TRIGGERnometry - Zuby - The Problem with Black Lives Matter

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

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Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissin. And this is the show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our amazing and returning guests this week is a rapper and social commentator.

Zubi, welcome back to Trigonometry. Happy you be here, guys. Good to see you both. It's good to see you, man. Anyone doesn't know you will just remind them that we've interviewed you before so they can go and check that out. But you're a rapper and, as I said, the social commentator, you've got quite a big audience now.

and it's a good time for people with a same voice like yours to be saying what they think. So what have you been up to? How's life? What's going on with you? Yeah, things have been good. You know, as we record this, we are coming towards the end of this weird lockdown period

we've had over the past couple of months. So I think this year has been a little bit weird for everybody. In terms of my career and business, things have been going very well since we last spoke. I mean, things have just started to go viral when we last spoke, but since then, spent a couple months out in the US last year. I was on a lot of big podcasts, the Joe Rogan experience, the Ruben Report, Ben Shapiro show. Obviously, this one was a highlight, but anyway.

Man, the trigonometry was, it's still one of my favorites. Still one of my favorites. Yeah, so things are being crazy. Getting love all over and my audience has grown from, I think, about 50,000 across the board on social media to approaching 400,000 now in just over a year. So it's been, it's been crazy. It's been amazing. Things have been good. And yeah, I'm now in a sort of brand new position that I've never been in in my life before. So I'm sort of navigating that now independently. And it's a new challenge, but it's very exciting. And why do you think that you're, that you've managed to grow so phenomenally well? I mean, obviously part of it is the fact that you've got that you're on these podcasts. But the reason you're on these podcasts is because you're quite a

unique voice, aren't you? In terms of what's happening now? Why do you think that you've grown so fast, so quick? To put it simply, I think that people are looking for sane and honest voices. And I've always been a sane and an honest voice. I haven't done something massively different from what I did previously, apart from showing more of myself and being more willing to participate in some of the conversations that I used to only have privately and start putting some of those on Twitter and other social media, talking about them on my own podcast and other people's. And yeah, I think in the past five years, things have gone so sideways and people are just, a lot of people are feeling silenced, a lot of people are feeling fearful, a lot of people are just

feeling like, whoa, the world is going crazy, what's going on in society, we need sane voices. So just like yourselves with this podcast, I think that people are looking for people who are reasonable, people who are rational, willing to have conversations and not just yell at each other and yeah I think I fit that and I also think with my with my background and my experiences and my personality I'm just able to bring something different to the table than sort of your standard down the line on whatever side commentator having the perspective having grown up in Saudi Arabia having family background originally from Nigeria going to an American school for a while

living here in the UK just being able to come at things from different angles and not being afraid to put my things thoughts out there, even if they might be deemed edgy or controversial or people disagree with them or whatever. One of the most common things people say to me multiple times a day is, I don't agree with everything you say, but I massively respect you, and I love the fact that you say it and you're not, you know, and it's reasonable, it's rational, it's not just trying to rile people up for no reason. Well, talking about all of those things and what's happening right now across the world, the Western world at least.

The situation with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter and all the rest of it, I actually saw you talking about George Floyd long before most people were talking about it and you were saying, look, this is clearly murder, this is clearly, you know, police brutality, this guy, the police officer needs to be prosecuted, et cetera.

And there was some debate around it at the time. People were arguing with you, etc. But you've gone from being almost contrarian initially on that, issue to now saying you don't support black lives matter and you never have and you you never would. So just take people like, don't you care about black people, Zubi? You know, it's a given. Yeah, obviously, obviously I care about black people.

I every as 99.9% of people do. Last time I checked, I was still black. I might need to check with Joe Biden. Last time I checked I was still black as well as we. majority of my family. So the thing here is, so firstly, talking about the George Floyd situation, unequivocally, you know, I saw the video when it came out. I actually saw it early before I was talking about it before I even knew his name was George Floyd.

I just saw this video of this policeman kneeling on this man's neck until he passes out and he's saying he can't breathe and people are shout. I watched the video and it was one of the most egregious, I think that one. And you guys know the Daniel Shaver shooting, if you're familiar with that. I'd say those two, of all the, unfortunately, I've watched quite a lot of police violence videos from the USA that have emerged over the years. And I'd say the George Floyd one and the Daniel Shaver one were the two that I thought were most egregious, that were just clearly murder, right? Not like, okay, I'm not sure. This is a bit debatable.

There was a fight or something like that. It was just clear. This guy was helpless. You didn't have to do that to him. I think that's one of the things that makes it so visceral is that this is a helpless person in handcuffs. It is. And someone is just kneeling on his neck with him. For a long time.

And people are asking him to stop and George Floyd's. And that's what makes it so deeply, deeply disturbing. Disturbing. Yeah, it's very disturbing. And I don't think how anyone watched that and could see anything other than that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, I just felt morally compelled to speak on it.

You know, I see a lot of stuff and I don't, I can't speak. on everything. Otherwise, I'd be spending all day, every day, just speaking out on all of these issues. But this one was particularly egregious, and I thought it was important to actually amplify it and let more people know, hey, have you guys seen what has happened here. And I did a YouTube video on it. I just made a 16-minute video, which I think over 50,000 people have watched now. It's just called George Floyd was murdered. I just shared my view on it. And then, so coming around to what you're, what you're asking about more recently is, in regards to the Black Lives Matter thing. So there's, I mean, I know why they've called themselves Black Lives Matter because it's,

the name is incredibly powerful, right? Because no one disagrees with the statement. No one disagrees with the slogan itself. However, Black Lives Matter, BLM, is an organization. And some people may not know this. There's a difference between BLM, Black Lives Matter, the organization and the different chapters that they have and someone just saying the sentence or the slogan, Black Lives Matter, or perhaps putting it on a sign without necessarily representing the organization. So in hindsight, I clearly could have worded the tweet that I put out there more carefully. I did clarify it in a second one.

