Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 637 | America's Masculinity Crisis

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Today we're covering a couple of serious, sad stories that happened over the July Fourth weekend, but first we talk a little bit about Independence Day itself and why we're so thankful for the freedoms we're afforded in the USA, despite our many problems. Then, we move on to discuss the atrocity that occurred in Highland Park, Illinois, during a Fourth of July parade, in which at least six people have lost their lives. We talk about what leads to this kind of violence and how the way to stop it lies not in the legislature, but in a return to cultural values of faith and family. We also talk about another sad story that happened on Independence Day: the shooting of Jayland Walker in Akron, Ohio. We go over what happened and how the media is misleading the public about whether or not he was actually "unarmed." --- Timecodes: (0:00) Introduction (3:00) Recapping the long weekend - Allie made her Grandma Dot's peaches & cream dish (7:02) We're over the 'can't celebrate the Fourth of July' posts (13:11) Here's what we know about the Highland Park, IL shooting (22:00) America's masculinity crisis (36:40) Who is Jayland Walker? --- Today's Sponsors: My Patriot Supply — right now, save $150 on a 3-month emergency food kit at PrepareWithAllie.com! Annie's Kit Clubs offers tons of memberships for different hobbies - for you & your kids! Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE to save 75% off your first month! EdenPURE is having their famous BOGO deal on Thunderstorm air purifiers! Go to EdenPureDeals.com & use discount code 'ALLIEBOGO' to save! Moms for Liberty is building an army of moms who are joyful warriors fighting for the survival of America — with a smile on their faces, and absolutely NOT co-parenting with the government. Go to MomsForLiberty.org/ALLIE to find out more! --- Previous Episodes Mentioned: Ep 636: How BDSM, Porn, & Pedophilia Are Tied to Transgender Ideology | Guest: Genevieve Gluck https://apple.co/3nLgugA Has God Blessed America? | July 4, 2022 https://apple.co/3P4ui1r --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise- use promo code 'ALLIE10' for a discount: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed.

You can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to relatable. Happy Tuesday. This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com slash Alley for American Meat Delivered. That's good ranchers.com slash alley. All right, guys.

Today we are going to talk some about the shooting that happened in Highland Park, Illinois, over the weekend. Super sad. We're going to talk about some other things as well. We've got a big week, some good interviews, lots of good things to talk about. We covered a really, really big and important, profound and disturbing also subject last Thursday. And I really encourage you to go listen to or watch that episode if you have not already. I learned a lot from my guest, Genevieve Gluck. I know you will too listen to it, watch it, share it. It really is that important. Because the episode is doing so well, hopefully we'll be able to have her back maybe in a few weeks for a part two. We didn't even really scratch the surface of what I wanted

to talk to her about because the web that is transgender ideology and activism and the institutions that it has now infected, whether it's academia or whether it is medicine. I mean, it's just a a huge tangled web and she is doing a lot of unraveling and so it's really important that we get to be a part of that and we get to kind of help untangle that web so we can really understand what is going on. If you love this podcast, I do have a request. If you can leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast, that would mean a whole lot to us. If you don't subscribe on YouTube, go ahead and do that as well. All right, before we get into some of the serious stuff. We'll talk about some lighthearted stuff. We'll talk about what I did

over the weekend. My favorite holiday, Fourth of July. Now, that does not mean that I think it is more important than my Savior's birth or Jesus's resurrection. It is just that I love the summer and I love everything that is involved in celebrating the Fourth of July. I love it all. And you guys know, as I said, on my special Fourth of July six-minute episode from yesterday that I'm a very patriotic person still tear up when I am singing the Star-Spangled Banner. I just love everything America was founded on. I love the good things that we have done. And I truly still believe that we live in the greatest country in the world, even though there are so many things that I wish I could change about it, so many things that I don't like about it. The reality is that everything that I want to

change is really I want it to conform to our founding ideals and ideas, not that I want to. to get away from that. So we had fun celebrating over this long weekend. There was a lot of swimming. There was a lot of eating. I made, speaking of eating, you might have seen on Instagram that I made my grandmother's grandma dot. She's in heaven. She died in the fall of 2019. We were very, very close. And so I wanted to honor her by making. Also, almost her birthday, honor her by making her famous peaches and cream. Now, this is a little bit different than peach cobbler. And a lot of you guys, posted this on Instagram, you asked for the recipe. I don't really know if I can consider it a secret recipe. I don't think that she would really care if I shared it. But at the same time, I don't know.

