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Sept. 10, 2021 - Radio Renaissance - Jared Taylor
58:53
The Racist Eyes of Texas
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Radio Renaissance.
I'm Jared Taylor with American Renaissance and with me is my indispensable co-host and today is September 9th, the year of our Lord, 2021.
That means in a couple of days it will be the anniversary of September 11 attacks About which I will say nothing except to invite you to watch the video that will probably go up the same day as this podcast.
I've devoted a whole video to whether our rulers have managed to learn anything at all in the last 20 years.
And I think you can probably guess the answer.
In the meantime, I'm afraid we have to start with a very sad story, and that has to do with the Lee statue.
The Robert E. Lee statue, that gorgeous statue on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia, has finally come down.
It came down on yesterday, despite what seems to me to be an absolutely open and shut legal case that the state of Virginia had an absolute perpetual obligation to keep it up.
In 1889, the General Assembly, that is the lower house of the State House, guaranteed, and this is what it said, would hold the Lee Monument perpetually sacred to the monumental purpose to which it has been devoted.
And in 1890, the association that was building the monument and owned the land on which it was to stand Deeded the land to the Commonwealth, and in the process of deeding it, the State of Virginia agreed that it would hold the Lee Monument and the land it stands on perpetually sacred to the monumental purpose to which they have been devoted, and the State of Virginia will faithfully guard it and affectionately protect it.
Seems like an open and shut case to me.
How'd they get around that?
Well, I know, I know, but it's very hard.
I mean, what could be clearer?
You know, I just want to break in just momentarily and tell people, if you never saw this statue, the grandeur, the elegant statement that it made, silhouetted in this gorgeous street, Monument Avenue, it was timeless.
It was a It's hard to put into words.
Before the events of late May 2020, when the Marxist insurrection took place, the police stood down and it was defaced with the most vile, anti-white language possible.
You looked at this and it looked like it was still in the same pristine state, Mr. Taylor, that it was in 1890.
Well, it was!
It was unreal!
And think about this, ladies and gentlemen.
You can go online and you can Google Robert E. Lee statue, Monument Avenue, 1890.
And you can see pictures of when it was unveiled.
And you have to ask yourself, you asked me this prior before we got started.
How did they get this up there?
This pedestal?
How did they get this up on this pedestal with the technology at the time?
Well, they did a lot.
After all, the ancient Egyptians built a pyramid that was higher than the Confederate monument.
That's very true.
They got it up there all right, and it was a gorgeous, most dignified equestrian statue I can perhaps think of.
In any case, how did the state wriggle out of what seems to me to be an absolute cast-iron contract?
The Supreme Court of Virginia found that the 1889 Legislative Guarantee and the 1890 Deed to Faithfully Guard and Affectionately Protect did not bind the current government.
No.
It ruled that government speech is a vital power of the Commonwealth.
And although the statue said nothing except the word Lee on it, that's the only word the statue spoke.
It, to quote the court, plays an important role in defining the identity that the government projects to its own residents and the outside world.
Therefore, it's said that the state need not be viewpoint neutral and that affectionately protecting the statute, open quotes, would contradict public policy and be unreasonable in light of changed circumstances.
Changed democracy, I believe is one of the words.
No, no, no, no, no.
We'll get to that.
No, no, we'll get to that.
We'll get to that.
It changed circuit.
So we've changed our mind so we can break the contract.
The court went on to say democracy is inherently dynamic.
Values change and public policy changes too.
Therefore the terms of the grant of property to the statue in exchange for protecting the monument are unenforceable.
Unenforceable!
Because they were the product of a 19th century attempt to barter away the free exercise of government speech regarding the Lee monument in perpetuity.
Because they agreed forever to love it and cherish it.
And by that, they muzzled themselves forever.
Their free speech rights were just illegally wrenched from them.
Can you believe this?
Of course, it could have put up a sign any time it liked saying, the state of Virginia declares this man to be a racist jackanapes.
There's nothing stopping that.
But no, no.
So they could get completely out of what appears to me to be an absolutely As I say, cast-iron contract, simply because they've changed their mind.
And this is in the interest of freedom of speech.
The government's freedom of speech.
Incredible.
The fact is, 50% of Virginians oppose taking down Confederate statues.
And I bet you, but see, democracy is thwarted because the governor wants to do it, the state house wants to do it, so it's got to come down.
50% of the Virginians opposed taking down Confederate statues, and I bet if you asked about that statue in particular, which, as I say, is a gorgeous work of art, I wonder what the current population of Virginia would say in terms of whether they wanted that to happen.
Now, as you know, there were a couple hundred people cheering and shouting the usual nonsense, Black Lives Matter, As generally came down.
Well, when it went up in 1890, 150,000 people were there.
That's larger than the then population of the city.
Maybe one day I'll tell a couple stories.
It's not today, but I'm going to tell people this.
That monument, when I first saw it, it was, you know, I've had the pleasure of seeing Stone Mountain, which I'm sure in the next few years, it'll be sandblasted.
The edifice with Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson, but Monument Avenue at its glory.
I dare say, Mr. Taylor, that it rivaled any other street in the country and maybe in the world, maybe in the world.
And I mean this when you think about what it stood for and the sheer I hope you tell a story here in a couple minutes about Stonewall Jackson.
No, I can't get through that without weeping, so I'm not going to tell that story.
Okay, okay.
No, the absolute majesty of this statue is hard to describe to those who have not seen it.
But I believe, Mr. Kersey, you have an explanation of the new plans for the Lee pedestal.
The pedestal is going to stay up.
Apparently, it's going to remain covered with all these obscenities and anti-white nonsense, but it's just going to stay up as is, as an object of public art, is it not?
It is going to.
Before we get to that, I do want to say there's still one Confederate statue still in Richmond that I encourage everyone to go see before they take it down.
