Welcome to Keith's night. Don't tread on anyone in the
libertarian Institute today. I'm joined by dr.
Eric Smith, he is co-founder and co-editor of fbt free.
Black thought he is a writing fellow for heterodox Academy
associate professor of rhetoric York College of Pennsylvania,
and author of the 2020 book, a critique of anti racism in
rhetoric and composition. The semblance of empowerment dr.
Smith, thank you so much for your time.
Time. Thanks for having me.
What is rhetoric? Why is it important rhetoric?
Is the study of effective communication, or to study of
persuasion? Aristotle's, definition seems to
be the traditional one. And his definition is that
rhetoric is the ability to discern in any given situation,
the available means of persuasion.
So what does availability mean? That means you have to gauge
your audience, the situation, and realize, Is what statements
will, you know, get you to your goal and what statements will
not based on that particular situation.
It's called Kairos, which is a Confluence of time plays
audience subject matter who you are in that context and things
like that. So that is the quickest
explanation of rhetoric. I can give you.
Why is it important though? Well in a civil society in which
people get together and create associations and institutes as
they see fit as individuals, they have to have a good reason
for doing. So in a good reason for getting
other people to join in, what's more?
If you're going to have a pluralistic Civil Society, then
you by Nature, will have various viewpoints.
And, you know, if you have various viewpoints, you would do
well to have rhetorical skill to sell yours right in.
Marketplace of ideas, whereas Jonathan Roush, my SATA Martin,
the marketplace of persuasion. So rhetoric is imperative to a
pluralistic and civil Democratic Society, otherwise we devolve
into violence. What is the general mission of
the heterodox Academy? It's to preserve an appreciation
for Viewpoint diversity and tolerating viewpoints that are
yours. You don't have to light those
viewpoints but you can you know, address those viewpoints with
your free speech and your diversity of viewpoints, right?
You're not shutting people up, you're not coercing them to say
certain things. They don't want to say.
And you're not silencing them, you're talking to them.
So there is a the tacit meaning or mission of heterodox Academy
is well use your words right? It's not just Viewpoint
diversity. Everybody has a is allowed to
have a Viewpoint. It's also use your words to deal
with the viewpoints. You do not want to deal with.
So I mean, I think rhetoric is a foundational aspect of that
organization, as well. Well.
Without the state regulating what people can and can't say.
This would allow extremists to rise up and coerce the
population in ways that are far worse than just silencing some
free speech. How do you respond to that
mindset? Well, they can speak and so can
you right? And the key is to be I mean this
is why rhetoric is important Aristotle said if you have the
truth and you lose debate to somebody who is lying, that's
your fault. You know you You should have had
better skills, you know, especially if you were telling
the truth. So when it comes to things like
that or possibilities like that, that actually feeds my
justifications for why everybody should be as rhetorically Savvy
as possible, Right? To address those things and to
be convincing when you address those things because it is, you
know, I like the metaphor of a Marketplace of ideas.
You're, you're you're basically selling you are idea to
Consumers. And the better you do that, the
better they will take your idea. So my answer to that is be good
at rhetoric when it comes to some, of the people who you
would know, maybe in Hollywood or politics, who have the best
rhetoric skills, who comes to mind.
Wait in Hollywood and politics of the best friend.
Yeah, I'm just trying to think of people that the average
American would know. So this could be any sort of
Communicator, you know. Professors politicians people
in. Hollywood people in the media
who comes to mind. When you think of really people
who have a lot of skills when it comes to rhetoric.
Oh wow. You're gonna get me in trouble
here because no one particularly come to mine.
Now, Bill Clinton, I was going to say, Bill Clinton, I really
love because he, you know, I was watching him in a debate with
Bush senior the other day, you can find it on YouTube and I go,
you know, I am Biggest non Clinton fan but this guy knows
how to communicate. And I have a lot to learn from
this prick. Yeah, he was, he was smooth.
Yes, he was smooth. And it reason why I didn't
mention it because it was the 90s and I thought maybe you're
looking for somebody more contemporary.
But yeah, that did come to mind, I think Obama had a bit of Savvy
to but I mean I can't really there's nobody out there.