I feel protective of it for some reason. I don't know. So I'm not going to share it for now. But it's a little bit different than peach cobbler. It is basically just like canned peaches and sugar and flour and cream cheese. This is the thing that's on top that makes it peaches and cream and not peach cobbler. It's peaches and cream because on top is cream cheese and sugar. So people were asking if there's some kind of like Biskwick breading on top. No, it's nothing like that. There's no actual crust. It's just that when you put it in the oven, it browns and it kind of creates a kind of crust over it. Even if you're not like a huge peach fan and I'm not really, it's so good. I am a huge cream cheese fan. So I made it and this was the first time that I made it and I accidentally,

So you're not actually supposed to put the three fourths cup of sugar into the mix. That's only for the topping of cream cheese. And I didn't realize that. I wasn't paying close enough attention. So I put the huge scoop of sugar into the actual mix. And so I was a little worried that it could be too sweet. But then I thought about it. And I was like, is that even a possibility?

Can something like a peach cobbler or peaches and cream be too sweet? Thankfully, it turned out really well. And I think one of the reasons that it ended up eveninging out is because when my husband went to the store to get the ingredients, he got. So you also put like instant jello pudding mix into it, vanilla. And he got the keto sugar-free kind. So I think that I made up for it by putting too much sugar in there. So it turned out. I'm sure that Grandma Dot was looking down from heaven and was like, did you just put a second?

scoop of sugar into my peaches and cream. But it altered out, I think that she would be very proud of my of my baking skills over the weekend. So that's one thing we did. Let's see. Did we do anything else? We went to a parade. And that was really fun.

It was really hot, as you can imagine, as I'm sure it is, wherever you are as well. And so, yeah, we just did all of the fun, Fourth of July things, hung out with family, saw some friends, went to church. And it was just a weekend that I was just so thankful, so thankful, not just for my family and my life and all of these wonderful blessings, but that we do live in a country where we can do those things. And we are celebrating our independence and where we are celebrating the freedoms that we have, even if we feel like they're constantly being fought against, like the powers that be are trying to minimize them or trying to redefine them or take them away. the fact of the matter is is that we could go to church this weekend and we could read from the Bible, we could worship God out in the open without fear of persecution, without fear of being sent to jail, being detained, being murdered, being tortured.

I know that sounds dramatic, but you understand that there are millions of Christians around the world today that do not have that liberty. And so while we still do have it, we take advantage of it. and I was just filled with so much gratitude this weekend that we still have that. And that is a reason to celebrate. So I hope that you enjoyed this weekend. I know that per usual, as is popular over the past few years, you probably saw some tweets from some, you know, Christians, more social justice Christians who couldn't celebrate

the 4th of July or couldn't post about celebrating the 4th of July without some kind of caveat, without some kind of mention of the injustices that were that have been perpetrated by the United States without some mention of racism or how things are imperfect or what America has done wrong over the years or is still getting wrong now. They might have used words like tension or nuance. And I really hate these kinds of I really hate these kinds of posts. I mean, I also hate the kinds of posts that act like celebrating the Fourth of July or talking about the 4th of July or American independence in church is some scary form of Christian nationalist fascism where people are worshipping the American flag or worshiping the United States of the

America. I mean, maybe that's happening in some places. And obviously, that's not good, creating any kind of idol ever. But these are the same people that are fine, typically, with the church waving a pride flag or something like that. They just don't like this particular flag or this a particular kind of church because they perceive it as conservative and there is a group of professing Christians that calls anything conservative or patriotic, scary fascist Christian nationalism. So those group of people, there are that group of people that can't celebrate the Fourth of July. They can't celebrate American independence without either caveating it or just they can't celebrate it at all. I know that they want to be perceived as having more thoughtfulness and more righteousness

