Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 799 | Raising Victims: How Leftism Holds Black America Back | Guest: Leonydus Johnson

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

Today we're joined by Leonydus Johnson, political commentator and author of "Raising Victims: The Pernicious Rise of Critical Race Theory," to discuss where our country is headed when it comes to how we deal with race. We discuss his accidental fall into the political sphere after realizing the lies of the Left. We talk about why people who claim to be apolitical tend to vote leftward and explain why the ideas of the Left in theory sound so appealing to the unengaged person. We also discuss the rise of BLM and social justice bullying and the real definition of critical race theory and DEI. And Leonydus shares his definition of color-blindness and explains his argument for moving to a post-racial society. --- Timecodes: (00:55) Accidentally falling into politics (03:46) Why do apolitical people lean to the left (05:30) Obama and the shift of mainstream opinion / BLM (18:10) Critical race theory (28:20) Reasons for disparities (35:06) Equality of opportunity / equity (46:44) Colorblindness --- Today's Sponsors: A'Del — go to adelnaturalcosmetics.com and enter promo code "ALLIE" for 25% off your first order! Carly Jean Los Angeles — use promo code 'ALLIEBASICS' to save 25% off your first order at CarlyJeanLosAngeles.com! Patriot Mobile — go to PatriotMobile.com/ALLIE or call 878-PATRIOT and use promo code 'ALLIE' to get free activation! Seven Weeks Coffee — Seven Weeks is a pro-life coffee company with a simple mission: DONATE 10% of every sale to pregnancy care centers across America. Get your organically farmed and pesticide-free coffee at sevenweekscoffee.com and let your coffee serve a greater purpose. Use the promo code 'ALLIE' to save 10% off your order. --- Relevant Episodes: Ep 792 | What's to Blame for the Chicago 'Teen Takeover'? | Guest: Heather Mac Donald https://apple.co/3NzCYiU Ep 308 | The Battle for Our Future: America vs. Critical Race Theory | Guest: Christopher Rufo https://apple.co/3p7Rgx5 Ep 431 | Dissecting the Dangers of Critical Theory | Guest: James Lindsay https://apple.co/421oL2G Ep 359 | Why 'Equity' Is Unjust https://apple.co/42q1QOt Ep 409 | The 'Equity' vs. 'Equality' Trap | Guests: Darrell Harrison & Virgil Walker https://apple.co/3p7uSUF --- 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 'MOM10' 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. Diversity, equity, inclusion, affirmative action, critical race theory. You'll remember that all of these terms became very popular and pervasive the summer of 2020. Well, let's look back at the past few years. Has it helped?

Has it brought the races together? has it improved the lives of Americans? My guest today wants to analyze these things. And he does in his new book, Raising Victims, the pernicious rise of critical race theory. Leonidas Johnson has a lot to say about where our country and culture is headed when it comes to how we deal with race. You're going to love this conversation very educational from our guest today. It's brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers. Go to Good Ranchers.com. Use code Alley at checkout. Good Ranchers.com. Code Allie. Leonidas, thanks so much for joining us. First, before we get started, can you just tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Yeah, so I'm a speech-language pathologist by trade. I have a master's degree in speech-language pathology. I have a bachelor's in psychology. So that's my day job. And then by night, I do all kinds of stuff. I'm an actor. I'm a theater director. I do music.

I have a podcast. Obviously, do political commentary and that sort of thing. And now I've written, I'm apparently an author now. I've written a book. So I try to do a little bit of everything. Yes. Yes. So political commentator and author.

And you're also a dad and a husband too, right? And a dad, yes. Okay. Yes, I have four kids. Oh my goodness. You wear a lot of hats. Okay. So tell me how you got into.

You said you majored in psychology and then you got your master's in speech pathology. And you're also in acting and all of this. but tell me how you got interested in talking about politics and cultural things. Dude, it's one of those things that I never intended on happening. I was apolitical my entire life. You know, I'm an artist. I'm a creative. I was never interested in politics at all until probably around the time that Michael

Brown was killed. And maybe a little bit before that, the Trayvon Martin stuff, I started really paying attention because what I noticed, Dali, was that the media was lying about everything around. that case. And what people need to understand, too, is that I had voted for Barack Obama twice before that point. So I wasn't a huge conservative. I wasn't, also on the other hand, I wasn't raising my fist in, you know, Black Lives Matter kind of thing either. But at the same time, I recognized that the media was lying and they were manipulating people around race. And I really

started research and look into this stuff and figure out what was going on. And it turned out that they were lying about a whole lot of stuff that I did not recognize that they were lying about. I was very naive at that point thinking that the media were, they were telling us the truth and that they were at least they were trying to tell us the truth. So it was a very eye-opening experience to recognize that they were not being honest about this stuff. So I started putting up my ideas on social media and my thoughts on social media. A friend referred me to Thomas Sol and I started reading his stuff. And by that point, I was already hooked. Yeah, there's the red pill.