It is on Libby Hill.
It actually is the site where in the late 1700s, William Byrd, he looked at the river, he looked at the James River, and he said it reminded him of Richmond on the Thames, and that's what the name Richmond was named after.
So in In 1894, the Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was placed on that very spot.
It is a monument that is modeled after Pompeii's pillar in Alexandria, Egypt.
It depicts a bronze Confederate private That's been removed, but the pillar's still there, and it is magnificent to see.
I'm sure at some point they'll take it down, but go see it before they do.
They'll push it into the river, I'm sure.
They'll try to, but it's okay, you know.
So, what's going on?
Oh, this is hard to get through this one, Mr. Taylor.
I'm sorry.
This one is.
NPR ran this story with Lee's statue gone.
You know, he didn't mention that it was cut in two.
That's right.
Cut in two.
Now, why did they even have to do that?
And they're supposed to, let's see, faithfully guard it and affectionately protect it.
Take it down is one thing.
Slice it up.
That's just gratuitous insult.
That's just more disgusting than disgusting can be.
When the Muslims took Constantinople in 1453, one of the first things they did was take down the statue of Justinian.
That was similar.
It was an equestrian statue.
And that's what I thought as that statue came down.
It was just difficult stuff to talk about.
Here's where we go with this NPR story.
They're gleeful.
The opening line is, one of the largest Confederate monuments came down Wednesday in the country.
Now the state is announcing new plans for the base that used to hold the massive statue.
They're going to remove a 133-year-old copper time capsule inside the pedestal And replace it with one that they say will reflect the current cultural climate in Virginia.
Well, of course, we know what that current cultural climate is.
It's right in front of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the This Means War statue.
The Kehinde Wiley.
Yes, the black guy on the horse.
That's the current climate, ladies and gentlemen.
And, you know, quote, the past 18 months have seen historic change from the pandemic to protests for racial justice
that led to removal of these monuments to a lost cause. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam said in a
news release, it's fitting that we replace the old time capsule with a new one that tells that
story. So in June of 2020, just days after the murder of George Floyd, Northam announced the
decision to remove the Lee statue.
This was after the mayor of Richmond removed the statue of Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis.
And this is before the court had really said anything about it.
Exactly.
Northam just said, well, we're going to do it and we'll jiggle the law.
We'll bribe some judge.
I don't know whatever he did, but it's not going to make a bit of difference.
We're going to take it down no matter what.
So Virginia removed the 12-ton Robert E. Lee statue on On Wednesday, September 8th, of course, as we stated, more than 130 years after it was first installed.
So let's talk about the history behind this old time capsule.
The original time capsule was placed in the pedestal of the Confederate monument On 1827-1887, according to Virginia historians, this was as they're erecting this magnificent monumental statue.
In a statement from Northern's office, officials said records from the Library of Virginia showed that the people of Richmond contributed approximately 60 artifacts featured inside the capsule.
Some of those old capsule objects are believed to have ties to the Confederacy.
Obviously, it has to go then.
Quote, this monument and its tied capsule reflected Virginia in 1890, and it's time to remove both that Both so that our public spaces better reflect who we are as a people in 2021.
Well, I'm beginning to realize that who we were as a people in 1890 is far better than who we are as a people when it's so nebulous in 2020.
You're just beginning!
Hey listen, the statue stood all throughout the past 21 years of the 21st century.
It did just fine until it came down.
I'm sorry, when the capsule was removed on Thursday, officials said the original capsule would be given to the Virginia Department of historic resources so the new capsule can take its place.
So what's going to happen now?
The new capsule was created by Virginia artist Paul DePasquale, the sculptor behind both the Arthur Ashe Museum, I'm sorry, Monument in Richmond, which is a ridiculous statue at the end of Monument Avenue, and the King Neptune statue in Virginia Beach.
At least the King Neptune statue is a white guy.
Well, so far.
True, yeah.
Martin Luther King Neptune.
According to Governor's Office, a group of historians, educators, artists, and state officials worked together to select nearly 40 submissions to be placed inside the new time capsule.
So ladies and gentlemen, we went from the magnificent Robert E. Lee statue and a time
capsule that had been there since 1887 to this.
Some of the items include a photo of a black ballerina taken by a local Richmond photographer
in front of the statue that's now gone.
Kinte cloth worn at the 400th commemoration of 1619.
A Black Lives Matter sticker.
Stop Asian hate flyers.
Doesn't matter who's committing that hate.
Just gotta stop it.
An LGBTQ pride pin that's already outdated because we have how many more letters added to that acronym.
An ever-expanding acronym, we should say.
And an expired vial of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine.
Don't forget that in a couple months, you'll have to get a booster for that, mind you.
Quote, now in 2021, this capsule gives future Virginians artifacts of the tectonic transition that has happened to us.
Tectonic is right.
The pedestal marks the past and has a new message for the future.
We, all of us, are the new Virginia.
Well, let me tell you, I think we're beginning to understand that this new Virginia Ladies and gentlemen, listen to me carefully.
This only came about because in 2019, Democrats were able to run unopposed in, I think, 35 elections in Virginia.
That gave them a slim majority in both the respective branches of the government in
Virginia, which allowed them to then pass the bill, Mr. Taylor, that overrode the Republicans' bill to
protect the Civil War monuments. It was only in July of 2020 that they were able to pass bills to
remove Confederate monuments in Virginia.
And that's because, guess what?
People didn't show up.
Elections matter.
This is a nonpartisan podcast, but you have to get involved or else you're going to watch your entire history be erased and replaced with stop Asian hate flyers, kente cloth worn at the 400th commemoration of 1619, and you're going to watch one of the most magnificent sculptures in the entire country.
Wasn't that on the National Historic Register?
Yes, it was.
It was a National Historical Monument.
