>> Even that pales in comparison to the fact
that intergenerational poverty is largely
a function at this point in American life
of individual choice.
>> There's Ben Shapiro, regurgitating the
same pick yourself up by the bootstraps argument
that we've been hearing from the Conservative
Party.
And he is chiming in with his thoughts on
why there's this wealth gap among white Americans
and black Americans and here's what he has
to say.
>> The entire debacle is simply designed to
suggest that anyone who seriously asks questions
that are very serious about how exactly you
would do something like this.
Those people are inherently racist.
And that if you suggest that the disparities
between black and white wealth in America
are not wholly due to the legacy of slavery,
which they are not, and they are not.
They are in part due to the legacy of Jim
Crow.
They are in part to the legacy of slavery,
Jim Crow more than slavery, simply as a time
factor, because Jim Crow is a lot more recent.
People who are still alive experienced Jim
Crow, many of them.
But even that fails in comparison to the fact
that intergenerational poverty is largely
a function at this point in American life
of individual choice.
17, 18 year old people, who are making a poor
decisions to impregnate women, and then we
leave or commit crimes.
How that is a legacy of Jim Crow, or slavery
as opposed to today?
People born in the year 2000 and beyond, people
committing crimes.
How that is supposed to be recompensed by
a Jewish immigrant who arrived in 1910?
How you even work?
How do you justify something like that?
>> So he's specifically referring to this
debate that's occurring in regard to reparations
for descendants of slaves.
And what I always find so interesting about
Shapiro, but particularly Shapiro supporters
is that they constantly talk about how no,
no, no, he's a common sense guy.
I mean, he's fact-based, he's evidence-based.
But he just accused the vast majority of black
people in America of impregnating women and
then leaving, right?
Of being druggies, of not taking personal
responsibility.
I mean did he provide any statistic, any evidence
of that?
Or did he just merely talk about his feelings?
Because there were a lot of feelings there
but there certainly wasn't any evidence.
So I like evidence and I wanna break it down.
So let me give you just a little bit, then
Cenk I want you to jump in.
So first, let's go to graphic 39.
The racial wealth gap exists even among blacks
who are highly educated and come from two-parent
homes.
Black families with graduate or professional
degrees have two $200,000 less in wealth than
similarly educated whites.
Black or Latino college graduates don't have
as much wealth as white high school dropouts.
Similarly, two-parent black households have
less wealth than single-parent white households.
These are the facts, okay?
The facts don't care about your feelings.
And the facts certainly don't care about your
antagonism toward the black community and
what they're facing in America.
>> Yeah, so there's a couple of issues here.
Number one, on this issue of how do we get
to this disparate wealth to begin with.
Well, I'm glad that he at least acknowledged
slavery in Jim Crow and Jim Crow, well, that's
all the way to the 1960s which is fairly recent.
People are still alive as he pointed out.
But it also went past Jim Crow.
So there's a lot of different ways that it
was done in America and it was the government
that made these choices.
So for example, at 1935, we're still in the
Jim Crow era, but for the whole country the
Social Security Act excluded farm workers
and domestic workers.
So when it did that unfortunately at that
point, because of the hold that black folks
in this country started in the first place
after slavery is finally over in 1865.
They then had two thirds of them working in
as farm workers and domestic workers.
So in that case, they did not get the accumulate
wealth that all other Americans got to accumulate
through social security.
They were denied opportunities to buy houses
not just in the south but in the north.
And two thirds of the wealth we have in this
country is in our houses.
So redlining is a fact, and even the government
prevented African-Americans from getting loans
for their houses.
So all these things led to a situation where
now African-Americans have about 7% of the
wealth on average as households, as white
Americans do.
Now, I just wanna relate it to you guys, right?
Because I assume that if you're watching this,
whether you're Liberal or Conservative, it
doesn't matter, right?
That you're not a billionaire and you're probably
not a multimillionaire, if you are, congratulations.
And I'm sure that you just did that completely
on your own, right?
Your parents were not multimillionaires.
You just rose up out of nowhere and became
one, in which case wonderful, I'm proud of
you, okay?
But if you're poor middle-class, Ben Shapiro
just told you it's your fault.
>> That's exactly, yeah, that's exactly right.
>> And not just that you're black or Latino,
if you're white-
>> Yes.
>> He's saying it doesn't matter where you
started.