and more love and more empathy and more understanding and more knowledge than those of us who are lighting fireworks and eating our hot dogs without a care in the world. But really, the truth is, is that they lack gratitude. As we talked about yesterday, think of patriotism, which Augustine said was actually a virtue, think of patriotism just as gratitude. Gratitude for where God providentially placed you. Gratitude for the gifts that God has given you in liberty. For gratitude for where you are, the time that you live in, the way that you are able to participate as a free citizen of the United States, patriotism is just a form of gratitude. Celebrating the Fourth of July is a

form of gratitude. It can be used as a way to worship the Lord and say, thank you so much for the gifts that you have given me. Thank you so much for placing me where you have placed me. Thank you so much for the people I live next to. Thank you so much that I get to raise my kids here. I know that I have really good. I know that I have a lot of blessings. I know that you have shown so much grace to me by allowing me to live in this place and you do nothing arbitrarily and nothing by accident. Fourth of July can be a day to simply reiterate your gratitude to the Lord for those things. But mumbling and grumbling in bitterness and resentment and entitlement and holding America to this standard of perfect justice that you hold no other country to.

and saying basically that you have to withhold your celebration until America meets this impossible standard of perfect righteousness, it is ungrateful. I mean, ingratitude is certainly not a fruit of the spirit. In gratitude and bitterness and resentment are actually the exact opposite of what the Lord is calling Christians too. So that doesn't mean that we pretend like America has never perpetrated injustices. I mean, just in the past 50 years alone, America has legally slaughtered over 60 million babies, so you don't have to tell me that there are things wrong with justice in the United States.

But that doesn't mean that you have to diminish your gratitude or your celebration of the 4th of July and how God has shown his mercy so much to this great nation. So I just don't like posts like that because I just really do see them as miserable and ungrateful. and not at all as nuanced or thoughtful or empathetic. I think there is a facade of those things. And underneath, it's just a lot of mumbling and grumbling that I don't think actually glorifies the Lord at all and is not a good witness. So all that said, I hope that you had a great Fourth of July and that you had a fun time

celebrating. We certainly did. I'm thankful for you all that we live in a country where we can be friends and have this community and talk about the things that we do. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality.

We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. All right. Let me tell you what we know about this shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. Now, I think when people hear that Highland Park, Illinois is outside of Chicago, they think, well, Chicago has mass shootings every weekend.

multiple people die from shootings every weekend in Chicago. But Highland Park is not the part of Chicago that is typically seen this sort of violence. But I also don't want to diminish the seriousness and the sadness of the mass shootings that happen in inner city Chicago every weekend that, of course, are not covered because they are so commonplace that no one really makes a big deal of them. But when something like this happens in this kind of community that is not used to that kind of violence, of course, we highlight it because it is so rare. And I'm not going to name the name of the shooter. That is something that I try to do. I have not always had this rule in the past,

but because it seems like these shooters want attention, they want fame and they want their picture and name out there. I just don't want to contribute to that. But we do know the shooter in this Highland Park shooting, 22-year-old guy. He apparently was on a roofer in some kind of position where he could just take aim. with his gun at the floats and at the bystanders and he just opened fire and he killed at least

six people. That's what we have right now. And then there are at least 26 people in the hospital who are injured. Now, the first question that we have in this, because this is such just a question that unfortunately has to be asked, did the FBI know about this? Were there warning signs? Did law enforcement know about this? Did this person have a criminal history? We don't know everything about him, but we do know that he has a pretty significant social media footprint. He had a YouTube channel where he posted different music videos. Apparently he was an aspiring rapper.

And the music videos that were circulating on Twitter, again, I'm not sure how helpful that is because it seems like that is just kind of contributing to this person's seeking of fame or infamy maybe, but the videos are, they seem to be simulating like a school shooting. There was a music video that looked like that's what he was trying to depict that had over 42,000 views. I mean, his music videos were very creepy. They were at least insinuating violence. And not that this necessarily indicates that someone is going to be violent in any way. but I mean this he obviously is going for a particular um a particular look he's got face tattoos and neck tattoos that's actually what he um what the police were using to try to identify him I think that's part of

