Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - "How The 'Anti-Racist' Agenda Is Destroying The Black Community." - With Leonydus Johnson

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

Was America founded on racism? Does white privilege exist? What is "Critical Race Theory," and are conservatives blowing this all out of proportion? These are some of the ideas Alex Clark explores with Leonydus Johnson, author of the new book "Raising Victims: The Pernicious Rise of Critical Race Theory.” He used to be a liberal, until he realized he had been pandered to and manipulated by the left. Now he is a conservative who tackles some of America’s toughest topics related to Critical Rac...

We're living through a time when race has been over-emphasized in society. As history has shown us, this usually doesn't end well for civilization. Ironically, the safeguards that have been constructed to prevent racism, things like critical race theory and racial sensitivity training seem to be creating more racism, not less. White people and black people from the youngest years in academia to the workforce are being told that white supremacy has roots in. not only the founding of America, but every aspect of our lives and every institution. But is this really true?

No matter what our race is, should everything we do be viewed through a lens of race and racism? This is a conversation I've been wanting to have for a while, and I thought that Black History Month was the perfect time to have it. Because no matter your background, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, indigenous, the idea that we're living in a society that is rigged against people of color is imperative to look into. because if it's true, it needs to be corrected right away. But if it's not true, we need to discover who's pushing these lies and more importantly, why. My guest today is a speech-language pathologist, writer, Christian, father, husband, and launched his podcast in 2020 called Informed Descent, where he pushes back on dogmatic group think for black Americans and advocates for a post-racial society.

He has a brand new book out now called Raising. victims. Please welcome Leonidas Johnson to the spillover. Leonidas, your podcast, which is called informed dissent, really pushes back, you say, against the culture of group think and challenges the narrative. But what I find interesting about you is that you say you were always interested in politics or really cared. So what changed for you? Yeah, I was pretty apolitical my whole life. I didn't really care about politics, didn't pay attention to politics. I actually voted for Obama twice.

You can believe that or not. It wasn't until the Michael Brown issue in Ferguson when I started really paying attention to what was going on in the news. And it was this lightball moment. Like, oh, my gosh. Like, they are not telling the truth about what's happening. And then they're blatantly lying.

Like, he didn't have his hands up. They're not telling the truth about the guy's past history. And so I started looking into things and looking into what else the media lines which is out turns out Alex is quite a bit. They lied to us about quite a lot of stuff. So it wasn't anything that ever really was of interest to me, but it kind of happened because I find the race thing to be so emotionally driving. And it's in my perspective is that race shouldn't matter and that, you know,

I have all kinds of friends and family from different background with a different racial racial groups. And for me, it just didn't matter. So to make it so such a central aspect of identity for the media to push these narratives and to divide people by race, that's when I started really paying attention and started really looking into things. So it kind of happened by accident, but it was, my guy would say, if I had to pick a point, it was the Michael Brown case in Ferguson. That was the real impetus when I started to pay attention. Before your eyes were open during the whole Michael Brown's situation, did you ever feel as a black man in America that you were at a disadvantage to other people or no?

You know, growing up, there was a little bit of that infused into me. And you have this kind of idea that because you're black, that negative things that happen to you are automatically due to race. And that's kind of a perpetual cultural thing that happens. And there's a lot of black people that think that way. And I grew up that way with a lot of people infusing that, and whether there's my friends or some extended family that were infusing these ideas. And I'll give you an example.

I was cut from my baseball team. That is my sophomore year. And I was so devastated because I felt like the reason I didn't make it was because I was black. Because my coach was racist because it had something to do with the team. color and it had nothing to do with my ability, my ability to play baseball had nothing to do with my practice regimen or my work ethic. It was definitely because of, because of my race. And other people reinforced that. They came in, they said, oh, yeah, this doesn't like black people or whatever. It didn't matter that, you know, if other black people had played for him or, you know, that sort

of thing. The logic just wasn't there. It was a very emotional argument. So there was a little bit of that growing up until I started to really question things for myself and really think about the world in a more objective way. And again, you know, I was pretty apolitical. I wasn't very involved. I wasn't like an activist or anything like that. I wasn't out with my fist raised and thing, the Vila Revolution. I wasn't that kind of person. But at the same time, there were still those, that internalized sort of victimhood as I was growing up that I had to break out of. So there was a little bit of it. Yeah, absolutely.