What? No, that's not fair.
I'll say this. What they're doing?
You know, if they're being good. Rhetoricians is gauging Their
audience and speaking accordingly.
So, you know, if you're speaking to America at large, you may
really say, well, you know what? I'm going to Target a particular
audience, my base, you know, or something like that, you know?
And I remember when people used to complain about Trump and his
speeches and things like that, and people say he's such a
terrible, you know, you know, speak Maori.
He's so bad at that and I would be like, you're not as audience.
He's talking to somebody else. Who he's talking to somebody
else, who loves that speech, you know, who loves his rhetoric.
We're not the, there's a term for these things and rhetorical
Theory. We're not.
His second Persona, we're not his direct audience.
We're the third Persona, where the people who are there, but
he's not talking to, right? So, if I'm, I'm sorry.
Yeah, no, no, I'm done. So, if I'm trying to persuade in
audience, I have to know who my audience is.
First, what else do I have to know before going into a social
situation? If my goal is to persuade?
Well, that's where Kairos comes into play, right?
So, you know, your audience and by knowing your audience, you
know, their values attitudes and beliefs to the best of your
ability, you know, their interest, you know, the exigence
were urgent problem, that they may have.
And you're going to speak accordingly, but you should
probably So know who else is there, right?
You're going to speak differently.
If somebody who has your same ethos but has the opposite
opinion is there, right? Who May challenge you in those
situations? You may say things differently
than you would. If you think that person is not
going to be there, right? You're going to have more
preparation for the counter arguments and things like that.
There may be people in the audience who are that third
Persona, right? Who you're not directly speaking
to how might they influence the Dynamics of the situation.
So you do well to understand the timing even, you know, when is
this happening? What happened before?
The meeting, what happened? What's going to happen after the
meeting? How is that shaping?
How the audience may receive me? So you're what you're doing is
to the best of your ability, right?
Understanding the importance of the time of day, the time of
month, or year. Where is being held, you know,
I'm as right down to the physicality of the environment.
How big is this room? How small is it?
That may affect how you not just enunciate but the you know how
you interact with the audience, maybe you stand on the stage all
the time. If you walk around because it is
that small, all these things come into play and if you can do
that stuff before the speech, you know, you'll be better able
to persuade. Ideally the site is free.
Black Thought.com link will be in the description below.
I'm going to give you a sentence from a gentleman who I won't
name cuz I don't want to bias you.
You please rhetorically analyze the logic and rhetoric of this
sentence. A racist is one, who is
supporting a racist policy through their actions or
inaction by expressing a racist idea.
Okay, I that sounds like somebody familiar and that
statement by By itself. Well is insanely redundant
right? You know you don't it's like I
using the word you're trying to Define in the definition, right?
You don't do that. To be fair, though he does in
other places in that book we're talking about Kandi.
Yeah, he doesn't other places in that book, explain things in a
way that makes that statement not as ridiculous, right?
So he does go into what he means by racist and racist ideas and
things like that. That so that's not as absurd of
a statement as it would be. Otherwise, that being said, I
don't agree with it, you know, because the premise of that
entire book and the chapter in which he says that is that, you
know, any kind of disparity between the racist is from
racism, right? A racist policy or something
like that. That's not the whole story, you
know. There may be something to that
but that's not everything. Everything's not to it, right?
There may be other things going on.
What is black cultural essentialism?
That is believing that all black people think the same, right?
Not just think the same, but reacted, things, the same,
right? They do love the same, they feel
the same. They have the same desires and
things like that because they've had the same experiences, right,
but that's not true. Hence, the organization.
Black Thought which works to tell people that's not true and
show people, that's not true by highlighting.
A lot of black thinkers artist, what have you who aren't really
known in mainstream media, you know, because they don't fit in
with the centralized idea. What it means to be black.
We also have a journal free, black dog, and we publish, those
are similar voices and voices, who may not be.
Be black but are all about Viewpoint, diversity, and
recognizing that there is diversity within Black America.
So so that's how I feel about it.
So I'm going to give you what a progressive.
Would say, is a black essentialist Viewpoint.
