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Feb. 25, 2021 - Radio Renaissance - Jared Taylor
58:46
29 Percent of Americans Favor Breaking Up the Country
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Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the latest episode of Radio Renaissance.
I'm Jared Taylor with American Renaissance.
I am your host today, and the date is February 25th, Year of Our Lord 2021.
On our last podcast, I asked readers to answer a question that I could not.
One of our listeners had written in to say that he certainly enjoyed our podcast, but he was interested in recommendations for podcasts that talked about white history in a positive and intelligible and edifying way.
And so we got a number of recommendations from our listeners, and I'd like to read some of the answers out to you.
This is someone who recommends something called Survive the Jive.
That's something we all need to do.
Survive the Jibe.
It's a YouTube channel created by Thomas Roussel, R-O-W-S-E-L-L, and he concentrates on European history.
He has expanded to do a podcast called That Talks, which is available on many different platforms, including Spotify, something we cannot say for our podcast.
He says it's a very educational program, well worthy of praise.
So, All of you who are interested, that's an example.
And yet another person wrote in to say that since a listener had asked a recommendation, he said he would like to join what should be a chorus of nominations for nothing less than BBC.
BBC.
I don't think of BBC as really being on our side at all, but it has a system called In Our Time.
It's not only about history, but the history episodes are helpfully tagged along with such things as philosophy, culture, science, and religion, all of which are excellent.
So, if you're interested in history, go to BBC's In Our Time and look for history.
And our listener writes in to say, so long as the subject doesn't lend itself to politically correct posturing, so don't ask for what the BBC has to say about Ulysses S. Grant or the American Civil War, you are unlikely to be disappointed.
So it is my pleasure to pass along that information to our listeners.
And again, let me invite all of you out there wherever you are, whether you're in the United States or in any other country where you listen to Radio Renaissance, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
And there are two ways to do so.
One is to go to amren.com.
A-M-R-E-N dot com.
Click on the Contact Us page and let us know, certainly and foremost, if we've made a mistake.
If we've said something that's incorrect, we love to be set straight by our all-seeing, all-knowing, all-wise listeners.
The other way to get in touch with us is by sending email to BecauseWeLiveHere at Protonmail.com.
You nailed it.
Because we live here, just one word, because we live here, at Protonmail.com.
May I also encourage everyone to do that so you can be part of the mailing list, the email newsletter list.
I believe you only send out one email usually per week?
Once a week.
Nothing too gratuitous?
We are nothing gratuitous.
Nothing too gratuitous in terms of too many emails inundating someone's box.
Not too frequent.
We are austere.
We stick to our schedule of once a week.
Now, our first story has to do with something that I would consider a great leap forward so long as it lands on the ground, and this is Alabama's new proposed rioting law.
After all, May 31st, the riot in Birmingham.
At one of the friskiest evenings, the riot toppled a statue of Charles Lynn.
He was a great benefactor of the town, but alas, a confederate.
They damaged the Thomas Jefferson statue, broke windows at the Jefferson County Courthouse, began setting fires, looting, vandalized businesses, They broke into the bottom floor of the skyscraper building that houses the Wells Fargo Bank.
I hope all the money was out of the till.
They also set the California Fashion Mall on fire and sporadic gunfire was heard throughout the night.
As I say, a very frisky evening.
And police said that that particular riot, that night, resulted in burglaries at 14 businesses, with another 13 businesses had significant damage.
Firefighters responded to more than 22 fires, countless vehicle and dumpster fires.
Oh, there was a hot time in Birmingham.
Well, Alabama Representative Alan Shedway last week announced he's proposing a new crime and penalties for it.
For those who incite or participate in riots, and he also provides additional protection for police officers and other first responders.
As it turns out, Alan Treadway was Birmingham's assistant police chief at the time of the riots.
And he retired several months later and ran for the State House and has been elected.
He said his legislation is in no way aimed at discouraging peaceful protest, but, as he says, when they start smashing windows, looting stores, throwing bricks at law enforcement officers, I would hope everyone would agree that at that point it's no longer peaceful.
Well, I would hope so too, but perhaps you can't actually count on that.
Depending on what the purpose of it is, In any case, he wants to establish a new crime of aggravated riot in which, if bodily harm is caused or property damaged, the perp would be held for 24 hours before becoming eligible for bail and could be convicted of a Class C felony, mandatory minimum sentence of six months, ineligible to hold public office thereafter.
Then also a new crime, assault against a first responder.
This would be even more serious.
A class B felony resulting in at least one year in jail and a $15,000 crime.
I think that's, I mean, when you see these videos of people beating up on police officers,
burning, burning patrol cars.
This is just such an obvious strike against any kind of ordinary authority.
I felt that way about the Capitol Police assaults, too.
You shouldn't be beating up police officers.
No, you shouldn't.
It's funny you talk about that date, May 31st.
What a significant date of all that happened.
I believe that was the night that we saw the CNN Center in Atlanta attempted to be overthrown.
That was also the night of the Completely forgotten about assault on the White House where President Trump was actually taken to a bunker, Mr. Taylor, because they were worried about his safety.
60 Secret Service agents were injured.
11 to 15, we don't know the exact number, actually went to the emergency room.
You go back, you can't even find I remember I saw a tweet Ann Coulter noted that, you know, this stuff's being scrubbed from the internet.
You can't even find videos of this assault on the White House.
It was unbelievably violent.
I've seen some of those videos of Birmingham, by the way.
I have a deep vested interest in Birmingham and it was unbelievable what happened throughout the country those last four days of May.
It was absolutely awful.
Not everyone is lining up to support this new law against aggravated riot.
There is a representative, Christopher England.
Needless to say, he's very heavily melanin enhanced.
On Monday, he issued a statement invoking the words of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.
