Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 03, 2020


Ep 258 ｜ Does the Truth Matter？

Topics
George Floyd and Christianity justice and injustice definitions unarmed people killed by police police brutality racism systemic racism and police shootings riots moral ambiguity of politicians White Supremacist and gospel preaching
Hosted by
Allie Beth Stuckey
Mentioned
George Floyd Roland Fryer Derek Chauvin Thomas Sewell Jesus Christ Barack Obama Antifa Peter Atitiana Jefferson Justin Timberlake Michael Davidson Margaret Sanger Breonna Taylor Daryl Harrison Albert Moeller Daniel Shaver Justine Damon Michael Brown Arthur Reiser Louis Vuitton and 11 more
Ep 257 ｜ Leaving the Prosperity Gospel Behind and the Deconversion of Christians ｜ Guest： Costi Hinn Ep 259 ｜ Why Cultural Christians Are Going Extinct ｜ Guest： Dr. Albert Mohler

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 6 minutes

Words per minute

176.78

Word count

11,711

Sentence count

829

Harmful content

Misogyny

11

sentences flagged

Toxicity

61

sentences flagged

Hate speech

35

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I discuss a recent study that was published in the New York Times titled, "The Christian Woman's Duty to Stand Firm on the Facts." This episode explores the role of the Christian woman in standing firm on the facts and standing firm in the word of God.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. So we have a lot to talk about today, a lot
00:00:15.800 of heavy things to talk about. I have been thinking about this episode probably since
00:00:20.760 Friday, have been planning it for over three days, which is a lot longer than I usually
00:00:25.620 take to prepare an episode. It's usually I kind of either do it in the same day or the
00:00:30.680 day before I'm able to just collect all the stories I want to talk about and write my
00:00:35.080 analysis fairly quickly. That is not true about this episode because we are going to talk
00:00:40.500 about a heavy topic, a big topic, a topic that is multifaceted. We are going to talk about
00:00:47.520 George Floyd, the riots, insurrection, racism, police brutality, crime. We are going to talk
00:00:54.000 about statistics. I'm going to be direct. I am going to speak the truth in love as gracefully
00:01:00.940 as I possibly can and as clearly as I possibly can. That is always my goal and I fail often
00:01:08.860 and I will absolutely try my best praying for the grace of God to help me do that. If this
00:01:17.360 podcast, if this episode was shared to you by a friend and you are coming into this episode
00:01:23.000 expecting to disagree with me, you are kind of settled into your preconceived notions of who
00:01:29.760 I am, what I'm going to say, what I represent. First of all, I want you to know that I'm glad
00:01:35.740 that you're here. I know it takes a lot to listen to a perspective that you know you are probably
00:01:43.140 going to disagree with and that is going to challenge your assumptions. Most people won't
00:01:47.280 do that. Most people will stay stuck in their ideological camp. They will stay stuck in their
00:01:52.260 perspective. So if you are here because a friend shared it with you and you are anticipating
00:01:57.500 to disagree with me, which you probably will, I just want to say thank you for being here
00:02:01.860 and that shows a lot of who you are. And I hope truly that if you do disagree with me after
00:02:07.140 this episode is over, like I always say, feel free to reach out to me. I am happy to have a
00:02:11.560 dialogue with you. I want there to be a productive conversation. I want there to be more voices, not
00:02:16.580 fewer voices. So if after this episode you were like, I couldn't disagree with you more or I
00:02:21.480 disagreed when you said this or have you seen this study, whatever it is, feel free to reach
00:02:26.120 out to me. And again, thank you for being here. I believe that everyone listening to this podcast
00:02:32.240 is worth speaking truth to. So you are worth leveling with. This topic is worth speaking truthfully
00:02:38.960 about because it's that important and not enough women. This is a podcast primarily focused on women
00:02:45.340 and primarily to women. The fact of the matter is, is that not enough women are willing to have 0.54
00:02:51.000 truthful, straightforward conversations, biblical conversations about justice or really just
00:02:57.400 politics in general. Women are so often spoken to in emotionalism and euphemism because it's what we 1.00
00:03:05.880 respond to. If we're honest, we are literally constantly tossed to and fro by every wind of
00:03:13.960 outrage, by every trend, by every hashtag on social media. We latch onto it because of the emotionalism
00:03:21.400 that they carry with them. And I understand that because I've done it. I have been guilty of that.
00:03:26.960 I am a woman. I feel things strongly and deeply. This is a good thing about being a woman. This is a good
00:03:32.720 thing about femininity. It's not a bad thing. And I know our pride doesn't want us to admit that an 0.96
00:03:38.080 inherent weakness of most of ours is to allow our deeply felt feelings to get the best of us, especially
00:03:44.560 when it comes to understanding political and social issues. But it can be. And I don't speak for everyone.
00:03:50.060 I don't speak for all women. I don't speak for anyone. I don't. I am trying to give you the best,
00:03:58.220 most truthful and gracious Christian perspective on everything that is going on. And I just happen
00:04:04.160 to know from being a woman and being around women and knowing a lot of women that one of our weaknesses
00:04:09.260 when it comes to high emotion situations and issues is to forego truth, is to forego biblical accuracy,
00:04:16.840 and to forego facts in favor of emotionalism. But the truth is, the truth is, that is not what the
00:04:24.960 Christian woman is called to. We are to be rooted in truth. We are to care about the facts. We are to
00:04:31.020 stand firm on the word of God. That doesn't mean that feelings and sympathy don't have a place. It
00:04:36.860 just means that we cannot let them rule us. We have to be subject to the authority of Jesus Christ. We
00:04:44.240 have to subject our feelings, our emotions, all of our preconceived notions to the authority of Jesus
00:04:50.380 Christ and his inerrant word that he gave to us. So this episode is for you, Christian woman. This 1.00
00:04:57.340 episode is for us. I am telling you, as a sister in Christ who loves you, that many of us have ventured
00:05:05.440 outside the realm of reality and outside the realm of biblical Christianity as we are having conversations
00:05:11.720 about this. And I'm going to try as best as I can to get us back to reality and to the eternal truth
00:05:17.540 of God's word. First, I want to do something that unfortunately a lot of people on both sides of
00:05:23.540 this issue have failed to do, have deemed unimportant, and that is remembering George Floyd, not as a
00:05:30.980 movement, not as a hashtag, not as a mascot, but as a human being, as a person. So let's remember that
00:05:38.280 for just a second. Like, let's take a step back from all of this chaos for just a second. George Floyd
00:05:44.340 was a human being. What does the Bible say that that means? It means that he was made
00:05:48.800 in God's image. So he has a soul, an eternal soul. Like all humans, he was knitted together in his
00:05:54.600 mother's womb. He was fearfully and wonderfully made. The Lord planned out all of his days before
00:06:00.280 any of them came to be. That's what the Bible says about all of us. He was a son. He was a brother.