Could you describe the domino effect of, okay, I discovered the Michael Brown stuff was a lie, then I discovered this was a lie and then this was a lie. What was that like for you realizing, oh, the media has lied to me so much as a black voter for the last several decades? Yeah, I hesitate to use the word that you wake up because the association with woke, but that's what I was like. It was like waking up from a dream and you're like, oh, my gosh, like everything, I thought about the world, everything that I thought was true was completely backward.

And, you know, like I said, I go to Obama and I thought that he was going to be this great, this great bridge and move us into this realm of racial harmony. And once I realized what was actually happening, it was like, oh, my gosh, this is crazy. And I'll tell you, one of my friends put me on to a guy named Thomas Saul, and I'm sure you've heard of him. He is now one of my favorite people in the world, my favorite thinkers, economists, philosophers. And I started to read some of his books and read some of his insight into the racial issues and discrimination, disparities, things like that. And he really opened my eyes and really enlightened me in what was going on. So, yeah, the more that I looked into it, whether we're talking about the race issues, whether we're talking about economic issues, whatever the

the media was talking about, they had a very specific leftist flant to it or they were out like lying. And so once you start that, once you really open your eyes to what's happening in the media and the deception that's happening, you start to see it everywhere and it's hard to ignore. But before, when I was pretty apolitical, you know, you kind of trust that they're telling you the truth and you're kind of naive about it, right? You're like, oh, well, CNN said this. So clearly that's true, right? Like, that cop definitely shot that guy.

And so CNN told us it with racism. So I'm going to believe that. But once you start digging and looking into it yourself, you're like, oh, okay, like, they're not telling us the whole story. And they're leaving out key details in order to shape the narrative. And so those kind of tactics have really turned me off to the media, turn me off the politicians and made me passionate about pursuing this, I guess you could call it racial harmony and a move bit toward a post-racial society. Yeah, so your investigative work led you to really

looking into critical race theory, which is now the popularized term about, you know, teaching kids about racial equity and all these different types of things. It kind of started on an academic level, but now it's really trickled into all of our major institutions, even our workplaces across America. And your new book really goes to. into this. So I have like hard-hitting questions for you to debunk about some of the stuff that critical race theory proclaims, but first kind of tell us what critical race theory is and what you've discovered about it. So critical race theory is an ideology that was developed throughout the 70s and the 80s. And it started in law school. And that's an argument.

You'll hear a lot like, oh, critical race theory is only in law schools, if not in public schools or whatever. And it did. It did start in law school. And the idea was to develop it from critical legal theories and to apply race as an element to discover how the legal system was impacting minorities and causing racial disparities in the criminal justice system. That's what the stated proposition was. And since then, it has expanded into all different disciplines and it's basically oppression analytics. Now, the way I normally describe critical race theory is based on this presupposition. which, yeah, a lot of times it's a moving target because you try to define critical race theory to people who support it will say, no, you don't know what you're talking

about. That's not critical race theory. And then they'll change the terminology to diversity, equity, inclusion, or anti-racism or something else in order to try to obfuscate and throw you off the set. But the basic presuppositions of critical race theory is that racism is endemic in our society. It's everywhere at all the time. interwoven into the very fabric of our institution. That means everything in our lives can be viewed through the lens of racism in white supremacy. So your job, you're going to school, us sitting here having this podcast conversation can be viewed through the lens of white supremacy because everything is imbibed with racism in our society. And what that comes from is this guy named Antonio Gramsci, who is in Palingan Marxist,

who developed this idea called cultural hegemony, which basically means that the elite in power have this system that they create that perpetuates privilege and status for them. And then everybody else is basically oppressed de facto. And they oppress themselves because it's the status quo, the normal way of operation. They don't even realize that they're being oppressed.

