In this episode, Simone talks about the history of Yale s elite secret society, Skull and Bones, and why it s a racist organization with a white, male-dominated culture. She's joined by a guest who's been a member of the society for a long time, and she talks about what it means to be a member.
00:03:10.220I didn't go to Yale, so I'm, you know, not directly connected.
00:03:13.000But I might be able to add some elaboration as I'm reading through this.
00:03:16.920But again, I have to be very careful about what I say.
00:03:18.580But I have a lot of insight into these things.
00:03:20.920One of my favorite claims to fame, personally, is that the book, The Bloodlines of the Illuminati, which is like the major Illuminati book the CIA hosted on their website for whatever reason, says that my dad, like calling him out by name and the company he runs, is one of the supposed leaders of the Illuminati.
00:03:36.840So I'm the oldest male child, so I wasn't born yet when this book was written.
00:03:40.700So now I guess I'm one of the leaders of the Illuminati, too.
00:03:42.840But what's humorous is, in terms of the secret societies that actually impact things, you and I actually are, like, significant players.
00:03:50.900And I think what people don't realize is that the secret societies and parties that impact things are not the ones that you and conspiracy theorists are afraid of.
00:04:03.420I.e., if what they were saying at these events was something that you could just say out in the open, then it would be what aligned with the urban monoculture's goal for our society.
00:04:16.080It would align with what, like, the leftist oligarchs want for our society.
00:04:19.680The reason they're meeting secretly is because they are in opposition to that.
00:04:23.380Now, I'm sure that there is likely some mirror societies to ours that are the actual, like, PDA file stuff.
00:04:30.500I mean, we know that, like, Epstein's Island existed and everything like that.
00:04:34.100So, like, clearly there was an elite network of leftist PDA files, and they likely didn't disappear just because we got rid of the school teacher that hosted the stuff.
00:05:05.420Skull and Bones, Equity and Inclusion.
00:05:07.700This was a piece in The Atlantic a couple years back.
00:05:10.400One evening in 2019 in a windowless building known as the Tomb in the center of Yale's campus, the members of Skull and Bones snapped.
00:05:18.060There they were, having granted membership to the most elite secret society at one of the most elite universities in the world,
00:05:24.200part of a rare group that for generations included individuals from the most powerful families on the planet, the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, and Buckleys have all been members of Skull and Bones.
00:05:33.280Three Bonesmen would go on to become president of the United States.
00:05:35.580Their traditions, including oaths of secrecy upon a mission and antics, stealing a gravestone of Yale's founders and the rumors about them that the Bones tomb contains a human skull are legendary and an intense source of campus gossip.
00:05:48.220Just, you know, I've cut a lot out of this story, so I'm just reading the juiciest bits that assumes that most of our audience is going to basically know who the Skull and Bones are.
00:05:55.900A lot of that expository stuff I took out.
00:05:58.680But there in the tomb, surrounded by oil portraits of former Bonesmen, all white, all chosen by the society's alumni board, the current members felt overcome,
00:06:07.120not by the achievements of those that had come before them or by the possibilities that lay ahead, but instead by the organization's long history.
00:06:13.280So the students did what they felt had to be done.
00:06:17.060They pulled the portraits down and replaced them with homemade signs criticizing the secret society's records of keeping people of color out of its rank.
00:06:25.880Quote, portraits is a relatively straightforward and easy ask.
00:06:52.780This was not the only act of Skull and Bones' rebellion in 2019.
00:06:58.240During an all-expense-paid trip to meet with George W. Bush in Texas that year,
00:07:03.500one of the members confronted the ex-president who wrote in his 1999 autobiography,
00:07:07.840I joined Skull and Bones, a secret society.
00:07:10.360So secret, I can't say anything anymore.
00:07:12.480And criticized him for leading America into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to several people familiar with the trip.
00:07:18.880More recently, young graduates of Brazilese, another of the ancient eight, these are other secret societies on Yale.
00:07:25.120Yale's most elite secret societies pressed to change the name of the society's nonprofit legal entity from the Colony Foundation on the grounds that it evoked slavery and colonialism.
00:07:35.000Students in LOE, a society named for LOE Yale, also tried to rechristen the organization over the namesake ties to the slave trade.
00:07:44.840When the Bones clan of 2019 took down the portraits, some of their predecessors were aghast at the bad manners.
00:07:51.400A former member of the Bones alumni board who graduated from Yale in the 1960s told me,
00:07:56.860given that the society's former members were overwhelmingly white, he argued,
00:08:00.640it didn't make sense to criticize Skull and Bones for accurately portraying its own legacy.
