WEBVTT - When Race Trumps Merit with Heather Mac Donald 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.679 We live in a society where Race Trump's Merit. 0:00:02.840 --> 0:00:06.440 American companies are more interested in meeting diversity quotas than 0:00:06.559 --> 0:00:09.400 hiring the best and the most talented people. So how 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:11.680 soon will it be until we have surgeons who don't 0:00:11.720 --> 0:00:15.520 know how to operate, pilots who can't fly, and what 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:18.439 are the dangers of it all? New York Times best 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.600 selling author Heather McDonald joins me to talk about our 0:00:21.640 --> 0:00:31.080 new book, When Race Trump's Merit. Here's Heether, Heather. I 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:34.760 always love having you on the show. You're always willing 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:37.600 to have conversations that everyone else is afraid of. But 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:39.839 the conversations you're willing to have are the ones we 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.640 need to have. So I appreciate what you do, and 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.120 also I'm excited to talk to you about this new book, 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:46.680 When Race Trump's Merit. 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:49.240 Lisa, It's such a pleasure to be with you, and 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:51.519 you're one of the great interviewers out there, So thank 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:52.320 you for having me on. 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:54.920 Well, that is very kind coming from you, so I 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:58.040 really appreciate it. You know, so your book talks about 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:00.160 disparate impact theory. 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:02.920 You know, what is it? What should people know about it? 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:07.039 Well, what they should know is that every major institution 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:10.480 of American or Western civilization is now. 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:11.160 In the crosshairs. 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:15.600 It's all coming down unless we have a better explanation 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:21.080 for racial disparities than racism. Right now, the left controls 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.920 the discourse, and if there's any institution that has anything 0:01:26.040 --> 0:01:29.240 less than thirteen percent black representation in it, So if 0:01:29.319 --> 0:01:34.560 Google's engineering force is not thirteen percent black, or an 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:38.160 elite law firm doesn't have thirteen percent black partners, the 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:44.840 only allowable explanation at present is racism, and when that 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.720 holds the left winds, it is all coming down. Disparate 0:01:48.720 --> 0:01:54.559 impact is the idea that any kind of meritocratic standard 0:01:55.560 --> 0:02:03.440 that has a negative effect on preferred favorite victim groups 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.040 is by definition racist. So we saw disparate impact working 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:14.480 decades ago. It began overwhelmingly in sort of blue collar jobs, 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:20.160 where if a written exam to become a police officer 0:02:20.880 --> 0:02:27.560 or a firefighter, if blacks were not passing the exam 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:31.400 at the same rate as whites, and this exam is 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:36.000 completely color blind, Lisa, it's objective. It's not graded by 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:40.200 some racist cop, it's graded by a computer. And these 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:45.040 exams would be at a very low level of elementary 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:49.120 school reading skills and math skills. But in order to test, 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:54.000 can a potential policemen read the patrol guide or can 0:02:54.080 --> 0:03:00.560 a potential firemen understand the chemical instructions on using different 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:02.840 chemist chemicals to fight fires. 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:05.600 If Blacks were not passing that. 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.360 Test at an equal rate, then the test has to 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:12.960 throw out be thrown out. The idea is the test 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:15.799 has a disparate impact, bad bad test. 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.480 We're going to blame the test. And now we're doing 0:03:19.560 --> 0:03:23.320 the same thing. We're getting rid of SATs, we're getting. 0:03:23.120 --> 0:03:26.840 Rid of law school admissions tests. There's a big pressure 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.760 on to get rid of the medical college admission test. 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:34.200 We're getting rid of grading in medical. 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:38.440 Licensing exams because Blacks don't do as well. So disparate 0:03:38.480 --> 0:03:43.200 impact is being used to take down every meritocratic standard. 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:47.120 And it also explains if you're looking around your world 0:03:47.120 --> 0:03:50.400 for the last two three years since George Floyd, and 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:52.720 you're saying, my god, what's going on with the criminal 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:58.920 justice system. Why aren't these prosecutors prosecuting theft and shoplifting 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:04.640 and resisting a rest and disorderly conduct and gun possession 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.800 and drug possession. Why are they throwing out all these 0:04:07.920 --> 0:04:12.720 cases and just saying go free, disparate impact another that's 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.200 the reason again, because it turns out that if you 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:22.160 enforce the criminal law in a colorblind, neutral, constitutional manner, 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.640 you will have a negative disparate effect on black criminals. 