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Wilfred Reilly: Where Mainstream Narratives on Race and Racism Go Wrong | Ep. 14 — Transcript

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0:00welcome to Independent truths with Scott
0:01Atlas my show that tries to bring a
0:04uniquely rational perspective to
0:06important issues facing our society
0:08today today's guest is Dr Wilfred Riley
0:11Wilford is a leading voice
0:14in challenging popular mainstream
0:16narratives with an empirical analysis of
0:18the data that exposes the truth about
0:20some of America's most controversial
0:22topics
0:24Wilford and I have an important
0:26conversation about what we're witnessing
0:28in the United States including
0:30the truly divisive narratives about race
0:33in this country that have frankly led to
0:36a lack of Civility among our fellow
0:38Americans and where do we go from here
0:41to unify our nation and succeed as a
0:44heterogeneous society thanks for joining
0:46us and stay tuned
0:48[Music]
0:55today's guest I'm delighted to say is Dr
0:58Wilfred Riley author researcher and
1:01political science Professor an important
1:04voice and challenging many of the
1:06popular and frankly destructive
1:08mainstream narratives with actual data
1:11uh known for being unafraid to expose
1:14the truth about America's most
1:16controversial topics Wilford is an
1:18assistant professor of political science
1:20within the school of Criminal Justice
1:22and political science at Kentucky State
1:25University one of our nation's
1:26historically black colleges located in
1:29Frankfort Kentucky situated between
1:31Louisville and Lexington he's also an
1:34advisor to Fair the foundation against
1:37intolerance and racism like me he's a
1:41product of Chicago he holds a PhD in
1:44political science from Southern Illinois
1:45University and a JD from the University
1:49of Illinois College of Law
1:51he's a prolific author
1:54some of his books include hate crime
1:56hoax how the left is selling a fake race
1:58war
1:59taboo 10 facts you can talk about and
2:03the 50 million dollar question
2:05at Kentucky State Dr Riley's research
2:08has focused on international relations
2:11prevention of War
2:13and particularly modern American race
2:15relations and the use of modern
2:17quantitative methods to test these
2:20so-called sacred cow theories such as
2:23the Notions of white privilege the black
2:26lives matter movement and even the idea
2:29that we are actually in a race war in
2:32America his work has been featured in a
2:34variety of outlets including academic
2:36questions commentary magazine quilette
2:39USA Today and several other Publications
2:43welcome Wilford great to be here
2:47thanks for coming on and squeezing us
2:49into your busy scheduler so a lot of
2:51things to talk about all of which are of
2:54course super important
2:56I'd like to just Dive Right In and talk
2:58about
2:59racism in America
3:01uh and I'll start this way you note that
3:05the definition of racism has changed
3:08over the years
3:10to become something like perhaps the
3:13explanation for all outcome differences
3:16can you uh give us the explanation of
3:19what your thoughts are on this sure I
3:21mean racism to the U.S uh liberal
3:24through radical left often seems to mean
3:26something like karma in that it's the
3:28univariate explanation that's provided
3:31that's acceptable and kind of upper
3:33middle class life for any difference in
3:36performance between any two ethnic
3:39groups and it it's worth breaking down
3:42how different this is from kind of the
3:44historical Norm so racism is a racial a
3:49genetic a genome-ethnic version of what
3:51in political science we call tribalism
3:53so essentially traditionally racism has
3:56simply meant disliking someone because
3:57of their race I'm sure I could have put
3:59a little bit of an academic gloss on
4:01that and complicated it up but that's
4:03that's essentially what racism is and
4:05racism in practice is discrimination
4:07generally so if you are a hiring manager
4:10and you dislike blacks or Irish men or
4:12something like this and you refuse to
4:14onboard people of that group you're a
4:16bigot and you're engaging in
4:17discrimination that's what racism has
4:19almost always meant that's what it means
4:21to most people when you say bill is a
4:23racist you mean bill doesn't like
4:25members of group X when does it look at
4:27modern writers like Ibrahim Kennedy uh
4:31author of how to be an anti-racist Robin
4:33D'Angelo author of white fragility nice
4:36racism so on when they use the term
4:38racism they mean something very
4:40different and if I to the extent that I
4:43can define it
4:44what they're saying is that racism is
4:47any system that produces disparities and
4:50outcome between any two racial groups
4:52that's what Dr Kennedy pretty openly
4:54means by that term
4:56and his argument is that they're really
4:58only two possible explanations for
5:00large-scale group differences one of
5:02them is what he frankly calls
5:03inferiority
5:05um I mean the most logical read of that
5:06would be genetic inferiority there's
5:08something wrong with one of the groups
5:10he'll generally say there's something
5:11wrong with black people in this scenario
5:13and the other explanation would be some
5:15form of bigotry no matter how subtle no
5:18matter how difficult to find in systems
5:21somewhere
5:22so racism in the Contemporary sense very
5:24often means anything that produces these
5:27disparities I don't I don't want to
5:28hammer that to death too much but that's
5:29what people mean when they're saying the
5:31SAT is racist the application
5:33standardized test is racist the housing
5:35market is racist there's systemic racism
5:38out there that no one can fight what
5:39they mean is that when you look at
5:41something like
5:43deaths during geriatric pregnancy I mean
