Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 359 | Why 'Equity' Is Unjust

Episode Date: January 27, 2021

Today we're discussing some of Joe Biden's recent executive orders, as well as the broader topic of "equity." What do Democrats mean when they say they want equal outcomes for all? It means they want the government to make it happen no matter what. One of Biden's orders aims to alleviate the racial disparity in the housing market by reinstating the "Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing" rule. Thomas Sowell had strong words about the consequences of this Obama-era program. Biden is also reversing Trump's ban on critical race theory training for federal employees, which has been shown to actually increase implicit bias in participants. Sources: CNN: 'It's time to act': Biden moves to address racial inequity https://cnn.it/3pofheE  The Hill: 5 things to know about Biden's racial equity orders https://bit.ly/2Yn6bTj  Thomas Sowell on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing: https://bit.ly/39qygzH  Previous episode discussing Thomas Sowell & AFFH: https://apple.co/3opJQPu

Hey guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone has had a wonderful week so far. Today we're going to talk about some controversial things and you might be thinking, well, Ali, don't we always talk about controversial things? And yes, I guess to some people, the things that we talk about might be considered controversial, but this topic in particular is very controversial. And quite honestly, I don't really like to talk about it because of that. We're talking about this idea of racial equity and systemic racism, in particular as it pertains to Joe Biden and the executive orders that he recently signed that are focused on, quote, racial equity, what this means, some of the double standards that we're seeing in the media. Some of the double standards and I think the hypocrisy

that we're seeing in the church, in particular, the evangelical church, when it comes to conversations about race, whenever I talk about this, they are typically some of the people. my most listened to episodes for a few reasons. Either people are hate listening or hate watching because they say, you know, a white person isn't allowed to talk about race and racism. White people aren't allowed to talk about this particular subject or people are thinking, wow, there's not very many people who will talk about this because of the backlash that typically ensues. You're only allowed to talk about it from a liberal perspective. if you talk about it from any other perspective, this issue of so-called racial equity and systemic racism,

then you receive a lot of criticism, which is fine. I am totally fine with taking criticism, and I don't pretend. This is called, I mean, you guys know, this episode is called Relatable because we are learning about these tough topics together. And we are digging into the research as much as we can and trying to approach all sides of every issue as well as we can, as fairly as we can. this is obviously a conservative Christian podcast. So that's the perspective that I'm coming from, but I am always trying to speak as truthfully as humanly possible. That becomes very difficult on sensitive subjects that are rightfully emotional.

When I say emotional, I don't mean that in a pejorative way. I'm not trying to say that in a negative way. When we talk about racial discrimination, when we talk about racism, when we talk about injustices that have happened in this country and may still be happening in some cases, it is very understandably a sensitive topic. I've had lots and lots of people on that have talked about this subject with me. We have talked about critical race theory until the cows came home. And we probably will continue to talk about that. The reason that we talk about it so much is because it is so often the center of our cultural conversations, even in our theological conversations. I mean, this has been a moment for the past few years in particular for the church and for the country to be talking about this. And so often we accept narratives. We accept talking points. We accept what we see in headlines and kairons and on social media about race and racism and police brutality and discrimination. And we never dig below the surface because doing so

opens you up to being called a racist and a white supremacist and no one wants to be that. I understand. No one wants to engage in these conversations, especially for, from a conservative perspective because you don't want to be seen as a bigot. You don't want to be seen as heartless. But we have to talk about this stuff because everyone's talking about this stuff. And there has to be multiple perspectives on this. We can't just, for example, listen to the 1619 project and take it as fact. We can't, for example, listen to the plethora of podcasts out there talking about how white

privilege is a damaging our education system, how it is pervasive in everything, how the capital riots showed some surge of what. supremacy and white nationalism without digging beneath those accusations and wondering, are they really true? Like, do they actually align with reality? It doesn't make you a compassionate or loving person just because you take whatever the mainstream media tells you about something or just because you repeat a talking point that you think makes you sound good or just because you post a black square because everyone else is doing it. That doesn't make you compassionate. That doesn't necessarily put you on the right side of history. As we've talked about before,

the right side of history is wherever truth is. Ultimately, for Christians, we know it's wherever Christ is. And Christ, it's always going to be on the side of truth. Truth, moral, absolute, biblical, factual, scientific, natural truth. And God, his word, Jesus Christ will never contradict. And so we have an obligation to seek truth. And I'm not saying that I always do that perfectly. And that's why you guys, you help me with that. And you correct me where I'm wrong. And I try my best to write my course when I need to. So anyway, that was just a kind of a long prolog in preparing for what we're talking about today. I understand this is a sensitive topic. I understand that often what I say about it is not popular and might, you know, rub people the wrong way. But it is my desire to