They're just, it's just the normal way that they live their lives. And so that's why you get ideas. and I try to get people to understand us. That's why you get bizarre ideas like five black police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, beating up a black man and killing him. And then the media comes out and says that this is an example of white supremacy. So on the surface, you're like, how could you say that? How could you say that five black men beating up another black guy and killing him as an example of white supremacy?

It's because they have this Marxist ideology where everything in. society is viewed through the lens of white supremacy. Everything is infused with white supremacy. So it doesn't matter if you're black or white or Asian or whatever. If something negative happens, then it can be attributed to white supremacy. There's racial disparities. If kids aren't doing as well in school, police shooting, wealth gaps, I mean, pick a topic. It's all indicative of white supremacy. And you can't prove it wrong. So it's unfalsifiable. So if I was going to say the basics of critical race theory, that's what it would be. Racism is everywhere at all times and it's interwoven into the fabric of our society. Yeah, it all really sounds kind of like

it's part of the playbook of BLM. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, BLM is a natural outcrop of critical race theory. And, you know, one of the one things that they do, and I'm glad you brought up BLM because it's a good example. But one of the things that people who support critical race theory do is they play word games and Black Lives Matter is something that most people would agree with, right? Most people would say, yes, of course, Black Lives Matter. Anti-racism, most people would say, yes, I'm anti-racism. I don't like racism. I don't support racism.

But what they do is they hide the more extreme radical ideas underneath the more agreeable terminology. So they'll say, oh, like, you don't, if you don't agree, that all white people are racist or that we need to pay reparations or that the system is imbibed with white supremacy. If you don't believe those things, then you don't believe that Black Lives Matter. And they tried to connect the two. It's like, wait a minute, I didn't say all that. I just don't agree with the extreme stuff.

Of course, I agree with Black Lives Matter. But it's one way that critical race theory infuses itself in our society, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Another way, right? And most people would think diversity is a good word, right? Most of the people would say, yeah, I'd agree. We should have diversity. We should have inclusion.

We should have equality. Equity sounds like equality. But most people would agree with those things. But they're actually just ways to sneak in the ideology and hide the extremism, high the radical elements of the ideology. And, you know, if you disagree with it, then they'll say, oh, so you're just a bigot who doesn't agree with diversity. And that's just not the case at all. But, yeah, the Black Lives Matter is.

great example of that because, you know, they push those ideas. And every time there's a police shooting or something like that, they're always latching on to, well, it's definitely racism. I mean, the whole George Floyd thing, even to this day, there's still not a lick of evidence, Alex, that had anything to do with racism. And yet, we're still supposed to mark lockstep and, you know, acknowledge that this was indicative of white supremacy and a racist sweet system. And it's just, it's nonsense. And for anybody who would take a second to think about it. The main demographic that listens to the spillover is females 25 to 35 years old. And obviously, there are some men who listen, but predominantly, if you're listening right now, you likely

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Well, you brought up something that I think is a very important point to make. The word equity sounds so good. That sounds like equality, right? Equity, equality, they must be the same thing. But actually, they're very different. Could you explain the main difference between something like equality and equity? Sure. Equity is the opposite of equality. Equality is, you think of equality like everybody has an equal opportunity to succeed,

whereas equity is attempting to make outcomes equal. So you're looking for equality on the other end of states. And the only way that you can achieve this sense of equity is by inequality, by treating people unequal. You have to try to manipulate people and manipulate the lovers in order to try to make equal outcomes. And this sense of egalitarianism is always brought with just, it's always fraught with purity. It's always brought with force because the only way that you can achieve those, which for one thing, it's not achievable. You can't achieve equal outcomes.

It can't happen. But the only way you can even try to is by trying to force everybody to be. being equal. In my book, I talk about the short story of Harrison Bergeron and how the people when in that society were forced to be equal, but the only way they could do that is if they were handicapped. So like the ballerinas had to wear weight so they weren't too graceful. They weren't more graceful than other people. If people had a pleasant voice, they had to change their voice that make it real rasty and nasty. If people were too intelligent, they had to wear a radio that disrupted their thoughts.

And that's the only way it can happen. It can only happen by knocking people down. Equity is a concept that has no interest in lifting people up. It doesn't look at people who are falling behind and say, you know what, we need to give these people extra help or we need to give them tutoring if they're in school, whatever. It looks at the people who are doing better and say, we need to do something to knock them down and make everybody equal.