00:08:04.540Quote, their historical protest was silly, end quote.
00:08:08.780He said, still, the Bones board tried to appease students by putting up photographs of non-white alumni alongside the portraits.
00:08:18.820This year, the former board told me the board will unveil the secret society's forced portrait of a black alumnus.
00:08:24.500Similarly, Brazilese agreed to rename the Colony Foundation.
00:09:18.360The old people haven't learned their lesson about don't let these types of people into your organizations.
00:09:22.620They were not let in because of their moral character.
00:09:25.500They were not let in because of their, you know, integrity or work ethic or likelihood to be successful in the future.
00:09:31.820They were let in because they're vile, frankly.
00:09:34.960Because they identified with the cult that took over and destroyed your organization's history.
00:09:40.380And I think that accepting this and trying to find a way forward from this place of acceptance is where these people can begin to think about fixing things.
00:09:54.980But I think it shows how quickly and how totally many of these organizations have just been completely destroyed from any historical root that they had.
00:10:02.600And yet, this destruction is based in racist and racial elitism.
00:10:06.980Picture a member of Skull and Bones or any of the other ancient eight societies, and you'll probably conjure a preppy white guy whose summer is in the Cape.
00:10:13.960In fact, in recent years, the demographics of Yale's most elite organizations have been utterly transformed.
00:10:18.300In 2020, Skull and Bones had an entirely non-white class.
00:10:22.820Every year, the society admits around 15 rising seniors, selections must be unanimous and members have final say.
00:10:30.300This was the key thing that allowed for the destruction of the organization because the admission had to be unanimous.
00:11:41.340Instead, the secret societies affirmatively select for students who are their first in family to attend college, who are from a low-income background, or who are part of a minority group.
00:11:50.400This has created something of a diversity arms race.
00:11:52.740Quote, people are intentionally or not thinking, does this cohort have too many white people, end quote, said Al Keynes, a member of Brazilese class of 2020.
00:12:01.560It's definitely an undercurrent, he said.
00:12:05.000I graduated from Yale last spring, and I didn't belong to a secret society.
00:12:08.960But when it came time for members in my year to select the next class, a friend of an ancient age society worried that the person she wanted to tap wouldn't get in.
00:12:16.860He was a person of color, but came from a wealthy family and was not the first in his family to attend college.
00:12:35.580A history of progressive activism is an asset among secret society hopefuls.
00:12:40.380Oh, so you need to be a progressive activist as well.
00:12:42.220One of the leaders of Yale's Democratic Socialist chapter, Socialists, mind you, joined Scroll and Key, one of the oldest secret societies last year.
00:12:50.780The Bones class of 2021 had, quote, people from all kinds of backgrounds, end quote.
00:12:55.400One member of the class told me, but no conservatives.
00:12:58.020Unless you count centrists as conservatives, which some members do.
00:13:04.460Like Yale's student body overall, members of the secret societies mostly range from far left to left of center.
00:13:10.500In short, Yale secret societies are now filled with students who, as a matter of political conviction, consider wealth and privilege indefensible, but who, as members of Yale's most elite clubs, enjoy enormous advantages.
00:13:23.760Skull and Bones pair students with alumni mentors in the field they hope to enter.
00:13:29.740Bones members spend a week in late summer getting to know one another at the group's private island on St. Lawrence River.
00:13:35.740Dinners at ancient eight societies are prepared by private chefs.
00:13:41.200They used this 17 million endowment and all of these privileges and all of these mentorships to progress and further this cult that they're a part of.
00:13:53.760And I think that if I was a member of the alumni of this group, I would focus on attempting to create a parallel society at the university that focused on individual integrity and not this racist nonsense.
00:14:10.800Like, just let the organization drain this 17 million dollar fund because they will.
00:14:14.300Stop doing the mentorship, start doing the mentorships for people who deserve it and are actually being ethnically discriminating against, which these days is not these people.
00:14:26.160As we can see from their acceptance into these organizations.
00:14:33.320Like, at the dinner parties we host in New York, the dinner parties we host in D.C., we always try to have young, rising stars at these events when we can.
00:14:42.480And we connect these individuals with movers and shakers.
00:14:44.620And it's done a lot to accelerate their careers.
00:14:47.480And I think that this is something that is upon us and all, you know, same thinking individuals with ties to power to continue to do.
00:14:55.400It's on you to fund and invest in the things that can't get investment in other ways.