Please give me a possible alternative that you have heard
a, another black person take. It's important that we raise the
minimum wage because people of color disproportionately Have
lower incomes as a cause of results of their historical
mistreatment. Therefore, we need to do things
like, raise the minimum wage and increase the amount of welfare
that the state distributes, what if anything is wrong with that?
Wow, that's a big question my friend.
Well, you know, there have been, you know, because of America's
history. There's a, we got off to a slow
start or a late start, if you will.
So there is that, but But there's also the fact that
minimum wage was created, you know, to do the opposite of help
black people, right? Black, people were low-balling,
you know, everybody, you know, I'll do that for a lower price,
right? So they made the minimum wage, a
certain level so that people wouldn't see the incentive of
going to the black people who at the time, could not afford the
best training, right? For whatever you're doing
Plumbing, carpentry? Or construction.
What have you, right? They couldn't afford it best
training but the why people could.
So if I have to pay seven bucks anyway, might as well, get the
guy who went to the best, you know, institution to learn these
things. Minimum wage was created to for
anti-black purposes. You know.
Now I'm not a big fan of saying what this happened in 1920, so
it's still happening. Now, I hate that.
I hate when people do that. So I don't want to say that
because you No, the bacon act, which is what I believe, what it
was called happened to stifle black upward Mobility.
Then it's doing so now. But what I'm trying to say is
that the minimum wage being hiked up.
Isn't everything, right? Because now, I mean, you could
plausibly have less jobs because the minimum wage is higher.
So people are hiring different people or less people So one
person's doing more jobs than he would have in the first place,
because his employer, you know, can't pay more people, right?
So I mean, you could be, you know, the unemployment could
rise because of, you know, raising the minimum wage.
So it's not as easy as if we raise this black, people will
make more money. It's not that cut and dry.
And this is why I think the topic of black essentialism or
woman essentialism or men. Essentialism is so important
because it's so frequently. Used to Swindle people.
It's like look, I'm not doing this, you know, because I like
the money and fame of being a popular politician.
I'm doing it on behalf of all these people and so now I
basically have no constraint. I mean I'm doing this for the
greater good. So now I don't care what the
consequences are going to be, because I have this great ideal
in And and then you school choice was the other one where
it's like all the progressives who say, they are very dedicated
to increasing the well-being of blacks.
They are so anti school choice. While the average black person
is very Pro. School choice.
That one is just so predictable. Well, let's can we talk about
that for a second? Please?
Because I have some questions. I like to think I'm as informed
as I possibly can be, but I'm not.
I'm only one person and I'm trying to figure out why
progressives would be against school choice and I'm trying to
figure out what the reasoning behind that is, I have yet to
hear a good one. I have yet to hear a convincing
argument to be anti school choice so I guess I'm
interviewing you now. What is the problem progressives
have with it? The primary arguments would come
from SOS save our schools. Is the progressive organization,
who is anti school choice. What they say is by allowing
school choice, is, we need to put it in quotes because it's
really not a choice. People want to go to a school,
that's closer to them, by allowing for Choice.
All you're really doing is allowing the rich people to fund
their own schools while taking money away from schools, that
have mostly blacks, mostly Hispanics and mostly people at
lower, Incomes. So by allowing for choice, you
decrease, the probability of poor people.
Getting a getting their foot in the door intellectually, I
economically. It also allows you to ignore
them because you have the choice to go wherever you want and you
end up ignoring people. Whereas if you you know you are
coercing them into going to the school with truancy laws and
property taxes, but by forcing them to do.
So they now have an incentive to work to make that school better.
That was the argument that the gentleman put forth in the show
blackish. It was a whole episode dedicated
to this white idiot. You don't want school choice.
Doesn't he know that he has to be in this school?
Because then he has an incentive to make the school better.
That is my Steel Man of the progressive argument.
Okay? All right.
Yeah but that's very common, it's the textbook imperialist
mindset And I coerced people for for their own good and if it
were really for their own good, you could persuade them to do
it. You said you said I critique
academic anti-racism not because I'm against anti racism but
because some of its implementations disempower and
infantilized marginalized people, what does that mean?
