Episode 1033 Scott Adams: Talking About Systemic Racism
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Content:
Cornel West explains concept of offensive things
Mike Pence's impressive question handling
Systemic racism
Whiteboard: Unlucky History and Poor Kids
People respond to other people's expectations
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Yeah. It's called Coffee with Scott Adams, and you have come to the right place for that.
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I usually say those in the other order.
It's called the simultaneous sip and it happens now.
Go. Do you know why I could never be an actor?
Well, lots of reasons.
But one of them... I can't remember lines.
My memory, the way my memory works, is very different from other people's.
So I can't remember the exact order of anything.
I'm a little bit dyslexic anyway, so putting things in order is hard.
But, concepts I can remember forever, like a joke.
If I hear a joke, remember it forever.
So I don't have a bad memory, I have a different memory.
I can remember concepts forever, but I've had a question that I've had for a long time, and I feel like I got an answer yesterday.
It was on the question of what the anti-Trump people are really thinking, which might be separate from what they're saying.
Because you've wondered this too.
For example, When you heard the president's critics say that when he referred to the so-called shithole countries, that that was racist.
Right? And you heard that when he called the kneeling NFL players sons of bitches, you heard that that was racist as well.
Now, if you're not an anti-Trumper, did you not have the following question in your head, which is, do they mean that?
Or is that just a convenient attack because they can sort of turn it into an attack?
Or do they really think that is racist?
Because I know that you don't.
I know that it didn't hit me that way, but of course, you know, maybe my filter is different.
It doesn't mean it's not racist because it didn't hit any particular person that way.
I'm just saying I had a question.
Do they really believe what they're saying?
Or is it just politics?
And I was listening to an interview with Cornel West.
You may know him.
He's a professor somewhere.
Harvard? Harvard professor, I think.
African-American man.
If you don't know him, that's important to the story.
A very good spokesperson just in general, because he's just really, he's just good at communicating and he's verbally really gifted.
So you think, okay, Cornel West, he's somebody who could maybe help sort out this question.
And it turns out he did, but somewhat accidentally.
And it happened, I think it was Brett Baer.
I may have, for some reason I remember Cornel West, but I think it was Brett Baer who was interviewing him.
And those two examples came up.
So Cornel West brought up the shithole countries and the SOBs.
When he brought up the SOBs, I think it was Brebert who just added a little professional context.
He's really good at it, by the way, because the way he did it was...
Yeah, it had to be Brebert.
The way he did it was he just added the context.
It wasn't in any argumentative way.
He said, well, you know, the...
The context of the sons of bitches was not specifically racial.
Here's what Cornel West said.
Because the whole point of the SOB thing being racial is that it's obviously racial.
That's the whole point, isn't it?
And here, Bret Baier says, well, it's not, you know, there was no specific call out to race.
How did Cornel West answer that?
And it was really interesting.
He said it felt like it, basically.
I'm paraphrasing.
But what he said was that when he sees a black person, Colin Kaepernick, included in the category of a son's a bitch, he thinks of Colin's mother, and he thinks of other black people, thinks of himself, thinks of maybe like his own son, and he takes it personally.
And I thought to myself, Well, that's not exactly what people are saying, is it?
Because he said fairly clearly that no, it wasn't a racial statement, but it feels like one.
Because just the way he processed it was racial, even acknowledging that the president's statement was not intended that way.
Isn't that interesting?
It's a clear intention.
He's clearly saying there's no indication that the president meant it as a racial statement.
And yet, it offends him the same way, and the point being more about the, I guess, the carelessness of the president's words that lead you to those feelings.
So what about the whole countries?
So Cornel West also explained that.
He didn't say, did not say, the president says black countries are bad.
Which is what you think they're saying, right?
When people are criticizing him, what I'd always heard was, oh, I get it.
You think he was only talking about black countries, so that sounds racist to you.
I think he was talking about countries that are not producing highly educated, experienced people who would immediately add to our economy, on average, which sounded more economic to me.
But Cornel West explained it.
And again, I have to paraphrase because I don't remember exact words.
He explained it that when you call a country that was, you know, even if one of those countries, and most of them were brown and black countries, I think, if you call them any kind of an insult, he just takes it personally, because he has some connection in his mind, and in some cases, maybe in his history, to that country.
So he takes it personally.
That is really different, isn't it?
