(dramatic music)
- Whoosh, this just in,
breaking news, then some even more news,
hot off the press, a piping
hot scoop for Cody's Showdy.
Some boiling ice cream for you.
Are you ready?
Racism, is over?
All right, that doesn't seem right.
- White power!
- This must be a typo,
Oh, there it is, systemic racism is over.
That's much better.
That doesn't seem right either,
I'm pretty sure I just saw and
am seeing a global pandemic
disproportionately affect
the Black community
and nationwide protests
following the police murder
of an unarmed Black man.
And also all the other police murders
but it says it right here
on this piece of paper,
so, where did we get this information?
- Systemic racism does not exist.
- Oh!
Okay, it all makes sense now.
We just did a recent
diversity of thought hire
and so one of our writers is really
into the Intellectual dark web,
a group of smart, dangerous, brillianters.
So this is just some person.
Like you, and me, and
my quarantine roommate,
Mr. Bonkers, he's my girlfriend.
Anyway, this person, some guy,
just said this really
incorrect thing out loud
in front of a bunch of books
that probably have information
that refutes what he's saying.
And I won't attribute this
to lying or ignorance,
but it is wrong,
and it's just the tip of the iceberg
when it comes to these
Super Secret Smart
Society (beep) dip-(beep)
helping people pretend
that racism doesn't exist.
That history doesn't exist.
But rule number one of American history
is never underestimate the ability
of racist ideas to perpetually
reinvent themselves
for whole new generations by,
not re-inventing themselves at all,
but packaging themselves in
a brand spanking new form.
So what is this brand spanking new form,
you ask a two-dimensional
rendering of a news dude
on your screen for a video that
was recorded a few days ago?
Well this dude of news
hears you loud and clear.
I see you, I mean not really,
but that's what this immensely
long video is all about,
because the sadistic
murder of George Floyd
by police and the
disproportionate number of deaths
from Covid-19 of Black
people are just the tip
of the iceberg when it
comes to racism in society.
Also this,
- White power!
- But 90% of that iceberg
is hidden from view.
And though it is readily accessible
and well known to many,
there is an entire perversion of thought
that is obscuring its visibility
from a large portion of the population
and if we don't call it out now
it will continue to infect
the minds of young people,
in front of books.
And I don't want to have to
do this again in 50 years
as I lie in my death pod.
But if history is any indication,
I will probably have to, so,
whatever's martian for like and subscribe.
Glormbp?
Anyway, get comfortable,
because things are about to
get really uncomfortable.
(dramatic music)
Now we are all aware of the racist ideas
that run on an endless loop on Fox News
like a bigoted version of Groundhog Day
where every day you're like,
will Laura Ingraham see her reflection?
And you're like, of course she will,
she's a Nazi, not a vampire.
Anyway, the racism coming from Fox News
is clearly a huge problem
but the median age of the Fox
News viewer is 65 years old.
What we at Cody's Showdy Incorporated
are going to be examining today
is where the younger population
is picking up on these ideas
that we all hoped would
eventually die off with,
well, if we're being real,
somebody's loved one.
But it turns out that there
is an entire ecosystem
of media figures that is
providing a whole new batch
of young people with the
intellectual framework
that underpins their
support for racist ideas
and racist policies in America.
One of the most instrumental influencers
impacting impressionable
innocents over the past few years
is a cluster of political
and social commentators
that has been dubbed "The
Intellectual Dark Web",
a group of people who
are not particularly intellectual or dark,
but we're fair and balanced
TMCR, (beep) dammit!
So admittedly they are sometimes web.
The prominent members of this network
of gloomy intelligentsias
range in political affiliation
and include traditional
conservatives, libertarians,
Never-Trumpers, Sometimes-Trumpers
and even some liberals,
but they are all brought together
by their hatred of political correctness,
identity politics,
social justice warriors,
and historical literacy.
- Social justice you should
understand is actually evil.
Social justice, when people
say it, is an actual evil,
because any time you put a
modifier in front of a term
that is inherently good,
you turn it into a perversion of itself.
- That's right, comrades!
Ben Shapiro wants to cancel adjectives,
adverbs and participle phrases!
They are perversions!
Because if you dare
to put a modifier in front of
a term that is inherently good
it makes it evil.
So for instance,
I think we can all agree
that a baby is good
but if you were to say, that
is a cute baby, for example,
well that would be a perversion
that would make the
phrase "cute baby" evil.
(baby screaming)
But back to the issue at hand
what do these cool kid's philosophers
have to contribute to the
discussion of race in America?
Let's start with,
Dave, "The Left got a little too PC
"so I changed all of my
opinions about the economy,
social issues, systemic
racism, and history" Rubin.
Does he have an explanation for his claim
that systemic racism doesn't exist?
- Systemic racism does not exist,
there are no laws in America,
meaning the system, doesn't
mean racism doesn't exist,
racism exists, there are
people who are racist,
and you should do everything you can
to show them that their ideas are wrong
and that you should not be judging someone
based on their race, of course.
But the idea that there
is systemic racism,
meaning that there are laws in place
that treat Black people differently,
or asian people differently,
or white people differently,
simply doesn't exist.
- Ah!
Okay, I get it now.
There are no laws that
treat people differently
based on their race and that
is what systemic racism is.
Isn't it?
Isn't that the definition and
function of systemic racism?
And are you actually claiming
that there are no laws that treat people
of different races, differently?
In short, the answer is no to all of it,
but we'll get back to those questions.
For now, is there anything
else you'd like to add, Dave?
- Now, that doesn't mean
that we can still do better
on certain things, so for example,
often Black people will
be incarcerated longer
for simple crimes that if
a white person committed
won't be, now that has to do with more
with socio-economic reasoning,
- Oh Dave!
Dave, Dave, Dave,
Dave!
Immediately after stating
that systemic racism doesn't exist,
you cite a perfect example
of systemic racism,
and then explain it away
as having to do with
socio-economic reasoning,
another example of systemic racism.
I guess in Dave's mind,
when you have two inter-related
aspects of systemic racism
they sort of cancel each other out,
you know how like if I were
to punch you in the face
but then also kick you
in the balls or pussy,
those two wrongs mean that
you can't get mad at me.
It's simple math, go learn
math better, everybody!
But of course, Dave made this argument
before the recent murder of George Floyd
and the ensuing protests.
Surely these events would
change these guys' minds right?
