TRIGGERnometry - Larry Elder - "Police Systemic Racism Is a Dangerous Lie"

Episode Date: April 25, 2021

Larry Elder is an American author, documentary filmmaker and host of The Larry Elder Show. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/  OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: PayPal.me/triggerpod https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kishon. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. It does not get any more fascinating than the guest we have for you today. He is the host of the Larry Elder show. Larry Elder, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. It's a great pleasure to have you on. Most of our audience will be familiar with you so we won't get into the details of your life just yet. Listen, the question I've asked Glenn Lowry, I've asked other prominent black people, black conservatives that we've spoken to on the show, has always been the same question. I remember where I was where Barack Obama was elected.

I know that you're not a fan of his, but I remember where I was because it was a significant moment for a country that had had slavery for centuries to elect a black man as president was quite a thing, I thought, as just an outsider looking in. What happened, Larry? Well, I got a phone call all over the country. Phone calls all over the country after Obama got elected. And I got a call from someone from the UK. And they said, President Barack Obama has just gotten elected. The first African-American president. Yet you did not support him.

Wasn't that a bit awkward? And I said for him or for him or for me. Look, I am happy that people feel that his election was, a statement about how fair America is. I felt America has been fair so that America would have elected a black person who was qualified for a very long period of time, but for a lot of people, it was a confirmation that America has crossed the so-called racial divide. I didn't feel that way at all. Again, I felt very happy that a man like that could get elected, but I didn't think it made some deep statement about America. I'm in Los Angeles, and in 19, I think it was 69, L.A., which

was the third largest city at the time, voted for a black mayor, and voted for him four times. He ran twice for governor of California, the largest state in the union, and barely lost both times. And so I thought his statement was made a long time ago about how fair America is, and Obama just came along and benefited from it. This is a man who has a beautiful resume, came out of nowhere to be a much more experienced politician named Hillary Rodham Clinton. And this is what's really important, guys. In 2007, there was a Gallup poll, and Gallup is probably the most prestigious polling organization in America. And they ask Americans, would you not vote for a black person referring to Obama? Would you not vote for a female referring to Hillary?

On the Republican side, would you not vote for a Mormon referring to Mitt Romney, who was competing for the nomination? Would you not vote for somebody who would be 72 years old when he became president, referring to the aging John McCain? Gallup found 5% of Americans said they would not, under any circumstances, vote for a black person, 11% said they would not vote for a female, 24% said they would not vote for a Mormon, and 42% of Americans in 2007 said they would not vote for somebody who would be 72 years old when he became president. So Obama had a lower hurdle, an easier path to the White House than these three white politicians who were far more well-funded and far more experienced and far better. not. So don't give me this crap about how Obama somehow made a statement about how fair

America is. America has been fair for a very, very long period of time. And he simply benefited from the changing racial attitudes that Americans have engaged in for decades. Right. So that's what I'm getting at. You paint what many people would argue is an idyllic picture of America, which is great that you do that. But what happened since? What happened since Larry? Why is America, because we watch from the outside descending into chaos seemingly on these issues. America descending into chaos, are you kidding me? What about the riots? What about the burning buildings? What about every time a police officer shoots someone?

You know, we just had a case. We're talking about a girl is stabbing another girl. Police officer arrives on the scene, shoots the assault, the person doing the assault, and he's now the target. LeBron James is targeting him with tweets. Well, that's what I'm talking about. Okay, yeah. The reaction to the allegation of systemic racism is far more serious than the actual presence of systemic racism. That's what's going on here. Let's just take police, for example. You're right about these riots that took place in our street for four consecutive months. A police officer, an individual police officer was accused of murdering an individual named George Floyd. Nothing more, nothing less. But the media, the Democrats and politicians have used this to further their own interest. The media doesn't. for ratings, the politicians do it for votes. Because as long as you can convince, 13% of the population, and that's the black population, that they are oppressed, that they're persecuted by the dastardly white man, whether it's Republicans, Donald Trump, or the police,

they're going to get 95% or so black people to march in their like livings and pull that lever for the Democratic Party. When you look at the numbers, it paints a very different picture. There are roughly 50 million civilian police interactions in America every year and a population of around 350 million people. That results into 11 million arrests. 60,000 officers are assaulted every year, and last year between 50 and 60 officers were killed by civilians. Out of all of that, the police kill on average, according to the Washington Post, a thousand people per year. 500 of them are white, 250 of them are black. So the police kill twice as many whites as they kill blacks, and the police kill more unarmed whites every year than they kill unarmed blacks.

is that the media does not care when an unarmed a white person is killed, but when an armed black person is killed, the act is it some sort of referendum on the police. In fact, out of the 7,000 homicide victims last year, black, and that's 50% of the total homicide victims in America, out of 13% of the population come 50% of the homicide victims. That's roughly 7,000 black homicide victims last year. Out of that number, the number of black unarmed people killed by cops, one-third of one percent. Most blacks in America are killed by other blacks, just as most whites in America,

when they're killed, are killed by other whites. It is a lie that the police are engaging in some sort of systemic racism against black people. It has been studied for decades. There's a very long piece in the Washington Post. They are specifically April 27, 2016. I know that because that's my birthday,

April 27, not the 2016 part. But a long article about the a series of tests and interviews with officers going back over decades, showing if anything, the police are more hesitant, more reluctant to pull the trigger on a black suspect than a white suspect. There are a group of researchers from a university called Washington State University. They've done this experiment over decades, three different times, based over several years, each time, same result.