00:06:05.080 He was a friend. He was a father. He was a grandfather. The people who knew him said that he was
00:06:10.180 peaceful. He was personable with a desire to make his life better, to be a better dad. He grew up in
00:06:16.940 Houston and people who knew him there said that he was always looking out for other people. He was
00:06:21.540 always looking out for the younger people in his community. It's reported that he was a believer.
00:06:26.520 Thank God. Which means if that is true, he is totally whole right now with Christ as we speak. And we
00:06:32.180 can praise the Lord for that. All of this means that the Christian has a much higher view of George 0.76
00:06:39.440 Floyd in his life than any secular activist out there. It doesn't matter how loud they protest,
00:06:45.400 how many Instagram posts they write. If you do not believe that George Floyd is valuable because he
00:06:51.720 is a human being made in God's image, but only because he is important as a representation of
00:06:59.760 your political movement, then your view of George Floyd is actually very low because you have objectified
00:07:06.220 him. He has become a mascot for you. But for the Christian, we care much more about George Floyd
00:07:11.780 than any secular activist or influencer does because we believe that he is eternal, that his
00:07:17.540 life mattered because God said it mattered because God made him. And according to those who knew him,
00:07:23.180 he is also our brother in Christ and we will see him again one day. So we should have a much deeper
00:07:29.600 and better and higher and more eternal view of George Floyd, a much deeper appreciation for his
00:07:35.740 life than any person who claims to care about justice, but who does not know God. Let us also
00:07:41.520 keep praying for his family who is mourning right now. Let us pray that the peace of Christ would rule
00:07:46.220 in their hearts, that God would give them the peace that passes all understanding, that he would
00:07:49.760 bind their broken hearts, that he would draw near to them as they draw near to him, that God would
00:07:55.740 even somehow be glorified, that the gospel would be carried out through this tragedy. Let's continue
00:08:00.740 to pray for the people who were directly affected by this. This is all what makes his murder a horrific
00:08:07.760 tragedy. He was an image bearer who was pinned to the ground by a police officer named Derek Chauvin
00:08:14.280 for nine minutes while three other police officers did nothing. He screamed that he couldn't breathe over
00:08:19.020 and over again. He called for his mom. He called for his mom, you guys. Any of you who are moms,
00:08:24.420 you can imagine just the gut-wrenching nature of that reality, of his desperation. It breaks my heart.
00:08:33.300 And of course, we know he later died. The initial autopsy report says that he didn't die from
00:08:37.880 asphyxiation, but that it was a combination of underlying conditions Floyd had plus the restraint.
00:08:45.020 But that doesn't mean that Chauvin didn't kill him. He did. Now, I think that I have agreed with the
00:08:50.480 person that I'm about to quote maybe a total of one time in my entire life, but I agreed with her a
00:08:56.240 second time when she tweeted this. Here is AOC. She said, if you killed a man with health conditions,
00:09:01.760 you still killed a man. George Floyd couldn't breathe. Three officers held him down and one
00:09:06.400 with a recorded violent history kneed his neck as others helped. They waited nine minutes for his last
00:09:12.280 breath. This was not an accident. It was murder. That's absolutely right. I agree with that.
00:09:17.600 And by the way, so did the justice system. The justice system also agreed with that.
00:09:22.220 Derek Chauvin was convicted of third-degree murder, which is defined in Minnesota as,
00:09:27.420 quote, causing death of a person by perpetrating an act imminently dangerous to others and evincing
00:09:32.180 a depraved mind. There must be an intent to kill with that, but it's different, of course,
00:09:36.680 than second-degree murder, which Minnesota defines as either intentional but unpremeditated murder
00:09:42.920 or unintentional murder while also committing another felony. First-degree murder is premeditated
00:09:48.820 murder, among some other things. He was also charged with second-degree manslaughter. Minnesota
00:09:53.740 law defines this as, quote, an unreasonable risk and consciously takes chances of causing death or
00:10:00.240 great bodily harm to another. So with these charges, the police officer would be looking at a max of about
00:10:06.720 35 years in prison. If he gets the max, that means he will be a very old man by the time he gets out
00:10:12.240 of prison. According to Minnesota state law, these charges seem correct. It wasn't premeditated as far
00:10:19.040 as we know. Now, if it somehow comes out that it was premeditated, that's a totally different story.
00:10:24.280 The prosecutor doesn't seem to think that there was an intent to kill him. Of course, we don't know
00:10:28.780 what was going on in his heart and mind. And of course, that doesn't make the killing right by any
00:10:34.020 means. But the prosecutor feels that these charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter
00:10:39.900 were fair. Now, the other three officers who just stood there and did nothing to help the poor man
00:10:45.140 have not been charged. So we are awaiting that. But the good news is that Derek Chauvin has been
00:10:50.380 charged and we will continue to hope for justice to be fully carried out and expedited as we do in all
00:10:56.720 situations of injustice. And I want to zero in on that for just a second. And I know we've talked about
00:11:01.900 this so often on my show, but since this word justice and this word injustice, they can mean so many
00:11:08.260 different things to so many different people. I think it's important that we take just a second to define
00:11:14.200 justice. After that, we're going to spend a little bit of time on the issue of police brutality, take a look
00:11:19.480 at the numbers and also talk about practical solutions, and then an exhortation and encouragement
00:11:24.080 for Christians. We'll discuss some of the narratives surrounding all of this and what I think the correct
00:11:30.840 biblical reaction should be. There seems to be a lot of confusion over this word justice, and you expect
00:11:37.500 the secular world to be confused about it because justice, true justice, is rooted in the Bible.
00:11:44.180 God invented justice. He defines justice. God's definitions of justice are what the Western rule
00:11:51.000 of law is based upon. Property rights, due process, equality under the law. These are all originally
00:11:56.940 biblical ideas that Christians as believers in the Bible should know about and be fond of and adhere to.
00:12:03.600 For the Christian, we should not be confused. The God that we worship as Christians defines justice,
00:12:09.840 and he tells us exactly what it is in his word. Here are four characteristics of God's justice
00:12:15.720 as he demonstrates in the Bible. Four characteristics, truthful, impartial, proportional, and direct.
00:12:22.560 Truthful, impartial, proportional, and direct. So it's truthful. It's not based on the opinions of
00:12:29.240 the mob or our feelings. It's based on facts, evidence, due process. Impartial. It does not defer
00:12:34.620 to race, to socioeconomic class, to gender. It is unbiased. It is why Lady Justice wears a blindfold. 1.00