Well, tore it down anyway.
The Feds don't care.
They want it down, too.
The only Republican who said anything about this was who?
Donald Trump.
The one I know.
Did any other Republican say anything?
I haven't heard anything.
Here's a question.
I know you don't want to appear on the spot, but I'm going to ask you.
If Trump had won and this had happened, do you think he would have tried to stop it?
Oh, he would have tried very hard to stop it.
He might have succeeded.
I don't know.
He might have said, look, it's on the National Historical Register.
You can't take it down.
I don't know.
But no, I'm sure he would have tried to stop it.
No, the whole thing is thoroughly disgusting.
But I can explain to you why it had to come down.
Another reason.
And this has to do with a local story from Portsmouth, Virginia.
Portsmouth, Virginia.
You see, back a year ago or more ago, Chris Green of Portsmouth, he was attacking the local Confederate statue.
Well, the statue hopped off its pedestal, fell down, and Chris Green suffered a severe brain injury.
He's fighting his way back, but he has the mind of a 13-year-old.
He is blind in one eye and lost his hearing in one ear, but he's making progress.
He's learning how to eat and walk again, and his speech is slowly coming back.
And doctors have told his wife they can't guarantee that he'll ever return to the way he was before the statue hit him.
The statue hit him, you see.
Bam!
It came down.
Those bad Confederate statues.
And that, of course, is why we had to take lead on it.
Can you imagine all the brain injuries it would have caused if it had decided to hop off that pedestal onto some black people?
Well, we are all glad to know that Chris Green is struggling back from the injury he suffered when he tried to take down the Portsmouth Monument.
And on a different matter, look out folks, here they come!
Afghan evacuees are surging into America, and as it turns out, many of them need medical care.
And guess who gets to pay for that?
There was an article in the Washington Post, no less, which never met a refugee it didn't like, who points out that this mass of refugees has wreaked havoc on northern Virginia's hospital system.
Even the Post recognizes that.
One hospital became overwhelmed with patients, and federal officials lost track of where some of the Afghans were hospitalized.
And one of the evacuees that the federal officials lost track of was a one-month-old child with potentially life-threatening illnesses.
Well, they found him.
He was still in the hospital.
But in another case, a hospital began running out of available beds, forcing the hospital to turn away Americans.
Afghans first.
Now, remember, dozens of flights will continue to come in carrying Afghan refugees.
They'll be arriving at Dulles Airport, just about a 20-minute drive from here, from the countries where they've been living as refugees.
Many are dealing with physical ailments and psychological trauma, and we are just going to make them absolutely as happy as we can make them.
Meanwhile, Airbnb.
Airbnb is going to house 20,000 Afghan refugees from around the world free of charge.
Were you aware of that?
I did know that.
Company CEO Brian Chesky has announced this.
They will be housed in properties listed in Airbnb's platform and their fees will be paid by Airbnb.
Without specifying exactly how much the company plans to spend on this or how long the refugees will be housed, But, he added, I hope this inspires other business leaders to do the same.
There's no time to waste.
Okay.
Now, he urged Airbnb hosts to reach out to him if they want to host a refugee family.
I wonder how many takers you'll get.
You'll probably get takers in places that just can't shift their rooms, you know.
Oh gosh, we'll get some guy in and we'll finally fill this room.
Fill this ratty room we can't sell on Airbnb.
And Airbnb will pay us for it.
I was going to actually say the same thing.
Isn't this a great opportunity for people who just want to get started with Airbnb and Or who have perpetual tenants.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Yeah, paid by Airbnb.
Now, let us not forget that Texas Medical Technology, a supplier and distributor of medical equipment, told CNBC last week that plans to hire 100 Afghan refugees within a year.
Now, if it's going to hire, who's it going to discriminate against?
I have a feeling who.
Ah, but anyway.
Now, moving right along, moving right along.
Lickety split here.
I have to tell our listeners, our broad-minded and curious listeners about Shantia Lewis.
Shantia Lewis is a member of the Milwaukee City Council and she was first elected in 2016.
Well, last July, she announced that she is running for the United States Senate.
Her campaign has hit a bit of a speed bump.
On Tuesday, she was charged with campaign finance violations for using donations and improper travel reimbursements.
She spent $21,000 on car payments and family trips and other personal expenses.
She used $13,400 for various expenses on her own, deposited $2,725 in campaign donations or personal use, and nearly $3,300 of campaign money went on travel.
$2,725 in campaign donations of personal use and nearly $3,300 of campaign money went on
travel.
She also did a very tricky thing.
She used $2,500 of her campaign donations on travel and then she lied to the city of
Milwaukee and said that this was business travel for the city and so she got Milwaukee
to pay her $2,250 to reimburse her.
Oh, nice little double dipping there.
Now, as it turns out, as it turns out, Shantia Lewis, she is a pastor.
She is a pastor.
And she also spent campaign money to attend a worship conference in Orlando, Florida, where she claimed to be doing political work.
Now, Orlando, Florida is a bit of a ways from Milwaukee, but she was doing necessary city work in Orlando.
And she also used $4,884 in campaign money for payments on her apartment.
Well, you know, they used to say that every time a black person got in trouble with the law, it was because the system wants to take down a strong black man.
Well I think this time, the system wants to take down a fat black woman.
Because I can assure you, Shantia never misses a meal.
Certainly judging from her photographs.
But I believe Mr. Kersey, you have a story for us on how gun violence is going to stop.
With the nifty slogan, guns down, gloves up.
This is out of Washington, D.C., a city that, well, we have some data about.
We know that virtually every suspect in a fatal and non-fatal shooting is, as you would dub them, melanin enhanced.
So here's what we have.
Gerald Brown has decided to start Guns Down, Gloves Up to help fight teen gun violence through pugilism.