- And when it comes to conspiracy theory,
everything can be explained
by malevolent people behind the
scenes, pulling the strings,
right, this is the sort of
anti-sematic conspiracy theories,
or, by the way, the idea
of institutional racism
that a bunch of white people
are sitting behind the scenes
and deliberately attempting
to harm Black people.
All right if you're making that argument,
you're an idiot.
- Oh, hey!
You're back with a great
point, Ben "My Hero" Shapiro.
I expect you're watching, Ben,
because I know that you
watched my video about you,
and I know you desperately
want to be in a band with me.
But according to Ben,
institutional racism is
actually a conspiracy theory
because as we all know,
when people talk about systemic racism
or institutional racism,
they are talking about
a bunch of white people,
behind the scenes, in a room, plotting.
Pulling the strings to
deliberately harm Black people,
puppeteers!
Oh hey look!
It's my other quarantine
roommate Mr. Strawman.
Good to see you again.
I love you.
I love you too.
Gross.
Okay, so, Ben tells us
that systemic racism
is a conspiracy theory,
and Dave tells us that it doesn't exist.
Of course this begs the question,
if systemic racism,
under Dave's definition,
ended in the 1960s with the
Civil Rights Act of 1964
and the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
which by the way was recently
gutted by the Supreme Court
and also like, imagine an apartheid state
granting a group civil
rights and then being like,
we did it!
But if we did indeed did it,
why does there still
remain so much inequality
between white people and Black people?
Any thoughts Ben?
- Because it has nothing to do with race
and everything to do with culture.
- Now for context,
Ben is answering a question
about the cause of wealth inequality
between white people and Black people,
and Ben's response is that it has nothing
to do with race, aka racism,
and everything to do with culture.
Please continue Ben.
- You explain to me why Black kids
aren't graduating high school?
Explain that one to me.
Explain to me why Black
kids are shooting each other
in rates significantly higher
than whites are shooting each other,
explain to me why 13% of the population
is responsible for 50% of the murder,
explain to me why the number of Blacks,
Black kids, in prison,
not for innocent reasons,
not for walking down the street
and getting pulled into
a prison, is so high?
Explain, if it has nothing
to do with culture,
explain to me why the
single motherhood rate
in the Black community
jumped from 20% to 70%
in the same course of time
that the Civil Rights Movement,
had made such tremendous strides.
Is America more racist
now, than it was in 1960?
And if it is, please explain
to me how that happened?
- So, let's put aside the
fact that graduation rates,
homicide rates, and rates
of single motherhood
are all results of wealth inequality
and that there is tons of evidence
that Black people are put in jail
for the same crimes as white people
at significantly higher
rates, but whatever!
Let's see this argument through.
As Ben would say, "Let's say".
- And let's say, and
let's say, and let's say,
let's say the, let's say, and let's say.
- That the reason Black people on average
have 10 times less
wealth than white people
is not because of the cumulative
impact of systemic racism
but actually because of Black culture
and how it doesn't value
education and is violent,
and doesn't have family values.
By the way, all very new arguments
that have never been made before,
and are not a part of a long legacy
of explaining racial outcomes
by creating racist ideas
that justify racist policies
which in turn perpetuate
racial inequality,
because, after all, as Ben asks,
is America more racist
today than it was in 1960?
Now, we'll get back to that question too.
But for now,
let's continue down
this racist rabbit hole,
and follow this, white rabbit,
and see where it leads us.
Yay.
But also huzzah.
So, if Black culture is to blame,
what created that culture?
Surely a singular culture for
an entire group of people,
which every Black person shares
was not created in a vacuum?
I mean you're not suggesting
that it's some sort
of an innate genetic quality, are you?
- [Sam] People don't don't
wanna hear that intelligence
is a real thing,
and that some people have
more of it than others.
They don't wanna hear that
IQ tests really measure it.
They don't wanna hear the
differences in IQ matter,
because they're highly predictive
of differential success in life.
And not just for things
like educational attainment,
and wealth, but for things
like out of wedlock birth and mortality.
People don't wanna hear
that a persons intelligence
is in large measured
due to his or her genes.
And there seems to be very
little we can do environmentally
to increase a persons
intelligence, even in childhood.
It's not that the
environment doesn't matter,
but genes appear to be
50 to 80% of the story.
People don't want to hear this.
And they certainly don't
want to hear that average IQ
differs across races and ethnic groups.
- No Sam, I think a lot of
people do want to hear that
and that's the problem.
But let's leave that alone for now,
and how living thought
experiment Sam Harris
fits into this whole grid
of grimy good grade getters,
and continue to pull this thread
on the sweater of racial obliviousness.
(dramatic music)
Yes I would like to destroy this sweater.
So far, we know that systemic
racism does not exist
because there are no specific
laws that favor one race
over the other,
and that the reason racial
inequality still persists
is because of Black culture,
and Black intelligence.
But what about white privilege?
Surely that must play some
role in racial inequality?
- I wanna talk about intersectionality
and white privilege a bit.
(crowd laughing)
- Oh goodie, Jordan,
"Lobsters show us why
human hierarchies exist
"also therefore they're good" Peterson.
Glad you could join the party.
Also sorry for your recent challenges,
I hope you get better,
and yet I'm grateful that
you've been MIA as of late,
during all of this situation.
Nevertheless, your ideas and
words are still influential,
so here we are.
Now notice that laughter from
the crowd when he said that.
I mean, you must be getting ready
to tell a really hilarious joke, Jordan!
For context, the specific
list that Peterson
is about to reference comes from an essay
written by Peggy McIntosh
about the everyday advantages
that she experiences
because she is white.
- Okay, so here's her white
privilege list, some of it,
there's like 50 things.
I can, if I wish, arrange to
be in the company of people
of my race most of the time.
If I should need to move,
I can be pretty sure of renting
or purchasing housing in
an area which I can afford
and in which I would want to live.
That's actually a wealth
thing, by the way.
- Oh, a wealth thing, by the way?
- Is that white privilege?
Or is that like majority privilege?
It's the same truth, you go to China,
you're Chinese, it's the
same truth if you're Chinese?
Does the majority privilege?
And if it's majority privileges,
like isn't that just part of
living within your culture?
So, let's say you live in your culture.
You're privileged as
member of that culture.
Well obviously, that's
what the culture is for.
That's what it's for.
- So in a rant about how
white privilege isn't real,
you state that culture is
for providing privileges
to the members of the culture.
But, what?
What definition of culture
are you looking at?
Culture isn't for anything.
Also he slips this in,
- Why would you bother
building the damn thing
if it didn't accrue benefits to you?
- You see, America was built
on the backs of white people.