So that's why you see schools that get rid of advanced classes that there's not enough black and brown students in the classes. That's why you could see like in New York, they tried to get rid of the honor roll because there weren't enough black and brown students getting onto the honor roll. But Leonidas, the left would say to you, the left would say, well, see,

there's not a lot of black and brown students in advanced courses because everything is rigged and racist against them. So how would you respond to that? Right. Yeah, that's exactly what they would say. and I always bring up the concept of Baltimore City Schools. And Baltimore City Schools is mostly black as far as student body, as far as school board, as far as the superintendent. Even if you go out to look at the city, it felt that most of the city council is black,

the mayor is black, the police street is black, et cetera, et cetera. So Baltimore is mostly run by black people, and yet Baltimore City's city. schools, it has abysmal outcomes, any abysmal outcomes. Then it's one of the highest funded schools in the country. And yet you have schools in that system where left than 1% of their students are proficient in math and reading. And you look at some of those schools and they have like really low proficiency rates and yet really high graduation rates. Like, well, I wouldn't say really high, but like 70% are still graduating. But you have all this stuff happening in a system that's mostly run by black people. And so you ask the question, like,

okay, so if racial disparities are automatically indicative of racism, why would it happen in a system that's mostly run by black people? And they would say the same thing still. They would say that's still indicative of white supremacy, even though it's the same thing as the black cops in Memphis. Like even though it's involving mostly black people, it's still indicative of white supremacy. So it's a theory that just cannot,

it can't be falsified because no matter how much evidence you provide against it, They just say that that's actually evidence to support the theory. That's actually evidence to show that I'm right. Even though I'm wrong, that just shows how right I am. Well, that's so hard. It's like you're always running in circles trying to debate liberals on the issue of race. Yeah. Well, I tell you, I've had people tell me even, I've shown people statistics of police shooting.

And just real quick, I'll say that if you break down police shootings and you, control for violent crime rate and you look at different populations based on the violent crime rate, then police actually are more likely to shoot and kill white suspects. Not a lot. It's a very small percentage, but it's almost even. But there's a flight higher likelihood that police will shoot and kill white suspects once you control for violent crime. Now, when I show people those statistics that support critical race theory or Black Lives Matter or whatever, that's what they tell me. They tell me, no, the statistics are racist. No, the statistics are, you can't trust the statistic. They're racist. It's white, it's all white supremacy.

It's your, they accuse me of having internalized white supremacy. And so it's just, yeah, it's hard to win those kind of debates. And it's almost fruitless because, again, it's like talking to somebody who believes the earth is flat. You know, you can show them pictures, and you can show them all the proof in the world, and they'll tell you that it's just a lie. It's all just this big conspiracy to make you think that the earth is actually a globe. And there's just no convincing them once they're that ideologically committed to it. So it is frustrating.

This is fun for me. I want to continue down just the myth busting. All right. So are you ready? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Was America founded on racism and stolen land as the left claims? Oh, man. So I don't know if you're aware of this, but actually, Native Americans and everybody who was non-white was living in perfect harmony with rainbows and butterflies and care bears running around until white people showed up and killed everybody. I don't know if you're, that's the true history.

illustrious. People are like, wait. No, I mean, it's just that. I mean, these people just have no, they have no grasp of actual history. And they have to think that way, right? They have to believe that evil never showed up in history

until white people showed up in America or white people showed up anywhere. And because that's how they view it. And it's funny because they always talk about the need to, center whiteness. But everything they talk about has to do with white people as the central focus. You look at history with white people. Now that you say that, you are so right. I never thought about that before. They're always like, we want to get white people out of the equation and yet everything is about white people. Every day. Even the term people color denotes either you're white or you're not white. Like that's the dichotomy, which is funny for.

people that say they're non-binary because it's, you know, non-white or not white. That's, that's all you have. Those are your choices. But yeah, everything has to be viewed through that lens. But I mean, listen, there were horrible things that happened in the past. I think we all can acknowledge that. I think we call acknowledge that our history is not clean. And it's, you know, it's not a fan. We don't try to sanitize it and say, yeah, actually slavery was a great thing. It was awesome. You know, but what people need to recognize is that slavery was not, unique to America. Slavery was something,

slavery is an institution that has existed for thousands of years and was, and it was a normal thing for human history. And still does. Still exists. And still does. And for certain parts of the world,

certain, should I say, non-white parts of the world, which is interesting. And nobody seems to care about that. Nobody seems to talk about it. But, you know, what Thomas, I mentioned Thomas Sol earlier. One thing Thomas Sol always says, is that, you know, it wasn't particularly special that slavery existed.