The cops are three times more hesitant to pull the trigger on a black suspect than a white suspect. The number one cause of preventable death for young whites in America is accidents, like car accidents. The number one cause of preventable death for young blacks in America is homicide. A young black man is eight to ten times more likely to be a victim of a homicide than a young white man. That's why the cops are there. It is an absolute lie that the police are engaging in systemic racism against blacks. And it's not just a harmless lie. It's a dangerous lie because what happens is the police pull.

back when they're victims of these false accusations. It's called the Ferguson effect, and now it's called the George Floyd effect, where every time one of these high-profile shootings take place and the cops are falsely accused of engaging in systemic racism, the police pull back and they just respond to radio calls. They don't drive around looking to be proactive. Why should they? They're going to put themselves in the middle of something. They could be accused of racism. So to hell with it. Crime goes up. Bad guys know it. They're out in the streets. And what happens is young black men are coached, trained to believe that the police are out to get them. So when you're pulled over and you're a young black man, instead of it being as an ordinary

police stop, it escalates into something far more serious because you don't believe that the officer is there to protect and serve. You believe that the officer is an enemy. So what you're doing is training young black people not to cooperate and therefore these incidents escalated into something far more deadly. Virtually every one of these incidents guys, whether it's Eric Gardner in New York, or Michael Brown in Ferguson, or George Floyd in Minneapolis, or Jacob Blake in Atlanta, virtually every one of these things would have been avoided had the young black men simply comply. And if they felt that they were mistreated, get a name, get a bad number, and resolve it later on. Instead, the so-called leaders, including Joe Biden, are throwing gasoline on all of this

by lying about what the police are doing and making things far worse. So the reaction to the allegation of systemic racism, gentlemen, is far, far worse than the actual presence of systemic racism. Now, you say that, Larry, and it's a very, very good point. When we look at what happened with George Floyd, that was a very, very, you know, shocking incident, particularly for people for us in the UK. Do you think that that is just a one-off, or unfortunately, do you get bad apples in the American police force?

and that this happens every once in a while? Well, I think in every organization, you're going to have bad apples. Maybe 1% of all police officers are like that. The most horrific scandal in L.A. history is called the Rampart scandal. If you remember the movie that Denzel Washington started in called Training Day, it was all about and inspired by the so-called Rampart scandal, which was a big, big scandal. It involved a grand toll of 70 police officers.

Out of police force of close to 10,000. So it was less than 1%. Now, anything north of zero is too many, and one officer can do a great deal of damage and damage the reputation of the other 99%. And we have to deal with it. But to act as if it's some sort of broad-based performance on the part of the police is extremely unfair. Even in the George Floyd case, in the prosecution's opening statement, the prosecutor said, a black man, by the way, said that the Minneapolis Police Department is not on trial. This particular individual officers on trial for allegedly murdering this particular individual named George Floyd, nothing more, nothing less. It's the media that takes us and acts as if it's some sort of referendum on America in general and on the police in particular when it is nothing of the sort. These things should be dealt with on a case by case basis. I gave a speech once before a bunch of football students at Ohio State University. I was invited by the then coach. And he had a Black Lives Matter proponent in the month before that stirred him all up, made it.

him all angry, and he asked me if I would come in and give my point of view. And I did. And there must have been about 100 football players. And I said, you can probably name the blacks who have been killed by the police. And I rattled off some of the names. And I said, are you aware there are more unarmed whites every year killed by the police than unarmed blacks? And I said, name one. And I dropped my mind. And I crossed my hands like this. And the room was silent for 20 seconds because nobody can think of anybody. I can think of several unarmed whites who've been killed over years because this is what I do, but they didn't know a single one of them. I got a phone call the other day from a woman named Gloria from Dallas, Texas. Larry, she's angry at me. You're always talking about

how the police killed unarmed whites. I can't make of a time when the police stood on an unarmed white person and put him in a street like that and treated them the way they did George Floyd. And I said, Gloria, Gloria, you're in Dallas. 2016, Google a man named Tony Temper, T-I-M-like-Marry, he like Paul A. He was a schizophrenic man. 9-1-1 was called. He was put on the ground, held on the ground. The officer put their feet on his shoulder. He was held longer than was George Floyd. It was horrific. The man happened to be white. The officers were mostly white. They were investigated, but nothing happened. My point is, this was in her own city, and she was unaware of it because the national media did not make a big deal out of it. A few years ago, there was a a man named Kelly Thomas, T-H-O-M-S-A-S. His father was even a cop for crying out loud. White guy, also mentally ill. Not only did the police beat him up,

one officer put gloves on and said, I'm going to F-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-U-R. Kelly Thomas was white. Not long ago in California, I think it was in December. There was a Navy vet for crying out loud named Kinto, Q-U-I-N-T-O. According to his family, the video and sound video, the police, Antioch, Antioch Police Department held his neck for five minutes. And the man ultimately died after

taken to the hospital. Again, a big deal locally, but not a big deal nationally. And the man happened to be a Filipino-American, not black, ergo the national media did not give a damn. Also a few months ago, police pursuing somebody on foot. The suspect run into a backyard. police sees a man who matches the suspect, shoots and kill the suspect. Turns out it wasn't the suspect. He was the resident of the house who heard a commotion,

came outside to find out what was going on, and the police shot and killed him. Now, the man who was shot and killed was white, the cop was white, the suspect who was pursued, ultimately captured, was white. Ergo, national media did not give a damn. Had that homeowner been a black man, I'm sure we know his name,

the Bronjays would have tweeted about it. This is my point. The police are killing more whites every year than blacks, more unarmed whites every year than blacks, but it does not fit the narrative. It is true that the rate at which the police kill blacks is two and a half times higher than the rate at which they kill whites. And that's what people often refer to. But as I said earlier, a young black man is eight to ten times for likely to be a victim of a homicide than a young white man. So if anything, the two and a half time rate is lower than one would have predicted based upon the number of crimes that are being committed. So if anything, the police are showing a great deal of hesitant and reluctant in pulling the trigger against a black suspect, than a white suspect.