And I think you can guess what the words are.
A riot?
No, no.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
We're talking about, yes.
A riot is the language of the unheard.
And as Representative England goes on to say, and what is it that America has failed to hear?
It has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice.
So, obviously, rioting is the voice of the unheard, and anything to make this a serious crime has got to be turned down.
Well, I have a solution.
I think the law should specifically exempt black people.
Only white people who riot can be hauled in for aggravated riot and assault on a first responder.
I think that's fair.
Or maybe just black people who are rioting for racial justice.
Maybe they can be exempt.
Of course, if racial justice is broadly defined, then practically every time blacks riot, you could call that is racial justice.
But, after all, if blacks are the unheard, and rioting is the voice of the unheard, then shouldn't they be able to riot without consequences just specially for them?
Makes sense to me.
All you have to do is invoke the good doctor, Michael King, and I think that's all you need to do to completely give yourself immunity from whatever you do, damage-wise.
That's the language of the unheard, right?
That's right.
But I believe you have some rather interesting poll results for us, if you can summarize them concisely.
I'll be very quick.
So this was published from Echelon Insights.
A lot of people were talking about this because what we saw, and as I pull these up, What happened is that they did some poll results with verified voters from Republican and Democrat.
And what they did is they asked, tell us your primary issues.
For a Republican.
For Republican voters heading into 2022.
What do you think, just right off the top of your head, that your average Republican voter who was asked in this question, what are you most concerned about, if at all, in terms that are following for the country?
What's the most important issue?
For Republicans.
I'll let you go.
Well, what did Mr. Average Republican say?
You tell me.
I'll tell you.
81%, this is the highest by far, 81% of those polled said illegal immigration.
Well, good for them.
Number two, 79% lack of support for the police.
Very good.
Number three, I agree with this, high taxes.
I wish number three had been legal immigration.
Unfortunately, legal immigration is not there, but we do get to liberal bias in mainstream media as number four.
General moral decline of the country is number five.
At a time where Mr. Potato Head is losing the mister and he's just becoming Potato Head, I think we kind of understand what that means.
Well, I guess he had a sex change.
You know, Miss Potato Head had a sex change too.
Socialism is number six.
Antifa violence is number seven.
Again, in my opinion, that was the ultimate legacy of President Trump's presidency, even the administration, even though he didn't do anything to actually stop any of this.
You know, he said Antifa is going to be declared a, you know, a domestic terrorist.
That never happened.
But the fact is now 71% of the respondents, Mr. Taylor and dear listeners said that is an extremely Very concerned issue for them.
Well, good.
Now regale us with what the Democrats are concerned about.
Wow.
Well, here we go.
So I imagine they're not the same thing.
No, no, I don't think illegal immigration or antifa violence is in the top seven.
So here's what we have for Democrats, what they're extremely very concerned about.
So, with 82% of Democrats saying, I feel like this is Family Feud, we have 82% of Democrats saying they're extremely very concerned about Donald Trump supporters.
Trump voters?
All 74 million of them?
Yeah, 82%.
That's what, yeah, 82%.
Oh, that's their number one worry about the future of the United States.
Only 7% of those responded are not very, not at all concerned.
Only 7%.
Wow.
Nationalism is number two.
That's number two?
That's number two, with 79% of respondents saying that is something that they're extremely very concerned about.
Only 9% said they're not at all very concerned.
Systemic racism is number three, at 77%.
Only 6% of those who responded said they're not concerned at all.
Interestingly enough, considering that this topic is one that, well, The primary base of Democrats responsible for in the country, if you're talking about major cities, gun violence is number four.
Now, and that comes in with 76% of the respondents saying they're very concerned.
Interestingly enough, if you think about it, your average white liberal, they do live in these cosmopolitan urban areas.
So, again, there's not much gun violence in suburban America.
It's all those white supremacists who run around Manhattan and run around the... That's what they believe!
You say that, you joke, but they have that cognitive dissonance to actually I don't know.
I think even the craziest liberals know that if there's a shooting in Philadelphia or in Chicago, it's not guys running around in hoods and armbands.
But they're still going to find a way to blame whites for selling the guns in Indiana.
Inventing them.
Yeah, exactly.
Come on, it's Black History Month.
You actually believe that a white man invented the gun?
Oh my gosh, you're right, you're right.
Samuel Colt, black as the ace of spades.
Final point, though, on that.
We're not going to get to talk to it, but I do want to point out that over at UNZ.com there are a couple of really great breakdowns.
I know there'll be something at AmRen.com soon.
New York Police Department just published their 2020 crime stats.
They do the best job.
Here we are endorsing the New York Police Department in terms of breaking down suspects and victims by race.
They're the only major police department that still provides this concise, incredible data.
Are they the only one?
I know Minneapolis dropped out.
Chicago dropped out.
Baltimore had stats.
Nothing like this.
Nothing as comprehensive as this.
I'll tell you a city that used to do this was Pittsburgh.
Larry Krasner comes in as a district attorney who Soros funded.
That was one of the first things they put the kibosh on.
We can't let this data go out.
But again, New York City Police Department, great data.
They showed that in 2020, let's put it this way, less than 2% of those arrested for non-fatal shootings were white.
The city's 31% non-Hispanic white.
So going what you're saying, you know, there is a reason why white Democrats in these major cities, they push for gun control.
Well, I bet they don't push specifically for gun control for the people who are actually pulling the trigger.
No, no, no.
They'll just disarm everybody.
That's systemic racism.
Now, tell me, tell me this.
Tell me this.
Are there any points in common between the Democrat list and the Republican list?
How far down do you think?
Absolutely.
See, that's the most important thing.
Nothing in common.
I'm just going to read the Democrats for you real quick.
This will be fast.
