What Makes College A Scam? My Debate at Cal State Fullerton
What is education for? What makes a person educated? What did Aristotle and Plato want out of education? Charlie may not have a college degree, but he's more than happy to go on any college campus to let students challenge him on any topic they want. Enjoy two of Charlie's most in-depth debates with two women during a "Change My Mind" table at Cal State Fullerton. Become a member at members.charliekirk.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Campus Conversations on Character00:14:53
Hey everybody, today Charlie Kirk Show.
You know, I always tell you I'm going to be on campus on campus.
Why don't you hear about these campus interactions for yourself?
These are two conversations I had at University of California at Fullerton with two young ladies.
They're not edited.
They're unscripted and rather important and fun.
This is the type of dialogue that we need.
These conversations have been seen by, no exaggeration, tens of millions of people.
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I was hoping we could talk a little bit more about how you see college as a scam.
Okay.
I think we did that, but sure.
If you want to talk about something else, we can talk about something else.
I was just curious.
Okay.
What would you like to pinpoint on that?
Yeah, well, I think a big part of your issue was that people are spending a lot of money and that you feel like they're not getting the equivalent of all the money that they go into debt or that they have to borrow to make it worth it.
Well, in that case, I really, I think education is really awesome.
I think it's really valuable.
I think education's the only way that someone like you is able to write a book is because someone taught you how to read and write.
And education on all levels is great.
So that's not my that one.
I don't think that's your issue with college, right?
Do you know where I went to college?
I don't think that's important right now.
Let me just.
I didn't.
I'm just talking about, I said read and write, like who taught you to read and write?
No, I agree.
I didn't say grade school is a scam.
Can we just keep going?
All right.
I said college is a scam, not grade school.
Keep going.
So we're talking about the financial part, right?
So do you think that college should be free then so that everybody can get like a free education?
No.
And by the way, what's happening in college is not an education.
Well, okay.
I'm just, you don't think that college should be free because it's not an education?
If it was education, if it was an education in your eyes, would you think that should be free?
What do you mean by free?
You mean paid by somebody else?
Oh, sure.
Our taxpayer dollars would go to school.
Oh, okay.
So, so, so, yeah.
So, so, paid by somebody else.
Sure.
Sure.
No, I don't believe that your schooling should be paid by somebody else.
I want my taxes to go to schooling for everybody.
I think education is great.
I don't want my taxes to go to fund wars.
I don't want my taxes to go to the military or the police budget, but I don't get to.
You don't want any military?
I don't think that it should go to fund the military like that.
I want my taxes.
You don't want any police force?
I want my taxes to go towards education because I think education is valuable.
Do you think that education should be define education?
I'm curious.
Sure.
It's just the I would probably say that education right now is the ability to go out and learn different mindsets, to be introduced to different subjects, to have the opportunities to talk about these things with a lot of different kinds of people.
I think that's the really cool part about college.
Someone like you can come here and have different opinions.
My history teacher just talked about how he's like, he does this whole like, I'm a conservative old school conservative act.
And then one of my other teachers, she's like, I'm a bleeding hippie, you know?
There's like a lot of opportunities to just be introduced to subjects you didn't even know were a thing.
Like I didn't know that semiotics was a thing until my last philosophy class.
And I think that's really interesting.
So just the idea that you get to go out to this place and you get to get taught about a bunch of different ideas.
Do you are you against that being available for everyone?
Oh, I have a completely different view of what education is.
So education in Latin means to lead forth.
Okay.
Your idea of education is the new age, which is we're going to have like a buffet line of postmodern ideas and all ideas are treated the same.
I don't believe that at all.
College means partnership in Greek.
And going back to education, you must lead forth towards something.
And I think college should lead you towards the good, the true, and the beautiful.
It should lead you towards things.
You think it should lead towards beautiful things?
Of course.
Like beautiful things?
Like you think that we should go out after college and be like, where's the prettiest thing?
If your idea of beauty is just the aesthetic, then you're not having a great college experience.
What's your idea of beauty?
My bad.
Which is perfected in being.
Okay, so you really like the Greek ideas and like the Roman ideas of like the idea of perfection and perfect harmony because that's like a very Greek and Roman way of.
Well, it's Western, which is the civilization we currently live in.
Okay, but that's the first from Greek and Roman.
Of course, you're right.
So the good, the true, and the beautiful are the three things that every college student should grapple with.
Do you think in this current university, that is what you're currently grappling with?
That the focus of your education is enriching yourself to get closer to what is good, what is true, and beautiful.
See, I don't engage with you on the ideas that good, true, and beautiful are something that can be defined and something that can be taught.
You're perfect evidence of why I think college is a scam.
Why do you wait?
I don't.
Because of course they could be defined and they should be sought after.
Okay, so you think that something like the beautiful, the perfect, like something like goodness can be defined in quantifiable, teachable.
Oh, because you're Christian.
I forgot.
You guys think that there's like a binary to goodness.
There's a hierarchy, not a binary.
There's an ultimate perfection.
The ultimate perfection would be that there's a creator who loves you, who made you in his image and loved you so much to come down and take the broken flesh form, live a perfect life, die and rise from the dead that you might live forever.
There is nothing more perfect, good, true, or beautiful than that.
Okay, so I don't really engage with religion like that.