Larry, what about non-fatal incidents? Because we had Coleman Hughes on the show, who I'm sure you know, a very interesting young guy. And he was talking about the evidence that there is some evidence to suggest that police are more likely to rough up a black suspect versus a white suspect. Isn't that an area of concern? No, not an area of concern. the Harvard, a black Harvard professor named Roland Fryer, F-R-Y-E-R, had never done any work on police shootings of blacks, but because of the high-profile stuff,

he just knew that the police were using disproportionate deadly force against black people and thought he would do a survey to prove this. And he said the results were the most surprising of his professional career. Again, not only were the police not killing blacks because they were black, the police were more hesitant, more reluctant to pull the trigger on a black suspect than a white suspect. He did find, however, that the police were 18 to 20 times more likely to use non-deadly force on a black suspect than a white suspect. And I have two reactions to that.

The first is 18% is not a whole lot more, but more importantly, isn't that because they don't want to get to the point where they're using deadly force? So therefore, they're using non-deadly force more frequently on a black suspect, not to get to the point where they're at DefCon 1, that's probably what's going on. When you talk to cops, that's what they tell you. We do not want to use deadly force on a black person. That's the last thing we want to do. As a result, very likely they're using non-deadly force, probably more urgently on a black suspect than on the white suspect. If that's what's going on, I don't find that a bad thing. And if that is the case, and why is it that we get the president of

the United States talk about systemic racism? You get Carmelahara talking about systemic racism, the police are institutionally racist, or why is this happening then? It's a con for votes. Regarding Mr. Biden, Mr. Biden has been lying about his civil rights record for over 30 years. For 30 years, he has said, when I was a young teenager in Wilmington, Delaware, I would go to black churches and I was strategized on how we were going to desegregate lunch counters and movie theaters in Wilmington, Delaware. No evidence he ever did any of And when the New York Times, a few years ago, investigate it and said just what I said, the New York Times said Biden's AIDS, quote, gently reminded him, close quote, that what he said is not true. And Biden kept saying it anyway, said the New York Times. Biden has lied and said that every time he's ever run a race, the NAACP has endorsed him. The NAACP is the most prestigious civil rights group in America. The NDACP is a nonprofit. They cannot endorse anybody. They have never endorsed him. He lied.

He lied and said that when he was in South Africa during apartheid, he was arrested trying to visit Nelson Mandela in jail. No evidence he ever did any of it. This is a man who once told a black radio host, if you don't want to vote for me, if you don't know whether you want to vote for me or vote for Trump by now, you ain't really black. This is a man Joe Biden who once told a predominantly black audience that his opponent who did not want to push for further regulations on Wall Street, wanted to, wanted to, unchained Wall Street, want to unchain Wall Street, want to put y'all back in chains. This guy has played the race card his entire career. It is insulting. He treats blacks like children to whom the truth cannot be told, and I find it, I find it vulgar. Regarding Kamala Harris, exactly the same thing. Pick up the race card, play it, stir up 13% of the population,

get them voting 95% for us, and it will keep us in power. Never mind the damage these lies do, of black people. The number one problem facing black America is not systemic racism. It's not inequality. It's the fact that 70 percent, 70 percent of black kids are raised or brought him to this world without a father in the home. And Barack Obama once said, a kid without a father is five times more likely to be poor and commit crimes, nine times more likely to drop out of school, 20 times more likely to end up in jail. Now, the question is, why has America gone from having 25% of young black boys brought into the world without a father, 25% in 1965 to 70% right now. And I argue, gentlemen, it is the welfare state.

The welfare state has incentivized women to marry the government and has allowed men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility. It is particularly hit hard in the black community. But not just the black community, 50% of Hispanic kids are raised without fathers. And I mentioned in 1965, 25% of black kids. kids were. Now 25% of white kids are. All together, 40% of American kids are brought into the world without a father married to the mother. It is far and away the biggest problem facing this country. Look, I spend a lot of time telling you what's wrong with the world, so let me tell you about

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Sign up for their newsletter, Access of Easy, that tells you everything you need to know about technology, privacy and censorship. Larry, you bring up that issue, which I know is a big thing you care a lot about, and it kind of ties into your personal story, which I wanted to touch on. Your brilliant movie, Uncle Tom, which I really enjoyed. It's just so beautiful. made touches on that, your many books, you've talked about this as well. Tell everybody sort of an abridged version of your story, your father, your family, because a lot of people watching this, you know, in the UK, what you're saying will be just, they've never heard it before. You're like a unicorn. A black man talking like you are is incredible. So how did you become so strange, Larry? How did you get to where you are now? Well, the reaction often is, well,

This guy must have been born on third base and thought he hit a triple. When, in fact, my father cleaned toilets when I was growing up. My father had two full-time jobs cleaning toilets. He cooked for a family on the weekend and went to night school to get his GED because my father was kicked out of the home when he was 13 years old by his irresponsible mother. My last name elder is not the name of my father's biological father. It's the name of a man who was in my dad's life, the longest, who's an alcoholic who was physically abusive. My father never met his biological father.

My father comes home at the age of 13 and starts quarreling with his mom's then-boyfriend. The mother sighed with the boyfriend, throws my father out of the house never to return. You're talking about a 13-year-old black boy in the Jim Crow South at the beginning of the Great Depression. And I defy very many people listening to us to find somebody who had a hand dealt like that. My father just took any job he could. Ultimately, he became a Coleman Porter. on the train. They were like a ballet for the trains. And he came out to California, and it was sunny, and people seemed less racist. And my father said, I could walk into a restaurant in the front door

and get served. It blew his mind. And he decided maybe someday he might relocate to California. Well, the war broke out. My dad joined the Marines. He was stationed in Guam. He was a staff sergeant in charge of cooking. My father can look at a cake and tell you what's in it. That's how good he is. after the war is over, he goes back to the south, a place called Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he met and married my mom. And he walked around all day to get a job as a cook. And he was told to his face, we don't hire niggers. My dad went to an unemployment office. The lady said, you went through the wrong door.