So, number 5 is one that I think is actually something we should be concerned about.
Americans lacking healthcare coverage.
Domestic terrorism is number 6.
Police brutality is number 7.
Discrimination against LGBTQ Americans is number 8.
Sexism is number 9.
voter suppression, student debt, and get this, 39% said they're extremely or very concerned about
capitalism. Oh my gosh, wow, that There's no overlap.
but only for them.
So if you look at the overlap, it's a Venn diagram.
There's no overlap.
No overlap.
There's nothing.
Well, I think if you have finished on that fascinating topic, and I really do find it
fascinating, that is a perfect introduction to our next little story,
which is a Brightline watch survey.
I've never heard of this as a polling company, but according to them, nearly one-third of Americans want to break up the United States and create smaller, like-minded countries, independent countries.
The question which they were asked to answer was, would we be better off dividing into more like-minded regions that would govern themselves separately?
Succession.
And as it turns out, 29% of Americans, I wish the number were larger, but 10% strongly and 19% somewhat agreed with this.
Break up the United States into like-minded regions.
Now, there were differences based on political party lines.
Independents, interestingly enough, they were the ones who were most inclined to bolt.
37% of independents want the country to go its separate ways.
I guess they really are independent-minded, and they want out.
35% of Republicans wanted to secede.
That's more than a third of Republicans want out, but only 21% of Democrats.
That is always an interesting thing.
It's always the deplorables who want out.
I'd love to secede.
I'd love for there to be like-minded areas, racially coherent areas that were separate and independent.
But my suspicion is that the Democrats would not let us go.
No matter how much they hate us, I think somewhere at some deep level they know they need us to pay taxes and repair their BMWs and string power lines.
It's deplorable to know how to do that kind of stuff.
But I think this is really quite fascinating that that many, 29% of Americans, One, they'd favor the idea of breaking up the country,
but that follows perfectly from the polling data you just described.
Not one bit of overlap between the things that Democrats are concerned about
and the things that Republicans are concerned about.
Let us go our own way.
You go back, you think about your math or science from grade school,
a Venn diagram, and there's an overlap, and you basically have two concentric circles,
two that are completely opposite.
There's no bridge, there's no communication.
The point is they're not concentric.
Exactly!
But there's no way to bridge, there's no communication, because anybody that tries to traverse over and say, hey, is there any common ground, you know, you say police brutality, we say We should actually support the police.
Well, you say systemic racism, and then you use that as the rationale for everything that's wrong.
But again, we can't talk about racial differences in intelligence.
Nope.
That's verboten.
No, neither side, neither side considers that a concern.
No, of course, obviously.
But, but moving on, moving on to To Tangipahoa Parish, which I'd never heard of before.
That's part of Louisiana, of course.
This is one of those obscure stories that is merely local news, the details of which will never become public, I'm sure.
But 54-year-old Iva and 55-year-old Louis Payton Travis were reported missing.
And as it turns out, the Louisiana police interviewed a man who had lived in the same house as the couple.
He was 34-year-old Kevin Buckley, one of our African-American fellow citizens.
Now, Buckley said that he'd worked with Payton for many years and then, sure enough, he finally confessed to killing the couple.
According to this news story, and it's the only one I could find, It's unclear how the couple died.
No more details.
But this is one of those terrifying stories of whites who take in a black.
They probably treated him just fine.
He worked for the man of the house, and then he kills him.
This story will fade away.
We may never know the particulars, but this does remind one of John Derbyshire's advice to his children.
Even when black people are Now, another little story in black and white.
This is an amusing one.
clear that is brutal and harsh advice and I remember when I first read it I
thought oh John that's really that's really mean-spirited but sometimes it
could save your life now another little story in black and white this is an
amusing one last summer a youtuber who produces popular chess videos had his
channel blocked and oh you're sniggering Sorry, I already know the punchline.
You know the punchline for including what YouTube called harmful and dangerous content.
And as usual, YouTube didn't explain why it blocked Croatian chess player Antonia Radic.
He has more than a million subscribers.
That's a lot of subscribers.
That's a lot of revenue I guarantee you he's getting for his videos.
He is the most popular chess channel on YouTube, but down it came.
And the only thing anybody can figure out is probably the words such as black, white, attack, threat.
All that just touched off some sort of artificial intelligence, all algorithms that got to go.
Well, apparently they gave him back his channel after only about 24 hours.
Well, you know, white always moves first, right, in chess?
So perhaps we should retire that rule and make sure that black gets to move the first five moves to make up for systemic racism and historical racism.
I think you're right.
Yes, that'd be good.
Black gets the first five moves.
The first five moves, yeah, exactly.
Excellent, excellent.
But, you know, They're going to train the AI to recognize chess moves, I'm sure.
And so, if you and I ever get in trouble with the bands, if the AI starts blocking our podcasts, we'll just have to say, Black Rook to Bishop 3 every so often.
Or maybe, Takes White Pawn or White Castles.
You know, in fact, there are no white castles.
There are no white kings or queens.
They're all white pawns in this game.
You have to understand that.
That's true.
They're all pawns.
In fact, you know what?
The rules go out the window.
The new rules for chess should be simply this.
Black gets to move whatever they want to move.
If they want to move a pawn and immediately take the white king, checkmate game.
That's it.
That's the new rules of chess.
Well, I think that would be popular in certain circumstances.
You know what?
And that's all to make sure the legacy of George Floyd lives on.
Black chess matters.
But then here's a touching story about true loyalties.
This comes from Lexington, Kentucky, and it's the saga of police officer Jervis Middleton.
And I will have a suspenseful question for the audience at the end of this little story.
So please pay attention, and you can participate mentally in your mind when I ask you what the outcome will be.