It wasn't remarkable that slavery existed. What was remarkable is that we abolished it. That was what was unique because it had existed so long in so many places. And, you know, if you go back through history, just about every group of people has been both slave owners and slaves at some point. So we could all go back into our ancestral heritage and find slave owners, or slave. And this depends on how far you go back. So

the idea that slavery of this uniquely American issue is just wrong. Now, whether America was founded on this idea of white supremacy and racism, and if you want to believe that, then you have to believe that the Constitution

and that the ideals of America are white supremacists and racist, which critical race theorists do. But you have to believe that things like equal equality under the law, freedom and liberty. You have to believe that these things are

white supremacist notion that all men are created equal. That was exactly within the ideology that pushed for the end of slavery. But in order to believe that America was founded in white supremacy, you have to believe that those ideals themselves are racist. And they try, critical race theorists, they try to push those.

idea, and they say that, you know, the Enlightenment rationalism, neutral principles of constitutional law, liberty, even the idea of rights themselves, free speech. All of these things are purveyors of white supremacy to them. And it's just wrong. It's just absolutely incorrect. Because if we live up to those ideals, obviously, you can't possibly be racist if you believe those things. You can't possibly harbor animosity toward a fellow human being if you believe those things. So it's just it's just a way for them to to create this degenerate sort of image of America and denigrate it and move us into a cultural revolution. Yes, exactly. Because a lot of people say, well, I don't understand why they push these lies. And that is why what

you just said to push us into a cultural revolution. That's very important to understand. Now, one thing that I hear all the time over and over is that racism in America was was kind of of laying dormant. And then President Obama got elected. And then the racists were mad that we had a black president. And then once President Trump got elected in 2016, the racism ramped up. And we finally, you know, all of us racist were able to get it out of our system or whatever. Is there any evidence to say that that's true? Well, one thing you'll find out when we're talking about critical race theory is that evidence is not all that important. It's the motion. It's emotion that matter. It's how I feel. This is my truth. It's my. It's my. It's my.

I feel like racism, racism was imbibed in the Trump presidency, therefore it's true. But I mean, it's an interesting thing to stick because I do feel like racism got worse after Obama got elected. I think that much is true. But I think the reasoning is different. I don't think the reasoning is correct because what happened and, you know, well, first thing I would say is it's an interesting thing for a racist nation to elect a black president, not once, but twice.

That's what my response always is. It's an interesting thing for that to happen. If we're so in mind of white supremacy, if the system is so infused and enshrined with racism, then it is interesting that something like that could happen. I cannot believe this happened to me. I met a guy out at the bar. We were both sitting.

He was cute. And then when he stood up to leave, he walked with his hands behind his back. Is it too much to ask for a man to be normal? Imagine being a grown man. Walk in with your hands behind your back like a toddler. My new test when I meet a guy in public is going to be to ask them, do a little walk and find out if they walk normal and if they can grill a proper steak.

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So suddenly they just became, you know, hardcore KKK members. It's out of the blue, apparently. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, but yeah, once Trump got elected, the media had a real fence of anima sort of. And that, and that's the obvious thing to say. I think most people are aware of that, that they were coming for him however they could. And the race angle, the racism angle, is an easy tool of emotional manipulation. And, you know, what we just talked about, this idea of cultural revolution.