5:46pretty much anything you'll find
5:47differences between whites blacks and
5:50Hispanics very often
5:55the problem with this is that there are
5:58a lot of differences between really
6:00large ethnic populations that don't have
6:02anything to do with genes or races I
6:05mean the the classic cliche example used
6:07in the social sciences that at least had
6:09mode the average black guy is 27 the
6:11average white male is 58. so in order to
6:14attribute some kind of group debt to
6:17bigotry you'd actually have to adjust
6:19for a whole bunch of things cultural
6:21variables like study time Regional
6:24variables you know the impacts of
6:26historical racism that no longer exists
6:29um either what I call stochastic factors
6:31which is sort of luck based stuff like
6:34the the age uh variable that I just
6:37provided so unless you do that the the
6:40argument that if you see a difference
6:41between blacks and whites you're seeing
6:43bigotry is is almost silly you see
6:46differences between Asians and Nigerians
6:48and whites they just go in the other
6:49direction
6:50yes I mean I think I I have uh also seen
6:54this in my own specific area of Health
6:55Care policy where the the simplest thing
6:59to do is to ban the about these uh sort
7:03of comparison statistics without really
7:05thinking them through it I think it's
7:06very if nothing else even if you ascribe
7:09good motivation to using these kinds of
7:12comparisons it's very poor scholarship
7:15uh you know we look at life expectancy
7:18of countries
7:19uh and this is so because this is my era
7:22of Health policy there are dozens of
7:24factors that go into life expectancy
7:27that differ between countries including
7:31for instance in the United States you
7:33know a large part of uh death cause has
7:38nothing to do with health care it has to
7:40do with homicides and suicides that are
7:42very different in the United States and
7:44much higher and when you when you have
7:47people die who are young you've
7:49effectively had more significant change
7:51to overall life expectancy than you do
7:54that are uh when you're talking about
7:56factors that are related to Medical Care
7:57which are typically an older group so
7:59yeah there's been a it it's almost like
8:02uh there's a willful
8:05use of poor scholarship I mean I'd like
8:08to look at a few specific instances
8:10you've written several books one of your
8:11books is entitled hate crime hoaxes
8:13looking at the data versus what I would
8:16call The Narrative and you talk about
8:19these things in in many ways including
8:21not just the hate crime data the idea of
8:25racist police the questions of are women
8:28massively suppressed in the United
8:30States these days uh the concept of
8:33cultural appropriation uh campus rate
8:37statistics maybe you could talk a little
8:39bit about the data on a couple of those
8:41sure I mean so first uh kind of getting
8:44back to the point you just raised yeah
8:46now there's actually an interesting
8:47question about whether this stuff is
8:49intentionally disingenuous or whether
8:51some of the people were discussing like
8:53perhaps the good doctor candy with no
8:55insult intended to start the best
8:57methodologist possible I'm genuinely
8:59curious about that when it comes to some
9:01of this stuff but yeah I mean generally
9:03what you see with the the health care
9:06claims you're describing for example is
9:07just a univariate allegation of racism
9:10so someone will note that there's a
9:12difference for example in
9:15maternal deaths during geriatric
9:17pregnancy it could be literally anything
9:18and they will point out that blacks very
9:21often do worse than whites against this
9:23metric and they will just basically say
9:25that this is racist this is evidence of
9:28racism so throughout all this you see
9:30the definition that you know disparities
9:32equal discrimination is triple o g tom
9:35Saul once put it
9:36um the reality is that there are two
9:39things that come into play when I've
9:41looked at the healthcare literature
9:42regarding almost all these claims first
9:46of all the thing that is being studied
9:49almost always us docs are actually doing
9:51a pretty good job occurs at very very
9:54low levels so I mean you're doing this
9:57sort of backwards factor analysis I mean
9:59if you're arguing that there are more
10:01African-American female deaths during
10:04pregnancy than white ones you're
10:06comparing you know a fourth of a person
10:08to an eighth of a percent or something
10:10like that you're not finding epidemic
10:12racism in the first place ever there's
10:14no end education of that among Caucasian
10:16doctors African-American doctors so that
10:18that's an important point to make but
10:20secondarily you're also not adjusting
10:22for anything I mean so obesity is much
10:24higher in the African-American Community
10:25absolutely yes and it's really hard to
10:28argue that an abundance of good food
10:30represents racism as we've traditionally
10:32defined it I mean I mean this this came
10:34into Play If I may interrupt in in covid
10:37uh where uh specifically that illness
10:41the biggest risk factors are related to
10:44obesity besides age for covet death you
10:48have obesity and diabetes and when you
10:50have a population where severe obesity
10:53is 600 times more common in Black
10:57Americans than in white Americans and
11:01thousands of times more common than in
11:03Asian Americans there's no there's no
11:06puzzle to why a lot of people died with
11:08kovid who were black statistically as a
11:11group uh you're right but the the
11:14definition
11:15seems to want to be uh the conclusion is
11:18made in advance for a lot of these
11:20people it seems that it must be racism
11:22and let's let's just explain as the
11:25knee-jerk that's the conclusion yes
11:28that's correct generally what happens if
11:30you debate one of these guys is that if