Well, as it turns out, during the BLM protests, Officer Jervis Middleton, likewise one of our African American fellow citizens, was providing information, including details about who, which officers were working during the protests, where they were likely to show up.
He was providing this information to a leader of the BLM protests named Sarah Williams, who was a friend of Officer Middleton.
Well, at first, Officer Middleton denied he'd given this kind of information to Williams, but he admitted it only after being shown text and other messages from her phone, which had been subpoenaed.
Well, as it turns out, he said he was frustrated about the repeated killings of black Americans by police officers.
As a police officer, you'd think he would know better.
But police officers, too, they think their white comrades are just going around gunning for blacks, shooting them indiscriminately.
Well, as it turns out, the chief of the police of Lexington, Lawrence Weathers, He testified before a police tribunal that he thought that Officer Middleton should be fired because he put his fellow officers in jeopardy during the protests which went on for... Do you know how many nights he went on in Lexington, Kentucky?
Lexington, Kentucky?
I'll go with 18.
59.
59 days.
59 nights.
Yes.
Yes.
And Chief Lawrence Weathers called this the most significant policing event in our community in 20 years.
Well, I'd like to know what happened 20 years ago that was worse than that?
Maybe the Kentucky Wildcats won a national championship and a couple frat boys burned a sofa.
And did it for 60 days.
60 days and 60 nights.
Also, he said that the officer in question had recently been demoted and had a prior formal complaint against him and so he could not be made into a proper police officer after all.
Now, you'll be astonished to know that the ACLU defended Officer Middleton.
Of course!
They said, now this is typical, they said dialogue between police and protesters is a good thing.
This is dialogue.
Tell them where the police are going to go.
Tell them where the SWAT team is going to be.
Just tell them all this.
Community relations, that's PR.
This is free speech.
And the BLM leader with whom these communications were undertaken, she also testified in the hearing.
She said firing a black officer for speaking with protesters will set back police accountability for years.
She also said that firing Officer Middleton will make it very hard for police force to retain and recruit black officers.
So, Now, now you know the story.
Now you know the setting.
I've set the scene, and I ask all our listeners, what's your guess as to what the outcome was?
Was the black officer fired?
Did he get a promotion?
Did things remain unchanged?
For a moment of symbolic silence, you can sit and think about what exactly happened.
A moment of suspense here.
Well, I don't think even Mr. Kersey knows the answer to this question.
I don't.
I'm not going to.
Well, he was fired by unanimous decision of the police tribunal.
Isn't that interesting?
I thought that as the story went on, that he was for sure going to get off.
No, he was fired.
So sometimes it's possible to take disciplinary action against a black man in uniform.
Did you see the study real quick from Skeptic Magazine where they asked respondents to estimate the number of unarmed blacks killed by police in 2019?
Probably 300, 500.
What did they say?
Probably 300, 500, what do they say?
Okay, so liberals, 44% of liberals guessed 1000.
As compared to 20% of conservatives.
Wait, they guessed 1,000?
20% of conservatives did, 44% of liberals, and the Washington Post of course has a database of all police shootings.
Right.
And let's see, Steve Saylor found, this is of course on unz.com forward slash iSteve.
And it's, I think it was 16?
The number's so small!
It's not even into the 20s, it's in the teens.
Exactly!
And get this, I hate saying that, I know it's a trademark, but for very liberal, I wish I were making this up, but it looks like based on the number here, yeah, about a thousand for very liberal, 31% said that, and then Unbelievably for Very Liberal, 14% responded about 10,000.
18% responded about 10,000.
7% of very liberal, 7% of very liberal said more than 10,000.
Now for conservatives, we'll just end it real quick here.
Conservative and very conservative, they were right.
About 10.
46% and 45%.
Oh, some said that.
Some actually knew the facts.
Very conservative.
Very conservative.
Well, only very conservative people actually know the facts.
Exactly.
And so, shockingly, well, not shockingly, when you think about the wall-to-wall media coverage, a combined, let's see here, 13% of A lot of very conservative people thought about a thousand, said about a thousand, which it just shows you.
It shows you the ability to inculcate and to reinforce this idea of white cops going out there just gunning down innocent black bodies, even for very conservatives.
Well, you know, one of our great writers, Gregory Hood, he points out we don't have state-run media.
We have a media-run state.
I think that's a great way of putting it.
The media can completely control this.
Imagine how differently the United States would behave if you repeatedly got this information.
If, for example, one of these actual shootings happened and you said, well, this was only number five this year.
But no, this information is stuff that we will never ever get front page in any of these media.
Play that one more time.
You said we don't have a media-run state, we have a... No, no, we don't have state-run media.
We have a... We have a media-run state.
Yes.
Pretty clever, isn't it?
That's exactly what we have.
The media have more power, I think, than Congress and Supreme Court put together.
They can drive the agenda.
They can make pretty much anything happen.
And increasingly we're seeing the merger between corporate media and the big tech.
The fangs.
And the Democratic Party while we're at it.
Yes, it is without a doubt.
But anyway.
Yes, on the whole subject of police.
Now here's another interesting story.
And once again, once again, the whole question of melanin enhancement is central to how it plays out.
Wisconsin.
Madison, Wisconsin.
As good little liberals that they are, this is one of these just overwhelmingly, relentlessly liberal college towns.
They all are.
Austin, Texas.
Madison, Wisconsin.
Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Oh, they are just liberal and proud to death of it.
They established a Police Civilian Oversight Board.
Of course.
Now, they did this in response to activists who are concerned with police misbehavior.
Now, it's not entirely clear what this oversight board is going to do, but it will provide input.
It'll provide input.
It will engage in community outreach and make recommendations on policy.
It's all very vague and perhaps promising, but what is very clear is who's allowed to participate on this board.
There are going to be 11 members.