But I was saying that the organization itself is not what it says on the tin, right? It's not simply, okay, we are trying to save black lives or we are working against injustices or, you know, racial inequities, anything like that. That can be a part of it and that's the sort of Trojan horse that they're using for the rest of it. But there are some very bizarre parts of the ideology in there. The people who founded it, the people who promoted it's run by some pretty radical black women in America. And there are things in there about, you know, wanting to dismantle capitalism, wanting to disrupt the nuclear family structure, wanting to defund and ultimately abolish the police. There's all three of those which are very very very, very,

very bad ideas, and which would in fact probably disproportionately affect black American communities. And then there's also not strictly on their website, but from a lot of the people in that organization. There's also a lot of race baiting, a lot of anti-white rhetoric, a lot of, you know, it's pretty Marxist stuff in reality. And what they've done is they've sort of taken that ideology and those views and called themselves a title that no one can argue with.

you criticize Black Lives Matter, people are like, oh my gosh, but it's called Black Lives Matter. You know, it would be like, I don't know. If I ever created a terrorist organization, I'd call it the, you know, peace, love, and harmony or something. Don't, don't kick puppies. Don't kick puppies. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's, I mean, I see straight through stuff like that. And I think as someone who does and who looks into these things in detail. I can miscommunicate with people because I almost assume accidentally that other people kind of have my eye and my brain to see through the matrix a little bit and go beyond what the slogan is and see what's going on behind here because I think it's quite insidious.

So that was the reason for that comment. Most people got it. Actually, I mean, the majority of people who saw it, I believe understood it, but a lot of people definitely did not. got, you know, some blowback from places, including, you know, places a little bit close to me, which I wasn't expecting because I didn't, I didn't expect millions of people to even see the tweet. But, yeah, I mean, in terms of what I was getting at, I know why I said it. I probably would have, to be honest, I wouldn't have tweeted it. I probably would have done like a whole video on it, you know, a 30-minute video explaining my position. And, oh, and also, in terms of the BLM as the organization, also, it's largely a vehicle to fund Democratic presidential candidate.

it's in the US as well. So if you go and you donate to them, it takes you out to a website called Act Blue, which is a company and website where if you trace the donations, it's, you know, the donations often go to, you know, Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg and all the Democratic candidates, et cetera. So in that sense, it's even more dodgy that they're getting these donations. Tunes of hundreds of millions of dollars, by the way. I think, you know, this is not even a conspiracy theory. I think George Soros. himself put $100 million into BLM. And yeah, it's just not what people think it is, at least as the organization.

So people need to parse those out, but they've intentionally made it very difficult to do by calling the name something very noble. I mean, it's really interesting you say that because when I was doing my research on it and I was reading through with some of the things that they were saying, alarm bells were going off. But because, like you said, they've marketed it. so brilliantly, especially as a white dude, actually, guys, I'm not sure I'm on board with it. It's like,

you know, you're taken away. But what you cannot argue is that they have made this particular issue resonate across the globe. You have demonstrations, Australia, Brazil, all the rest of it. How have they been able to do that so brilliantly? Wow. Well, they have got a lot of

funding. They've got hundreds of millions of dollars in funding. So they've got a very big megaphone. And I think I don't think we can underestimate the power of slogans. Slogans, this is something I've kind of, I've always known that slogans are important, but in the past few months, I'm kind of like, wow, people are really, like, no one was talking defund the police two weeks ago.

Now defund the police is like a, it's like a catchphrase, really, defund the police, defund the police, defund, and it's just weird how people, what, what did I say the other day? How did I word it? Something like, human beings are hurt. animals who believe we are individual, individualists, which is really the case. You know, I think that the vast majority of people, all of us to some degree have some element of herd mentality, but I think that the people who sort of stand outside of that and don't kind of just get swept up in the wave of it, which I think believing includes

everybody here, or actually the minority. You know, that's something I've really learned. It's a minority position. And so, yeah, I think the slogans have been super-duper powerful. And I think, you know, there is, there's no question that there is an element of good in, well, they're promoted. Of course, it's called Black Lives Matter, right? It can't all be bad. Of course not.

There are, it's extremely opportunistic because they seem to pop up every election year, you know, 20, 2016 gets big, 2020, it gets big. And one of my biggest criticisms of the movement of BLM is the fact that they focus on 0.001% of black lives. So it's funny because someone, if I criticize BLM, someone will try to suggest that either I'm racist or I'm caping for racist or something. And one of my biggest criticisms of them

is why do you only care about black lives when they are killed by a white police officer in dubious circumstances. If the movement is going to be called Black Lives Matter, why is all the focus on the 0.001% of black people who are killed in a very certain specific way at a specific time by a specific type of person? Right. Why can't we talk about the wider issue, right?