Yeah. Yeah. Thomas Oll turned me. So, and then accidentally build a following and, you know, it's the rest is history. It's, it's been an interesting ride. Yeah. Well, before we even get into your book, I'm still just interested in your story. So you said that you were pretty much apolitical, but that you voted for Barack Obama twice.

And, you know, that's something that I see a lot. A lot of people who say that they're a political tend to vote Democrat or tend to just kind of default to the liberal position, maybe not the far left position, like you were saying, not necessarily raising their fist in BLM, although today I think apolitical people do that more because it's more popular than it was a few years ago. But I wonder why that is. Why do a political people or people who fancy themselves apolitical tend to lean to the left? Why do you think that was like that for you? Like, why did you vote for Barack Obama? Yeah, I was going to say, I can only really speak for myself and kind of speculate, but it's because the ideas on the left

to sound good on the surface, right? They're marketed and it's feel good language. Barack Obama is very good at making people feel good, very good with the smooth talking and the emotional language and making people feel like feel inspired and that sort of thing. And the left is good at that. And you know, then you think about ideas like Marxism and communism and those are feel good ideas. Let's make everybody equal. Let's give everybody a house. Let's give everybody health care. Let's give everybody a food. I mean, whatever. Like,

all of these things, people are like, yeah, that sounds great. I am definitely on board with that. And if you're largely apolitical and you're not really digging into the history of things and not really paying much attention to politics or the, you know, the consequences of policies and things like that, then you're going to go with the surface level stuff. You're going to go with the things that sound good and feel good. And at least that's how it was for me. Barack Obama inspired me. I thought he was, I thought he sounded good. I agreed with his ideas and then that can hope and change. I was all about it. And so I voted for him. And it feels it's embarrassing. A lot of people, but there's, you know, that's the story of a lot of people. And plus, in 2008, he really wasn't a radical. I mean, in 2008, he was still going around

to churches like Saddleback Church in California and saying, I'm going to protect male, female marriage. So that's, I mean, that's how conservative Barack Obama was in the first round. Now, whether it was just a cynical political ploy or whether he just, he really was more conservative back then. I don't think it matters. Honestly, I think he didn't save some of the most radical and divisive stuff when it comes to race. Like you were just talking about Michael Brown when it comes to the LGBTQ stuff until after people voted for him the second time, which of course is very strategic. but I do think for a lot of people, that is when things shifted for them.

Like during Barack Obama's second term, and actually, like, there's a lot of data on this from Pew Research and other places that the shift of the mainstream opinion went much farther left than it had previously been, whether it's on welfare or whether it's on immigration or whether it's on homosexuality or transgenderism or guns. The left, anyway, the last.

way. The left moved to the left and the right really stayed about where it is. So what happened there was a lot of polarization. So the left shifted far to the left. The right kind of stayed where they were. That means that a lot of people kind of had to pick aside. So you had some people jumping ship from the left and you still do because they're like, whoa, I didn't realize I was signing up for all of that and then going to the right. And so I think it was like, I don't know, 2014 or 2003. when things just fundamentally changed in the United States. And I don't know, maybe Michael Brown had, maybe there was something there too that kind of became a fault line for us.

But it just seems looking back that that's really when things shifted for a lot of people. I agree with that. Yeah. And that chart where it shows the leftward slide of the Democrats or the left in general is just, it's shocking because, yeah, up until 2008, the parties were mostly relatively even with, you know, the left kind of being a little bit farther off from the, but there wasn't much change. And then, yeah, after 2008, you just see that massive slide to the left. But yeah, it's pretty incredible. But yeah, I think that the seeds had been planted. The seeds had been planted and we saw that come

to fruition. I think the Trayvon Martin, the Michael Brown thing. And then, the media was really covering pretty much every interaction with police and unarmed black people from that point and really driving that wedge. And the Obama administration was all about it. They were all about pushing that stuff. And, you know, we end up with dead cops in Dallas and that sort of thing. And it was crazy. And so we get to George Floyd.