Well, how much time do you have? I mean I literally wrote a whole
book answering that question but I'll try my best to summarize it
When I say I'm not against anti-racism, I mean that in the
original etymological, meaning of that term, I'm Against
Racism. But we all know that anti-racism
and this day and age, means something a little different,
something more, akin to what's called critical social justice,
right? And and all the tenants that go
with that, which I believe are disempowering for several
reasons, a, it assumes that people of color.
I have no agency whatsoever, you know, that they are Perpetual
victims, they can't succeed, they won't succeed in this
system. So the system has to go.
It also essential izes, as we just talked about, you know, all
black students are the same. They have the same problems and
things like that, they're, they're, they're, they're marked
before they even walk into the door of the classroom, right?
So there's that it ignores rhetoric for my field and
Circular, I think it ignores the whole point of Kairos, what we
talked about earlier, audience consideration and and things
like that, because it's all about the lived experience of
the student or the, you know, professor of color and asking
questions asking for elaboration pointing out where their story
doesn't seem to make sense that's considered a personal
attack, which brings me to the fact that language is considered
violence. Now Right.
So there's that as well. All of this.
What all of this does is this Empower students or people of
color, because you're, it's learned helplessness, right?
And you are infantilizing them by thinking that they can't
figure it out themselves. They are going to crawl into the
fetal position and weep you know at the sight of a white person
about to ask them a question, right?
And And things like that. So so that's how it infantilizes
and disempowers. Dr. Wilfred Reilly was on my
show and he said, there are three ways you could look at
differences between groups, critical theory disparities are
the result of discrimination biology.
The race has evolved in different climates and
culturalism people within those different demographics have
embraced different cultural ideas, which of those three do
you think is most accurate to explain disparities between
Asians blacks Mexicans? White's.
Whoever mostly a third one, the culture one because each culture
has what I call a a discourse capital D as opposed to
lowercase D. James G is associate, social
Linguistics Professor who capitalize, the D to
distinguish, it from just regular conversation of things
like that. At this course, is a set of
value attitudes and beliefs write as well as you know,
expectations for how you should look.
Dress sound all these different things that that is discourse
and certain values attitudes and beliefs are more conducive to
success in, you know, a society like ours, then others, right?
So I would, if I had only those three choices, I would pick the
culturalist choice now. That doesn't mean everything's
perfect. It doesn't mean there are
policies that there aren't policy that could be reformed,
right? I'm not.
That.
But I'm also saying that culture is a big part of it and to many
people don't want to mention that they don't want to talk
about. Can you give me an example of
cultural ideas that either whites or blacks and Mexicans
may have that holds them back systematically.
We We see a lot of people saying that you know, this group
studies more than this group, right?
Asians study more, you know, because they value education and
what it can get to you and then why people value it too.
But not as much and black people are like, yeah, education is
important but it's not the most important thing, you know.
Yeah. I mean, I in my household, my
parents cared about the Greys, we gotten things.
Like that, but not like my, my other peers.
Right. And I thought it was a good
thing and to an extent I still do because, you know, no matter
what grade I got, you know, they, they love me right there.
They're very, they're very open, right?
And and, you know, they they were, they were leaning enough
to allow me to discover my own path and things like that.
So I'm happy about that. But that also reflects You know,
in my family. Anyway, I'm not speaking for
every black family or every black person or anything like
that reading wasn't as emphasized, you know, perhaps as
it was in other. In other households, I think
that didn't stop me. I mean, I love reading anyway,
you know, so I did it, but I didn't do it because my parents
were pushing and I did because I wanted to read, right?
So I mean, I guess that is kind of a thing, you know, from what
I'm seeing with surveys and things like that.
Anyway, I'm not a social scientist.
I don't have the stats in front of me or anything like that from
but from what I see, right? That seems to be the trend, you
know, and I think that may be a cultural thing.
So I want to give you what could be a an alternative thesis that
someone might say. When trying to critique social
justice activism walk me through, I want to start really
Elementary. How would you respond to the The
idea that men are 50% of the population yet 95% of those in
prison. Therefore Society is sexist
against men. What would I be missing if I
held that worldview? Wow.
Well, the different social dynamics of men and women, how
men and women are socialized differently.