speak as graciously as gently and compassionately as I can. So today is when I saw this, but maybe he said this yesterday. Let's see. Oh yeah, it was. yesterday. So Biden signed for executive orders that have to do with, that have to do with racial equality and what they call racial equity. And before we get into what those executive orders are, I do want to talk about this word equity. And we'll have to do like an entire word watch segment on this, like we did with the phrase held accountable last week. This is not one of those segments, but just quickly, this word equity, you have to understand is different than equality. We're not just talking about equality under the law. We're not talking about equal access to opportunities.

Equity doesn't mean maybe what you and I have always thought that it means, which is just fairness, that everyone is treated equally under the law, that the ideals upon which our country was founded, that all men are created equally by God or equal by God with certain unalienable rights, among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's not actually what equity means. So equity looks at gaps between the races, and particularly, between the white race in America and the black and brown race. Now, of course, biblically, we know that race isn't actually a real category. You won't see talk about race in the Bible. There is the human race. There's different cultures. There's different ethnicities.

There's different nationalities. But this idea of race based on skin color, that is a human construct. That's a social construct. But I am speaking in that context. So I do use the language of race. and that's what people who are who say they're seeking equity, that is what they are looking at. They are looking at that superficial descriptor of white and black. So equity means that you're looking at disparities or you're looking at gaps in outcome between white Americans and black Americans. So for example, someone who says that they want education to be equitable. their proof that they that typically people give for the education system, for example, being inequitable, is the gap in outcome. So they would say because the average white student has a higher graduation rate than the average black student or because they have higher grades or higher test scores than the average black student, that must mean that the school system is racist against black people.

And the goal of equity would be to close those gaps. And so they look at disparities of outcome in order to prove inequities. And Kamala Harris, before Biden and Kamala were elected as the president and vice president, she put out a video, which I think was a great explainer for what they, for what leftists see equity as. And she explains in this video that equity is everyone ending up in the same place. Now, if you have read, which if you have it, I highly recommend you read, Thomas Sol's discrimination and disparities, he talks about why this argument that a system or an institution is inherently

racist and discriminatory based on the gaps that it produces or based on the outcome gaps that exist is actually fallacious. That's not necessarily true. There could be lots of reasons that gaps exist in outcomes. that don't necessarily point to any kind of discrimination or any kind of unfairness. And when we assume that gaps of success or gaps in accomplishment or gaps in wealth or whatever it is exist solely because of racism, solely because of discrimination, that blinds us to other factors that may be going into play.

And so that's why you see, for example, in San Diego Public Schools, they have decided that they are going to just do away with the traditional grading system because there are too many gaps in the grades and too many gaps in success, too many gaps in outcome between the white students and the black and brown students. So rather than seeing, okay, why are these students falling behind and what can we actually do to help them succeed? What tools can we give them? What boost can we give them to make sure they are able to meet this high standard that we have set for all of our students? They've instead just gotten rid of the scale altogether. They've brought everyone down to the lowest common denominator, the soft bigotry of low expectations.

and have just decided that making sure there are no gaps because there are no standards that exist is actually what is equitable. That is the problem with assuming that all gaps equal some kind of unfairness or racism or discrimination. You're unwilling to look at possibly the other factors that are at play. And here's another fallacy. Here's another illogical point of this idea that all outcome gaps or all disparities equal. discrimination. There are disparities between, for example, the success of Asian Americans across a variety of categories and white Americans across a variety of categories. If you're looking for the average income, for example, by race, or family togetherness, or housing ownership,

or graduation rates from high school and college and even higher education and test scores, you are going to find that Asian Americans are more successful across all of those categories than white Americans are. So if we are saying that the gaps of success or the gaps in outcome between white Americans and black Americans is because of racism, then why don't we also assume that the gaps and outcome between Asian Americans and white Americans is because of racism? Well, we don't because it doesn't play into the narrative that black lives matter and many people in the media want to perpetuate because.