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:30.279 And we have decided as a society that we would 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:34.880 rather not enforce the law and allow criminals back on 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:39.880 the street to pray overwhelmingly on minority victims than to 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:43.719 enforce the law in a legal manner and have a 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:48.040 disparate impact and have a disproportionate number of blacks in prison. 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.840 What drove this or when did you start saying it 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:53.760 take hold of a versus society. 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:56.919 Well, I've been watching the attack on merit and the 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:01.839 idea that any kind of standard is racist for decades. 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.880 But things really got insane. They got at a sort 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:12.080 of psychotic breakdown, George Floyd, And that's when you had 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:16.919 every single important institution in this country, whether it's the 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:27.000 of science, of medicine, the arts, music, theater, basic functions 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:30.560 of government, all standing up and saying we are by 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:36.040 definition racist because we have too many whites in our organization. 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.719 The history of art is racist because European art is 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:41.760 predominantly white. 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:42.359 Well, guess what. 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:46.640 That's what the demographics were. There was not discrimination going 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:51.440 on against black classical music composers in the eighteenth century because. 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:52.600 There were none. 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.680 But right now, all you need to do to take 0:05:55.720 --> 0:05:58.839 down an institution or an individual is to say it's 0:05:58.839 --> 0:05:59.360 too white. 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:00.839 The New York. 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:05.839 Times will routinely, if it wants to discredit a judge 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:09.559 or a prosecutor or a police officer, it will say 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:14.119 a white judge. Here's a rule of thumb. If the 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:18.600 race of a criminal is not identified, it's a black criminal, 0:06:18.800 --> 0:06:21.440 because if it's a white criminal, the New York Times 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:23.359 at CNN will tell you it's a white criminal. 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.400 To be white today is to be at the bottom. 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.640 To be a white male, a straight white male, is 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:35.680 to be at the absolute bottom of the totem pole. 0:06:36.520 --> 0:06:39.960 The reality today is not white privilege. 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.120 It's black privilege. If there's a privilege, it's family privilege. 0:06:43.480 --> 0:06:45.520 But if you want to get your child into a 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:51.840 selective school, hope that he is a underrepresented minority, and 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.800 if he's a white male, you can kind of forget 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:55.240 about it. 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.400 I mean, how hard would it be for a white 0:06:57.440 --> 0:06:59.200 male to get into college these days? 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:00.360 It's very hard. 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:03.240 I mean I got a friend sent me a notice 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:06.440 he'd gotten from a friend. My friend teaches criminology at 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:13.080 a military academy, about his daughter who has perfect SATs. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.040 You have sixteen hundred SATs. 0:07:14.680 --> 0:07:18.600 Perfect National Merit scholar, you know, a plus on every 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:24.320 single AP course under the sun Honor Society's athlete. She's 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:29.480 been waitlisted at every school she applied to because she's white. 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:34.680 Being female doesn't even get her over the bar. And meanwhile, 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:40.760 every school, every single selective college, employs vast racial preferences. 0:07:40.840 --> 0:07:47.000 It admits black and Hispanic students with SAT scores and 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.920 GPAs that are so low that they would be automatically 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:53.080 disqualifying if presented by whites and Asians. 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:57.200 But they're brought in, and these. 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:02.000 Racial preferences do their beneficiaries. Alleged beneficiary is no good whatsoever. 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:05.080 You're putting students up. 0:08:04.920 --> 0:08:09.440 To fail, if you're catapulting them into a college for 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.280 which they're not competitively prepared. Black students should go to 0:08:13.320 --> 0:08:17.320 college on the same terms as everybody else, which is 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.040 with peers that share their academic qualifications. 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.760 It's cruel to put somebody. 