Liberal Student Challenges Shapiro on Systemic Racism Debate — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00hey ben so i'm definitely a left-leaning
2. 0:02student um but i listened to your
3. 0:03podcast every day well thank you for
4. 0:05coming and thank you for listening i
5. 0:06appreciate it thank you thank you
6. 0:07uh so my question uh is about race and
7. 0:10culture
8. 0:11so while i agree with you that when you
9. 0:13look at white america it's silly to say
10. 0:14that the majority of white americans
11. 0:16are actively trying to prevent you from
12. 0:18getting to where you want to be
13. 0:20i'm east indian and i have definitely
14. 0:22experienced some racism but i never felt
15. 0:24as though it keeps indians from
16. 0:25succeeding
17. 0:26so i do think there's a cultural
18. 0:27component that supersedes the color of
19. 0:29your skin
20. 0:30but i also think that it's naive to say
21. 0:32that it just so happens that the same
22. 0:34minority groups that have been
23. 0:35historically oppressed
24. 0:36happen to have cultures that are less
25. 0:38conducive to success
26. 0:40i believe that environment can create
27. 0:42culture can you acknowledge the
28. 0:44historical reasonings that led
29. 0:46that these so-called unsuccessful
30. 0:47cultures and not put blame on these
31. 0:50minority groups
32. 0:51i know that in your heart i don't think
33. 0:52you're a racist person but in my
34. 0:54in my opinion to blame people for their
35. 0:57failure
36. 0:58for their cultural failures without
37. 0:59taking into consideration
38. 1:01uh the history in general conceals a
39. 1:03lack of empathy and
40. 1:05sort of hints at racism okay so i'll
41. 1:07fight back on the last point that
42. 1:09that you know there's anything to do
43. 1:10with empathy or racism here um but
44. 1:12i fully agree with you like 100 not not
45. 1:14like 90 100
46. 1:16i think the bad cultures are generally
47. 1:17the result of bad things that have
48. 1:19happened in the past or bad modes of
49. 1:21thought that have prevailed over time
50. 1:22so for example uh there's a great book
51. 1:24by thomas soule
52. 1:26called uh black rednecks and white
53. 1:27liberals uh and that book
54. 1:29essentially suggests that a lot of the
55. 1:31pa the pathologies that exist about
56. 1:33single motherhood for example in the
57. 1:34black community
58. 1:35or high rates of violence are actually
59. 1:37outgrowths of
60. 1:38a slave and post-slave culture that was
61. 1:40imposed
62. 1:41by a white society that didn't bother
63. 1:43with policing that didn't
64. 1:44in that didn't care about inculcating
65. 1:46morals or virtues
66. 1:47in in slaves obviously they actually
67. 1:49actively fought against it
68. 1:51because they didn't want that to happen
69. 1:52um and so there was an active fight from
70. 1:54a symbol
71. 1:54against assimilation by white people and
72. 1:56that created an underground culture
73. 1:58that's really bad
74. 1:58and that existed in parts of white
75. 2:00america too it exists in appalachia so
76. 2:02yes i think bad cultures have nothing to
77. 2:04do with race uh i don't think that just
78. 2:06because
79. 2:07this is why i'm saying i don't know why
80. 2:08it borders on racism to say that
81. 2:09cultures are bad like some cultures are
82. 2:11bad some cultures are good and that has
83. 2:12nothing to do with race
84. 2:13charles murray wrote an entire book
85. 2:14called coming apart about pathologies in
86. 2:16white communities
87. 2:17uh that that are really destructive so
88. 2:19bad cultures do arise
89. 2:21very often from historical circumstances
90. 2:23including historical discrimination
91. 2:25what i say is that today there's nothing
92. 2:27preventing an
93. 2:28individual from superseding the culture
94. 2:30in which you grew up and making good
95. 2:31decisions
96. 2:32then the free country somebody's gonna
97. 2:34have to break this chain somebody's
98. 2:35going to have to break this cycle
99. 2:37and so am i going to bl i don't care if
100. 2:39you want to if you want to
101. 2:40say that that the pathology that exists
102. 2:42in the black community uh black inner
103. 2:44city community of
104. 2:45high rates of single motherhood and
105. 2:46violence for example um or
106. 2:48lack of institutional wealth uh that
107. 2:50that is a result of historic racism i'm
108. 2:52fine with you saying that i don't have
109. 2:53any problem with that i'm not talking
110. 2:54about historical races when i talk about
111. 2:56white privilege i'm talking about right
112. 2:57now the idea that there's a
113. 2:58superstructure of rules and laws
114. 3:00that are preventing you from succeeding
115. 3:01or a culture that is trying to keep you
116. 3:03down i don't think that's the case so
117. 3:04the question becomes
118. 3:05if you are here let's say let's say that
119. 3:07on average the culture in white america
120. 3:10uh or with regard to single motherhood
121. 3:12to take an example
122. 3:13uh is is here right because there's less
123. 3:15single mother in the white community
124. 3:16than the black community
125. 3:17and in the black community it's it's
126. 3:19here because it's 70 single motherhood
127. 3:20rate and the white
128. 3:21community is 40 okay so the question is
129. 3:23before thanks to
130. 3:24racism and thanks to discrimination
131. 3:26there was a cap on the black community
132. 3:27that was here
133. 3:28and they couldn't get past it okay now
134. 3:30the ceiling's been removed so what do
135. 3:31you as an individual black person do
136. 3:33to change your life and i don't think
137. 3:35it's helpful and
138. 3:36in fact i think it's actually quite
139. 3:37hurtful to spend an enormous amount of
140. 3:39time talking about
141. 3:40the legacy of discrimination and racism
142. 3:42instead of talking about what can you do
143. 3:44right now to fix your problem now this
144. 3:45is a general issue that i have in all of
145. 3:47my relationships my when my wife comes
146. 3:48to me
147. 3:49and she says there's a problem in my