it's popular to do so. And I think that it's also important to know that as long as we assume that every gap, for example, the fact that there are a disproportionate number of black Americans who are dying by COVID, as long as we assume that that is a racial or a systemic racism problem, that that is a discrimination problem. And we don't even bother to look at the other factors that may play into that. We are going to miss the actual solutions. That is the problem. So even before we look at any of these executive orders, we have to understand this idea of equity of trying to put everyone in the same place by assuming that people who are falling behind or certain groups that don't have the same outcomes as another group are being discriminated against, but not other

groups that might be falling behind other groups as I compared to the Asian American and white American gap in the black American and the white American gap, then we are going to miss the actual solutions. We're not ever going to be able to solve anything. In equity, if it actually means, as Kamala Harris says, everyone ending in the same place, you are going to find, you're going to find a lot of social engineering. And that's really what is meant by equity. Because you can't actually force people to have the same outcomes in life.

individuals are different. Thomas Soll also talks about a lot how, for example, two siblings of one family. So they have the same background. They have the same socioeconomic status. They're of the same race. They've got the same upbringing. They probably have the same education and the same opportunities presented to them. And yet, very often, siblings will end up in two totally different stations in life. One sibling could be very successful. One sibling could be unsuccessful. Now, if you look at the gap of outcome in their life, are you really going to say that it was some kind of inequity, it was some kind of unfairness, it was some kind of injustice that led them to two different places in life? No, of course not. It is impossible. If two people from the same exact background with the same exact opportunities, the same exact access can end up in two totally disparate places in life, then why should we assume that one random person from one state and one background and another random person from another state and another background should all end up in the same place.

It is impossible for everyone to end up in the same place, and that should not be our measure of fairness. That should not be our measure of justice. In order to look at whether or not our processes are actually just, we should ask the question, is it treating everyone the same way? Is everyone playing by the same rules? I think a lot of the problems that we have in our country,

a lot of the gaps that we see in between groups have much more to do with class and justice than racial injustice. And when we ignore that possibility, when everything is apparently due to systemic racism and everything is apparently due to racial discrimination, then we miss the possible real problems that are going on and we miss the real possible solutions.

And sometimes you have to wonder if that's the point, like with critical race theorists, if that's the point with some of these activists, that we never really get to a solution, that the gaps are never shrunk, that the problems are never actually, addressed because a lot of these people, like the leaders of Black Lives Matter, are making a whole lot of money off of talking about this.

You know, Booker T. Washington talked about this problem of there being racial activists that are constantly trying to present or they're presenting solutions in pursuit of particular problems and you have to wonder if this has become a lucrative business to never find solutions. Because if, for example, you come at this from a conservative perspective and you say, okay, you know, there are gaps between these two groups. They might be class. They might be racial. Maybe it's due to discrimination.

Maybe it's due to other factors. Maybe there are some other things going on. Let's talk about school choice. Let's talk about what we can do within our welfare system to incentivize becoming employed rather than staying on welfare. let's talk about what we can do to incentivize family togetherness, you're immediately shut down as a racist. And we're not even allowed to bring up school choice, that that could be a possibility that maybe the school in someone's zip code isn't serving a child well. And that's why they're not succeeding.

And the parent should have the funds and should have the ability to choose another school for their child. We're not even allowed to talk about that because everyone who was talking about systemic racism and equities on the left side of the aisle. They're on the side of the teachers unions. They're on the side of Planned Parenthood, which is disproportionately killing black children. They're on the side of expanded welfare. And so they never want to talk about other possible solutions that could actually help. And that's my issue with all the conversations about equity. That's my issue with all of the assumptions that every single gap that we see in success

has to do with racism is that no one really wants to talk about solutions. When I ask people who talk about social justice and racial justice, okay, what do we do? you're pointing to these gaps. What do we actually do? How do we actually solve this? The answer is, well, think about, talk about, do the inner work, read this, read this book. And then it ends up, yeah, do all those things and reparations. So there's nothing else, like, there's nothing else that we can do to close these gaps.