As we see this surge in violent crime among teens, there's a local business owner who's trying to give them an alternative to just grabbing the gun.
Try boxing gloves.
So he's the founder of Guns Down, Gloves Up.
Well, that's true.
It's hard to pick up a gun when you've got a boxing glove on your hand.
An everlasting boxing glove makes it highly detrimental to operating a pistol.
So Brown owns a landscaping business, and when two of his employees were arguing, he overheard one of them threaten the other with a gun.
So Brown, who ironically has no boxing background, he convinced the two to box it out instead of using a firearm to solve the problem.
This turned into guns down, gloves up.
That was a eureka moment for him.
If there ever was one.
Impulse control meets boxing.
The event includes boxing bouts, but it's more than that.
It also includes financial literacy, credit building, and new this year, mental health counseling, which Brown says is the most important thing with our young black teens.
Quote, it's never been a part of our culture.
It's looked at as weak.
It's looked at as weird.
It's looked at as of another culture.
But the thing is, It's what we need the most.
Mental health concerns.
I guess it's part of acting white.
We've been damaged in so many ways we don't know where it comes from.
We don't know why we hate each other, why we hate ourselves.
So that mental health aspect of me is the most important part.
So the next event's going to be October 3rd, and this is all coming out of Brown's pocket.
He's looking for sponsors, so if you're out there listening, you want to help the Guns Down, Gloves Up, maybe you want to help the Gloves Down, Guns Up, I don't know what you want to do.
Point is, take a look at it, all you got to do is Google it, and you can try to help make a difference in the black community in Washington, D.C.
Well, God bless him for trying.
Hey, it's worth it!
God bless him for trying.
And he's digging into his own pocket for this, raising money on his own, Well, heaven help him.
Because San Francisco ain't doing it that way.
No, they're not.
They've got a whole different plan.
They're going to launch this pilot project in October called Dream Keeper Fellowship.
Which will pay high-risk individuals $300 a month.
I love that term, high-risk individuals.
High-risk for what?
Basically, shooting somebody.
Participants will be able to earn up to $200 more than the base $300 by hitting milestones in a program, such as landing a job interview, complying with probation, I thought you'd go back in the pokey if you don't comply with probation, or consistently meeting with a mentor.
The initiative will pair participants with newly hired life coaches from the Street Violence Intervention Program.
There's a job for you.
These coaches will help them make the right choices and access services.
The theory is that they will get up to $500 a month if they stay engaged.
There have been other anti-violence programs in Oakland, for example, where young adults get up to $300 a month for achieving milestones.
What's new in San Francisco is that the base $300 you get Without having to do anything just because you're sufficiently at risk.
So if you're really mean, if you're really bad, if you've got a real string of priors, you could be sitting on $300 a month without moving a muscle.
Well, Operation Peacemaker Fellowship in Richmond, Virginia offers similar stipends of up to $1,000.
And a 2019 study claims that it led to a 55% decrease in gun homicides and a 43% decrease in shootings since it began in 2010.
It's the first I've heard of this, but it sounds like a miracle program.
Why haven't we heard of it everywhere?
Why isn't everybody doing it?
I somehow suspect that these numbers are cooked, but I'm just a cynic.
This is not, however, San Francisco's first guaranteed income program.
The city recently rolled up a similar effect for pregnant mothers from marginalized communities.
Who's shoving them into the margins?
I guess you and I are shoving them into the margins.
And artists.
Confederate statues.
Yes.
Who are struggling during the pandemic, go for a checkup and get a check.
I'd say it's worth getting pregnant for that.
Now, back to San Francisco.
Officials want to kick off the latest program with about 10 participants next month in October, before expanding the stipends to another 30 high-risk individuals by the end of the year.
They've already hired two life coaches, and they're looking to hire two more.
So the jobs are open, folks out there.
Want to be a life coach?
Now, as a spokesman says, $6,000 per person, when you look at it annually, it's nothing if it helps deter criminal activity compared to the amount of money it costs to incarcerate someone, let alone the impact of the activity itself.
This is part of an effort by Mayor London Breed to divert funding from law enforcement to the black community.
It's coming out of the police department budget.
And oh, it's going to be some money so well spent.
The effort comes as shootings are soaring, soaring, soaring.
I won't bore you with the statistics.
They are up, up, up.
And as the police and other observers have noted, the battles between just 12 street gangs are driving the majority of gun violence.
These groups, according to reports, tend to be made up of young black and Latino men.
Tend.
I wonder who else are in these.
Sorry, you said 12 gangs?
12 street gangs.
They tend to be made up of young black and Latino men.
I'm sure there are a few, I don't know, Mormons and Amish and a few Danish tourists, but they tend to be made up of young black and Latino men with extensive criminal history.
And they are considered very high risk.
Arrest them all?
Well, why are they out on the street?
If they know who they are, go arrest them!
If they're the ones committing these crimes... And especially if they've got extensive criminal histories... How hard is this?
So, as a spokesman says, the violence is predictable and therefore preventable.
As you say, the best way to prevent it...
Anyway, two to three hundred people should be a very doable thing, they say, and the funds will be placed on reloadable gift cards.
Reloadable gift cards!
I wonder what they'll look like.
Will they be decorated with BLM signs?
Dreamkeeper fellowship?
I'd love to have one.
But some of the neighborhood activists are a little skeptical.
Okay.
And I'll quote one.
What we're talking about is saying we are going to invest resources in this 25-year-old who has eight previous arrests, who's on parole, who's a proud member of a neighborhood clique, and who is not even seeking services.
It's just not a popular decision to make.
The voice of realism, but he's been overridden by London Breed and her commitment, her absolute commitment.
She is a lady, isn't she?
She's a lady.
Now, think about this.