Because in both those examples, he was pretty explicitly acknowledging that he has no accusation that the president intended it or even had a racial thought.
Isn't that interesting?
He acknowledged that two of his strongest examples of the president saying racist stuff has no indication in it That the president meant it that way?
Or was thinking that way?
I always thought that was the whole point, is that he was thinking it that way and meant it that way.
Wasn't that the whole point? But the moment that Brett Baier just added that little bit of context, that's all it took.
And here's what I appreciated about that.
I felt like that moved the ball a little bit.
I felt like there was some kind of little breakthrough I was having.
So, you know, you need...
And I had been confused for a long time about this whole situation.
Now, if you explain it to me as, this was offensive to me, and here are the connections about why I felt it that way, I actually accept that completely.
Completely. If what he's saying is, this made me feel bad, and here are the reasons, and maybe if you were in this situation, it would make you feel bad too, I think, yeah, maybe.
I could see that. I don't have any...
I wouldn't argue with that at all.
But if you go to the further things, say, the president in his mind, which we're reading from a distance, intended it to be racist or revealed his inner racist side, well, that's just crazy talk.
But it turns out that Cornel West isn't saying that.
I could actually work with...
Completely. I mean, we could work with what Cornel West is saying.
You know, can you modify your language so it's less offensive to people whose maybe experience you don't have a full appreciation for?
To which I say, sure, sure, I would do that for anybody.
Let's say you had a bad experience with a, oh, you've been attacked by a rhinoceros in your youth.
And I start telling you a story about a rhinoceros, and you say, please, please, please, I know you're not doing this to hurt me, but, you know, rhinoceros talk, it bothers me.
And I just sort of take it personally that you would even bring up this conversation.
What would you do? Well, if you're a jerk, you keep talking about rhinoceroses.
Rhinoceri? Plural of rhinoceros.
Don't know. So if you don't want to be a jerk, you would immediately stop talking about rhinoceri.
Right? It has nothing to do with race.
How about just not being a jerk?
Not being a dick?
It's exactly what I feel about the statues.
The people who are arguing that the Confederate statues are, well, technically they're history, and technically they're not meant to be racist, and technically it's It wasn't put up for that purpose.
It's all bullshit.
Nobody cares.
Those statues are offensive.
You don't get to tell them they shouldn't be offended.
It's not up to you to tell people what is offensive to them.
If you put up a decoration in your house and 40% of the people who visited your house were deeply offended and told you so, my God, I'm really offended by that, whatever it is, it doesn't have to be a Confederate thing, but if 40% of your guests who you like and love and want to be friends with, their family, whatever, if 40% of them come into your house and say, I'm offended by that, wouldn't you give it a thought to change your decorations?
I think you would. If you're a dick, you're going to argue that the person shouldn't be offended.
No, all 40% of the people I know, you really shouldn't be that way, so I'm just going to keep my decorations, and I think you need to get over it.
Well, you could do that. It's a free country, right?
And the 40% could hate you for it.
It's a free country. But why?
Why? It's a decoration.
You can't get rid of a decoration that's offending your family and your friends, 40% of them.
I mean, it's pretty reasonable, pretty reasonable to get rid of that thing.
You also hear the argument that something like 25% somewhere in that neighborhood of African-American citizens are in favor of keeping statues, the Confederate ones included.
So is that an argument?
Well, look at that.
If 25% of them are okay with it, it's not about race.
But that's not the point.
If 75% are deeply offended, it doesn't matter what it's about.
It doesn't matter if it's about race.
It's deeply offensive.
We can't get rid of something that's deeply offensive.
Let's be reasonable.
If somebody says ISIS is also offended by statues, here's my notes.
Full Taliban. So yes, I'm completely aware that if you allow people to get rid of statues only because they're offensive, that you would end up getting rid of all your statues.
Is that okay? Sure.
Yeah, that's okay.
Did you think I was going to be against it?
Nope. Nope.
Not against it at all. I'm not wed to historical things if they're offensive.
Now, the Taliban, of course, were more about getting rid of everything.
Now, I think where this statue thing is going to go, and it seems obvious where this will go, I think you're going to have people tearing down African-American statues eventually.
You'll have people saying, well, if that one offends you, I'm offended by Martin Luther King.
So you're going to get some kind of troll response.
Yeah, that's probably where it'll all end up.
But here's the thing. The Taliban are pretty much, you know, there's no exception, blah, blah, blah, I've got to get rid of everything.