Six, a majority, have to be black.
Then one board seat is reserved for an Asian.
One board seat is reserved for an American Indian.
One board seat is reserved for someone identifying as Latinx.
So you could identify as Latinx.
Yes, Mr. Kersey, I think you'd make a good Latinx.
If gender is fluid, why is it race fluid?
Well, that's something that liberals can never explain.
And then, one seat is reserved for a member of the LGBTQ community.
Now, I don't know how you prove that either.
Do you have to spend your Saturdays in gay bars to prove that you're... I mean, how do you prove that?
That's something I've always been interested in.
Can't you just say, well, you know, I'm... I'm... I'm... Queers can be.
But that means... Now, those who've been keeping count, and I suspect nobody out there has been keeping count, that is 10 out of 11 seats are reserved.
Now, that means there could be a maximum of one white person on the board.
And it doesn't have to be a single white person.
The seats are reserved, but the other one's open.
It might be that an LGBTQ person is of great expertise in the subject of police misbehavior and has to have that seat.
Now, just out of curiosity, look at the population of Madison.
Now, as I say, the majority of seats, 6 out of 11, are going to go to blacks.
Blacks are all of 7% of the population.
One seat at most, and maybe none, will be white.
Well, whites are 79%.
So, I mean, this sounds about right.
Isn't this equity?
It is equity.
Yeah, white people less.
And, you know, don't forget that a Native American gets a seat on the board, one out of the eleven, and their percentage is 0.45, not even half a percent of the population is Native American, but boy, they've got to have a seat at the table.
I retract what I said earlier.
Believe it or not, Madison, Wisconsin's police department publishes Their arrest and suspect and victim data by race and it is quite revealing because invariably
The few homicides that take place in Madison are committed, interestingly enough, by 7% of the population that you just mentioned.
Oh boy.
Well, you know, if I were on this board and I were black or LGBTQ or Latinx, I'd say you've got to stop publicizing those statistics.
That just perpetuates stereotypes.
Reinforces negative stereotypes that lead to police shootings.
But you know, another way to look at it is this.
Maybe they looked up that data and they decided to dole out the seats on this board in proportion to the prison population or the arrest figures.
So if a majority or 70-80% of the people arrested for murder are black, well, you better put them on the community board.
I mean, after all, criminals deserve a voice, too!
They're the only people who deserve a voice.
Yes, they should provide input.
They should make policy-level recommendations.
In any case, that is Madison for you.
Madison is woke, woke, woke, woke, woke.
Boy, they are so woke, they're never gonna go back to sleep.
But now there is an interesting little development in the San Francisco school name change saga.
We spoke about that several times.
I believe some of our listeners will certainly remember back in January the school board voted six to one.
There was a reactionary holdout apparently to rename schools that honored racist historical figures.
Now these, of course, included George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere.
Now what did Paul Revere do that was racist?
What if by land, two if by sea?
Three if a negro?
You better not see me.
I don't know.
That's actually the edition that no one knows about in school books.
Bad rhyme.
Apparently he was bad, bad, bad.
Well, the cities made an about face.
Did you realize that?
This decision to scrub 44 racist names, that was 44 out of 125, more than a third of the names had to go because all of this wickedness that had been hanging over these poor children's heads all these years, it had to go.
Now, what we have heard just earlier this week, San Francisco's school board head, Gabriela Lopez, she's running the schools, said on Saturday, I acknowledge and take responsibility that mistakes were made in the naming process.
Then she goes, she says, we're canceling renaming committee meetings for the time being.
For the time being.
She goes on to say, our students need to attend schools where they feel valued and seen.
This work is anti-racist and we're proud of it.
So, clearly they've just put the thing on ice.
They're putting it on hold.
There was a lot of complaining about this.
As you remember, Dianne Feinstein was one of the possible targets because she actually put up a Confederate flag that had been taken down in 1984.
Then it was taken down again, she decided to keep it down, but the fact of actually having put it up, oh, even once, even once!
Oh, Dianne Feinstein, didn't you know any better?
But, of all these 125 schools, John Muir, he's a bad, bad, bad guy who's got to go, the naturalist.
Then Daniel Webster, Roosevelt.
You know, it's funny, when you look at some of these school websites, I couldn't even tell if it's Teddy Roosevelt or if it's FDR.
But it's Roosevelt.
It doesn't matter.
We've talked about it.
FDR did the whole redlining stuff.
It doesn't matter.
He was white.
He was segregated in World War II.
He was white.
That's all that matters.
And then, El Dorado.
I mean, that's not even a person.
But El Dorado was racist.
The Presidio.
And there's somebody, Bryant.
I don't know who Bryant is.
But Francis Scott Key.
He was a racist.
And then, there's another one I couldn't figure out.
Jose Ortega.
It's surprising to me.
You go to the website of a school.
Wouldn't you think that if it's called Jose Ortega Elementary School, there'd be some indication as to who Jose Ortega was?
Then there's a Sanchez School, an Alvarado School.
It's all very strange.
But at least for the time being, these people have gotten a reprieve.
My guess, of course, is that this renaming committee will get back into action pretty soon, and a lot of these people's heads will roll.
Heads will roll.
That is the number one priority.
It's not about mathematics.
It's not about arithmetic.
It's not about logic or reason.
Wait, wait.
It is a priority.
It is a priority.
Our students need to attend schools where they feel valued and seen.
Not invisible and devalued.
And if they go to Abraham Lincoln School, they suddenly become invisible.
Conversely, what about white students who attend these schools?
Don't they deserve to be heard and seen and celebrated?
Well, not by racism.
Heavens, no.
Heavens, no.
I wonder if any white people would be left at all.
Maybe Dianne Feinstein.
You know, white people can all go to Dianne.