And by that point, it was already a pressure cooker. And, you know, I always tell people. Even to this day, there's not a lick of evidence that what happened to George Floyd had anything to do with race. Yeah. But we were so primed and so ready for that, that by the time that video came out, it just exploded and people lost their minds. And I always liken it to psychological warfare, spiritual warfare, because it really affected people's minds on a very deep level. And, you know, so I think it was, I don't think it was an overnight thing. I think it was something gradual that built up over time. And yeah, it just reached a culmination. 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. And we all felt it. And there was a lot of pressure on a lot of different people, white, black, Christian, non-Christian, conservative, liberal to kind of fall in line to post the black square or at least take on kind of the performative activism. I mean, it really was like putting, you know, lamb's blood above your door so that the angel of death would pass over you. Like in the Old

Testament, that's really kind of like what it felt like. And if you did enough work or did enough work and you read the right books and you talked about how you're going to raise your just evil white kids to be anti-racist and you said the right things and called yourself. And called yourself, racist, basically, then maybe people would leave you alone.

But it really was like a, a witch hunt, too, at the time. I mean, people on Instagram, I always say that, like,

white woman, liberal Instagram is the worst place on earth. Because, like, the racial bullying, the ideological bullying, the social justice

bullying that went on in summer of 2020, that no one could say anything without a mob of activists attacking them and, trying to go after their sponsors and their livelihoods and their businesses because they said

something that may have implied that at one point in their lives they were like racist. I mean, it was wild. And so it did nothing. All this so-called work, all this, all these calls to do better after George Floyd. I mean, it's ended just in chaos and division and resentment and bitterness. It hasn't helped at all. Right. It's very emotionally driven. And I like your lamb's blood analogy. I think that's appropriate because it very much operates like an extremist religion. You have these high priests that are passing down the dogma, the holy dogma that can't be challenged. You can't challenge it. And then they're sending out evangelist to go proselytize and evangelize and seek out heretics to punish them and whatever else.

They have their holy texts. They have their original sin and white supremacy. I mean, all of these different aspects. it's very religiously focused and it's one of those things you know if you speak out against the religion then they're going to come after you and because they feel like you're there it's you're attacking their gods you're attacking their point of worship and it was very much that it didn't matter what evidence you had which is it's always funny because I I would pull out evidence on police shootings and show people that their their assertions and their presuppositions of what's going on

with unarmed black people in police shootings is wrong. And I'll show them in statistics. And they'll tell me like, no, no, no, just statistics are racist. The statistics are rooted in white supremacy. So there's no proving it wrong. Yeah. There's no proving it wrong. The dogma is the, is the only thing we're allowed to, allowed to say, allowed to embrace.

And we have to bow down at the throne and worship. That's just, I mean, yeah, it's that whole, I mean, that's basically what white fragility and the whole anti-racist ideology is built on is that. Kafka trap, which became kind of like a common term, at least from the right, when we were talking about all of this in 2020, which is basically like if you deny this accusation, it is because you are that thing. So it's like, okay, well, if you're denying that you're racist, if you're denied that you're white supremacist, it's actually because you are that and you're just being defensive.

It's actually because you're so fragile. And that is not, that's not reasonable. And that's not a reasonable accusation. That is not something that is a thoughtful, factual, kind of a condemnation to lodge at someone. As you said, it's just driven by emotion. And it really is a trap. There's no way to get out of it.

All you have to do or all you can do is constantly try to atone for a racism that you did not even know that you were perpetrating, but you are just because of the melanin. that you have. And you can just hope that at some point, the activist, the gods will approve of you enough to not malign you and not to go after your livelihood. And I don't blame a lot of people now who are like, yeah, I tried, but no. I'm just not going to do this anymore. And again, I think it's led to just a lot of, a lot of division. That's honestly the legacy I think of Barack Obama is more racial division than unity.

Absolutely. Because you remember before 2008, there was nothing like this going on. I mean, we were moving toward, I always say that my, my passion in life is moving us toward a post-racial society,

a colorblind society. And pre-2008, we were getting there. We were getting to a point where we could have a sense of racial harmony, and then all of a sudden, all of that is just broken apart. But I like what you said. And I think that it's important to point out,

that there is no salvation in this religion. Like, it is an extremist religion. And no matter how much penance you pay, no matter how much you bow down and say that you're sorry and repent, there's no, there's no redemption for you. And that's by design. That's by design. And, you know, one of the things that, one of the things I talk about in the book is how they use these manipulative tactics to get people to capitulate.

And that's really all it is. It really comes down to power, power and control and manipulation. So if you can't push back against the specific ideology, if you can't present any evidence, then the only option is to capitulate. You mentioned the Kafka trap. If you're guilty no matter what, then the only options you have is to either admit your guilt or deny it and be proven guilty anyway and then capitulate anyway. So your only option is really just to capitulate.

