The Daily Signal - Star Parker Shares Why It’s Not True That America Is ‘Systemically Racist’ (Repeat)

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

Top 5 of 2020 Day 5: During this Christmas season, we're sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year to allow our team to take time off for the holidays. In 1992 Star Parker ran a small publishing business in Los Angeles. Her business was destroyed by riots after four police officers were exonerated of charges after Rodney King’s beating. Parker, the president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and a columnist for The Daily Signal, joins the podcast today to talk about why she believes America isn’t racist.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. Happy New Year. Today is Friday, January 1st. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Del Judas. Today is the last day of the top five of 2020. We have loved looking back this week at your and our favorite episodes of 2020. And we are ending this series strong as we launch into 2021. What is the truth about America and racism? Star Parker, the president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, joins the show to explain why America, is not systemically racist. And if you haven't already, please do be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple podcasts and encourage others to subscribe.

It would be a great gift to us as we finish up this Christmas season. We are joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Starr Parker. She's the president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, and she's also a columnist for the Daily Signal. Star, thank you so much for being on the Daily Signal podcast. Well, you're welcome. Thank you for inviting me. Well, it's great to have you on. Really a pleasure. Well, in a recent column, you had written about how in 1992 you operated a small publishing business in Los Angeles, which was destroyed as a result of the riots that ensued after four police officers were quitted of charges of excessive silence in the beating of Rodney King. So can you tell us how that had an impact on your life?

Well, it changed my life because it propelled me into speaking out. on behalf of culture, on behalf of poverty, on behalf of race-relation issues that surround those three buckets. Because up until that point, I was like most Americans, and in particular, African-Americans that are God-feared church-going, that basically stayed silent when it came to issues that hit the front page. But because of my background, I just felt compelled to speak out after the 92 Los Angeles riots, which is the turning point to propel me then to a national spotlight.

See, I hadn't believed all the lies that I was hearing at that time during the riots. The lies of the left, I called them, when I was younger and coming of age, similar to what we're seeing happen in the lives of the youth that are now terrorizing our streets. I believe the lies that America was stacked against me, that it was inherently racist. I believe the lie that, you know, my problems were someone else's fault. I believe the line that I just didn't have any type of future in America. And as a result, I got lost, very lost in all types of activities similar to what we saw but the last couple of weeks, criminal activity, drug activity, sexual activity.

I was in and out of abortion clinic after clinic. And it wasn't until a Christian conversion that I changed my life. I was on welfare when someone finally said, you know, you don't have to think about yourself in terms that others have dictated. You don't have to think about yourself in terms of, even though on race matters and what we're hearing today, that America's racist, they didn't believe all of that,

and they kind of told me that Christ didn't believe all of that. And, you know, I had done so many things, and now I'm three and a half years and welfare watching my life just spiral into a little dark hole. I'm, you know, thankful that I didn't get caught for armed robbery and I did the rest of my life in jail, so I actually listened to them. I went to their church,

I heard the gospel. I heard that I'm a unique individual made in Christ and that God loved me and he forgave me and he wasn't mad at me. And he had set a course for me. And as a result of that, I was able to change my life. I got a degree in marketing, the international business. I started one and that's when the Los Angeles riots hit. And at that point, I was just a comfortable Christian, but I said, you know what?

This is not fair, this narrative that so many are caught up in today when I heard the same story 20 years ago and as a result of me not listening any longer look at my life today. So I just started speaking out. And over time, after consulting on federal welfare reform in the 90s, I started the organization that I run here in Washington, D.C. today. Well, thank you so much for sharing that star. Given what you experienced in 1992, what has your perspective been on the killing of George Floyd as well as all the protests and riots we have seen since then? Well, I think that everyone is appalled. I mean, this is the first time that many of us have experienced watching in live time, in real time, someone's life being taken from them. And I think that that panic

and emotion within all of us would propel some to say, I've got to get out the streets, I've got to vent, I've got to go in protest, I've got to just do something. But, you know, the scripture is clear that a soft answer, you know, it just keeps that wrath away. And what we need to do sometimes is to stop pause and allow for ourselves to get into that moment and say, what is it that I should be really thinking about for myself? The grief that each and every one of us uniquely experienced in watching that, that killing in real time was our own grief. And like anytime you have grief, you have to work it through yourself, similar to, you know, if someone loses a child, well, the child that was lost, the parents' grief is very different from the