To be a man is to be a little more aggressive, right?
So that aggressiveness can go overboard especially when you're
trying to prove your manhood, right?
And, you know, it's like a, you know, self-fulfilling prophecy,
I guess, you know, if we're not Really prophecy.
That's not what I want to say. But you know, it leads to more
incidents where you need to be aggressive, right?
So to the point where you don't even question anymore, to be a
guy is to be aggressive. So hey, I need money.
You know what? I'm going to go take it.
You know, I can do that. I'm a dude, I'm supposed to and
that's very simplistic, but I think it's something along those
lines. People are socialized
differently. The biological differences.
I can't really speak to. I mean, I have my Pumpkins and
things like that. Given the neurochemical
differences, you know, between men and women, but I am not a
scientist by any means. So I'm not going to talk about
that but I can't talk about how men and women, boys and girls
are socialized differently and how that may come into play as
well. So you talk about Mono, causal
explanations of racial gaps, don't hold up to scrutiny and we
should disabuse ourselves of the mistaken notion that they do.
So, Indian Americans and white Americans have very different
incomes on the Indian Americans are like almost 45% higher what
are possible, different possible, explanations than
America's racist against white sand pro-indian.
I don't know, maybe well II, Don't really know the answer
that question II do know that even West African and Jamaican
immigrants are doing quite well, right?
So what excuse does, you know, the African-American have,
right? Doesn't that prove that racism
isn't a thing. I think those cultures are
coming with their own values, attitudes, and beliefs, and
those values attitudes, and beliefs affect how well they do
in education and then in their professional lives.
And it's more conducive to that kind of success.
Perhaps, you know now Because of the West African in Jamaican,
Right? Caribbean success in America, a
lot of African-Americans have resorted to calling themselves a
dose African descendants of slaves, you know?
And that's a different Dynamic. So we have a different history
in our history has stifled us, you know, but you are history
hasn't that's also not true West Africa was by no means a Haven.
You know during the colonial period as it Caribbean the same
way, there is Everything in the Caribbean, right?
So that's not an excuse either. I think what the excuse is is
well as a outlook on life, right?
That says, okay, if I work hard, if I do this that and the other
thing I will succeed, as opposed to, if I work hard, I won't
succeed because the world is against me, right?
If I can simplify the differences as much as possible.
That's it, you know just a a Positive outlook versus a not so
positive outlook. It may just be that simple.
I think that's really important because if my worldview is well
Congress needs to get their act together or else I'm screwed.
Well, yeah, Congress does need to get their act together.
But also if I just sit back and take that, I'm not working to
increase the amount of skills and on-the-job experience that I
have to increase my knowledge to increase my Capital to give
myself a brighter future. So, if all I'm doing is sitting
back and saying, well, Unfortunately, you know, Richard
Spencer still isn't banned on Twitter.
So I mean there's not really any progress we can make that is
it's so vitally important that that narrative I think stop
being promoted, you have anything else on that before we
go to the next issue? No I think.
Yeah I asked a social justice activist.
I said look I'm having this guy from free black thought on.
Send me a video that I should watch to really get an idea or a
small Action into your social justice worldview.
So they sent me this one minute, 25 second video.
Let's watch it. I'd like you to comment, please.
Okay, there's a question. I often ask when I'm in front of
a mixed-race group and I asked the black people in the room, a
kind of rhetorical question. How often have you attempted to
give a white person feedback on their inevitable and often
unaware racist assumptions or behaviors and have that go?
Well for you Never number two response rarely and I'll never
forget asking a group. Okay.
So what if you could just give us feedback on our inevitable
and often unaware racist assumptions and behaviors.
And I'll never forget this black men raising his hand and saying
it would be revolutionary. And, you know, just like this,
take that. And I just want all the white
people to just take that in Revolutionary that we would
receive the feedback with Grace, reflect, and seek to change our
Behavior. That's how difficult we are.
That's how big a a-holes we are. Yeah.
But on the other hand, you know, that's not a very tall order,
really? That?
That's a revolution. But we can't get there from the
current Paradigm that says, only Only mean people who want to
hurt others based on race ever could do so.
So we just have to change what we understand.