So, and they do this sort of thing all the time. Black Lives Matter is a good example. So, you know, if you push back on anything that has to do with Black Lives Matter, then what's the response. Oh, you don't think Black Lives Matter. Clearly, that's not what people are saying. They're not saying they don't believe Black Lives Matter. They're just saying they're not supporting the riots. They don't support reparations. They don't support the idea that all white people are racist. They don't support tearing down the nuclear family. All of these ideas that are tied underneath the Trojan horse of Black Lives Matter. Explicitly. They explicitly said that on their website that they want to tear down the nuclear family. exactly and if you push back and then they'll just manipulate and say no you all well you just don't think black lives matter and that that causes people to back off that causes people to say well wait wait wait I do believe black lives matter because what do you it's again it's that emotional manipulation people don't want to be accused of racism of course obviously it's and people don't want mobs coming after them so they back off and it's it's unfortunate so yeah but you see that sort of thing happen all the time it's it's a very frequent tactic

So I know that we're kind of already talking about your book, but I want to back up a little bit because we're talking about this. And sometimes I forget that not everyone, like there could be people listening to this who are new to this. And so they didn't follow us in 2020. They didn't follow you. Maybe they haven't read your book. They don't even really fully know what we're talking about when we're talking about this extremist religion. What we're talking about is anti-racism ideology, the ideology of Black Lives Matter, critical race theory, can you kind of just like sum up what this stuff is critical race theory really became

really became like the word that I mean it just triggers people it triggers people on the left because they think that we on the right think everything is critical race theory and they think nothing it's critical race theory and so like tell us what it is and how this shows up in the media at school, things like that. Yeah, the activists treat it as a moving target. So, and they do that, again, it's that manipulative tactic so that you can't nail it down. And so if you try to define it, they'll say, no, that's not critical race theory. So if you just go straight to the source, which a good source is critical race theory

and introduction by Richard Delgado, he'll, they'll tell you exactly what critical race theory is. And it's this ideology. It's supposed to be an academic tool for exploring how racism impacts institutions. and leads to racial disparities. That's how they put it. What it actually is is the Matrix. That's how I like it, but it's the Matrix. It's this idea that the elites have created this society

where it benefits them and oppresses everybody else. In this sense, it benefits white people in the form of white supremacy and oppresses non-white people to the point where they don't even realize that they're being oppressed. And many of the oppressors don't even realize that they are, oppressing others because it's just become the status quo. It's the matrix. It's this normal everyday operation of things. So they believe racism is endemic in our society. It's interwoven into all of our institutions. The civil rights movement did not accomplish what it set out to

accomplish. Racism was only driven underground. And now it's hidden in all of our institutions in all of our society. And it leads to racial disparities. So you don't you don't need any any sort of evidence of racism. You don't need, you don't need to find evidence that George Floyd and Derek Chauvin that, that happened had anything to do with racism. It's just the fact that it happened, that it's evidence. And then you don't need evidence that the five police officers in Memphis, the five black police officers that killed the black guy in Memphis, you don't need evidence that racism was involved. It's a system of white supremacy. So, you know, people think it's kind of, people get confused because they're like, why would, why would, why would, why would,

would they call that white supremacy? Why would that, it's kind of mind-boggling, but you have to understand that they think everything is viewed through the lens of white supremacy. The foundation, the foundation of our country, the foundational ideals, neutral principles of constitutional law, the First Amendment, the idea of free speech, the Western culture itself, they believe, is imbibed with white supremacy. So the whole thing is a system to generate activist and tear down the fabric of our society and rebuild it from the ground up into their utopian vision. That's what critical race theory is. You summarize that really well.

So I hope people, if you need to rewind it and listen to that again, that was a really good definition. I read the first book, like I read on critical race theory that was a proponent or an explanation of critical race theory was just introduction to critical race theory. I think by Richard Delgado and a couple other ladies, which, I mean, to their credit, they do spell it out pretty quickly. And it was so revelatory for me because I realized how many ideas that I had been hearing on social media. I mean, in the media actually come from this theory of critical race theory. And of course, most people, most people who say the things that they do that this country is systemically racist.

that there's white privilege, that there is pervasive white supremacy, and who point to the disparities as proof of discrimination. They, the reason why if you tell them, hey, you know that you're actually asserting critical race theory and the critical race theory is based on an assumption, a guess, a theory, not actual facts. They will say, no, I'm not. Not everything is critical race theory. Not everything is Marxist. It's actually because they do not realize. They don't realize it. It's not, they did not read Delgado's book to come up with their ideas.