grandparents' grief, which is very different from the siblings' grief. And I think as a nation, we should be pretty impressed with ourselves to say that this was not about race. If it were about race, we would not have even thought about it, that it would not have impacted us so deeply. What we saw in the streets was more about power, because people were in a moment. They felt that they had to have an emotional event. But we as a nation were in COVID-19, we were supposed to be shut down. So in my personal humble opinion, I felt that that where we should have gone was to our face instead of to the street to then create so much more damage against our fellow man.

I wanted to ask too, how is racism or race relations, given everything you've seen from the time you were growing up to being a young adult to now today, how would you say it's evolved? And what is your perspective on it, maybe when you're a younger person, to now? my perspective is that we lost ourselves in the civil rights era after the civil rights act was signed into law we as a people should have done what dr king asked us to do in his i have a dream speech and that was to go back into the communities and build because once the civil rights act was signed into law we should have no longer as a nation thought about race as a as a special interest thought about race as a collective individually of course we're uniquely made and there's some beauty

in all of us and ethnicity has that attributes itself. But when you think about what happened after King, after the riots of the 60s, we politicized race. The next thing you know, our nation was moving into only discovering race. The perception of racism became a business because we started having a firm of action programs and racial preference programs. And you fast forward that to today, there's just very few, there are very few discussions that can take. place without emphasizing race. So I think it has hurt us as a nation to keep this heavy emphasis on special interests and ethnicity. Well, you recently held a virtual conference that gathered around 200 pastors to encourage the broadest possible intervention on behalf of national peace and

reconciliation. I wanted to ask, what were your takeaways from that event? The humility of the pastors on the phone to say, we know that something is inherently wrong in our culture today, that this is not just race. We're being told by the mainstream media and or the activists in the activist organizations. This is a spiritual problem that's rooted in a moral dilemma, and we need to be mindful of that. And so much prayer went forth, but also decisions to take action. And so as the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, Urban Cure, we are developing out a three-prong program right now with those pastors, projects that we believe will be able to help turn the tide away from what we're hearing now, especially from the left, that they're going to go overboard with

this moment in time. They don't let a crisis go to waste, and yet this is a crisis. This was appalling to watch live time killing. But we also know as a people that we are unique, and we need to keep our minds set on that. We do not need some of what they are saying in the Congress now. that they're going to focus a lot more attention on ethnicity and race. I mean, it's embarrassing what the governor of Kentucky said that now he's just going to kind of, what, line up all the blacks and give him free health care? Or is this a special line we all have to get in? I mean, let's not go that path.

I think that the insistence that this is systemic racism should be questioned. We're talking about institutions that have a perception of racism, business, that has been governing for the last 50 years. But I think that what we should learn from this moment in time is to get rid of those programs, not increase their dimensions and their signs. We'll start in your email announcing this teleconference that you had with the pastors. You had said, I don't agree that our nation is racist. That mantra is the poison that entrenches resentment and division among us. The daily hunt for racism from top to bottom of our nation's institutions have institutionalized the perception of racism in the post-civil rights era.

And I know you've hit on this briefly a little bit, but can you dive into this perspective a little bit more on your thoughts here and how to move forward? Yeah, let's think about what we're being asked to do now as a society because of this incident that we all will agree should not have happened. We don't know all of the details. We will find out all of the details and justice will be served. This is not the 1950s where you wonder if justice is going to be served. justice will be served in this particular instance because the apparatus of the state that the incident occurred in, but as well as the American people are different people now. So let's think about where we're being taken now in this time. We're having now the educational apparatus, our institution of education, say let's do books. Let's have each white person go out and just try to find a black friend.

You know, this is offensive that we're going to. Now let's think of ways that we can approach that black person about their life. I really prefer that my grandchildren are thought of as unique individuals and not someone seeking them out because of their race to ask them questions that might be embarrassing, that might have nothing to do with a separated and different culture. The law is clear. Our Constitution is clear. And we as a people need to get to the place to where we know we're not colored blind, but where we're equal.

