The Matt Walsh Show - Matt Walsh Breaks Down The Faulty Logic Behind Reparations [Weekly Walsh Original]

Episode Date: March 9, 2024

Hallow - Join Hallow’s Prayer 40 Challenge. You’ll also get 3 months free at https://hallow.com/MattWalsh      Reparations don't work. Here's why. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Make Mother's Day even more special at Whole Foods Market. Kick off brunch or dinner with quality cheese and charcutory with no synthetic nitrates. Then go seafood. There's an abundance on sale at Whole Foods Market, where it's all sustainable while caught are responsibly farmed. At the bakery, grab seasonal treats like their strawberry pretzel cream pie, and you can't go wrong with a ready-to-heathe Kish Lorraine, deviled eggs, and fresh-cut fruits to go. Celebrate Mom with Whole Foods Market.

We've talked about reparations quite a few times on this show, and I wish there was a subject that we could move past, but the race hustlers, of course, will not allow it. In fact, that is, you might say that the single objective of the race hustlers is to make sure that we never move past anything. A few days ago, the governor, Kathy Hokiole announced her appointments to the so-called Community Commission on Reparations Remedies. And the announcement came in a press release, which said the following, quote, the commission formed through legislation signed in December 2023, acknowledges the horrific injustice of slavery and is tasked with examining the legacy of slavery, subsequent discrimination against people of African consent, and the impact these forces continue to have in the present day. Through the work of this commission, our state can bleed in what should be a national conversation

about the truth of our past and the healing work required to create a more just future. Yes, well, that's what we need, most of all, isn't it? A national conversation about all the bad things that happened in this country hundreds of years ago. Now, you might think that we've already had that conversation. You might think that we've been having that conversation for years. You might think that we talk about our historical sins more than any country in the world or history has ever talked about their historical sins.

You might think that our national self-esteem has sunk into subterranean levels, and there's absolutely nothing to be gained by continuing to talk incessantly and exclusively about all of the terrible atrocities, whether real or imagined, that our ancestors inflicted on one another. You might think that our problem isn't our lack of focus on our flaws, but rather that we don't focus on anything but our flaws. You might think of all that, but that's because you are a normal, emotionally stable, psychologically well-adjusted person. Unfortunately, our country is not run by people like you. It's run by sadomasochistic lunatics, and that's how you end up with reparations commissions. Personally, I would probably enjoy seeing this proposal put into practice in San Francisco. just let them put themselves out of their misery and embrace the final ruination of their city and community through this crazy brain, you know, a hairbrain scheme.

But the mayor isn't quite insane enough to go along with it, so it hasn't happened. And instead, in lieu of making every black person in the city an instant powerball winner, the city voted last week instead to just issue an apology. Today, San Francisco supervisors may take another step towards formally apologizing to the city's African American people for policies that heard them or help them back. NBC Bay Area's Chris Sanchez joins us with the vote the supervisors will take up. Laura, this has been in the works for a while now, and the recommendation from the reparations committee is unanimous. We expect that the supervisors will approve and move forward with that formal apology, which as it's written reads in part, quote, on behalf of the city and county of San Francisco, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors offers its deepest apologies to all African Americans and their descendants who can't. came to San Francisco and were victims of systemic and structural discrimination, institutionalized racism,

targeted acts of violence and atrocities. Well, that ought to do it. Now we can all move on. I have to say, although this apology is pointless and stupid, I do deeply appreciate the humor of it. The race hustlers wanted $5 million a piece, and instead they got a two-paragraph apology. It's like promising your wife a trip to a tropical island for your anniversary, but instead you just give her a postcard with a picture of a tropical island on it. And, you know, I don't know.

They say it's the thought that counts, but in practice, that rarely turns out to be the case. Which is why, as you might expect, this apology has not been entirely well received. Reading now from Fox News, quote, A reparations expert says that San Francisco's apology to black residents won't mean anything if it's not backed with actions. Reparations are the redemptive act that makes the rhetoric of an apology, meaningful. Reparations scholar Roy Brooks, a law professor at the University of San Diego told USA Today, quote, you can't just say you're sorry and walk away, Brooks added, telling USA Today that, quote, an apology alone was not sufficient.

Oh, you want money. San Francisco voted Tuesday to formally apologize to black residents after decades of institutional racism. All 11 of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors signed on as sponsors of the resolution to apologize for the city's complicity in systemic and structural discrimination. Although the city officials voted unanimously to formalize an apology, some slammed the measure before it passed as insufficient due to other reparations being put on hold due to budget issues. Reverend Amos C. Brown, a member of the San Francisco Reparations Advisory Committee and the official proposed for the city to formally pass the apology,

also said it's not enough. An apology is just cotton candy rhetoric, Brown said. What we need is concrete actions. Concrete action, says the Reverend. Namely, one specific concrete action, and that is the action of putting cold hard cash into the Reverend's pocket. Money, money, money, money. This is how you know that someone has been sincerely and genuinely harmed.

You know, when you apologize to them and they say, no, it's not enough, nothing will ever heal my wounds, nothing but a briefcase with $5 million in cash. And speaking of which, as New York and San Francisco figure out the reparations puzzle, another viral video on the subject attempts to debunk objections to the reparations scheme. And let's see how well this person does.