But what about just the idea that you get to go to a place, you get taught about different subjects, you get the opportunity.
Okay, I'm sorry, because you don't have access to all these things wherever you come from.
You get the opportunity to talk to people who know a lot about these different subjects and get to learn about that.
You don't think that that should be free or like provide?
First of all, I don't think it should be free.
And I don't think that's what education should be or what it once was when it was at its best.
When do you think it was at its best?
Because we have like the Indian golden house of, oh no, I think this was called the Baghdad Golden House of Wisdom.
We have the Greek and Roman and they had their whole thing about how you have to learn astrology at the same time as learning your education.
We have like so many different points of learning and knowledge.
I think people just love to learn.
I think learning is inherent to what we want to do with our lives.
So two thoughts.
That is the first line of Aristotle's metaphysics, which is all people seek to know that something within us wants to learn.
So to answer your question, when was education at its best?
No, that was your, you were the one who's like, education is not at their best here.
You're like, this is your new age bull.
It is.
When was it good?
I was about to say that and you interrupted me again, okay?
My bad.
I'm sorry.
So it was at its best when we had a thing called classical education here in America, specifically around the American founding.
Classical education has a prioritization on Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and the core canon of Greek thinking, which is that there is an abstract, distant good, the logos, which created the world, right?
I want to try to find out more about what that is.
So you think that education should revolve around ethics then?
You think it should be?
Well, it's a big part of education.
Yes.
I think that creating good people should be the number one priority of education.
Do you guys think that creating good people is a priority at Cal State Fullerton?
I don't think that that is really a thing that you can achieve like with a pointed, I don't think there's a way to really teach somebody being like being a good person is so hard and it involves so many different like factors.
I could prove to you we're getting a little bit too general with things, because the Greeks and the Romans weren't really like they were.
They had a lot of beliefs.
Okay, Plato and Aristotle were not like let's do the most good.
They were not all in agreement about all these different things.
They had a lot of beliefs.
They had a teacher student relationship.
But let me ask you a question if, do you think people would commit more crimes or less crimes if they knew that a police officer was watching them at all times?
I don't think this is what we're talking about.
No no, it's no.
You asked.
You said you cannot teach people good.
I'm asking a question, if somebody thought that somebody was watching their actions, would they behave differently?
I think that people behave differently when.
Therefore, if society thought that there was a God that was watching all of their actions, would they behave differently?
Do you feel like you behave better when someone is watching?
Absolutely, and in fact, I so you feel like you can't be good without someone there to absorb.
It's not a matter of you can't be good.
Is that you act better if you think that there is somebody watching and judging your actions?
That this is really unfortunate for you because I want to do good, because I think it's better for the people around me, not because someone's watching me, like the ideas of the panopticon.
Well, hold on a second.
But if you believe that somebody is always watching your behavior, you'd be less likely to lie, less likely to steal, less likely to cheat, and this is a good question, because you're coming after this in good faith.
Do you think human beings are generally naturally good or generally not so good?
Are we?
Are we, are we flawed from our birth, or are we good, or are we a blank slave?
See, you're bringing up these Christian ideas of good again.
I don't think we really come to the same synthesis on what a good person is.
I feel like, was Hitler good?
Um, I feel like again, you're not listening to me.
I feel like we don't come to the same synthesis about what I think we will though, is because, for me, I think that something like good is again the question of ethics.
It's not really a question of education, right?
So you have to decide.
What people decide for themselves is good is different, right?
So Hitler thought what he was doing was good for his people.
We do not see his actions as good because he was pretty awful to a lot of people.
But when we turn things into an ethical question, he may see it as doing good for himself and God because yes, a lot of people believe they're doing good for God, even if that thing is killing people.
Was Hitler doing something objectively wrong?
Which thing are you talking about?
You're talking about concentration camps.
I don't like the concentration camps, believe it or not.
But hold on, you don't like so.
Was that objectively bad?
Objectively bad?
I do think that hurting people is objectively okay.
So now we're believing in bad.
So then good, there's a spectrum.
Now you said objectively bad.
So you now just said there's a spectrum, it's not a matter of well, somebody wanted to do some good for yourself.
No no no, no.
Now there's a spectrum.
Concentration camp bad.
So then let's like, get away from that.
How about Mother Teresa?
Good, are you talking about her actions and trying to help the poor, hundreds of thousands of poor people that were saved in India and Calcutta thanks to her sacrificial work over 30 years?
I don't know Mother Teresa like that, but can we go back to what I just said, for I feel like we've gotten really off track.
No way for one actually.
Again Dude, you're interrupting me again.
It is kind of our table.
So, oh, so you can interrupt me, but I can't interrupt you.
The fact you can't answer this question shows that college is a scam.
Because if you can't say that Mother Teresa Good and his Mother Teresa denied anesthetics to people who are in serious pain because she thought the suffering would bring them closer to God, I think a lot of what she did could be considered.
Whatever.
We can't just reference random things and use that.
Because right now we're talking about ideologies.
Again, I find that what I consider to be good revolves more around the fact that humans are social creatures and generally pro-social attitudes of promoting collectivism tends to be it tends to be better for people just because that's in our evolutionary nature.
But you are a Christian.
So you believe that there's a guy watching you and that's what makes you do good.