In San Francisco, we know we've talked about in prior podcasts, CVS's Walgreens are closing because I believe you can steal up to, what, $1,000 worth of merchandise, not be prosecuted by the police.
There's videos you can watch of black individuals.
Yes, they're black.
In all the videos, they're black walking into a store.
Getting wherever they want to off the shelves.
Cleaning them out.
Almost always an overweight security guard walks up to, you know, haphazardly try and stop them from leaving, but they just keep going, saunter out.
And people are perplexed watching this, asking themselves, what is happening?
This tectonic shift that we're seeing in this country, ladies and gentlemen, either there's going to be a pushback or who knows how crazy it's going to get.
If there's no pushback, there'll be nothing left to push.
Nothing left to preserve either.
But I believe you have got a story on school policing.
So this is a big story in the USA Today.
I do encourage all of our listeners to check it out themselves.
I'll read you the title so you can take a look at it because USA Today is one of those Gannett-owned papers, so it's sort of a feeder system.
They publish the macro And then in all the papers they own in the country, they do the micro version where they showcase in Des Moines, Iowa, oh my god, look at how many blacks are getting school discipline compared to white students.
They can do this all across the country.
So here is the macro story.
School policing falls hardest on black students and those with disabilities, studies show.
The article goes on to talk about an incident that happened in Philadelphia schools in 2017, where they issued a statement acknowledging it was not handled correctly, an incident where a resource officer tried to remove a third grader from class.
So they introduced that story with an anecdote, then they bring on the story.
Nationally, students were referred to law enforcement nearly 200 230,000 times during the 2017-2018 school year.
230,000 times?
230,000 times.
Wow.
Yeah.
Referred to police officers.
Exactly.
Exemplifying why demands to restrict policing at schools are growing.
I'm not quite sure that.
That doesn't follow at all.
No, it doesn't.
It seems like we need more police officers.
Exactly.
Quote, you've got some police officers that just can't help themselves, said the child's father, who was, you know, that the anecdote opens up with.
You're talking a little elementary school child in the bathroom.
You ain't supposed to be doing that.
So, a Center for Public Integrity Analysis of U.S.
Department of Education data found that school policing disproportionately affects students with disabilities, black children, and in some states, Native American and Latino children.
You can only imagine what these studies are going to look like as the percentage of white students in K-12 public schools continues to drop below 50, 48, 47, 45, 40 percent, and the number of People of Color BIPOCs increases.
You know, you know, just let me insert something.
A police officer on Active Duty, I know, has told me that these jobs, being a police officer in a school, are considered absolute deadbeat plum jobs.
No danger, no problems, and he says black officers put in for these jobs nine times out of ten.
So, my suspicion is that many of these allegedly offensive bad, bad, bad officers are probably BIPOCs themselves.
But please continue.
Nationwide, black students and students with disabilities were referred to law enforcement at nearly twice their share of the overall student population.
I guess they're committing twice their share of the infractions that are required to have law enforcement engage with them.
So schools in some states are more likely than others to refer students to law enforcement, regardless of their race and disability status.
Who are the worst offenders?
The worst offenders, and there's a chart you can look at, an interactive chart.
It's New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin.
Oh, they're the worst!
For instance, did so at rates at least twice the national average.
And the article says the repercussions ripple through communities in urban, suburban, and rural areas alike.
Listen, if there's a student who's disruptive, if you're a parent and you have kids who are in that school, I think you'd want that student to be removed from an environment where your children are trying to learn.
If there's a danger to their body.
Let's see here.
Lancaster County Public Schools, a three-school district in remote eastern Virginia, had a referral rate 17 times the national average.
In Philadelphia, one of the nation's 20 largest school districts, the referral rate for all students was 7 times the national average.
All pure racism, I guess.
Yeah, 31 states, as well as the District of Columbia, referred black students to law enforcement at more than twice the rate of white students.
Even the District of Columbia?
Run by blacks?
For blacks?
By blacks?
Yeah, here's the money quote.
They're criminalizing some ordinary behavior of students, and they've certainly disproportionately referring students of color to the juvenile justice system, rather than disciplining them at school, said Mara McCurney, legal director at the Education Law Center, a
Pennsylvania legal advocacy group.
Well, Mara, if they were to discipline them in school, then there'd be a story about how
black students are disproportionately disciplined at school, let alone referred to law enforcement
and entered into the juvenile justice system. You can't have it one way or the other because
it's always going to be a statistic that is used to show systemic race and implicit bias.
Well, yes.
And structural inequalities.
Oh, the poor dears.
Now, moving on to Texas.
The Eyes of Texas is a school song of the University of Texas at Austin and apparently it's sung to Oh, what is it?
I'm blanking on it.
You know the tune?
Oh, gosh.
In any case, it'll come to me.
But in any case, the Texas chapter of the NAACP along with the University of Texas chapter of the NAACP and a group of students have filed a complaint with the U.S.
Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights.
They claim that by singing this song, it creates a hostile environment for black students.
Singing the Song, The Eyes of Texas, are sung at university events, and this means, according to the complaint, black students have been denied full benefits of longhorn student life.
Longhorns, what they call themselves, because the song is an official part of the university, despite its racially offensive origin, context, and meaning.
Allegedly, the song premiered at a minstrel show in the early 1900s, where students might have worn blackface.
Or they might not.
We don't know.
The university has failed to respond to racial harassment against black students and others who oppose the song.
So you see, now, if you make a demand, and the university says no, and other students say, no, I don't think that's necessary, that's harassment.
That's creating a hostile environment, too.
Well, the football coach said in January that Eyes of Texas is our school song, we're going to sing that song, we're going to sing it proudly.
However, some students staged a walkout at graduation last spring when the song was played.
And so, also allegedly, UT Austin creates a hostile environment for campus tour guides because the university has a plaque with the song lyrics on the University Welcome Center.