Anyway, go on doctor.
- But now you might say,
well one of the consequences
that it accrues fewer benefits
to those who aren't in the culture?
Yeah, but you can't immediately
associate that with race.
- That's literally what
you just did, but go on.
- It certainly could be wealth.
- Wealth you say?
- So white privilege,
well the other thing you might notice
is that to attribute to the
individuals of a community,
the attributes of that community
on the basis of their racial
identity is called racism.
That's what racism is.
There's no other way of defining it.
- And here Peterson plays
a clever, or ignorant,
I can't decide which, rhetorical trick.
No one would argue that
attributing a characteristic
to an individual based on their race,
while not the only way to define it,
is not some form of racism.
But the concept of white privilege
is not ascribing immutable characteristics
to individuals based on their race.
It is commentating on how a person's race
influences their
relationship with society.
For example, in 1860, you
could pretty safely assume
that a white person was not enslaved.
This would not be a racist assumption,
and would also be a pretty
good example of white privilege
at that time in our history,
when we did the slave stuff.
But I'm getting ahead of myself!
Where were we?
Oh yes.
So not only does white
privilege not exist,
but this concept is actually
racist against white people!
Anyone else share that view?
- So white people privilege
is a myth and a lie
and should be completely destroyed,
it's ruder than racism.
(crowd applauding)
It is a racist idea.
- White privilege isn't reality,
it's a cowardly way, a chicken
way, to blame someone else
for your failures to live up
to decent responsible standards.
- Ben!
It's good to see you again,
all the time, every time.
I miss you.
And hey!
It's also Charlie Kirk!
Are you part of the Nerds
of Nefarious Netting?
I mean with comments like that,
I'm sure you'll get in soon!
They love idiots and liars.
But to be fair and
balanced, Charlie is right.
White privilege is rooted in racism.
Good point, Charlie Kirk.
Okay, so according to the social-order
of sullen smarty-pants wearers,
white privilege is a myth
and a lie, and racist,
and racial inequality could not possibly
be related to white privilege.
But lucky for us, David Rubin
knows exactly where this
violent, lazy culture
that doesn't value family
or education comes from.
- But if you think about this,
if you think about the worst
places in the United States
for Black people to live
in terms of economics,
in terms of shootings,
it's Chicago, it's Ferguson, it's Atlanta.
It's these places that
have been run by democrats
almost exclusively for 80 years.
Yet the democrats keep saying
we're for Black people.
So it's sort of like
saying, I'm a progressive,
I'm for progressive, it sounds good.
Well I'm for Black people,
everyone's for Black,
you know unless you're a true racist,
you're for Black people in
the same way you should be
for everybody else.
So, they've tricked you into thinking,
I mean Chicago,
I would guess someone should
check the numbers on this,
but I'm gonna guess about 50 to 80 people,
Black people, were shot in
Chicago this past weekend.
Weekend!
You never hear about that
because it's mostly Black-on-Black crime.
Well if the democrats are so
good at fixing these problems,
why is it that in their cities,
it's always, always the worst,
and it's because they
create these incentives
that are actually disincentives,
and if you give people things,
it becomes very hard to not
want those things anymore.
- It's the left!
They created a victim mentality
and a culture of dependency
by giving Black people free stuff.
Uncle Sugar gave Black
people goodies, like welfare,
and food stamps and Obama-Phones.
Now, I'm not suggesting
that systemic racism
is not a bi-partisan problem.
It clearly is.
Recent events have made
this abundantly clear.
If it was not already abundantly clear.
But is the problem with the left
that they give away too much
free stuff to Black people?
Not only that but that they can't
even govern their own
communities properly,
is that the problem?
Ben?
- Flint is governed by minorities,
I mean the folks,
the mayor of Flint was Black at the time,
the folks were involved
in the Flint Water Crisis,
were of minority descent,
it wasn't white people cramming
down a situation on Flint.
By the way, they're all democrats.
- That's right folks,
it was Black democrats
that created the Flint Water Crisis
and poisoned their own community.
It's not like an Emergency
Manager, Ed Kurtz,
incidentally a white guy,
appointed by Republican
Governor Rick Snyder,
also, a white guy,
who was given the power
to completely circumvent
the democratically elected
mayor and city council,
made the decision to
change Flint's water supply
to the Flint River without implementing
the anti-corrosion
treatment that was necessary
to prevent the acidic water
from corroding the lead pipes
in the city and thus
irreparably poisoning thousands
of residents, is it?
Yes,
it is,
Ben.
But I'm getting off track here.
Where were we?
Oh yes, free stuff, given to Black people
by the left to create a
culture of dependency.
This country has given so much
free stuff to Black people!
You have any examples of this Dave?
- And I can give you,
I know that anticdotal stuff
is isn't always the best way,
but I can give you one very good example.
My sister lives on the Upper
West Side in New York City,
it's a nice area, she pays
a ton to live in a nice area
with a doorman building in New York City.
A good portion of her building,
I think it might be
50% is rent subsidized,
meaning that they're keeping rents low
for certain people of certain
ethnicities to live there.
- Wait a minute,
I thought you just said
that there are no laws that
treat people of different races
or ethnicities differently, Dave.
Weird.
Also weird, 'cause they
don't subsidize rent
for people of other ethnicities.
They subsidize rent for poor people.
Wonder what that's about.
Anyway, again, I'm
getting ahead of myself.
I'm sorry, it's easy to get lost
in the marketplace of ideas.
A lot of impulse buys, ya know?
So now we have assessed
their interpretation
of the causes of racial inequality.
The reason Black people
suffer from inequality
is because of their culture,
a culture created by the left,
who redistribute our
hard earned tax dollars
to these indolent, undeserving,
food stamp hoarding,
not very hardworking people.
So how do we fix it?
I mean, surely a group as
intellectual as the dark web
has a solution.
- So what do you as an
individual Black person do
to change your life?
And I don't think it's helpful
and in fact I think it's
actually quite hurtful
to spend an enormous
amount of time talking
about the legacy of
discrimination and racism,
instead of talking about
what can you do right now
to fix your problem?
- If you get intersectional enough,
one of the things that happens
is that you break the groups
all the way down to the
level of the individual.
- We should, we should want
equal laws for everybody
and then within that,
that is what empowers you as an individual
to go out and get what's yours.
- [Sam] That the punchline here
is that everyone has to be
treated as an individual.
- Okay.
There it is.