148. 3:51life before we even have the
149. 3:52conversation i say to her
150. 3:53is this a listening conversation or is
151. 3:55this that you want me to fix that
152. 3:56conversation
153. 3:58and i think that when it comes to
154. 3:59politics there should be far fewer
155. 4:01listening conversations like i want you
156. 4:02to tell me about all the crap that's
157. 4:03happening because i don't care
158. 4:05i mean i care but it doesn't but now the
159. 4:07question is what you're gonna do
160. 4:08right that's a much more important
161. 4:09conversation because we only have five
162. 4:11minutes together
163. 4:11is that five minutes gonna be spent on
164. 4:13all the terrible things that happened
165. 4:14which i fully agree with
166. 4:15that i would have fought if i were there
167. 4:17but i wasn't right are we gonna spend
168. 4:19five minutes talking about all the
169. 4:20terrible things that happened to blacks
170. 4:21and jews and gays and women and
171. 4:23hispanics in the united states are we
172. 4:24gonna talk about right now what you can
173. 4:26do to succeed because i don't think that
174. 4:27the rules are holding you back
175. 4:29so i've never ever at any point
176. 4:30suggested that there's not been historic
177. 4:32discrimination against black people
178. 4:33or even that current day poverty is at
179. 4:35least in part an outgrowth of that
180. 4:37historic discrimination what i have
181. 4:38suggested is that if you're using that
182. 4:39historic discrimination as a reason why
183. 4:41you are not
184. 4:42as an individual human being becoming
185. 4:43more income mobile
186. 4:45and not making good decisions no one is
187. 4:47making the call for you right now as an
188. 4:48individual to get that girl pregnant
189. 4:51and that's that's the argument that i'm
190. 4:52making
191. 4:54sure yeah um so i guess like
192. 4:57would you like so don't you you have to
193. 5:00admit though that
194. 5:01between different races and different
195. 5:02cultures there are there are different
196. 5:05levels of success
197. 5:06and there's definitely you would expect
198. 5:07that somebody who grows up
199. 5:09with with uh with less with being able
200. 5:12less to succeed you you would
201. 5:13you would expect that that would happen
202. 5:15in certain in certain communities and
203. 5:17certainly right that's why they're
204. 5:18called pathologies of culture yeah for
205. 5:19sure
206. 5:20i mean if you grew up in a worse
207. 5:21situation than somebody else who grew up
208. 5:22in a better situation of course you're
209. 5:23going to grow up
210. 5:24having obstacles that that other person
211. 5:26has to overcome but that doesn't mean
212. 5:27that that other person number one
213. 5:28victimized you
214. 5:29right there's no one in america today
215. 5:31for example who's enslaved a black
216. 5:33person
217. 5:33that i know of or if they have to be in
218. 5:35jail um i'm sure that nobody
219. 5:37in this room right none of the young
220. 5:38white people in this room were alive
221. 5:40during the times of jim crow
222. 5:41so the question is do we take away from
223. 5:43the white people in this room to rectify
224. 5:44historic injustices or do we recognize
225. 5:46that history is filled with historic
226. 5:47injustices
227. 5:48and now we're going to have to find a
228. 5:49way to overcome those obstacles together
229. 5:51without redistributing income for
230. 5:53example
231. 5:54now i have called for movements for
232. 5:56example for uh
233. 5:57for companies to go into inner cities
234. 5:59and make a deal with
235. 6:00students in inner cities and say to them
236. 6:01listen you get good grades and we'll pay
237. 6:03for your college and then you come
238. 6:04afterward and you work for us for three
239. 6:05years to pay off that debt
240. 6:06i think there are things that we can do
241. 6:07in the private sector this is why i
242. 6:08think religious communities are so
243. 6:09important
244. 6:10i'm not against charity i'm not against
245. 6:11us as individuals going out and helping
246. 6:13people
247. 6:13what i am against is the idea that the
248. 6:14government can fix this problem because
249. 6:16the government cannot fix historic
250. 6:17inequity
251. 6:18all the government can do is set the
252. 6:19rules at at an equal level equal law
253. 6:22equal you know equal judgment under law
254. 6:24equal justice under law
255. 6:26is the only way that we're ever going to
256. 6:27approach anything that looks like a fair
257. 6:29society there's no such thing as a fair
258. 6:30society where the government plays god
259. 6:31and gets them to others and takes from
260. 6:33others so
261. 6:34would you would you say that you
262. 6:36basically we should
263. 6:37like other people who are not you know
264. 6:39in an oppressed state they should
265. 6:41they should wait and wait for other
266. 6:42people to pull themselves up uh
267. 6:44do you think that's how we should solve
268. 6:46it or do you think there is i think
269. 6:47every culture in american history every
270. 6:49individual in american history who has
271. 6:50succeeded
272. 6:51has had a combination of people who help
273. 6:52them out not in the government people
274. 6:54who help them out
275. 6:55and their own capacity to bootstrap it
276. 6:58and when my
277. 6:58great-grandparents got here they were
278. 7:00dirt poor and didn't speak english
279. 7:02great great grandparents got here
280. 7:03they're dirt poor and didn't speak
281. 7:04english this is true for virtually
282. 7:05everybody in the room right at some
283. 7:06point somebody came over here and they
284. 7:07were dirt poor and didn't speak english
285. 7:09uh and that doesn't mean that on a
286. 7:10generational level people are gonna go
287. 7:11from
288. 7:12from zero to a hundred but it does mean
289. 7:14that we're gonna need to move in the
290. 7:15right direction as opposed to sitting
291. 7:16around and talking about historic
292. 7:17injustice all day
293. 7:18because that doesn't get anything done