WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Star Parker: The State of Black Progress

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Star Parker writes the introduction for the new book, The State of Black Progress: Confronting Government and Judicial Obstacles. She joins WRFH to address how signs of success on the surface coexist with social stagnation on the ground in the black community. The book features contributions from W.B. Allen, Judge Janice Rogers Brown (ret.), Ian Rowe, Sally Pipes, Stephen Moore, and others.  

This is Michaela Estruth on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Today, I'm with Starr Parker. She is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, also known as Cure, which she founded in 1995. She recently edited a new book and wrote its introduction. It's titled The State of Black Progress, confronting government and judicial obstacles. Starr, thanks for being here.

Oh, you're very, very welcome. To start off, would you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are today? Well, I journeyed into a public policy, basically through the back door because I had experienced many of the challenges in our society that we discussed here in Washington, D.C. when it comes to welfare policy, I had lived a lot of the lives of the left and the progressives that continue to promote this doctrine that America doesn't work for African Americans, that I'm poor because others were wealthy,

and that I should not mainstream my life and just continue the life of blaming all of my problems on someone else. So I'm listening to these types of narratives growing up, I was very easy for me to get lost in making really bad decisions. Those decisions included things like criminal activity and drug activity and sexual activity and abortion activity and welfare activity. Until finally, the Lord got a hold of me as I went into a business in South Central Los Angeles to try to get these businessmen to pay me under the table so that I wouldn't have to

report the income to my caseworker on welfare. And they didn't pay like that. They were legitimate businessmen. They confronted my lifestyle, told me it was unacceptable. And when I asked them to who, they said to God. And when they mentioned God, I had not heard God, especially not with a capital of G, and I had never thought about what I was doing in relation to a God. And I didn't think God was thinking about me either.

And so it began to this assessment inside of myself. And then within a few years, I went to church with them, and I received the gospel. I believed that God was in Christ, that he reconciled the world to himself, that he wasn't mad at me, wasn't counting my sins against me, that he loved me, and he died for me, and that he rose again. And in that messaging, I was born again, and I began a new path for my life. I went to college. I got a degree in marketing and international business. I started a business, and I became a pretty middle-class and successful in America. and then the Los Angeles riots of 1992 changed my course from just simply being a businesswoman in Los Angeles and to become a spokesperson because I began to tell my story in public about how I lived on welfare and that the reasons that we were hearing for why the city had burned down were not really the factors that contributed to the chaos that we see even to today in our most distressed. zip codes. So in me speaking out, it became a national news. It happened to be during the time that the GOP was thinking to reform welfare, and so I became a consultant with the RNC at that moment and

helped shape that body, if you will, get some elected officials who are willing to change welfare policy. And I worked very closely then with Speaker Newt Gingrich and many in the Senate to change welfare policy that had not been changed in 60 years. When Oprah Winfrey told her audience, when I explained what we were doing with welfare changes, when she told her audience that we were going to kick kids to the street and starve them and kick their moms out of their homes, I knew I needed to get in front of that narrative because what had really happened in our society was a cancer, had manifested itself, metastasized and was destroying everything healthy in our urban core and our rural communities. not even to mention the death in their lives, but the individuals that were now trapped in this government dependency.

So when she said that, I knew I needed to do something. So I held a conference in Los Angeles, life after welfare, what you're going to do now, thinking that maybe 40 pastors might come and 400 showed up. So I knew that people weren't engaged because they didn't care. They just didn't know what to do. So I began, that's what really shaped my organization. cure. About 12 years ago, I moved it to Washington, D.C. full-time. And we are a Policy Institute. We work on welfare reform and all-related issues because we fight poverty and restore dignity through messages of

faith, freedom, and personal responsibility. We have three programs. One is a policy program, so we work very closely with legislators that want to limit government involvement in individual people's lives. We have a media program that includes black community news.com and a weekly television show weekly, what they call like a column, just all kind of weekly everything. And then we have a clergy program where we represent the interest of about 900 pastors across the country that serve in our hardest hit zip codes. We represent their interests here in Washington, D.C., to try to convince politicians to remove governmental barriers so that the people in these hard places can live free. Wow. That's an incredible story. Star, how is Cure grown as an organization over the past?

20 plus years. Like it started as you said you moved it to DC. So have you seen it grown? And what are the like most relevant issues? I know you just listed a ton that you're focusing on now. Have you seen any shifts or progress? We've grown, uh, in many ways. I mean, we didn't start with nine hands or passes. We didn't start with four thousand donors. In fact, we started with one of each. And, um, and our daughter base has grown over time. No big significance, but a lot of little guys helping us out. to where today we have a $2.4 million budget, 12 people working on these issues through our three platforms and programs. So annually, we do some studies. We do one on the impact of abortion on the black community to try to shine a light, a bright light on how devastating this crime against humanity has been, not just all of America, but specifically to this people group. We do an annual report on black voting behaviors and opinions.