So according to the web
of dark intellectuals,
the only solution is to treat
everyone as individuals,
by the way, as we, the
dark intellectual web,
say this, we will continue to talk
about the deficiencies of Black culture,
the racial IQ gap, Black-on-Black crime,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
But it's just like MLK said bro,
judge me by the content
of my character man.
Not by the yada, yada, yada, yada.
These guys love this quote.
And I wonder if there's another,
more relevant quote of
his they should read.
But it doesn't actually
sound so bad does it?
I mean of course we
want everyone to see us,
and treat us, as individuals,
and judge us by the
content of our character,
not the yada, yada, yada, yada,
yada, yada, yada and so on.
So what's the problem News Dude, you ask?
Well, before we take this
argument apart, point-by-point,
let's briefly summarize
the deceitful grift
that is catching so many young people
today in its Intellectual Dark Web.
First, they erroneously
define systemic racism
and white privilege and
then proceed to destroy
an argument that no one was
ever making in the first place.
By doing this they create a scenario
where you can't possibly assign the cause
of racial inequality in our society
to systemic racism or white privilege
because they have just seemingly disproved
these concepts entirely.
So this leaves no other
explanation for the existence
of racial inequality other than,
that it must be a result of an inequality
in Black people themselves.
Their culture, their IQ, their
decision making capacity,
and of course all the free stuff they get
from the lefty government
we definitely have,
which creates a culture of dependency.
Now you are in a position
where you have been insidiously convinced
that Black people are inherently not equal
to white people in some fundamental way.
At this point you only have one out
without seeming like an overt racist.
And that is to say that
you don't see race at all,
you're colorblind man
and you just treat
everyone as individuals.
And the mechanism that
holds this all together
is the dissemination of the racist ideas
that uphold this perverted philosophy.
If you've traveled this
far, congratulations,
you have now been turned into a racist,
either an active racist,
or a passive racist,
but a racist nonetheless.
Ibram X Kendi, author of
"Stamped from the Beginning"
and "How to be an Antiracist",
perfectly describes this dynamic.
- [Chris] What post-racial
ideas say to people,
to everyday people is,
basically racist policy no longer exist.
And it says that to people in
a nation of racial inequity,
in a nation of racial segregation.
And so then it causes the
individual to be like,
okay why does all of these
inequities and disparities exist?
If it's not racist policy,
if it's not racial terror,
then it must be something wrong
with a particular racial group.
- So, let's try to un-turn you, shall we?
We'll start with the original assertion
from David Rubin that
systemic racism doesn't exist
because there are no laws that
favor one race over another.
The first question to ask is,
is that what systemic racism is?
Laws that explicitly favor
one race over another?
No, of course not.
In fact many scholars define
racism itself, as a system.
For starters, there is the
fact that many of the laws
that make racial discrimination
illegal are often broken
and not well enforced.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965,
reminder, recently gutted
by the supreme court,
granted certain protections in an attempt
to make sure that Black
people were able to exercise
their right to vote,
including a pre-clearance provision,
which would have likely prevented
the recent debacle in Georgia.
Just because something is illegal
doesn't mean it doesn't still happen.
States across the
country have enacted laws
that courts have eventually found
to be racially discriminatory,
but often those laws aren't overturned
until years of legal battles,
long after the intended effect
has already had the result
of disenfranchising Black voters.
The impact of these policies
that include voter suppression
and racist gerrymandering is evident
in states like North Carolina,
one of three states in 2018
where the GOP lost the popular vote,
but somehow still
managed to win a majority
in the State House of Representatives.
You know the same way
our racist president won
through the verifiably racist
and undemocratic electoral college system.
Now second, laws don't
need to mention race at all
to be oppressive towards Black people.
The Constitution doesn't
even use the word slave
until the 13th amendment,
the one that freed enslaved people.
And before that, it's not
like we didn't have a system
of slavery in this country.
It's like a law needs to use the N-Word
for Dave and this grubby group of geeks
to consider it to be a
part of systemic racism.
There have been many laws since the 1960s
that have specifically
disadvantaged Black people
without explicitly
referencing race at all.
This country is very good at doing that.
It's like our superpower.
Consider the fact that for decades
there was a 100 to one
sentencing disparity
between crack-cocaine and powder-cocaine,
despite the fact that they are both made
from essentially the same substance
and the dangers and addiction
levels are incredibly similar.
You know what was different?
Black people were more
likely to get arrested
and incarcerated for using
crack than white people,
despite equal use.
In 2010, the Fair Sentencing
Act changed this disparity,
but the ratio is still 18 to one.
So, thanks Joe Biden?
In fact, as David himself
inexplicably noted,
immediately following his rejection
of the existence of systemic racism,
the war on drugs puts Black people in jail
at far higher rates for
non-violent drug crimes,
despite the fact that white
people and Black people
use and sell drugs at the same rates.
Also, thanks Joe Biden,
for being better than Donald Trump.
You did it, congratulations.
You just, you hopped over that bar.
And as with many components
of systemic racism,
the negative impact of laws like these
on people's lives are
compounded by other racist laws.
Getting swept up into the
criminal justice system
for a non-violent drug crime
can mean that you lose your right to vote,
and that you have to check
a box on a job application
indicating that you are a felon.
And you can be barred from
certain government services
like public housing.
But as Dave says,
"that has to do with more
socio-economic reasoning".
So let's talk about those
socio-economic reasons Dave.
Because, as I mentioned
laws that explicitly favor
one race over another
is not the definition of systemic racism.
Systems are comprised of many
components, not just laws.
For example, there are policies
that govern everything from your workplace
to local municipalities,
all the way up to the federal government,
that are not laws,
but are very much a part of
systemic racism in America
and greatly impact the
socio-economic status
of Black people.
For example,
the system of wealth accumulation
has created perhaps the
most persistent, insidious
and consequential legacy
when it comes to the
history of systemic racism
in this country,
resulting in a staggering disparity
between white people and Black people.
But is it, as Ben Shapiro claims,
because of Black culture?
No, but let's first consider the fact
that the majority of the wealth
that people accumulate
over their lifetimes
comes from two places,
inheritance and home ownership.
Considering Black people were
enslaved for over 200 years,
meaning they were not
paid for their labor,
and then lived under Jim
Crow segregation laws
for the next 90 years,
I would say that it has been
pretty hard for Black people
to accumulate wealth via
inheritance under those conditions.
And this is not ancient history,
I mean there are people alive today
whose parents were enslaved.
So how about home ownership?
Well, let's listen to
what Richard Rothstein,
author of a book, "The Color of Law"
has to say about the way housing policy
has been implemented in this country.