It means to perpetrate racism. Anything you want on that clip?
Where do we start? Where do we start?
Well, I mean it's true that, you know, people don't like talking
about race, you know, the whole when I heard of Robyn D'Angelo
originally and the term, right? White fragility.
I thought I knew what she was talking about.
There are people who you know why people who are, you know,
they don't want to touch that. Yeah, they're going to back away
from that and they don't want to deal with it, you know?
And when you point out something that's They did, that may have
been unsavory or well, you know, racist to a degree.
They can't deal with that either.
There are people out there like that, what the issue I have with
the Angelo is the issue I had with her Embrace of critical
social justice, which basically says that would literally says,
the question isn't did racism occur is how did it occur in
that situation? And if anything that makes white
people, comfortable is suspect and lines like that.
Make it so that something is always already racist, right?
So it's one thing to talk to somebody and have them react in
a certain way and say, okay that's what you're doing, you're
doing that. It's another thing to say white
people do that right? You know it's essentialism
right? It's just - essentialism.
So that's the issue I have with that mostly II.
Get what she's saying to a degree but then when you read
the rest of her stuff and put it in context, it's not so great.
So when it comes to the difficulties discussing race, I
think, Eric the Attorney, General, The Fast and Furious
guy classically said, well whites are frankly cowards, when
it comes to race, is there anything that we're not getting
that's going on behind closed? Doors that what we're just not
aware of that. We've actively not been willing
to discuss. Is there anything that you guys
want to say? I don't know how else to say
that. But well, I mean it's there's an
inherent essentialism in that in that question.
Exactly. Yeah we're not the Borg is what
I want. You know, we do, I don't know
what, you know, other people are thinking because they share my
skin tone, but when that person said that, you know why people
are basically cowards When it comes to race, I mean, sometimes
that's true, but other times they're just like, I don't, you
know, I'm going to say the wrong thing, you know, I'm definitely
going to say the wrong thing and it's not going to be taken.
Well, well, it might be taken. Well, there might be somebody
who has a once I have a good faith conversation about things.
When you do say something, quote unquote wrong, there are other
people out there who, you know, believe basically that words are
violence, intentions, don't matter, and therefore,
everything is potentially wrong. Those people are out there,
right? And they're, they seem to be
gaining more ground with every passing day.
So I there's a difference between cow It is an
apprehension, you know, there's a difference between, you know,
being afraid of doing something and being cautious, you know.
So I think we need to make those distinctions but yeah, sure.
There are people who are, you know, cowards when it comes to
this subject. Sure.
But there are other people who want to do something but just
don't know how And I didn't mean to be an essentialist and the
question, if you didn't have a website called free black
thought it never would have crossed my mind, ask you that?
Yeah. Eric Holder is the attorney
general's name. Got got caught sending guns to
of the Mexican drug cartel in operation, Fast and Furious.
Nice guy. Okay, one more thing.
On two more things on this issue.
What is your thesis in the book? A critique of anti racism in
rhetoric and composition. My thesis is that, and this is
before, I really dug into critical social justice and
critical race Theory and things like that.
I was aware of critical race Theory, but I didn't want to
touch that explicitly because I thought, you know, I could do
this in a broader way, right? And my thesis was basically that
The anti-racist in my field. Anyway, are 22 dedicated to
what's called prefigurative politics.
Prefigured of politics is when you try to create the world, you
want to see and you kind of live that.
Well, Occupy Wall Street was prefigurative politics that the
camp, they weren't just camping out.
They were they were having meetings, they free libraries
and things like that. This, that was the world.
They wanted to see. Well, it's possible to get so
into that world that you create a bubble, right?
And you're not concerned with the outside world, any Or, or
you don't see the outside world. The whole reality is your little
bubble of critical social justice, right?
And you're not, you're not seeing anything else and you
want to stay there. And if you do acknowledge the
outside world, you know, you're trying to push that what's
inside that bubble onto it, to, to cursive lie, right?
So, so that's my, my, my biggest complaint.
My, the biggest part of my thesis is that people are Are
playing make-believe when they should be addressing reality.