You're like, if someone's watching me, I am more likely to be nice.
But I want to be nice because I like I was asking the question that for would you be more or less likely to shoplift if a police officer was next to you in a department store?
It's a very simple ethical question.
But how does that make me good or not?
That just makes me worried about consequences.
No, it makes me worried about consequences, you little faced man.
If you do not have consequences, but consequences does not determine ethics.
The mark of an intellectual fool is throwing around pejoratives when they don't have wisdom.
Remember that.
So let's the question is this.
If you do not believe there's a consequence to your action, why wouldn't you do the action?
See, that's again the ideology of consequentialism.
I don't really subscribe to that.
There should be consequences.
No, but I think that consequences, your actions can exist outside of a vacuum of consequences, right?
We can't make our decisions based on whether or not we think the actions will lead to a certain outcome because those will always be random, right?
So I revolve more around we try to do things that we think will promote general pro-social attitudes.
I think that that is more likely to get us other than worrying about.
Let me ask you a hypothetical.
I think this will tell me a lot.
Is pedophilia wrong?
Pedophilia I consider to be wrong because it is actively damaging someone else, right?
But what if they say they're a minor attracted person and it's pro-social to be with a young person?
Why are they?
Do you know what pro-social means?
Like pro-social means there's like pro-social and antisocial behaviors.
It's like a theory of social psychology.
Pro-social generally means like working together, socialization.
No, they're socializing with an eight-year-old.
Why is that wrong?
Okay, that's not socializing and you know it.
Antisocial behavior usually means doing things that are considered rejecting socialization, like rejecting other people, pushing things away, promoting things that other people actively end up considering less.
So then should pedophiles go to prison?
Pedophiles go to, I do not know what's the best way to handle pedophilia because, no, because how do we know?
I don't think that anyone should molest a child.
Feminism and Male Power Dynamics00:07:46
God forbid.
I really don't.
Why shouldn't a pedophile go to prison?
What?
That's again, we're getting really off topic.
Let's go back to the ideas of good and evil and consequentialism.
College is a scam, and you're a perfect example, like one of the best I've ever seen to show the intellectual drivel that is caught on a college campus.
Because you think that I'm not being taught about the good, the pure.
Let's go back to that because I thought that was really interesting.
Yeah, the good, the true.
We'll do a couple more minutes.
The good, the true, and the beautiful, yes.
Right.
So you think that that's something that can be quantified, can be taught, and that it should experience wait.
And not only that, that it should be taught, that we should promote the ideas of good and beauty to other people.
Okay, but let's remove it from that.
What about just the idea of, because remember the ancient Greeks and Romans that you love so much, they didn't have the same ideas of God in the same way that we do, but they still, thank you for saying I'm correct.
That was really nice of you.
It's true.
So when they wanted to learn, when they sought out learning, when they have schools of learning and all that kind of stuff, a lot of the times they didn't just teach things around ethics.
They taught other stuff.
They taught astrology.
They taught medicine.
They taught science.
They taught arts.
And people wanted to learn that.
Do you think that that ability, that experience of going into a place and saying, can you teach me more about this subject?
Can I learn?
Can I expand my worldview?
Can I get open to different beliefs?
Do you think that that should not be paid for or not be compensated?
First of all, it should definitely not be paid for.
Secondly, it depends if those disciplines are rooted in the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty.
So you think only if they're tied into something that falls in your ideological worldview.
Can I finish?
Okay.
If those disciplines are finished, are rooted in the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Absolutely.
Let me give you a hypothetical example.
Okay.
So if you go, I don't know if this school has one, but if they have some sort of center for like feminist ideology or some sort of inter, do they have one here?
Then that is not in the pursuit of what is good, true, and beautiful.
That is in the pursuit of how I can complain and hate men and get a degree and be paid for that.
I'm a feminist and I don't hate men.
Wait, hey, let me finish.
Then tell me what a woman is.
But I'm just saying.
Again, we're not talking about that.
What is a woman telling me?
Do you think that people should not have the ability to read the works of feminist writers?
Of course, you should have the ability.
Should it be elevated and taught in an interdisciplinary way and treated as if that's higher education is a different question.
When people, what is a woman?
Really quick, just tell me.
Women have written a lot throughout centuries about feminist writers.
Do you think that people should not be allowed to study all of these?
Do you think it not?
Of course, allowed and elevated are two different things.
Sure, but no one's forcing anyone here to take feminist studies.
Has anyone here been forced to take a class full of drivel?
Of course.
It's part of the core of any school.
People, that's called general education, and we do that so that people get a lot of opportunities to get exposed to different mindsets.
Last question.
You know, I take a feminist class and no one there is forcing me to believe in what they're saying.
It's just letting, exposing me to these writings, to these ideas.
That's what college is about, exposing yourself to different ideas.
We have clarity, but not agreement.
Last question.
You are a self-described feminist.
What is a woman?
Why do you want to know?
I'm infinitely curious.
What's a man?
You're looking at one.
So you would describe a man as having short hair, wearing a little popped collar.
Sly chromosomes.
Okay.
And why do you think that that's important to you, what a man and a woman is?
How does that define your worldview going forward?
Do you treat men and women differently?
Of course we should treat men and women differently.
Of course.
In what way?
We should honor and protect women.
I want to honor and protect you, man.