They heard it. It's been regurgitated. It's been sanitized. It's been put in these pretty graphics on Instagram. It has been reworded so it sounds poetic in the church. It's been reworded so that it sounds biblical. And so when you hear these pastors and these teachers saying, you know, white privilege, white supremacy, systemic racism, as if it is a fact.

And as if it is like, this is what we need to be. recognizing as Christians as people, as people who love justice, they don't realize that they are actually taking from left wing, godless. Yes, Marxist, we can say that we don't like that word, but absolutely Marxists in academia, they don't realize that they've taken those ideas from those people who did not base the theory of critical race theory on actual facts about civil rights or about these Supreme Court cases or about why these disparate. exist, but an assumption that all of these bad things exist and all of these disadvantages that black people face today are because of the foundation of the country that actually goes back to

1619. It is an academic idea that is not actually proven by fact, and yet you've got a lot of people moralizing and teaching them as if they are, as if it's just a given that white people are privileged. Right. It's a worldview. And again, it's a real, it's a, it's a real, it's, It's a religion. And again, Richard Delgado says specifically that it differs from other academic disciplines because it has an activist component. So it's not just an academic exercise that's restricted to law schools. You hear that argument a lot.

No, critical race theory is only in law school. It's not in K through 12. But future teachers are going to university and studying the edict of critical race theory, a theory that has an activist component and sends out. activist to go, as they say, affect social change. Yes. And then go to K through 12 classrooms. And we're supposed to believe that they're not taking that ideology with them into the

classrooms. It's like a good analogy is like a music teacher or a future music teacher learns advanced music theory in college and then goes to teach first graders music. She's not teaching the kids advanced music theory. She's teaching them how to sing the songs. She's applying basic theory and teaching them how to sing the songs. Same thing with critical race theory. They're not teaching these kids, the edicts of critical race theory.

They're teaching them how to sing the songs. They're applying the theory. It's critical race practice that's happening in these schools. But yeah, and, you know, it's ultimately, and I make this point in the book as well, ultimately, it doesn't really even matter what you call it or what label you attach to it. It's the race-centric ideology. And you hit on it perfectly. The idea that you can draw a line from what happens.

in the past in history to current outcomes and say that that's due to racial bias and do this univariate analysis, not examine any other variables. We're not going to worry about that. We're just going to go straight to race and we're going to say that the reason that these racial disparities exist in this system is because the system itself is racist. We don't need to examine any other evidence. We don't need to talk about any behaviors or cultural issues or anything like that. We're just going to talk about race. And Ibram-X-Kendi is infamous for this. He's He says it all the time that any system that yields racial disparities is evidence of a racist system, even though, you know, he he denies that when it's convenient. Yeah.

Like with the COVID vaccines, he wasn't, he wasn't very, he wasn't very apt to blame that on racism. Right. But, you know, but they're very, again, it's manipulation and it's all about how to get people to capitulate and get people to bow to the, bow to the religion. Some people are very, some people are very devoted to the ideology. And then other people are just what Booker T. Washington said. They're benefiting off of it, right? They're benefiting. They have financial.

They have social. They have psychic benefits from continuing to perpetuate these problems. And, you know, that's why we see those certain things. But so it's a cycle. It's crazy. Yes. And here's, okay, so here's the uncomfortable thing for white people. including myself, because I got into like a back and forth a couple years ago with a Christian,

he's black, and look, we probably agree on a lot of things. But he, when it comes to this stuff, is, I mean, pro CRT for sure. Any problem that is facing the black community, it's because of systemic injustice. And so here's the uncomfortable question that we're met with, we conservatives who push back on, okay, the reason for these disparities is not necessarily because of any kind of systemic discrimination that's going on. We get the uncomfortable question from a black person. Okay, then you tell me what it is. What is it then?

And then we have to say, well, like, and then you have to, okay, are we going to talk about culture? Are we going to talk about other trends like fatherlessness? Are we going to talk about choices? And then that's when the person will say, so you are racist because, which I don't think this is, what the person would be saying, but they would say, you know, the, the person on the other side, on the social justice, racial justice side would say, so you think that they're innately, like, incapable of doing these things. So you think they're dumber. You think that they're more apt to be criminals. You think that they're more irresponsible, which, of course, that's not

what we would be saying at all. But I think, like, on the right, I say, okay, I think individuals have agency. I'm not just, I'm not saying that discrimination has never existed, that prejudice is never existed, I'm never, I'm not even excluding the possibility that past discrimination can still have an effect on people today. I'm just saying that it is not proven, as Thomas Soul talks about so much, that these disparities have to do with those past instances of injustice or discrimination when really we can look at much more immediate and tangible things that are happening that would lead us to understand why the abortion rate, for example, is so disproportionate among black Americans, and it has a lot to do with the culture of sex.