11:32you start doing so for example income
11:34differences between blacks and whites
11:36essentially vanished if you adjust for
11:37three thick one is age one is test
11:40scores one is region of the country and
11:43that last one is as banali simplistic is
11:46ages I mean about 50 of the Black and
11:48Latino population lives in the South and
11:51Southwest respectively where wages are
11:53much lower so if you're arguing that a
11:56difference in household income between
11:58blacks or Mexican Americans and whites
12:01indicates Prejudice first you have to
12:04adjust so that you're comparing similar
12:05cities in the same state otherwise I
12:08mean if you're taking someone at media
12:09that might very well be a white guy in
12:11Manhattan who's 50 who you're matching
12:14up against a solid Blue Collar regular
12:17black guy who's 30 in Meridian
12:19Mississippian obviously the Caucasian
12:21man in that situation or woman is going
12:23to have a higher annual average income
12:26so I mean it's yeah it's exactly the
12:27same same thing with what you're
12:28describing but oh getting back to the
12:31the point here though generally if
12:32you're debating one of these people what
12:34they'll say is that every other Factor
12:35you bring up is evidence of racism it
12:38really the I'm not the first by any
12:40means uh nor are you brilliant that we
12:43both may be but to note that there's the
12:45wokeness quote unquote very much
12:47resembles religion there are almost
12:49direct parallels original sin is
12:51privilege and so on but one of the
12:53parallels is that nothing cannot be the
12:56fault of the single devil variable so I
13:00mean if I were to say obesity obviously
13:02explains the gap between black and white
13:06non-senior fatalities during covet and
13:08it does I mean I think we've we've both
13:10read the few major papers on this it's
13:11as obvious it does someone would then
13:13say well obesity itself despite my my
13:16line earlier is evidence of racism due
13:20to historical oppression black Americans
13:22have a lower level of cooking skill it's
13:24not even if I ridiculously racist but um
13:26you know there are there are fewer
13:27stores in black neighborhoods as this
13:30one down the line and this can go on for
13:32quite a while in my most recent debate
13:34someone made the fewer stores argument I
13:36pointed out well that's because of pride
13:37I live in Appalachia there are very few
13:39mainstream supermarkets in poor white
13:41neighborhoods you're not going to build
13:42your lovely little business where
13:44someone's going to set it on fire and
13:46the argument and response to what I
13:47thought was a winning point was crime as
13:49a result of racism so this can really go
13:51on and on and on I mean you can then
13:53counter well why is there so little
13:54crime and Asian and Nigerian communities
13:56the circle goes around but the basic
13:59idea is that until we get rid of the
14:01root cause variable of racism maybe
14:03poverty sometimes is thrown in there is
14:06the jockey on the back of the big horse
14:07it it makes almost no sense to do
14:10anything so when you see a disparity in
14:13health outcomes you don't tell black
14:14women or southern white women to lose
14:16weight you focus on racism because
14:18racism is the ultimate cause of obesity
14:21so that's the argument that's made I'm
14:22obviously not agreeing with this sure so
14:25yeah I mean and I think what we've seen
14:27uh recently and and frankly increasingly
14:31uh is talking about obesity and I think
14:35this really hits home for me because
14:37obesity is the number one Public Health
14:40threat in the United States there is no
14:42question about that the second one being
14:45Alzheimer's and neurodegenerative
14:47diseases but if you look at obesity the
14:50two most recent really sinful uh
14:54societal modes in my view are that
14:57obesity has become something that we
15:01should celebrate almost we should
15:04idolize we've seen a proliferation of
15:06advertising and marketing in fashion
15:10that somehow makes obese women
15:13something to celebrate rather than
15:17understanding and saying the honest
15:19truth which is it it's bad to be fat I
15:22mean I just think it's it's really a sin
15:24to convince in a population's not that
15:29we shouldn't accept people for who they
15:31are but the goal should be not
15:34to the goal should be to avoid obesity
15:37for health reasons it has nothing to do
15:39and to to pretend like it's something to
15:41celebrate is a very sad commentary on
15:44our culture uh driven by many factors uh
15:49and then most recently we saw that the
15:52uh there's been scientific uh push for
15:56saying that body mass index calculations
15:58are racist uh and uh against undermining
16:04the obvious and scientifically
16:08thoroughly valid data showing that being
16:11obese is bad for your health I think
16:14it's very sad and again uh
16:17whether intended to be a good ex
16:20quote-unquote good or not this is very
16:23harmful to the public good
16:26yeah I mean I think it's well said I
16:28think it's obviously true
16:30um you know to some extent right now as
16:32you get wokeness again making its way
16:36through institutions that we might not
16:39have expected 10 years ago like medical
16:41schools
16:43um it's colleges of stem I mean you're
16:45starting to get a lot of out and out
16:47rejection of mainstream obvious science
16:50so a fairly good friend of mine is the
16:52biologist Colin Wright and he runs a
16:54Blog called reality's Last Stand which
16:57is now at that point where I would
16:58assume it's probably bringing in six
17:00figures a year in donations it publishes
17:02major articles I mean I've written for
17:04realities Last Stand but the entire
17:06point of you know the Enterprise is
17:09pointing out that there are two human