Why aren't we talking about homicide is the biggest killer of black American males who are under 40, I believe, right? And that's only true for that demographic, right? Homicide is the biggest killer. So what can we, can we have a conversation about that? Like can we, if it's Black Lives Matter, can we talk about that whole thing? Can we talk about even nutrition and diet

and people dying of heart disease and diabetes? Like, why can't we talk about the whole thing? Why are we only talking about it in these very, very specific scenarios? I also think that if you wanted to solve the police brutality issue and you wanted to stop these unjust police killings and I differ from a lot of people on this one I've spoken with

friends family about this and I don't think everybody understands or agrees with my position on this but I think you need to widen the scope right some people say okay they want to do black lives matter because they want to focus on that specific demographic first but it's like look the majority of people killed by police in the US are not black right and people will say yeah but it's disproportionate to the population but I'm like yes but overall only two 25 to 30% of these police killings are black victims. So this is clearly not just, sure, there can be a racial bias problem here, but it's clearly not

just this narrative of the police are riding around in the USA, hunting down, lynching black people, like some people are trying to say, you know, you can't go outside your house without fearing for your life, all that. Really hyperbolic emotional stuff, which I'm no fan of because I think it distorts it And it prevents people from finding actual solutions. I'm keen for, I'm not an American, but I would love for them to find a solution to this problem. I don't think anybody, black, white, Latino, Asian should be gunned down or choked by a police officer totally unnecessarily. I mean, it's interesting with this George Floyd case because there was a case a few years ago with a white man called Tony Timpa, who died in a very, very, very similar situation.

No media outrage, no protests, no rioting, no looting, no nobody, to this day, most people, if you say that name, most people don't know who that is. I was mentioning Daniel Schaver earlier, the most egregious police shooting I've ever seen, you know, a white police officer, white victim, totally unjustified. And people don't even know these cases, right? I mean, and I used to, you know, four or five years ago, I got caught up in this loop too. Right. I was going to ask you about that because you have personal experience of this. Yeah. Oh, I wasn't even going to say, I wasn't even talking about that. We will get to that. All right. Yeah. But I used to also believe the narrative that what was going on in the US with these police killings was primarily and very specifically targeting black people. You used to think that? I used to believe that. Why? Because that's all you see.

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You look at the data. You think about stuff. I thought you were going to say you look at the daily mail. Yeah. Well, which stories even hit, which stories do you hear about on social media? Which stories, which stories do the British press talk about? Have the British press ever covered a white American being killed by the police? He's got privilege, Mike.

It happens more than black people kill. Yeah. You wouldn't know that, right? And so I, so because I could name those names, right? I knew about Philando Castile, Walter Scott, you know, Michael Brown, that one's a different situation. Eric Garner. Eric Garner. I can name these names.

Yes, people know the names. And, you know, that's what Beyond say, you know, say their name, say their name. And so I sort of got swept into that whole narrative. And I thought, okay, this is very, very specifically targeting black people. And then when I did look at the data, I was like, oh, huh, oh, how come I'm not hearing about the other 70%? That's weird. And I looked into some of the cases.

I even watched some of the ones that had videos. And I was like, whoa, how do people not know about this? I was like, okay, this is bigger than the scope here is a bigger problem than what I thought it was. This is a state, this is a state violence on citizens issue. This is a police brutality issue. This is a not having high enough standards issue. It's not simply a racial issue. And everyone is trying to view it purely through that lens.

And I think as long as people are trying to do that, I fear that it won't actually be, won't really be. resolved properly because that's not you're diagnosing the wrong problem and like I said I think racism can be a part of it and it likely is in some situations but for example in the George Floyd killing people jump straight to the race the race narrative we don't yet have any evidence that that was a racially motivated killing and some people will even get angry at me for saying that right how of course Zuby it's obvious what do you mean it's obvious right just because someone a A white person kills a black person or vice versa.

That does not mean it was a racially motivated killing. Could it be? Sure, it could be. But we don't have any, we don't have any evidence. Some people say, and then people say, oh, well, you know, he wouldn't have done that to a white guy. I'm like, I've watched a video of them doing that to a white guy. So I don't know. I don't know what's in Derek Chauvin's heart.

But the idea that this never happens to white people is a lie. It's just wrong. It's factually incorrect. It's ignorant. And so I think people need to be willing to have that. whole wider conversation. I feel about this on like every issue. People are so bogged down with trying to maintain certain narratives and fit their own confirmation bias and only look at cases which fit their narrative and just cherry pick things. And it makes people feel good and it makes

people feel like they're righteous and they can shout to other people who don't want to do the same. But fundamentally, I'm just like, man, we can't have such a myopic view on these issues if we actually do want to, if we do want to resolve them, we've got to be able to talk about the whole picture and speak about this honestly. And what do you think that this particular incident, what do you think the impact is having on society? Do you think it's been, I mean, it must have had some positive impacts.

Like, for instance, one of our friends, he talked about what it was growing up and being black in South London, sharing his experiences. That was really rewarding. You go, oh, I get it, I understand a little bit more. But there's also been some negative things as well, I imagine. Yeah, definitely. I think, yeah, the problem with society right now is that I call it emotional incontinence, right?

Like, emotions just spray and fly out everywhere in all these directions. And we're really prone to over corrections and overreactions, right? And the problem is when it just swings immediately too hard one way or the other. I mean, again, in the light of this killing, there was a rare moment for like 24 hours where everybody, 99% of people, Republican, Democrat, black, white, even police officers were on the same page, which is actually super duper rare. The George Floyd case was actually very, very peculiar. People act like, oh, this is just another one in a string. And I'm like, no, this one is actually, this one's not contentious. This is clear. We've got video. It's not going on what people are saying. saying, anyone can watch that video. And I'm like, man, if you watch that video and you don't come to the conclusion that that was not totally unjust, you might be a psychopath. It doesn't matter your political views and biases. Even police officers were like, that was out of order.