00:12:41.780 It is proportional. The punishment fits the crime. It is direct. Those who are responsible are those who
00:12:47.880 are punished. I'm going to read you the biblical support for this, mostly from the Old Testament,
00:12:52.840 as God is giving his commands to Israel. And of course, we know that as Christians, we are not 0.92
00:12:58.100 beholden to all of the laws, like the cleansing laws of the Old Testament, and we don't live in 0.95
00:13:03.660 this theocracy. But the way that God gives these commands to Israel and the reasoning he gives for 0.82
00:13:09.220 them shows us God's unchanging definition of what justice looks like. So we'll start with Exodus 23,
00:13:15.820 one through three. You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man
00:13:20.800 to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many who do evil, nor shall you bear
00:13:26.240 witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor
00:13:32.300 man in his lawsuit. Right there in his commands to Israel, we see two major aspects of God's definition
00:13:39.500 of justice in his heart has not changed. Truthful and impartial. Truthful and impartial. Not siding
00:13:46.880 with the many to do injustice, but siding with truth. Not being partial to the poor. Not being
00:13:53.000 partial to the rich either, as we read later. Leviticus 19, 15. You shall do no injustice in court.
00:13:58.920 You shall not be partial to the poor, nor defer to the great. But in righteousness, you shall judge
00:14:04.140 your neighbor. Again, we see impartiality. We see also the characteristic of directness. You are judging
00:14:09.800 your neighbor specifically for a crime he or she has committed. Listen to Deuteronomy 19, 15 through 21
00:14:17.300 and God's concern with the truth, with impartiality, with proportionality, and with directness when it
00:14:23.900 comes to justice. A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong
00:14:29.440 in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or
00:14:34.320 three witnesses shall a charge be established. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of
00:14:39.660 wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before priests, and the
00:14:44.860 judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently. And if the witness is a false
00:14:51.440 witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his
00:14:57.160 brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst and the rest shall hear in fear and shall never
00:15:02.920 again commit any such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity. It shall be a life for life, eye for eye,
00:15:10.220 tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. Now, I want to say something about the last line,
00:15:15.540 because you might be thinking about Matthew 5, 38 through 42, in which Jesus says, you've heard
00:15:20.460 it's eye for an eye. But I say, if someone strikes you on the right side of your face,
00:15:24.560 then turn to him the other cheek. Also, I consulted my notes about this, which explains it this way,
00:15:30.540 my notes in my ESV study Bible. Jesus shows that this principle, which was meant to guide judges
00:15:36.340 in assessing damages, was never intended as a rule for ordinary personal interpersonal relationships,
00:15:42.560 which the faithful should seek to imitate God's own generosity. So that's how we reconcile that
00:15:48.120 without forsaking this principle that is still supposed to apply to the judicial system.
00:15:54.260 The New Testament makes clear that God's judgment and therefore his definition of justice is
00:15:59.160 impartial. Acts 10, 34, Peter preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. So Peter opened his mouth and said,
00:16:05.200 truly, I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does
00:16:10.340 what is right is acceptable to him. That's not talking about the judicial system, but this is the
00:16:14.360 nature of God. James 2, 8 through 9 says, if you really fulfill the royal law, according to scripture,
00:16:20.460 you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well. But if you show partiality,
00:16:25.620 you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. That's the New Testament. If you
00:16:31.100 show partiality, then you are committing sin. So God's justice is truthful, impartial, proportional,
00:16:38.400 and direct. God's justice also recognizes people's inherent rights. It rectifies them if they have been
00:16:44.180 taken away. And again, this kind of rectifying justice is truthful and partial, proportional,
00:16:50.300 and direct. God's justice is the only true justice that exists. Anyone who tries to define justice
00:16:56.600 in any other way is operating under a subjectivist, morally relative worldview. There is no objective
00:17:03.560 morality outside of God's definitions of morality, and there is no true justice outside of God's definition
00:17:10.380 of justice. If you don't believe in God, I don't expect you to agree with me. But if you do, there
00:17:15.340 is no way for you to coherently disagree because it's not me. It's what scripture says. So first and
00:17:22.080 foremost, it needs to be pointed out that objectively, George Floyd did not receive justice. He did not
00:17:27.620 receive justice in his murder. He allegedly was using a fake $20 bill, and he was murdered for that.
00:17:33.400 He was handcuffed while he was being restrained. He wasn't a threat to police officers, and there were four
00:17:38.900 of them. I mean, what was he really going to do? They said that he resisted arrest, but what was he
00:17:42.720 going to do? And even if you did have to restrain him, did you have to put your knee on his neck for
00:17:46.960 nine minutes until he couldn't breathe and died? He was murdered. And the three other cops involved
00:17:52.260 were cowardly and complicit from what we can see. This is a perfect example of what true injustice looks
00:17:59.800 like. And unfortunately, this is not the first case of police brutality, obviously, as we know.
00:18:04.780 Breonna Taylor was in her home when police came in and shot and killed her. Atatiana Jefferson,
00:18:10.860 who was shot by a police officer in her home last year in Texas. We know the story of Botham Jean,
00:18:16.000 which was just an awful, tragic case. He was literally sitting at home eating ice cream,
00:18:21.600 and someone accidentally walked into his apartment, an off-duty cop, and killed him. These are unarmed
00:18:26.300 people literally doing nothing wrong, unfortunately, tragically, unjustly killed by the police.
00:18:31.760 We also know the story. Actually, you probably don't know the story for reasons that only the
00:18:37.780 media could tell you. The story of Tony Timpa. He was pressed into the ground while the police
00:18:43.040 officers cracked jokes, and then he died. Michael Davidson, an unarmed man, shot and killed at a
00:18:48.520 traffic stop in Alabama. Daniel Shaver literally begging for police officers not to shoot him with
00:18:54.540 his hands over his head. They shot and killed him anyway. Justine Damon, a woman shot by a Minneapolis
00:18:59.500 police officer after she called the police to report an assault in her alley. He killed her,
00:19:04.820 only got 12 years in prison. All of these people were murdered, and they are not the only cases of
00:19:10.840 unarmed people getting unequivocally, unjustifiably, unjustly killed by the police. These are examples
00:19:17.520 of injustice according to the biblical definition of justice. But it's important that we ask ourselves