He goes out to the hall. He sees colored only, goes through that door to the very same lady who sent him out. He came home to my mom and said, this is BS. I'm going to California. I'm going to give me a job as a cook. He walks around out here to L.A. and he's told, you don't have any references. My father said, I need references to make ham and eggs.

So he goes to an unemployment office, this time just one door. And as I mentioned, he takes the first job he can get cleaning toilets for 10 years at a bread company called Nabisco. Then he got another job full-time cleaning toilets and another bread company called Barbara and Bread, and then went to cook for a family on the weekends and went to night school to get his GED. The reason my father was always so grouchy, the reason my brother's and I, disliked him so much is he was tired all the time. When I was 25 years old, after not having spoken to my dad for 10 years, because I thought he was such a mean person, we sat down for what I thought was going to be a five-minute conversation. It ended up being eight hours, and during the eight-hour conversation, my father outlined his life just as I did to you guys. And I wrote a book about this called Dear Father, Dear Son, Two Lives, Eight Hours, About this conversation. And by the time we ended the conversation, I'm crying because I judge my dad so harshly, and I said, father, please forgive me. And my dad said, there's nothing to forgive. Just follow the advice I've always given you and your brothers. Hard work wins. You get out

of life what you put into it. Larry, you cannot control the outcome, but damn it, you are 100% in control of the effort. And before you complain about how somebody mistreated you, go to the nearest mirror, look at it and say, how could I have changed the outcome. And finally, he said, no matter how hard you work, how good you are sooner or later, bad things will happen. How you address those bad things will tell me and your mother if we raised a man. If anybody had a right to believe America was bedeviled by systemic racism, it is my father. My father was the most hopeful, optimistic person you ever saw in your life, and he was a lifelong Republican, even though my mom was a lifelong Democrat. My father used to always say, Democrats want to give you something for nothing.

And when you try and get something for nothing, you almost always end up getting nothing for something. That was his philosophy, and that is my philosophy. Right, and it's a very, very powerful philosophy, Larry. And why is it, do you think that so many, particularly young people, have fallen for this narrative of BLM and what the Democrats are saying, if it isn't true, as you say? By the way, the boat on my dad's story is my dad's saved nickels and dimes, and when he was 42 years old, he started a cafe,

which he ran until he was 82 years old, bought the property next door, bought his own house, of course. My father is a success story, if there ever was one. As for your question, what's going on here? It's because it advances the agenda of a whole bunch of people. It advances the agenda of Al Sharpton. It advances the agenda of Jesse Jackson. It advances the agenda of the Democratic Party.

It advances the agenda of the media that does it for ratings. And I'm convinced many young reporters have been indoctrinated into this notion that black people are bedeviled by systemic racism. You know, there's a genre of movie called this, the white savior movie that now all of a sudden is a negative genre. It's movies like Michelle Pfeiffer, which takes a job as a teacher in the inner city and turns around all these rough black guys. It's Sean Connery in a movie called Saving Forrester, where he basically adopts a black kid and turns him around. All of a sudden, movies like that are considered to be patronizing and demeaning and condescending. They're called white savior movies.

But white savior politicians, like Joe Biden, who lies in. by the civil records to get to get votes. People like Beto O'Rourke who accuses America of engaging in endemic racism, a term I had never heard before. Foundational racism, a term I'd never heard before. They're not called white savior politicians, but they're doing the very same thing, treating you like a child to whom the truth cannot be told. The idea that the Georgia voting law is voter oppression, you're saying black people can't figure out how to vote. It's insulting But they do it for votes. And unfortunately, because of the failure of a lot of blacks, they have appropriate guidance in the home to teach them appropriate values, they're falling for this.

They're angry. And the Democrats are tapping into this anger and not saying the way to deal with this anger is pick up your car as the way Larry Elder's dad did and deal them and play them to the best of your ability. If Larry Elder's father can become a success decades ago, how in the world can you complain right now in 2021 where all you're, you have to do is work hard, stay focused and avoid, avoid bad moral mistakes, and you'll be just fine in America. Do you really believe that, Larry? Or isn't there some parts of America that are so riven with poverty that it's almost impossible to get out of, you know, the fact that the rich and the gap between rich and poor

is increasing all the time? 1997, CNN and Time magazine teamed up to do this massive survey of black teens and white teens in America. And both were asked, do you believe that racism remains a major problem in America? And not too surprisingly, the majority of both said yes. Within time and CNN asked the following question. Again, this is 1997. We're talking about 24 years ago.

Is racism to the blacks a major problem, a small problem, or no problem in your own daily life? 89% of black teens said racism was either a small problem or no problem in my own daily life. In fact, more black teens than white teens said, and I'm quoting, failure to take advantage of available opportunities is a bigger problem than racism. More black teens said yes to that proposition than did white teens. All you have to do is stay focused. but as long as every night a black child does less homework than a white child and substantially less homework than the Asian American child,

we're always going to have this problem, which means it comes back to the home. Barbara Bush, the wife of the former president George Herbert Walker Bush said, what happens in your house is far more important than what happens in the White House. And that was true then, it is true now. Larry, but I guess what Francis is getting at and maybe picking up on both your points, you make the case, obviously, the breakdown of the family. You put that together with growing up in a neighborhood that's full of crime,

not many jobs, not many good examples, not many good role models. And it does become, in that situation, a lot harder to dig yourself out of that situation than it would be for someone else. So is it all just about hard work, or do you not think there is an element where, you know, government can intervene or private enterprises can intervene to make life easier for people who do have a harder time. Like you say, who've been dealt some really bad cards in life. Well, put it like this. If there's nobody in your home to make sure that you have gone to bed on time, there's nobody in your home to make sure you've done your home. There's nobody in your

home to make sure you've gotten three squares a day and that you've been sufficiently educated to appreciate education so that you go to school, willing to learn. There's nothing anybody can do. And if Barack Obama, the most respected man in America, said the kinds of things I said and talked about the lie of police systemic racism and talked about the importance of hard work, I don't think we're having this conversation.