But I'm scared to say that because then I'm being told, you know, well, it's because you don't like black people when of course, that's not the case. So just tell us how we should respond and tell us your response to things like that. Yeah. So the first question that I would ask is, well, if all disparities are due to bias, then why do we have such substantial intra-group disparities? When you have black people like LeBron James, who, you know, one of the richest people in the country, and then you have somebody in inner city Chicago.

When you compare them, why do they have such disparate outcomes with, and there's a numerous number of variables. There's numerous variables that you could attribute to those disparities. Same thing for an intergroup white people. Why do we have such highly successful white people? and then white people who live in trailers with dirt floors. Why do those disparities exist? We have a myriad of variables that can account for those disparities.

So if we can attribute those disparities to those variables, then why can't we attribute intergroup disparities to those variables? Why wouldn't they affect the disparities between racial groups? The other thing I would say, the other thing I would say is that race and culture are different things and too many people conflate the two far too often. And that kind of piggybacks off the first point because one of the variables that cause disparities in true group between black people is cultural differences. Black people who adhere to different cultural behaviors, different cultural attitudes have different outcomes than other people who appear, who adhere to a

different cultural behaviors and attitudes. And so you have to talk about culture. You have to talk about behaviors. You have to talk about attitudes and choices and all of the things that cause disparities between individuals. And one of the things Thomas Sol, again, will appeal to him. One of the things he always says is that the same individual isn't even equal to himself on different days. So it is nonsensical to expect. I think he used, he used siblings as an example. It's non-sensical to expect that we would have disparities or that we wouldn't have disparities. is that we do have equality between two disparate groups of people who adhere to do different cultures and two different behavioral systems, do value systems.

When siblings that grow up in the same household, with same parents, same general culture, same general attitudes, behaviors, et cetera, have disparate outcomes. And so the idea of egalitarianism, the idea that we should have equality or that we can have equality is nonsense. And we don't need, there's no example of equality anywhere in the world. So I don't know why we would even expect it to happen. We don't have equality among individuals. Why would we expect equality among groups who adhere to different cultures? I think the most that we can ask for is equality under the law,

recognizing the equality of worth and value of a human being, no matter what their skin color is, which is what you're advocating for in colorblindness and where we were headed. But this equality of opportunity, which now the left calls equity, I remember it was like two days before the election, Kamala Harris posted this animation basically explaining that equality is everyone starts in the same place. I think she said in equity as everyone ends up in the same place, which is basically what Ibermax Kendi is calling for too, that any institution or system that leads to any kind of disparity against races is inherently racist. But as you're

pointing out, as Thomas Sol, as you said, pointed out so well in a lot of his books, but especially discrimination and disparities, that's literally impossible. and has never been shown throughout history that you can force people to end up in the same place unless you're talking about communism and communism is the forced bringing of people to the lowest common denominator. You'll notice that the people who strive for so-called equity, which is a perversion of the word, by the way, equity if you look at the biblical sense, means applying the law equally to everyone. And they're not talking about that. Now they're talking about finagling equal outcomes by punishing one group and rewarding.

and rewarding another group, not based on what they've actually done, but based on these, like, different marginalization statuses, whatever. This is what Thomas Soul talks about in a quest for cosmic justice. And that is not, it's not possible. Like, you'll notice that the outcomes in those kind of situations when they're trying to get everyone to end up in the same place, it's never lifting everyone up to the richest place or to the best education or to the safest neighborhood. It's taking everyone to the worst.

And whether that's how they change suburbs, whether that's through the DEI initiatives, whether that's through how they change standards in school. Let's just get rid of standardized testing. Let's just get rid of grading altogether. Let's get rid of reading requirements so that everyone is equal. So you're punishing the people who would be successful, which I don't know. You tell me, is that going to end up better for black people? or is it just going to be bad for everyone?

Well, it's going to be bad for everyone. I think you hit on it perfectly. And it has to be that way, right? It has to be, if we're not allowed to ask those who lag behind to improve themselves, then the only option is to tear everybody else down to their level. And so equity is that tearing that. It has to punish the people who are doing too well in order to equalize things, right? So it's the opposite of equality.