But getting rid of the statues of slave owners, that doesn't feel like going too far to me.
And frankly, I don't care where it ends up.
I'm in favor of Juneteenth as a national holiday, but I would at least want to give some consideration to the following branding.
Juneteenth, that could be the name of it.
That's a historical name, and that's good.
But maybe in addition to that, it feels like Independence Day version 2.0, doesn't it?
You know, in software, version 1.0 is, well, it works, but it's got a lot of bugs.
It's sort of version 2.0 that you've got a good chance of getting a good product, because they've worked through all the bugs.
And, you know, the July 4th Independence Day, It was allegedly a day of freedom, but not so much, right?
If you were black, it wasn't your Independence Day, which is the whole point.
So it feels like it was Independence Day version 2.0 was Juneteenth.
You don't have to brand it that way, but it just feels that way.
That that was the upgrade.
That's when we finally started getting it closer to right.
Still not completely right, but a lot closer.
Mike Pence continues to impress me with his ability to avoid causing trouble.
I've said this a bunch of times.
I'm not a giant fan of Mike Pence.
I don't think he should be president.
Like, he doesn't quite fit for me as president.
But as a vice president, I could not have more respect For the way the man is handling his job as a vice president.
I mean, it's really tremendous.
And again, it's the dog that doesn't bark, right?
It's the problems he's not causing.
He is really good at avoiding problems.
And he was lured into this trap yesterday in some kind of a press conference in which they were trying to get him to do a public gaffe On the Black Lives Matter thing.
So the trick, of course, is to try to get any prominent Republican to make them say the words Black Lives Matter in public.
And, of course, Republicans want to say some version of All Lives Matter, and then that's the trap so people can say, ah, ah, ah, you're not willing to say the words Black Lives Matter?
Racist. Obviously racist.
Now, it's an obvious trap.
Mike Pence knows it's a trap, and then he walks right into it.
So I just told you, wait, Mike Pence is really good at avoiding traps.
And he walked right into this?
He walked right into it.
But here's how he got out.
And, of course, the news doesn't like to focus on You know, the way he got out.
So you have to read the story to find out his actual wording and stuff.
But it's kind of impressive the way he did it.
So here's the setup.
So he was asked the question, and he gave some generic response, but he didn't say yes or no, and he didn't use the words Black Lives Matter.
So the next press person follows up.
I guess it was anchor Brian Taft.
And he goes, forgive me for pressing you on this, sir.
He says to Pence. But I will note, you did not say these words, quote, Black Lives Matter.
Don't you hate this dick?
He's such a dick, this reporter.
Because there's no news value in this whatsoever.
He's not even pretending there's news value in this.
He's just trying to trap the vice president in public.
I mean, it's just such a dick move.
And he goes...
People are saying, of course, all lives matter, but to say the words is an acknowledgement that black lives also matter at a time in this country when it appears that there's a segment of our society that doesn't agree.
Does it? Does it seem like there's a fucking segment of this society that doesn't agree that black lives matter?
Really? Really?
Can you show me one fucking person who would say that?
I've never even met a racist who would say black lives don't matter.
Like, literally. Nobody.
Yeah, there's a segment of the country.
They're hiding pretty well because, I mean, literally, even racists don't say that anybody doesn't matter.
Like, that's just on nobody's mind.
All right. Here is Mike Pence's quite impressive response to that.
He goes, quote, I don't accept the fact, Brian.
Now, here's the first thing that Pence does first.
He calls him by his first name.
He's just so friendly. It's a small thing, but I don't think Trump does it.
Pence is just so smooth.
He goes, well, I don't accept the fact, Brian.
So he doesn't call it a lie.
He doesn't say he's a jerk.
He doesn't call him a dick like I just did.
He goes, well, I don't accept the fact, Brian.
That there's a segment of American society that disagrees in the preciousness and importance of every human life.
Oh, wow. That is so good.
I mean, you don't really realize how good it is until you see what didn't happen, which is it didn't cause a problem, Pence said.
And it's one of the reasons why, as we advance important reforms in law enforcement, As we look for ways to strengthen and improve our public safety in our cities, that we're not going to stop there.
That's a really good answer.
That is such a good answer.
It's friendly. It's non-combatitive.
It doesn't really...
He simply, instead of arguing with the point, he makes a defense of the human population.