- And the reason there's
another federal program,
run by the Federal Housing Administration
that subsidized the
movement of white families
out of central cities
into single family homes
in the suburbs that
were exclusively white.
So the federal government,
guaranteed loans to mass
production builders,
the most famous example
perhaps is Levittown,
Levitt could never have
assembled the capital to build
17000 homes for which he had no buyers.
He got loans guaranteed
by the federal government
on explicit condition, explicit condition,
I wanna emphasize that,
that no homes be sold to African-Americans
and that every home in the development
had to have a clause in
the deed prohibiting resale
to African-Americans.
- The white Americans
who were given government backed mortgages
for homes under this policy
paid less per month to own a home
than what Black Americans paid
for rent in public housing
during this period.
Those homes have since increased in value,
netting those families two to
three hundred thousand dollars
of added wealth.
So is the racial wealth
gap really a result
of Black culture?
- African-American income on average
is about 60% of white income.
African-American wealth
is five to seven percent of white wealth.
Most families in this
country gain their wealth
through housing equity.
This enormous difference
between 60% income ratio
and five percent wealth ratio,
is almost entirely attributable
to unconstitutional,
federal housing policy that was practiced
in the 1930's, 40's and into the 50's.
So the wealth gap, I
think, is attributable
to this residential segregation.
It is obvious that a huge part
of the racial wealth gap can be attributed
to the federally
sanctioned housing policies
of this country, which included redlining,
a means by which loans were explicitly
and intentionally denied to individuals
in Black redlined neighborhoods
and where state backed
restrictive covenants
denied Black people
the opportunity to move
into wealthier white neighborhoods.
And so not only were Black
people not able to inherit wealth
from their parents and grandparents,
who were enslaved,
but they were denied the opportunity
to build wealth for themselves.
It wasn't until 1977 that discrimination
in lending for housing was outlawed.
This meant that Black
people were relegated
into living in areas of
highly concentrated poverty
with elevated levels of
pollution due to their proximity
to freeways and toxic facilities
which caused lower life expectancy
and a lack of access to upward mobility.
And insidiously, the
racist segregation policies
that created this concentrated poverty
also led to over-policing,
which led to mass incarceration,
which led to the loss of political power,
which meant that these communities
were not equipped with the political power
to oppose the creation of big polluters,
which led to even further
loss of property values,
which led to less funding for education,
which led to, which led to,
which led to, which led to.
So given this,
it's not that surprising that one
in seven white families
today are millionaires,
compared to one in fifty Black families.
Or that while single white women
between the ages of 36 to 49
have a median net worth of $42000 dollars,
and single Black women
in this same age range
have a median net worth of five dollars.
As Nikole Hannah-Jones,
the creator of the 1619 project,
recently noted on the Ezra Klein show,
- [Nikole] What the census data shows
is that actually
lower-income white Americans
have more wealth than
middle-class Black Americans.
And lower-income white Americans live
in wealthier neighborhoods
than middle-income Black Americans.
- This is all so weird!
It's almost as if the racial inequality
we see in this country is
not caused by Black culture
but by some sort of system,
some sort of system that
seems to involve race somehow
that gave white people some sort of,
I don't wanna call it privilege,
but I do, 'cause that's what it is.
So, remember when Jordan Peterson said,
"It's not white privilege, it's wealth."
Well it turns out that
wealth is a white privilege.
A government subsidized white privilege
and an important component
to systemic racism
that aggregates and
grows over generations.
So, you see Ben,
it doesn't really matter
if we are more or less racist today than
than we were in 1960
because the inequities of
our past collect interest.
This is all so perplexing!
I thought all the free stuff
that created this culture of dependency
was given to Black people?
I mean, that's why they're so lazy right?
I mean, all the free
stuff incentivizes them
to just be welfare queens
and live off of Uncle Sugar.
Right?
But then, could it be that this free stuff
from the government has actually
been given to white people?
Well, Doy Hickey, the Homestead
Act first enacted in 1862,
literally gave away 10% of
all land in the United States
almost exclusively to white people.
It is estimated that nearly
46 million people living today
can trace their wealth back to this act.
Around this same time
slavery was abolished
and yet the formerly enslaved got nothing.
Not even their 40 acres and a mule.
When social security was enacted
to provide a safety net for the elderly
two industries were curiously
omitted from these benefits,
agricultural workers
and domestic servants,
coincidentally occupations dominated
by Black, Mexican, and Asian workers.
The Wagner Act gave workers
the right to create unions
and the right to exclude Black
people from those unions.
Which, they did, they did do that.
(dramatic music)
So, according to their logic
it's actually white people
that should have a culture of dependency.
And in a way we do,
we have a dependency on whiteness
or what famed sociologist, historian,
and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois
dubbed the psychological
wages of whiteness.
After all, as doctor Jordan
Balthazar Peterson has told us,
- That's what the culture is for.
That's what it's for.
- I love how ferociously ignorant
doctor Jordan Bumblebee Peterson is
about how he just made an
argument for the existence
of white privilege in this comment.
As I already stated culture
is not for anything.
But the social construction
of whiteness surely is.
But, news dude, judge me by
the content of the character,
not by the,
you know?
Clearly the history of this nation
has not judged Black people by the,
ya know?
Now I'm not saying that
there are not white people
in this country who are suffering
or experiencing poverty,
there clearly are.
And we should do a whole
lot more to help them
and, you know, poor people, as a society.
It's also true, that often poor whites
become the collateral
damage of racist policies
like the war on drugs and
that throughout our history
politicians and corporate interests
have stoked the flames of racism
to prevent the forming
of multiracial coalitions
built on shared economic interests
in order to maintain their power.
In fact, the creation of
American Anti-Black racism
stems from this dynamic
and time and time again we see
that white people opt to maintain
their privileged
whiteness despite the fact
that it is often not in
their interest to do so.
- [Interviewee] When they don't
expand Medicare in the South
and the former confederates states,
when we don't have universal healthcare
despite the fact that every other country
who looks like us has it,
when we have the lowest
rate of union membership,
when we have the stingiest maternal leave,
the stingiest social safety net, period,
is because poll after poll shows
if white Americans think
that a lot of Black people
will benefit from a social
program, they oppose it.
- And so politicians use this
to essentially trick
white people into voting
against their own self-interests.
So, which groups are weaponizing
identity politics again?
The truth is that the notions
that we should just be colorblind
and treat everyone as individuals
are often codewords for
unfettered capitalism.