Okay.
Great.
Do we not like that?
Do you not want to be honored with that?
Women are worthy of protection.
I think you're also worthy of protection.
Don't talk down to yourself like that.
Please.
Can you tell me what a woman is since you're a feminist?
I want you to ask yourself, why do you think that it's so important to you that we define man and woman?
Like, how does that change the way that you're saying?
Because civilization cannot answer the question of what is male and female, that civilization will cease to exist.
Is that why the Roman Empire failed?
Because all of a sudden Aristotle is not.
It's one of the reasons why this civilization is collapsing.
Because we send kids to go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt that can't answer the most simple biological question.
I'll ask you one last time.
What is a woman?
I know you're not asking this for actual, you're trying to get a gotcha, right?
You're trying to get like a little baity question, but I really want to know why is it so important to you to define things in certain categories?
Why does how does that help your day-to-day life?
Like what other categories in the human species are there besides male and female?
Well, I just think that categorization is usually unhelpful when we're trying to improve society, right?
We want to make things better for people.
We want to improve things.
I have XY chromosomes.
Okay.
Can I give birth?
No, you can't.
Bingo.
That's why categorization matters.
Do men menstruate?
What?
Do men menstruate.
Do they menstruate?
Menstruate?
Okay, because you're saying menstruate.
And it's like kind of a little...
But again, you're saying these things because you're trying to get a gotcha.
And I don't want to engage with you.
Why is it?
No, no, no.
I'm serious.
You ask the question.
And you keep asking me another question.
There are big differences between men and women.
Here's a question, man.
Men and women are not the same.
And if you can't tell me what a woman is, and also you're a feminist.
Shouldn't you be able to tell me what a woman is?
I'm a feminist.
Isn't that probably important to feminism?
What is the woman that you're trying to advance and protect?
Isn't that integral to the whole feminist project?
So a lot of times feminism has to do with the ways that people have treated the female sex on a different way than the male sex has traditionally.
It's all about analyzing that and exposing it.
You say that men and women are different, and you think that's a good question.
Wait, I'm just asking you.
I'm not done yet.
So, and you think they should be treated differently, right?
Well, it depends in what context, though.
Should it be treated differently politically?
No.
Should we be treated differently under the law?
No.
Should we be treated differently into societal customs and norms?
Yes.
Why?
We should open doors for women, for example.
Okay, but where do we see these charitable tools?
Where we come from?
We should protect women if they're under duress.
I think that we should protect everybody.
We as men have duress.
We as men have a moral right to stand up for the women in our life, against predators, against rapists, against people that wish them harm.
We're not for everybody in our life.
Of course we do.
Why do you see yourself as a man who has to protect and take care of other people?
You're placing yourself on a higher ideological standpoint where you gain more power by having someone that you can protect.
I find that system and hierarchy of power to be just exhausting to traverse the world through, just looking at people as people to protect and people to take care of instead of us working together, right?
And trying to improve feminism.
Do you think there are any differences between a male and female?
Are we talking about just the sex right now?
Of course.
There's tons of differences just between the male and the female sex.
But what's important is how we treat people because of that.
So therefore they have different contributions to give to society?
I think that everybody has different contributions, man.
Just because I'm not popping out kids 24-7 doesn't mean I can't be helpful.
I'm not saying that that's not the case.
However, if you can't tell me again what a woman is, and you're not able to answer the question because that is the cheat code against postmodernism.
Nuanced History of Slavery00:06:18
No, because I don't think you even know what postmodernism is.
Well, you want to talk about Herbert Marcuse or Jacques Derrida or Michelle Foucault, one-dimensional man?
Okay, we can get into all of those.
So Donald Trump.
You're trying to tell me I don't know postmodernism because I have read the pantheon of the garbage that you believe postmodernism.
But let me complete with this.
Postmodernism.
I don't want to expose myself.
I actually know what the literature says and what it means and what it espouses.
But this is why it's the great cheat code because it is the war.
I don't know what a woman is.
It's the only way that you can get a gotcha over everybody else.
Great conversation.
You'll see it online next week.
I hope you enjoy it.
Thank you.
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Hi.
Just get as close as you can.
Closest like this?
Yeah.
Great.
Hi, Mr. Kirk.
How are you?
If I'm not wrong, you helped co-author the 1776 report.
I'm sorry, just got it closer.
Yeah.
You helped co-author the 1776 report.
That's correct.
Yeah.
Great.
Do you still agree with all of the sort of narratives in that?
Yeah.
She's trying her best.
I was part of a 1776 commission, and she's asking me, do I still agree with the essence of the publication?
The answer is yes, of course.
I can't memorize every detail.
So you could grill me on it.
But yes, I thought it was a terrific, terrific document.
And was it up to your personal standards?
I heard it got a lot of criticism for not having proper citations, a lot of it being sort of plagiarized from other works of the authors.
How do you respond to that?
So I didn't write it.
I just happened to be on the committee.
I'd have to lean on Victor Davis Hansen and Dr. Larry Arn and the other PhDs that primarily pushed forward the public.
Okay, so having a college degree does make you qualified to be on that commission more so than not having one.
I was on the commission without a college degree.
What makes you qualified?
I run the largest campus organization in the country and talk to millions of people every single day.
And that verifies your historical knowledge?