And then we do this annual tome, the state of black progress, is a new project that we're doing to counter the work of the Urban League that has put out a state of black America assessment for the last 40, 50 years. But the conclusions are always the same that America's racist will give us more money. So we thought that we take a look at where blacks really stand in the country and has America been successful for. African Americans and the answer is overwhelmingly yes most blacks do not live in poverty 75% in the great middle class or above and what we've done through public policy is we have forced our poor to live in very distressed zip codes where everything is broken so it looks like because it's disproportionately African-American that America doesn't work for black people so we've had growth but it's been a journey of growth

because we are 5013 with a unique organization because we are a conservative organization, very Christian-based and conservative. And so it's taken time for not just donors to recognize the significance of this particular unique boutique organization, but also for those in the community that we're trying to serve to recognize that conservatives, not their enemies, and policies of conservatives are actually enhancing and very friendly toward what they say they want, which is quality, education, safe neighborhoods, good health care, good housing, and economic flourishing. So we're good. We're okay. This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.

I'm Michaela Estruth with Starr Parker. She recently edited a book, The State of Black Progress, confronting government and judicial obstacles. And she is the founder and president of Cure, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. Star, I was wondering if you could give us a brief summary of this book that you've edited, why it's important, and why people should read it. Well, it's important. Let me start there, and then I'll go back through why. It's important because there's a narrative from the progressive left that takes all of the headlines through the mainstream media that blacks are overwhelmed by our society, that there's a

systemic racism in our culture that will not allow for African people. American, the descendants of slaves to succeed. And all of that is a lie. It's an absolute lie. So what we do is we China light. The state of black progress authors describe the role of government and the courts in overwhelming racial discrimination, but explain how these institutions have become obstacles to black progress in America. When you think about, you know, the role of government is to protect our interests, not to plunder us, not to pursue. And, And in the years immediately following Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as I have a dream speech, Congress passed Civil Rights Act.

They passed the Voting Rights Act. They passed the Fair Housing Act. The Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on interracial marriage were unconstitutional. These were critical actions in overcoming racial discrimination. But then Congress got in the way, and the civil rights establishment got in the way. During that same body of time in the 60s, they started pushing for big government policies, and they were embodied in LBJ's great society programs. And these programs undermined freedom.

They undermined black family. They undermine black communities. They undermined everything healthy in our society. It was an overtake of individualism by big government policies that devastated the poorest amongst us. And what we sell as a result is just this big growth in government. So while the moral framework was collapsing in all of America, we started seeing the expansion of government, whether people were just employed by it, whether they were collected benefits by it, or whether they were businesses getting favors from it.

I mean, it's underappreciated just the entanglement of government in our everyday lives. You now have businesses, non-grocery store businesses that accept food stamps because these are runaway programs developed in the 60s that are now overwhelming all of our budgets, whether they're local budgets, whether they're state budgets, or whether they're federal budgets. So we wanted to speak into this, including showing people where blacks really are in our society. It is so unappreciated that when President Trump signed the tax bill into law in 2017, not only did it deregulate a lot of the excessiveness over businesses and reduce the taxation over businesses to where they were able to flourish,

But that flourishing started going into communities that we had not strengthened in quite some time. And people would appreciate that during that time because of that effort, we started seeing black employment increase as well as incomes. It was the first time in the history of the country that we had more African Americans making over $75,000 a year than under $25,000 a year. But people don't know this because the megaphones are controlled by the progressive left. So Cure speaks into these things, and we put a tone together, the state of black progress, to speak into these and shine some truth. But not just the shine some truth. I got to tell you, we also discuss where things are still broken because they are. It's known any of us pretending that we didn't all see what happened as a result of George Floyd's death,

or that we're constantly seeing the protest center street now, or that we know crime is out of control, and immigration policy is 100% broken. and we know it. We can see the everyday life of the despair in our society that are addicted to government. But when you think about those addictions, they're all rooted in government. And we've then look at all of these inequities. We look at housing policy. I have a couple of authors in the state of black America that look specifically at housing policy. We have a couple of them look specifically at health policy, specifically at education policy, economic policy, to see where have we gone wrong as a society to trap our poor in over 8,700 zip codes that nothing in those zip codes is working, and we want these things fix. And the only way to fix them is to remove governmental barriers. Remove the barriers over education. So money can follow children to schools

parents want. Remove the barriers over retirement, social security, so that money can go into an IRA instead of an IRS. Remove the barriers over housing. So people can be flexible in where they live, including if they're poor, and then remove the barriers over our health. And not only remove the barriers over our health systems, confront the lie that abortion is health care. Abortion is not health care. It's a lie. It is a crime against humanity.

We should not be doing it. It also feeds this narrative that women are victims, that they have no control over their sexual impulses. And as a result of that narrative taken root since the 70s in Roe v. We now have marriage collapsed in all of our systems. It's hit the most vulnerable blacks the most, but all of society now is dealing with unmarried populations of adults and all that goes with that. Not only record numbers of single parenting, but just adults that try to live alone in particular when things are not well in the economy. We have a housing problem mostly because we have a supply and demand problem.