That's not how... Well, it's completely against their training for a stop. Yes, exactly. And we all know that police protect their own. And a lot of, especially in the U.S., especially a lot of more right-leaning conservatives who tend to be very pro-police and tend to give them the benefit of the doubt, even they were like, no, like, no, that's clearly a problem. So it was sort of that watershed moment, and that's why I feel quite dismayed how quickly it went from that agreement to disagreement and chaos. And now people are talking about riots and looting and talking about statues now and talking about, it was like, can we keep our eye on the ball for a moment, right?

Like, let's try to resolve, let's try to resolve this one so that cases like that don't happen again, right? Like, let's, it's good to be, we should be angry, you should be outraged, but let's channel that in the right direction. And the right direction is not burning down your neighbor's store or, you know, looting target, or just causing all this random, random chaos.

And, you know, I think with a lot of these issues, what people need to do is sort of take it up a level. I think people get lost in the weeds all the time. And it's like, look, everybody agrees that police brutality is wrong. Everybody agrees that racism is wrong. Okay. So people may differ in what they think are the causes of police brutality or how much institutional or systemic racism exists or what. what exact the numbers are and the figures are. But it's like, look, actually everyone agrees on the core thing. So there need to be, there need to be some changes made in the police, right? There

needs to be some reformation in terms of the training. Perhaps you need to look at how much these people are getting paid. I think it, I think it's, you know, it takes as long to be a police officer as it does to become a, like a worker in certain shops or, you know, it doesn't take a long time. I think you can become a, you know, it might take longer to become a personal trainer than to become a police officer. And that should not be the case, right? If it's a, you're going to get a gun and a badge. And keep in mind, in the U.S., everything has escalated because it's such an armed society.

So in the U.K., the police can afford to be a bit more chill. In the U.S., they know every time they go out there, they don't know what they're dealing with, every time they do a traffic stop. That's the most dangerous thing for police to do in America. Traffic stops, right? That's the position where most of them get shot. Well, it's like Coleman Hughes said when we had him on last week,

a police officer gets shot every day. Every day, yeah. So, of course, they're walking around. on edge, and not necessarily wrongly so. Yeah, yeah, they're on edge. And so you need people of a certain character and a certain personality type to begin with. And then you need to reward those people.

They need to be compensated well. And they need to be trained very, very well. Well, Zubi's going to be very popular with black people now. And he's saying, give police officers more money. That's going to be the title of the episode. Refund the police. This is the reality. This is where it comes to the logic and emotion.

thing, right? Because some people who are wired a certain way emotionally will take an issue with me saying something like that. But they're not thinking logically, right? If you defund the police or you abolish the police, what is going to happen and who is it going to hurt the most? It's not going to be the rich celebrities who have private security and live in gated communities and are, you know, it's easy for them to be anti-border walls and anti-guns when they're surrounded by border walls and guns, etc. But for the people who are, you know, for the people who actually in communities with high crime and in places where they can't afford private security and all that kind of stuff. That's where they need the police. You want the police to be good.

You want the police to be good. But the idea that you just get rid of them and that's somehow going to, the criminals are just going to stop because there's no police. It's like what kind of what kind of logic is that? That's crazy. And you've seen this in different places like when the authority goes, when the police goes, what happens? You get these bands of militias and, you know, like vigilantes and stuff. And it's like, look, that's not, that's really not the way forward. It's very knee-jerk. And it seems like right now everything is, everything's just running on emotion.

Everything's running on emotion. And I can understand that to a degree, but as to someone who is very low on the emotional scale, I'm kind of like, look, okay, we need some adults in the room and this needs to be discussed, honestly, openly, thoroughly. and we can get to the bottom of this. I agree with you. Just to say, it's not going to be a problem for me because I'm going to go live in chairs.

I'm not sure how long you'd last to me, to be honest with you. But the worry for me is, and I think you're absolutely right about finding a constructive way forward. The worry for me is how much of this is counterproductive. And I'll tell you why, because when you started talking about George Floyd, I actually didn't comment on it. And the reason I didn't comment is I had a friend six or seven years ago who was one of the people who founded or co-founded Black Lives Matter. Okay.

And we, my wife and I went to visit them around the time of the Michael Brown shooting. And she was talking about it a lot at the time. So I thought, well, we're going to go and spend two weeks with them. I better do the reading, right? Because I want to understand what's going on. So I read every word of the grand jury. in whatever it's called the process that document

no I was in like you just read the you really didn't help there did you just took it down one more level but I mean you just you read the document from the case it was the deliberations of the grand jury investigation and the truth is that the original claim in that situation was hands up don't shoot Michael Brown was on his knees with his hands in the air pleading for his life having done nothing wrong the reality is

Black witnesses and white witnesses and ballistic evidence and all the evidence in that case showed that he attacked the police officer. He was moving towards the police officer when he was shot, right? So complete mismatch. And so in my mind, I'm like, well, I don't know what's true anymore. So I'm going to be extra careful before I comment on stuff. And that's my worry with a lot of the stuff that you talk about being emotionally incontinent is if you create a narrative and then people find out that big gaps in that narrative aren't accurate, well, people are going to start to doubt the whole narrative. Yep. That's true.

Is that a concern, do you think? Yeah, definitely. I mean, in most cases, I don't speak on stuff immediately. I've learned not to do that. The reason I felt I could and felt compelled to on this one is because of the video. It's so obvious. Right? I watched the whole video. It wasn't edited.