They'll have to all go to Dianne Feinstein Elementary School.
Every last one of them.
But now, you and I have followed crime with some interest and Baltimore's come up with a brilliant, a brilliant crime reduction program.
It is the brainchild of Tyree Moorhead.
He spent 18 years in the big house for second-degree murder, which he committed when he was 15.
Well, he's out now.
He was released in 2012 and he has since devoted his time to trying to work with criminals to reduce crime rates.
Good for him.
He said this week he believes the way to lower the city's soaring shooting numbers is to pay criminals, not to kill people.
He says, I can relate to the shooters.
And guess what they want?
They want money.
I've talked to these people.
I've seen the shooters.
It's a small city.
I know who the hustlers are.
I'm sure he'd be happy to decide who gets the cash.
And I wonder if, for a small kickback, he might say, I'm a dangerous guy.
I think I should be paid not to shoot people.
I mean, Joe Biden, just the other day, I mean, just a few days ago, didn't he say that white nationalists are the most dangerous people in America?
I didn't know that, did he?
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
I'm a serious threat.
We're the most dangerous people around.
So, I think, I think I should get a handout for not shooting people.
Well, remember, Democrats say that Trump supporters are a bigger threat than systemic racism, white nationalism, police brutality.
The point is, though, it's all interchangeable.
All that is a synonym for the exact same thing, and that is what?
Just a white person who doesn't grovel, who doesn't fall on their knees, who doesn't say, I submit.
I capitulate.
Well, you know, we may have no choice but to submit, because a bill has been introduced in this new session of Congress, the title of which is, a bit of a mouthful, The Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act.
That's the name of the bill.
It was reintroduced in new session, now has 162 Democrat co-sponsors in the House and 17 Democrat co-sponsors in the Senate.
What it would do is set up a 13 member commission to make you submit.
And the way it would do this is, it would be composed of persons who are especially
qualified to serve on the commission by virtue of their education,
training, activism, or experience, particularly in the field of African-American studies
and reparatory justice.
So it's all about studying reparations.
Now, I think we can predict with 100% accuracy what the proposal will be.
There got to be reparations.
I think we can just take that to the bank.
Texas Democrat Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, she's the sponsor of the bill in the House.
She wrote, we want to isolate white supremacy.
Just what that's got to do with the commission to study reparations, I don't know.
But I guess Making all of us pay up is a way to punish white supremacy.
It's a shame we can't isolate black supremacy by walling off, you know, Baltimore or Detroit or one of these major cities where we've seen black power permeate for decades and the consequences of such are still blamed on... Ah, the legacy of slavery.
Redlining.
Well, but I bet a third of these Americans who want to break up the country, I think they might be happy with that.
Happy with that.
In any case, let's see, and Judiciary Chairman Gerald Nadler.
He is, needless to say, a Democrat.
He's from New York, and he said about this bill, Our nation must find constructive ways to confront a rising tide of racial and ethnic division.
Well, separation would be a constructive way.
On January 6th, we saw the ugly confluence of such divisions as white nationalist groups appeared to be among those playing a central role in the violent assault on the United States Capitol.
And that is why blacks deserve reparations.
I mean, Gerald Natlin's got it figured out.
But, you know, it's just being studied.
But now, don't Ben and Jerry, don't they have words of wisdom on the whole subject of this H.R.
40 that I'm sure you can explain to us?
They do, and I don't think, and the reason why we're signaling, why we're singling out Ben and Jerry's, because I believe that what they put out from their CEO, Matthew McCarthy, Pretty much could be copy and pasted for any corporation, whether it's Coca-Cola, whether they're telling people to be less white, whether it's Salesforce, whether it's PepsiCo, whether it's Ford, whether it's... You name the Fortune 500 company, they will gladly put this same statement.
I'm willing to read a little of it.
Probably a little is all we need, but they will catch the essence.
To move forward, we must be honest about our past.
Business leaders can help America heal by supporting HR 40.
So here we go.
The insurrection at the United States Capitol on January 6th was a dramatic and shocking reminder that white supremacy and racism are still ingrained in our country.
America's unwillingness to acknowledge and atone for nearly 400 years of slavery and legalized segregation continues to rip the moral fabric of society apart.
We must have the courage to confront the truth.
That's why we support the concepts of reparations for the descendants of slaves and those impacted by slavery.
This week, and only for the second time in history, Congress held a hearing on H.R.
40, legislation that would establish a federal commission to study and develop reparation proposals for African Americans.
I'm not going to read anything from the CEO, but... I think that's plenty.
See, this is the crazy thing.
This Trump mob breaks into the Capitol, and all of a sudden, we've got to give blacks reparations?
I mean, where's the logic there?
Here's the only passage from the CEO I'm going to read.
Quote, Last summer's uprising response to the murder of George Floyd and the recent insurrection at the United States Capitol are just two examples of the power that racism and white supremacy continue to hold in our nation.
Many companies and brands have since sought to weigh in on issues of racial justice.
As the CEO of Ben & Jerry's, we seek to advance economic and social justice through its day-to-day operations.
I encourage my counterparts in the business world to do more than speak up.
I encourage my counterparts never to buy Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
Okay, well, and I understand Barack and Michelle are all for it too, aren't they?
Again, this is just one of those quotes where Barack Obama wants to retcon who he actually was in those eight years of office, since we didn't really hear much about reparations during his time as Commander-in-Chief.
Former President Barack Obama says he wants to push for justified reparations, said he
wanted, I'm sorry, said he wanted to push for justified reparations during his presidency,
but it was a quote non-starter because of white resistance.
He told this to Bruce Springsteen on their new podcast, Renegades, born in the USA, quote,
there's not much question that the wealth of this country, the power of this country
was built in a significant part, not exclusively, but not even the majority of it, but a large
portion of it was built on the backs of slaves.
