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April 20, 2023 - Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy
01:01:16
The Truth About Race and Affirmative Action with Adam Coleman | The TRUTH Podcast #16
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So one of my core policy planks in this campaign, as many of you will know, is to eliminate race-based affirmative action in America.
There's a lot of reasons for that.
Merit is near and dear to my heart.
I think that, yes, it is an anti-meritocratic policy in America that stops the best person from necessarily getting that job, getting that promotion, getting that spot in college or at the local prep school.
But that's not the only thing that's wrong with it.
I think a big part of what's wrong Is that it also teaches black children that they can't achieve something on their own, that they need a special leg up.
And yes, it is true that the country has suffered a history of racial injustice dating back to its founding.
But at a certain point, if you don't move on from that, you're going to keep running into the same obstacles over and over again.
Not a lot of people know this, but even as recently as in the 1960s, Okay?
A majority, I think it was over 70% of black kids were born into a two-parent household.
The economic conditions in black America were actually better than they are today.
Now it's fewer than 30% are born into a two-parent household.
And a big part of the problem...
was actually Lyndon Johnson's Great Society that, first of all, created the incentives for the dissolution of the two-parent household, that created incentives for mothers to be single as single mothers rather than to have a father in the house, but also what Lyndon Johnson did as part of that same vision was implement affirmative action through executive order, where what did he say?
He said that if you're going to do business with the federal government, then you have to adopt these race-based quota systems if you're a government contractor.
Today, that covers over 20% of the U.S. workforce.
I'll tell you something about myself.
I did go to a private Jesuit high school from 9th through 12th grade, but until then, 1st through 8th grade, I went to not that great of a public school, I'll be honest about it.
It was racially diverse.
There were kids who came from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
I wasn't born into a wealthy family, but I was born into a family with two parents in the house who put an emphasis on education.
But that was the real competitive advantage that I had.
And there wasn't one of those black kids who went to school with me from first through eighth grade in Princeton schools in Cincinnati, Ohio, who couldn't have accomplished everything that I have in my life.
I've gone on to found multi-billion dollar companies as the kid of immigrants who came to this country with almost no money.
Every one of those kids could have done the exact same thing.
If they enjoyed the true privilege that I had, which was two parents in the house who placed a value in education, and yes, raised us with a sense of faith and conviction, including our faith in God, I believe that's possible.
And yet what we teach those next generation of black kids, really many kids, even in many races today, is to think of yourself as a victim of the system rather than to think of yourself as a victor, somebody who's able to actually overcome hardship rather than to be defined by it.
Hardship is not the same thing as victimhood.
Hardship can be part of what helps us discover who we really are, whether or not you're black or white or gay or straight or Democrat or Republican.
That's just a human point.
And I want to introduce our guest today who understands that better than most people I've met in my life and I feel like I got to know him, not because we've spent a lot of time together, but because I read his book.
Actually, the best way to sometimes get to know somebody is to actually read what they wrote.
You'll know much more about them than just spending an evening together in the company of others.
No, you actually dig beneath the surface when you get to somebody's heart and soul by actually seeing what they took the time to put on a piece of paper.
And that's what I did when I was writing my book, Nation of Victims.
One of the books I read was about black victimhood culture.
It was a topic that I felt like at the time, even today, you're not supposed to touch it.
It's supposed to be one of these sacred cows you leave alone.
The person who's here today is actually brave enough to have taken that subject on head-on in a first personal way in a book that moved me.
And I want to welcome him to the podcast.
Adam Coleman, good to have you here.
Good to see you again.
We've seen each other briefly in passing, but it's the first time we're actually properly sitting down one-on-one and I've been really looking forward to this.
So thanks for joining the podcast.
Thank you.
I appreciate you having me.
So, you know, you came to this subject With some first personal perspectives, right?
I think you put a lot of your heart and soul on the table in that book.
I thought it'd be useful to get at least the brief version of it, the long versions of the book, but the brief version of it here.
Of what caused you to start talking about black victimhood culture?
How much of a restraint is that?
Has that been even for you in a first personal way?
And what is that journey from victim to victor phrase you used?
What does that look like to you?
Well, what got me started actually was George Floyd.
Oh, okay.
So it's all pretty recent actually.
Very recent.
I must have read your book right after it came out then.
I published it in March 2021. Okay, you sent me a copy of it, so I must have read it right as it was coming out.
Okay.
Yeah, I think it was a few months afterwards.
Okay, okay.
But basically, I was watching everything that was happening in the media with George Floyd.
And, you know, my trade is I was an IT guy.
I was an IT manager for a small business.
And every day I would sit at my desk and watch the news and listen to podcasts.
And I just remember hearing people say, you know, if you want some sort of change, you got to do something about it.
And the other part was I felt like I couldn't talk about it.
There was no medium for me to actually speak about, well, I don't agree with this narrative.
Social media didn't feel like the platform to do it because I wanted to talk about it in a very deep way, you know, with some significance.
Social media is designed to be the opposite of deep.
I'll tell you that.
Exactly.
You know that well.
Exactly.
And what was your story up to that point?
I know you said you worked in IT, but get a little bit of your story on the table.
Basically, as a child, I grew up in a single parent home.
My father was always married, but not to my mother.
And you grew up under your mother?
Yes.
I grew up under my mother with my sister as well.
And we went through in and out of hardships.
We went through moving four states before I was 18. Where all did you go?
I was born in Detroit, moved to Alexandria, Virginia, was there for less than two years, and then moved up to upstate New York, Orange County, and then moved to New Jersey.
All with your mom?
Yeah, with my mom, Central Jersey.
The entire process was with my mom.
My father barely came around.
I would barely hear from him.
Maybe get one or two phone calls a year.
The last time I saw him, I was 16. And the last time I talked to him, I was 21. And he passed away a handful of years ago.
So that's, you know, in a nutshell- Did you have a father figure at home after him?
No.
Or not really?
Okay.
So your mother raised both you and your sister alone?
No.
Yeah, she raised us alone.
And how did she make a living?
She was a nurse.
She was a nurse?
Yeah, she was at LPN and then later on would become an RN. Is she still practicing today or is she retired yet?
She ended up getting her master's since she was teaching for a while.
Good.
But unfortunately, she has some health issues, so she's mixing and mingling with the economic situation.
Okay.
Okay.
And your sister?
What did she end up pursuing?
So she went to school for marketing.
Okay.
And then she later went on for something health-oriented.
And she's doing fine, you know, career-wise.
She was working for the state, and then, you know, she found something else recently.
Cool.
And then you got into the world of IT. Yeah, I got into IT. What led you to that?
I was always into computers.
Okay.
Growing up?
Yeah, just as simple as that.
I remember the very first computer was a Commodore 64. And then the first real, real computer that could actually do something was a Compaq.
Compaq Rosario.
I can't remember the exact model.
Yeah, you would know better than I. Yeah.
Okay.
But I was always somewhat into computers.
In my teenage years, I really got more into it.
And I just decided to get into like the system administration, you know, computer repair side.
So, you know, I did over the phone tech support.
Did you go to school for that or did you just train yourself?
I went to tech school.
Yep.
After high school, you went to tech, it was like two years?
Actually less than that.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, it was about 11 months.
And did you have to pay for that out of your pocket or?
Yep.
Okay.
Out of pocket.
Well, actually, I had a student loan, like everybody else.
Yeah, but it was a loan.
It's not like it's like government paid for it.
Correct.
Correct.
There's no financial aid for that.
It's just a loan.
It was, actually, no, it was through the government.
It was a mix.
It was private and government.
But it's a loan, though.
Yeah, yeah.
You have to pay back, I see.
Yeah, exactly.
Of course, you took the tech training.
Yes.
And then you got into IT support.
Yeah, I got into IT support.
I've worked for a telecommunications company, did over-the-phone tech support.
And then it took me a while to kind of break into in-person support for companies and just kind of grew from there in the past six, seven years.
So you're doing that.
Yeah.
Probably don't have a ton of spare time on your hands.
You're married, right?
I'm now married, yes.
Yeah, I met your wife briefly at one of the conferences we were at, actually.
No kids, though, it seems like, in the picture.
Between us, no.
But I do have a son from a previous relationship, 17 now.
Got it.
He's 17?
Yeah.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Okay, okay.
He's taller than me.
Okay, got it.
Got it.
And which is to say people can't see, which is pretty tall.
Yeah.
So that's good.
But where did you think in the – so in the middle of this – I mean, I know this first personally – Because I've done it.
It's a big commitment to take and write a book.
Like, yes, okay, we all saw the George Floyd thing.
Actually, in many cases, we share something in common that's part of what sent me on my journey to write Woke Inc because of the demands that landed on me as a CEO. But it sounds like it was a similar catalyst for you.
I mean, what lit the fire to actually take on that undertaking of like writing a full-on – I mean, it was a full-on book.
It's a serious work you put out there.
What led you to actually, you know, generate the commitment while having a full-time job to do that and then talk about the substance of what the thesis of the book was about?
So to kind of get at the core of it, I would say maybe like a year or two prior, I thought about writing a book.
I just had no idea what to write about.
But the purpose of writing it was to leave a legacy for my son.
I was going through personal transformations and, you know, some of it was political, some of it was personal growth.
But I thought about my son a lot.
I thought about some sort of legacy for him because, you know, my father left me nothing other than, you know, that he wasn't around.
So I learned lessons not to be like him, but I never actually got anything from him, even just symbolic.
But I thought about my son.
And I figured a book was something I can leave behind for him.
But I just didn't have the topic.
And once I felt stifled as far as not being able to speak, not being able to say how I really felt, I actually went to free speech forums and just started talking in depth.
And actually people were saying, you should write more often.
What did you want to say and what made you feel stifled in terms of not being able to say it?
I'm curious.
Because of the reaction.
Like at work?
Are you talking about amongst friends?
In what settings are you talking about?
I would say, one, I couldn't speak amongst friends like I really wanted to.
And granted, most people didn't.
I was relatively private.
Nobody really knew my political positions.
But I just didn't like the greater narrative that was being portrayed within the media.
And I also, in some ways, didn't like how people I generally agree with were talking about it.
It was just kind of like, this doesn't happen.
This doesn't exist.
And it's like, well, there's nuance.
There's some truth, but it's exaggerated.
And you can talk about the things that are obviously exaggerated.
Like what?
For one, that we're all victims and the likeliness of us being killed by police is extremely high when it's actually the complete opposite.
That class has nothing to do with it.
Us meaning like – so you're talking about more in the black community here amongst friends, et cetera.
Exactly.
Okay.
Exactly.
So was that like – it's interesting to me.
I mean, so you're talking about like in 2019, 2020, like it would be a popular – even amongst just like social conversation, these social issues would come up about – Whether or not policing is a source of death in the black community, whether or not victims of a society.
That's a normal conversation, you would say?
I would say kind of.
Okay.
The narrative has always kind of existed.
It's always been something that someone might throw out.
But the thing that concerned me was, one, how often the media was harping on this particular topic.
And then they went from George Floyd to other ambiguous situations implying things.
And it just felt like a machine, right?
You had the Black Lives Matter organization.
That was relatively new, and it actually was being hyped up even more so than, you know, the Mike Brown situation where they were protesting, but it wasn't nearly as what it turned into.
They raised tens of millions of dollars off of that situation.
But it just felt like there was a machine behind it this time around.
And it felt like...
You know, I was a former Democrat and it felt like- Oh, you were?
Yeah.
I'm a former Democrat.
Till when?
I would say the 2020 presidential campaign.
So you voted for Obama twice?
I voted for Obama once.
I actually just didn't vote the second time around.
Okay.
The first time you voted for him, second time you sat it out.
Yeah.
And then you voted for Hillary?
I did not.
You sat that one out too.
I sat it out, yeah.
Well, that's a whole different thing.
Let's get into it.
I'm excited to get to know you, man.
I stepped away from that because I actually started just talking to people who were a little bit different.
Cool.
You know, one of the things was I came across a guy who I still have contact with now.
When I was traveling abroad, I was traveling in Spain.
A guy who's actually originally from Manchester, United Kingdom.