It wasn't like I just saw a 20-second clip maybe of just, you know, the picture of, you know, the guy's knee on his neck or something. It's like, no, I watched it. And I was like, okay, there is nothing. There's nothing that can come out here that makes me go, okay, that was justified. Like there's, there's no situation. I've seen other ones where, you know, you don't, you don't really see what happens.

And those situations, I stay quiet, at least initially, because, you know, one, I don't, I don't speak on everything. Like, it's too much. But in those ones, it's like, I don't know. Like, let's see, let's see what happens. I think in this social media age, of course, this part of the problem is that there's this rush for people. to quickly cast judgments and to get the likes and get the retweets and get the shares by being the first person to just say something and denounce it and probably say something super hyperbolic. Like, you know, this is the reality of black men every day in America. You can't go outside your house without fearing the police and being lynched.

And you see people making these kind of statements normally with a blue check and it'll have 100,000 likes and retweets. And it gives them some juice. But ultimately, stuff like that doesn't help. It really doesn't help. because, and it doesn't help the other way either when you get people who are like so pro-police that the police could like shoot someone in the face

who's completely defenseless and they'll still be like, well, you know, this is a statistical anomaly and it's like, that shouldn't happen. There are some things that should never happen. Like situation like George Floyd should never happen. 100%. You can reduce those to zero, right?

There are some cases, you know, majority of police shootings are justified. You know, I don't like to see anybody die in any way. But majority, you don't hear about them. over a thousand last year, I think, in the U.S., but you don't hear about them because it was, you know, someone was trying to shoot them or someone was in the middle of committing a felony or something like that. But yeah, I just, what I miss, this is what I'm all about.

I'm about honesty and authenticity. And I wish people would just stop lying. I wish people would kind of just, this goes for so many things. People are not being honest and authentic. The narrative has become more important. than the truth. But don't you think we've come to a point in society where if you stand up and tell the truth on any wide range of particular issues, it is not going to end well for you? Well, I think it will in the long term. And I think people are too myopic with this. This is what I was

just, funnily enough, talking about on my social media earlier today, which is that in terms of people silencing themselves and no one, you know, cancel culture and no one wanting to voice opinions that don't tow certain lines and narratives is it's extremely short-term thinking. It's very very myopic and it's like sure it might make you feel safe for now but what about in five years, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years people say, but you know I've got kids. I'm like yeah well what kind of world do you want your children to inhabit? What kind of society and culture do you want them to grow up and do you want your children not to be able to express any view or anything in 20 years?

years because we've become so rigid and we've literally got the thought police out there and no one can do anything. No, it's supposed to be a free country. And if you're in a free country that's supposed to have freedom of speech, then people need to exercise that. It can't be taken, can't be taken for granted. So yeah, sure, you might have to deal with a couple of mobs or, I say mobs. I'm not even talking a real mob. I'm not talking about some people coming with pitchforks and burning down your house. Unless you Dominic Cummings. You know, like that's pretty rare.

It's normally like an online thing and it's very temporary. I'm sure you guys have faced this before. And yeah, you might get some level of professional criticism or, you know, things even in your own family or amongst your friendship. We might cause certain rifts and things like that. But ultimately, honesty is truly the best policy in the long run. If you look at it, most people, I think, who have been stood by honesty and stood by authenticity and told the truth, whether that's a huge range of podcasters, whether that's, you know,

myself, whether that's, you know, the Jordan Peterson's of the world, right? They just stood on their principles. Same with us. But there's a privilege there, and it's not white or black. It's a self-employed privilege, isn't that? Because if you work for an institution or you stock the shelves in it. NASDA. There was a guy who got fired from his job in Azdaq. He shared a comedy routine

from Billy Connolly about religion. You got fired. I think the reason a lot of people are scared is they're scared that they're going to lose their source of income because they're going to get fired. And people are getting fired left, right and center over this current discussion. So what do you say to those people? I'd say it's temporary. And I'd say

to the people who are not fired, I'd say to everybody else, to society as a whole, we need to stick up for each other. People need to stick up for their friends, for their colleagues, et cetera. If you work in a business and, you know, one of your colleagues is under pressure for liking a tweet or sharing a joke or something, you know, something silly. I'm not talking about something super egregious. Then people as a whole, rather than letting that person, you know, proverbially catch the bullet, they need to surround that person and support them and say no. Like, talk back to their company because, you know, companies are run. Companies are just groups of people, right?

And they're trying to protect their bottom line, but everything is rooted in cowardice. It's all cowardice. It's just collective cowardice. It just takes people collectively to go, look, enough of this. It's cancel culture stuff. Like, stop.

Like, we're not having this, right? You can't just de-platform people and fire people and keep, you know, for having base. Because they voted for Brexit, because they support this, because they don't support that, et cetera. It's like, that's not what this society is supposed to be like. And it's important for people to not be passive. and to actively push back against that and not just expect people like myself, people like yourself, certain people to sort of carry that entire burden and to do the whole thing for them because you can't you can't outsource all elements of courage, you know, and sure in the short term the boat might rock a little bit. I don't doubt that. I don't question that, right? This guy who works in as does stacking shelves, you know, in the short term, okay, that kind of sucks, you know. But firstly, I think that wouldn't happen if his colleagues backed him up, right?