Well, it wasn't just about history.
So remember, it was a commission based on reforming education.
Education about history primarily, though.
Right, but about education reformation.
And having spoken on more college campuses than any living person in the last decade, I do think I had something to contribute to the committee about the ales of education.
More so than qualified educators?
Well, the question is, do they have the same depth and width of the understanding of the problem with American education?
So take a PhD.
How many campuses have they visited?
Likely two or three.
Okay, I visited over 140.
And educated?
Well, that depends what you mean by educated because a lot of kids can go to college.
They don't get educated.
But my role on that committee was to try to contribute what was wrong with American education and potentially some of the solutions that we put forward.
Again, we barely got out of the gate the first day of the Biden administration.
They got rid of our committee.
Yeah, which I agree with, frankly.
In terms of the content of the document, right?
It was a lot of sort of very, how do I put it?
Elementary understanding of American history.
Don't you think it should be a little more nuanced if it's being taught to our students?
Super nuanced.
Give me an example.
Yeah, so in the document, the natives aren't mentioned a single time, Native Americans, except for in the entirely quoted Declaration of Independence, where they're referred to as savages.
Additionally, slavery isn't really talked about unless it's not.
It's not true.
It is mentioned in it.
It is mentioned in the document.
That's not true.
Someone else should verify that in that case.
That's not my mention.
It's not extensively mentioned, but it is mentioned.
Don't you think that should be an extensive part of American history?
It's a part, but an over-fixation on the sins of the past is not helpful for anybody.
Okay, so that's kind of what I want to talk about, right?
An overfixation compared to a accurate restatement.
Those are very different things, yeah?
Okay, so let's make sure we're clear.
Nine out of 13 of the states that formed the union had already abolished slavery at the time of the Constitution, correct?
Sure.
Okay.
So it's not fair to say that slavery was fundamental to our founding.
In fact, the founding was the greatest anti-slavery moment in human history.
It started the chain of events that ended slavery in the industrialized world.
It's my understanding that we were one of the last nations to get rid of it, but I might be wrong.
Well, we started the process.
So as far as the entire country, you're correct.
But in 1777, Vermont abolished slavery, which is a year after the Declaration, and then started a chain of events of Northeastern states that continued.
There were four holdouts, right?
Mainly in the South, South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, and I believe parts of Virginia.
And until the advent of the cotton gym in 1820, slavery was basically on its way out, right?
However, it's important to ask the question, can you point to a single founding document, Federalist Papers, Declaration, Constitution, private journals of George Washington, Madison, Hamilton, John Jay, where they talk positively about slavery?
They don't talk positively about the practice, but it's, you know, I'm sure there's instances, I'm not necessarily quoting Madison off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's practices where they've talked positively about the institution or the necessity of preserving it for preserving the union.
And so I think discussing slavery.
The Construction of White Privilege00:09:15
That's different, though.
Hold on.
Preserving the union and then the actual immorality of the practice.
Those are, you would agree, two totally different things.
Of course, but shouldn't it be taught as an ethical dilemma in school?
Shouldn't we focus on how severe slavery was, some of the modern consequences?
I have no problem with that.
Yeah, of course.
I think you do, though, because you have a problem with CRT.
Okay, that's not what CRT.
So tell me what CRT is.
I believe CRT and the founder of CRT thinks it's the study.
Who is the founder of CRT?
I can't name her, but I know that she's quoted saying her ideology.
Kimberly Crenshaw, introduction.
Kimberly Crenshaw.
Yeah, Introduction of Critical Race Theory written in what year?
She's herself.
Okay, but hold on.
You can't come up here and start throwing around the stuff and not know the literature, okay?
I actually can't.
And who is her mentor and inspiration?
Why would I need to know?
Derek Bell, right?
Who in the early 1990s wrote the prerequisite to the modern CRT regime.
But please continue.
Okay.
CRT by its founder is designed as the study of past inequalities and their effect on modern institutions, specifically economics.
Do you agree with that definition?
No.
What's your definition?
Call everything racist till you control it.
Right, which is why you don't agree with it because you're wrong.
No, because I've actually read the literature.
So let me ask you a question.
So in the CRT literature, what do they think of white people or whiteness?
Who would you like me to quote?
Kimberly Crenshaw.
I haven't read Kimberly Crenshaw.
She says that whiteness is a cancer or a toxin on our society.
The concept of whiteness, the racial concept of whiteness.
Okay, so what is whiteness?
What is whiteness?
Yeah, define it.
As Kimberly Crenshaw would probably say, the sort of construction of privilege that comes with being white in this country.
Right.
So what privilege do you and I as white people have that black people don't have?
Yeah, great question.
On applications that are blindly judged, white-sounding names are often given the job more.
They're paying attention.
That's not true.
In fact, it's the opposite.
There's black privilege right now.
It's called affirmative action, where underqualified blacks are taking Asians and white people's places in universities across the country.
True or false?
Sure, true.
Okay, so yeah, there's black privilege, not white privilege.
I actually don't think affirmative action is how we address education inequality.
Okay, well, affirmative action is still largely supported by the CRT regime.
But let's get back to CRT, to the essence of it.
Sure.
CRT believes in one manifestation of its ideology is black-only dormitories.
So white people are not allowed.
Do you believe in black-only dormitories?