It's the antithesis of equality or what we think of as equality. And again, it comes back to those manipulative tactics because people hear that word and they think, oh, I support equality. I support equity. It sounds like a good word. So therefore I'm going to go along with it, not realizing that the only way to achieve equity is inequality to treat people unequally. You have to treat people unequally in order to try to achieve equal outcomes, which again, never, never works. It never happens.

But, but, Ein Rand talks about this in many of her works that, listen, people have different capacities. They have, they make different choices. They have different intelligence levels. They have different behaviors.

All of these variables, again, all of these differences between individuals that you would have to account for in order to equalize them. And you can only try, even attempt to do that through government force. And that's what we see in communist nations. And that's why people need to be in prison. That's why they need to be killed because they don't, they can't be equalized.

People cannot be equalized. So you have to, you have to try to use force and you try to, you know, and that's why we have to see such outrageous things happen in those kind of countries. But yeah, it's, and the other thing, too, psychologically, I would say, is that it creates this sense of learned helplessness and it's disempowering for a lot of black children. specifically because if you're telling kids that they cannot we're going to get rid of this advanced class because you cannot achieve enough to get into that class what kind of attitude are you instilling in that child you're teaching them that they're helpless that the system is against them that

they cannot achieve and that we need to manipulate that they don't need to study more they don't need to take more notes in class they don't need to pay more attention in class we just need to manipulate the system right it's disempowering because it teaches them that everything that happens to them, their outcomes are all external. It's an external locus of control. The system is controlling them and controlling their outcomes. And so why try? If I'm told that math is racist, why should I try?

Yeah. Let's just change math. Let's make math. If I'm failing my class because it's racist, because it's systemic racist, let's just change the grading system. It's not my fault. I shouldn't have to study. So it's very disempowering. You're teaching kids that they're less than.

And it's just, it's, it's horrible. It's victimization. Yeah. And I think like we can acknowledge also, even though like our prognosis is not the same as the lefts that we just need to take everyone to the lowest common denominator and things like that. But the part of the diagnosis we agree on that there are disparities between white Americans and black Americans.

And by the way, there are disparities also between Indian Americans and white Americans, but you're not allowed to talk about that. Not allowed to talk about how Asian Americans actually have a higher median income, a lower fatherlessness rate, a higher academic success rate. You're not allowed to talk about those disparities. That disparity is not an evidence of discrimination against white people. It's only the disparities between white Americans and black Americans that are apparently evidence of discrimination. But, okay, we don't like these disparities either. We don't, because there are a lot.

Okay. We've got a disproportionate rate of abortion. We've got a disproportionate fatherlessness rate, a disproportionate rate of out of wedlock birth. So not even just abortion, but out of wedlock births. I guess it's the same thing as the fatherlessness rate. But we've got a disproportionate rate of violent crime, disproportionate rate of homicide, disproportionate rate of even like if you're looking at success when it comes to reading at a fourth grade level, I was just listening to a horrible podcast or a great podcast, but about that horrible fact.

When you're looking at graduation rates, when you're looking at graduation rates, when you're looking at poverty rates. Okay. So we're looking at these disparities. I mean, I know we can't say, okay, well, this is the reason for all of these things. Even when it comes to getting pulled over for speeding and things like that. We see disproportional rates. We see disparities going on here.

And I could see why someone would look at all of that with a broad brush and be like, well, I mean, I know a lot of like awesome, amazing, responsible black people in my life. It must just be the system. so I understand why people kind of make that assertion, but like what is going on there? In your estimation, what is going on there? Why, why in large part do those disparities exist? Because they do. Cultural differences.

And so I'll use police shootings as an example because there's a disparate portion a number of police shootings. A lot of times people will look at it. I think black people are two and a half times more likely to be shot and killed by police. And people look at that statistic and they say, Aha. See? racism. Police are racist. They're hunting down black people and they're shooting black people for for no reason. But if you look at violent crime rates, it's about the same. It's about two and a half

times higher, maybe a little bit more than that. Black people are disproportionately represented in violent crime. And so when you control for violent crime, they actually levels out and those disparities disappear. But we're not talking about black people as a whole. We're talking about a very small percentage of people who engage in a violent and degenerate culture who drive the disparities. So it's, it causes the shift in the numbers because of that small percentage of people who adhere to that culture. So it's not all black people that are susceptible to police shootings. It's that small percentage of people who are disproportionately represented in violent crime who are susceptible police shootings. And I'm not saying there's never police that,

you know, unjustly killed somebody. I mean, that that that happens. from time to time, but it's rare. And it happens to white people, too, but it's rare. Police rarely kill anybody of any race, let alone unarmed people, let alone unarmed people. So it's not the problem that it's made out to be. And even still, we're still talking about a very, very small percentage of the population who's involved in both the violent crime and the police shootings. And so I think, again, it goes back to my point before that there's a difference between race and culture.