You know, just live and let live man,
just like do whatever.
These ideas are used as a Trojan horse
for rolling back regulations
and reducing the role of
government in our lives,
aka gutting the social safety net
at the expense of the vulnerable
and to the benefit of
the rich and powerful.
It completely ignores the central role
that history has played in
the fortunes of individuals
that have been born into groups
that have been unjustly
treated by society.
You can start to see why this solution
of just treating everyone as individuals
particularly in the
arena of public policy,
is problematic, considering
that the history
of this nation has not
treated people as individuals.
Perhaps, history matters.
- [Ezra] I have not criticized you,
and I continue to not,
for having the conversation.
I've criticized you for
having the conversation
without dealing with and separating it out
and thinking through the
context and the weight
of American history on it, not the weight
of American history-
- The weight
of American history is
completely irrelevant to-
- [Ezra] No it can't possibly
be irrelevant on some of it,
even you admit it's environmental.
- [Sam] The only thing that is relevant,
so yes, but that part of the
conversation has been had.
You don't have to talk,
you don't have to talk about slavery,
you don't have to talk
about the specific
injustices in the a past
to have a conversation about
the environmental factors
that very likely keep people back.
- No Sam!
You absolutely do have to
talk about those things.
Because beside the fact
that the quote, unquote racial IQ gap
has significantly narrowed
in the amount of time
that could not possibly be
ascribed to genetic factors,
the fact is the entire enterprise
of attempting to study the
genetics of race and intelligence
is built on a foundation of bull(beep).
Because, and I don't
think I've said this yet,
but race is not real.
It is a social construct.
We made it up, like money.
There is no genetic or
biological legitimacy
to the concept of race whatsoever.
There is more genetic
diversity within racial groups
than between them.
A Black person could be
more genetically similar
to a white person than
to another Black person.
There is more genetic
diversity with Black people
than any other racial
group because, you know,
we all came from Africa.
Originally, we, we're all Africans.
We spent a majority of
our time on this planet
on this one continent.
We should be proud of
our African Heritage.
And even if you insist
on making some sort of racial distinction,
according to ancestry.com
the average African American
has about 30% European ancestry,
you know, 'cause the,
partially the rape of enslaved people,
looking at you Thomas Jefferson,
you founding father of America, you.
And then add on top of that
the other layer of bull(beep)
to this debate that the
very concept of intelligence
is completely subjective
and breathtakingly complex
and the idea that we could
come up with a single test
and number to accurately measure it
or proclaim to understand its significance
or be able to quantify it on
a genetic level is absurd.
There is no gene for intelligence.
And so the endeavor of seeking out
and comparing the genetic factors
involved in intelligence
to groups that are not
genetically defined,
but socially constructed,
is by very definition an
invalid scientific endeavor.
It rests on entirely unscientific notions
about the nature of race and intelligence.
The fact is that the
only aim of this project
is to reinforce the notion
that there is something inherently
and innately inferior about Black people.
As Ezra Klein states,
throughout our history,
- [Ezra] European descended white men,
of scientific mind, looked around them,
looked at the society they saw,
looked at the outcomes people
had in the society they saw,
looked at the science pulled
from those outcomes, right?
And it was called science back then too.
And said, you know what?
What we are seeing here is a result
of innate differences between the races.
- So let's pause for a moment,
and consider how this web
of intellectual dark's
could be so thoroughly
and embarrassingly wrong
about race in America.
Now to be clear,
these guys don't all universally share
the same views on every issue.
That's the appeal of the
Association of The Clever Guys.
Sam Harris would not claim
that systemic racism doesn't exist at all,
and even Jordan Peterson has acknowledged
that it's a factor that
contributes to inequality.
- One of the factors, one
of many, many factors.
- So while Sam Harris,
a prominent atheist and
self-proclaimed liberal,
may seem like an unlikely member
of this Brainy Bleak Batch,
he is also part of the problem
and has thrown in his lot with
his right wing reactionaries
because it turns out they
have a lot in common.
For starters, they all
share a disdain for the left
and their supposed suppression
of a free exchange of ideas.
Sam believes that the left
has deemed it not okay to talk
about anything to do with race and gender
yet when it comes to
the issue of reparations
he thinks we should wait a couple years
before we have that conversation.
- [Sam] I am totally open-minded
on the reparations issue
but talk about another way
to lose to Trump, right?
I mean this is, let's wait two years
before we have this conversation.
- And the truth is, they
all share the broad strokes
of the same explanation
for racial inequality,
that the cause of racial inequality
is in large measure due to
the innate characteristics
of Black people,
their genetics, and their culture,
and that the solution to this problem
is for society to become colorblind.
And for Black people to, you know,
pick themselves up by their bootstraps.
A thing that is possible.
These basic ideas are not new,
but the most recent configuration
of this fundamental error
in reasoning which has
equipped a generation
of young people with the rationale
to justify racial inequality
and racist policies with racist ideas.
And/or the racist ideas to
serve as a justification
for racial inequality and racist policies.
Take your pick.
So, when you consider the level of crime
in the Black population,
if you were Sam Harris,
you might conclude that this is evidence
of a cultural problem.
- [Sam] At minimum we
have a cultural problem
that has to be solved.
And, only the black community
can really solve it.
I mean this is something, like the,
and on some level
understanding the origins
even if we knew that the
origin of the problem
was white racism.
We have slavery, we have Jim Crow
and then we have a direct
line of falling dominoes
to the problem of inner-city
violence for Black teenagers.
Let's just say that was true,
that still doesn't tell
you what the remedy is now.
How do you get people to
live different lives now?
And to value their lives?
- So, according to Sam,
even if the origins of
violence in the Black community
lie in our history of
racism and racist policies,
now it's just up to those violent Blacks
to change their culture.
Might I humbly suggest
that perhaps we try things
like investing in Black communities,
funding public education or housing,
or public health, or
ending the war on drugs
before we bolster the claim
that an extreme minority
of violent offenders in a
population of 42 million people
in this country is an indicator
that this community has
the cultural problem
of not valuing their lives?
The truth is that this
grid of grimy geniuses
fall very neatly into a
long legacy of white people
who have explained away racial inequality,
justified by all sorts
of scientific theories
and racist ideas about Black
genetics and Black culture
in order to perpetuate racist policies,
which maintains the status
quo of Black inequality,
while anointing white people
with privilege in society.
And, interestingly,
the racist ideas always
seem to perfectly adapt
to the particular inequality
and racist policy of the time.