No, and I don't have to agree with every aspect of an ideology to argue for it.
So then what part of CRT do you like?
Because they call whiteness a toxin, black-only dormitories.
And if you want to talk about like ideological or intellectual sloppiness, the 1619 project.
I think it's very sloppy.
Okay, we agree.
Nicole Hannah.
I think it's overstated.
And I think some of you are being fair.
Okay, good.
The parts of CRT that I think are most relevant and, you know, very factually, you can, you know, what am I trying to say?
There's a lot of evidence for them is the fact that previous inequalities, such as the institution of slavery, such as our treatment of Native Americans, do in fact affect those populations today.
And you were saying before in inner cities, there's a lot more crime.
And a lot of that is because of redlining and other practices that come directly from the mistreatment of minorities previously in this country.
So I want to make sure I understand.
So black people make up 13% of the American population.
Oh, 1350, my favorite.
Yes, exactly.
Why do they commit 55% of all the murders?
Super great question.
It's basically a very complex intersection of race and economic status.
It's pretty well known that minority people tend to be in a lower economic status because of discrimination.
So then why don't poor Asians commit a lot of murders?
Also a great question.
Asian people weren't originally brought to America on purpose like black people, and they weren't already present here like natives.
Wait, so blacks murder because they were brought here 250 years ago?
I would like to finish.
Okay, just answer.
It's very simple.
Black.
I am answering.
No, I know, but you're not really.
I am.
Asian Americans predominantly immigrate here for work reasons.
They come from already wealthy countries.
They're already wealthy when they get here.
Crime is committed primarily.
First of all, that's not true.
Talk to anybody from Vietnam.
Who's that?
Vietnamese?
Anybody?
Did your family come here wealthy?
No.
Not wealthy, but not saying they come here.
The average Vietnamese does not come here wealthy.
I'm not.
Okay.
I perhaps misspoke.
Not wealthy, but a lot of the, you know, you complain about it all the time.
A lot of the immigration from countries that border us, right, it's sort of desperate people who are of a lower economic status, right?
And they're coming here for a better life.
So two things.
Number one, there's been more blacks that have legally immigrated to this country in the last 30 years than were ever brought as slaves.
That's number one.
Number two, you still haven't answered the question.
I'm trying to.
It's a complicated answer.
Black people are only 13% of the population, yet they commit 55% of the murders.
Why?
Because black people tend to be in lower economic statuses because of complex because of CRT.
This is great.
So you think that poverty equals crime?
I think that it's highly correlated and there's a lot of people.
This is where we disagree.
What an insult to the working poorest.
Why do you think black people commit more crime?
Well, first of all, so how, let me ask you, let me ask you a question as my answer.
What percentage of blacks have a father around when they're raised?
I'm not sure.
20%.
80% of blacks do not have a stable father around.
It is the most predictable way to end up in prison, end up as a murderer, or a criminal.
It's not a racism problem.
It's not a white supremacy problem.
It's a fact that black fathers impregnate women and they don't stay around with the women that they have impregnated.
Charlie Kirk, do you think that that happens more in the black community compared to others?
It's threefold.
Number one, we subsidize single motherhood.
Number two, it's culture.
It's accepted in the black community.
And it shouldn't be.
It's culture.
Okay, okay.
Don't take my word for it.
Read Thomas Soule's own book on how black culture allows single motherhood to continue into a nanny state type practice.
75% of black youth are raised out of father in the home.
75%.
Is that a bigger problem or not a bigger problem than whiteness, white privilege, or white supremacy?
They should all be addressed and they're all related.
Okay, how is a white person to blame for the fact that 75% of blacks Oh, individual white people aren't at all to blame.
We agree.
Yeah.
So, but wouldn't it be more like smarter to be like, hey, that this is not about systemic racism?
Like, stop impregnating your women and abandoning them?
Well, the way to incentivize not impregnating women and abandoning them is increasing access to healthcare, into housing, into everything that we know increases.
So we've got that.
So we have spent $30 trillion on the social welfare system since 1965.
Black people are poorer, and the single motherhood went from 25% to now 75 to 80%.
So the more money we've spent on Black America, the less fathers we have because black women divorced black men and married the government.
And do you think that's a problem inherent to black people?
No, it's not.
It's happening now in white communities and Hispanic communities.
It's just the worst in Black America.
And why do you think that is?
Why is it the worst in Black America?
There's also a cultural problem.
There is.
It's just that black people are.
No, no, no.
Let me ask you a question.
The average music that a black person in Compton is listening to, is it about contemplating the good, the true, and the beautiful?
Or is it about being a gangbanger and trying to get as much money and sleep with as many girls as you can?
I would actually like to think that's a, I would be offended by that.
Do you think the average black kid in Compton is listening to Beethoven or some sort of gangster rap music that glorifies gangster culture?
Silly question.
Rap wasn't created to glorify gangster culture.
So even though there is a lot of people who are not answering, you're dodging the question because.
Okay, I'm sure they're listening to rap.
Okay.
Cheap rap music makes no difference.
Do you think the cultural expectation in black America is that you stay with the woman that you impregnate?
Within black communities, I can't speak on that.
Okay, the answer is no.
It's not.
It's not expected.
Okay.
And do you think that in white Anglo-Saxon Protestant communities?