00:19:24.500 in this conversation, since we are to be lovers of truth as Christians. How big of a problem is this?
00:19:31.180 Shouldn't we want to know that? Is police brutality pervasive? Is it everywhere? And the big question
00:19:37.380 that all of this controversy is really resting on, is police brutality racially biased? And to answer
00:19:44.260 these questions, we have to do something super uncomfortable, at least to me. I am super uncomfortable
00:19:48.940 doing this. It's something that I have been avoiding. I've said in several episodes, I don't like doing
00:19:54.800 this, and that is reading the numbers. The reason I don't like to list the numbers and the statistics
00:19:59.720 that talk about crime and police brutality and racism within the police force is because I am like a lot of
00:20:05.680 you. I don't want to hurt people's feelings. I don't want to sound calloused because I'm not. It feels
00:20:12.580 better to let the narrative go unchallenged. And the narrative is that Black Americans need to be 0.98
00:20:18.680 scared for their lives every day and that they are hunted by white people, particularly white cops, 0.99
00:20:23.620 whenever they go outside. Honestly, it is more comfortable for me to let that be as it is. 0.75
00:20:29.560 But then I think, hang on, is that loving? Is it loving for me to affirm fear and terror if,
00:20:37.600 if reality tells a different story? To fan the flames of anxiety when there may be another side to the
00:20:45.000 story that shows us a reality that may be a lot better than what the media are reporting? No, it's
00:20:51.240 not loving. Yes, let us mourn when tragedy strikes. Let us stand up when injustice occurs. That means in
00:20:58.440 the case of George Floyd, we have every reason to be angry and to protest. It was a case of injustice
00:21:04.840 and it absolutely was a tragedy. We know that. But the question is, is it right and is it accurate to use the
00:21:16.260 case of George Floyd as a symbol of systemic racism in the police force against Black people? Are Black people
00:21:23.640 killed disproportionately by white cops, which is what we hear? So we have to take a look, as uncomfortable as it is 0.99
00:21:30.800 for me, as much as I don't want to. I believe that you guys are worth telling the truth to. According to
00:21:36.680 the Washington Post database on police shootings, 1,004 people were shot and killed by the police last
00:21:42.320 year, 2019. Now that obviously it doesn't include people who have been killed by the police in other
00:21:48.040 ways or who have been victims of non-fatal disproportionate force. And we will talk about
00:21:52.540 that as well. But it is the kind of force most discussed when it comes to police brutality is police
00:21:58.340 shooting. So 1,004 police shootings. 370 of these were white last year. 235 were black. The rest were in other
00:22:05.840 categories. These are very similar numbers to other years. Of the 1,004 police shootings, 41, only 41 were of
00:22:15.080 unarmed victims. That's about 4%. So 96% of all police shootings last year were of a person wielding a weapon.
00:22:22.020 And of those who were unarmed, we still don't know the particular case. If the victims tried to grab the police
00:22:27.220 officer's weapon, if they attacked the police officer, we don't know what kinds of interactions
00:22:32.580 these were. We can't assume that all of these people who were unarmed and shot by the police
00:22:36.580 were not a threat. We just don't know that. Of the 41 unarmed people killed by the police last year,
00:22:42.740 19 were white, 9 were black. So 1% of all fatal police shootings were unarmed black people. That's
00:22:48.320 one female and eight males. If you look at the database, which starts in 2015, year over year,
00:22:53.720 this is the case. Roughly more white people killed by the police with black people trailing fairly 0.99
00:22:59.420 close behind. However, that alone does not settle the case. That alone doesn't tell us that black 0.96
00:23:05.880 people are not killed disproportionately by the police, which is the claim. Why? Because white 1.00
00:23:11.080 people obviously make up a much higher percentage of the population. So white people make up about 70%
00:23:16.680 of the population and black people make up only about 12% to 13% of the population. So you will 1.00
00:23:22.440 hear and read that black people are much more likely to be killed by the police than white people 0.93
00:23:27.780 because there is a higher percentage of total black people killed by the police than the percentage of 0.95
00:23:33.760 total white people killed by the police. The website mapping police violence says this, 36% of unarmed
00:23:39.820 people killed by the police were black in 2015, despite black people only being 13% of the
00:23:47.000 population. And that is true. But the reality is, according to FBI data, black Americans, despite 0.90
00:23:52.780 only making up 12% to 13% of the population, committed disproportionately large number of violent crimes. 0.97
00:23:59.320 In 2018, black Americans committed about 40% of all homicides. White people make up about 70% 0.90
00:24:05.880 of the population and accounted for about 30% of all homicide offenders. A 2012 to 2015 report by the
00:24:12.860 Bureau of Labor Statistics found that white Americans commit about 44% of all violent crime
00:24:19.060 and black Americans commit about 23% of all violent crimes, again, making up about 12 to 13% of the 0.85
00:24:26.140 population. So the likely reason black Americans have a fatal confrontation with the police at a rate that 0.98
00:24:32.240 is disproportionate to their population size is because the crime rate in the black community is 1.00
00:24:37.960 also disproportionate to their population size. And in fact, there is a study showing that to be
00:24:43.280 true that we'll get to in just a minute. Let's look at killings overall, though, police killings
00:24:48.220 overall, since the case that we're discussing now, a man, George Floyd, was killed without being shot.
00:24:53.940 According to mapping police violence.com, which looks at all deaths of people by the hands of the
00:24:58.700 police. It is an activist website, but it has a pretty comprehensive database. There was a total
00:25:03.600 of 1,098 people killed in all ways by the police in 2019, 114 unarmed. Of those, 48 were white. 28 of
00:25:13.080 these were black. And again, we don't know whether those killings were justified. We don't know the
00:25:18.840 race of the police officer. So the number of unjustified killings of unarmed black people, which is
00:25:24.820 really the center point of all of these controversial conversations, the number of unjustified killings
00:25:31.920 of unarmed black people by white police officers in 2000, 2019 is somewhere under 28, probably
00:25:39.280 significantly under 28, because as we will also look at in just a second, if you are a minority
00:25:44.920 in a minority community, you are more likely to interact with a minority police officer that doesn't
00:25:50.760 make these situations right or good or not tragic or even justified. I don't know. I'm not saying we
00:25:56.180 should ignore these cases, but that is what they are. Those are the facts. So let's put this into
00:26:03.040 context even more as we discuss this question. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics,
00:26:08.840 there were over 50 million interactions between the public and the police in 2015. That's the most
00:26:13.720 recent year. There's data for it. That number has ranged over the years, but every year, tens of millions of