It doesn't matter that your family didn't
have money.
So I just explained to you why African-Americans
in this country have families that we're not
allowed to accumulate wealth, so they start
with a huge disadvantage.
If you're a poor middle class and you're white,
can you not see how you started at a disadvantage?
It doesn't mean that you can't make it, it
doesn't mean that there aren't exceptional
people who get beyond that.
My dad was incredibly poor farmer in southeast
and Turkey, and he got past that.
I remember Ben Mac was on the show a long
time ago saying, when when I was more conservative
and we were having a debate about it, he said
Cenk, did you ever think that maybe not everybody
is like your dad, that maybe your dad's exceptional?
>> I know, but it's not just about being exceptional,
Cenk.
There are a ton of exceptional people out
there who can't catch a break.
Think about the support system surrounding
your dad, especially in the time where he
immigrated to America.
He had white Americans take him into their
home's.
>> 100% right.
>> And support him.
We live in a different America today.
>> 100% right, when my dad immigrated here
in the 1960s, America was wonderful and open
to him.
So Uncle Bob and all the other different white
folks in this country helped them over and
over again and gave them that support system.
Unfortunately for African-Americans in this
country, that didn't happen.
And so it doesn't mean that it didn't happen
for anybody, but it happened less as our viewer
Gabby Marita just tweeted in about the Trevor
Cullister's story.
Just because one African-American made it
through the obstacle course, it doesn't mean
there isn't an obstacle course.
And if your poor middle class is white, you
know that, you know that, you do.
You were born into that situation, it doesn't
mean you can't make it out.
But it's not your quote-unquote, fault.
And Shapiro with his furred eyebrows.
So he they should take responsibility for
what they're doing and this issue of property
is their fault.
Well, that means it's also your fault.
>> Yeah, look, it's just such a tired talking
point to turn to these, just like slanderous
claims about people living in poverty, because
the fact of the matter is it's not just blacks
in America.
Although, they disproportionately have less
wealth than white Americans.
There are a lot of white Americans, as you
mentioned, Cenk, who are living in poverty
right now.
So what are we gonna do?
We're just gonna slander them all, as people
who are doing drugs, and they're lazy, and
they don't wanna do any work?
No, a lot of them are working full time jobs
and they're getting paid starvation wages
at the company that they're at, right?
I mean if you're working a minimum wage, a
federal minimum wage job, right?
And I'm talking about not a federal job but
you're getting the federal minimum wage for
your job.
You're not making enough money to afford rent
in a two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the
country, anywhere, okay?
That is unbelievable, 40% of Americans would
not be able to afford a $400 emergency.
Do you think it's because they're out there
spending willy-nilly and wasting their money?
No, they're not making enough to afford providing
for themselves and their families.
It's just so annoying to constantly hear this
talking point, when the problem is not people
of color.
The problem is not those who need government
aid, right?
The problem is that people are not given the
same opportunities that they used to be given
back in the day in this country.
>> That's exactly right and Progressives are
fighting for higher wages for everybody and
for you to be able to live the American dream,
that's why they believe in college for all
center.
Now, the last thing is that these government
programs that made these decisions.
And I thought right-wingers were against big
government, right?
But what they don't acknowledge is how big
government rigged things in their favor and
against a lot of other Americans throughout
this country, not just from the 1860s or the
1960s.
Look at what's happening today.
So what the government recently did was they
set aside $400 billion to encourage in tax
subsidies to encourage savings.
But wait a minute, most of the savings are
in the hands of the people that already have
money.
So out of that 50% of the tax subsidies went
to the top 5%.
The next 15% got 46% of the benefits.
The next 60% get only 4% of the benefits,
the bottom 20% got 0 benefits.
The Trump tax cuts, if you're making $25,000
or less, you'd have 40 bucks.
By the way, some of the middle class was even
worse shape.
Some of the middle class are paying more taxes
now if they live in blue states, okay?
But if you're in the top 0.1%, and you make
$3.4 million annually.
The Trump tax break for you per year was $940,000.
Government action matters whether we're trying
to help the poor and the middle class have
opportunity as progressives want.
Or where the current system that conservatives
favor, which is keep giving more and more
government handouts to the richest people
in the country.
You 40 bucks to the poorest people give nearly
a million dollars a year extra to the richest
people in the country.
That's what Ben Shapiro is in favor of.
