet them or you don't I mean that's true for everybody but don't for success but don't you think that a lot of that is predicated on the environment that you develop in and The people that you're around and the lives that you imitate and the influences that you have around you Someone has to do something to influence those kids in a different way Look, I was very fortunate when I was young that I discovered martial arts and it kept me from being What I could have potentially been a bad kid like it gave me something to focus on There's and I didn't grow up in a bad environment, but it wasn't the best There's a lot of people out there that grow up in horrific environments and they never have that thing They never have something they they don't have a father around or they don't have a mother around or whatever Whatever bad influences they have are overwhelming and they they don't it's it's very difficult For someone to just air quotes get their shit together. It's very difficult for sure That's why to this day. There's so many books about losing weight. Don't you think everybody wants to lose weight? That's fat. They do they everybody who's fat wants to be thin they do but it's fucking hard for sure And that's nothing in comparison to changing your whole life, but that but you would say about somebody losing weight You know, it's not useful here is lamenting how bad your family has had it with regard to losing weight Like at a certain point if you want to lose the weight, you got to figure out a way to lose the weight That's true. This is based on the information that I have I have this vast Scope of information that I've been able to absorb if you're in these isolated environments and everyone around you is Involved in gangs and crime and drugs. It's very difficult to model yourself after something that you don't see in real life Well, so totally true totally true and that's why again more information needs to get into areas I agree with a lot of the opportunities that need to be provided by Education getting people to be educated outside their local public school would be a good change Yeah, be able to like move outside your crap local public school It goes somewhere else would be good the best influences for kids that grow up in these environments seem to be people that have gotten out And then come back and talk to them right and tell them how to do it But this can be done but to go back to the original conversation None of this has to do with telling kids that you live in an evil country that's seeking to keep you down Well, maybe not but there there has been a very small amount of emphasis placed on Taking these impoverished communities and figure out how to engineer them out of the situation So I don't think that's true. Yeah I mean the amount that we've spent on a federal level and a state level on Educational programs and poverty programs over time, but no on it on a year-to-year level I mean, these are these are enormous quantities of money This is not a month and this is not really a money problem It really is not a money problem in just terms of you could sign everybody a check tomorrow, right? The predicate so the the predicate for the slavery reparations movement is exactly this sign everybody a $80,000 check and the problem will be alleviated no, well I think they'll spend the $80,000 and they'll be right back where they started but I do think that there is an argument that there can be some way of Engineering whether it's community centers or education or doing something differently in these places to chip away at this problem I so on that stuff We totally agree The only point that I'm making about the 1619 project is when you teach people that they are the victims of a society It makes it very difficult for them to succeed The story of black America should be a story of Unbelievably brave people triumphing over systems that socked, right? I mean that that is the story of black America most black Americans do not live under the poverty line in the United States There's a huge black middle class killer black upper class. Yes, there is let's simplify this if we can sure it bench appears the king Of the world. How do you fix Baltimore? How do you fix Detroit? How do you fix? South Side of Chicago. Okay, so here's the unpopular view, but it happens to be empirically correct The first thing you have to do is you have to load the place of police You got to load the place of police because you have to stop crime Once you stop crime then businesses are happy to invest in those areas You're not gonna get businesses to invest in those areas and provide jobs unless the crime is gone You need in fact One of the reasons that you have such a vast differential in racial crime in the United States is because of white racism And this is a point that Jane Levy writer for the LA Times is made if you write a book called ghetto side and she points out that the reason that black crime was so high in the early 20th century And late 19th century is because basically white communities said to black communities You're on your own right enjoy and so the prime rates ended up spiking because there were no police there You have to make sure that law-abiding people are protected the law-abiding businesses are protected that people want to live there that people want to invest There you have to have a reestablishment of faith in churches, right? You need social institutions outside of government that are promoting things like family You need you need more the one of the reasons you need more companies in these areas is they can offer Educational opportunities to kids internships deals to go to college and then come back and work for us for a couple of years I need an opportunity the same way that opportunity is built anywhere else on earth You need to provide a safe space for business to work and for free speech to flourish and for education to be valued You need to go in you need to make clear to every kid if you graduate high school Then you will have a shot at college Which by the way is 100% true today If you're a black kid and you graduate high school with any level of achievement You will have a very solid shot of at least going to a community college And if you score even decently on the SATs of going to a very high level college, right affirmative action programs are extraordinarily common Across the United States but the first message is We are going to ensure that law and order prevail here a safe space for life liberty and property and ownership of private property and we are going to make sure that you as a law-abiding citizen have the opportunity to succeed because the biggest obstacle to Young black kids growing up in the inner city again is not history It is in the moment the drugs the crime the fact that there are no fathers in a lot of these areas Roland Fryer black professor at Harvard. He's done excellent work showing that actually the number one factor in Allowing kids to rise is not even having a father in the home It's how many fathers there are generally in a community so you can you can have a single mom But if there are a lot of other male father figures around that helps fill in the gap, right? These are practical things giving kids the ability to pick the school they go to so they don't have to go to the local crappy Public school if it's a local crappy public school Would be a solution here But this all starts with the notion that it is not Racist in the slightest to suggest that law and order have to prevail and that law-abiding people should be protected in their exercise of their Rights, I think you're a hundred percent right on that and I think although that might be an unpopular opinion. I agree with you