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Nov. 10, 2021 - Dennis Prager Show
08:56
Dennis Speaks with Host and Author Charles Love on Race and BLM
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I am in New York City right now.
Right now or in general?
Well, in general.
I moved here six weeks before COVID started.
Remember me on the back of the bus?
And you're like, why'd you move there from Chicago?
Well, it's an equal trade.
They're both cities run terribly.
So it's a very funny move.
That you would move to New York, though, a week before COVID shows that God has a sense of humor.
It's a strange move.
All right, my friend.
You've written a courageous book here.
Whenever I have a conservative black on the show, I ask a few personal questions, if I may.
First, how many people in your family, parents, siblings, children, spouse, agree with you?
Oh, until you said spouse, I could have said zero.
But very, very few.
Maybe one.
Well, thank God if there is one, it's your spouse.
That's the most important.
It is better to have your entire family differ with you and your spouse agree with you than your spouse disagree with you and everybody in your family agree with you.
Because the marital relationship is key.
So I'm happy for you about the spouse.
So what does your family think?
You've gone crazy.
What do they think?
No, you know, that's the reason why I try to write and speak from a different perspective than even most black conservatives.
I get asked often, do people attack you?
I'm like, rarely.
And it's because I talk about the culture and I don't talk about politics.
So my mom is the best example.
She laughs when I talk about her.
She's 85 years old.
You know, so it's baked in.
She's going to be a Democrat.
She says those Republicans are.
But when I ask her about issues, she sounds like a conservative, right?
If I ask her about immigration, taxes, gay marriage, all that stuff, she sounds like a conservative, which is why I talk about the issues rather than what do you think about...
The conservative politician of the day.
So most of them don't give me a hard time because I just say, okay, you say racism is an issue.
We disagree about how much it is, but is it a solution?
But Charles, you attack BLM straight on.
Doesn't your family support Black Lives Matter?
You know, not only does my family not support Black Lives Matter, but until George Floyd, very few blacks did.
I talk about that.
We all see it.
We as conservatives, they make fun of the white liberal with the Black Lives Matter signs in the window.
And the hate has no home here, even though it's polite.
But what they forget is that you never saw that stuff in the black community.
In fact, I never saw a black person with a T-shirt or even say it.
Until after George Floyd died.
So before that, most of my friends thought it was some weird fringe group.
They thought it was fronted by blacks, but it was really some hard left white organization because they're not really the left, right?
They have these few things that they agree with the left on, but most of them aren't that far left.
So no, they don't have a problem with me attacking BLM. They don't like BLM. That's very interesting.
So how do you explain Major League Baseball?
And the NFL and the NBA with putting Black Lives Matter on the court or on the field.
Oh, God, that's terrible.
It was, it's, you know, they're a separate class, right?
Because they're the extremely wealthy.
They're looking at numbers.
All they care about is, I said before, I said they just want an attaboy.
I don't think that they overnight believed that they were racist.
That's what a lot of...
I have a problem with these corporations and these business people.
They were doing what they were doing for years.
And then all of a sudden, overnight, they just said, oh, I just have to beat myself.
Oh, self-flagellation.
Everything is so bad.
I'm a horrible person.
But they didn't think that last week because, let's be honest, they don't think it now.
What they're saying is that the cultural mob is coming for everyone.
I'm an old, middle-aged white man, so I'm the main culprit.
So if I say what they want and throw them a little something, they'll leave me alone.
You really think somebody who, especially someone who didn't grow up rich, who got rich, became a CEO of a major Fortune 500 corporation, doesn't like capitalism?
So all of a sudden they think the government should run everything?
Of course they don't.
They're doing it because it's the massive, extreme level of virtue signaling.
So they say things like, well, next week we're going to do this thing.
Have this training.
Add this thing to the corporation to focus on Blacks.
But they don't change anything.
All Netflix did was put the BLM logo in the corner and say, we have to put some Black movies and put a collection in there.
But you think they mentored anyone?
You think they donated to any organizations that are actually doing anything?
No.
Which is why in my book, I have two points.
I think you're wrong, and I explain why clearly.
But then I also say, let's give you your argument.
Let's assume you're right.
What are they doing that's helping the solution and moving us forward?
And no one can say anything that BLM, the 1619, the anti-racists are doing that actually helps.
You think that most inner-city blacks want a reduction in the number of police?
No.
If you would have asked me, my answer is closer to zero to that than your first question.
You know how many people in my circle?
Who thinks that we should defund the police or abolish the police?
Zero!
I have yet to meet one.
Now, of course, I'm talking to people 35 to 60, so I'm not talking to really young people, but nobody.
No matter how...
So, Charles, okay, so I got a question, and that is, if that is the case, why do they keep voting Democrat?
That's a good question.
I get that question a lot.
That's because they have a way right or wrong, and you understand it because you've been doing so long.
And this is where I beat up the Republicans.
It's because they have been believing a narrative so long that it's metastasized.
So what I say is they can separate what they believe and what they want from politics.
My mom's a good example.
And I blame the Republicans because I think they were losing the fight, and so they just picked the ball and left.
So when I was first starting to vote, I was always thinking my mom would say this.
So I was instantly like, Why would I just vote for someone because you tell me to vote for them?
I need these two parties.
I'm an American just like a white American.
If they get a choice, I get a choice.
I want to hear what both sides have to say.
And then I turn, and there was no one there for 20 years.
A Republican never came and asked for my vote.
So guess what?
Me, who's never been a liberal, never voted for them for like 15 years because they didn't ask for my vote.
So what happens is, what I tell Republicans is it's a bigger problem than that.
It's because...
If you don't say anything, then Nancy Pelosi and AOC or whoever their equivalents were 20 years ago get to speak on your behalf.
So they tell the black community what you believe.
You're not there to say it's not true.
So then we all just believe you're racist.
So we say, I don't want high taxes, especially the middle class black.
I don't like crime.
I don't like this guy who's running on the Democrat side.
What's my choice?
Vote for a racist?
That's why.
Yes, very effective answer.
I will tell you a small story.
And that is, I remember presidential campaign after presidential campaign, the NAACP would invite the Republican candidate for president to talk before the NAACP. Almost everyone refused to.
They said it wasn't worth their time.
Because the NAACP will just be Democrat and liberal anyway.
And I thought I would pay serious money from the Prager family bank account to speak to the NAACP. It was a total puzzle to me that Republicans did not do that.
Oh, it was terrible.
Because you may not convince the NAACP, the people who run it, but you don't know who comes to listen to them speak.
You don't need to change every mind every time.
You need to change five minds and keep going.
But now, because it got worse, here's the problem.
They can do it now, and sometimes they'll invite them, and sometimes they go, and they're like, I'm going to be the Republican that makes a difference.
I'm going to go.
But it's different, because when you go, you only go to an election year.
So now, the average black person is like, yeah, he went, but he only went because he wanted my vote.
So it doesn't seem sincere, even if you are.
So the key is for the Republicans to just, they would know what they do.
Cost investment, go to the neighborhoods where it's not that expensive, get a 1,500 square foot place, rent it, and just be there all the time.
That's what you do.
And talk every time something happens.
Do you have any idea, and I'm not expecting that you do, but do you have any idea how blacks in general, and it may not even be fair to say blacks in general, although if you ask me Jews in general, I'm a Jew, and I know the Jewish community, I could answer that.
I'm inviting an answer.
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