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:26.960 If Mit admitted me with six hundreds on my math 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:29.880 SATs and all my peers had eight hundred, in other words, 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:34.679 a perfect score on the math SATs, and MIT said, oh, 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:38.640 we have to have more females, We need more gender diversity. 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.560 So it brings me in, what's going to happen to 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.120 me my first year? I Am going to fail calculus 0:08:44.160 --> 0:08:48.840 because the teaching is pitched to my peers who had 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:49.920 eight hundreds. 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.040 They had perfect math scores. 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.840 Well, that's what happens to black students that are admitted 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:58.360 to selective colleges. They end up switching out of STEM majors, 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:00.160 they end up at the bottom of their class. The 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:05.720 law school data is utterly horrific. Black law students, you know, 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.160 the vast majority end up at the bottom tenth of 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:13.400 their classes. This is after neutral, color, blind, objective, non 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:19.160 human graded tests. So we are watering down the caliber 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.680 of our institutions. Medical schools are admitting students on the 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:26.240 basis of race, not merit. They're promoting doctors on the 0:09:26.280 --> 0:09:30.400 basis of race not merit. Same as happening in engineering schools. 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:31.960 We are playing with fire. 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.680 Lisa, Well, I'm awful at math, so you know, God 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:38.880 helpt if they admitted me, and then and every and 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:42.080 every teacher I would come across, so it would be 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:44.240 it would be a headache for all involved. 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.760 Yeah, but these days, you know, you cannot be sure 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.000 that you're not going to be chosen to had some 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:53.240 mathematics counsel because you're a female. 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.640 I mean, that's what's going on math. You know, the American. 0:09:57.240 --> 0:10:01.440 Association of Math Society is is always saying, oh, we're 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.280 racist and we're sexist, and so I mean, I've been chosen. 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.440 I was asked to be on some Fox Nation program 0:10:08.520 --> 0:10:11.400 on interest rates and I said, what, I don't know, 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.000 I think about instruments. Am I a gender quota for 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:14.480 you guys? 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:18.119 And they basically said yes. So it happens constantly. 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.280 Let's take a quick commercial break more with Heather MacDonald 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:27.240 about when race Trump's merit. I mean, of course there's 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:29.360 an impact to tell all of this, right, I mean 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:31.760 we're talking about a lot of jobs, like the medical 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:34.960 profession or engineering. I mean, so if you look at 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:40.880 these professions where competency is critical to preserving life, what 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:44.800 impact does this have? If we're leading people to posicians 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:46.640 who aren't qualified. 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.880 It's going to eventually put lives at risk for sure. 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.240 What's happening right now? Is it slowing down research? You 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:58.160 have the federal science agencies that are telling labs you 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.600 should hire if you're in Alzheimer's lab, you should not 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.520 hire the most qualified scientists if they're white and Asian. 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:07.160 You should hire on. 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:08.439 The basis of diversity. 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:12.240 Well, given the academic skills gaps. And you know, this 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:15.600 is what I do here is actually give readers the 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:20.400 data about why it is that diversity is at this 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:25.320 point incompatible with meritocracy. You can have diversity or you 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:30.280 can have meritocracy. You cannot have both. Here's the facts, Lisa. 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:36.440 Sixty six percent of black twelfth graders do not even 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.880 possess partial mastery of twelfth grade math skills. What's a 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.200 twelfth grade math skill being able to do an arithmetical 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:47.920 calculation or being able to recognize the linear function on 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:53.120 a graph. Sixty six percent of black twelfth graders cannot 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:57.400 even do partially arithmetical calculations. 0:11:57.440 --> 0:11:59.040 Only seven percent. 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:04.240 Of black twelfth graders are competent in those skills. In 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.520 other words, they can perform them, and the number who 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:11.120 are advanced is so small to not even show up statistically. 