There's nothing else that we can do to solve the problems that people are saying exist. And I'm not saying no problems exist. But if the solution is the 1619 project, which lies about our founding, it tells the ridiculous myth that the revolution was fought based on slavery, which it wasn't that's been debunked a million times. If the solution is critical race theory, which categorizes all white people as oppressors and all black and brown people as oppressed and implicit bias or anti-implicit bias training, which actually has been found to create more implicit bias, if those are the only solutions, Like these crazy academic theories about racism, if our only solutions are talking about racism and reading Robin DiAngelo and paying Ibrax Kendi $25,000 to come speak at our universities, it's never going to be solved. It's just a crock. Like it's almost just like a pyramid scheme for some people. It's almost just a way to virtue signal. And if you really care about injustices that are going on, shouldn't we be doing more than that? Like, shouldn't you be open to maybe talking about school choice? Like, shouldn't we maybe be open to these being class issues in a lot of cases rather than racial issues? The fact of the matter is is that people in Appalachia are dealing with the same forms of so-called oppression and neglect that Black Americans and other parts of the country are dealing with. Like, we're not allowed to talk about those categories. We're not allowed to talk about solutions that might help all of those people. So as long as we focus, on outcome gaps being proof of racism.

As long as we focus on equity, which means everyone ended up at the same place, which is impossible. It's impossible outside of social engineering and constantly taking capital from some people and giving it to other people who didn't earn it. It's impossible outside of tyranny. As long as we keep refusing to look at class issues,

poverty issues, and viewing everything through the lens of race, no kind of injustice that actually does exist. exist is going to be solved. And so Joe Biden doing these executive orders, he did an executive order on housing. We've talked about this before. Redressing our nations and the federal government's history of discriminatory housing practices and policies. Now, there has been time. There have been times in American history where there has actually been tangible discrimination against black people in favor of white people. That's absolutely true. And I'm even open. into the argument that those effects are still happening today. They're lingering. They're not active,

but you could you could make the argument probably that some of those things are lingering. But, you know, we hear, for example, about how in some neighborhoods, how white ownership is more likely than black ownership, white Americans were more likely to get a loan from a bank than black Americans. And so that shows white supremacy. What's never told is that in that same study, it shows that Asian Americans were more likely to get a loan from the bank than white Americans. So again, if the problem is white supremacy, then you have to explain that gap. So let me look at this particular memorandum that he says is addressing systemic racism and is addressing discriminatory housing practices and policies.

So it calls for the reinstatement of the housing affirmatively furthering fair housing rule. and this was something that originally occurred under Obama. And let me read you, we've talked about this before, but let me read you what Thomas Sol said about this when it was originally enacted under Barack Obama and is now going to be furthered by Joe Biden. So this is what Thomas Soul says. And if you don't know who Thomas Soul is, he's an economist. He says, this is a long quote.

And what may be the most ambitious social engineering project undertaken by the federal government, the administration is mapping every neighborhood in America by race. The stated purpose is to use the data to compel local officials to loosen zoning laws and build more public housing, thereby offering more poor inner city minorities, better opportunities for housing and education. So that is the stated goal of this to make sure that there is government housing, that there is low income housing in these nicely developed. suburbs so that these people can have access to the same facilities and the same schools that the people who live and the suburbs do. Thomas Soles goes on to say, but the unstated purpose is forced racial integration. The suburbs are just too white for Obama and his race-mongering social engineers. They think they, they they geospatially discriminate against minorities, never mind that more and more middle class black people are flocking to them on their own.

He goes on to say, individuals and groups of all sorts have always differed from one another in many ways throughout centuries of history and countries around the world. Left of themselves, people tend to sort themselves out into communities of like-minded neighbors. This has been so obvious that only the intelligentsia could misconstrue it and only ideologues could devote themselves to crusading against people's efforts to live and associate with other people who share their values and habits. when the world fails to conform to their vision, that it seems obvious to the ideologues that it is the world that is wrong, not that their vision is uninformed or unrealistic. One of the political consequences of such attitudes is the current crusade, remember he's writing this under Obama, crusade of Attorney General Eric Holder to force various communities to become more inclusive in terms of which races and classes of people they contain, undaunted by a long history of disasters when third parties try to mix and match people or prescribe what kind of housing is best, they act as if this time it has to work.

To those with a crusading mentality, failure only means that they should try, try again. At other people's expense, including not only the taxpayers, but also those whose lives have been disrupted or even made miserable and dangerous by previous bright ideas of third parties who pay no price for being wrong. So what he's arguing is that to Obama, the suburbs were too white. And so forced racial integration by building low-income housing in predominantly what he would say were white suburbs was the way to create a more equitable society, equal access, and everyone ends up in the same place.