17:10sexes
17:12and it's almost absurd that that exists
17:16to some extent but I mean you're not a
17:18controversy yes yes the the controversy
17:20whether they're males and females yeah I
17:22mean I think anyone who's been to a on a
17:24second date or to a varsity tryout knows
17:26that there are pretty obvious
17:27differences you can see them you know
17:30you walk by people on the street you can
17:31tell what sex they are generally but I
17:34mean you're starting to see uh for
17:35example Scientific American ran an
17:37article this is a frontis piece article
17:39it's a major piece called something like
17:41the sex binary it's not as simple as you
17:44think
17:45so I mean when people have devout
17:48religious beliefs they can cling to
17:50ideas like the sun revolves around the
17:53earth for a really long time and with
17:54obesity I think this is one of the more
17:56risk-filled Arenas where you're seeing
17:58this but yeah I mean the the thing with
18:00the BMI body mass index was exactly what
18:03we're talking about according to the
18:05standard body mass index more black
18:08women and Hispanic men
18:10proportionately than you would expect
18:12were classified as fatter obese so the
18:15argument was that there had to be
18:16something racist about the index it was
18:18designed to measure the healthy
18:20proportions for a Caucasian body
18:22and so the index should be jumped
18:25doctors should use more individually
18:28personally relevant techniques when it
18:30comes to assessing whether people are
18:32unhealthy but you know the elephant in
18:34the room with all this is that there's
18:35another obvious explanation for why
18:37black women and Hispanic men were
18:40classified as more likely to be
18:41overweight and that is that they were
18:42more likely to be overweight and that's
18:45right yes and you you find these same
18:47just bog standard obvious
18:51counterpoints very often when you look
18:53at this stuff why are there more police
18:54in black neighborhoods well because on
18:56average there's a higher rate of crime
18:57in Black neighborhood and so on down the
18:59line so I mean for those watching it it
19:00really is as simple as it sounds I mean
19:03of course the fact that
19:07the index quote-unquote has a
19:08disproportionate effect on black people
19:10doesn't mean
19:11that BMI is useless or that it's racist
19:14the argument is that it must be because
19:16it has a disproportionate impact on
19:17black people and yeah and the problem
19:19here is that you know and and it's
19:21really not just a philosophical argument
19:24or something that is offensive that that
19:27is nothing to do with BMI this is a a
19:31medical risk factor I mean these are
19:33people that have a higher rate of
19:35hypertension high blood pressure of
19:37diabetes of certain cancers even of
19:41Alzheimer's uh obesity is is one of the
19:44many risk factors and so uh you know I
19:47just think uh
19:49somehow we have become or we're in
19:52danger of becoming a society where we
19:54care about words more than reality and I
19:58don't care what the definition uh of BMI
20:03the basis of it is sort of irrelevant
20:07when you look at the outcomes it says it
20:09all when you have coronary artery
20:11disease heart attacks when you have
20:13strokes when you have hypertension
20:15diabetes every major disease and cancer
20:19uh you know a significant percentage of
20:21cancer deaths are due are due to
20:24correlations with lifestyle diseases and
20:26one of those is obesity so I just think
20:30uh you know uh in the interest of making
20:33people feel better about themselves
20:35we're Frank they're killing people uh
20:38and and I think that's uh I don't know
20:40how to say that in in a sort of uh in a
20:43non-religious way or a religious way
20:45it's a sin to delude people into
20:49thinking that being obese is good or
20:51it's simply uh a matter of being called
20:55something that's discriminatory I want
20:57to shift a little bit into something
20:59that's really
21:00uh one of your quotes see you you're
21:03quoted as saying
21:05today's biggest threat May well be the
21:08ceaseless promotion by activists and
21:11media figures of a false Narrative of
21:14constant conflict
21:16I mean I think this is really very very
21:19insightful and I'd like you to like you
21:22to talk about that uh
21:24uh and maybe you're uh you know who is
21:27profiting from making this
21:30overwhelming uh sort of Hysteria that
21:34everyone's a victim and that there's a a
21:36real overstatement of persecution in the
21:40United States
21:41yeah so that quote that's now this gets
21:43really into the core of my research and
21:46writing work and that quote is still
21:47something I strongly believe but yeah
21:48for I believe commentary I said that a
21:52bigger danger to the USA than actual
21:54racial Conflict by this point I mean by
21:56this point only if you look at something
21:58like willingness to engage in an
22:00interracial marriage I mean only about
22:02six to eight percent of whites ten
22:04percent of blacks test is bigots a
22:06bigger threat than those figures might
22:07be off by a percentage point or so each
22:09year but I mean a bigger threat than
22:11that is the perception of constant
22:13racial conflict and more broadly of
22:15constant danger around every street
22:17corner and this this kind of a latent
22:20Terror about is one of the big
22:22features of American life and it's a big
22:24problem so I mean recently I saw some of
22:27the most astonishing data if you believe
22:29conventional media storylines at least
22:31that I have in a while uh but I believe
22:34Pew measured attitudes toward American
22:36race relations and they started for this
22:39poll in kind of that colorblind you know
22:41Jordan and bird era
22:431995-96 through 2000 and they went
22:46through today I believe they went