And, you know, we became friends and we kept in contact.
And we had a brief conversation about Brexit at the time before Brexit actually came to fruition.
Oh, before Brexit.
Yeah.
The possibility of Brexit.
Got it.
Interesting.
Okay.
And he told me that he was for it.
And I said, that's interesting because I was very in tune into politics, but my source was the mainstream media at the time.
And I said, that's interesting because I thought Brexit was for these racist British people who just don't like foreigners.
And I asked him why, because I had good faith in him.
And he said the United States would never allow an outside governing body to tell it what to do.
And I said, that's the most common sense answer.
It's actually very true.
So why should Britain?
Right.
Exactly.
And from there, he's actually the one who introduced me to Thomas Sowell.
Oh, he introduced you to Thomas Sowell.
Yeah.
Got it.
I never heard of the guy before.
And so, you know, I got his books and started listening to other thinkers.
We binged audiobooks, you know, libertarians, conservatives.
We being like when you're traveling with him?
We would mostly talk through Messenger.
Okay, got it, got it.
But you would stay in touch over these books.
Yeah, we would talk almost daily.
So this is a British guy.
British guy.
What's his name?
I don't know if he wants me to say that.
Oh, no, no, no.
Okay, fine.
We'll call him your friend.
And he's still in Britain.
No, actually, he lives in Spain.
Oh, he lives in Spain.
Sorry, sorry.
From Manchester, but he lives in Spain.
Yeah.
You guys still stay in touch?
Yeah.
We talk all the time.
Actually, I saw him...
So, since that meeting, we hadn't seen each other in years until this past September.
And I met his, I believe, fiance now, and she was literally a week from giving birth.
Oh, nice.
Good for them.
Yeah.
So, a lot has happened.
Good that things have changed.
All right.
But he was very pivotal to my political awakening.
Yeah.
It's fascinating.
It happened abroad, actually.
And it was completely random.
I met him in a pub.
I didn't even know the guy.
But the big thing for me wasn't necessarily like he converted me to become a conservative or anything.
The thing that he taught me, incidentally, was that The source of information is biased.
It is.
And I realized that my idea of what conservatism is or libertarianism is was through a left-wing filter.
And I didn't actually know what people really wanted.
I would hear the translation But I never went actually to the source.
And once I broke free from the mainstream media, I just started being skeptical of everything but listening to everything.
So actually, once I broke free, I actually listened to progressives.
Great.
I listened to progressives for months.
You know, YouTube, independent progressives.
I couldn't stand the Young Turks.
It was absolutely horrible.
Even when I really tried, I couldn't get into it.
But you tried, okay.
I tried.
And then I said, let me listen to conservatives, let me listen to libertarians.
And I just started making my own, you know, choices politically.
So as I sit here, I'm independent.
You know, I'm relatively right-leaning on some things.
Some things I'm left-leaning.
Perfect.
We need more independent thinking in the country.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what drew you to the topic of black victimhood and black victor mentality, the victimhood to victor mentality?
Back to that, so that's in the context you're going through this political transformation.
You have this sense of hunger that I'm hearing to leave a legacy for your son, maybe in a way that you felt like, I'm not putting words in your mouth here, but maybe it was a gap from what your father left for you and so you're being thoughtful there.
You're in the middle of a job.
You've had this potential transformation coming out of this friendship and intellectual friendship with somebody on the other side of the Atlantic.
George Floyd's death happens.
Black Lives Matter protests across the country.
And then you just – something clicks and you just decide you need to write a book about black victimhood.
Yeah, the victimhood aspect was, because that was like the thing that was underneath it all, right?
It wasn't just that they're exaggerating on this.
It wasn't just that they were lying about that.
But what I noticed is that they were using a manipulative tactic of victimhood, right, to perpetuate it.
And I actually talked about it a little bit in one of the chapters talking about saviorism.
Because if there's a victim, there has to be a savior.
That's right.
And the relationship between the two.
But I focused more on the victimhood part because they were turning that into currency and convincing people you are a victim, right?
And so someone else can reign above them and tell them what to do and tell them what to think.
The savior.
Right, the savior.
And tell them what to be outraged over.
And I thought that was something that...
It was happening amongst Black Americans as far as all the industries, you know, the grievance industries that make a lot of money off of them but do nothing actually for them.
And I saw it being perpetuated in other groups.
Like right now, you could talk about the LGBT and how they use victimhood narratives to get them to do certain things, to be upset about, you know, feminists.
You know, the gender stuff.
You can keep going down the list.
And the currency, the left-wing currency that I see is victimhood.
And actually, unfortunately, I'm starting to see a right-wing currency of victimhood as well.
It just looks a little bit different.
I agree with you on the rise of conservative victimhood.
It feels like we're in this victimhood Olympics, right?
Where everybody competes to be a victim.
If it's a currency, as you said, let's take that analogy to the next level.
If it's like trading in a bubble, say it's like cryptocurrency.
You know, last year, it's trading in a bubble.
You try to cash out.
Everyone tries to cash out when the bubble's trading at a high because pretty soon what happens with the bubble is it's going to burst.
But everyone's right now in the phase where they're cashing in while they still can.
And the funny thing is we see is – my parents are from India, the Indian American community.
I take a look at like my kids and their generation and my nieces and nephews and their generation.
There's now a trend there which is different than the way – My parents raised us and many people – so many people like my parents raised us in the mid-80s and 90s where now those kids are taught to see themselves as victims too, to say, no, no, no, we're persons of color kind of, right?
And we too are victims because that's just how you get ahead in the country.
But there's no winner in this game because you lose your own fortitude when you – even if you're doing it as a tool, you start to believe the lie and And then you become a hollowed out husk of yourself.
And so I don't care whether you're black or Asian American or Indian American, if you see yourself as a victim, you're less likely to actually realize your fullest potential.
Now, like, what do you say in response?
And a lot of what I hear in response to this is, you're just rejecting the reality of That black people have been victimized in this country, slavery, 160 years ago.
Even the need for civil rights laws in response to the Jim Crow era in this country, even other systematically racist practices from redlining or otherwise that made it more difficult for black Americans to compete in this country.