Thomas Sol is saying that's not what happens. That kind of forced integration and reconfiguration of the suburbs to do. away with zoning laws so there can be government and low-income housing in the same places where there's well-developed suburbs. It doesn't actually end in better outcomes for the poor people that move into those areas. And it disregards that there are people of all races who have worked very hard to move out of government housing and low-income housing and inner cities where the crime is higher in the schools and a lot of cases aren't as good into the suburbs to have better access and to have safety. It disregards the work that some people have

done to go from one station to another. And it claims that it's going to create fairness and equality of outcomes and sameness of outcomes. And it just doesn't work. And Thomas Hill talks a lot about the intelligentsia and about politicians always trying to conform the world to their vision. And when it doesn't work, they just double down. And this is a perfect example of that happening under Biden. It didn't work under Obama. It's not going to work now. And because the intelligentsia still has this idea of equity, which again is impossible outside of tyranny. And because they have this fallacious idea that all gaps in outcome have to do inevitably and exclusively with racial discrimination, then this is this is the only way in order to manifest and achieve their vision. So this memorandum

basically directs the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development to examine all the changes Trump made and then decide whether or not to get rid of them in order to prevent practices with an unjustified discriminatory effect. So my notes say the changes that Trump made, but remember, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development was Ben Carson. So people are obviously going to try to say that the changes that Trump made were somehow white supremacist and they were racist. I guess they would have no problem with incriminating Ben Carson with the same accusations. The housing memorandum will make clear we have to acknowledge the role that the federal government has played through much of the 20th century and implementing and implementing discriminatory housing policies across the United States from redlining to mortgage discrimination to destructive

federal highway construction to redress this history. Again, there were times in our country's history when there were discriminatory housing policies. Their redlining is something that has existed. Now, according to the Brookings Institute, people who live in previously redlined neighborhoods today, it doesn't fall along the same racial lines that you would think or that the Biden administration is apparently purporting. And again, with the mortgage discrimination, we constantly hear about that. But remember, whites were not getting mortgages as often as proportionally as often as Asian Americans. And so if you're going to talk about the gaps between black Americans and white Americans when it comes to mortgages,

then you need to talk about the gaps between Asian Americans and white Americans, or you have to abandon this idea that every gap is due to discrimination. It also reintroduces the affirmatively further fair housing rule, a key Obama era revision like we said, to the 1968 Fair Housing Act that was rolled back by President Trump. The provision creates an extra safeguard against discriminatory housing practices by requiring jurisdictions that receive federal funding to look for and analyze patterns of housing discrimination and then present a plan to address the practices if they exist.

Okay, that's fine. I don't have any problem with that. Where there is discrimination happening. But again, you have to show the discrimination. You can't just show the gap. Where discrimination is actually happening, that should absolutely be addressed. That is an injustice. I'm against discrimination.

I don't want people to be unfairly discriminated against. Now, Thomas Sol would argue that there are different forms of discrimination. some of them are justified some of them are not he would argue that and discrimination and disparities again recommend that book but where there is unfair discrimination against people in particular because of their race i mean that's egregious or because of their class then absolutely investigate that change that and so if that were all this was doing i i would be totally fine with that the problem is the social engineering aspect that comes with it another thing that um Biden said he was going to do he said i'm we're sending the previous administration's harmful ban on diversity and sensitivity training. Now, remember, that's a euphemism for critical race theory. Christopher Rufo uncovered critical race theory training that's happening on the federal level in various federal agencies, even happening to a certain extent in the military. And if you're listening to this, maybe for the first time, and you don't know what critical race theory is,

I have a lot, a lot of episodes on critical race theory talking to people who are experts in that field, talking to academics about it, talking to people of all different backgrounds of what it is. So we have taken pains on this podcast to specifically define what critical race theory means and what it actually looks like. I won't spend too much time on it today because you guys have heard me talk about this so much. But go back and listen to previous episodes where we have talked about critical race theory. I'll link at least a couple of them in the description of this episode. But it drives people apart. It categorizes people by race. it says, hey, all white people, you have privilege, you are oppressors, you are inherently

racist, and you have perpetuated a white supremacist system just by nature of your being white. It's not enough for you to just not be racist. You have to be anti-racist. Oh, and conveniently, in order to be anti-racist, that actually means latching on to all of these leftist policy prescriptions and ideas. and all black people and black and brown people, but specifically black people in critical race theory, you are oppressed. No matter your station in life, no matter what opportunities you have been given, you are on the side of the oppressed and critical race theory says that it seeks to liberate America and liberate different systems from the racism that is so systemic and has such a tight hold on the United States. but it doesn't actually do that. It creates resentment. It creates violence. It creates hatred. It creates

more bias. It creates self-hatred and it creates hatred of people who don't look like you. It splits people into unfair and inaccurate categories of oppressor based on immutable characteristics that you cannot change. It is in itself racism. It's a different kind of racism, but it is racism. So when people in our federal government, when the military, when in employment training, you are learning that, hey, white people, you are all part of white supremacy. And hey, black people, you have all been oppressed in some way. And we have to use unequal treatment of the races in order to achieve some kind of equity. Then, of course, you're going to get more division. It's not going to bring people together. That's not the nature of critical race here. That's not the goal, by the way.