And that, I think, has already occurred. When the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, I think that it offered us an opportunity as American people to be one, a pluribus unum. But what we know now is there are people who have vested interest in overturning America. They don't believe that America is inherently good. They don't believe what the Toadil said about America. They think America is inherently evil. And this founding country that had slaves have to pay forever. And so in that, they're going to insist to rewrite America.

We're hearing it the rhetoric that we should no longer have police forces. Leave us alone. I don't know what else to say, but just leave us alone. Leave race out of every question. Let's just move on as individual, unique people. that friendships bond and that work relationship. You know, it's fascinating in work relationships. People, little two-year-olds, they work with anyone of any ethnicity

if they're working on trying to get a truck to run up a hill or they're playing in a playground. You know, if you're going to have racial insensitivities, they're learned. And there's nothing that a society can do to a parent that passes on those types of scourges. You can't legislate morality. We can govern behavior through law, but you can't legislate morality. We're not going to purge our country of every racist cop. It's just not human nature to be able to say, I can be good all of the time, and I can assure that no one will ever be a racist.

So I think that the goal for America should be to undo all of the perception of racism business, including all the affirmative action and racial preference programs. And then I think that we should just move on individually. Well, you also recently met with Vice President Mike Pence and other African-American leaders to discuss how the country can move forward following George Floyd's death. So is there anything from that meeting that you can share about insights that were discussed that you're excited about? Well, I think that Vice President Pence made it clear that the White House is alerted to ensure that not only justice is served for, for the family of Mr. Floyd, but also that justices served for those that had their property

violated and even loss of life during the domestic terrorism that occurred over the last week. Number one. Number two, the vice president assured us that we're going to look now at some of the questions that stem from the disparities in our, in our society when it comes to our poor because this White House has already been moving toward equalizes the playing field, if you will, by focusing attention on the economy, making sure that we reduce regulation in taxes so that the weakest link, the weakest communities will have flourishing. And there was some special attention place there as well because in the tax bill, a couple of senators put in a unique opportunity zone initiative that allowed for capital to flow into these hard hit zip codes so that business will come in and then jobs will be created and those communities will be turned around.

And interestingly, it worked. It worked very, very successfully. Black unemployment rates were lower than ever in our history. Family life was starting to develop because when people have money in their pocket, they can make decisions for their future. So we were already seeing great help coming from the leadership of the Trump administration. Unfortunately, for COVID, it was an interruption. And now, you know, with the riots, it's made a little bit more difficult, and it will be a little bit more difficult for those communities to bounce back.

But I'm confident that they will bounce back. Once someone has had a job, they will get another one. Star, would you have any advice for white Americans who are concerned about, Mr. Floyd's death and are wondering if there's anything they can do to improve race relationships in America or something that they can do practically to help their communities? Well, I think to improve race relations in America, one thing that whites might want to consider is helping those that are not getting the education that they need in our most distressed zip codes. And the way they can help is by fighting for money to follow children to the

schools parents want. We need parental choice. We need educational options. African-American poor families are begging to get out of these government-funded union-controlled schools. They're not serving the needs of their children. So that's one place that a society can help. But when you talk about what can white people do to black, the last thing we need to do is start looking only at ethnicity and saying because you're black, I'm going to come up with you and I'm going to try to make a relationship. Most Americans are cordial to their neighbors. They war cross-biles racially and ethnically owned projects at work and other places. So we need to not buy into the narrative that we're hearing from on high now and even on Congress and every kind of public place that America is systemically

racist. This is not true. So what we have to do is not have whites do that. If they want to help the Floyd family, help them. You know, we saw that the family is in need. They weren't expecting a death. And often when you're not expecting a death of a loved one, you might have to pass the hat. So if someone really feels in their selves that they need to do something, then do something. But this is not corporate action. The grief is your own. The grief is our own. This is not something that we do collectively because what we're doing collectively doesn't work. We see that in government programs. This doesn't work when we think that we can do a one-size fits all to build race relationships. No, if you have friends of other than

ethnicities, then build a friendship. But let's not make it a science. Friendships and relationships are art. And I think that we should embrace that. Well, Star, what a wonderful note to end on. Thank you so much for joining the Daily Signal podcast. We appreciate having you. Well, I appreciate being with you. Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all on Monday. And happy new year.

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