When you see these differences, you know, people having babies out of wedlock, fatherlessness issues, dropping out of school, rejection of education, the rejection of personal responsibility. These are cultural behaviors, and it's not race specific. You see similar outcomes among all racial groups who adhere to these negative cultural traits. And it just happens to be that, you know, there's a culture that exists that more black people tend to. to adhere to in the inner cities. I forget who it was. There was a heritage event where they were talking about the violent crime in the different cities.

And they were saying that you can trace the gun crime, the violent crime, to only a few of the city blocks in the city. So it was like, yeah, there's an entire city. And you can trace, you could trace most of the violent crime to just a few city blocks. So it's just a small percentage of people who are holding onto this culture. So culture is the answer. to me. Yeah.

There has to be cultural changes. There has to be behavioral changes. And we can't conflate. I don't think it's helpful to conflate race and culture and to see it with that broad brush and say, oh, look at look at this is happening to black people. No, it's happening to that specific culture of black people who adhere to that culture. And same thing across races. I mean, that's another like Thomas Soul point that he makes in black rednecks and white liberals.

and that's kind of what he's trying to say is that there were different kinds of black people. Like we lump them all together and say like, this is a problem here. This is what they've faced here. Either this is the adversity they've all faced or this is what they all want or this is what all their culture is. But he argues like based on location, based on family makeup, based on religious background, based on all these kinds of things. Like there were all different kinds of problems that these communities faced, you know, because they're not just like one group of monolithic people,

which I think the left wants us to think because that helps them also solidify a voting block that helps them kind of perpetuate their message that keeps them in power. But you're absolutely right. So I mean like what's what is the, what's the answer? You talk about colorblindness.

And I'm interested to hear more about what exactly that looks like because, I've also thought, well, is color blindness the right take? Because like I don't know if I necessarily want to be blind to someone's skin color or if their culture is different than my culture. I think it's okay for me to see that and appreciate that. Like God made us with diverse melanin counts, diverse backgrounds, diverse, you know, nations of origin. I think it's okay for us to recognize that. But tell me like what you think color blindness is and how that's a solution to this mask that we're talking about.

Yeah. So color blindness is, and you know, when a lot of times I'll bring it up and people will give that sort of response that, like, well, like we should recognize differences and like we shouldn't ignore differences. And I agree with that. That's not what I mean when I say color blindness. And that's not what most people mean when they say color blindness. It's more of a metaphor. And Coleman Hughes pointed this out a while ago that, you know, like when somebody says they're warmhearted or coldhearted, you know, that's not, they don't mean literally coldhearted. They don't mean their hearts literally cold. So color blindness doesn't mean literally blind to color or that we're blind to our differences. It just means treating skin color and race as no more consequential to who we are than hair color and eye color. Yeah, it's part of who we are. It's part of our identity. It just doesn't define us as the sole point of who we are.

And it's not central to our identity. So moving into a post-racial society would be it would be more of an individualist kind of society rather than a collective. society where we see each other as unique individuals. We recognize that we have different skin colors and different hair colors and different eye colors, different cultures, whatever, but we don't allow that to drive a wedge between each other and we treat each other as individuals as unique individuals made in the image of God who span the spectrum of human variation rather than saying I can see you and I'm going to put you into this collective identity group based on your skin color and I'm going to make value judgments about you based on that collective

identity. So it's moving away from that sense of collective identity and placing the group over the individual and more into an individualist unique. The skin color is only part of all of the variation, variative traits that make up who I am. Yeah. That's really good. Man. Well, Leonidas, I wish that I had time to talk to you about this more. There are so many points. We'll have to have you back to do a part two because there's so many things I want to talk to you about. But so, okay, so your book, Raising Victims, The Purnicious Rise of Critical Race Theory. It was released earlier this year. People can pick it up, I'm guessing, wherever books are sold, Amazon, all that good stuff.

Yep, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Audible. If you want to do audio books, pretty much anywhere you get books, it's available. Very good. Well, we will link it in the description of this episode, YouTube, and on the listening side, so people can just click it and bite quickly. And everyone can follow you, Twitter, all that good stuff. Thank you so much, Leonidas, for taking the time. I really appreciate it.

Thank you, Allie. I really appreciate you. 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.

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