How can you not recognize that and just say that, okay, you shouldn't see yourself as a victim anymore.
You should just succeed.
How can you ignore that?
That's a big part of what I get in response.
What do you say?
I'm sure you hear some of the same stuff.
Well, for one, I don't deny it.
I think that's the first thing.
I think where some people on the right make the mistake is that they dismiss it.
Obviously, this is a concern for some people.
For example, you and I can say, George Floyd, that's an unfortunate situation.
But the narrative is wrong.
We're not dismissing, you know, George Floyd was an unfortunate situation.
It was a bad, it was a tragic death, period.
Right, it was a tragic death.
He should not have died.
Not in those circumstances, for sure.
Absolutely not.
We're not denying that.
We're saying, hey, this is bad, but we shouldn't exaggerate from there on that this unfortunate situation is even commonplace, because it isn't.
Thank God it isn't in this country.
So we don't want to deny stuff.
We want to acknowledge or at least try to understand where people are coming from.
Like, I've been thinking about this lately as far as if I was some 20-something-year-old kid who doesn't have a whole lot of experience.
Let's say I'm white.
I don't have a lot of friends of color.
Let's use that term.
Do you use the expression of the day?
Yeah, the expression of the day.
And I turn on the television.
Every time I turn on the television, it's showing black people being killed by police.
I mean, it's not far-fetched for you to think that this is actually a problem, right?
So we kind of have to- And then you combine that with insecurities that want you to fill your own hunger for meaning in life by becoming a savior to them.
Exactly.
It's a formula for savior complexes.
Exactly.
And the thing that people understand is that the left has created not only the problem, but the solution, right?
And the right is just denying that there's a problem with no solution.
That's pretty good framing, actually.
I agree with you.
Yeah.
And so we can't deny that stuff is happening.
If you're someone who is on the right, you're wrong to say racism doesn't exist, but then at the same time say progressives are racists.
It's not the same thing.
You're contradicting yourself.
So you have to be able to acknowledge at least where people are trying to come from, like somewhat meet them in the middle.
Acknowledge their concern.
Acknowledge, you know, why they might be hypervigilant about stuff, but steer them into the direction that makes the most sense.
And I just, I don't think that there's enough care about rhetoric.
I don't think that there's enough care about saying something, not just because they said it, we'll say the opposite, but actually saying, you know what, maybe they have a point about this, but they're wrong here.
And so we can admit that and still be right.
I mean, you're black.
You grew up in America.
You're in a single parent household at that, as most black children do in this country.
You broke through and you've had a successful career that hopefully your son and any future children can look up to.
Right.
What was your experience of racism in this country?
Have you encountered racism?
How did you deal with it?
Open up a little bit.
Talk to me about that.
You know, it's funny, the racist experiences that I've encountered have been very few, maybe on one hand.
I could probably think of three that were, like, overt.
When you're growing up?
Growing up, yeah.
Like, I remember the first time someone called me a nigger, and there's not really been many more times after that.
You were in school?
Yeah, he was actually a neighbor of mine.
I was in grade school.
He's not black.
No, he was not black.
Okay.
You know, I was living more in a rural-ish area.
How old were you guys?
I'm trying to remember exactly how old it was.
I want to say I was maybe second, third grade, I believe so.
Somewhere around there.
Okay.
Seven-year-old kid.
Yeah.
I wonder where he learns that kind of word.
Exactly.
Like from his parents.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So that's why when I think back, I'm not mad at the kid.
He was a kid, too.
I think we were in the same way.
Anybody who's met a seven-year-old, you know their evil doesn't begin in their heart.
Someone teaches them this stuff.
Yeah.
Exactly.
He heard it from somewhere.
But for whatever weird reason, I still remember, even though it didn't make me cry or I wasn't super pissed off.
It was just kind of confusing.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
What's up with that?
Yeah.
But as far as experiencing racism, very few.
I've lived, and I would actually say this, I think most people live in one particular area.
So their vision of America is where they live.
Fair enough.
You moved around.
I moved around a lot.
I've lived in five states throughout my life.
I've lived in various towns throughout different states as well.
So my experience of being around, and also I've lived in urban, rural, and suburban.
So, my experience is that shitty people come in all colors.
Like, that's the reality.
It's human nature, man.
It's human nature.
Yeah.
And we always find some sort of reason to, you know, separate ourselves if need be, or we find some reason to kind of come together.
I'm sure when you've traveled abroad, you met an American, you're like, oh, we're American.
Yeah.
Right?
If the time is right, you find some reason to kind of come together with people.
And so what I wanted to do with the book is talk about childhood trauma significantly because that is our point where we can actually come together over and we can have some sort of unfortunate bonding over childhood trauma.
Because when I talk about not having my father in my life, most of the people who tell me I went through the same thing or my family's going through the same thing, they don't look like me.
There are more white Americans who are growing up without their fathers in their lives in separate households than black Americans.
But the narrative, even with me writing the book, talking about black victimhood and black people growing up disproportionately high without both parents in the home, more white people are actually going through that situation than black.
And I think this- Is that true?
Yeah.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
We have about- There's a fatherless, the guy who does the fatherlessness podcast, he and I chatted here.
I should introduce you to him afterwards.
He's all over this issue.
But your point is the fatherlessness problem is not a racial problem.
It's a problem of fatherlessness, period, which leaves kids of any color worse off.
Well, even deeper, it's an American problem.
It's an American problem, yeah.
Nearly a quarter of kids grow up in separate homes.
And I don't think people realize that.
We're number one in the world.
You know, we like to say we're number one, but we're number one in the world when it comes to separate families.
Really?
Yeah.
It's about 23% of children.
I did not know that.
It's very high.
Grew up in separate families, meaning to say, like, single-parent households, basically.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Whether it's through divorce or- One or another, yeah.
Yeah.
But we have a really big problem here.
The United Kingdom is number two.
And I actually have a decent amount of people who reach out to me from the United Kingdom.
It's right behind us.
So there's an issue in the West, but especially there's an issue in America when we're number one in that situation.
That is the root of many of the social problems that we talk about.
When we talk about crime, crime is highly linked to children, especially young males, because it's generally a male issue.