what helped them find him because he has these very distinct face tattoos and so um he was arrested at 630 p.m. on Monday after the attack. Thank God for law enforcement. Thank God for the men and women who put their time and their energy into finding him. And so he is arrested. There have been family members who have been interviewed. Of course, they say there were no warning signs. But even as they're saying no warning signs, there was an interview with the uncle that said,

oh, no, there were no warning signs. But he was a really quiet kid who kept to himself, who was kind of a loner and never really expressed himself. Yeah, that tends to be the profile of these guys. That does it mean that if you are a loner and you spend time by yourself that you're going to do something like this? But that seems to always be a characteristic of these men who are committing these crimes. So that in addition to the violent videos and the videos glorifying violence that he was putting on his YouTube channel, that probably should have been an indication to someone that something is going wrong. But just as we discussed when we were talking about the

Buffalo shooter, it is really difficult to take away someone's Second Amendment or any kind of right if they do not go through due process or if they are just saying things that are scary. Because we do have First Amendment rights. You were allowed to say things that are disturbing. You are allowed to say things that are, you know, insinuating violence. You are allowed to be like a creepy guy who makes weird and creepy music videos. You're allowed to do that legally. You can't take away someone's rights for maybe fitting the profile of someone who might commit a crime one day. And I mean, we're thankful for that, right?

Like, we don't want people to have their rights taken away who have it actually committed a crime, but there must be some kind of system in place. There has to be some kind of system in place to be able to spot these people and to be able to prevent them from carrying out these attacks. And I just don't know if we have a great system in place right now. It doesn't seem that we do. There are a lot of details about him, about his life, about his background, that we don't know. People are arguing online about whether he was a leftist or whether he was a Trump's supporter. I saw that the New York post, they had a headline saying his dad liked to tweet supporting the Second Amendment at one point. There was a picture of him like holding a Trump flag. Other people

were saying, though, that he was making fun of Trump supporters and that he was actually a leftist. As far as I'm concerned, like, I don't, I don't really want to engage in that argument. I don't really want to engage in that debate because it looks like we're not going to find that out. I think that we should be asking ourselves some much some some deeper questions why it seems like no matter the political ideology of the shooter they are these young loner men who have some other characteristics in common that they are idle that they report feelings of purposelessness wanting meaning in their life wanting to be someone wanting a fight to fight for like when are we going to deal with that epidemic of idleness and purposelessness and godlessness that is so obviously infecting young men.

Like, when are we going to confront that? When are we going to do something about that? The fact of the matter is we have cultural and moral rot that has to be rooted out in our country. We can talk about gun laws. We can talk about legislation. We can talk about all that. But until we deal with the root, until we deal with what is going to, on the depravity, the rot that is underneath all of this, things are never going to change. You know, there was also a mass shooting over the weekend in Copenhagen that has some of the strictest gun laws in the world. We always hear, oh, these mass shootings only happen in the United States. If you look at the data, that's not actually true. It's not actually true that these only happen

in the United States. I would say it's probably disproportionate. It is disproportionate in the United States, but it's not true that they only happen in the United States. But I would say the problem that we really have is just this insidious amorality and purposelessness that is so prevalent, especially among our young people. The truth is, there is nothing more dangerous than a man with no one to live for and nothing to do. Idleness is. an enemy of healthy masculinity. Idleness, really, for any of us, can send us down a spiral of anxiety and depression. It can warp how we see the world. Loneliness can do the same thing because we're not meant to be lonely. We're meant to live in community. We're meant to have family.

We're meant to have friendship. For most of time, friendship and kinship and community was really inevitable for people because they had to depend on one another for what they needed. They needed to rely on their village, to rely on their next door neighbor for food and for protection or for whatever it was. And so you relied on one another and you had very interconnected communities simply out of necessity. We really don't need in-person interaction to survive anymore. I mean, you can sit on your couch and you can be fully entertained and get all of the food and all of the supplies that you need and you can be completely comfortable and never have to interact with another human. You certainly wouldn't have to depend on your church for these things or your community for these things.

And so the luxury that we have in this country isolates us. It makes us very lonely. It also makes us very idle because we do not have to put a lot of time into producing the things that we need. We are so actually distant from the production of the things that we need that we don't even know how to produce most of the things that we need. So idleness and loneliness also creates the purposelessness that is an infection in humanity because God created us to work. He created us not only to be in communion in community, but he also created us to work to be productive. As with so many things that we talk about today, this really goes down. it comes down to Genesis 1.