And what I saw during my presidency was the politics of white resistance and resentment, the talk of welfare queens, the talk of the undeserving poor, and the backlash against affirmative action.
All that made the prospect of actually proposing any kind of coherent and meaningful reparations program struck me as politically not only a non-starter, but potentially counterproductive.
Not anymore, I guess.
Not anymore.
Now the mood has changed thanks to St.
George.
Thanks to a guy who died of a fentanyl overdose.
Well, and this has led also to something else that we had, I don't see the logic behind, but at least 160 public confederate symbols were taken down or moved from public spaces in 2020.
This, according to that font of all knowledge and wisdom about things racial, the Southern Poverty Law Center.
That includes statues, placards, buildings, public parks named for Confederates or the Confederacy.
Now, Lesia Brooks, she's the chief of staff of the SPLC.
I didn't know they had a chief of staff, but they do.
And she is one of our African American fellow citizens.
She said, these racist symbols only serve to uphold revisionist history and the belief that white supremacy remains morally acceptable.
Well, I don't think they do that.
But that's the thing she says they only do.
That's the only thing they do.
Of course.
Is maintain the belief that white supremacy remains morally accepted.
That's the only thing they're doing out there.
I hope you understand that.
And this is why we believe that all symbols of white supremacy should be removed.
Well, and that includes, of course, the statue of Robert E. Lee that stood in the National Statuary Hall in the Capitol Rotunda for 111 years.
111 years.
Well, all it represented was the belief that white supremacy remains morally acceptable.
I suppose that's why, that's of course why President Eisenhower had a portrait of Robert E. Lee in the Oval Office because he would Get down on his knees every day and worship white supremacy.
That's what he did before he started his work day.
Well, he is gone now.
Robert E. Lee is gone.
And instead, there will be a statue that honors Virginia's Barbara Johns.
Barbara Johns.
This is one of those unknown, unsung, but eminently worthy heroes of civil rights.
A hidden figure hidden no longer.
Hidden no longer at all.
Barbara Johns, as a 16-year-old black girl, she staged a strike, or she helped to organize a strike back in 1951, a troop pioneer, over unequal conditions at her segregated high school.
So, that is the lady who's going to take the place of Robert E. Lee.
Now, she went on to be an elementary school librarian, so we cannot discount the high achievements of Barbara Johns.
But, you know, I think choosing Barbara Johns is an insult to black people.
You're going to have to put a black person in, and of course you have to.
You can't have nothing but white people.
And I think the black person they should have chosen, I might have mentioned this before on a previous podcast, is Nat Turner.
Nat Turner should be their boy.
I mean, he actually had a slave uprising.
He killed, he and his guys killed 50 people for heaven's sake.
They really did something.
None of this sort of sissified school strike stuff.
They struck a blow for black dignity and black freedom.
So they, he's the guy that they should put.
He was, he was a, he was a black liberation as he was.
He really did it right for heaven's sake.
Come on, don't be, don't be so sissified about this.
Well, so now Virginia will be represented by two figures.
The other one, of course, is George Washington.
Not for long.
Well, that's just it.
You know, George Washington, I think even the statue might faint dead away when they put up this black girl right next to him.
He would be so surprised.
The father of his country.
But you know, you have to realize that there are still villains in Statuary Hall.
You know who probably the worst villain is?
Who's that?
Besides George Washington?
Jeff Davis.
Jeff Davis is still there.
Yes, he was a senator from Mississippi after all.
And his days are surely numbered.
Just like the Confederate battle flag emblem on the Flag of Mississippi, where it fell, even though Republicans held both houses in the state, it fell in the aftermath of the fentanyl overdose there in Minneapolis.
They never asked the people.
The people wanted to stay, but no, too bad.
Now the SPLC says there are still 704 Confederate monuments still standing across the U.S.
doing immense evil.
Now, taking them down may be difficult, particularly in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, because there are laws that say you cannot take them down.
Now, the movement to remove all these symbols from public spaces became part of the national reckoning following what the press calls the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Derek Chauvin.
Now, what's the connection between taking down all the Confederate monuments and the death of George Floyd?
Well, you realize, of course, Derek Chauvin is a direct lineal descendant of Stonewall Jackson.
I did not know that.
And his middle name is Beauregard.
Really?
You just made that up.
I would have believed it.
You fell for that, didn't you?
I totally fell for that.
Nope, nope.
Gullible's written on the ceiling at that, where you are.
Nothing of the sort.
Nothing of the sort.
You know, we would have heard all about that if that were in fact true.
I just made that up.
But as Leshia Brooks, I don't know how to pronounce your name, L-E-C-I-A.
Leshia, probably.
Chief of Staff.
Chief of Staff.
That sounds pretty impressive.
She says, exposing children to anything that falsely promotes the idea of white supremacy.
Now, if it falsely promoted, I mean, that seems odd to me.
It seems to me it promotes the idea.
If it falsely, in any case, anything that falsely promotes the idea of white supremacy and black inferiority is dehumanizing.
Dehumanizing.
Exposing children to this is dehumanizing.
If children walk by the Robert E. Lee statue, it dehumanizes them?
It turns them into something other than human?
What does it turn them into?
What if you're exposed 24-7 to this idea of black supremacy that permeates every aspect of our society?
What does that do to white kids?
Does that dehumanize them?
That's a different question.
I mean, dehumanize them?
Turn them into apes or worms or something?
Turn them into something other than human?
An amoeba?
Yes, it's dehumanizing, but she's got it figured out.
The S.P.L.C.
knows all about these things.
But, I believe in Tacoma, Washington, there's yet another one of these renaming campaigns.
Out with the white, into the black?
You know, it's fascinating.
We talk about these heavily white states, like Washington.