Thomas Jefferson stated that
"Never yet could I find that a Black
"had uttered a thought above
the level of plain narration".
This racist idea served the function
of justifying the brutality of slavery.
And when Ben Shapiro says the following,
well just take a listen.
- Well New York City now wants
to shut down these highly gifted programs,
specifically on the basis of the lie
that New York City's schools
are being divided not
by academic performance
but based on race.
Well, maybe the alternative
is that Black and Hispanic
kids are not doing
as well on the test to get
in to the gifted programs.
- That's right Ben!
It's not that schools
are more segregated today
than they were in the late 1960s
because of racist policies that relegated
so many Black people into
areas of concentrated poverty
and denied Black people the ability
to accumulate wealth which has resulted
in their children being undereducated
in a public school system that is largely
and inexplicably funded by property taxes,
it's just, it's because they're
not doing well on the tests.
You know, because of their culture.
And their dumb IQs.
Judge me by my test score man,
not by the something of my et cetera.
This racist idea is being used
as a way to justify the inequality
of education in this country.
So I guess it's time for
a quick segment called
"If you're poor your schools
are considerably worse,
"how (beep) stupid and evil
is that, what the (beep)."
To re-iterate, public
schools are largely funded
by property taxes.
The higher the value of the
homes in a given neighborhood,
the more revenue from
property taxes a neighborhood
is able to collect for their schools.
Not only have Black people
been historically banned
from purchasing homes
in white neighborhoods,
but the homes in majority
Black neighborhoods
have been de-valued specifically
because they were majority Black areas.
And I don't have the data,
but I would venture to
guess that the bake sales
and car washes in wealthier
majority white communities
probably tend to raise a
bit more money than they do
in the systemically impoverished
majority Black communities
in this country.
As a result, today school
districts where the majority
of students enrolled
are students of color,
receive $23 billion less
in education funding
than predominantly white school districts,
despite serving the
same number of students.
If that's not systemic racism,
I don't know what is.
There's no law that explicitly says
schools where a majority
of students are Black
shall be funded less than schools
with majority white populations.
And yet it is not a coincidence
that that is the case.
So, yeah,
I guess this concludes our segment of
"If you're poor your schools
are considerably worse,
"how (beep) stupid and evil
is that, what the (beep)."
The legacy of racist laws from the past,
and the impact of the
systemic racism of today
snowball over time.
The policies that gave white people wealth
swell and expand from one
generation to the next.
The laws that denied Black
people opportunities spread,
and infect nearly every aspect of life.
And this dynamic is supported
by the dissemination
of racist myths.
We are all familiar with
the current tropes of
Blacks are lazy, Blacks
are violent and so on.
But throughout our history
the impact of racist
policies have been justified
by the creation of new and absurd ideas.
In the early 1970s a Johnson era policy
with the goal of increasing
Black home ownership
was taken over by the
Nixon Administration.
And it did not go well.
The program was quickly exploited
by the predatory actions of banks,
speculators and real estate agents
who were bribing FHA
appraisers behind the scenes
in order to inflate the values of housing
in order to line their
pockets with this new influx
of cash from the federal government.
In order to pull off this heist
they took advantage of
low income Black people
who qualified for the program
by placing them into substandard,
and often condemned housing,
not fit for human habitation,
leaving these families with
homes that were falling apart,
but with no resources to
make the necessary repairs.
When this comes out it
becomes a major scandal
making the front page news in
every major city in America.
But then something
interesting starts to happen
to the narrative.
This is how Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor, author of the book,
"Race for Profit", describes
what happened next.
- [Keeanga-Yamahtta] The focus
almost immediately shifts
to the program participants
and the conditions of the house.
Are those because Black
women don't actually know
how to keep a clean house?
You know, which of
course is richly ironic,
because many of these
congressman had Black women
cleaning their own homes.
This becomes a central part of the story,
and the role of the banks,
the role of the real estate industry,
kind of began to fade into the background.
- And yet, somehow this
system of sinister smarties
tries to pretend that this
history doesn't matter,
like the world just started yesterday.
We're all just individuals, my man.
If you aren't able to
succeed in this free country
well that is on you, man.
I mean, sure, there were
racist people, back in the day,
but systemic racism today?
That doesn't exist.
And so as Sam Harris often likes to do,
let's do a thought experiment
in a segment that we'll
call "The American Race".
Let's imagine that the
path for different races
to succeed in America was a literal race.
More precisely, a relay race,
from one generation to the next
over the course of 400 years.
For the purposes of this segment
we'll use the popular
video game Mario Kart
as an analogy, fun!
Fun.
In this analogy the Blacks
will be represented by Luigi
and the whites will be
represented by Mario.
These characters were
picked totally at random.
100% randomly picked.
Okay let's do this.
The American Race!
On your marks, get set, go!
Mario's off to an amazing start,
he's taking away the land
from native shy guys,
giving them capes infected
with small pox, nice move!
Mario is speeding fast
around the tracks folks!
But hey!
Luigi doesn't seem to be going anywhere
because he's locked in chains,
that's weird, for a race.
When is he gonna get
off the starting block?
It looks like he's gonna be stuck there
for about 250 years.
I don't know folks,
is it just me or does it look
like Luigi has a small brain?
Science says yes!
Whoa!
Princess Peach just signed the
emancipation proclamushroom
and Luigi is off to the races.
Mario may have a 250 year head start
but Luigi is finally in the race folks.
Uh-oh, it's the Ku Klux
Klan, tough break for Luigi.
He just got lynched!
But hey!
Mario just got some free
land from the kingdom
through the Let's-A-Go-Stead Act
and he has increased his lead
and passed the baton to his son,
who will inherit his wealth.
Unfortunately Luigi's son is
inheriting his father's debt
to the man who formerly
enslaved his family
and must now turn over his entire harvest
through a system called sharecropping.
I don't know if it's culture or genetics
but one thing is for sure,
Luigi is just lazy!
But good news for Mario
and his descendants,
that free land from the
government is growing in wealth
and he has widened his lead over Luigi,
what a hard worker, folks!
Uh-oh, it's the Great Depression.
Both contestants are struggling.
How will this race turn out?
Oh wowee, Mario gets a huge boost!
Because of new deal programs,
but mostly his merit.
Luigi on the other hand
well he's just an inferior racer.
Oh no!
It's the Goombas!
Luigi, we need you!
Help us win this war, we
promise we'll be nice.
Thanks Mario, you won the war.
Here is a house, and a free
education, and prosperity.
Wowee!