It comes back to Genesis 1 creation. What we see from the very beginning is that man was meant to work. We like to think of work as like a necessary evil or a product of the fall or a product of sin, but it's not. Work is something that God mandated Adam do before the fall. This is a part of the created order. This is something that is innate in human beings that we were created to work and work is very good. It is not a necessary evil or a product of the fall. Genesis 2.15, the Lord took the man

and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and to keep it. And then we see after the fall, after sin, that the curse on work is about the fruitlessness that can come from toil, that you can try to plant seeds and you can try to cultivate the ground. And it still makes. may not sprout with anything that is good or worth eating. So the curse of work comes with the fruitlessness that can sometimes be the product of toil. But the toil itself is a part of the good created order. So that tells us something about how human beings are supposed to function. That is not just how we survive, but is also how we thrive.

And if that is true of the individual, as we see in the beginning of Genesis, then that is going to be true of society as a whole. You see this kind of progressive vision that human beings will own nothing, that will do nothing, that will just spend time on our hobbies all day. Everything will become automated. Everything will be done for us. And there's just kind of this idea that if human beings have all of our needs met and we don't have to work for what we have, then we will all just kind of be happy and be content.

And there won't be all of these social and moral ills and divisive. vision and anger that we deal with today. It's this idea that it's capitalism that is really oppressing us, these systems of hierarchy or what are kind of tearing us apart and tearing us down. But that's not actually true. We see from the beginning that productivity and working for what you have and supplying what your family needs through work, that it is actually something that is necessary for the well-being of human beings. And as I said, also for society, since society is made up of individual human beings. We also see from the beginning that God says that it is not good for man to be alone. So God creates a partner for Adam because Adam needs a helper. We see that

also in who God is. God is triune. He is in constant community and fellowship with himself, the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit. And we are made in his image. So we see, again, from the creation account that we are made for fellowship in community, that we are made for work and productivity. We are made also, we see, from the Genesis account to glorify God, to be in communion with God. So again, it goes back to what I think is alien us and especially men, idleness, which is not part of God's plan for us. We were made to work. Purpicelessness and loneliness is not what I originally said.

loneliness and also godlessness. This is a toxic combination. It is especially a toxic combination for young men because men just biologically, they have a lot of testosterone. And testosterone makes you more aggressive. Men are naturally more aggressive than women. I know today that we want to try to deny these very real categories of male and female and try to say that how male and female manifests itself is just a product.

of social norms. It's something that we created in order to, I don't know, oppress women or keep these arbitrary categories. But it's not true. There are innate differences between men and women. One of those innate differences is that men are generally, naturally, more aggressive than women. It is because of how God made them just biologically.

That's how they function. Which means God created men to seek a good fight to fight or just to seek a fight to fight. And so when the aggression that men that boys naturally have is not channeled towards a good fight, fighting for their family, fighting for their community, fighting in the sense of just being a productive worker, they're going to find unhealthy means to channel that aggression. And I don't think that you need to think very hard or look very far to see that young men's aggression is being channeled in this country towards bad, violent means. I mean, we see that surely every weekend in Chicago, every weekend, and basically every inner city in this country. We don't talk about that disparate outcome that it is, if you look at

like the gender makeup between male and female violence and homicide that's committed every year, that the vast, vast majority of the violence is being committed by men. We'll look at every disparate outcome between races or if it allows Democrats to make some kind of policy to create equity. Let's talk about the inequity or the inequitable outcomes between the violence that is perpetrated by men and women. It is mostly young men. We are not providing purpose. We are not providing community. We are not providing a higher and better calling to young men.