It's not even the stated goal of critical race theory is racial reconciliation. That's not what it's trying to do. It is trying to. It says it's trying to even the playing field, but really what it's trying to do is tip the playing field in one direction to make up for historical injustices. Look, you don't accomplish justice through a different kind of injustice. You don't accomplish love and reconciliation through hate and division. It's just not going to happen.

So President Trump signing the executive. border that got away or that got rid of critical race theory in federal training and in any training of any agency that had anything to do with the federal government was very good. It was very good. It was based on fact. It was based on research. It was based on what we know about the damaging of facts of critical race theory. But of course, Biden wants to make sure that we have that back in our federal government. And of course, if you say anything about this, you don't like diversity and sensitivity, no. The person who says that to you just doesn't know.

They don't know what's going on. That is a euphemism used to bully you out of actually criticizing what these trainings entail. And he says, abolish the offensive counterfactual 1776 commission. So the 1776 commission was put together by various people and then touted by the Trump administration and was placed on the White House website as a counter to the 1619 project, which we mentioned a couple minutes ago. And it was supposed to be a more patriotic and a more realistic and a more historic rendering of the founding of the United States. Now, I personally had some problems with the 1776 Commission, not that I don't agree with the spirit of it, because I do.

I agree with what it was trying to accomplish. And of course, I am a patriotic person. I love the United States. I love the ideals and ideas upon which we were founded, but it didn't have a whole lot of sourcing. And so you could actually see how someone would read the 1776 commission and how you would think it was just a whitewashing of history or glossing over of the things that actually happened. But to say that it's counterfactual and the 1619 project isn't, which I'm sure is something that Biden would never say that the 1619 project had problems. I mean, read the Atlantic, read the various even liberal professors and academics and historians who have come out against the 1619 project and said, this is just not true.

The revolution was not fought over slavery. It was not fought to uphold slavery. That's not why the revolutionary war happened. And actually, the 1619 project has had to come out. Even Nicole Hannah Jones had to come out and say, well, you know, I meant that it was part of it. It was part of the revolution. But it wasn't really, it wasn't really the only. reason or the main reason why the revolution happened. Well, that just dismantles the whole thing.

That's what the whole 1619 project is founded upon. The idea that the only reason why America was founded, the only reason why we wanted to gain our independence was to perpetuate slavery. That's the entire premise of the project. And she's already had to come out and back up and say, well, that was it totally true. Of course it's not totally true. She's had to come out and say, look, this wasn't, this wasn't supposed to be historical. This wasn't supposed to be completely accurate. It was supposed to be a narrative. And that's what all of this is. That's what the 1619 project is. That's what critical race theory is.

That's what many claims of systemic racism, at least today in 2021, is. It is about an overarching narrative. That is why you get people saying that, oh, objective truth and data and bringing up facts. That's unempathetic. And that's just a part of white supremacy. Of course, because those actually get in the way of talking about things like equity and talking about things like the 1619 project, which is not true.

Because it is a narrative that we are supposed to, emotionally buy into, we're not supposed to pick holes in it using data and facts. So for President Biden to say that the 1776 commission is offensive, I would love to know what's offensive about it, and counterfactual when it was in rebuttal to a much more counterfactual project, the 1619 project, I mean, I find that very predictable, but it's also, it's also pretty funny. And it's also pretty sad. He says unity and healing must begin with understanding and truth, not ignorance and lies.

I totally agree with that. I totally agree that unity is not going to be accomplished under false pretenses. And healing's not going to be accomplished under false pretenses. But if you're talking about ignorance and lies, let's not talk about the 1776 project. Let's talk about the 1619 project. Let's talk about critical race theory. Let's talk about some of the curriculum that these kids are learning in schools, that America has always been this endymically.

and this systemically and institutionally racist place where no one has been able to get ahead except for white people. That is not true. That's not true. And to be fair, I do not think that we need to have, quote, patriotic education. I remember President Trump saying that? And I was like, I don't want patriotic education. I don't. I want truthful education. I want it to be factual. I want us to look at the real injustices that have existed in American history. I'm totally fine with talking about how the founders owned slaves, even while they were writing something like the Declaration of Independence, which was completely counter to some of the lives that they lived. Like, I want to talk about the problems that America has faced and that we have not dealt with well. I want to talk about 1619.