00:26:20.440 people interact with the police. So if we take that estimate of 50 million police interactions in
00:26:25.180 2019, and according to the Post, there were 1,004 fatal police shootings in 2019. You are looking at
00:26:32.380 about a 0.002% of all interactions between the police and the public that end in a fatal shooting by
00:26:40.840 the officer. 41 of these shootings were unarmed people. That is about 0.009% of all
00:26:50.280 interactions. And nine of these were unarmed black men. And that is about 0.002% of all police
00:27:01.600 interactions with the public. And if we're just talking about killed by any fatal force, and we go
00:27:07.200 to mapping police violence data, that's 28 are unarmed black people killed by the police, either
00:27:13.800 justifiably or not, either by a white officer or not. And again, by any means, not just shooting.
00:27:19.400 That is 0.00056% of all police interactions. Also, just as an aside, when you hear that white people 0.89
00:27:28.260 are hunting black people on a daily basis, as we heard after the tragedy and also the injustice of
00:27:33.720 the Ahmaud Arbery case, FBI crime data just doesn't back that up. 533 white people killed by black people 0.98
00:27:41.200 in 2016. 243 black people killed by white people in 2016. Similar statistic throughout the years. 0.96
00:27:48.720 And of course, every murder matters. Every instance of injustice matters. Absolutely. But when we hear
00:27:54.300 constantly and without evidence that white supremacists and racist cops are gunning down 0.98
00:27:59.460 unarmed black people on a daily basis, we have to find out. We have an obligation to find out whether or 0.95
00:28:05.820 not that's true. And there was a time in history when that was more of a reality. And we can
00:28:10.480 acknowledge that history, and we should. We should learn about that history. We should learn from
00:28:14.500 that history. But is that our pervasive reality today? The numbers don't exactly show that. And
00:28:21.720 that is good news. That's good news. Isn't that what we want to remind people of? Roland Fryer,
00:28:27.800 an economic professor at Harvard University, conducted a thorough study in July 2016,
00:28:32.860 looking at the existence of racial bias in the police force, specifically police shootings. He
00:28:39.340 examined over 1,000 shootings in 10 major police departments in Texas, California, and Florida.
00:28:45.360 He said the results of the study, quote, they are the most surprising result of my career. That's what
00:28:52.280 he said. This is according to the New York Times. Mr. Fryer, the youngest African American to receive
00:28:58.020 tenure at Harvard and the first to win a John Bates Clark medal, a prize given to the most
00:29:02.640 promising American economist under 40, said anger after the deaths of Michael Brown, Freddie Gray,
00:29:07.740 and others drove him to study the issue. You know, protesting is not my thing, he said, but data is
00:29:12.360 my thing. So I decided that I was going to collect a bunch of data and try to understand what really
00:29:16.980 is going on when it comes to racial differences in police use of force. In shootings in these 10 cities
00:29:22.880 involving officers, officers were more likely to fire their weapons without having first been attacked
00:29:28.160 when the suspects were white. Black and white civilians involved in police shootings were equally
00:29:33.140 likely to have been carrying a weapon. Both results undercut the idea of racial bias in police use of
00:29:39.340 lethal force. But police shootings are only part of the picture. What about situations in which an
00:29:44.600 officer might be expected to fire but doesn't? To answer this, this is still the New York Times article,
00:29:50.080 Mr. Fryer focused on one city, Houston. The police department there let the researchers look at reports
00:29:55.340 not only for shootings but also for arrests when lethal force might have been justified.
00:29:59.980 Mr. Fryer defined this group to include encounters with suspects the police subsequently
00:30:04.580 charged with serious offenses like attempting to murder an officer or evading resisting or
00:30:10.120 resisting arrest. He also considered suspects shocked with tasers. Mr. Fryer found that in such
00:30:17.180 situations, officers in Houston were about 20% less likely to shoot if the suspects were black. This estimate
00:30:24.780 was not precise and firmer conclusions would require more data. But in various models controlling for
00:30:30.300 different factors and using different definitions of tense situations, Mr. Fryer found that blacks were
00:30:35.680 either less likely to be shot or there was no difference between blacks and whites. A 2019 peer-reviewed
00:30:42.840 study titled Officer Characteristics and Racial Disparities in Fatal Officer-Involved Shootings. It was
00:30:48.420 published in a scientific journal aimed to examine, and the study was aimed to examine racial bias in 0.89
00:30:55.440 police shootings, and it found that black cops are more likely to shoot black civilians, Hispanic cops
00:31:01.420 are more likely to shoot Hispanic civilians, and white cops are more likely to shoot white civilians. 0.92
00:31:08.240 That it's really about the demographic rather than any evidence of racial bias. Here's what the study
00:31:13.700 found. As the proportion of violent crime committed by black civilians increased, a person fatally shot was more
00:31:19.720 likely to be black. As the proportion of violent crime committed by Hispanic civilians increased, a person fatally shot 0.96
00:31:25.680 was more likely to be Hispanic. Conversely, as white crime rates increased, a person fatally shot was less likely to be
00:31:33.100 black or Hispanic.
00:31:35.060 We did not find evidence for, this is what the study says, we did not find evidence for
00:31:40.740 anti-Black or anti-Hispanic disparity in police use of force across all shootings, and if
00:31:46.460 anything, found anti-White disparities when controlling for race-specific crime.
00:31:52.620 Now, the study by the Harvard professor Roland Fryer did find that Black people are more
00:31:58.140 likely to be on the receiving end of non-fatal police force than White people. 0.99
00:32:02.300 Again, we don't know if that's by White officers or what the situations or the motivations
00:32:07.820 are, but they apparently are more likely to get roughed up, at least by his estimates,
00:32:13.160 which is in itself troubling.
00:32:15.040 That in itself doesn't point to systemic racism within the police force, but it is troubling,
00:32:21.260 which is why, and this is where we start talking about some solutions, this is why I believe
00:32:25.860 I am for police reform where necessary.
00:32:29.180 As a conservative, this is a concern of mine.
00:32:31.020 As a human being, this is a concern of mine.
00:32:33.480 I'm not talking about just racial bias training.
00:32:36.200 I am talking about de-escalation training.
00:32:38.240 34 states do not have any de-escalation training.
00:32:41.480 The average recruit only receives 10 hours of de-escalation training.
00:32:45.520 A de-escalation meaning not allowing a potentially violent situation to get violent.
00:32:51.620 There has also been an increase in the militarization of the police.
00:32:55.820 That's not always necessarily bad, but it can have bad consequences.
00:33:00.240 This is according to an article in National Review by Arthur Reiser and Brett Tolman.
00:33:05.420 The ACLU found in a 2014 analysis that 79% of the 50,000 annual SWAT call-outs were for executing
00:33:13.060 a search warrant.