And if they address reality, they'll see, you know, that not
everything is about race, they'll see that somebody asking
a question just because they're white, you know, it doesn't mean
that's a personal attack on you. It's a question right there.
It's not inherently racist to teach students of color Standard
English, right? And the reason why they think it
is, Because in their bubble, there bubble isn't American
society, right? American society is a place
where Standard English can come in handy, right?
It's not a sign that you've been oppressed is a sign that you
have a pragmatic. Sensibility.
And this dialect may come in handy one day.
There is a professor in my field who went as far as to say you
know black students who Want to learn Standard English and don't
want to just speak in black, English are being selfish and
immature because what they're doing is learning the skill that
would help them succeed in this world, he doesn't like, right,
the people inside the bubble, don't like that world.
So if you leave the bubble you're successful, you're
maintaining the status quo, that's a bad thing, you know.
So so that's basically the gist of the book.
One of the recent presidential candidates that had a lot of
sympathy on both sides of the aisle was Marianne Williamson.
I'm only going to play a small portion of this video, but talk
to me about the mindset and the mentality of someone who would
do something like this and what you would want to say to Miss
Williamson on behalf of myself and on behalf of my country, To
you and all African-Americans. From the beginning of our
nation's history. In honor of your ancestors and
on behalf of your children. Please hear this from my heart.
Okay. She goes on to ask all the
whites in the audience to say a prayer apologizing to all the
blacks and the audience. What would you say if anything
to such a mindset? Okay, I need to ask some
questions here. So she was she was a telling the
white people to repeat after her to black people.
Yes. And in the video, you can see
they are asked to put their hands on the blacks in the
audience. I would hightail it out of
there. Yeah.
Yes. I would hightail it the F out of
there. You know.
I'm not going to be part of your cult here.
Okay. I'm not going to, I'm not going
to be the Catalyst for one of your rituals or anything like
that. What's more like I don't need
your apology. You know what I need is for you
to get out of my way, right? The the the issue in the 60s,
with the Civil Rights Movement wasn't, you know, that classical
Rule values. You know, we're bad is that we
weren't allowed to participate in those, right?
So we weren't the Country Wasn't living up to those values.
That was the problem not the values.
Yeah, you know. So as long as we're allowed, as
long as that door to classical liberal values is enclosed, I'm
good, just get, don't don't apologize.
To me, just don't be racist and get out of my way, right?
Let me have life, liberty, and the pursuit.
You to happiness like everybody else?
That's what I want. I don't need a mass apology,
right? That's weird.
I don't even it's so difficult for me to talk to the mindset of
someone who judges people explicitly, by the color of
their skin. I mean, a lot of us sort of walk
around on people like me on the right.
I'm always a little on eggshells.
I care so much about the economic freedom aspect that I
don't want to be called. Sexist xenophobic a racist.
So but then people, Like this explicitly judge all people
based on the color of their skin.
Why do you think it is that the self-described anti-racists are
so explicitly racist Well, that's a, that's a big one, man.
A lot of people, you know, and I'm speaking from experience and
things like that they are fine with black people.
As long as those black people are, you know, you know, beneath
them and in some way, you know, so okay you're black, you have
all these, you know, negative aspects, no fault of yours but
you have them and you need me to kind of save.
Or things like that. We're the essentialism is
parent-child, right? You know, so there's that aspect
to it, you know, and II know people like that and I know
people who have had a problem with me being you know, their
intellectual equal or more so right.
And I guarantee you my know for a fact, some but I guarantee
you, many of them probably have black lives matter science in
there long. Right so and are uncomfortable
with you know black people who are on par with them.
So there is that secondly you know some people are just they
just drank the Kool-Aid, you know, they've been told by, you
know, mainstream media, you know it's through images, through
talk, all kinds of things. What it means to be a black
person, what a black person looks like an axe like and
sounds like and things like that.
So they're just they've been Shin, the two essential eyes,
you know. And and that's there to, you
know, the fact that, you know, 80% of black Americans are lower
middle class or higher, right? That you wouldn't think that
because we're defined as that 20%, you know that that that
isn't there, right? The 20% that struggling.