One thing people need to understand about critical race theory is that it's not really about race. It's not. It's just that race is a very potent weapon that they can use in order to manipulate people, get them into their emotion, and get them to basically turn against their own. country and tear down these institutions. Gender is the same way. The gender radicals, they do the exact same thing with gender, sexuality, same thing, the LGBT activist. It's not really about the thing itself. It's about pushing this cultural revolution. But yeah, the whole thing with the media attacking Trump,

whether they were just useful idiots or they actually recognized what they were trying to do, I think they just knew that that race was a powerful way to get at him. And it's hard to defend yourself. That's the other thing too, Al. Like, it's hard to defend yourself with somebody accuses you of racism. Because you basically fall into something called Kafka trap. And Ibram X-Kindi has said this explicitly that if you deny that you're racist, that's just evident that you're racist. because obviously racist people are going to deny it.

And so if somebody accuses you of racism and you say, no, I'm not racist, then, I mean, there's not a lot you can say because people are going to use anything you try to say to defend yourself. Yeah. So what's the right answer? Like, what is the best way for a conservative to respond to that accusation that you're a racist? Yeah. I mean, if somebody's going to accuse you of racism, there's no response, really, that you need to have.

And at that point, the conversation is over. Because what they're trying to do is they're trying to trap you. So if you say, for instance, let me give you an example. If you say that I'm not racist, I have black friends. I have black family members. I know, I voted for Obama, whatever, whatever it may be, they're going to just use that against you and say, that's what racist people say. And that's a microaggression or whatever it may be.

So the best thing to do anytime you have that sort of braining is it's like the, when did you stop beating your wife loaded question, right? So instead of answering the question, you just get rid of the premise itself and say, no, we're not doing that. We're not taught. Or you can do like, whatever, dude. Like, say what you want to say, I'm going to go over here and which conversation is over. But playing with them on their grounds is, I mean, playing by their rules and playing their game, it's not going to go well because they're just going to continue to play that nonsense where it's like no matter what you say, it's evidence of your guilt. And again, it's like it's the cop contrapped mentality and they do this on purpose so that you can't get out of it.

So I wouldn't have a better answer, but it's just so hard to, it's so hard to talk to these people. It's hard to rationalize with someone. Yeah. Like if somebody's having your emotional reasoning, it's really hard to rationalize with them. Yeah. Does white privilege exist? No. No.

Not as a entity. Now, I will say that there are people who probably benefit from their race for being white. But there are also people who benefit from being black. There are people who benefit from being Asian, whatever. There are people out there that, I mean, there's such individual situations that may occur because, you know, racism exists. One thing I'm always accused of is that I'm arguing that racism doesn't exist. That's not what I'm arguing at all. I'm arguing that racism is not systemic.

It's not imbibed in our institution. It's not everywhere at all times. But individual thing, individual racism, of course, it's always going to exist. It's always going to be out there in some aspect. So to say that somebody never benefits from being white would be wrong. But again, there's all people have, you could all find an example of all races benefiting for their race. So the idea of white privilege itself is nothing more than just a political cudgel meant to silence people. Because you're not allowed to have an opinion, Alex, if you have white privilege.

You can't talk about race. You can't talk about these issues because you're just talking from a place of privilege. You need to be quiet and you need to listen to black and brown voices tell you their lived experience and you need to learn. Except they never want to. But they never want to listen to black and brown voices if they're conservative. That's the kicker. Right.

Exactly. Well, it's because I have internalized white supremacy. Right. Of course. You described yourself as being an advocate for a post-racial society. What would that even look like? So a post-racial society is a society that treats skin color. as no more consequential to who we are than hair color or eye color. I look at people and I see

that they have different eye colors and different hair colors, but I don't make judgments about them based on those features. And in a post-racial society, skin color will be treated the same way, rather than this sense of collective identity where you look at somebody and you say, like, oh, okay, that's a white person that they're part of this collective group that we're going to call white people. And then we're going to make value, judgments about them based on that identity, which is the complete opposite of what we should be doing. That's what critical race theorists want us to do. They want us to see the world that way. They want us to treat each other as collective racial groups and make value judgments based on those

identity. And it's just completely wrong. It's completely opposite to what we should be doing. It's the Martin Luther King quote, right? We judge each other by the consent of our character and not the color of our skin. So I use the term color blindness to bring this up because it's this idea that, yeah, okay, I see that we have different. I see that we have different skin colors or we have different hair colors or different shape of our earlobes or whatever it may be. But none of that matters because I'm going to look at your individuality. and very unique individual who spans a spectrum of human variation, I'm not going to put you in this collective group, this arbitrary collective group based on your same color.