22:48through 2022 so after George Floyd
22:51and what they found at the start of this
22:53period was that 70 percent of whites at
22:56almost 70 percent of blacks thought race
22:58relations were quite good the civil
23:01rights movement was 30 40 years in the
23:03past most of these people were pulled in
23:05the north anyway and black unemployment
23:07rate well below 10 there weren't any
23:09major racial problems that people were
23:12talking about in 1999 now that doesn't
23:14mean the OJ trial didn't occur or
23:15something but the constant obsessive
23:17focus on Race simply wasn't there and if
23:19you move to the end of the graphic that
23:22changed dramatically
23:24um as I recall it was 33 of blacks 35
23:26percent of whites again that might be
23:28off by a point or two but now thought
23:30race relations were good
23:32so during this entire era of quote
23:35unquote racial Reckoning uh what Zach
23:37Goldberg calls the great awokening post
23:392012 the kind of stuff we've been seeing
23:41in the times in the post what Tribune
23:43where I live in Chicago or lived in
23:45Chicago but during this entire era of
23:47increased focus on Race we've seen race
23:50relations sink to one of their lowest
23:53points in all of recorded history and
23:56it's impossible not to link this to some
23:59of the narratives that are out there I
24:01mean so the opening uh chapter of the
24:03book you mentioned earlier taboo looks
24:05at the claims of the black lives matter
24:06booth and now a couple of years down the
24:09road when this is no longer sort of
24:10fashionable as a cause we might be try
24:13to memory hole what some of those were
24:15but I mean it's worth remembering
24:16chernobyco one of their activists went
24:18on Prime Time Fox News and said that
24:21roughly every day a totally innocent
24:23black man is his words murdered by the
24:25police I believe unarmed was also a part
24:28of that uh Benjamin Crump was one of the
24:30country's most respected attorneys
24:32whatever
24:33that's worth but I mean
24:35wrote an entire book called Open Season
24:38the legalized genocide of colored people
24:40and his argument was that police
24:42violence vigil anti-violence all of this
24:44combined results in I think thousands
24:47tens of thousands would be a fair
24:48estimate of his tolls of black deaths
24:50annually and this is this is a
24:52best-selling book you can find this on
24:53Amazon it has more reviews in my book
24:56um but it's open season the legalized
24:58genocide of colored people I don't know
24:59why I'm selling this guy's book for him
25:00but it's just this was this was a major
25:02product that was out there so people
25:04heard this for years and I mean you you
25:07know this most the audience probably
25:08knows this but the actual number of
25:10unarmed black men that are killed by
25:12police in a typical year is around 15.
25:16um following the George Floyd riots and
25:18so it actually dipped a little bit so I
25:20mean the mo last year I've seen on
25:22record it was 11. but that's what we're
25:23actually talking about I mean these
25:26claims by very prominent people that
25:28there's a near race war going on stand
25:30in complete contrast to the reality of
25:33policing or to the reality of
25:35interracial conflict which is those 15
25:37guys
25:38so it's not just incorrect of course
25:40it's also extraordinarily harmful it
25:42shows a couple of things number one the
25:44impact
25:45of the constant media Mantra on regular
25:49people because people not everybody has
25:52the time or the interest that you or I
25:54do and looking at the actual data
25:56digging up the data number one number
25:58two the the megaphone provided to the
26:01race
26:02uh some people call them race Hustlers
26:05but the the narrative that they want to
26:08push is given the platform and so people
26:11are subjected to this as you know and
26:13it's very impactful because people tend
26:16to believe what they hear
26:18on news stations and in the media and in
26:21the you know in the National nationally
26:24recognized newspapers so the question is
26:27uh we know it's harmful we know it's a
26:31lie
26:31by the data a lot of this stuff the
26:35question is who's profiting from this is
26:38it just these individuals or is it more
26:40than that and I sort of think this has
26:42been going on for a while I mean you and
26:44I are both from Chicago uh original
26:48uh you know uh racial protests and a lot
26:52of civil rights movements came out of
26:54there people like Jesse Jackson when I
26:56was a kid uh
26:58you know we see and Obama actually has a
27:01tie to Chicago uh but you know who who
27:04was profiting from this and why why is
27:08it pushed on the American public
27:11when it's false
27:13yeah so that that's a great question
27:15they're actually there are two pieces
27:16there so first I mean when you said this
27:18stuff is very harmful it's worth one
27:19line there yes people absolutely do
27:22believe what they hear in mass media now
27:24on kind of the smart right uh what used
27:27to be called the intellectual dark web
27:28you're seeing a pretty strong backlash
27:30against this where people are starting
27:31to look up academic Journal articles on
27:33their own or just go to the library
27:34debate these topics on Twitter that kind
27:37of thing and I I actually think that's
27:38very good for all the criticism of you
27:40know doing your own research quote
27:42unquote but absolutely yes I agree with
27:45that yeah and I I think under under
27:47covid this this is interesting because
27:49sort of the general quad Community like
27:51grad students and Junior professors on
27:53my page I'm sure many doctors of your
27:55acquaintance to to a higher degree but
27:58the people that I was just talking to on
28:00a daily basis were much more often
28:02accurate than the government
28:04you could simply look at things like