But it's highly linked to young men who are growing up without a healthy male figure in their life.
You know, if we're talking about gangs, same thing, they're looking for purpose, right?
Your father's supposed to help guide you and help demonstrate some sort of purpose.
What does a healthy man look like?
You know, so on and so forth.
You have all these social issues that we talk about.
It's a strong link to family.
Your book, when I read it, I mean, we were sitting next to each other actually was where I remember now in Wisconsin.
I think we were literally sitting next to each other.
I think we were each giving a speech if I remember because both of us had books coming out or you had just – yours had just come out.
I think now mine was going to come out soon.
And I think I gave you my address is what I did.
No, I think I gave you a preprint of my book.
Now I'm remembering this.
And then I said, do you have yours?
And you said he didn't, but you mailed me one because I gave you my address.
That's what happened.
Right?
That sounds about right.
Yeah.
That's correct.
It's a little while ago and a couple of years ago now.
So that's just coming back to me.
And I remember you heard me speak.
I heard you speak.
I've since actually heard you speak as well.
And it speaks to me.
It's a very similar message.
A lot of that message shows up in my second book, Nation of Victims.
So that was Woke Inc.
I wrote the second book, Nation of Victims.
I saw you tweeting recently, as you may have noticed, I quote you several times in that book because it moved me.
But here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
I want to get your perspective on this.
You know, you're not a guy who holds back, but don't hold back.
Just be honest here.
The thing I hear is, so I had a chapter about black victimhood in the book.
That's where I quoted you.
And then after that, I have a chapter about conservative victimhood, about how the victimhood culture is spreading to the right and we're in a race to the bottom playing the victimhood Olympics.
But the number one thing I hear, I even heard this over the weekend when I was talking about this issue too, is you shouldn't talk about this.
Like, let's say you and I have the exact same view.
And you're talking about it, that that is more socially or fully socially acceptable in a way that it's not for someone who isn't black.
My gut reaction to that, I'm very open-minded about this, all right?
I really am.
And if your view is different, I'm open to being persuaded.
But my view is we should be able to espouse whatever ideas that We believe get us to a better place regardless of what our own individual race is.
And so if you want to talk about issues in the Indian American community, you should feel free to do that.
And if I want to talk about issues that I think are standing in the way of black empowerment in America, human empowerment in America that include black empowerment, I should be free to do that.
Where do you draw the limits there?
Because there is a history here.
These are topics that are historically fraught in the US. Yeah.
So tell me if you think I'm wrong about that.
I'd be curious for your perspective there.
But right now, so far, the approach I've been taking is actually to be uninhibited.
But at the same time, I get a lot of feedback even from friends, including black friends, who I think mean very well when they say, hey man, like, I don't think you should be able to talk about this unless you're talking to a black audience or you're, you know, somebody who's black should be saying these things, but not you.
Like, what's your view on that?
So, I get crap too.
Well, people like myself who are critical get crap too.
I guess I'm sure you do, yeah.
But I don't get that much crap.
Part of the reason is, well, I'm not that known.
That's changing.
I think you're touching people with your story, but fair enough.
The other part of it is how I talk about it.
And I think that the how is actually what's really important.
Because there may be people who don't agree with you.
They'll use the excuse, you're not black, so you can't talk about it.
But if I was to say the same thing, they would say...
You're being a coon.
You can't talk about this.
What does that mean?
Like a race traitor.
Oh, I see.
You're trying to be white or something like that.
You hear that sometimes.
Yeah.
And I laugh it off.
Okay, whatever.
But the point of it is that they are telling you you can't say this, but they would use it to anybody.
But I think there is an aspect of tribalism at play.
Or if you think of it from the sense like, you can criticize your child, but if someone who's not in your family- Fair enough.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's interesting.
It becomes sensitive.
So I think there is- I think some of that is what I get actually, especially from Black friends more.
Yeah.
There's an aspect, because I hear this too, when I talk about race in front of what is perceived or what may actually be a majority white audience, it is, oh, you're talking negatively about us.
About our people to them.
To them.
So there is that aspect too.
So there's a bit of tribalism that kind of comes into play, but I would say- Do you think it's legitimate?
Kind of.
Okay.
Because there are situations where I'm like, I get why they don't like this.
Not necessarily something, but let's say I see a prominent right-wing figure who may be black who says something, and then I see the people that I would generally disagree with saying, no, that's not right.
I'll be like, you know, they have a point in there.
Because what I see too often is people acting like they care, but really they're just trying to make some point or take a dig.
And I think that's why I say how really matters.
Or why are you even talking- You mean people even on our side of this issue.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
You know, when- Like if George Floyd happens, then you talk about race.
It makes sense because it's the topic of the moment.
But when nothing is happening and you're just taking digs, You know, or at least it's perceived like, why are you talking about, why are you constantly putting up, let's say, crime videos of black people every day and making, you know, you're making- Insinuations about- Insinuations like, oh, well, see, this is what they do.
You know, oh, I just care about crime.
It's like, no, you don't.
You have an agenda, yeah.
Right, you have an agenda.
I mean, to tell you the truth, I think that Like these issues are very personal to me about – Actually, where are you on affirmative action before I ask you, race-based affirmative action?
I don't think it works.
I think it uplifts the upper class of blacks.
It basically does, right?
Including immigrants, kids of immigrants who came here in the 70s post-immigration reform.
Right.
And that is not helping any descendant of slaves in this country.
It's not.
So okay, anyway, there's a lot of reasons to be able to get affirmative action.
That's probably one of them.
But anyway, I do end up talking about issues like ending affirmative action a lot.
It's part of my presidential platform.
Do you remember if I ask you, are you pro-life or pro-choice?
I'm pro-life.
You're pro-life.
So am I. So I'll tell you about that.
I went to a pro-life rally yesterday but talked about actually – talk openly about the fact that Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood.
With the objective, like the stated objective of reducing black population growth.
And that it has had, guess what?
It's stated objective in America.
And so I was speaking at a pro-life rally in Iowa yesterday.
The person who spoke before me, she's also on our team, incredible individual leader, woman, Kathy Barnett.