00:15:02.120To do donations to those types of things instead of, you know, what keeps you on the board of whatever that makes you look good.
00:15:08.320In 2021, Caleb Dunson, then a Yale sophomore, published an op-ed in the school newspaper titled Abolish Yale.
00:15:17.240In the essay, he described his discomfort attending an opulent holiday feast for students while homeless people suffered in the cold nearby.
00:15:23.860Remember, they have private chefs, private islands.
00:15:26.380The school operates, quote, under the assumption that only a small group of remarkable people can push humanity forwards, end quote.
00:15:33.040Well, I mean, that's true, wrote Dunson.
00:15:35.060And it's likely not you or the people you're associated with, to be frank, who is black.
00:15:39.660Quote, it started off excluding women and people of color from its student body and now parades them around for diversity photos and social justice brownie points, end quote.
00:15:47.560Quote, even if the university made marginal changes, which Dunson argued it had been reluctant to do, its nature would remain the same.
00:15:54.160Quote, since we can't change Yale, we have to tear it down, end quote, he wrote.
00:15:58.300So they're trying to destroy these traditions, these organizations and everything they stood for while using them to push their cult-like message.
00:16:06.460Today, Dunson is a member of one of the ancient age societies.
00:16:09.660That's the type of person that these organizations are admitting.
00:16:13.800When I asked him about the apparent contradiction, he said he decided to join in order to make new friends and be part of a community, but acknowledged that he was attracted to the status that being in a society confers.
00:16:24.320Quote, once you get a tap for a society, it's funny how quickly you get invested in the preservation of that society, end quote.
00:16:31.360He told me, ultimately, he said, given his political views are at odds with attending Yale in the first place, quote, there's already a bit of cognitive dissonance, end quote.
00:16:41.100So joining a secret society isn't that big a leap.
00:16:55.400This is why I love when you talk to one of these lefties who want, like, communism or more socialism, and you're like, well, every time that's been done in the past, the people, as soon as they got power to manage the system, ended up abusing it, taking all the money for themselves, becoming elitist, creating a strict class system with an oligarchy that was even less pitiful than it was under capitalism.
00:17:16.860And they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.
00:17:19.080The next generation of elite communists, they're not like that.
00:17:22.000They would give up the power as soon as it was handed to them.
00:17:24.740And yet we see it even in the case of these kids at, like, Yale being given these giant endowments and private islands and stuff like that that we'll learn about in just a second.
00:17:36.440They keep the system working for them.
00:17:39.560Even individuals like Bernie Sanders, for example, number one, and has been for, like, 10 years, receiver of pharma donations among senators.
00:17:50.660And Yale's like, oh, well, those are all small donations.
00:17:53.520Those are all small donations, really, Bernie, buddy?
00:17:55.620That's why you fought so hard against RFK getting appointed?
00:17:59.760That makes no sense that you, when you're looking at an industry that has a vested interest in greasing the hands of senators, that you could beat every other senator in terms of donations by chance from small donations from employees multiple years in a row for a decade.
00:18:19.120And that you would ardently campaign for their interests.
00:18:22.340No, the point is, is that these individuals, whether it's Bernie Sanders or these DEI guys in Skull and Bones, the moment they get power, all of their values that they have been campaigning for disappear.
00:18:35.340Are these people not the – this is the majority of the people at Yale now.
00:18:38.460Yale now, on somebody's resume, just stamps them as this kind of grifter.
00:18:43.540I mean, you really got to be like, and when did you graduate?
00:18:46.040You know, I went to Stanford back when Stanford was still, like, a respectable institution.
00:18:50.220A lot of people went to Yale in the past.
00:18:51.580I know some friends who went to Princeton who are, I think, doing a lawsuit saying that the organization no longer has any – it's like a negative on their resume at this point.
00:19:01.400No, the idea was, yeah, to file a lawsuit because their management of the school had degraded the value of the degree that they'd spent so much money to get.
00:19:15.840These organizations are being horrific stewards because they have been co-opted by the cult.
00:19:20.140And we'll see if the vibe shit pushes them back.
00:19:22.060We'll see if the Supreme Court lawsuit making it illegal to discriminate against someone based on race.
00:19:26.420Surprise, surprise that we had to do that in the United States and that these were the people fighting against that Supreme Court decision and screeching about it.
00:19:33.860But they're also the elitists who control everything.
00:19:36.200The Republican Party of today is fundamentally an anti-elitist party.