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:14.920 This is based on the National Association National Assessment of 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:18.520 Education Progress. So it's got tens of thousands of students 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:24.600 taking these exams. But we have decided, even though there 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:29.760 we've got these massive academic skills gaps, that the only 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:35.679 allowable explanation for the lack of thirteen percent black physicists 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:41.600 at MIT or Harvard or cal Tech, or thirteen percent 0:12:42.240 --> 0:12:49.920 black cancer researchers at the University of Pennsylvania or Mass 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:51.719 General is racism. 0:12:52.080 --> 0:12:52.679 No, it's not. 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.800 The reason is the academic skills gap. 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.079 But we have the federal. 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:01.960 Agencies now, the National Institutes of Health, national Science Foundation, 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:09.080 telling labs you must have proportional representation in your lab 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:14.160 or you ain't getting any more federal money. So we 0:13:14.280 --> 0:13:18.920 have decided that diversity is more important than medical progress, 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:21.959 curing cancer or curing Alzheimer's disease. 0:13:22.679 --> 0:13:24.280 You talk in your book, you're right. 0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.680 The reality remains that a dysfunctional inner city culture is 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:31.079 hindering black progress. You just talked about the skills gap 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:33.480 that is happening. You had mentioned some of those scores 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.080 where you know, unfortunately black students are being left behind. 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:39.120 So what do we do about that? 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:41.440 You know, talk a little bit about this dysfunctional inner 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:45.480 city culture and what we can do to help You 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.440 know where zip code, for instance, does it determine a 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:49.280 child's future. 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:52.120 You know what I'm going to be really really stark 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:57.280 and bleak here. There's what we can do is less. 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.080 The culture has to heal itself. 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.520 There has to be an This is on academic achievement. 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:06.160 You have this pervasive view that to study hard, to 0:14:06.240 --> 0:14:11.120 care about your studies and exams is acting white. So 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:14.320 black students who do take their homework home and do 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.720 it and are not truant, they're criticized for acting white. 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:23.080 There's nothing that anybody else can do to fix that. 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.760 The students have to study. You can't come from the 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:32.840 outside and put that knowledge into students' heads. Parents have 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:40.400 to take responsibility for their children. If every black family 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:44.160 acted like an Asian family with regards to academic achievements 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.720 and effort, and after ten or fifteen years we still 0:14:48.800 --> 0:14:54.400 saw racial disparities, then I'm going to contemplate that it 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:58.359 may be systemic racism. But right now, when the behavioral 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:03.200 disparities are so great, when the behavior that you see 0:15:03.360 --> 0:15:08.560 in inner city classrooms is so talentter productive, the reason 0:15:08.600 --> 0:15:12.440 that black kids are disciplined more. It's not teacher racism, 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:16.960 as Barack Obama claimed, and as Joe Biden claims, it's because. 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:17.560 They are acting out. 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.760 More Black teenagers males between the ages of fourteen and 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:25.960 seventeen commit gun homicide at least at ten times the 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:30.520 rate of white and Hispanic male teens in those ages combined, 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:31.520 at least. 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:34.920 And then we think that, well, if. 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:39.840 Those same teens that are gangbanging, we expect that they're 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.760 being docile and obedient in classroom. And the only reason 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:47.280 that explains the higher discipline rate is teacher racism. It's preposterous. No, 0:15:47.960 --> 0:15:49.560 I've seen these classrooms. 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:52.040 They are chaotic, and then the. 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:55.080 Teachers are told, you can't impose discipline because that has 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:59.560 a desperate impact. Another key disparate impact theme. You can't 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.200 impose those expulsions or suspensions because it has a disparate 0:16:03.200 --> 0:16:07.640 impact on unruly black students. So the first thing that 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:12.000 has to happen is a cultural change. Yes, there's things 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.080 that the rest of society have been trying for years, 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:21.720 whether it's the conservative recipes of vouchers and charter schools. 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:27.479 I would say schools should be relentlessly insistent on complete 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:33.640 self control, no excuses for bad behavior, no excuses for 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:38.440 you just ignoring exams for being truant. 