And that being the case, Larry, we are where we are. How do we solve these problems? How do we improve society? Because it's all very well to identify a problem, but we need solutions, don't we? The solution begins with changing your perspective. There are 7 billion people in the world. I'm arrogant enough to believe that the majority of them would come to America if they could.

Right now, there are some Cubans facing shark-infested waters trying to get here to America. All you have to do is appreciate education. You get a free education K-12. America spends more money K-12 than any other country in the world, other than Luxembourg and Switzerland, where we're getting lousy results. You have to do your homework. There are think tanks on the left called the Brookings Institution, arguably the most prestigious think tank in America on the left, and there are things on the right, one of which is the American Enterprise Institute. And they both pretty much said the same thing about how to escape poverty.

It's called the millennial success sequence. Finish high school. Don't have a kid until you get married. Get a job, keep a job. Don't quit that job until you get another one and avoid the criminal justice system. You do that. The percentage of people who are in poverty is single digit. You don't do that. The percentage of people who are in poverty is in double digits close to 50%. That's the formula for success. You don't follow that. I don't know what to tell you.

But if somebody doesn't have somebody at home in order to keep them on the straight and narrow, you know, I'm a former teacher. I've seen it myself time and time again. It comes a point, especially in a boy's life, where mom can't control him anymore. We're 13, 14 years old. He gets physically bigger than mom. He says, you know what? I'm going to go out. There's nothing that you can do to stop me. Right. And that's where mentors come in. And that's where programs come in. And there are lots of programs, big boys, big brothers, big sisters. Get involved. There are lots of people right now who are retired.

People are retiring earlier and they're healthier and more vigorous. I urge all these people to get involved. I've been doing radio for about 30 years, guys. And I've tried to get Jesse Jackson on my program. He won't come on. Maxine Waters won't come on. Minister Farrakhan won't come on. Al Sharpton won't come on.

But one of these so-called black leaders did come on. His name is Kueza Imfume. At the time, he was president of the NAACP. Before that, he was a member of the House from Baltimore. Now he's back in the House from Baltimore. And I said, Mr. Infoume, as between the presence of white racism or the absence of black fathers, which poses a bigger problem in the black community, to his credit, without missing a beat, he said the absence of black fathers.

We need to shower the community with role models, with leaders, with men who've raised families who are now retired and can use their knowledge and advice and wisdom to help other people. Get involved. Mentor people. Again, if there's nobody in your house and tell you to go to bed on time and make sure you've done your homework, I have no other, I have no other answers for you other than you've got to do that. You have to pick up your cards and play them to the best of your ability. That is your moral duty. And anybody that tells you other than to do that is engaging, in my opinion in a horrific disservice to these young black people who need to hear a positive voice and to know and to see a positive vision.

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Larry, you talk about doing a disservice. One of the things that I find really troubling about the times we're in and the way that these conversations are being had is everything has now become about race. And, you know, growing up, I was a huge Michael Jordan fan. Now, I was born in Russia from a sort of Russian-Jewish background, not black, clearly. right, and it never occurred to me that Michael Jordan was black because he was just a great man who I found inspirational. And I just wonder if I have a son now who's 12, 13 playing basketball as I did as a kid, I don't think there's any possibility for him to have that pure unadulterated

experience. Does it concern you that we're so obsessed with this issue now? Absolutely. I've said race has never been less significant a factor in American success, but it's never been a more significant factor for the Democrat Party's success. And that's what's going on. You mentioned Michael Jordan. You remember the dream team in the 90s? They went around.

They clobbered the whole world. They won games by 50, 60, 70 points. They're not winning those gains by that margin anymore because the rest of the world raised their game. We didn't lower the hoop. They raised their game. Black Americans need to raise their game. Again, as long as we're spending way less

time doing homework every night than white kids and way less time every every night doing homework than Asian American kids while being perfectly willing to go to the gym and practice the jump throw 500 times a night, we're in trouble. Most kids are not going to become basketball players. You're going to do it the way I did, getting an education, go to college, get a job, and work your way up in your career. That's what we ought to be telling people, but we're not. And how's that message getting through, Larry? Well, it's not getting through.

When you have a shooting like this and you have somebody like LeBron James who lives in the gated community saying, quote, black people are afraid to leave their homes close. You're not helping anything when I just now got off from watching CNN and they had an educator on who talked about the importance of putting time into educating and he's got a nonprofit that's only done by donations that graduated 100% of kids on to colleges. And he talks about how hard this is and why this is important. And the two CNN hosts suggest it's very good not to hear a bunch of negative stuff. Well, you're the ones putting out the negative stuff. When George Floyd got killed, that was 24-7. Meanwhile, a few days ago, a two-year-old toddler shot in the head, black toddler by another black person, and Kamala Harris was in Chicago the following day on some sort of Joe Biden

infrastructure initiative. She didn't mention it, nor was she even asked about it. in Chicago, which is a third black, a third white, and a third Hispanic, 80% of the homicides, black on black. Kamala Harris did not say one word about that. Baltimore has a murder rate three times higher than the murder rate in Chicago, even though Chicago has the greatest absolute numbers of homicides every year. But Chicago, last year, there were 400 homicides, 90% of them black on black in a city of roughly 65% black people. St. Louis, 45% black people, 300 homicides last year, 90% black on black.