00:19:39.560It is a party of the people because this is elitism.
00:19:44.120You can't be pro-this stuff and anti-elitism.
00:19:56.360The most common argument current and recent members give for preserving the societies is that by opening them up to groups that had previously been excluding, they can help diversify the elite.
00:20:07.740Ali Canels recalls being tapped by a senior who wanted to, quote, keep the Latino line going.
00:20:13.180Once inside, Canels focused on a different diversity metric.
00:20:21.600Today's students believe that their values are better than those of the secret society members who came before them.
00:20:29.500And thus they will use their positions in more socially beneficial ways, even if they're not yet sure exactly how.
00:20:35.820The member of the 2021 Bones class had been uneasy about joining, but was convinced by a student from the year above.
00:20:41.960Quote, yes, there is that baggage that we do have to reckon with, end quote, the older student told her.
00:20:47.460But the fact that you are reckoning with it, the other people in your class are reckoning with it, that's a good sign.
00:20:54.640Her class included many students from low-income families, and they often talked about how they would leverage their network to help their communities.
00:21:01.500One recent Bones member used an alumni gathering to fundraise for a nonprofit she ran.
00:21:06.580Nearly all of the current and recent members I spoke with said that it would be better if secret societies didn't exist at all.
00:21:18.080But given that they do exist, they decided they might as well join to make it better.
00:21:23.320The most full-throat critique of societies tends to come for people who didn't get in.
00:21:27.480Elizabeth Zau, oh, she was Asian, she never had a shot, who graduated from Yale in 2023, felt confident in her odds to be tapped by St. Elmo's, one of the Ancient Eight.
00:21:38.060But she spent tap day crying because she wasn't chosen.
00:21:42.520No, she's an underclass by the standards of DEI.
00:21:47.240And comparing her qualifications against those of her friends who were invited in.
00:21:51.800In Yale Daily News op-ed, she argued that secret societies should be torn down rather than open up.
00:21:57.700By including more students from marginalized backgrounds, she wrote,
00:22:00.660the society system merely diversifies the ranks of the worthy without transforming the underlying structures that deem others worthy, end quote.
00:22:10.340Yes, it's exactly the same as it always was in that respect.
00:22:13.900And yet she admitted, quote, I know in my bones that if I had gotten tapped by St. Elmo's, I would have taken it and likely wouldn't have developed a critical mode of participation.
00:22:24.800End quote, they're all such immigrants.
00:22:28.120Quote, everyone talked a really big game.
00:22:30.000End quote, one member of the LA class of 2019 told me, quote, in the first months of my time in the society, there were people like, we got to burn this place down.
00:22:38.420We need to mobilize the endowment to redistribute the wealth back to New Haven.
00:22:41.860And then inevitably, we all just ended up doing what had been done in years previous, which is doing the bios, hanging out with each other and a few volunteer things.
00:22:50.820But it wasn't anything radical, end quote.
00:22:53.720As the 1960s bones alumnus, former member told me, quote, if you want things to stay the same, everything has to change, end quote.
00:23:02.320In his view, the secret societies are thriving.
00:23:06.640When students and alumni meet for the annual bone celebration in New York, the old guard gives a hearty applause to the new members.
00:23:12.980And the kids are thinking, there's somebody in this room who's going to help me get a job.
00:23:16.920And that's what the old board member was saying, the quotes there.
00:23:23.260So they, and this is fundamentally what a lot of these people who were conservatives of the last generation and were taken in by the oligarch and are like the never Trumpers and everything like that.
00:23:32.080They don't understand how much this new generation, one, does not care about integrity.
00:23:39.120They do not care about actually making the world a better place.
00:23:42.560They care about this redistribution cult.
00:23:45.180If you gave Skull and Bones endowment to, for example, just redistributed it to Yale, it would be gone like that.
00:23:52.660It's basically dumping it in the ocean in terms of the impact it would have, as we've seen from things like the UBI studies.
00:23:58.740It might even make the situation worse.
00:24:00.460These individuals do not care about any evidence-backed direction to make the world better.
00:24:09.240Do you think these people are going to get jobs from the network, though?
00:24:12.440Because if I were one of the senior...
00:24:14.780How do the woke people get to the top of BlackRock and shit like that, Simone?
00:24:18.200This person was one of the heads who said, oh, I think this is all a good thing in the 1960s.
00:24:23.660A lot of elitist society, as you and I have seen, like if you talk about the reason why we do secret meetings
00:24:30.140is because we're like part of the underground, right?