When you have non-marital adults, you need twice the amount of space for them to live so prices go up. Well, thank you for all the work that you're doing. That's incredible. In your introduction to the, that you wrote to this new book, you call our nation to embrace our founding principles that made her an economic powerhouse. And obviously in this day and age, that's rather countercultural, especially with the 1619 project that condemns America's founding. So I was wondering if you could talk about that history and why you see America's founding as in line with racial equality. When we think about the founding principles of the country, you know, I've captured the Mercurus captured into three Cs. We call the principles of Christianity, the virtues of capitalism, the rule of law in our Constitution. The three Cs are what built America. And in fact, it was amazing to listen to the discussions when then candidate for President Nikki Haley said America was never a racist country. It actually made people nervous for her to say that. But she was speaking truth.

When you think about the founding of the country, we declared who we are. In our Declaration of Independence, it tells us that we are not a racist country. It tells us that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. Now, what will be living up to that ideal? Absolutely not. We all know it. And when you had, you know, most of the South, the blacks in the South were enslaved, we all know it. We didn't need to have a discussion about slavery again.

We needed to have a discussion about is the country systematically and systemically racist? And the answer is no. We are moving toward a more perfect union. In fact, what didn't come up during that whole discussion and everyone left her to fin for herself when she made that statement, was that all of the Northeast immediately ended slavery upon the signing of our founding document. So when you think about the founding principles of our country, they're rooted in full. freedom, freedom and opportunity, opportunity for us to live, opportunity that we can embrace life, liberty, pursue happiness in whatever shape and form that we would want that to be,

whether it's economic happiness or whether it's just I want to, you know, have a rocking chair and some grandkids as I age. That is freedom in America. That's why so many try to come here because they know that if government stays out of the way to the degree that the founders had intended, they can live a healthy and prosperous life. We're an exceptional country, not to brag on ourselves, but to speak the truth of what this reality is. This is the first time in the history of the world that anyone from any background, from any type of situation, even if they needed to be born again and start again, could do that in this country.

We were the exception to the rule. Other countries, up until that point in history, you born poor, you die poor. This country, it doesn't have to be that way. Your fate is not your final destiny. And that's the beauty of our country and our founding. Earlier you reference the loud progressive left voices that are supporting these government programs, like what you've said in your language, become obstacles to black progress. And so I was wondering how people can get involved on the opposite end.

and speak the truth that you and your organization are. What are the best ways to do that? The best way to do that is the exercise their opportunity to reflect their voice in our law in the voting booth, in the private voting booth. So the best way that everyone should be involved as an adult is to vote, vote their values. vote for, in this upcoming election, it's very clear the differences in the two parties and the differences in the platforms of those parties. We're voting either for biblical freedom or we're voting for secular statism. It's absolutely clear. But how every citizen can always be involved as an adult is to vote their values and then hold those elected officials to the values that they said

that they were bringing to Washington, D.C. on your behalf and or your state legislatures and or your county and or even your very, very local elections have consequences. So that's the first thing I would have people do. The second thing that I would have, especially young people, do, is get married. Marry your sweetheart. Married the person you met in college, that you know you love. There's no reason to wait 10 years until you establish a career. an apartment and buy stuff so that you're, you know, more hardening your, in your views, and it makes it harder than to unite us two becoming one. Marry young and start a family.

The third thing that I would encourage people to do is when they start that family and you have those children, teach them your values. Make sure that they understand how to be bold witnesses through their life patterns. There's nothing wrong with waiting for sexual activity until you're married. There's nothing wrong with being faithful in that marriage. And we need to speak these things more honestly, not necessarily from a pulpit on high or on a megaphone on the corner, but just in the way we live our daily lives and with the people we come in contact with, every individual touches and changes the mind of 10 people.

We know that. Demographers know that. Statutians know that. That's why polls are such small numbers because everyone touches and changes the mind of 10, whether there's two family members, whether it's two friends, whether it's two neighbors, where there's two total strangers. One of them you just happen to mention that, hey, that's a better product. Oh, yeah, I heard about that restaurant and then two coworkers.

So just in that small circle, we're making an influence that will touch all. And we need to do that more boldly. There's nothing wrong with us saying that, you know, yeah, I love the Lord. I mean, we've gotten afraid, even as Christian people, to say that out loud. And there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, it's life-changing. It changed my life. Had that, Brother Ken Wilson not said, your lifestyle is unacceptable to God. I may not have met God. And even if I met him later in life, I may have made a whole lot more

mistakes that I was already on the journey making. Too many I knew, too many I know were dead at the point where I was just receiving God's life. So who we touch and what we say to those that we touch makes incredible differences in the person's life, but also for our country, because, you know, our founder, George Washington said, look, we're giving you freedom in the way that you can express yourself, but this cannot work if you are not a religious and moral people. It just won't. You just, ill people cannot make this thing peaceful, and we're seeing it all the time. Can't even walk down the streets anymore without being accosted by somebody else's views and the left is totally unglued when it comes to trying to

persuade people that they should go straight downhill to go down to hell. So that's what I would advise. Let's just be comfortable in who we are as Christian conservatives and live the life of that. That was Star Parker, founder and president of Cure, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education. She just edited a book, The State of Black Progress, confronting government and judicial obstacles. To learn more about Star and her work, you can visit curepolicy.org. This is Michaela Estruth. You're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM.