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Feb. 27, 2021 - Epoch Times
21:18
Larry Elder SHUTS DOWN Reparations Bill at Congressional Hearing | Larry Elder
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Yesterday I spoke at the House Judiciary Committee on Reparative Justice, a fancy word for reparations, and I had a few things to say.
Let me now move to our next witness is Mr.
Elder.
Mr.
Elder is a conservative attorney, author, and host of the nationally syndicated radio program, The Larry Elder Show.
He also writes a nationally syndicated column and produces videos for his YouTube channel in association with the Epoch Times.
Mr.
Elder received a JD from the University of Michigan and his BA from Brown University.
Mr.
Elder, you're recognized for five minutes.
Congresswoman Lee, thank you very much for having me.
I really appreciate it.
I am the executive producer of a documentary that came out June 19 last year called Uncle Tom, An Oral History of the Black Conservative.
And as Congresswoman Lee pointed out, black people are a race of overcomers.
And it talks about the fact that despite all the problems that have been brought up in this committee about racism, about slavery, about Jim Crow, Black people have overcome to the point now where only 20% of Black people are below the federally defined level of poverty.
Still too high, but in 1940, that number was 87%.
And 20 years later, that number had been reduced to 47%.
A 40-point drop in 20 years.
That is the greatest 20-year period of economic expansion for the history of Black Americans.
And notably, that came before the Brown v.
Board of Education decision.
That came before the civil rights bills of 1964, 1965.
Despite all of this racism, all of this prejudice, Black people still overcame.
I also find it ironic we're having this hearing 13 years after we elected and then re-elected the first Black president of the United States.
I'm old school.
I still get the newspapers thrown to my house.
And the day that Obama got elected, I got the New York Times and the LA Times thrown to my home.
And on the front pages of all those newspapers, there were colored pictures of black parents hugging their kids, crying, saying things like, now I can say for the first time truly that if you work hard, you can be anything you want to be.
In 1997, Time Magazine and CNN did a broad survey of Black teens and white teens and asked both of them whether or not racism was a major problem in America.
And both of them said yes, not too surprisingly.
But then Black teens were asked the following question.
Is racism a big problem, a small problem, or no problem in your own daily life?
Eighty-nine percent of black teens in 1997 said racism was a small problem or no problem in my own daily life.
In fact, twice as many black teens as white teens said failure to take advantage of available opportunities is a bigger problem than racism, end of quote.
And that, again, was 23 years ago before Obama got elected, let alone re-elected.
Speaking of Obama, 2007, he ran for presidency.
His rival for the Democratic side was Hillary Clinton, and on the Republican side, the two primary rivals were John McCain and Mitt Romney.
Gallup asked whether or not Americans would not vote for a black person referring to Obama, would not vote for a woman referring to Hillary Clinton, would not vote for a Mormon referring to Mitt Romney, would not vote for a person as old as John McCain would be, 72 years old.
And what Gallup found is 5% of Americans said they would not, under any circumstances, vote for a black person.
11% said they would not under any circumstance vote for a female.
24% said they would not vote for a Mormon.
42% said they would not vote for a person who would be 72 years old when he became president, which would have been the case had John McCain been elected.
In other words, Obama as a black person had a smaller barrier than these three white politicians.
So having this conversation right now when racism has never been a less significant problem in America, to me, is mind-boggling.
Right now, Congress is 12% Black, which is roughly the percentage of Blacks in America.
In 1964, Martin Luther King gave an interview to the BBC. And he said he was surprised at the changes that have taken place in America in recent years, and he believed that a Black person could become president in 40 years' time, or maybe even less.
That's roughly around the time when Obama became president.
And Martin Luther King did not say, we will know when we've arrived at the Promised Land, when there's a Black coach of Notre Dame, which has happened, when there is a Black female who's the president of an Ivy League university, which has happened, when Blacks are When Blacks are mayors of all the major cities in America, which has happened, when Blacks are police chiefs of the major cities in America, when there are superintendents of schools of America, or mayors of America, sometimes all three at the same time, he did not say that.
He did not say when Black people become millionaires and billionaires, which has happened.
He did not say when black people become CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
He said when a black person becomes president, that's when we'll know we've reached a point where people are being evaluated based on the content of their character to the extent that it is reasonable to expect.
And the idea that slavery built America is relied by the fact that at one time Virginia was the most populous and wealthiest state in the Union, but within a couple of generations, it had fallen behind states in the North because the South depended upon slavery, which impoverished the South relative to the North, which is primarily why the North won the election.
No one could have had, or very few people could have had, a life harder than my father.