28:07very early on in the pandemic it became
28:08obvious that Frontline workers were not
28:11dying in massive numbers if they were
28:13under a certain age Mark so you could
28:16estimate what the highest risk group for
28:18covid would be one of my friends
28:20actually wrote a paper doing exactly
28:22this you could look at what the probable
28:23IFR was you could assume that the cases
28:27that were known to the government at the
28:28very beginning they were producing these
28:30estimated cfrs of four and five percent
28:32were not all the cases of people with
28:34covid-19 it was it was very simple
28:37the stuff is not that complicated I
28:40totally agree and uh I do agree with
28:43having some optimism that people are
28:45waking up to the fact that we must
28:46become critical thinkers on our own uh
28:49if for no other reason than the people
28:51who were the so-called expert class have
28:53destroyed their own credibility by
28:55either lying or denying obvious uh facts
28:59or being illogical it just doesn't even
29:01pass common sense but here we have a
29:04social uh a social really division that
29:08has been that has been created I I I
29:11don't think I
29:12I I'm exaggerating when I say that when
29:15I was a kid
29:16okay I'm from a a poor white family uh
29:20lower lower middle class or upper lower
29:23class I don't know how you would
29:25describe it uh but uh you know race
29:27wasn't a big issue uh when I was looking
29:30we didn't think of race as a knee-jerk
29:33explanation for anything now I was
29:35raised in a very liberal home socially
29:37very very liberal oh maybe it was my own
29:39upbringing but I I just we were raised I
29:43was raised I'm older than you in the era
29:45where the the vision of a colorblind
29:47Society the Martin Luther King Jr vision
29:50was you know was was obvious and
29:54desirable no one in my in my experience
29:58talks about that anymore I mean are we
30:01ever gonna what do you think are we
30:02going to go back toward that
30:05and you know uh I I sort of I'm very
30:09interested in what you tell your
30:10students at a place like Kentucky State
30:12you know we we saw Joe Biden President
30:15Biden give an address at Howard I think
30:17it was talking about how white supremacy
30:21is the biggest problem the country faces
30:24and uh you know I just that doesn't pass
30:29anyone's Common Sense yet it's a
30:32repeated Mantra over and over again I
30:35wonder what's going on from your
30:36experience at Kentucky state and your
30:39your position not just how you how you
30:42talk to your students but what you
30:44perceive as your what your students are
30:46thinking
30:47yeah so I mean I would agree that well
30:50there there are quite a few things there
30:51first I would agree we're gonna have to
30:53move back to a colorblind vision for
30:55society where they're going to be some
30:57very negative consequences down road but
30:59kind of like in order in sequence
31:02um first like I I agree and I think I
31:05said this initially that it's a good
31:06thing people are starting to do their
31:07own research quote unquote but you're
31:09right that most people are I mean the
31:11statistical majority of people are not
31:13so I was going to add a butt there
31:16um you frequently find when you look at
31:18the literature and stats that people
31:20believe crazy things because of media
31:22Panic campaign so I mean my favorite
31:24example is I'm not going to run through
31:26the whole study as I sometimes do during
31:27speeches but skeptic Research Center
31:29found out a couple years ago that
31:31something like 15 of all liberals
31:33believe that the average number of black
31:36men killed by the police in a year
31:37unarmed is about ten thousand
31:40um 35 that's additional believe it's
31:42over a thousand it's about a thousand or
31:44a little more eight percent I believe
31:46it's more than ten thousand to put this
31:48in context they're only twenty thousand
31:50murders a year and while we're over
31:51represented only about half of them
31:53involved blacks so the typical liberal
31:56American perception I believe this was
31:57Urban blacks and urban whites is that
32:00there are as many black men murdered by
32:03the police in a year as there are
32:05murders in a year so that that's an
32:07example of the nonsense that will be a
32:10part of your brain a part of who you are
32:12as a thinking person if you just
32:14unconsciously consume this stuff another
32:16example from your field are the average
32:17upper middle class woman thinks that 10
32:19of the population died of covert that's
32:22actually a I I used that at an event
32:24that we uh we both spoke at and that's
32:27uh that's a as of a year and a half ago
32:29I believe
32:30but uh text TC one of the big European
32:32consultancies pulp people and got that
32:34result what percent of the US percentage
32:37of the US population would you say is
32:38his diet is expired during the covid-19
32:40pandemic and among a sample that slanted
32:43relatively wealthy as I recall certainly
32:45slanted relatively female the average
32:47response was nine percent nine percent
32:49of our countrymen are dead
32:51there's an element of innumeracy to that
32:53I mean if that were actually true you
32:56know there would be the average morgue
32:57holds about eight people in the city the
32:59size of Miami there'd be bodies stacked
33:00on street corners and cooling trucks you
33:03know pushed into help from the butcher
33:04I'm NBA oh it is business but that is
33:07what people think uh I guess the point
33:10too following that who benefits from
33:12this cui Bono
33:13um you already listed a number of these
33:16people there are massive ngos that have
33:18existed since the 1960s uh Jesse
33:20Jackson's rainbow push Coalition is one
33:22of the most obvious examples that are
33:24focused specifically on bringing in