Now, oh the I, it's from the I've Been Working on the Railroad.
Yeah.
It goes, the eyes of Texas are upon thee all the live long.
It's something as boneheaded as that.
But, and there's nothing, there's nothing in the lyrics.
I looked up the lyrics.
There's nothing in them that could be conceivably racist.
No.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.
But having the lyrics on a plaque in the Student Welcome Center, that created a hostile environment.
This stuff is just incredible.
Surprisingly, the university is not, so far, budging.
UT Austin President Jay Hartsell said last summer the song would stay.
He denied that the song... Well, no.
He conceded that the song had debuted in a racist setting, whatever that is.
It was a racist setting, but had no racist intent.
He could also find no link that showed that Confederate General Robert E. Lee had inspired the phrase, the eyes of Texas are upon you.
Apparently, somebody claimed that Robert E. Lee once upon a time said, the eyes of the South are upon you.
There's no record of it having said that.
But this then engendered the eyes of Texas are upon you.
And oh boy, if it had turned out that Marsh Roberts had said those things, I guess that song would be gone.
What was that great quote that is attributed to Lee about wherever you find the Negro?
Oh, let's not talk about that.
Everything has gone on the downhill wherever we find the Negro, I believe.
That's something he said.
If you see Richmond in 2021, you'd be hard-pressed to say that he's not right.
But Richmond is gentrified.
It is gentrified, like a lot of major cities.
Yes, yes.
So, yeah.
Now, if you don't immediately do what the black people say, then you're creating a hostile environment on top of the hostile environment you'd allegedly created to begin with.
Now, this song, of course, this idea that this... Can you dig up the lyrics?
I mean, they're short.
It's worth quoting.
It's worth quoting because they are so trite, boneheaded, and utterly inoffensive.
So, you look up the lyrics and we'll get to them in a moment.
So, it goes to...
I've been working on the railroad.
So, the eyes of Texas are upon you all the live long day.
The eyes of Texas are upon you.
You cannot get away.
Do not think you can escape them at night or early in the morn.
The eyes of Texas are upon you.
Tell Gabriel blows his horn.
And then you do the hook em horn sign and yeah.
So that apparently is viciously racist.
Now, I suppose this is really a secret message to slaves who want to escape to freedom.
But the eyes of Texas are on you.
The paddy rollers are out there.
They're going to get you.
That's what it really means, Mr. Kersey.
You realize that?
So that's why it's got to go.
Do you remember there was a racist rock at University of Madison, Wisconsin?
University of Wisconsin, there was.
It's gone.
Yes, a racist rock.
It's gone.
It's gone because a hundred years ago somebody had used a bad term to refer to it.
That's all it took.
So at University of Florida last year they got rid of the Gator Bait chart stand.
The fans would go... Gator Bait.
But somebody said that Gators were fed slaves.
And so the term gator bait was created because people would say, we've got to bait the gators with slaves we're going to feed to the alligators.
So without any evidence whatsoever, guess what happens?
The University of Florida president says, We're not going to let you guys do that chant anymore.
Gator bait has got to go.
It's like at the University of Alabama, they used to play the song Dixieland Delight, but people got mad.
Oh, we can't play Alabama's Dixieland Delight because it says Dixie and all this other stuff.
I mean, look, at some point, someone has to say enough is enough.
And to their credit, a lot of University of Texas alumni voiced Very, very displeasure about this and said, we will not give a dime to the school if you think about doing this.
Yes.
And apparently, yes, they were most vehement about this.
So we will see, we will see whether UT holds up or doesn't.
We will follow this story.
But now I believe you're going to inform us that NFL has crumpled again.
NFL is marching to the tune of social justice.
Yeah, ratings were down in 2020, even though people literally had nothing to do.
They couldn't go anywhere.
You'd think that people would be stuck in front of a TV watching, watching, watching Pro Bowl.
Not, yeah, not Pro Bowl, Pro Bowl, ladies and gentlemen.
NFL players can wear social justice messages on their helmets again this season, and quote, it takes all of us, end quote, and quote, end racism, end quote, will be stenciled in end zones for the second straight year as part of the league's Inspire Change platform.
The league is also going to bring back the Say Their Stories initiative, and for the first time, each team will highlight its social justice work during a regular season home game in Week 17 and 18.
I wonder how that's going to work.
I'm not quite sure.
Is this a halftime show?
I don't know.
I don't know.
But the six messages players can choose from as part of their helmet decal program are And Racism, Stop Hate, It Takes All of Us, Black Lives Matter, Inspire Change, and Say Their Stories.
This year's Say Their Stories features will again be voiced by NFL players but will involve to include social justice heroes, Who have been personally identified by players for their impact in this area, particularly those from their local communities.
Last year, some of the individuals who were in there say their name, say their stories.
Ahmad Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, and the guy from Minnesota who has shot Philando Castile, I think was his name.
Yeah, those are some of the ones.
Brittany Watts, strangely absent.
The guy who, you know, a lot of names I can think of.
The Australian who was killed by the Somali cop in Minnesota.
Justine Damon.
Justine Damon, yeah.
So for the final two weeks of the regular season, all clubs will receive the relevant banners, goalposts, wraps, stencils, helmet decals, video board, graphics.
The elements will continue to be featured during playoff games.
Uh, quote, that will provide a unified time frame for us to further amplify all the work that our clubs are doing and that'll lead to the playoffs where Inspire Change will continue to take center stage.
The key message for us as the season is starting, we are ramping up again in a big way with our social justice work.
Uh, this was a quote from, uh, what's his name here?
It doesn't matter.
He's just some goof.
It's, uh, It's the guy who is the head of the NFL Players Association.
I'm sorry, it's Anna Isaacson, the NFL Senior Vice President.
Anna?
A woman?
A woman, yeah.