My father was 13 years old, born in 1915.
He was kicked out of his house by his mother.
Athens, Georgia, Jim Crow, at the beginning of the Great Depression.
The man walked down the street, did whatever he could.
Ultimately, he became a Pullman porter on the trains, which was the largest private employer of Blacks in those days.
Traveled all the world, became a Marine, was one of the first Black Marines, a Montfort Port Marine.
And my dad always told my brothers and me the following.
Hard work wins.
You get out of life what you put into it.
You cannot control the outcome, but you are 100% in control of the effort.
And before you complain about what other people did to you, go to the nearest mirror and say to yourself, what could I have done to change the outcome?
And my dad always told us this.
No matter how hard you work, no matter how good you are, sooner or later, bad things will happen to you.
How you respond to those bad things will tell your mother and me if we raise demand.
And my father always said this about the Democrat Party.
They want to give you something for nothing.
And when you're trying to get something for nothing, you almost always end up getting nothing for something.
Thank you very much for taking the time.
I appreciate it.
And I had a couple of follow-ups.
Mr.
Elder, I have a question.
Last year, prior to the pandemic, the strength of the U.S. economy helped all Americans, most notably minority Americans.
In fact, CNBC in 2019 said African-American unemployment hit the lowest ever in the history of our country from a peak in 2010 of 16.6 percent.
First of all, How did that happen?
And is that in your understanding correct, those particular numbers?
Well, that's right.
It happened because taxes got lowered, regulations got eased, and the economy took off.
And when the economy takes off, those who are unskilled disproportionately improved, just as happened during the Reagan administration.
During the Reagan administration, Black adult unemployment fell faster than did white adult unemployment.
Hispanic adult unemployment fell faster than white unemployment fell.
Black teen unemployment fell faster than white teen unemployment.
Good economic policies work.
Equal rights and equal results are two very different things, and that's what I think we're getting confused about here.
Everybody's entitled to equal rights, but nobody's entitled to equal results.
One of the witnesses, I believe it was Mr.
Shelton, referred to Africans as being torn out of their country.
Well, according to Harvard's Henry Louis Gates, that's not how it happened at all.
Ninety percent of Africans were sold by African chieftains who had conquered them in tribes.
European slavers and to Arab slavers.
And speaking of Arab slavers, the Arab slave trade took place centuries before the European slave trade did and lasted longer and death rate was much, much higher.
So as we talk about who pays who, this is going to be one of the greatest generational transfers of wealth back and forth because virtually every people on the face of the earth was involved in slavery.
Europeans enslaved Europeans, Africans enslaved Africans as mentioned.
Native Americans even enslaved Native Americans.
Asians enslaved Asians.
In fact, white Muslim slavers took more whites out of the Mediterranean than European slavers took blacks out of Africa to North America.
So figuring out who owes what is going to be a hell of an achievement.
I've been in radio and TV for some 35 years.
And during that time, I have been unsuccessful in getting some of these Black leaders on my program.
Al Sharpton won't come on.
Jesse Jackson won't come on.
Farrakhan won't come on.
I will give Congressman Jackson Lee credit because she did come on my show several years ago.
You may not remember it, Congresswoman, but she did come on several years ago.
And one of the leaders I was able to get on was Kawase Nfume, who's now back in Congress.
He was then the president of the NAACP, having left Congress.
And I said, Mr.
Nfume, as between the presence of white racism or the absence of Black fathers, which poses the bigger threat to the Black community?
Without missing a beat, he said the absence of Black fathers.
In 1918, in 1915, 18% of Blacks were born outside of wedlock.
That number now is almost 70%.
I think most of us would agree that there was greater racism in 1950 than right now.
We're not having a discussion about whether or not the welfare state has incentivized women to marry the government and incentivize men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility.
And it was Barack Obama who said, A kid raised without a father is five times more likely to be poor and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of school, 20 times more likely to end up in jail.
Why aren't we having a discussion about the absence of Black fathers and all of the unintended consequences that flow through that?
Congressman Owens mentioned the high schools in Baltimore where zero percent can do math at grade level.
Actually, it's 13 public high schools in Baltimore where zero percent of kids can do math at grade level, and another half a dozen where only one percent can.
Now, Baltimore is a city where in 2015, Freddie Gray died in police custody, as you know.
The mayor was black.
Number one and number two running the police department, black.
City council, all Democrat, majority black.
Three of the six cops who were charged, black.
I'll allow the witness to complete his answer.
Thank you.
The judge before whom two of the officers tried the case was Black.
The state attorney who blocked the charges against the officers was Black.