I want to talk about how we completely unjustly and tragically and inhumanely brought human beings, bears of the image of God over from. Africa to be slaves against their will. Like, I want to talk about all of that. I want to talk about Japanese internment camps. I want to talk about how the Irish and the Italians were discriminated against. I am completely in favor of talking about all of the injustices that America has allowed to endure, that America has perpetuated. But I will not let America be lost in an exclusively negative narrative because that is also not true. Frederick Douglass knew what a lot of people today have apparently forgotten that the ideals upon which we were founded that are stated in the Declaration of Independence, that we were all created equal by a creator who endowed us with

certain unalienable rights, that that was a seed of liberty. He called the Constitution a glorious liberty document, even as someone who wasn't a beneficiary of all of the rights that were acknowledged in the Constitution, he knew that the way to anti-slavery, the way to abolition, the way to true equality, where everyone was treated equal under the law, the way. The way to human rights was not to get rid of the Constitution as people like Nicole Hannah Jones and so many proponents of Black Lives Matter and so many left-wing activists want to do today, was not to get rid of what America was founded on, was not just to say, wow, the founders were hypocrites, so America is just a myth. American exceptionalism isn't real. He knew that the way to

anti-slavery and the way to justice was not just through the biblical knowledge that we're all created in the image of God, but also what was represented in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. And he understood that liberty, that these crazy and radical and new ideas that America was founded upon, that no other country in the history of the world had even tried to found themselves upon, that it was a seed and that it was going to grow and grow throughout history. So, of course, we didn't manifest those promises perfectly at the very beginning in 1776, certainly not in 1619. Of course we weren't manifesting those ideas perfectly. We never thought that they would. But we knew that the seat of liberty would grow and grow and grow and grow

and that the arc of American history has been towards justice, that it has been towards liberty, that it has been towards equality for all, that that is the direction that it has gone, even while realizing how many injustices that we have allowed to perpetuate, no one has righted their wrongs as quickly or as valiantly or courageously as America has, even acknowledging our imperfections. And that's, I think, where we need to come to, that we are proud of our country. We're thankful for the ideals and the ideas upon which we were founded. But we also recognize that there have been very real injustices that have existed. And where true injustices exist, and I'm talking about injustice of process, again, not just talking about unequal outcomes,

because that's inevitable for every individual. We need to write this. We need to write those wrongs, but they're not going to be done through critical race theory. They're not going to be done through the 1619 project, like President Biden said, unity and healing has to begin with truth, not ignorance and lies. And so that's all I'm trying to do. And that's all I'm a proponent of. I'm ready to talk about the good and the bad and the ugly of today and of yesteryear. But I am not ready to say that America wasn't built on good foundational principles and

that we have never lived up to the promises that the founders made. that's not true. That's just not true. There is no data to prove that. There is no evidence of that. And that's not reality. We cannot unite under that false pretense. I know today wasn't as specific as I wanted it to be. There was a lot more that I, there's a lot more that I wanted to talk about. But unfortunately, I've got to go. I wanted to talk a little bit more about this condom or this charge of systemic racism. And if it's actually true, I know that's scandalous to even question today. but what people mean by systemic racism and how Biden says he's going to dismantle it and what people on both sides of the aisle say systemic racism and it is in how we combat it and how we don't combat it. But I don't have time for all of that. I kind of got into a quibble on the word equity for a while, which is why we didn't make it to all the parts that I wanted to.

But I hope this is just at least kind of food for thought for you. And if you're on the other side of the aisle and you hate what I said, I do appreciate you being here and listening to the conservative perspective on some of this. All right. I've got to go. Tomorrow I'm talking to Alex Brinson. All about COVID. The COVID vaccine, some of the regulations, some of the craziness that we're

seeing with opening things back up, even though cases are higher than they were when things closed down and places like California and Michigan and New York and all this craziness. He is really, really good on the subject. He has been talking about this for a very long time. And so I'm super excited for you to listen to that conversation. So I will see you back here tomorrow.