The same as I did. He just defended the population and said, I don't think there's somebody out there who thinks that all life isn't precious.
And I thought to myself, I don't know if I've ever heard that.
Have you? Have you heard a national politician on this topic not just say whether racism exists, systemic racism exists.
You're sort of arguing about the racism over here.
But Pence took it all the way back to root cause, right?
And he said, I don't believe there's a segment of this society who thinks all lives are not precious.
And I thought to myself, I've never met anybody who didn't think that.
Have you? I've never met anybody who didn't think a life was precious.
So, Mike Pence, man, he just nails it, and he's like a silent assassin.
Because it just doesn't really get the attention, because that's the way he plays it.
He plays it without... He's like the high board diver who does the perfect dive and it doesn't leave a ripple in the water.
He just slices into the water.
And you go, did Mike Pence dive into the water?
Because I don't see a ripple. How do you do that?
Alright. So, in my ongoing effort to get cancelled, I tweeted today that systemic racism is a manipulation term which I reject.
Now, of course, I accept that black lives matter.
Of course. Now, just so that I can be part of the conversation without distraction, I always like to tack that on first.
Because if you say it directly, and you say it first, and I would recommend my technique, comma, of course, because if you don't add the of course, You leave some suggestion that maybe you just arrived at that opinion or something.
It's like, well, yesterday I wasn't so sure, but today?
Yeah, now that I think about it, Black Lives Matter.
So comma, of course, I like to add that to eliminate, what are we even talking about?
Like, why would you even ask me that dumb fuck question?
Of course. But here's my problem with systemic racism.
As a phrase.
In my views, racism is universal and pervasive and it's in all things everywhere, wherever there are humans.
So since humans are pattern recognition machines, but they're not good at it, they're subject to confirmation bias.
They don't have the full story most of the time.
We just don't. So wherever there are humans, there is something like bias.
You could call it racism, but there's always bias.
And so the fact that it also exists in systems doesn't add as much to your understanding as you would hope.
So the first problem with systemic racism as a phrase is that it's a manipulation phrase.
It's a phrase of influence.
It's a phrase of persuasion, which is different from a solution-oriented description.
So I've been pushing back on that phrase because my problem with it is it doesn't suggest And in fact, it kind of makes you look away from where they might be.
So it is a very subtle manipulation because it suggests the solution where it really shouldn't.
So in other words, it moves you past the sail into where you should be looking for a solution, but you really need to be back on the sail.
You need to be looking a little deeper.
That's my problem with it.
Let me say more about that.
The problem is that if you say there's systemic racism, the second part of that usually is that it's a ripple effect from slavery.
Now, I don't believe there's anybody who would argue that the legacy of slavery did not have a ripple effect, a strong one, into the future and the current that disadvantages or has disadvantaged the black community.
There's nobody who argues that, right?
You know, the legacy of slavery.
Because, what was it, Chappelle who was saying that his great, great, I forget how many greats, but somebody that he knew in his lifetime, I think, you know, came from slavery.
So it wasn't that long ago.
So it's not that hard to imagine.
In fact, it's obvious that there's an economic ripple effect.
But here's my problem with framing it that way.
Let's say you got two kids.
One has an unlucky history, and now he's a poor kid today.
He has all the disadvantages of poor kids today.
Now, none of this was his fault.
He had nothing to do with his grandfather.
He wasn't even born.
He had nothing to do with choices they made.
He just ended up here.
Then there's another kid, also an unlucky history.
Let's say it's a different kind.
Different kind of unlucky history.
But he wasn't there.
The kid wasn't even born.
It's people who came before him and did other things.
And now he's a poor kid.
Now you got two poor kids.
Which one gets the reparations?
Which one gets the reparations?
Because here's the thing.
It doesn't matter why you got there.
And the systemic racism argument, it's got lots of features to it, but one of the main features is that it implies a solution.
And that is persuasion.
Because the solution is implied in the framing of the situation.
If you were to frame it differently, your solution would look different.
Here's how you would frame it differently.
If you were solution-oriented, you would say, does it matter how these kids got here?
What's the difference how they got here?
I wasn't a slave owner.
I didn't cause this kid to be poor.
I had nothing to do with it.
It doesn't matter that his parents were drug addicts and grandparents were criminals or whatever happened.
It had nothing to do with this kid.
This kid was just born.
That's all they did.
They were just born. Which one is the favored one?
Which one do we want to put our attention on?