I'm going to treat you as an individual. So that's the hope. And one of the things I always say is that I hope with this book and with the movement is that we'll initiate the paradigm shift in our country and start moving toward that. And I feel like we have been and move more toward it. But it's something that may not happen in our lifetime. It may not happen this generation or next generation, but I do hope to plant those seeds.

And if the age old proverb, you know, like society grows great when old men plant trees under whose shade they know they may never sit. And so you hope to plant those trees and hope to see that in the upcoming generations that where skin colors just this is important. Just as important to a person's identity and being blonde or having blue eyes. Why do you think so many of the people who are leading these social justice causes on behalf of black people aren't even black? That's a good question. And, you know, I think it has to do a lot with this sense of guilt that's been infused into them, where they feel like they are, I think of Robin. Vangelo specifically.

You read some of her writings and you're like, was this written by a grand wizard? Like who is this perk? Like she admit to having animosity toward minorities and, you know, it was like, she admits to being racist and having these racist thoughts. And then she projects that onto everybody else and says, well, all white people feel like I do. And so I think there's some of that. But on a higher level, as far as academics go, these people are, well, first of all, their bread, their bread is buttered by this stuff. I don't even know that they want to actually reach a point where there is a revolution for some of them because they benefit so much from the conflict.

People like Ibam X. Kendi, they benefit so much from the conflict. But then you have the hardcore ideologues, the people who really believe this stuff, who want to institute a cultural revolution and really up in society and turn it into this communist utopia and whatever they have have in mind. And yeah, I always bring up Mao, Jose Dong, during the Chinese cultural revolution. And one of the things that he said was that in order to build a new society, the old site must be swept clean. And a lot of these things are, that's what's happening. It's this idea that everything in our society is broken and it's racist. So the only way to move into our utopia is to wipe the old site clean and rebuild it from the ashes. So I think it's a number of different things.

I mean, there's plenty, there's playing black people who are on this train as well and who are doing the same. thing. And I think it's a combination of whether it personally and benefits them, where it's financially or psychically or whenever it may be, or the way they actually believe it. And real click, I want to tell you an allegory by Ken Minogue. He was a philosopher from Australia. But it gives insight into the way that some of these people think. And it's the allegory is called St. George the Dragon Slayer in retirement. I don't know if you've ever heard of it before. No, I haven't.

Yeah, so St. George was this prolific dragon flare and he just played all the dragons in the land. He was this big hero. The villagers loved him. He was a celebrity. He was basically medieval Justin Bieber, right? So he was, he's this prolific dragon slayer. But then he slays all the dragons in the land.

There's no more dragons so he can retire. So he goes to retirement, he's sitting at home, and he starts to have this identity crisis. Because he's so deeply identified with playing dragons, he doesn't know who he is now. It's like he has no purpose, no meaning, he doesn't know what to do. But he looked outside and what does he see? Miraculously, there's a dragon. So he grabs his sword and shield and runs outside and flayed the dragon. And then suddenly he looks around and there's dragon everywhere.

There's dragons that bark. There's dragons that quack. There's dragons with antlers. There's dragons who claim to be villagers. There's, like, he's slaved them all. And then eventually he's seen swinging his sword at thin air, proclaiming it to be the fiercest dragon of them all. But I find that to be such a profound allegory

about what's going on in progressivism and critical race theory specifically. Because these people have so deeply identified themselves with fighting oppression and fighting the dragons of, racism that when it's not there, when it's five black Memphis cops beating up a black guy and there's no racism to be found, they can still somehow see a dragon. They can still somehow say, yeah, I am the dragon's player and they grab their sword and go out and play it because that's their identity and they have to protect it at all costs. It can be really tough being a conservative woman in culture today, especially if your men walk like

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and their factory is women-owned and operated at a state-of-the-art FDA certified facility in Oregon. Service to others is a core value of Nimi, so I really like this. One percent of all products sold goes to American causes for women and girls that share their values, like girls on the run and women of faith. Whether you want to brighten, prevent aging, or hydrate, Nimi skincare has you covered, and you can try them with 10% off using my code today. Go to Nemeyskinkare.com and use code Alex Clark to get 10% off your order. That's N-I-M-I-Skincare.com and use code Alex Clark for 10% off, or click the link in the description. You're right. That is the perfect allegory for this. And your new book, Leonidas Johnson, is called Raising Victims. What are some ways that we can permanently expel critical race theory and racial sensitivity training from society?