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:41.440 The left would say we need more spending. 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.720 That's quite questionable given that many inner city schools on 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.680 a per capita basis are funded at much higher rates 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.320 than any other schools. The money is not the problem. 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:56.280 The problem is the lack of a culture of academic achievements. 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:58.920 So do you think any sort of bring you just 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.520 laying out the break down that's happening in schools, So 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:04.439 do you think you know, obviously many of those of 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:06.840 those a's and the right, you know, support school choice, 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:07.359 So do. 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:08.680 You think that would have an impact? 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.000 I mean, I agree with you that parents are the 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:13.240 most important thing in a child's life. 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.240 But you know, would school choice help well, I. 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:18.240 Think the data is kind of mixed. 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:25.840 Uh, I'm betraying my conservative policy want colleagues here. But 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:31.120 certainly every parent that does want a stricter environment for. 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.960 His child should have that option. But it's not always clear. 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.719 You know that that inner city voters are voting for 0:17:42.040 --> 0:17:45.520 politicians that are promising these I mean, I think we've 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:46.160 got a little bit. 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.080 Of a whitewash going on. We saw this as well 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:48.880 with crime, with. 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:53.320 The Chicago neighborhoods that had the highest crime rates were 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:56.080 the also ones that voted most for the anti police 0:17:56.760 --> 0:18:01.800 mayoral candidate Brandon Johnson in the recent Chicago mayoral election runoff, 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.680 putting a somebody who believes that the police are racists 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:06.919 in the mayoralty. 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:08.520 This is a total disaster. 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:14.159 So yes, it would help, but I think that the 0:18:14.200 --> 0:18:17.200 real problem again is culture, and you've got to have 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:22.040 black leaders getting up there and saying, don't use the 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:27.040 excuse of racism. You have efficacy, you have power, you 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:31.200 have agency. And I am a supporter of what used 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.680 to be called the no excuses charter schools, and you know. 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:36.960 They've gone left as well. 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:42.720 The insanity of this, you know, race trumping merit idea 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:47.040 has has even poisoned some of the best charter schools 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.760 and networks like KIP. This is an acronym k i 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:54.320 PP that was founded by these two white civil rights 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.639 activists and it had It was one of these no 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:01.120 excuse of schools that every every everything a child did 0:19:01.160 --> 0:19:02.840 basically during the day was scripted. 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:04.680 They had to the students have. 0:19:04.680 --> 0:19:09.639 To walk in line, the teachers have a very strictly 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:15.080 regulated way of teaching, and they're basically trying to inculcate 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:20.320 the self control and deferred gratification that these kids are 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:24.320 not getting at home in these chaotic inner city homes, 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:29.160 and to give them the ability to have the virtues, 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.760 the bourgeois virtues of self control that will allow them 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:34.160 to hold a job. So KIP was a good leader 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:34.960 in this well. 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:36.880 After George Floyd. 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:42.200 They decided to retire their motto, which was work hard, 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:46.040 be nice, because they thought that embodied white supremacist values. 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:53.040 So another example of an institution that would rather flagellate 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:57.520 itself for phantom racism. KIP was not a racist institution. 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:02.000 It was founded on the hope of racial equality. And 0:20:02.119 --> 0:20:07.600 yet all of white America melted down and decided that 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:10.760 it was the problem and that it would not have 0:20:11.200 --> 0:20:18.720 any expectations of good law abiding, you know, self disciplined 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:21.440 behavior on the part of blacks. 