I would say that it would be unambiguously racist.
To say that the one who came from a specific kind of history gets more help, whatever that looks like, reparations, funding in the government, whatever that looks like.
That would be purely racist to say that this person had one kind of history that got him to this situation, this had another kind, and oh, coincidentally, all the ones that are like this are the same color.
That is racist by definition.
So systemic racism I don't know if it was created for this purpose, but it has the quality of making you think past the details all the way to the solution.
If you don't study persuasion, it's not as obvious that it's a persuasion term and not a descriptive term.
So, let me say this.
Those who say there is systemic racism, I say to you, you're thinking small.
There is universal racism.
To imagine that it's systemic limits it to, well, it's in some situations.
It's not in some situations.
It's in every situation in which there are people.
If you replaced your system today with a new system, it would be just as racist, because all the people in it are racist, and it doesn't matter who they are.
We are pattern recognition machines, but we're not good at it.
So we're biased about everything, all the time.
It's just the human condition.
We try to overcome it with laws and rules and we tweak them and we fix them and we study them.
And we try to use our higher sense of reason for those who have a religious upbringing, maybe a higher moral sense.
But we can fight pretty hard to overcome our biases, but we can't get rid of them.
So let's be realistic about what can and cannot happen.
And I think we're just better off if we say, you know, God, I'm just so biased.
You know, you've seen this several times, haven't you?
How many African-American people have you heard in your personal life or in the media say something like this?
I prefer the racists who are just, tell me they're racists.
The ones who bother me are the suburban soccer mom, Who pretends she's not, but is.
Right? How many black people have you heard say that either in public or privately to you?
It's fairly common, right?
It's like, I can deal with honesty.
I can deal with honesty.
It's actually simple to deal with.
Oh, you've got this feeling?
Well, you know, good for you.
I'll go over here because I'd rather be with people who don't feel like that.
Or, or, How about you're an idiot, Bob?
How about Bob? You're an idiot because you're a bigot and I've got a PhD.
So, you know, that's great for you, Bob, being a bigot.
How's your GED? Because I got a PhD.
You know, I'm imagining there's a black guy talking to Bob.
So, you should be able to just laugh about it And kind of deal with it as a human condition that you're trying as hard as you can to use your better senses to overcome.
But as soon as you start saying, well, I don't have any racism.
I'm a good suburban mom.
Well, what do you do with that?
Right? What do you do with that?
If you can't talk about it, call it out, joke about it, complain about it, do something about it, try something, do something different.
You're tying yourself in knots.
So, there's my stand.
And I will even go further.
You want me to take it to full cancellation?
Here it goes.
Full cancellation for Scott.
Possibly the last time you'll ever experience coffee with Scott Adams unless I'm hiding somewhere in the witness protection program.
Here it comes.
I think it's child abuse to tell a young person there is systemic racism.
I think it's child abuse to tell young black kids or any kids that there's systemic racism.
Even if there is.
Now if you're going to argue But Scott, there is systemic racism.
I'm not arguing that. You can call it whatever you want.
I've already said it's universal.
Universal is much bigger than your little complaint about systemic.
You know, if you're going to go small, go small.
But, you know, that's on you.
I'm going big. I'm saying everybody's a racist all the time, in every system all the time.
You're saying there's this little systemic racism thing that's a component of that, and okay, but I'd rather see the big picture, not the small picture.
Here's my point. We have science which seems to clearly indicate that people respond to other people's expectations.
We know, for example, that if you do an experiment in which you randomly choose small kids and you say, hey, you small kids, you're the gifted ones, you're the smart ones, and we're going to put you in a special class.
Randomly chosen. They are not the smart ones.
Literally randomly chosen.
Track them from a year, their grades will be better.
It's pretty consistent.
It can be reproduced.
You tell kids they're smart, they act smart.
They rise to their expectations.
You tell kids that they're not smart, and they will lower to that expectation.
Kids need to be told what they can and can't do, and you tell them.
You tell them directly, you tell them indirectly, but they're hearing it.
What can I do?
What does a kid know? A kid doesn't know what they can do, doesn't know what they'll someday be able to do.
They have no idea. Until they can do it.
So I would say that telling kids that there is systemic racism and there's this hard to describe force, you know, imagine you're a kid, you don't quite know what all of it even means.
If you tell them that, you're telling them your life is going to be suppressed.
You've got this force working against you.