Where's Kamala Harris? Where's Joe Biden on that? Not a damn thing, but you let a white cop shoot a black person and they're ready to march on Washington. It's misdirection. It's causing energy and attention to be diverted away from K through 12 schools. There are 13 public high schools in Baltimore where zero percent of kids can do math at grade level. And another half a dozen, but only one percent can. Yet the Democratic Party is opposed to vouchers so that the money can follow the child rather than the other way around. So maybe you're a parent living next door to a school where only 13% of the kids can do math at great level can put that kid into a better school so that kid can have a better possibility. The Democrats are on the wrong side of that issue, and for some reason, black people still pull that lever 95% for them, even though the number one route to escaping poverty is a quality education. And Larry, I agree with you on the issue when it comes to education. It is the number one.

It's the only way for the vast majority of kids who come from a deprived background, to get out of that situation. But why is it that we can't have sensible discussions about this topic? We have the same problem in the UK. We recently had a race report commissioned by a conservative government, and all of a sudden it just descended into name-calling, all these people who were on the commission, very, very notable people, very well-respected people,

a lot of whom were black conservatives, had horrible epithets held at them, Why can we not have a simple, honest, and rational discussion about a topic? Let's be fair, doesn't just affect black people. It affects everyone. Well, the reason the left does not want to hear this is because if what I'm saying is true, that means the policies that the left has been pushing for the last 50 years, giving people more and more stuff to encourage them to marry the government, as I put it,

they have to rethink that. that requires them to rethink everything they believe from A to Z, and that is a discussion they don't want to have. Talk about cognitive dissonance. And so, therefore, if you have that philosophy and anybody who disagrees with you is not only wrong, they become part of the problem. They become part of the enemy. That's why you can't have a rational discussion. I believe that the other side is wrong. The other side believes I'm not just wrong, but I am a bad human being.

I'm a fundamentally bad person. When you have that kind of attitude, how in the world are you? going to have a discussion. Let me just give you another example of the intolerance of the left. There is a black editor of the New York Times, arguably the most important newspaper in the world. His name is Dean Bacquet. First black editor, and he's still there. One of the, one of his decisions was to hire a new columnist named Brett Stevens. He's a Republican, a Trump basher, white, the kind of Republican that New York Times often hires, the ones that will take swipe to the Republican Party. I'm not.

He was not a fan of Brett Stevens, but he hired him. And Brett Stevens' first column was about his skepticism about climate change alarmism. He wasn't skeptical about climate change. The climate is always changing. He was skeptical about the extent to which it's going to have all the horrific consequences that some people claim. That was his first column. Dean Beké said people contacted the New York Times, complained, canceled their subscriptions,

and he later on publicly said, I found out, quote, that the left as a general rule does not want to hear thoughtful disagreement, quote. This is the executive editor of the New York Times saying the left as a general rule does not want to hear thoughtful disagreement, close quote. So I argue the left is the problem. They don't want to hear thoughtful disagreement, whether it's about climate change, whether it's about racism, whether it's about what the welfare state, is done to the family, they don't want to hear thoughtful disagreement. So I urge my friends on the left to look into the mirror and ask yourself, do you really want to have a conversation, or do you really want to just denounce the other side? And you say denounce the other side. Why is it so taboo for a black

person to come out as a conservative? When you bear in mind, so when I was working, I used to, I spent a lot of my career working in South and East London, with a lot of first generation African immigrants, second or third generation Caribbean. Most of the people that I encountered in those schools were socially conservative and conservative in their values as well. So why is it that it's taboo for a black person to be conservative?

Again, I represent the worst nightmare for somebody on the left. Somebody who believes in hard work, somebody believes in merit, somebody who does not believe in lowering standards, somebody's not blaming white people, somebody who recognize that the most important thing is the family. That shoots down a whole bunch of sacred cows on the left, so I become a villain.

I understand that. Somebody wants to ask Thomas Sol, why it is you don't spend your time trying to convince some of these so-called black leaders of the wrongfulness of their point of view. He said, I would never, I would not waste my time trying to convince people to drop using victimhood to make a living as I would to try to convince the mafia to stop engaging in crime. And do you think this is really part of it? And it happens on the right as well, but particularly on the left, it seems to me that the politicians like the Joe Biden's and the Kamala Harris's and others, they're sort of held hostage by the extremists in their base. They're a small fringe, but their voices are powerful. And the moment anyone steps out of line, they will come down on you like a ton of bricks. And then they will ruin your reputation in the Democratic Party.

And you'll never get elected unless you bend the need to this ideology. I think you're right. I think the real power in the Democratic Party is the so-called squad, people like AOC, and they're putting a lot of pressure on people like Joe Biden, who for the most part ran as a moderate. He would even point blank was ask about the $15 minimum wage, ask about reparations, ask about tuition for debt forgiveness, ask about whether he wants Washington, D.C. to be a state, ask about getting rid of the filibuster. He was asked specifically about all those things at some point during the campaign, and he said he was. He was asked specifically about all those things at some point during the campaign. And he said he was, he was. not in favor of them. Now he's probably in favor of all of them. I think he's yielded to the power of that part of the squad. That's where the base is. That's where the money is. AOC, even though she's barely been in Congress for what, two or three years, arguably has more power than almost anybody in the House because of her social media following. So I believe that the Democratic Party is increasingly becoming beholden to the far, far left. And ultimately, that's going to be their undoing in the midterm elections, because I believe there's a good chance that the House.