Ben Franklin's gone, Senator Rosa Franklin is in.
Monday, this past Monday, Metro Parks Tacoma continued a trend of local institutions, and this is supposed to be an objective news piece, but here's the word they use, local institutions rightfully re-examining the names we bestowed on important places, and in the process, took a small step toward better reflecting the city it serves.
So, since the 1930s, the roughly 20-acre park in Central Tacoma, Washington, has been named in honor of no less a luminary than Ben Franklin.
Obviously, he never visited the state of Washington.
It didn't exist then.
It was a French colony at the time.
No, the British ran it, I think.
In any case, the point is Ben Franklin never went there, but you know what?
At one point, no one was upset about our history.
You wanted to celebrate the great men who were the quote-unquote founding fathers and who better than Then the Portly Kite Flyer and the Founding Father, Ben Franklin.
An homage can thrive largely out of proximity, considering the fact that the nearby elementary school also bared his name.
Not for long, I'm sure.
Well, a unanimous vote by the Metro Parks Board of Commissioners has changed and rectified that.
In a decision that the board chair, Eric Hanberg, jokingly described as pulling a King County because King County was named after a white man.
That's the county where Seattle, Washington is located.
They decided to retcon it and name it In honor of Martin Luther King, a more important king.
Metro Parks officially renamed the park in honor of Rosa Franklin, a former nurse and longtime park supporter who became the first African-American woman to serve in these states.
At the meeting, she's 93 years old now, she described the park renaming as an unexpected honor.
And I like this quote, quote, Are you sure?
End quote.
What?
Oh, that's what she said?
Yes.
Are you sure?
She then said, quote, I used to live in that district.
My two kids went to Franklin Elementary, so you know that was a long time ago.
I'm so appreciative.
The proposal was met with criteria for consideration.
They spent roughly a month researching the idea and ultimately preparing the recommendation in favor.
Not one person spoke in opposition to the move.
Not one person.
Not one person.
Now, the transition, since they're just changing the name from Ben Franklin to Senator Franklin, it's only going to cost, signage, roughly about $5,000.
So here's your blueprint, Mr. Taylor.
Oh, one more quote for you.
According to Metro Parks Board Commissioner Aaron Pointer, who's also black, whatever the cost, it's well worth it, he said.
Renaming Franklin Park in honor of Rosa Franklin carries significant meaning, both symbolic and practical.
Particularly during Black History Month.
Well, you know, by this thinking, I think every national park in the United States should be called Rosa Parks.
What do you think?
Well, again, all you have to do is get out a glossary, get out an encyclopedia, get out, you know, we always hear about the first black person who did this, something that, you know, obviously a white person had done.
Countless times, and of course, set the trend centuries ago.
But all you have to do now is basically look at an elementary school or a park and say, okay, Johnson.
It's named for someone, a white person named Johnson, okay?
Let's figure out a black individual named Johnson who's in the area.
We'll celebrate that, we'll get rid of this, and we'll just say, hey, we did during February, we did during Black History Month, you can't Well, that's wokeness on the cheap.
You can't confront it.
Exactly.
And that's what this article points out, the blueprint.
It's a very insignificant cost.
Taxpayers, no one complained.
Not one person said, wait a second, Ben Franklin for Rosa Franklin?
Okay, well then again, you know, the National Parks, they're the Rosa Parks now.
They're still parks.
Well, you mentioned Coca-Cola.
I suspect this got so much attention that many of our listeners heard about it, but they had an online mandatory course called Confronting Racism.
And Confronting Racism, colon, understanding what it means to be white and challenging what it means to be racist.
The goal was to be, try to be less white.
And so there were images from this presentation that somebody that worked for Coca-Cola took and released to the public.
Thank goodness there are people who are still able to do that.
And some of the quotes from in the U.S.
and other Western nations.
White people are socialized to feel that they're inherently superior because they're white.
Did you know that?
Did you know you were socialized to do that?
Now the course also included instructions on how to be less white.
To be less white is to be less oppressive, less arrogant, less certain, less defensive, less ignorant.
The more you learn, the less white you become.
Did you know that?
I did not know that!
Well, so keep learning more.
You'll be less and less white.
Don't learn anything more.
The higher educated you are, the less white you are.
There's an inverse correlation there.
You get a PhD and your melanin begins to enhance.
So, now, it also says, be more humble, listen, believe, break with apathy, and break with white solidarity.
Break with apathy?
No, no, I'm sorry.
Break with apathy, yes.
Well, apathy is not worrying constantly every waking hour about the injustices done to black people in America.
And so this course had the participation of Robin DiAngelo.
Robin DiAngelo, good old white fragility, Robin DiAngelo.
She's become such a celebrity.
Do you know how much she charges for a half-day indoctrination course?
Okay, half-day indoctrination course.
I bet they get a signed copy of her book, White Fragility.
I bet you she charges a corporation $500,000.
Ooh, for just a half a day?
You're off by an order of magnitude.
She's not quite that much of a celebrity.
She gets $40,000 for half a day.
That's it?
$40,000, yeah.
But I'm sure all expenses paid and first class this and, you know, champagne that.
But yeah, she gets only $40,000 a day.
I'm sorry, well that makes $80,000 a day.
That's pretty good.
That's pretty good.
Considering that your average family of four has an income of $644,000?
No, the median household income of white people in the United States is about $63,000.
Okay, well, you factor in the races, so... Yes, so she can, in a full day's work, in a full day's work, she can beat the median household income of a white man.
Pretty much write everything off, because she's a consultant, so it's $10.99.
Anyway, yes, we seem to, as we always do, keep barreling towards the finish line here.
We're running out of time, and so I would love to thank all of our listeners for this honor of being able to spend this hour with you every week.
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