00:33:14.240 Most commonly in drug investigations, only 7% were for hostage, barricade, or active shooter
00:33:20.140 scenarios in which SWAT teams are typically used and supposed to be used.
00:33:23.940 At least 60% of these operations featured the use of no-knock entries and or potentially
00:33:29.860 deadly flashbang grenades.
00:33:32.900 There needs to be, in some places, not just better training, but also better culture.
00:33:38.380 The vast majority of police officers, as we see from the numbers, do not resort to violent
00:33:43.220 force.
00:33:43.600 And that's a good thing.
00:33:44.840 Again, that is good news.
00:33:46.680 Most police officers are excellent at their jobs, and we should be thankful for that.
00:33:50.680 Unfortunately, having a bad apple in the police force isn't the same as having, for example,
00:33:56.500 a bad apple at your accounting firm.
00:33:58.540 Because when you have a bad apple that's a police officer, people unjustly die, and they
00:34:03.560 are abused when there are people who do not use their authority responsibly, which is why
00:34:10.280 I think there needs to be some cultural and training reform within precincts that need it.
00:34:16.240 And here is the second thing, more importantly, and this will transition us into this kind
00:34:21.800 of new segment of the show.
00:34:23.580 We have to get rid.
00:34:24.940 We have to get rid of public sector unions that make it almost impossible to fire bad
00:34:30.060 police officers.
00:34:31.420 So unions, as you guys know, they represent employees.
00:34:35.740 Public unions represent employees in the public sector, employees whose salaries are paid by our
00:34:40.620 tax dollars.
00:34:41.800 So that's firefighters, police officers, public school teachers.
00:34:44.740 These government employees are represented by unions, which, like all unions, collect dues
00:34:49.540 from their employees for membership.
00:34:52.000 Then they use those dues, which you will remember are our tax dollars, to support union-friendly
00:34:57.800 politicians, aka Democrats, almost always.
00:35:01.560 They then negotiate contracts that guarantee wages and terms and pensions for these public
00:35:06.440 employees.
00:35:07.240 These contracts have bankrupted some cities and states.
00:35:10.360 And yet, because Democrats and unions depend on each other, it just keeps going.
00:35:16.160 Unions make it very difficult, if not altogether impossible, for any government employee that
00:35:22.220 pays their dues and therefore is protected by them to be fired.
00:35:25.660 That is why they exist.
00:35:27.160 If you have ever heard of rubber rooms, that's where public school teachers who have been accused
00:35:31.940 of misconduct go, while still being paid their full salary, while they are waiting, quote,
00:35:38.020 reassignment.
00:35:39.200 They're not fired.
00:35:39.960 They are placed on hold in these centers, not working, while still getting a full salary
00:35:45.160 paid for by taxpayers, thanks to the teachers union and the Democratic politicians that support
00:35:49.900 them.
00:35:50.120 Just look this up.
00:35:51.540 New York Post reported on a man last year named Aria Eller, who has been in a rubber room
00:35:58.280 in this reassignment center, as it's called, not teaching, for 20 years after he was accused
00:36:04.280 of sexual harassment of teen girls.
00:36:07.780 And his salary hasn't just remained steady for 20 years.
00:36:11.500 In 2018, he made $132,753.
00:36:16.800 That's taxpayer money plus pension and full benefits.
00:36:20.180 This is the result of the teachers union and the Democratic politicians that unconditionally
00:36:24.720 prop it up.
00:36:25.400 Unions and Democrats depend on each other for power.
00:36:28.740 Unions make it nearly impossible, as I've said, to fire government employees, including
00:36:32.820 bad police officers like Derek Chauvin, and including terrible teachers, which also, by
00:36:38.060 the way, directly and seriously affects the black community.
00:36:41.760 These are there are points made constantly about racial disparities in graduation rates
00:36:47.520 in public schools, how public schools with mostly minority students are failing, and we
00:36:52.240 hear that they need more funding.
00:36:53.600 This is a sign of systemic racism, we hear, that they don't have enough money.
00:36:57.740 Let me let you in on a little secret here.
00:37:00.600 Democratic politicians are largely controlled, like I've said many times, by the unions, especially
00:37:07.220 the teachers unions.
00:37:08.680 The teachers unions do not want school choice.
00:37:11.760 They don't want a voucher program that allows a child from a failing school to go to a better
00:37:17.020 school outside of their district, outside of their zip code, even though school choice
00:37:21.980 has been proven to help kids from poor areas succeed.
00:37:26.060 They don't want the competition.
00:37:27.680 They're afraid this will result in lost jobs of teachers and less money, and they paint it
00:37:32.440 in a way that makes it sound like they care about failing public schools.
00:37:36.040 But they don't.
00:37:36.780 Listen to this 2017 headline from The Washington Post.
00:37:40.860 Obama administration spent billions to fix failing schools, and it did not work.
00:37:46.880 According to the article, one of the Obama administration's signature efforts in education,
00:37:51.460 which pumped billions of federal dollars into overhauling the nation's worst schools,
00:37:55.560 failed to produce meaningful results.
00:37:58.540 According to a federal analysis, test scores, graduation rates, and college enrollment were
00:38:03.380 no different in schools that received money through the School Improvement Grants Program,
00:38:07.220 the largest federal investment ever targeted to failing schools than in schools that did
00:38:12.020 not.
00:38:12.480 No difference.
00:38:13.400 No difference.
00:38:14.020 So the failing schools received up to $2 million a year for three years if they adopted some
00:38:18.960 of his new education policies, and there was no improvement.
00:38:22.760 In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever that simply pumping money into failing schools helps
00:38:28.700 anything into failing public schools.
00:38:31.000 You know why?
00:38:31.500 Because, I mean, there may be many reasons, but a big reason is that these incompetent teachers
00:38:38.300 cannot get fired thanks to the teachers' union.
00:38:40.880 There are still underlying problems that aren't addressed.
00:38:43.640 Of course, we will talk about these actually in a second, fatherlessness, but this is a huge
00:38:49.460 problem.
00:38:50.320 Public schools are a huge problem for poor communities, and they are exacerbated in a lot
00:38:54.920 of cases even caused by the teachers' unions and the Democratic politicians that prop them
00:38:59.260 up.
00:38:59.520 So you want to reform the police so that incompetent murderers like Derek Chauvin can get fired?
00:39:06.060 You want to change the public school system or change public schools so poor kids can have 1.00
00:39:10.260 a choice of what school they go to through a voucher program or another school choice program?
00:39:15.300 Get rid of public unions.
00:39:17.160 Next thing.
00:39:17.680 Diminish the welfare state.
00:39:19.420 And I know that it probably feels like we are too far past, like it's impossible to do
00:39:25.220 this, but I'm just telling you this is something that will have to happen if we want to improve
00:39:29.840 the station of the people that we are saying that we care about.