Rather, we are trying to demonize masculinity. We're trying to call it toxic. We're trying to minimize the differences between men and women. We are not addressing one of the biggest problems with young men is that they don't have any examples to look to, that they don't have a father in the home many times. And that causes delinquency. That also causes loneliness and purposelessness and all these dangerous characteristics that we're talking about. They don't have anyone that's taking them under their wing and teaching

them how to be a responsible man. That is the deficit that we are experiencing in this country. We have a deficit of healthy masculinity, of healthy male role models who are taking responsibility and leadership in their communities for the boys that are around them. Now, there are a lot of organizations and a lot of people and a lot of churches that are, trying to do that, but we need more. And I understand men have been told by the feminist movement for decades that you just need to shut up, that you just need to sit down, that you just need to be quiet, that now this is going to be a matriarchy where women are in charge. I understand that there have been women, that there have been feminist activists that have tried very hard to

neuter men, thinking that it is going to lead to a more peaceful world, that it is going to lead to a more equitable and equal world. It's, It's not going to. The fact of the matter is, is that men are men. Men throughout all of history, for all of time in every place, men have been the ones to both found civilizations and destroy civilizations. They have been the ones to start wars and in wars. That's the truth. But that feminist attempt to try to change what masculinity is or try to minimize it or try to neuter it in some way is.

is never going to, and it has never, and it's never going to achieve its goal. That is not how a society achieves equality by denying the innate differences between men and women. The fact is, as we've already said, that male aggression has to be channeled towards good things. It has to be channeled towards a good fight. Men need a good fight to fight. An idle man is a dangerous man. there is nothing more dangerous than that, as we have seen over and over again. And so this denial or this theft, I would call it, that we have committed as a society

to that, it's manifest itself in like stealing the joy of patriotism, stealing the joy and the necessity of hard work, stealing the joy that comes with like real life interaction and adventure with friends, stealing purpose, stealing busyness from young men, we are paying for it. And I don't even think we've seen all of the chickens come home to roost. Unfortunately, I think that we are going to see more of these because we are not even starting to address the problems that these young men are facing because we disagree fundamentally. That's the thing. I mean, the right and the left disagree fundamentally on what the issue is.

One side thinks that if we just take away guns and we make it harder for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, and if we just give more money to young people and we just queer up the world, then all of our problems will be solved and everyone will be happier and these things will go away. And the right realizes that there is a deep moral issue here. There is a godlessness issue here. There's a spiritual issue here. And if we don't start to address that, if we don't start to address the root, then it doesn't matter. The symptom management that is being attempted right now obviously isn't working and it will ultimately be fruitless and it will not matter if we do not have some kind of revival on

the spiritual level and men in churches and neighborhoods and community stepping up and ensuring that they are going after that one lonely, purposeless kid who needs a man in their life to mentor them and to take them under their wing. Maybe you know, maybe you know someone that you can think of in your community, in your church, in your neighborhood, in your family, you can tell that they need guidance. They need male guidance. And maybe if you're listening to this and you're thinking of your husband or your brother or someone that you know that can maybe take that young man under their wing like maybe that is the first step maybe all of us think of that person in our lives who needs guidance who needs fellowship who needs a purpose and we try to supply that

for them i mean we can all only do what we can do but maybe that's a first step that we can take because if you look at this guy in illinois it was so obvious it was so obvious that he needed some intervention in his life. And yet it seems that no one did anything. That is a common theme here. No one's doing anything. So what can we do in our own small way in our own communities to help fix it? There was another tragic event that happened over the weekend. And that was in Akron, Ohio. There was a young man named Jalen Walker. He was a young black man who was shot in the back by police officers. And of course, there were a lot of protests. There were riots. that occurred over the weekend in Akron, Ohio by BLM activists and other activists in the city,

angry about this, calling this racist police brutality. And so this is according to Fox News, people gathered in the streets of downtown Akron, Ohio, Sunday night, to protest the deadly police shooting of Jalen Walker. A crowd of people formed in the city outside the Akron Justice Center around 6 p.m. shortly after police footage showing the final moments before Walker's death was released to the public. At the police, the demonstrators can be hurt. heard chanting. The, so this is a part of what happened.

So officers fatally shot, 25-year-old Jalen Walker, an unarmed black man after a vehicle in foot pursuit last Monday. A medical examiner confirmed there were more than 60 wounds that were on Walker's body. Now, unarmed is misleading in this case because his car actually did have a handgun. And apparently, reportedly, he was shot. shooting at the police from his car.