House will be returned to Republicans, and eventually the Senate will, too, which will basically stall Joe Biden's agenda, which is why I believe they're trying to do as much as they can in the first two years of Biden's administration because of the chance. The real strong chance, they may lose the House come 2022. And do you not think as well, Larry, part of the problem with the American system is, if you're in the middle, you had Trump on one side who, deeply divisive for a lot of people, you know, his rhetoric, his attitude was unpleasant. Then you had the people on the left who, quite frankly, seem to have gone completely

toned. And if you were a rational, sane, reasonable person, you had two dreadful options. Well, I saw it a lot differently, obviously. You know, I don't, I don't disagree with you about Trump's personality is temperament. He's an easy person to dislike. But if you look at his policies, lower corporate taxes, lower individual taxes, same policy George W. Bush had. He was strong in national defense, same as George W. Bush. Basically, his policies were pretty standard Republican stuff, although he was far more protectionist than I think most Republicans are. And he was tougher on China than I think most Republicans expected. But basically, his point of view was a standard Republican point of view.

I urge all my friends about Donald Trump to follow the example I saw once when I was watching the Golf Channel. there were these two professional golfers guys and they were both asked by the host how can you tell if a golfer is a good golfer? And one golfer went through this elaborate, beautiful, detailed description of what makes a good golfer. The placement of his arms, how he locks his arm, how he swibbles his hips, how he looks at the ball

and all of this stuff. It was beautiful. And the other golfer had his arms folded, kind of was rolling his eyes as the other one was speaking. And the host said, well, what about you? He said, I look to see where the ball lands. I liked where the ball was landing under Donald Trump. Don't look at his swing. I didn't follow him on Twitter. He didn't follow me on Twitter because I thought he tweeted too much about stuff I didn't care about. But I cared about where the ball landed on immigration.

I cared about where the ball landed on the economy, on regulations, on putting conservatives on the courts. I cared about all of that stuff. And for my money, he deserves an A plus in the face of relentless hostility. 91% of the media, negative news, much of his own party negative, and still this guy persevered and barely lost the election.

Remember, the Americans didn't repudiate Trump policies. They repudiated Trump personality. The Republicans gained seats in the House when the predictions were they were going to lose it. They're supposed to get waxed in the Senate and it held it 50-50.

You look at 43,000 votes in three states and Donald Trump remains there for another four years. It was a very close loss. And in my opinion, a few things here and there, including the failure to, the way Twitter suppressed that New York Post-Hunter Biden story, around 80% of Joe Biden's voters did not,

said had they known about the story, they were not have voted for Joe Biden. That would have been enough for Donald Trump to have won. So just a few little things here and there, and Donald Trump's back for four more years. So don't assume Donald Trump's defeat was a defeat of republicanism because more Republicans control governorships than Democrats. They control more statehouse than Democrats.

So the Republican Party is live and well in America. It was Donald Trump who lost, not Republicans. Alair, and you being a black Republican, how do you explain the fact that Donald Trump, you know, for four years we heard about how evil, racist, bigoted, xenophobic he is, and yet his share of the vote of the minority. population, blacks, Latinos, et cetera, went up. How did that happen? It's called the economy. Under Donald Trump, black unemployment reached its lowest ever. On Donald Trump, he parted in the first black heavyweight champion of America, his name was Jack Johnson, who was tried

for violating what's called the Man Act, i.e., he transported a white woman across state lines, and he was persecuted. And for 15 years, people like the actor, Slice Stone, and Ken Burns, the documentarian have gone to presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, asking all of them to pardon Jack Johnson. The only one who did it was Donald Trump. Donald Trump also signed was called the First Step Act that allowed prisoners to have their lengthy sentences reconsidered. Some years ago, we put very long sentences for drug offenses. And under the First Step Act, again, signed by Donald Trump, some 6,000 mostly black men have had their sentences reconsidered and reduced an average of around 70 months. Donald Trump also put funding for black colleges on a permanent basis for the next 10 years. First time that's ever been done. He also expanded what are called opportunity zones. So you get tax breaks if you go into real estate in the inner city and at least one NFL player is getting rich using the very same opportunity zones that Donald Trump has put into place. So for all those reasons, his percentage of the black folk went up. The only area of major demo,

Black men, black women, Asian men, Asian women, Hispanic men, Hispanic women, white women. Every major demo, he went up in 2020 except white men. But I thought he was sending a dog whistle to race its white men. So it's bizarre. And by the way, in 2016, when he won, a prominent black pundit on CNN named Ban Jones called it white lash, that the growing number of whites in America were angry, there was a black president, and they were firing back. To give you an idea of how cocky that analysis is,

the city of over 100,000 that voted most for Donald Trump in 2016, Abilene, Texas. 80% of those in Abilene, Texas, voted for Donald Trump. Guess which city shortly after Donald Trump got elected, voted for its first black mayor in 138 years? Abilene, Texas. So how is it that racist white people voted for Donald Trump and then the same racist white people voted for somebody to be a mayor of their city

and almost the same percentages. It's a lie. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. Larry, America is where it is.

Are you hopeful? because to me it seems, and look, I'm only going by what I read in the media, I only go by why I see on Twitter, you know, Twitter is not real life, et cetera, et cetera. But from looking at it from the UK, it seems more divided than it ever has. It seems more angry than it. Probably the exception of the Civil War, yeah. Yeah. But it does feel that way. Is that what it's like on the ground in America? And if so, are you hopeful? Yeah, I believe that the captain of the Titanic, had he known the iceberg was there, would have taken evasive action. Look, all we have to do is remind people in America of what made America great. And I think we're getting away from that. I call it the access of indoctrination.