We're all that now, right? So, It's very frustrating that
that happens. But a lot of people are that
they're either uncomfortable with, you know, black equality,
right? Or they just don't know any
better. What do you think is the most
important contribution of the work of Glenn Lowry?
The most important contribution. Yeah there are a lot more give
us a few. Well he's honest he's a black
man who is honest about what's going on, right?
There's a narrative that he refuses to follow, he's going to
follow this stats, he's going to follow the science, right?
He's going to follow her research and that's that.
He's a fair-minded critical thinker, right?
And that it doesn't, if the stats say something that he
doesn't like too bad, Right. You know the if the stats say
something that is - that is sad and depressing about black
people too bad, you know, you have to be reality-based, you
have to look at, you can't change reality if you refuse to
acknowledge reality, right? So he acknowledges reality and
he says what needs to be said. And he's not afraid to say it
and his contribution is not just that but modeling what it looks
like to not be afraid to say that, you know, to to be called
all kinds of names. White people and black people
and to keep going. So those are his contributions.
I once spoke to a gentleman who I went to Hebrew school with and
I asked him, you know, we were always told to watch out for all
this anti-Semitism in this terrible country called America
and were in our mid-20s now. And we don't have a single
significant anti-semitic incident that we can actually
report not that it doesn't exist.
But we're we were told it's everywhere and we haven't
experienced it and he goes. Yeah, Zionism thrives off of
Jewish and security. So in other words, he's saying,
That there are leaders within this movement that benefit at
the expense of the group, they claim to represent by keeping
them insecure and that is the actual goal.
Candace, Owens says she sees this with BLM, a lot of other
organizations do this, is this something you see that is one of
the biggest issues that there's actually an economic incentive
to increase the amount of insecurity.
Oh, definitely, I mean, this is an industry now.
Yeah, I it's an inn. Mystery and, you know, if you
make your money on black and security, you need to maintain
black and security candy once a department like right branch of
government, you know, based on anti-racism that strongly
implies that he was, you know, that that's not a ad hoc thing,
right? That's a kind of a permanent
thing. So he basically, you know, he
seems to be saying that Racers and will never go away.
He doesn't want it to go away, or whatever you have places,
like, you pin them up. If I'm not mistaken, giving mbas
in diversity, equity and inclusion, right?
And anti-racism and things like that.
Now, in order for that degree to make sense to be lucrative, you
got to have racism, you know, or discrimination, you know.
So if that goes away, that person is have a job. so, I mean
it's that's a But we have all kinds of different takes on that
woke ink. I think it's one, this, the
anti-racism as an industry. I'm trying to think of all the
terms. I've heard to describe this, but
I guess the point is, there are various turns because, you know,
people are starting to open their eyes.
To this right there is money to be made.
I know people the last thing they want is for races to go
away. All right?
That's their bread and butter. They're people my field like
that. The last thing they It's racism
to go away and when they feel like there hasn't been a racist
incident, they're going to pretend there was one.
I've seen this with my own eyes. Yeah.
So so yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't I was talking about
originally but there is a lot of material on free black
thought.com. If someone wants to start, they
want to get an introduction to what happens here, where, where
can they go? Is there something specific you
recommend reading? I would not specific but I I
would go to the journal. I will go to the journal.
Look at all the, the titles, the topics, right?
Take a look at those to really see what we're about the
compendium. There it is.
Yes, the journal. And this is that article right
there. How would black America fair if
Progressive got their way? That's, hey, read that man.
Rehab that is next on my list. All right.
Final bonus question. What is your favorite sentence
in the voluntarist handbook? My favorites.
It's is in the volunteers handbook is in the introduction.
And it says, should I achieve my ends in life violently with
threats or voluntarily with persuasion?
So, I like that question. Because, well, it implies how
important rhetoric is Right rhetoric and the ability to use
your words, staves off physical violence, right?
Darrell Davis said it the best if we're talking, we're not
fighting, right? So if I can My words to deal
with the situation instead of physical coercion or something
like that. Then we're you know we're moving
in the right direction. The website is free black
thought.com. I'll have links to that along
with the journal in the description below.
Thanks to everyone for watching Keith and I don't tread on
anyone in the libertarian Institute, dr.
Smith thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.