I don't know if you know Kathy.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
So she spoke right before me.
She shared her perspective, her powerful story.
I spoke right after, but it was actually a mostly white audience.
And we were talking about this very issue.
And, you know, I tweeted something after that.
I said, like, one of the way home from the event, we took a couple pictures from my iPhone, and one of the points that came out of my dialogue with her was that actually a black baby is probably safer in the inner street of Chicago, in the inner city of Chicago, than in the womb of his own black mother.
And I think that that's actually a problem, and it's directly the product of what Margaret Sanger envisioned years ago when sending Planned Parenthood into motion.
I think it was perceived to be very insensitive coming from me.
And I think a lot of people struggled with that.
But in a way that they wouldn't have if I were black.
And one of the things I'm thinking about is this question of the how, right?
For me in this presidential campaign, a big part of the whole cultural movement I'm trying to create.
It's not just relating to issues of race.
It could relate to climate.
It could relate to the use of military south at the border to fight cartels in Mexico.
But I think we are better off when we are able to just start talking openly.
And if you're going to say it behind closed doors, you might as well say it in public.
What would your advice be as somebody who is not just who's black but who has thought about these issues of black identity and its relationship to victimhood and somebody who I think has a nuanced perspective as you do you're not like an ideologue about this would your advice to me be to Speak without a filter, unapologetically, full stop, as long as it's honest and grounded in truth.
Or to add a layer of filtering, but filtering through the lens of like, maybe be, make sure you're filtering to be empathic and make sure the message lands the right way.
Like, I think there's a reasonable case to be made for that.
That's not the approach I'm taking right now.
Should that be, in your view, the approach that I should take, which probably wouldn't have had me put out that tweet yesterday, actually.
So I would say, and this is just my general stance, I always lean on empathy.
I try to find something where there's some sort of common ground as to what I'm discussing.
So when it comes to something that you know is going to be sensitive, or maybe even perceived even more sensitive for you...
Then I would lean on empathy.
You can make a similar statement, but say, this really concerns me that this is the type of situation that is happening.
Rather than...
Because I know what tweet you're talking about.
Oh, you saw it?
Yeah, I saw it.
Okay, got it.
We call each other, yeah.
And I think it's initially taken as you're making some sort of jab at black women.
I think that's how it translates.
When...
Your concern is about the child.
From a pro-life perspective, yeah.
And I think that's why, for one, if someone doesn't know who you are, so there's no, like, oh, I know what he means.
There's no good faith.
So I would always presume that the person who's listening to you may have bad faith in what you're saying.
So you want to...
No assumption of good faith, at least on my part.
Right, no assumption of good faith, especially on Twitter.
Yeah, exactly.
The detritus of human discourse.
Right.
But it does reach a lot of people, which is why we use it.
Yeah, it reaches a lot of people.
But that's why, I can speak for myself, that's why I'm very careful.
It's very easy to be like, the Democrats, rather than you could easily say, some Democrats.
Okay.
Some, it could be $200, $2,000, $2 million, right?
But it removes you from that area of being hyper-rhetorical, of being partisan or something like that, especially because you are running for office.
That veneer of being a private citizen and maybe something will automatically be replaced that, oh, you're just a politician who's trying to, you know, sweeten the pot for yourself or rile up your base.
These would be accusations that someone will levy towards you.
But even worse with something like that tweet, they'll say you're using Black people to rally the base, right?
And if they already think the right is racist, all this stuff kind of compiles and it doesn't look good for you.
So, I always tell people, if you want to talk about race, talk about race.
I'm a free speech type person.
And I have conversations with people who don't look like me, who finally feel comfortable to kind of like ask questions.
They just don't know how to talk about it without sounding insensitive, but I have good faith in them, so I hear them out.
But you have to understand that there is some sensitivity and I get where it comes from because unfortunately, even though you're not that person, there are people who do this and I criticize them.
Race baiting or whatever.
Race baiting on both sides, right?
They just do it in a different way.
And I criticize these people because I see what they're doing, you know, and they're taking shots and they're using this and getting people to say, yeah, yeah, he's right.
And then retweet it and get more followers.
And if I were you, I would try my best to not even be remotely close to appearing as mixing in with these people.
You know, I mean, it sounds like then you've been following a lot of my commentary.
What's your perspective on the way I'm talking about the affirmative action issue?
I'm gloves off as I see it.
I mean, I'm just in the sense that I'm sharing what I actually believe.
This is actually really useful.
Yeah.
I'm all ears.
So one thing I try to do, like with articles, for example, if I'm talking about race, oftentimes I deviate from race to talk about class because I think classes are really big.
More relevant even.
More relevant.
And so if we were to talk about affirmative action, like you asked me, I said, well, it uplifts the upper class.
It's actually what it does.
That's actually what it does.
Yeah.
So you can easily frame it as what is supposed to help the average Black American is actually uplifting the upper class.
If you were to frame it in that way, then it sounds a little bit different versus, you know, something, you know, whatever talking point someone might use for affirmative action that they don't, you know, merit-based doesn't work or something like that.
You know, we want a very particular way.
But I think if you were to steer it to something that people can kind of understand more and kind of unite over, because I do believe that the race discussion is valid to have, but not all the time.
And even though affirmative action appears to be race-related, There's a way that you can always kind of frame it and steer it away from race to something that is more understanding to other people.
So, you know, white Americans get pissed off when the upper class takes stuff from them.
Yeah, exactly.
You know, so everybody can kind of understand that aspect, yeah.
You know, one of the...
One of the questions I had for you was...
Actually, are you a believer?
You're a person of faith?
Yeah.
Was that something you picked up in your upbringing?
You're a Christian?
So we were in and out of church.
So that was part of my personal awakening as well.
For many years, I went agnostic.
Church wasn't consistent.
My faith wasn't consistent.
As I started growing as a man and started realizing all these hardships and getting better mentally...
God was always there with me.
And, you know, I know we were talking about what made you do the book, but what kept me going and the words that kind of came out weren't all me.
It was God as well.
I have no, I've said this before, I have no formal training.
I don't have a college degree, right?
But I know how to talk to people.
I know how to communicate.