What's great is, I know you don't watch European soccer, but last night there was a game between England and Poland.
It was in Poland.
The English players all took a knee on the pitch before the game started.
The Polish players did not.
It sounded as if the entire stadium booed the English players.
The Eastern Bloc once again shows the way.
So who won the game?
A tie.
A tie?
A very unexpected tie.
Because the Brits were expected to win?
The Brits were expected to win.
Well, okay.
Moving back to San Francisco.
We were already in San Francisco to find out how those at-risk people were going to make up to $500 a month.
In the meantime, Lowell High School, that was one of the selective high schools like Thomas Jefferson High School here in the Virginia area, has decided to change its admission policy.
And the story starts off with a heart-rending anecdote about Gabrielle Grice.
A junior at San Francisco's elite Lowell High School often struggles being the only black student in a classroom.
Group projects are a sore spot because she can rarely find students who look like her.
Well, Mr. Kersey, you probably know that for the first eight years of education in my life, I was the only honky in my class.
And it was not a struggle to find somebody who looked like me.
I wouldn't even have attempted.
Are you saying you were surrounded by Melody and the Hymns people?
Or, oh, you're talking about when you were in Japan!
Of course!
Of course!
But gosh, somehow, you know, I didn't complain about it.
It was the obvious thing, and it didn't stunt me.
It didn't abuse my sense of self-worth.
In any case, poor Gabrielle Grice has been beefing and moaning about this, and Black and Hispanic students say they often feel isolated, historically making up a very small portion of the student body.
But this year, Lowell High School is seeing a shift in its racial and ethnic makeup after it suspended merit-based admissions.
Do you know how you get into Lowell now?
How do you do that?
By lottery.
By lottery!
Now, this is the sentence I thought was great.
The results bolster arguments made by supporters that getting rid of the competitive admissions process would boost diversity.
What geniuses they are!
Get rid of the competitive entrance and you'll get more blacks and Hispanics.
What an idea!
Now, this is interesting to me.
Lawyer Harmeet Dhillon.
She's an Indian, Asian of course, is a critic of the new admissions policy and she noted, and this is really hilarious, that before the change in Lowell's student body, before the change in the admissions process, Lowell's student body was already 82% non-white.
That's not good enough, because they were all Asians, you see.
Yes.
All Asians.
Honorary whites, in a sense.
Oh, but that's just not good enough.
Asians no longer count for diversity.
So, moving on to Baltimore schools.
Now, we've had some interesting stories about Baltimore in the past, but there's something there called the Augusta Fells Savage Institute for the Performing Arts.
That's a high school, a public high school.
It's got THE as part of its name.
It's THE Augusta Fells Savage Institute for the Performing Arts.
Well, turns out it improperly changed grades and pressured teachers to give students grades they did not earn.
There was an internal investigation that found students were scheduled in classes that did not exist.
Or that they did not attend.
Tiffany France, whose son attended Augusta Fells, he passed just three classes in the entire four years he was there.
But he still got promoted anyway.
Just three classes in all four years.
His grade point average was 0.13.
was 0.13. 0.13. However, now this to me, this to me is really eye-opening. There
0.13.
were 120 students in his class and he ranked 62.
Oh, okay.
He's above the halfway mark.
He's above average.
One wonders, were there any actual just 0.00 graduates?
In any case, according also to his transcript, he was late or absent for 359 days.
That's not in a single school year, of course.
That's over the course of four years.
Late or absent, 359 days.
Now, there's also a system known as ghost students.
These are people who are not really enrolled, but they're used to inflate enrollment numbers, and that increases the tax dollars that the school receives.
Reporters tracked down a man who was enrolled at school, even though he's actually in jail.
Yeah, I wonder what grade point average he got.
Apparently, there were some 100 students of questionable status who probably were not actively attending school at all, but they were still on the rolls, boosting the tax revenues.
Now, I looked into this.
The articles never said this.
They never do.
It turns out that the Augusta Fells Savage Institute for the Performing Arts is, drumroll please, 97% black.
97% black.
Now, its performance, remarkably enough, out of the 1,354 public schools in Maryland, it ranks 1,265.
That means there are 89 schools that are worse.
Oh my god.
Yes, yes.
Well, there you go.
Now, I'm always curious about where these names come from.
The Augusta-Felds Savage Institute for the Performing Arts.
Well... Where does it come from?
It comes from Augusta-Felds.
Now, she was born in 1892 to a Methodist minister.
Aunt Augusta began making figures as a child, mostly small animals, out of the red clay of her hometown in Green Cove Springs, Florida.
Her father was a poor Methodist minister who strongly opposed his daughter's early interest in art.
And she said about her childhood, my father licked me four or five times a week and almost whipped all the art out of me.
What a racist!
What a racist!
Now this is because he believed scripture said that making images is a sinful practice and is forbidden in the Bible.
But in any case, she persevered and she went on to be apparently an important part of the
Harlem Renaissance. I have no doubt that she is on a postage stamp somewhere. Look out folks for
Augusta Fells Savage and I think she should go on the $19 bill when we start commemorating Juneteenth.
Put her on Monument Avenue, Mr. Taylor.
That's even better.
But it seems to be that naming a school after her seems to hex the place.
So, and then another little story.
This is really quite heartwarming and charming.
A law professor has suggested that France's food is racist.
A certain Matilda Cohen from Connecticut University.
She says that French eating habits reinforce the dominance of white people over ethnic minorities.
And she said this at a seminar organized by my alma mater, Sciences Po, Paris Institute of Political Studies, where she went on to say, eating culture has been the central means of racial and ethnic identity formation through slavery, colonialism, and immigration.
Eating culture, eating culture did it all.
And she went on to say, the boundaries of whiteness are policed through daily food encounters.
I don't know if I've ever had a food encounter.