You are winning this race
because you are just so fast.
Oh hey Luigi, you a, what's that?
You want a house?
(laughing)
College?
(laughing) Luigi, I mean, sure.
But whoa, Mario is killing it right now
and widening his lead!
And Luigi, well he lost a long time ago.
Hey, hey, hey okay Luigi,
you want some rights, fine!
I guess you can, you know, vote.
And I guess you don't have to drink
from a different water fountain.
But I'd really prefer it if you did.
But you don't have to
but I'd really prefer if you did.
Okay, I'm getting kind freaked out here.
Luigi is starting to gain
a little bit on Mario,
he must be cheating.
Oh thank God, and the CIA, it's crack!
Luigi is on crack!
Lock him up, folks!
Throw away the key!
Phew!
Meanwhile it looks like
Mario got an item box
with cocaine in it!
What fun he must be having!
Whoa!
What a burst of speed you
got from your bonus cocaine!
Mario is going way fast and passing
on even more wealth to his children!
What a virtuous man,
who earned everything he
has through his hard work.
And, what a disappointment Luigi has been.
He got caught with those
drugs, abandoned his family.
I guess that's what happens
when you have no family values.
What's that Luigi?
I'm sorry, we don't handout coins
to undeserving welfare princesses.
Mario earned everything he has
because he was just so fast!
I can't help it if you're
just super super slow, Luigi.
I mean, a birdo is president,
so as far as I'm concerned,
let's just forget about the past, okay?
And start the race, now!
Wow, Luigi why are you so far behind?
You must just be slow
and violent, and dumb.
And I can't believe you
are being soooo unfair
to Mario who just wants
everyone to be treated equally.
Uh-oh, Luigi just got Covid-19
guess he couldn't grasp the
concept of social distancing
probably because of his low IQ.
Wow!
Surprise surprise!
Mario wins!
And will always win.
Because he is the best and fastest
and Luigi is just
genetically, and culturally,
and innately slower, and dumber,
and he just makes such bad decisions.
And this is why Mario will always win
and Luigi will always lose.
What a good race.
(upbeat music)
So, is the solution really
to just treat everyone as individuals?
Well yeah of course.
And no, obviously not.
On a person-to-person level, sure.
But, from a public policy perspective, no.
Because if you could wave a magic wand
and erase racism from the hearts
of every single person in America
you would still have systemic
racism and the effects of it.
Getting rid of individual racists
doesn't change the racial wealth gap,
or the disparities in life
expectancy, or education.
In fact adopting a colorblind policy
just codifies and cements the inequality
that has been generated by
systemic racism over generations.
It makes it a permanent
fixture of society.
You can have racism without racists.
In fact, that's the name of a book
written by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva.
You know, there are actually
a lot of books written
about the history of racism in America.
Like, thousands of books.
And I would strongly suggest
that the certified members
of the Dunces of Darkness
read one of these books,
maybe two.
Because this history is not unknowable.
Most of the ideas and
concepts in this video
are from these books
because I'm not that smart.
But other people are.
And I haven't even had a chance
to get into countless other
examples of systemic racism,
like the health impact of the constant
and persistent anxiety
inflicted by racism,
the disproportionate
mortality rates of Black women
in pregnancy and child birth,
the racist ideas doctors
have regarding the degree
to which Black people can feel pain,
racism in hiring, racism in
school disciplinary actions,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Like, I've barely even
referenced racial terror
and racist violence,
like the fact that the KKK,
the OG terrorist organization,
has murdered an estimated 100000 people
throughout our history.
The truth is that it would take me,
like, 400 years to describe
our country's history
of systemic racism and white supremacy.
But recent events have
illuminated its impact.
Is it surprising that Black Americans
are more likely to
contract the Coronavirus?
Considering they are
less likely to have a job
that they can do from home,
more likely to be an essential worker,
more likely to have to
take public transportation
to get to that job
and more likely to live in a
multi generational household?
Not only that but the Trump administration
has enacted a policy to deny relief loans
to business owners with criminal records
and so unless you haven't
been watching this video
and decided to randomly skip to the end,
I think you know precisely who
that policy will
disproportionately impact.
(dramatic music)
Nope!
Is it any surprise that
Black Americans are dying
at three times the rate of
white Americans from COVID-19?
When we know that Black Americans
are more likely to live in food deserts,
live in polluted areas,
and disproportionately suffer
from the co-morbidities
associated with death from Covid-19?
So get ready for the racist ideas
that justify this racial inequity.
I predict that we will start hearing
newly invented racist myths
about how Black people enjoy
coughing in each other's faces
or don't wash their hands,
or, oh, there it is!
Right on cue!
And so, I will conclude this
marathon of a youtube video
by asking this,
is the answer to addressing
racial inequality
to ignore our history and its impact
and instead be colorblind in our policies
and judge people by the
content of their character?
Just like MLK said man,
should we just tell
Black people in America
to pull themselves up by their bootstraps?
- America freed the slaves in 1863
through the emancipation
proclamation of Abraham Lincoln.
But gave the slaves no land
or nothing in reality
and as a matter of fact
to get started on.
At the same time, America
was giving away millions
of acres of land in the
West and the Midwest.
Which meant that that was a willingness
to give the white peasants
from Europe an economic base.
And yet it refused to give its
black peasants from Africa,
who came here involuntarily in chains,
and had worked free for 244 years.
Any kind of economic base,
and so emancipation for the Negro
was really freedom to hunger.
It was freedom to the
winds and rains of heaven.
It was freedom without food
to eat or land to cultivate
and therefore it was freedom and famine
at the same time.
And when white Americans tell the Negro
to lift himself by his own bootstraps,
they don't look over the legacy
of slavery and segregation.
Now, I believe we ought to do all we can
and seek to lift ourselves
by our own bootstraps
but it's a cruel jest
to say to a bootless man
that he ought to lift himself
by his own bootstraps.
And many Negros, by the
thousands and millions,
have been left bootless as a result of all
of these years of oppression
and as a result of a society
that deliberately made his color a stigma
and something worthless and degrading.
- Okay, Marty.
Counterpoint...
Strawman, anything?
(dramatic music)
Oh, oh, oh, okay.
Na-ah.
Woo!
Hey, thanks for watching that entire video
which I know you did
and if you did and liked it
make sure to like it on the video
and subscribe to the channel.
And the comments can be nice or mean.
I don't care.
Do like this new bit,
where the pages are blank
but also the pencil is empty?
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Also we we have a podcast
called Even More News in The Patreon.