And the motivation, I think I took two weeks off the entire time of writing, about nine months.
The motivation, the words that came out, the ideas and the concepts.
And the day I remember saying to myself, I know exactly how I want my book to look.
And that's exactly how it came out.
All these things, it wasn't just me.
I give credit to God as well.
And since then, as someone, like I said, IT background, no expectations, to accomplish what I've accomplished in two years.
It has been an absolute blessing.
You know, I write for the New York Post on a weekly basis, basically.
I've seen some of your stuff.
I didn't know it was that regular.
Yeah.
Basically, it's been like that for months.
I've been writing.
There's a lot of people with English majors from college degrees that would be dying to get to have that opportunity.
Yeah.
And it's just… Do you think the revival of your faith was an important part of your success?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
I pray more often.
I'm extremely thankful.
Do you go to church every Sunday?
I don't.
I haven't found a church that I really want to go to.
Yeah, exactly.
That's kind of the trick is you got to find somewhere you want to go.
So it's more to yourself, huh?
Yeah.
But it's been a growth.
Like just having faith alone was a huge step for me because I spent so many years being confused and unsure.
And having faith was a big step for me.
I'm now trying to learn the Bible far more than I did before.
How are you doing that?
Actually...
It's hard to do on your own.
It's hard to do on your own, yes.
Coincidentally, thanks to New York Post, I have a Dutch friend who is a theologian, and we just started having Bible lessons in With someone you met through?
Yeah.
She writes for The Post too?
No, actually, she read my article and she reached out to me and we had connections.
I actually met her in the Netherlands.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, this past September.
A lot of European friends that have guided you along the way.
I have a bunch of European friends.
Okay, cool.
But yeah, I just started studying with her and she's very fluent, not only in Christianity, but she's familiar with the Muslim faith and And a whole bunch of different faiths, but especially Christianity for herself.
She's personally a Christian.
And same thing with my wife.
My wife is going through it as well.
And hopefully before the end of the year, my goal is to get baptized.
Which you may have done as a kid or you did not?
I did not.
You never did.
Okay.
Never did.
Your wife, she's picking up faith as well?
Yeah.
She's actually been doing something similar with a different group.
So we've kind of have- Come to it together?
Yeah.
In parallel?
We're starting to come together in the faith department.
What role do you think that plays in an American revival?
I mean, I think there's something about being a person of faith.
You talk about this topic of victimhood, path from victim to victor.
What was it?
It was called Black Victim to Victor, right?
Black Victim to Black Victor.
Black Victim to Black Victor.
Tell me if I'm remembering this wrong, but I don't remember reading about faith much in your book.
I purposely didn't.
Oh, it wasn't in there, right?
Okay.
It's possible it's been a while and I tried to read it fast, so maybe I missed it, but it wasn't in there, right?
No, I didn't.
For one, I don't usually talk about faith in God because I don't feel equipped enough to talk about it in a very in-depth manner.
I do have some very small amount of referencing God and faith, but nothing significant.
The reason I brought it up is it was one of the unanswered questions from reading your book is, So David Hume, okay, he's a famous philosopher.
You may have heard of him in Britain or whatever.
He had this analogy called...
He was an empiricist.
What does that mean?
It means that he believes you can only know the things that you see or empirically experience to be true.
But the paradox that he never wrapped his head around was he had this theory of the missing shade of blue.
Where if you had different shades of blue on that wall but one shade were missing, he says, I could still see what that shade of blue was there even though I didn't quite see it.
Right.
That was the experience I had when I read your book.
You talk about the path from black victim to black victor.
It's the title of the book.
I'm saying it as many times as I can so people can find your book for themselves.
But it seemed to me that journey, like reading it from the outside in, I felt like I was reading the work of a person of faith, a believer, and whose belief and faith was part of that, you know, personal journey to being a victor.
Yeah.
And yet you didn't – at least as I remembered it, it sounds like, you know, it was the case that you did not actually explicitly say something in the book.
It was like my missing shade of blue is like the missing shade of Adam in that book.
Yeah.
I don't know, man.
I don't know that you need to have some authority to talk about.
Nobody's an authority over God, right?
I mean, like, hey, I guess people are priests or your Dutch mentor, you know, maybe a scholar of it.
But it's a pretty first personal thing that, you know, you don't need to take it from me.
But my two cents is I don't think you need any special authority to talk about it if that was an important part of your journey.
And I could almost smell it.
I could sense it in there.
I'd say just open it up, man.
You'd give people inspiration because it's become – God has become a kind of four-letter word.
And, you know, be it a legacy for your son or people in his generation.
Yeah.
And, you know, when I wrote my books, I dedicated it to my sons and their generation too.
So I feel you on this.
I just encourage you – you gave me a lot of good advice in this conversation.
I'll give you one back is – Don't be super shy about talking about your own journey through agnosticism, through doubt, maybe coming back to faith in the way you have.
I think that can actually give a lot of people some inspiration.
Yeah, that was one of the areas where after I wrote the book, because even after writing the book, there's been a lot of growth with me personally, that I felt more comfortable.
I'm actually glad that I started a Substack where it's less political, sometimes political, but it's actually more personal.
I talk about a lot of different things.
I talk about my growth in faith.
I talk about my mental health issues.
One of the things that has been extremely difficult For me to talk about, and I really wanted to talk about it, was when I was admitted to a mental health institution when I was six.
And going through that experience, and the other week was the first time I talked about it, like, on stage.
When you were six?
Yeah, when I was six.
Because I told my mother that I wanted to kill myself.
In a six-year-old head, I wanted my bed to fall on me.
That was my plan.
And she was advised to bring me to a mental health institution.
Your bed to fall on you.
Yeah.
Is that visceral?
Yeah.
Wow.
So you told her that?
I told her that.
And then one day she brought me to some place and handed me off to some people.
I didn't know where I was going.
I didn't really understand where I was until some hours later.
But I was basically there for three months.
Wow.
Three months.
You were in first grade at the time, I suppose?
Yeah.
So you took time off school?
Yeah.
And you were there for three months.
Do you remember if it was helpful?
No.
You have no memory?
No, no, it wasn't helpful.
Oh, it wasn't helpful.