I've encountered food, but I did not know that the boundaries of whiteness are policed every time I swallow a potato.
But there you go.
Potato or gratin.
I guess so.
But now, on the other cultural front in Kabul, Speak to me of Kabul, Brother Curzon.
Well, I gotta go back to June of 2020.
Did you know Stars and Stripes published a story by Philip Walter Wellman on June 15th, 2020, with the title, George Floyd Mural Painted Near Kabul's Green Zone?
Well, I had heard of this, but only recently.
It's on the mural.
It's George Floyd says, I can't breathe.
Again, I'm not making this up.
It's on a concrete, it was on a concrete, spoiler alert, it was on a concrete blast
wall topped with barbed wire near Kabul's green zone.
Afghan artists, no doubt under the watchful eyes of the American empire, painted a large
mural depicting George Floyd next to an image dedicated to Afghan migrants who recently
died in Iran.
I bet they did it with guns pointed to their heads.
What the heck does George Floyd mean to Afghans?
Exactly, exactly.
But there he was.
That was then?
We all know what happened in late August.
Certain American empire watched the wheels come off.
And what was one of the first things the Taliban did once they took power?
They painted them over.
Oh, they did!
Yes!
Spoiler alert!
So, Daily Mail reports this.
Taliban are covering up Kabul street art with propaganda and victory slogans.
Progressive art... What was there before was not a victory slogan.
It was not propaganda.
Progressive art included image of George Floyd and demanded rights for women.
Now the bright colorful street art has been replaced with black and white text.
Entrance to the U.S.
Embassy in Kabul has been covered with painting of Taliban flag.
So the Taliban have started painting over artists murals of Western symbols and values that adorn the walls of the Afghan capital including one of George Floyd and are replacing them with victory slogans.
You know, there's something missing from that list of subjects.
The Zarifis art collective, Art Lords, have spent eight years transforming stretches of
Kabul's labyrinth, concrete blast walls with colorful murals.
They created more than 2,200 murals across the country addressing everything from the
killing of George Floyd in the U.S. and the drowning of Afghan refugees in Iran to gender
equality and the signing of the U.S.-Taliban agreement towards peace.
You know, there's something missing from that list of subjects.
What's that?
Gay pride.
Gay pride.
Well, we know in June of 2021, the U.S.
State Department tweeted out something about gay pride being celebrated in Kabul.
Just a few weeks before the fall, but I wonder if that must have stuck in their craw.
They could not bring themselves to celebrate gay pride on the walls of Kabul, is my guess.
The mural dedicated to George Floyd, which did have the words, I can't breathe, written in English, and whose death sparked the BLM protests in the U.S.
It has been covered up.
yet though it's only though it's perhaps only a matter of time no it's been
covered up it's gone it's been gone so the images of workers rolling white
paint were deeply sorry rolling white paint over all these murals it was
deeply foreboding for Ahmad Sharifi like I said the guy who who was forced to
flee to the United Emirates he said this the murals were the soul of Kabul and
represented the voice of the Afghan people and painted over them is like
putting a shroud over the city.
The voice of the Afghan people.
I can't breathe.
Here's what he said.
Some of these murals were the soul of Kabul.
They gave beauty to the city and kindness to the people of Kabul who were suffering.
They are about the wishes, demands, and asks of the Afghan people.
It was their voice on these walls.
These murals were against corruption and were pushing for transparency.
Against corruption?
Ladies and gentlemen, I got nothing else after that one.
That's pretty good.
Well, I've got something almost as good for you.
You've probably never heard of Linda Many Guns.
I've not.
Well, Linda Many Guns, she's a professor at the University of Lethbridge.
This is a Canadian university.
And she's in the Department of Indigenous Studies and she's a great believer in using symbolism from Aboriginal culture to tell a story and narrative about the rich culture that's integral to the founding of the University of Lethbridge.
It's of course on stolen native land like everything else in North America, but she is now joining the Lowercase Movement.
Now the Lowercase Movement was news to me.
It will reject symbols of hierarchy wherever they are found and she has vowed henceforth never to use capital letters with one exception.
In the word indigenous, she's going to use a capital I. That's the one exception to the lowercase movement of which she is now joining.
And she wrote, we resist acknowledging the power structures that oppress and we join the movement that does not capitalize.
Well, her university page, her website, still uses capital letters.
I was very surprised.
She better get to them.
And she's going to reject hierarchy wherever it's found.
Well, is she going to drop the title of professor, I wonder?
She signs her name, in lowercase of course, Linda Manyguns, Ph.D.
Whoa, that sounds like hierarchy to me.
And she's the chair of Native American Studies.
Sounds like hierarchy to me.
And will she start wearing rags because nice clothes reflect the hierarchy?
She's rejecting hierarchy wherever it is.
I guess we're gonna have to stop grading beef because that sets up a hierarchy.
No triple A bonds.
She's rejecting hierarchy wherever it is.
Oh dear, dear, Linda, many guns.
Where, where can this stuff possibly end?
You know, they have such fertile imaginations, these people.
I have a very fertile imagination too.
It's why when you say, I can imagine anything.
Oh, so can I!
So... Well, yes, they are unceasing.
The yahoos never sleep.
But I believe we are rapidly approaching the end of our allotted time.
And once again, ladies and gentlemen, we thank you.
We thank you for this honor of being able to speak with you.
And we look forward to speaking with you again.
And we do solicit your comments, your suggestions, your questions, and most of all, your corrections.
When we jump the tracks, you tell us.
And how should they go about doing that?
Simply, simply, ladies and gentlemen, because we live here at ProtonMail.com, once again, all one word, because we live here at ProtonMail.com, or You can go to amran.com and there's a Contact Us tab and what you wish to say will eventually come to me.
In fact, it'll come to me pretty quickly that way.
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