Now again, if you're just joining me, I'm not saying whether the racism will hold people back or not.
Obviously, it's a negative.
I'm not arguing that it exists or doesn't exist or it's bad.
That's not even part of the conversation.
The conversation is strategy.
That whether it exists or doesn't exist, what do you tell the kid?
All right, how about this?
You've got some horrible problem in your life.
You're an adult. It's just like a horrible problem.
Do you tell a small kid?
No. No.
It doesn't matter if it's true.
There are things you tell kids, and there are things you just don't tell kids.
It doesn't matter if it's true.
That's not how you manage children, because they don't have, obviously, developed brains.
So, if you raise a kid to think that racism is going to hold them back...
Do you get the same result as if you raise them to say, oh, racism's everywhere.
You're going to slice through that like it didn't exist.
Which one of them gets you a better result overall?
Every kid is different, but overall.
It's not even close.
And we know this.
We know it completely.
We know that telling somebody that they will be held back will hold them back.
And we know that telling people that they're not limited by the problems in life, the problems are real, but you're not limited by them.
There's nothing that makes that have to affect you.
In fact, the existence of racism necessarily creates strategic advantages.
Necessarily. Let me say more about that.
If racism did not exist...
Could a black person walk into any Fortune 500 company and be almost guaranteed a job so long as they have basic qualifications that are comparable to other people applying for the job?
No, they couldn't. They could not.
If racism did not exist, could a poor black kid be pretty much guaranteed a college scholarship so long as they get good enough grades?
Probably not. Probably not.
So if you're a poor black kid born into a family that says, look, here's the deal.
Racism is everywhere.
You're not going to be able to fix that.
But here's the cool part.
Because racism is everywhere, it opens up these lesser, but still perfectly acceptable, lesser in terms of number, channels for you to succeed.
And it's basically, it's a superhighway.
You know, get out of the forest, walk over the super highway that says, free college, and you're going to get a good job.
And your life is going to look pretty good.
Just walk over here.
Here's the strategy that works.
Over there, there's the strategy that doesn't work.
Does racism exist?
Yeah. It's everywhere.
Won't affect you a bit.
I mean, it'll affect you in your social life and how you feel about things.
It'll affect you that way. It's not going to stop your income.
It's not going to stop you from getting married.
It's not going to stop you from having a good life.
It's not going to stop you from buying a house.
Maybe there'll be a little discrimination.
It's everywhere. So, you know, maybe you get turned down for an apartment and you don't know why.
Yeah, that's going to happen because racism is everywhere.
But is there another apartment?
Yeah. It wasn't like there was one apartment.
It's not like you would be turned down so many times that you couldn't get a place.
You probably hardly notice it.
So imagine, if you will, the two approaches to a kid.
Yes, this thing will hold you back, or no, you have strategies that will slice through it like it didn't exist.
And in fact, you can use it like judo.
You can take the energy of it and use it in your advantage.
One of them is child abuse and one of them is good mentoring.
Let me ask you this.
You're an employer.
Two candidates come in for a job.
One of them believes that systemic racism exists and has been a big problem in their life.
One of them believes that racism exists everywhere.
It's just everywhere.
But that this candidate, he or she, Has good strategies to overcome it or slice through it.
Which one do you hire?
Do you hire someone who believes that they're under the yoke of systemic racism and then you bring them into your company?
How's that going to work out? How's that going to work out for you as an employer?
Nothing to do with being black.
Nothing to do with being black.
It's not a race question.
If you bring me an employee who believes the system is screwing them, I don't want to be anywhere near that employee.
That employee is going to sue you.
They're already primed.
They're primed for it.
Do you think confirmation bias will stop working the day you hire this person?
No. The person who believes that systemic racism is the You know, sort of an organizing model of their world is gonna see it everywhere.
And they're telling you.
They're telling you directly.
I believe there is systemic racism.
So sure they're gonna see it.
They're gonna see it where it exists and also where it doesn't.
And not because they're black, not because anything.
They're just people. The human condition is that confirmation bias affects all of us all the time.
You're not immune from it.
Nobody is. So if you have somebody who has a framework in their head then they should expect that confirmation bias will fill in the framework and you're basically just asking yourself to get sued down the road.
So keep that in mind if you go looking for a job.
I don't think you want anything on your social media History that says you believe systemic racism is holding you back.
Now, if you were a white person and you said systemic racism is bad, it probably wouldn't hurt you for a job interview.