If people en masse backed him up, I think that wouldn't happen to begin with. Maybe it was just a dick. I don't know the whole story. Yeah, finally we've got a reason to get rid of him. Because it's like, you know, it's like dominoes. Yeah, right. It's this crescendo. And it needs to reverse back the other way.

and because the vast majority of people who feel like this who feel cowed who feel like they can't speak we're not talking about people who have like legitimately like extreme we're not talking about actual Nazis and actual fascists we're just you know some people oh i voted brexit oh actually i voted Boris Johnson you know or I believe this or I believe that oh you know I've had people who just they're they're just Christian you know what I mean it's like yeah I'm a Christian but like I can't really I'm like what do what's going on Like, this is not some, you know, it's bizarre. It's very, very strange. And it's not just in the UK.

Like, when I was in the U.S. last year, I kept having the same conversation with people because I didn't meetups in different cities. And I had people, you know, whether they were students at university or, you know, they were working at this job or working there or people in entertainment. And they're just like, man, like, you know, this is kind of speaking in whispers almost. I'm kind of like, guys, this is not sustainable. And I'm glad you're, I'm glad you appreciate me being someone who speaks up and who tells the truth. But I'm just one person. I'm one guy. And I'm not, I'm not even the best person in the position to do this.

I think some people think I'm just got like, you know, multi millions in my bank account. And so I can kind of do it. It's like, no, that's not the case. I just believe in honesty and authenticity. I don't put all of my thoughts out there. I'm not saying you have to go like super crazy. But if it's a basic. basic principle. Look at what's been happening with J.K. Rowling recently.

Right? On one hand, there's a bit of Schadenfreude, because she's catered so hard to that audience and sort of helped to create this beast that's now trying to eat her. But at the same time, it's like, yeah, big up to her because she just is stating, she's stating facts. She's stating truth. And even if she was just stating her opinion, she's entitled to that. Right. And it's like, What kind of world are we living in where a woman says that people who menstruate are called women? And this is some huge controversy. Nazis come in many different shapes and forms. What is that?

That's crazy. And that's going to get worse if people don't. And one thing I would say as well on the Jake around anything, I think it's really important for all of us who are on the side of honest discussion. and whether you agree with her, frankly, or not, just whether you're interested in having a conversation versus just canceling people. If you don't agree, you might want to check biology. I know, I know, I know.

I'm trying to keep a broad man and keep people in the boat, and you're just like, get out! Get out of the boat! But I guess what I'm saying is, the Shadden Freud, I can totally understand. We had Graham Linehan on the show who, you know, he was involved in canceling people significantly. And we were very happy

to have him on the show and jakey rowling the same we're trying to get her on as well because when people let go of that mentality we have to welcome them in and we have to say you've let go of that you're welcome yeah yeah we welcome you're not out in in the desert because of your past behavior you you fucked up in the past you did you made mistakes but now you get to come back into civil society and have a conversation with people and I think that's really important that forgiveness that we always talk about. I know you're big on it. We're big on it. We actually have to practice it as well.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I'm with you 100% on that. And just, it's funny. It's like, in some ways, it feels like being liberal has become a conservative position. Devere, yeah. Yeah, and it's odd. I mean, there are people who call themselves liberal and, you know, that's how they identify.

And I'm like, I am more liberal than you. In terms of actually, like, upholding the value what are classically liberal things, freedom of speech, ability of people to dissent, to meet and talk to who they want, to not be sort of ostracized permanently for their views or their opinions, all this kind of stuff. Like, there's tons of stuff in the world I do not agree with. There's a lot of stuff I do not agree with. But people have a right to their views.

They have a right to their opinions. I would never try to de-platform someone off of social media or come for their job or to cut out their sponsor because they said something in a podcast, I disagree. Like, that's crazy. How can you support anything along those lines and consider yourself liberal? I mean, that's, it's bonkers. And people are waking up to this. Like I said, people are waking up.

I just think that collectively, and I do try to give people courage and encourage people in different ways to just be like, hey, you know, whatever situation you're in if you're in school, if you're at university, if you're in your workplace, just online, et cetera, just be willing to, you know, even if I don't agree with all of your principles or values, right? Just you have a right to them and that's okay to express them. And I'm on your side. I'm on the side of anyone who can agree to that basic tenant. It's really that simple. But Zubi, you were talking about cowardice and there's something, I want to focus on in particular, because I don't think it's just the cowardice of individuals.

I also think it's cowardice of the press. Yes, yes, you're right. And you know, you see with the Black Life Matter demonstration, Dominant Cummings, you know, evil, get rid of him, destroy him, let's literally burn his house. But then everyone goes out on a mass demonstration during a pandemic, and suddenly that's okay. And I'm like, is it? Am I racist?

We're thinking it might not be? No. And a week, it's not like it happened 10 years ago and the standards of society of change. It's literally last week. Yeah. I mean, just yesterday, I don't know. I can't remember what was NBC. It was one of the U.S. newspapers, Twitter.

And an hour before, they were talking in happy terms about thousands of people gathering for black trans Lives Matter rally and demonstration, thousands of people, you know, can see the pictures. And then an hour later, the same account tweeted condemning the fact that Trump was going to restart his rallies and that health-exempts. and that health experts are saying that this is a terrible idea. Within an hour, the same account. And you're just like, come on, dude.

Come on, you know. And it's just, you're totally right. When I'm talking about cowardice and I'm talking about honesty and I'm talking about authenticity, I'm speaking across the board. I'm talking to individuals. I'm talking to the media. I'm talking to corporations.

I'm talking to world leaders. if everyone just told the truth or at least tried to, so stuff would just be so much better. Right? Just do that and allow other people to do the same, be willing to have conversations and just actually be liberal in the proper sense of that word. And it'll also, you know, one thing that part of the reason why I feel compelled to do what I do and to talk to people on all sides, et cetera, I get quite a lot of sometimes Not that often. Some people give me a little bit of flack because, you know, I will talk to people across the board and some people like, oh, you shouldn't be talking to those MAGA people or you shouldn't be talking. I'm like, look, guys, firstly, don't tell me who I should talk to because you don't own me and I'm my own man. And I'm not telling you who to talk to. So like, you know, courtesy. And then secondly, it's like you want to understand people, right? You want to whether I disagree, agree, disagree, right? If I meet a raging communist, I want to. I want to. I want to. Whether I disagree. I agree, disagree. If I meet a raging communist, I want to. I want to. I want to. I want to. I want to. I

to talk to you too because I'm like why you so you know what's going on here right we need to we need to talk to each other and understand each other even if you still disagree and then ultimate and then also this is the one that I don't think people talk about a lot is it's important to keep people remotely moderated and to stop people from people are already fracturing you hear a lot of people talk about political polarization and division and if you don't want that to get like really bad you you need to hold the middle The middle needs to be held whether someone considers themselves like a, you know, a conservative or liberal or a centrist or a moderate, libertarian. All these people, we need to hold the middle, right? We may have differing views between us, but we're all sort of in the same tent.

So that needs to be held because otherwise people run off in more extreme directions, right? If you refuse to talk to anybody here or you refuse to talk to anybody there, then the only people they'll talk to are, the people who might be a little bit more radical than them. A little bit more radical than them. And that's how people end up sort of drifting off. And as you guys were saying, if you don't offer people a way back in, right, then think of all the people, think of the people who have been kicked off of social media, right, permanently.

People have just kicked off of social media, cut their PayPal, cut their funding. Don't let them do this. Don't let them have a bank account. Do you think that's going to moderate them? you like that's when you're gonna that person is now likely that's the person you now need to keep an eye on because who are the people who are going to be like oh come talk to us you know we'll talk to you right it's going to be the other people who already are you know not not beyond the pale but more radical and more extreme in certain ways and that's literally how people get that's how people get that's how people get

radicalized and also it's just um it's also just not kind it's not fair if you want to we talk a lot about kindness and fairness and tolerance and diversity but rather than just paying lip service to these things think about what they really mean and actually try to act on them and it's not kind to cut someone's funding and get them fired from their job and make sure that they can never live and eat again or feed their children because they said something you don't like. Or maybe they genuinely, maybe they genuinely cocked up, right? Maybe they genuinely did something bad, right? But should now they have to suffer and they can't, they can't do anything now?

It's like, come on, that's not, what kind of society does that to people? How much of it is about the fact that certain groups have changed the meaning of words, Zubi. Because if you convince people that if I, if you say look up biology, if you don't agree with J.K. Rowley, that is quote unquote erasing the existence of trans people. Or if you criticize the Black Lives Matter organization, you're erasing or committing violence against black people. Or, you know, we can go down the whole list. You know, if you don't agree that the gender pay gap is what people say, then you're hurting women. Like, you can go down the list, right? So, we have become convinced now that silence is violence, like, silence is violence, speaking is violence,

but violence isn't violence, right? If it's right the right person. If it's by the right person. So how much of this is about the fact that very sneakily, these people have substituted meanings for words they don't apply at all? Yeah, sure. I don't like to use the terms the left and the right, but the left, broadly speaking, is very, very good at this. Very, very good at changing the language and controlling the language and controlling the parameters in which people speak. It's incredibly clever. And it's been happening for many, many decades.

And people need to wake up to that and not play the game. There are a lot of words in terms I refuse to use. I just don't use them. Because I'm never going to call someone a cis man or a cis woman. I'm never going to use the term, violence in relation to something that's not actual violence. I'm never going to, what are some other terms that are used? I refuse to, you know, bastardize the English language to fit people's ideology because I know why it's done and it's just done. It's a weapon. It's a tool. Right.

It's a tool, right? Because if you can control people, it's 1984. You can control people's words and language, you can ultimately control their thought and you can move the Overton window so that someone now saying something benign, like there are only two genders, can now be deemed as violence or hate speech or an attack or an erasure of people's existence, right? And they always go from zero to 100 real quick, right? If you just, you're mildly critical of something and suddenly you want to erase someone's existence and you don't think they should be allowed to, it's like, whoa, hold on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Didn't say any of that.

And so people need to not play the game, right? Just not play that game. If there's words or terminology and things you don't agree with or someone is trying to redefine the meaning of a word, right? Someone says racist and they're trying to convince you that it means, you know, that black people can't be racist, only white people can be racist because racism is now privilege. Plus power.

Yeah, it's discrimination. plus power and if you don't have the institution. Don't play that game. Don't just say, no, that's BS. That's nonsense. That's not what it is. But don't you also think that there's a lot of people who do very, very well out of propagating this narrative? Oh, yes. It's an industry.

It's worth billions. Worth billions. You should get in on her, man. The grievance industry? You know, whether that's corporate feminism or it's corporate race baiting or, you know, And politicians, right?

That's how they get votes. Because again, like I said, most people have this herd mentality. So it's easy to dupe people. You know, if you're a politician and you speak in a certain way and you play the identity politics game, then they do it because it works. And I don't know how I can get this message out there, but I'm like it shouldn't, people shouldn't let it work on them. right if a politician gets up tomorrow and they just start talking all this stuff about people of color and you know black people and white supremacy and dismantling the patriarchy or whatever that doesn't work on me i'm like what are you talking about like you're just speaking nonsense right you're just trying to pander to certain demographics and certain people and actually that's what i find offensive i'm like i find it offensive you think i'd fall for that you see what i mean but unfortunately a lot of people do right it does work on them and you get people saying like oh well well Well, they said they'll do this. They mentioned my demographic in the thing,

so that means that they're supportive. And I'm like, look, none of us should play this game. And again, if that game can be played one way, it can be played anyway. This is the thing, right? I'm very much an equalist. So what concerns me as well with some of the identity politics being played on one side

is like, okay, y'all might think that's all good now, but what is now the argument against the white nationalists? Right. Right. I've spoken to black people and I'm, they'll be saying some of their opinions on some of this stuff. And I'm like, dude, you're literally saying the exact same thing that white nationalists do. You're literally saying the same thing, right? When people, especially when people start talking about like separatism, right? Or people talk about only supporting black businesses or doing this or, you know, you know, definitely not, you know, marrying outside of your race, et cetera. I'm like, this is literally the same thing white nationalists say. So unless, I mean, if you think they're right, Okay, fair enough. Y'all can have your, you know, white conda and Wakanda or whatever. But, you know, for the rest of us who are quite happy to live in a multiracial, multi-ethnic, harmonious society and don't really care about all that stuff,

we don't want to be caught in that crossfire. And I think that's the thing. You know, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So if people are going to get like super duper on the, say, say the black identity train and bandwagon, you then don't have, you can't really say anything if a fringe group of, say, white people went off and, you know, wanted to form their own

white identity, white power movement. Because, you know, without being a hypocrite, you then can't criticize, right? If they're like, well, they're... That's not a problem with these people. Yeah, but it's like, well, they're saying black power. They're saying only buy from black businesses. They're saying, you know, don't intermarry, et cetera.

You know, that's what they're saying. And it can't be like, oh, well, that one's... bad and that one's okay because it all falls apart. So again, I think people need to think, people need to think more deeply about this stuff. Brother, I agree with you, but that's why I'm not optimistic about what's happening right now, because I just, that's what I see coming. Yeah. Do you think that's coming? I don't know, man. I'm generally an optimist by nature. I'm generally an optimist by nature. And as I said, I think, you know, 90% of the people in the middle of this, you know, 90% in the middle

are decent. This is also why I don't like this narrative of people trying to say that, you know, that's you know, I don't like it when people say things like the UK is a racist country. I don't, again, I don't, and then people get mad at me for not liking that.

But it's like, I don't like that because you are painting a lot of people who I know are good, decent people who are not racist, who are, you're just saying, if you say the UK as a whole or like British society as a whole is that it's like well you're kind of talking about all of us right so if that's not the case then please word your stuff you know I'm not trying to language police

people but you know word yourself a bit more or more carefully right if you say that there's a difference between saying there is racism in Britain right and saying Britain is a racist country those those are different statements the first one's like yeah of course right there are racist people everywhere but suggesting that Britain as a whole is racist in 2020 is it's damning a lot of people and it's just not But even in 2018-20 Not everybody was racist, right?

There were people fighting for the rights of slaves So that's the thing is like you can't just make these generalized statements about anything No You know and that's why it's important that you're getting that message of people need to be honest and accurate Which is what you're really saying Yeah, yeah You know yeah It's really important.

But listen, man, it's great to have you back. And keep putting your voice out there. You inspire lots of people, and then they inspire others and so on. And that's what we try and do as well. So thanks for coming back on. Most welcome. We've got one more question for you. And it's the one we always finish with, which is what is the one thing that we're not talking about, but we really should be.

Wow. Give me a second. Yeah. Last time he kept it light and said abortions. Yeah. So let's see what happens out with this time. Maybe he's going to double down on it. Abortion part too.

I think we should talk more about family, the importance of family and family structures. I think one of the biggest problems facing the West, I think the biggest problem actually is rooted in family. I think the biggest problem is lack of fathers, whether they're absent or just bad parenting. I think a lot of what we're seeing now is the result of decades of letting that family structure disintegrate in many ways. and not have any standards around that. So I think there needs to be more honest talk and discussion about, you know, men and women in society and relationships and marriage and family and children

and raising that next generation. I think that, again, I think political correctness often gets in the way of this and we're living in this time when there aren't supposed to be, it's kind of like there aren't even supposed to be any standards. It's just kind of like, well, every family structure is the same and just do whatever. And we know that that's not the case.

If someone likes data, you can look at the data on that. You can see the reality of it. There's nothing worse than not having a father for you. It's a big, big, big problem. And a lot of the stuff we talk about, I think, is rooted in that. So I'd love to see society speaking about that more honestly and openly. And again, if you want to talk about, you know, the slogan, Black Lives Matter, and you're talking about some of the problems in some of those communities,

specifically, especially in America, so much of it is rooted in fatherlessness and people being misguided along those lines. So ultimately, if we want to fix that problem, then I think we need to talk about that. That's a really important message, man. Thank you for coming back. If people want to follow you, they go to Add Zubi music on Twitter and just tell everybody, you know, you've got a podcast as well. Yep, sure. My podcast, Real Talk with Zubi, is available on all platforms. YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. You can also find my music. on all digital platforms, just search for Zubi. And you can find me on all social media,

Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, at Zubi Music. All right, thanks, guys. Thanks for watching. Make sure you go and follow Zubi. And we'll see you very soon with another brilliant episode. Take care and see you soon, guys.