The U.S. Attorney was Black.
And the President of the United States is Black.
And we're talking about systemic institutional racism?
To me, it's crazy.
Oh, I had more to say.
Congressman, thank you so much.
I agree with, of course, everything you said.
And Congressman Cohen did completely butcher the three-fifths argument, and thank you for correcting the record.
He also referred to a civil rights warrior named Bayard Rustin.
Bayard Rustin was an acolyte of Martin Luther King, and Bayard Rustin was both Black and gay and did not support race-based preferences.
The Urban League at the time was run by Whitney Young.
Whitney Young supported a 10-year period of time where he argued for a Marshall Plan for Black people.
Again, 10-year period of time.
This was 1965, so it would have long since been over had the board approved it, but they didn't.
One board member said, are you crazy?
Here we are telling America to be fair, and you're telling, quote, us, you're telling Americans to, quote, hire Negroes just because they're Negroes, close quote.
We oppose it.
So this is completely divisive, and I want to quote somebody who once was asked about reparations, and he said this, and I'm quoting, It is easy to make that theoretical argument, but as a practical matter, it is hard to think of any society in human history in which a majority population has said that as a consequence of historic wrongs, we are now going to take a big chunk of that nation's resources over a long period of time to make that right." End of quote.
He said, as a practical matter, it is virtually impossible to do.
That gentleman was Barack Obama, and he was right.
I also heard one of the witnesses refer to the belief that white people are superior and their belief that black people are inferior.
Well, they can believe what they want to believe, but the facts are that young black people have higher self-esteem than do young white people and much higher self-esteem than do young Asian people.
So if the argument is that Historical discrimination and Jim Crow has somehow called Blacks to think of themselves as less than Blacks.
It ain't working.
Blacks have higher self-esteem than virtually any other race in America.
Also, a couple of times, the police have been hammered.
Let me just mention that a few days ago, a man was in his backyard minding his own business.
Apparently, he fit the description of the man.
The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman's time has expired.
Oh, I had more to say.
My question, Attorney Elder, do you agree that there are Black folks in America who are stuck at the bottom due to the legacy of racism, slavery, and Jim Crow?
And that America should take affirmative action to address employment, health care, housing, and educational disparities that plague our people to this day?
Congressman Johnson, thank you very much for the question.
Obviously, there are Black people who are poor.
The extent to which the poverty is a result of slavery and Jim Crow is tenuous at best.
The larger factor behind Black poverty is the absence of fathers in the home, as I mentioned earlier.
Okay, well, let me stop you right there, because I do understand.
Oh, I had more to say.
I would like to just ask Mr.
Eldridge if he has any comments to say in the response to Representative Hank Johnson's question that he had asked earlier.
Would you like to continue his conversation about that?
I do.
We've been talking about disparate outcomes as if the disparate outcomes by definition mean racism.
There was a young attorney named Barack Obama who joined with other attorneys to file a class action lawsuit against Citibank some years ago.
And as a result of the class action lawsuit, the Citibank agreed to grant mortgages to 186 people who had applied, turned down, and the applicants argued that they were turned down because they were Black.
Well, they got the loans, and virtually nobody was able to keep up with the loans.
Many of them went into default, which indicated that the bank was not discriminating against these would-be Black borrowers.
Also, studies have found that community Black banks often have a higher turned down rate for would-be borrowers than the majority banks because they are more thinly capitalized.
So just because something has a disparate outcome does not mean that that outcome was a result of racism.
We've also talked a lot about the police officers.
A few days ago, as I started to say, a man was in the backyard of his own house.
A mad description of a suspect who was running on foot, police officer chasing, mistook the homeowner for the suspect, shot and killed him.
I doubt that very many people you know about this, and the reason you don't know about it is because the cop who shot the suspect was white.
The suspect was white.
This took place in Idaho.
Therefore, nobody gave a writ.
But I assure you, if this had been a black suspect and a white cop, we'd know his name.
The fact is, there are more unarmed white people killed every year by the police than unarmed blacks.
The media couldn't care less, CNN couldn't care less, giving black people the false impression that the police are mowing down black people just because they are black.
It is true that the police are two and a half times more likely to kill a black suspect.
It is also true that a young black man is anywhere from seven to ten times more likely to be a victim of a homicide, almost always at the victim at the hands of another young black man.
That's why the cops are there.
The idea that there's systemic racism against black people is a lie.
And when it came to the election, the defenders of Biden were arguing, where is the widespread evidence of voter fraud?
A fair question.
Where is the widespread, forget about widespread, where is the evidence of police brutality against black people?