It might help you, right?
I mean, maybe if you had a person of color who was interviewing you, they'd look at that and say, oh, there's an open-minded person.
I'll hire them. But if you're black and you come into a job interview with a black employer, how about this?
It's a black hiring manager and a black candidate.
And one of the candidates...
Actually, let's say all three of them are black, just to keep it easy.
Two black candidates and one black hiring manager.
And one of the candidates says systemic racism is a problem in their life, and the other one says, well, racism's everywhere, but it's not bothering me, you know?
Who do you hire? It's a no-brainer.
All right. Let's see.
The other thing that systemic racism does is that it forces you to look in one place for solutions, doesn't it?
So what do Republicans say is the problem with the black community?
I'm not a Republican, so I'm just summarizing those views.
I think most of them would say that if you get the family unit right, then other things work out.
I feel that's a little simplistic.
So I'm not on board with the strong family unit as the secret to success.
Because I think that only works for some people in some situations.
And when it does, it works great.
I'm very jealous of anybody who can make the strong family unit work.
So it makes sense that people who have made it work for themselves and their friends, they would say, hey, this worked for us.
You should try it. I just don't think it translates into every situation.
So maybe you need something better.
But here's the thing. If you say systemic racism is the organizing thing that you're working on, where do you look for your solutions?
At the system, right?
If you think that systemic racism is the problem, you would look at the systems.
Because it... It manipulates you to look past the question of where the problem is and where's the best place to fix it.
It makes you think past that to, oh, which systems are we working on?
So that's why it's manipulative and it's a persuasion term.
It's not a helpful term. It's not a problem-solving term.
It's a political term that's intended to get your emotions up I don't know if it's intended, but it makes you look in the wrong place.
And what I say by the wrong place is, one place in particular.
Maybe it's not the wrong place, it's just it forces you to look in one place.
I would rather say, what could you do with, let's say, schools and families and early education and stuff?
Because wouldn't you say that by the time the kid is 18, it doesn't matter what the other systems are doing?
He's in trouble. If the entire problem is caused by the time the kid graduates high school or drops out of high school, if all of the problems are baked into that person by that point, in other words, they didn't get the education, and then they've got a jail record or whatever it is, they're on drugs, of course that's going to ripple into the future.
There's nothing you could do fixing the system that's going to fix any of that.
So I feel that calling it systemic racism makes you look away from the first 18 years of life, even though the school is a system, but you don't see people talk about that as much, right?
School's a system. Your early family life's a system.
But that's not what they're talking about, is it?
You know, of course the schools are worse in the inner cities, and I do think that needs to be fixed.
But systemic racism makes you look in the wrong place.
That said, as I've said before, the one place it just stands out is in the justice system.
It really stands out there.
And I think that if you say, hey, the justice system is creating these unequal outcomes, what do we do about that?
I would say, oh, that's worth looking into.
Nobody wants unequal outcomes.
Nobody has that as an objective.
So if you say we're not getting equal outcomes, in theory, you have every white person in the world on your side on day one.
Hey, look at this, unequal outcomes.
What white person says, oh, that's the way I wanted it.
I wanted it to be unequal outcomes.
Nobody. Nobody.
Zero people have that opinion.
So if there's a statistical, measurable problem, yeah, you've got all the help in the world fixing that.
And I've suggested, for example...
That if you have unequal outcomes in the justice system, then maybe there was a way to anonymize the information that the judge used, give that to some independent people who can't tell the race or ethnicity of the person involved, and just have them see,
hey, wait a minute, this decision is on the line with the average, even considering all the extenuating circumstances and the prison record of the person, etc., Then maybe you could get rid of racism if some way you could anonymize it and have an external people bring things back to the norm.
So there are lots of ways to deal with problems with your system, and I'm all for it.
But calling it systemic racism as a unifying principle is misleading and ultimately racist, actually.
Unintentionally. All right.
I feel like it's just a broken record on all these topics.
Yes, that's true. But unequal systems would do that as well.
Somebody said, did Hotep Jesus block me?
If so, why?
The answer is no.
He made a public joke about blocking me, which you should have recognized as a joke.
I did see him blocking people for not being smart enough to know it was a joke.
So I guess you're lucky you got away without getting blocked.
So no, Hotep Jesus and I have no reason that either of us would block either of us.
Predictions for Tulsa today.