He led them on a wild car chase and then got out of his car and started running. And that is when police officers shot at him. Now, why would police officers do this? Because he, they didn't know whether he was going to be harmful to the community. Wherever he went, he could have had a gun and he could have shot at people and killed people. It is part of their responsibility, not just to stop this person who is driving a from him, but also could pose a threat to the rest of the community and try to just save the lives of the other people that he could have potentially harmed. That is part of their job. Now,

I am not someone who unconditionally defends the police. I see no reason to do that. I am obviously conservative. And so I am very wary of the power of the state, especially used against defenseless individuals. And so I am not someone that you are going to see unconditionally, unwaveringly backing the blue. Obviously, there was a big reason to criticize the police and the Uvalde shooting that happened a few weeks ago in Texas. But in this case, it looks like the police were trying to protect the community from someone that they didn't, that they weren't sure was harmful and a threat. He led them on a while. car chase. This was not something to where they just, this, they provoked an individual who was doing

nothing wrong and then shot and killed him. And so that's what people are angry about. That's what people are protesting and rioting about, do we have any indication whatsoever that this had to do with skin color, that this had to do with race, that this had some kind of racial motivation to it. No, as we've talked about many times, the data simply does not show the idea that there is an epidemic of violence by cops against unarmed black men that is not an epidemic that is happening. We have gone through the data many, many times on that. Now, that's not to say that it's not tragic when there are unjustified shootings by the police or killing by the police to a person of any race. That is something that happens and that should be condemned and there should be accountability for that. But just because there is a certain melanin count of the person who was shot by the police and there was another melanin count by the police officer who shot them does not mean that it is a racial incident. It also doesn't mean that it was necessarily unjustified.

And so we'll see what comes out. There could be more information that comes out here. and I'm happy to change my assessment and my analysis based on any information or based on any facts that come out. But that's what we have right now. That he was, he led them on a car chase, that he had a gun in his car. He apparently reportedly shot at them. And so he was not technically unarmed.

And so, yeah, we will continue to talk about that story if it develops. Lots of craziness. going on in the world today. Lots of bad. I want to show this picture that I meant to show a couple minutes ago and it's of this police officer

who is walking through the wreckage, the aftermath of the Highland Park, Illinois shooting. And if you're listening to this, it's a police officer. He's walking by himself and he's got his hands

covering his face. I think a lot of times it's so easy for us to criticize law enforcement when we feel like they've done something wrong. And sometimes they really do wrong things. They carry hefty responsibility and sometimes that's misused. But they are also some of the best people among us.

They are also putting themselves on a line that we would never put ourselves on. They are also making sacrifices that many of us just are not courageous enough to make. And the emotional toll, the physical toll, but also the emotional toll that this puts on men. And as we're talking about earlier, just the lack of masculinity that, I think our country is suffering from and the young men who use the natural aggression that they have in violent and evil and destructive ways, we also have to remember that we do have men among us that are using that natural drive towards protection and aggression that God has given them in a way that protects and that builds and that helps. And this police officer, gosh,

it just breaks my heart. And this is also behind like, the tough veneer of every courageous and heroic man, they're people, they're humans. They have a heart. They have emotions. It is hard for them to see this kind of tragedy. And so let us pray for the people who are on the front lines. Let us pray for this community. Let us pray for the young men of this country, for the older men of this country, that there would be an alliance of responsible mentors with young men who need to be mentored, who need to be fathered, who need to be helped, who who need to be paid attention to, who need friends, who need purpose, who need productivity, let us do everything that we can in our own lives and our own communities to help that.

That's how we really get to the root of all of this. And God just comfort the families that are dealing with the aftermath of this. It just, it gets so tiring to talk about over and over again every single month. There's something like this that happens. And there's not a quick fix. I wish I had a 10-step plan to fix it, but we need God's mercy. We need his guidance and we need strong men. Thanks so much for listening.

We'll be back here tomorrow with a great interview that I know you guys are going to love. It's going to be inspiring and encouraging. Also, enlightening as we kind of peel back the layers of what's really going on in our education system, how we got where we are and how we get out of it. So we will see you guys back here tomorrow. Hey, this is Steve Deast. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest

issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us.