Watch. Here's how most white people respond to the idea of reparations for African Americans. No one alive today was ever enslaved, and no one alive today was ever a slave owner. This is ridiculous. We're not giving away free money just based on race. Every culture has some form of slaves.

but every white person who is alive today is still benefiting from the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery and every black person who is alive today is still being negatively impacted by the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade in chattel slavery. It's not giving away free money to people based on their race. It's an overdue debt that has been owed for hundreds of years that has yet to be paid. Other cultures did not have chattel slavery where people were born into slavery in perpetuity with no way to get out of it and by no fault of their own and then terrorized. It's not only about chattel slavery, it's also about the white supremacist domestic terrorism against black people that has been happening for hundreds of years and it's still happening. It's still happening today. Reparations are for chattel slavery, yes, and also for the government sanctioned violence, displacement, dehumanization, criminalization, and marginalization of black people ever since chattel slavery ended, period. Got it? Good. She's very proud of herself, you can tell, but she shouldn't be proud of that shirt with the spiky shoulder pads.

Ew. It's like something a Star Trek villain would wear. She should ask for reparations from whoever sold her that shirt. I'm not equipped to give fashion advice, of course, but it looks like, it looks like doorknobs on our shoulders. Why? I don't get it. We're in the midst of Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter.

Many Christians are choosing to give up alcohol, social media, and other distractions to focus more on prayer, fasting, and giving. Hallow's annual Pray-40 Challenge is one of their most. popular. Last year, over a million people joined. This year's Pray-40 Challenge focuses on surrender and includes meditations on the powerful book, He Leadeth Me. This is a story about a priest who became a prisoner and slave in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. His story is one of ultimate surrender and we're called to offer up our worries, anxieties, problems, and lives to God. There will also be Lent music, lent-specific Bible stories and other Lenton prayers,

like the Seven Last Words of Christ with Jim Kivisel. Hallow is truly transformative and will help you connect with your faith on a deeper level. So what are you waiting for? Join Hallow's Prayer 40 Challenge. Download the Hallow app at hallow.com slash Matt Walsh. That's hallow.com slash Matt Walsh for an exclusive three-month free trial of all 6,000 prayers and meditations. As we know, everything she says in the video is false. It's not true that chattel slavery was unique to the Western world. This form of slavery existed all over the world. It was practiced by non-white cultures for thousands of years. This is just the kind of thing that if I already, if I didn't already have zero faith in the education system, I would find

this very troubling that this is, I mean, anyone could think this. If we're going to hand out reparations, given the ubiquity of slavery across the world for so many centuries, then we should, by all rights, have 30 different reparations programs to cover everyone whose ancestors were negatively impacted by it, which would be basically everyone. I'm a victim of oppression. I'm 13% victim. I'm 21% victim. If it's true that people can be owed restitution for the legacy of harm that impacts them in unspecified and unknowable ways today, then again, reparations should come in many forms. But of course, you know, when you think about it, you realize that indeed the reparations mentality does

come in many forms. The basic idea behind reparations is that a person is owed something from society because of the theoretical disadvantages that they experience. And there, done. What have you done? I painted the truth. I painted my truth. Slavery reparations is just one manifestation of that spiritual sickness. There are many other manifestations of it. Indeed, our culture and our politics is driven by this mentality.

So just yesterday, we talked about programs in cities across the country that give no strings attached cash payments to disadvantaged people. Cash payments that, as we read, are often used on spa treatments and fancy vacations and that sort of thing. And this was not, you know, framed. slavery reparations, but it's basically a form of reparations. We're giving people money that they didn't earn because, for some reason, in some way that no one can explain, they are owed it. Again, this is pervasive. Slaves built this country. And we demand our 40 acres and a mule. Now, if you go up to a person like this and you ask them to tell you about their goals, about their ambitions, about their deepest longings, and if you ask them that, they probably wouldn't be

to answer the question. What do you want? It's not that simple. What do you want? They wouldn't be able to tell you what their goals are, what they want to accomplish. But if you ask them to list all of the ways that their lives are unfair, well, they provide a detailed accounting. I mean, they'll talk your ear off. Then it's like, how much time do you have? You know, I can tell you for six hours about that. Oh, you're hurting me. It's what drives them, drives them in circles to be specific. And this is the worst thing about reparations in all of its forms. It's not that the schemes are always economically suicidal, though they are. It's rather that they feed and encourage a mentality that dooms people to lives of discontentment and envy.

It leads to a passive life, a life spent waiting for someone else to come along and give you what you think you are owed. Give me that. What? Give me that. When in reality, you're not owed anything at all. Nobody is in debt to you simply because you exist, and they exist. And they Does that mean that you haven't been negatively impacted by things that have happened to you and even things that happened to your ancestors generations ago? Whoever buys me? They better kill me the first day. I'm going to go buck wild on the whole operation. No, it doesn't mean that. Indeed. Bad things have happened to you. If you're a person, there have been bad things that have been bad things that have been. And bad things happen to your ancestors, whoever you are, and whoever your ancestors were. And some of those bad things may even reverberate today. I don't deny that. Regardless, your history is what it is, or was what it was, we should say.

If things were different, you could be in a better place, you could be in a worse place. As we've covered before, you could not even exist at all. It's just a thought exercise, and it's not a very helpful or useful one. And when this thought exercise becomes the animating force of your entire life, when this idea that you could have it better if only this and that thing hadn't happened in the past, then it becomes incredibly harmful, because it's preventing you from living actively and pro-examined, proactively. If you want to make your life better, then go make it better. Stop waiting for someone else to do it for you. That's the only productive way to live. And it's why reparations

in all of its many diverse forms is today canceled. Oh, you almost had it. You've got to be quicker than that. Lots of places can expose you to identity theft. Oh no. That's why LifeLock monitors hundreds of millions of data points a second for threats to your identity, which is way more than anyone can do on their own. If we find anything suspicious, like new loans or changes to your financial accounts, we alert you right away, all through text, phone, email, or the LifeLock app. Get the alerts that could make all the difference. Save up to 40% your first year at LifeLock.com slash special offer.

Terms apply.