Well, let me tell you.
Let me answer that by telling you my experience last night.
So last night I went to dinner at a restaurant in my town for the first time.
Yeah, in my town for the first time.
And remember early on in the pandemic I was suggesting that the restaurants that could Would close the street so that they could move their seating into the street, and it would be just outdoor seating for the summer, at least until the weather changes,
it might work. Now, I suggested that to one of the leading restaurateurs in my town, a friend of mine, and I think he took it to the town, but in any case, last night Main Street was blocked off.
And going forward, I think, I don't know if it's every weekend.
It might only be weekends, I'm not sure yet.
And it went to an 8 in the middle of Main Street.
So the tables were spaced out.
Now here is my experience.
I don't think that more than one in three people had masks on last night.
It was a crowd situation.
Because even though the restaurant thought it was extending its table seating into the street, that's not what the public thought.
So when you imagine this, you say to yourself, oh, that sounds pretty good.
There'd be seats outside, the weather's great, the weather was perfect.
Seats in the street, but it's a really nice street.
You know, it's perfect seating, really.
And you imagine it, you're like, oh, we're all sitting at our tables with lots of distance.
That sounds very pleasant.
But it turns out that the residents who were not there to eat, of which there are many just walking about, decided that it was a street fair.
A street fair.
Meaning that crowds of people were in and among the tables.
And the table I was at was right next to some bros, some white bros.
You know, some twenty-somethings who talk too loudly when their friends come by.
You know what that is, right? Here is a 40-something when their friend comes by unexpectedly.
Hey, Bob! I haven't seen you in a while.
Now here's the 20-year-old bro when he sees his friend he hasn't seen in a while.
And then his friend sees him and goes and they both shout as hard as they can.
But they try to get the deep The deep manly shouts, and it becomes this whole simian ape-like situation where they're all trying to be louder and more aggressive and slapping each other harder and hugging each other harder and shaking hands hard and establishing their territory and trying to elf up and stuff.
So as a result, There were four of the bros right next to us, and they were really loud, and then their friends come over.
Now their friends are standing around the table and starting to crowd our table, and they're really, really loud.
And then another group of their friends come.
And the next thing, I'm basically right on the edge of a large group of large men who are effectively, none of them have masks, zero masks in the entire group, None of them were quarantining together, and they all just came to this one table, so there was like, now there were a million different contacts all represented at the table right next to me, and they were all shouting drunk.
I don't know if they were all drunk, but they were shouting like drunks.
And it just went on for like 40 minutes.
Now, was I exposed to To the coronavirus?
Yes. Yes, I was.
And I thought about, what do you do in this situation?
Because I should have walked out, right?
I mean, for safety reasons, I should have just walked out.
But I didn't want to penalize the restaurant.
And I didn't want to pay and not eat.
I mean, the whole point was I wanted to go eat.
So my personal restaurant experience was completely ruined by loud bros who were trying to kill me because they didn't have any risk.
The young people didn't really have any risk, but they didn't give a fuck that I did, let me tell you.
There was one older guy that was with the younger guys, and he was like, hey, don't touch me, don't touch me, but he didn't have a mask on either, so he's probably dead.
We'll never see him again.
That guy died. Anyway, the point is, what I witnessed last night was almost complete destruction of the medical recommendations.
I don't know how much of that was unique to the situation, but I kind of feel like it wasn't unique.
And while Trump supporters might be really good at wearing masks, because I imagine they'll probably be handing them out at the...
I'd be real surprised if there are not MAGA face masks, although that would be a terrible idea, because then people would wear them in public later, and then they'd get their ass kicked.
So I hope they don't have those, unless they're generic.
But it could be...
I don't know. So first of all, I think that nobody is...
Nobody's taking it seriously in California, at least in my area.
And by the way, the police were there.
So, you know, California, you're supposed to have a face mask as of the other day.
You're supposed to have a face mask in these crowded public areas all the time.
The police were right in the middle of that crowded area and were not enforcing anything, nor do I think they could have.
So I'm not blaming them.
I don't think they had really an option to do anything.
The entire street It was filled with maskless people.
There were two cops. What could they do?
So, you assume the risk.
That is correct. You do assume the risk.
What do you call a gathering of bros?
a bunch of 20-something white guys who talk too loud and you know they like sports.
Young guys don't care.
Yeah, I would say that young males certainly are not going to be wearing masks.