33:27seven eight figures worth of donations
33:29in a year to fight races for this to
33:32happen it is essential that they're B
33:34races in kind of the old school sense of
33:36that term
33:38if there is not it might be necessary
33:40that some be created which gets back to
33:42another book of mine but be even beyond
33:44that I mean obviously there's an
33:46interest on the part of any Media
33:47company and getting clicks leading to
33:49the site getting eyeballs on the screen
33:51conflict especially racial conflict is
33:54one of the things that really draws
33:55viewers that's unfortunately well known
33:58in social science and that's why you
34:00constantly see these sort of white guy
34:02on black guy black guy and white guy
34:04videos massively trending on social
34:06media a police on any young male and
34:10social media of course is another set of
34:12Enterprise companies that are benefiting
34:13from this I mean obviously many people
34:17have not just alleged but noted that
34:20your goal if you ran one of these
34:22companies would be constant dopamine
34:24hitting so people keep going back to the
34:25site something's frightening them
34:27something stimulating them you want to
34:29see how many likes your frightening or
34:31stimulating post got so all of these
34:34people benefit from an unstable
34:36terrified populace that's before we even
34:37get into Pharma and and so on down the
34:40line now what I tell my students or what
34:43I what I see from my students what I see
34:46is normal young people you know as
34:48unformed and intelligent and so on as
34:50college kids always have been probably
34:51more focused on you know hooking up and
34:55what who's playing in town this weekend
34:57and so on then you know the ins and outs
34:59of philosophy for at least some classes
35:01you know those on Wednesday every Friday
35:03but I mean that's reassuring by the way
35:06to hear that there's some normalcy going
35:08on yeah I mean at a solid state school
35:11with Kentucky people don't spend most of
35:12the day protesting you know making signs
35:15opposing the you know uyghur genocide in
35:17China which is of course I mean it
35:18should be stopped but no there's there's
35:20a great deal of just normal social life
35:22but what I do see from them and this is
35:24something that I think on the
35:26intelligent right or Center we act
35:28absolutely need to focus on and for one
35:30of a better word exploit what I do see
35:32from them is very often kind of a sense
35:34of being unformed like many many young
35:38people have only heard half of the story
35:40for example so when I assign fairly
35:43basic thinkers if you're coming from the
35:45conservative side of the spectrum like
35:47Thomas Seoul or Milton Friedman for that
35:49matter Aristotle in a class
35:51people will very often say that that
35:54brother that person was extremely
35:55intelligent why have I never heard this
35:57before so that's one of the things you
35:59notice that almost all input throughout
36:02the modern Secondary School System
36:05coming at them from the media someone
36:07down the line curriculum supplements has
36:10been from kind of one side of the
36:11spectrum politically and socially
36:13absolutely I think this is really a
36:15crucial fact uh for the
36:19non-leftist you know to understand is
36:22that for decades these this whole
36:24generation has been brought up hearing
36:26one view of the world and that view is
36:30not necessarily reality based uh you
36:33know it brings also another point that I
36:34like to make is that when peoples are
36:36older everyone has strident opinions
36:39even college students but the difference
36:41is young people in that college age
36:44bracket are actually open to learning
36:47whereas people as you get older I think
36:50it's very difficult to break into
36:52somebody with any kind of new thinking
36:53so it's reassuring that your students
36:55are turned on uh to that and I have the
36:58same sort of experience at Stanford uh
37:02what do you think about how if you can
37:04generalize which probably uh it's it's
37:06not really legitimate but what do you
37:09think about any generality or
37:11observation you can make about how race
37:13and racism in America is viewed at by
37:18your student students is this and and do
37:21they do they have the sort of uh the
37:24vitriol that that we seem to think uh is
37:27is throughout the country what are they
37:30thinking when they when they contemplate
37:32that or are challenged by it or even
37:34what when they hear from the president
37:36United States that the biggest problem
37:38in the country is white supremacy
37:40well I I think that for most of them
37:42there is a distinction that you see
37:44pretty often in political science which
37:46is between the personal and the national
37:47so I mean there are a number of studies
37:50where parents are asked what their view
37:52is of American Education from the
37:54Department of Education on down and most
37:57middle class or upper class parents
37:58really are aware of the national SAT
38:00scores the national report card and they
38:02say well National Education is is very
38:04bad and they list a series of reasons
38:06why this might be then you ask them what
38:08they think of their school where these
38:10days you know little Jimmy and Jenny are
38:12almost certainly getting pretty much A's
38:14and B's and the response is that their
38:16school is is doing great it's doing a
38:19fair job given the unique problems in
38:21their neighborhood and so on down the
38:22line and I see pretty much the same
38:24thing with my students so at the
38:25individual level like I said very few
38:27white or black Americans are racist and
38:30it's important to re-emphasize that I
38:32mean very few people in terms of a basic
38:34metric for racism used around the world