It just wasn't.
It wasn't helpful.
Because I wasn't really suicidal.
I was struggling.
You know, I was a kid.
Maybe some therapy would have helped me.
But, you know, this is what she was advised.
But...
The three months is a long time for a six-year-old, but even more so, the three months was a long time not knowing when you're actually leaving, because that's the other part of it.
And you remember this.
I remember this.
I remember my mother would come and visit, and I would ask her, am I going home today?
And she would say no.
And she would visit every so often to come and see me, and you have no idea as a child.
And so, it's a lot different when, you know, you go to jail, you're sentenced to three months, or you buy your time.
But it's another thing where you have no idea.
I don't know, it was two weeks, a year, I had no idea how long I was going to be there.
You didn't talk about this in your book either.
I didn't.
Did I miss that?
Yeah, you don't think you did?
Yep.
It was one of those things that I thought about.
That's dramatic.
Yeah.
I did not.
I'm sorry.
I mean, I don't know.
I guess my first instinct is I'm sorry, but on the other hand, they're all part of who made you who you are.
Yeah.
So I don't know if sorry is even the right thing to say.
It's just an interesting and riveting part of your story you didn't put in your book.
I thought about it at first.
Actually, one of the earlier drafts was talking about it, but I couldn't find a way to kind of blend it in.
And I felt like I made my point.
But part of me was afraid to kind of talk about it.
So that's kind of why I left it out.
But you asked, did I learn anything from it?
What I learned from it was that you can't share your feelings because it could get you locked up.
Wow.
Wow.
I guess that's what it did.
Yeah.
Wow.
And that's how I spent most of my life.
I always kept to myself.
Which is like come full circle to the fact that maybe you didn't even want to share that story.
Yeah.
Growing up, that was kind of the mentality.
You said you didn't experience racism or whatever.
Different people have different things that they're frightened of.
They'll get you locked up.
For you, it was this.
It was from the inside.
Right.
When did you come to that self-discovery?
Or was that when you were six years old and seven years old, you came to that self-discovery?
From the moment I went in that place, all I knew was listen to what they say so you can get out of here.
And I never wanted to go back there.
I didn't learn like, oh, you know, if you have these issues, you do this.
It was just useless.
Yeah, I learned that much later on as an adult.
But for the most part, I stayed quiet.
I kept to myself.
I didn't really share how I felt.
So for my family to see me doing the things that I'm doing now and expressing myself looks weird.
It's probably shocking because that wasn't you growing up.
That's not me.
I'm usually a very quiet, reserved, keep-to-myself kind of person.
But I was that way because I felt like, one, no one really cared.
And two, if you share too much, you know, someone can use it against you.
And so I found that that's a disempowering kind of way to think.
I want to own it.
I want to talk about it because I don't want it to bother me.
Like, when I wrote my SubSec article talking about being institutionalized, I cried the entire time I wrote it.
Just recently.
Yeah, just recently.
Weeks ago.
And my mother read it and she cried.
She told me she cried.
You saw her?
Where is she?
She lives in Georgia.
And you are where?
I'm in New Jersey.
New Jersey.
Yeah.
So she texted me and told me that I made her cry too.
You guys talk a lot?
We talk seldomly.
Like there's, we have a little bit of space between us, but it's not a malicious thing or anything like that.
Yeah.
Talked about this article when it came out, for example.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm sure she's proud of you, man, for writing.
Yeah.
Yes.
She was actually, she was a little bit upset at the very beginning because I told her, I wrote in the book that I felt like I was a burden.
And from there...
I do remember that part.
I do remember that part.
Yeah.
I could see mom not liking that.
My mom doesn't like everything I've written either.
I'll be honest with you.
And every so often she'll text me, and you weren't a burden, you know?
So that upset her, but she's very proud of everything that I've accomplished and my growth and things I've been able to do since.
And how does your son feel about it?
My son likes it a lot.
I'm sure he's proud of you as well as dad.
Has he read the book?
He did.
At 17?
Maybe a few years from now, I could imagine him reading it, but he read it at 16 or 17?
Yeah, he read it last year.
Actually, months after it came out, he read it.
It's heavy reading for a kid, yeah.
Yeah.
My son's a little bit advanced reader.
He's very mature for his age.
But the thing for him that spoke to him was he understood me more.
And he said, I mean, he told me that he cried a little bit because he realized how fortunate he is.
Because I'm like, tell me how you feel.
What's going on?
How are you doing?
How can I help you?
And he realized all those things that I do, he can't take for granted because I didn't have that.
And this is why I care so much.
This is why I talk to him so much.
I'm very passionate about our relationship.
And steering him in the right track of life because I didn't have that person to do that for me.
So I think that was the biggest take that he took.
And he appreciated that I dedicated the book to him.
I respect that, man.
Yeah.
I think that comes across.
It's one of the reasons I want to have you on here, man.
Your authenticity is...
Palpable.
Thank you.
You know, I don't think, you know, I'll agree with most of the things you say, I don't agree with all of them, but I know I'm getting the real thing with you, which is why I've been so grateful for our relationship since the first time we met.
And, you know, if you got your Dutch friend over there and your friend in Spain who came from Manchester, you know, I feel like we have Maybe a nascent version of that on this side of the pond here.
You know, here's stateside.
I hope you and I will be continuing this conversation The conversation we started, we were seated together in Wisconsin two years ago for a long time to come.
And, you know, if I do succeed in this endeavor and we're embarking on it with the full expectation and hope and commitment to success, I hope we'll continue these conversations for the sake of the country, you know, all the way from the White House and on through.
And you'll be one of those people who I know I'll call, especially when I'm tackling those issues that do relate to Race in America in particular who can be a gut check on making sure that on one hand I want to be unvarnished and unapologetic and yet on the other hand really care about making sure that we're doing it to solve the problems and not to create more of them.
Right.
I'm going to think about what you said here.
Yeah, I'm not sure I'm 100% in agreement with it, but I'm 100% appreciative of it because it lands with me.
So, thank you, man.
Cheers to our friendship and we'll see you in the next few months, I'm sure.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for coming.
I'm Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for president, and I approve this message.
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