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.920 That's concerning to hear, you know, And it's always interesting 0:20:24.960 --> 0:20:27.879 to get different perspectives on the issue because that's how 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.560 you learn, you know, getting different opinions, and you know, 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.679 kind of just having those conversations you had mentioned Obama 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:37.760 and Biden, you know, two people who are really intentionally 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.840 trying to drive racial divisions in the country. You know 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:44.760 what do they get from that? You know, what do 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:47.919 they get from from driving this this equity stuff. 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:51.960 Self respect, self love? You know, they view themselves as 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:59.320 superior to these yahoo maga hat wearing red state Americans, 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.440 and so it's just an incredible infusion of virtue they feel. 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.679 You know, the biggest virtue in America today is to 0:21:08.680 --> 0:21:12.720 be anti racist. Uh, nothing else really matters. 0:21:13.720 --> 0:21:15.320 You know, being a good parent. 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:23.000 Raising law abiding children, staying married, accomplishing you know what, 0:21:23.480 --> 0:21:25.920 learning to the up most of your capacity. 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:30.560 That doesn't really get rewarded, but being anti racist does. 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:36.600 So they get acclaim and plaudits from the mainstream media 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:42.879 and from academia. But it is they are parasites on 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:48.160 a civilization that did value excellence and that believe that 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:54.960 human beings should not be limited by by the trivialities 0:21:55.000 --> 0:22:00.560 of identity. Now, I am not going to pay over 0:22:00.720 --> 0:22:02.479 America's horrible history. 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:04.639 It's just sickening. 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:11.480 Hypocrisy that the centuries of gratuitous cruelty towards blacks. I mean, 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:16.840 one wonders you know, who were these Southerners? They were 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:23.040 absolutely insane in their hatreds and nastiness, and a lot 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:25.639 of the North was for very long as well. So 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:30.720 that is a reality, and it undercuts any facile conservative 0:22:30.800 --> 0:22:35.639 narrative about America being founded on equality. It was not. 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:37.840 We were a white supremacist state. 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.639 I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that, and it breaks 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:47.159 my heart for our treatment of blacks for so long. 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:51.280 But I can also say that that is not our 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:52.280 reality today. 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:53.479 It is not. 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:58.440 There is not a single mainstream institution that is not 0:22:58.560 --> 0:23:03.000 twisting itself into to hire and promote as many blacks 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:07.280 as possible. They are not facing discrimination from a single 0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:13.760 mainstream institution. And to continue making that as the predominant 0:23:13.760 --> 0:23:19.000 explanation means that we will continue tearing down our civilizational 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:24.600 meritocratic standards for disparate impact, when the problem is not 0:23:25.080 --> 0:23:30.159 the standards. We have to stop tearing down the standards, because, 0:23:30.200 --> 0:23:33.399 as you say, Lisa, it's going to put it's going 0:23:33.440 --> 0:23:37.879 to put lives at risk when we are qualifying incompetent doctors, 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:42.879 when we're putting incompetent pilots and cockpits, when we're having 0:23:42.920 --> 0:23:48.000 bridges built by people who were preference beneficiaries, and we 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:50.720 are also destroying the greatest works of art. We are 0:23:50.760 --> 0:23:55.199 teaching young people to see the traditions of music and 0:23:55.400 --> 0:24:00.159 art and theater through the trivializing lens of rape and 0:24:00.359 --> 0:24:04.720 sex oppression, a lens that in almost all cases is 0:24:04.760 --> 0:24:05.959 completely irrelevant. 0:24:06.080 --> 0:24:08.600 Quick commercial break more with Heather on her new book 0:24:08.640 --> 0:24:14.240 When Race Trump's Merit. You know what, it also scares 0:24:14.280 --> 0:24:16.480 me because you look at some of these airlines too, 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:19.800 who are saying that you know, they're going to focus on, 0:24:20.359 --> 0:24:22.919 you know, diversity in the hiring. You know, we're going 0:24:22.960 --> 0:24:25.679 to meet this fifty percent quote of the five thousand 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:28.960 pilots it trains or the company trains in the next 0:24:29.440 --> 0:24:31.960 decade or whatever to be women or color or when 0:24:32.000 --> 0:24:33.600 I think most people are like, I just want. 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:34.560 To get home safely. 0:24:34.960 --> 0:24:37.159 You know, I fly a lot, and so that's a 0:24:37.240 --> 0:24:41.080 concern of mine as well, of these airlines hiring people 0:24:41.119 --> 0:24:43.359 on the basis of meeting quotas as opposed to just 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:45.960 hiring people who can get me safely. 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:46.880 To point A to point B. 0:24:48.880 --> 0:24:53.560 You know, the left has moved from a quality to equity, 0:24:53.880 --> 0:24:55.959 you know, talk about that transition. 0:24:56.440 --> 0:24:57.880 Well, I'm not sure. 0:24:58.119 --> 0:25:01.480 Yeah, it's been a long time since we've had any 0:25:01.600 --> 0:25:02.919 sort of common sense. 0:25:02.720 --> 0:25:03.920 Idea of equality. 0:25:04.440 --> 0:25:08.760 I think certainly the great civil rights heroes of the 0:25:08.880 --> 0:25:13.800 nineteen fifties nineteen forties, they were thinking in terms of. 0:25:13.760 --> 0:25:18.200 Equality and wanted to remove. 0:25:18.040 --> 0:25:22.880