We have to get these people out of power. That's the get out of power and influence. Talking about it, standing, the first thing I would say, too, is they're strength in numbers. A lot of times people feel like they're isolated and they're scared to speak up. I get all kinds of people telling me, like, I don't know what to say or I'm scared to speak out because I don't want to lose my job or I don't want people to attack me. And those are valid. Those are valid fears because that happened to people before. I know people lost their jobs for even questioning the George Floyd issue, right? So, I mean, it's a legitimate fear, I get it. But there's strength in numbers. So the more and more people that speak out against it, then the more effective it will be, the more.

more courage people will have. And it reminds me of there was a, I think it was a bear or something. There was a ride that was falling over and nobody was helping. Like there were people in this ride and it wasn't a big ride, but it was, I mean, it would hurt him. And it was starting to fall. It was starting to sit.

And but one man ran over and grabbed the side of it to hold it up. And then finally, after he did that, all kinds of people ran over there to help hold it. And it took that one man with courage to stand up and say, we have to do something here, if this isn't right, in order for everybody else to have courage. And sometimes you have to be that first person. So I say there's strength in numbers. And then the other thing is you have to root it out.

You have to find where these ideas are being pushed and do whatever you have to do to try to get those people out of power and influence. And for example, we'll say public school. If you go to school board meetings, a lot of parents have been doing that, Make your voice heard, stand up with other parents, do petition. Just be loud because the activists are going to be loud and we need to be loud. The other thing, too, is take your kids out of public schools if you can. Remove the influence.

We homeschool our kids. We've been blessed to be able to do that. I recognize not everybody can do that, but if you can, I would recommend it because the only way that this can succeed is if we, number one, One, if we don't shine light on it because they operate in darkness, and that's the only way that they can get their ideas through is that people don't know what's happening. And so if they don't shine light on it, and number two, if we don't remove their influence, because they've strategically placed themselves and play people of influence. And so it's our job to both shine the light on it

and to remove that influence. And, you know, just know your stuff and go out and fight. And your new book Raising Victims is going to help people do that. Congratulations. By the way, it is out this week. So tell everybody where they can find you in the book. You can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble. Audible, if you want to do audiobooks, and pretty much anywhere you get your books, you can find it. And you can also go to my website at Leonidasjohnson.com.

And you can find my podcast informed descent anywhere you listen to podcast. Leonidas, thank you so much for your courage and your voice in the culture war. Thanks for coming on the spillover. Thank you, Alex. I really appreciate you. I know it can be really intimidating to kind of bring up more emotionally charged topics like race and racism when it comes to debating our liberal friends. So I really did want to have somebody that was an expert on this. And also, that is black themselves to kind of speak on it.

And I thought a lot of his answers were really helpful and really interesting and insightful. I'm very excited to read his brand new book. If you liked this episode, you've got to go back and listen to my episode with Daryl Davis from November. He infiltrated the KKK as a black man and has changed hundreds of minds. He firmly believes in free speech, but he is definitely a classical liberal, so you can hear that difference and opinion on the issues of race in America in contrast to Leonidas. His story, however, is really powerful. That is season three, episode 17. The Spillover is back next Thursday at 9 p.m. Pacific, midnight Eastern on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

You can always watch the episodes on the Poplittics YouTube channel, so subscribe there. And next week is our special Valentine's Day episode. We are going full-blown into relationships, dating, marriages with a very, very, very special couple that a lot of you follow, know, know, and love. I'm Alex Clark, and this is The Spillover. Love You Mean It. See?