38:36like would you mind neighbors of another
38:39cast if you UL another race another
38:41ethnic group The the percentage of
38:43people that say yes I would to that is
38:46very consistently under 10 the United
38:48States so on on a day-to-day level most
38:52of my students don't feel that their
38:53peers of A different race are racist
38:56um I mean the rate of interracial dating
38:57in a historically black college and
38:59Appalachia 30 40 I mean so in practice
39:04if you live in a mid-sized City and you
39:06play basketball or golf or something it
39:08would be virtually impossible to spend
39:10your day in a monoracial bubble and most
39:13of the kids are fine most of them are
39:15socially normal comfortable in mixed
39:17dinner parties that kind of thing now at
39:19the national level though all of them
39:21believe the conventional narrative at
39:22least till they go through a few of my
39:23classes and some of them taught by other
39:25heterodox professors and they start look
39:28learning statistical methodology so on
39:29down the line
39:30um I'm pretty sure if you asked the
39:33typical black or white liberal KSU or UK
39:37student you know is the USA to some
39:39extent a white supremacist country they
39:40would they would say yes the yes rate
39:42that would probably be well over 60
39:45percent I don't don't want to just
39:46wildly speculate and that's that's
39:49because of what we both kind of agreed
39:51on which is
39:53thus the control of discourse to use a
39:57Marcus's term by one ideological block
40:01within the conversation so I mean most
40:04people have heard of the the old Pew
40:062004 study where national news media
40:10reporters were asked their political
40:11inclinations and seven percent of them
40:13were conservative and as I recall that
40:15included Libertarians so that that's
40:17pretty standard if you watch the
40:19mainstream National media other than
40:20maybe Fox almost everyone you're hearing
40:24talk is going to be a Marxist a leftist
40:26a liberal or a leftly moderate so I mean
40:29those are the people not trying to
40:31invoke paranoia or the thing I hate but
40:33those are the people that are infusing
40:35these ideas in your kids I mean if
40:36you're going to a big city public school
40:38even a standard woke prep or Day School
40:41these days if you're watching mainstream
40:44television CNN I mean this is this is
40:45what you're hearing so the Baseline
40:48default and the right needs to do a
40:50better job of creating culture or as you
40:52said the non-left needs to do about job
40:53creating culture but the Baseline
40:55default of almost every college student
40:58I've ever met unless they're in the
40:59college Republicans or something is what
41:02I would think of as kind of standard
41:04City liberalism
41:06I agree with that if you yeah if you've
41:09got someone their take on abortion they
41:10would say my body my choice and it's
41:12just the other arguments haven't been
41:14heard less light on this but I mean
41:16abortion's not an issue I focus a lot on
41:18but whenever anyone says that I say well
41:20aren't there two bodies involved
41:21something like this we're in an ethics
41:22class and people are unable to respond
41:25to the argument and there are a whole
41:27bunch of responses well my word is
41:30almost parasitical on mine until point x
41:32so it but people are simply unable to
41:34respond because they haven't heard the
41:35argument so you haven't heard it and
41:38they haven't been confronted with
41:40thinking about it yeah and same thing
41:42with anything I mean are there objective
41:43moral standards almost every student
41:45would say no well are there rules that
41:47in every situation would produce better
41:48outcomes than other rules you know I'm
41:50not the most conventionally moral guy
41:52myself probably but I mean when you ask
41:54that question which is the argument for
41:56laws and for civilization again there's
41:58sort of a puzzled response like well but
42:00I want to do what I want to do and it's
42:02like well so does everyone because we're
42:03born as natural Savages I mean that
42:05doesn't mean that you don't Implement
42:08some rules that most societies have that
42:11you're that you're supposed to follow
42:13well successful societies do that's for
42:15sure well I don't want to take too much
42:18of your time we could go on for quite a
42:19while I'd love to have you back uh but I
42:22just want to say I want to thank you for
42:24having
42:25the essential component of being a
42:28thinking human being frankly which is
42:31simply the courage to be an independent
42:33thinker and uh the country needs people
42:36to step up and uh and challenge
42:39conventional narrative with data uh
42:43because we really need to be a unified
42:45country we have in my view you know the
42:48United States has in many ways uh become
42:51a country where there is such vitriol
42:53there's a sort of lack of human decency
42:55out there I think that covid pandemic
42:58exposed it and now uh it's sort of
43:01pervasive in a lot of ways so I I think
43:03we need to keep speaking up and I want
43:05to thank you uh Wilford uh for doing
43:08that I hope to have you back soon thank
43:10you very much for being here great thank
43:12you for having me out thank you for
43:13listening to Independent truths with
43:15Scott Atlas if you want to find out more
43:17about today's guest Professor Wilford
43:19Riley
43:20check out his writings particularly at
43:23commentary magazine and elsewhere and
43:26his Twitter feed which is at
43:30will.beast630 at wil underscore d a
43:34underscore
43:36b-e-a-s-t-630
43:38don't forget to subscribe to this show
43:40on YouTube Spotify Apple Google and
43:44anywhere else where you listen to
43:45podcasts today and I'll see you next
43:48time
43:49foreign
43:54[Music]

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