It's a fact.
Hold on.
In upper middle class white communities.
Upper middle class.
Say that part louder.
Yeah.
Upper middle class white Anglo-Saxon Protestant communities.
If you impregnate a woman, you are looked down upon and we do not think highly of you if you abandon the woman that you impregnate.
That's a cultural difference.
It has nothing to do with money.
It has nothing to do with anything except norms and the norms that have infected black America are destroying it from within.
We need more fathers, not less.
We need more dads around and less drag queen story hour.
We need more young blacks to be able to look up to role models that are not leaving all the time and are not just saying, hey, I impregnated her, so be it.
It's a toxin.
And if we don't address that as the root cause, oh, it's white supremacy.
It's injustice.
It's economics.
We're dancing around the core of the issue.
Institutional Racism vs Meritocracy00:12:15
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I guess what I'm saying is, right, and you've perfectly actually laid out the dichotomy here.
It is a fact, obviously, that black people disproportionately commit crime in this country.
No one's arguing that.
But you either believe that that is due to a complex intersection of social, economic, and like leftover effects from previous inequalities, or you believe that that is an inherent trait to the race.
No, I don't because they weren't that way in the 1940s and 50s.
Black America was one of the most peaceful, flourishing, fastest-growing economically communities in the country.
It's not genetic.
You're trying to point something on me that I don't believe.
Instead, then you do believe that it's not genetic.
So you do think CRT is correct.
Hold on a second.
In the 1940s and 1950s, Black America was prosperous and was on pace to be richer and wealthier than white America.
More dads were staying with the women that they were with.
There was monogamy.
What changed?
You're supporting my argument.
No, hold on, but answer the question.
What changed?
Did America get more racist since 1950?
I would argue there were more racist policies passed.
There were more policies dedicated to pushing them into poor housing and poor schools.
Wait a second.
In the 1950s, Jackie Robinson had not even broken the color barrier.
We had Jim Crow laws.
We hadn't passed the Civil Rights Act and we had passed the Voting Rights Act.
Yet blacks were better in the 1950s per capita than they are today.
So we have become less racist.
We've passed more anti-racist laws and given more stuff, and blacks are worse than they were 70 years ago.
Yeah.
Why?
So you're equating here institutional and social racism.
Social racism was certainly worse in the 1950s.
I'm sure everyone would agree.
But institutional racism occurs when policies are passed against people.
Come on, which can increase over time.
And it did.
You're not being intellectually honest.
You know that.
There were black-only drinking fountains in the 1950s.
We don't have those anymore.
Well, we're bringing it back with black-only dormitories.
But we had, for example, in the antebellum South in the 1950s, we had white-only communities, white by law.
We got rid of that with the Civil Rights Act.
But it didn't.
Unfortunately, we look around, the numbers speak for themselves.
Black youth are less likely to have fathers.
They're not doing as well as far as economically, they commit more crime.
So something changed.
And our argument is what changed is three things.
Number one, the imposition of the Great Society project by Lyndon Baines Johnson of spending $30 trillion since 1960s on Section 8 housing, on welfare, on, you know, all sorts where, as I said, that young black women married the government and they divorced young black men.
And then we also have had the, as Thomas Sowell and as Clarence Thomas would say, the soft bigotry of law expectations.
And we have been afraid to get to the root of the issue or even speak about it because we don't be called a racist.
So who, what is imposing those low expectations?
It's part of it is like white academic culture.
I'll give you an example.
I'm not saying you believe this, but Merrick Garland, the Attorney General of the United States, has come out and said having an ID to vote is racist.
That is code for saying black people are too dumb to get a voter ID.
You're doing it again.
You're simplifying a very nuanced, complex argument from the real people who are making it.
Is voter ID racist?
Obviously not, Charlie.
Okay, all right.
If you want to know where the argument comes from, I can eloquently tell you.
Eloquently tell me why voter ID is racist.
Right.
Certain policies in southern states were proposed that would, like, I think the quote from the person who decided the case was with surgical precision, target the times where black people were voting and make it like illegal or harder for them to get that to come at that time.
And then they were targeting the type of ID that black voters had and making that specific type of ID illegal.
That is racist.
Perfectly fair.
How does that impact today saying that every citizen, if you need an ID to vote, just that aside, why is it racist?
Because we have to have, you know, obviously humans are making those decisions, right?
And so if there is still institutional racism and people in power that are racist, we can't trust those institutions to make those decisions.
Institutional racism do we have in this country right now?
What you just named it, what 1350?
Oh well, affirmative action needs to happen because there is not that many minorities in these higher educations or higher education institutions.
Okay, so that?
No you're you're, you're being clear.
Which is then you lower standards.
No, affirmative action, always affirmative action, lowers standards, by definition.
I'm saying why affirmative action was introduced.
I'm not arguing for it.
Were you asking me why it was introduced or no, i'm saying, you agree, that's why it was introduced.
Well, I agree, why it was.
I don't think it ever should have been.
But yes right, but there is institutional inequality.
Yes well, I wouldn't even use the word inequality.
I mean I, I don't love looking at it that way, but of course, white people generally are richer than black people in this country, richer and more represented in politics and schools.
Yes somewhat yes, and why do you think that is, Charlie?
Well, hold on a second, let's.
Let's ask the question here, represented how so?