00:39:32.600 Thomas Sowell, a very famous economist who also happens to be Black, and I have to say that
00:39:36.520 because a lot of you out there care about that in relation to these topics, but he makes
00:39:42.220 the point in several of his books that it is the welfare state, not the so-called legacy
00:39:47.400 of slavery, that has done the most damage to the Black community.
00:39:50.440 He says this, despite the grand myth, this is Thomas Sowell, that Black economic progress
00:39:55.800 began or accelerated with the passage of the civil rights laws and the so-called war on
00:40:00.520 poverty programs of the 1960s.
00:40:02.360 The cold fact is that the poverty rate among Black people fell from 87% in 1940 to 47% in
00:40:09.140 1960.
00:40:09.960 This was before any of those programs began.
00:40:13.240 Nearly 100 years of the supposed legacy of slavery found most Black children being raised 0.99
00:40:18.420 in two-parent families in 1960.
00:40:20.480 But 30 years after, the liberal welfare state found the great majority of Black children being 1.00
00:40:25.320 raised by a single parent.
00:40:26.860 The murder rate among Blacks in 1960, according to Thomas Sowell, was one half of what it became
00:40:31.940 20 years later, after a legacy of liberals' law enforcement policies.
00:40:35.780 And it was before the toxic message of victimhood was spread by liberals.
00:40:39.420 We all know what hellholes public housing has become in our times, thanks to liberal policies.
00:40:45.320 The same toxic message produced similar social results among lower-income people in England,
00:40:50.860 despite an absence of a, quote, legacy of slavery there.
00:40:54.860 Sowell argues that the welfare state has incentivized fatherlessness because a woman is guaranteed 1.00
00:41:00.340 more money if she is single. 0.99
00:41:02.520 We see evidence of this to this day that has been happening now for decades.
00:41:06.240 And fatherlessness, as every social study you will ever read, shows increases the likelihood
00:41:11.400 of children of all ages to be more depressed, more suicidal.
00:41:18.540 It increases the likelihood of teen pregnancy, of committing crimes at a young age, to be incarcerated
00:41:23.820 at a young age much more than motherless does.
00:41:26.820 And 65% of Black families are fatherless, which has an effect also on the sky-high abortion
00:41:33.200 rate among Black mothers.
00:41:34.680 Jason Reilly, on the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who has written a lot on the Black community
00:41:39.840 since he himself is also Black, and again, that is very pertinent to a lot of you in regards
00:41:46.540 to this conversation, said this in an article in 2018.
00:41:51.320 Nationally, Black women terminate pregnancies at far higher rates than other women as well.
00:41:56.340 In 2014, 36% of all abortions were performed on Black women who are just 13% of the female 0.97
00:42:02.720 population.
00:42:04.000 The little-discussed flip side of reproductive freedom is that abortion deaths far exceed those
00:42:12.280 via cancer, violent crime, heart disease, AIDS, and accidents.
00:42:16.640 Racism, poverty, and lack of access to health care are the typical explanations for these
00:42:20.740 disparities.
00:42:21.600 But Black women have much higher abortion rates even after you control for income. 1.00
00:42:26.320 Moreover, the low-income ethnic minorities who experience discrimination, such as Hispanics, 0.72
00:42:31.780 abort at rates much closer to white women than Black women. 1.00
00:42:34.900 Do those Black lives matter? 1.00
00:42:36.680 Just asking.
00:42:37.300 The Brookings Institute found in a study that people who follow these three rules drastically
00:42:42.580 increase the chances for them to avoid living in poverty.
00:42:46.720 Number one, graduate high school.
00:42:48.380 Number two, get a full-time job.
00:42:49.980 Number three, wait until you're 21 to get married and then have children.
00:42:53.640 Of course, there are always going to be other factors at play in people's lives, circumstances
00:42:58.140 that they can't control.
00:42:59.520 But the point is that as much as we can, we should be encouraging the kind of life that leads
00:43:04.060 to a greater chance of success.
00:43:05.780 That is not going to be found in another government program.
00:43:09.420 How many trillions of dollars have we been spending since the 1960s on the war on poverty?
00:43:14.560 And has the Black community benefited?
00:43:17.060 Upward mobility for people of all races has been offered by free enterprise, not unconditional,
00:43:22.420 unlimited welfare.
00:43:23.920 Which means that all of these issues that are affecting minority communities, predominantly,
00:43:29.320 failing schools, lower graduation rates, fatherlessness, poverty, incarceration, all go hand in hand.
00:43:36.980 They're all connected.
00:43:38.000 They're cyclical.
00:43:39.180 It's true for very poor white communities as well.
00:43:42.940 Where are the activist groups when it comes to these issues, by the way?
00:43:46.480 What do they have to say about children being shafted by the public school system?
00:43:50.600 The welfare state that leads to fatherlessness, that leads to juvenile crime, that leads to
00:43:55.320 incarceration, that leads to poverty over and over again. 0.93
00:43:58.900 About the thousands of Black men and children, children killed by other Black men every year. 0.98
00:44:05.900 About the thousands upon thousands of Black babies that are aborted before they take their 0.99
00:44:12.580 first breath every year. 0.89
00:44:14.360 Do they not matter?
00:44:15.920 But instead, we are only seeing certain instances of Black death that pale in comparison numbers-wise
00:44:24.640 to the other problems and to the other causes of death that we are seeing in the Black community. 1.00
00:44:30.640 Why don't their lives matter? 0.52
00:44:31.760 Why don't they get a blackout day?
00:44:33.420 Why don't they get a hashtag?
00:44:35.280 Like, why am I not seeing Christians post about that?
00:44:38.100 You only care about Black lives when it's trendy. 1.00
00:44:40.160 That's not godly.
00:44:41.280 But we'll get to more of that in a second.
00:44:42.700 I don't want to get carried away.
00:44:43.620 So to recap, if we want to give children the opportunity to succeed, get rid of public
00:44:49.400 unions so that public schools can actually be held accountable.
00:44:52.400 And again, I'm not saying there's not more reform to be had there.
00:44:55.060 There is.
00:44:55.780 Allow school choice so parents can send their kids to a better school in a different district
00:45:00.060 so they can do well.
00:45:02.160 Graduate.
00:45:02.920 Get opportunities to work if they are given the opportunity to succeed by going to a better
00:45:08.100 school.
00:45:08.720 Shrink the welfare state, which I know that seems like an impossible task, which maybe it
00:45:12.620 is, but to this day encourages the fatherlessness that we see devastating many communities and
00:45:18.920 stop setting up Planned Parenthood clinics in minority communities to take black mothers' 1.00
00:45:23.220 money and abort their babies, which, by the way, is what Planned Parenthood has been doing 0.96
00:45:27.260 since it was founded by KKK supporter Margaret Sanger.
00:45:31.540 Just FYI.
00:45:32.300 These are all a great starting point for positive change, argued not by me, but by black intellectuals
00:45:39.180 whose voices the media will never elevate.
00:45:41.680 They'll never elevate.
00:45:42.720 Why?
00:45:43.400 Because pushing for these issues, getting rid of public unions that protect bad teachers