If anything, the evidence shows the police are more hesitant, more reluctant to pull the trigger on a black suspect than a white suspect.
It is a fraud.
It is a con that is pushable in this country.
We need to stop it.
And then I had a few concluding remarks.
It's been mentioned a couple times that reparations are owed to blacks for 400 years of slavery.
Well, America was founded in 1787 and slavery ended in 1865, so that's substantially less than 400 years.
It's also been mentioned that America has yet to atone for slavery.
Well, remember that Lyndon Johnson launched the so-called war on poverty in 1965.
He specifically talked about the need to redress past grievances for blacks.
Since then, we've spent over $22 trillion in payments to fight the so-called war on poverty.
Mr.
Cohen mentioned the wonderful story about Manny Minoso.
I remember Manny Minoso.
He's a great ball player.
I'd like to give you a story, too, and conclude with this.
I was in law school in 1974, 1975.
I'm visiting my aunt who lives in Southfield, Michigan, right outside Detroit.
She and I are talking.
The doorbell rings.
The gentleman comes.
He's about 40 years old, a friend of my aunt's.
And he came in.
He sat down.
My aunt and I were talking.
I was talking to my aunt about the classes I was taking, what I intended to do after I got out of law school.
I looked up, and this 40-year-old black man was crying.
I thought maybe I said something to offend him.
I looked up and I said, excuse me, did I say something that bothered you?
He said, no, no, no.
I just wanted to be a lawyer too.
And I had the potential to do it.
I didn't take responsibility.
I got caught up in too much jackassery and I blew my opportunity.
I went to school with a lot of young Japanese kids, Korean kids and Chinese kids.
They all had something in common.
They busted their butts in homework.
You look at a graph of who does homework in America, blacks are outdone by Hispanics, who are outdone by whites, who are outdone by Asians.
There's a reason that Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, and Korean Americans make more money per capita than do white Americans.
They work hard.
They don't complain.
They take responsibility.
And I would urge all of Americans to follow that example.
A few more things I didn't get a chance to say.
Does Obama, who's Father is from Kenya, an area of active slave trading back in the day, and his mom's family owned slaves.
Does Obama get a check or does he cut a check?
What about Kamala Harris?
Her father admitted that his family owned slaves.
Her mother is from India.
Does Kamala Harris cut a check or does she get a check?
Here's another problem.
Only about 5% of white people living today in America have any sort of generational connection to slavery.
And I have another question.
Why should anybody but Democrats pay anything?
After all, all but a handful of slave owners were Democrats.
1860, rather, it's estimated that there were about 350,000 slave owners owning four million blacks.
Of all of those slave owners, Dinesh D'Souza estimates that maybe eight of them might have been Republicans.
So why should Anybody but Democrats, more specifically white Democrats, pay a dime.
I am not a victim.
The whole idea of reparations is insulting.
As I said at the very beginning of the hearing, reparations could probably be described as the extraction of money from people who were never slave owners to be given to people who were never slaves.
The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous.
And on this issue about slavery making America wealthy, The great abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, when he escaped from the plantation in Maryland and moved to Massachusetts, or fled to Massachusetts, I should say, he was shocked at how many black people were living better, in better conditions, had better houses than some of the slave owners in the South.
He thought that in order for a people to become prosperous, slavery had to exist.
A nation could not become wealthy, he thought, without slavery.
Shockingly!
Slavery made the South, compared to the North, less wealthy.
This is why the North beat the South in the Civil War.
So, I'm Larry Elder, and we've got a country to save.
I'll see you next time.
Don't forget LarryTube.com, because all of our platforms on Epoch Times have been demonetized, which means we must be doing something right.
If you want me live and unfiltered, please, LarryTube.com, on demand, LarryTube.com.
I'll see you next time, because we've got a country to save.
Larry King passed away, goes to heaven.
He's greeted by St.
Peter at the gates.
St.
Peter says, Welcome, Mr.
King.
It's great to have you here.
I want to show you around, give you an idea of what's here.
Maybe you can pick a place that you'd like to reside.
King says, I just have one question.
Is Rush Limbaugh here?
No, no, no, no.
He's got a lot of time yet, Mr.
King.
So St.
Peter begins the tour.
Larry King sees the various places and they're just beyond anything we can imagine in terms of beauty.
Finally gets to the biggest room of all with this giant throne.
And over the throne is a flashing, beautiful, angelic neon sign that says Rush Limbaugh.
And Larry King looks at St.
Peter and says, I thought you said he wasn't here.
He's not.
He's not.
This is God's room.
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