I mean, look at Congress.
Hold on a second.
Are white people represented fairly in the National Basketball Association?
Who cares?
What political representation?
I think that it should, by law, half of the NBA should be white.
Great fine, and and the product would suck, because blacks are much better at basketball than we whites are.
What political power does the NBA have?
A lot, actually.
The NBA reaches millions of people every day.
They have slogans that people internalize.
In fact, if the NBA had no political power, why would they have to wear black lives matter on all their jerseys?
Why would they tele?
Why would politicians try to get their endorsements all the time?
The NBA is more powerful than Congress in some ways of shaping the mind.
To be academically dishonest, hold on a second.
No, no.
But if you want fair representation, just to be clear, then why would you not be against whites by law being half of the National Basketball Association right now?
Sure, black people make up 88 of the NBA.
Do it, great.
Who cares?
No, I don't care, i'm saying okay.
So here's my point, all right, if we have, I have a shot.
Everybody, please listen.
If we, I could play for the Lakers, I hope.
Do it Charlie, i'll come to your games, i'll do it.
The point is this is that merit should triumph over all, which is awesome, okay.
So merit should triumph, we agree okay okay Charlie, do you think black people are not as smart or competent as white people perfect, so they should in theory then be equally represented.
No positions.
So have you ever read discrimination and disparities by Thomas Sole?
Do you only read Thomas Sole?
You've quoted him like three times.
I haven't read.
No, I read a lot more than Thomas Sole, but i'm happy to.
Thomas Sole's the only intellectual with the courage to go after, like these core issues of why Black America has fallen behind and why no one actually has studied it.
So let's just give a great example, when you don't have a father in the home, the amount of words that a child hears goes down by 60 to 70 percent.
The amount of words that a child I don't know if you're a mother or not or plan to be okay no, just it's.
It's an important point.
The amount of words that an 18 month year old hears is highly predictive of Iq verbal development.
Okay, so that's simple.
When you don't have a dad in the home, the mom is overwhelmed and there's just less interaction With the child, that's all fine, okay.
So, you we agree.
I'm just saying that is that's not because of racism, no, that's fine.
That's good.
No, she's she's, I know what you meant, but you have a all of a sudden they hear thousands of more words a day, and they're they're already like way further ahead of a single motherhood, a single mother raising a child.
That's not racism, okay.
So, dads are good, yes, great.
Okay, what my question is: I'm saying dads actually answer most of the questions that you might have about why black America is falling behind, okay?
But because their dads don't stay around, and that's trying to sort of get to you to reconcile your own beliefs.
And if that's true, which is fine, that's true, we can say that's true.
Um, you either believe that that has social and economic causes, or you believe that, oh, black culture is just worse, no, and there isn't another thing to think about.
No, I see it was very clear right now.
Black culture is being held captive by influences, songs, which influences Cardi B.
Okay, Nikki Minaj is causing dads to leave the home.
Hold on, I don't think that's a good role model for 18-year-old black girls.
I don't.
I don't think that songs that are talking about like glorifying wet female genitalia is exactly.
I don't know which one wrote that song, which one was I think it was Ben Shapiro.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, but is but and but by the way, the role models of the 1940s and 50s for black America were completely different.
So it is a representation issue.
Hold on a second, no representation.
It's who do you get your art from?
It's what values are they putting forward.
It's the question of every day, for example, more times than not, black politicians will lament the condition of America.
It's systemically racist, it's terrible.
What does that do to a 14-year-old black kid if you just find that you hear that everything is rigged against you?
Instead, they should be saying, Hey, there might be some barriers, but if you believe in yourself enough, you can achieve in this country.
It creates a form of social conditioning of low expectations.
And that's not my argument.
You know whose argument that is?
Barack Obama's.
I don't necessarily know that.
Barack Obama said.
Barack Obama said, Number one, we need more fathers in the home.
This is when Barack Obama.
Back Obama's a liberal.
I don't care what he's got to say.
Okay, but Barack Obama.
And then secondly, he said that we can't keep telling our black youth that you can't succeed in this country.
Anybody can succeed in this country.
And Obama was right when he said that.
Obama was correct when he said that we need to change the story we're telling black America.
Which is fine.
I've never heard any teacher look at a black person and say, oh, you can't succeed because of racism.
Hold on a second.
But what is the embedded message of all the propaganda saying it's systemically racist?
You're going to run into racist employers that they're going to discriminate against you.
It creates this heaviness of why even try by the time college students get to college, they've experienced all that.
They don't need to be told.
You think that the average, I'm curious, you think that the average black student at this university experiences like active daily racism?
I'd be curious.
I'm just curious.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe it's true.
Maybe it's as bad as it was in the antebellum South.
I'm not saying that, obviously.
Okay.
I did say social racism improved.
I'm saying institutional racism is still present, and that's what's causing lower outcomes for minority communities.
Do you think the reason why only 20 to 25%, we don't know the number, it's just a range per year.
So one in four of black youth have a stable father around.
What would you just say is the big, why is that the why is that the reason?
A complex intersection of social and economic reasons, which are outlined in CRT.
Okay.
Thank you for the dialogue.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thanks so much for listening, everybody.
Email us as alwaysfreedom at charliekirk.com.
Thanks so much for listening and God bless.
For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.