Hollywood, media, and academia are all indoctrinating young people in believing that America is a racist hellhole. It's sexist. It's this, it's that. 61% of Democrats believe all Republicans are racist slash sexist slash bigoted according to a major poll that I saw. And as long as half the country believes that way about the other half, we're going to be having difficulty. But when you look at what's really going on in the ground, that somebody from poverty can make it and become very wealthy in America in one generation faster and easier than anywhere else in all of human history,

that's really what's going on on the ground. Barack Obama, despite all of the crap, he says, things like racism is in America's DNA. If I had a son, he looked like Trayvon, and all the nonsense, he said. In his final year, he gave a commencement speech at a black college, and he said to these young, optimistic, eager-eyed students, if you could be born anywhere at any time in history,

where would it be and when would it be? And he said it would be here and now. And that is the truth. The truth is things have never been easier for somebody to become successful in America than right now. But it's never been more important for the Democrats to convince you otherwise than right now for their own power. So think for yourself. Work hard. Pick up the cards. Play them to the best of your ability and follow that millennia success sequence. Finish high school. Don't have a kid until you get married. Get a job. Avoid the criminal justice system. And you will be just fine in America. Larry, I know you're all into personal responsibility, but a personal curiosity of mine is,

do you think we've talked about crime in the black community, all of that sort of stuff, fatherlessness, et cetera, do you think if there's one thing the government can and should do is to end the war on drugs? I've never been a fan of the war on drugs. I've always felt that the drugs should be dealt with as a health problem and not a criminal justice problem. That said, don't be misled into believing that it is, because of the war on drugs, there's so many black people are behind bars. Maybe 15% or so, those behind bars, federal and state are there for drug-related offenses. And most of those

are often pled down from a more violent offense. So most people are in prison because they've hurt other people. But I agree with you. I've never believed in the war on drugs. And the war on drugs was begun as a way to get it black people. It was perceived that a lot of young jazz musicians were smoking marijuana and were enticing white women into having sex with them. And so politicians went crazy in the 30s in these laws to get black people. So they have a racist beginning and they're having a disproportionately racial effect on black people. So I'm with you. I think the war on drugs should be rethought. And I'd agree. And I'd take a point further. You talk about most of the people are pleading down,

but the violence is still happening because they're fighting over drugs quite often, right? So it just seems to me like such an obvious solution. Do you have any insight as to to why that isn't something that anyone, even as America is ahead of us in terms of decriminalizing, say marijuana, for example, but there doesn't seem to be any conversation about ending the war on drugs. Do you have any thoughts on why that is?

I just think most Americans think that if you end the war on drugs, teenagers will start using very, very hard drugs and that the consequences of ending the war on drugs would be worse than the consequences of keeping it. That's, I think, how most people feel. Milton Friedman, the great Nobel laureate, probably 50 years ago, argued against the war on drugs and talked about the corrupting influence of our criminal justice system that you have to use snitches often in order to bust people because most people involve in drugs, both sides of the transaction are breaking the law. So you have to use snitches in order to rat out other people, and it corrupts the entire criminal justice system. So for all those reasons, we ought to be having this conversation, but I think it's just a bridge too far for a lot of Americans.

And do you think that's going to change, particularly during the time of COVID, where a lot of institutions are struggling for money, a lot of, you know, a lot of local authorities are struggling for money. Do you think people are going to see it as a way to raise tax revenue and they're going to get in the back door that way? I suspect so, same as marijuana. That was a long, gradual process. And as the baby boomers are getting older and older, and I think the realization or the feeling that drugs, the, the downside in prosecuting the war on drugs is greater than the upside in keeping it the way it is. I didn't say that right. I think that down the road, little by little, the war on drugs is going to be rethought.

And eventually, I think we're going to have much more sensible policies. But it's going to take a while, same as marijuana took a while. At first, it was medicinal marijuana, and then it became a small use for you, and then it became a thing where you can buy what you wanted. And so it's going to be gradual just like that. Yeah, I think it's such an easy fix in many ways. And the fact that it's not being considered is to me mind-blowing. But Larry, thank you so much for your time.

It's been a pleasure speaking with you and a great honor. Let us ask you our final question, which is always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about, but we really should be? We're not really talking about the attack on merit. A lot of people are talking about the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans. When you're talking about RISE, last year, for example, there were 22 people that were arrested in New York City for committing hate crimes against Asian Americans. Only two of them were white. Most of them were people of color. But there are two public high schools in America.

One is called Lowell High here in California. It's a top-rated public high school in California. And then there's a top-rated public high school in America called Thomas Jefferson School of Science and Technology. In both cases, until this year, the student bodies were several. 70% Asian American because both of those schools required a merit-based examination. Now they're getting rid of it because they want the student body to be more racially diverse. This is a direct assault on merit against Asian American kids who've been busting their butts to go to these schools. But there are two Asian American politicians who are senators, Macy Oro, from Hawaii and Tammy Duckworth, Illinois.

Both of them are yelling and screaming about the rise in Asian crimes. Asian crimes, and the rise is a small number to a small number. The real assault on the Asian American community is what's going on at Lowell High and Thomas Jefferson High in Fairfax, Virginia, and neither of these senators has said word one about that. Larry, thank you so much for coming on the show. If people want to find you online, where is the best way to do that? Larry Elder.com. Be sure and check out my movie Uncle Tom on Amazon Prime, on iTunes, and on Uncle Tom. follow me on Twitter at Larry Yoder. Follow me on Instagram, Larry Yoder Show.

And by the way, Uncle Tom is also available on YouTube where I watched it, and it genuinely is a brilliant, brilliant movie. And I actually learned a lot about the history of the Republican Party, the Democratic Party and how some of the narratives we now have about that don't actually match what happened. So make sure you go and watch that movie. Larry, it's been an absolute genuinely pleasure and honor for us to speak with you. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And thank you, everybody. for watching. We will see you very soon with another interview like this one. And all our interviews and our live streams go out at 7pm UK time. Take care and see you soon, guys.