00:45:49.860 and police officers, offering school choice, shrinking welfare, discouraging widespread abortion
00:45:54.680 is synonymous with saying one thing that the media that the left does not want to say.
00:45:59.540 Stop voting for Democrats.
00:46:02.000 Stop voting for Democrats.
00:46:03.540 Democrats have been in charge of every city with a large minority community for decades,
00:46:08.420 for generations.
00:46:09.260 All of these cities where crime is high, where black teenage boys, kids are being murdered in 0.72
00:46:14.440 cold blood on a daily basis. 0.93
00:46:16.140 Chicago, Detroit, L.A., New York.
00:46:18.460 These are democratic cities and have been for a very long time.
00:46:22.380 Some of them have been led specifically by black Democrats for decades.
00:46:26.520 And for what?
00:46:27.080 Democrats are behind every single failed policy that we are talking about right now. 0.99
00:46:33.680 And their support for the black community is a farce. 1.00
00:46:36.560 These public unions and Democrats prop each other up all over the country. 0.87
00:46:40.060 Democrats get votes by promising more destructive welfare. 0.95
00:46:43.420 Democrats rely on the support of Planned Parenthood, killing thousands and thousands of black babies 0.98
00:46:48.180 every year. 0.99
00:46:49.180 It should offend you.
00:46:50.640 It should offend you when these democratic politicians who have been in office for decades tell you
00:46:55.320 they want change for the black community.
00:46:57.160 When?
00:46:58.140 When's that going to happen?
00:46:59.760 You can hate Donald Trump and Republicans all you want.
00:47:02.920 And I'm not telling you to vote Republican because, yeah, I'm not trying to convince you of that.
00:47:07.400 I understand Republicans have our own problems, their own problems, and can do a heck of a lot
00:47:13.380 a better job of governing and a better job of outreach.
00:47:16.760 Absolutely.
00:47:17.720 I'm just saying you can't blame them for what's going on right now.
00:47:21.180 Democratic politicians have a strong hold on the black community, and they are not helping.
00:47:26.200 They're not helping.
00:47:27.360 They're beholden to the unions actively fighting against the interests of the poor.
00:47:31.000 They're beholden to their special interests, which contradict the interests of the communities
00:47:35.400 that we are talking about helping.
00:47:36.760 So why aren't more Democrats, for example, condemning Antifa, the mostly white group of anarchists,
00:47:43.680 helping fund and organize the riots throughout the country?
00:47:46.220 I've seen video after video of black protesters, peaceful protesters, asking white Antifa members 0.59
00:47:54.580 to stop desecrating their community.
00:47:57.320 Now, these protests aren't mostly Antifa.
00:48:00.420 I don't think we can see that from the videos, but they are, at the very least, throwing gasoline
00:48:05.240 on the fire.
00:48:06.420 Why aren't more Democrats taking a stand against these riots, which are literally obliterating
00:48:11.280 the livelihoods of people of all races?
00:48:13.660 There might be some speaking out in general terms saying, you know, stop being violent,
00:48:20.020 stop rioting.
00:48:20.860 But are any of them calling out Antifa specifically?
00:48:23.860 They are mostly saying a lot of these Democratic politicians who won't condemn the riots at all,
00:48:28.880 who won't condemn violence, and not just Democratic politicians, but also liberal members
00:48:33.000 of the media. 0.90
00:48:35.320 Ridiculous things like riots are the language of the unheard. 0.95
00:48:39.640 Give me a break. 0.98
00:48:41.040 Give me a break.
00:48:42.340 These people are not burning down Capitol buildings and looting Target and breaking into Louis Vuitton
00:48:47.680 for George Floyd.
00:48:49.020 They're not.
00:48:50.020 Remember when we talked about justice at the beginning of the episode?
00:48:54.100 True justice is truthful, direct, proportional, and impartial.
00:48:57.260 These riots don't correlate with justice.
00:48:59.920 Peaceful protests, I'm here for that.
00:49:02.800 Absolutely.
00:49:03.460 I support you.
00:49:04.260 Go for it.
00:49:05.020 I don't even care if whatever cause you're protesting for, I'm not talking about this
00:49:09.640 situation, but in all situations, I don't care.
00:49:12.580 It is your right, your First Amendment right that I will fight for over and over again for
00:49:17.280 you to be able to peacefully protest for the causes that you believe in.
00:49:21.600 And by the way, if police or anyone using force is trying to stop peaceful protests, I am
00:49:27.060 against that.
00:49:27.740 That needs to come to an end.
00:49:28.920 You have a constitutional right to peacefully protest.
00:49:32.000 And by the way, there are a lot of peaceful protesters about this.
00:49:35.380 And yes, go out there.
00:49:36.880 I love seeing the videos that I am seeing of police officers and community members hugging,
00:49:41.920 praying together, coming together.
00:49:43.940 Yes and amen.
00:49:45.180 I am not against being angry.
00:49:47.140 I am not against being outraged.
00:49:48.760 I'm not against the protesters.
00:49:50.060 But I am against a lot of the hypocrisy that we're seeing, the glorification of violence
00:49:54.380 and the violence itself that are ruining people's lives.
00:49:57.180 It's ruining people's lives.
00:49:59.280 I want you to watch or listen, depending on how you are taking in this podcast, to this
00:50:05.580 woman whose life was destroyed by these riots.
00:50:08.900 Your frustrations, and I would love for you to share them with the community right now because
00:50:13.760 you and so many others are going through such a rough time.
00:50:16.780 How was last night?
00:50:19.500 Scary.
00:50:21.380 I live in the high rise right back here, and I'd seen them as they came down Lake Street.
00:50:28.580 But then they turned and started coming over here, and I'm sitting up looking out my window.
00:50:35.100 And they went straight to Office Max, the dollar store, and every store over here that I go to.
00:50:46.060 I have nowhere to go now.
00:50:48.720 I have no way to get there because the buses aren't running.
00:50:53.500 These people did this for no reason.
00:50:57.320 It's not going to bring George back here.
00:51:00.960 George is in a better place than we are.
00:51:03.600 And last night, I'm going to be honest, I wish I was where George was because this is 0.69
00:51:09.860 ridiculous.
00:51:10.820 These people are tearing up our livelihoods. 0.99
00:51:13.840 This is the only place I could go to shop.
00:51:17.380 And now I don't have anywhere to go.
00:51:20.020 I don't have anywhere to get there.
00:51:22.460 This isn't justice.
00:51:24.280 This is not justice.
00:51:25.740 These riots are literally punishing people for a crime they did not commit.
00:51:29.780 What is a better definition of injustice?
00:51:31.580 And enough with the absolutely absurd statement.
00:51:36.280 Stop caring more about buildings than lives.
00:51:38.840 Do you know what buildings represent?
00:51:40.700 Do you know what businesses represent?
00:51:42.840 Do you know what these homes and some of these apartment complexes that are burned down represent?
00:51:46.980 They're not just buildings. 0.66
00:51:48.840 You absolutely vapid person.
00:51:52.640 These businesses and homes represent people. 0.62
00:51:56.800 Quite honestly, I cannot think of anything more privileged than you.
00:52:01.560 Safe at home with your iPhone.
00:52:03.780 Posting on Instagram about how virtuous you are.
00:52:06.440 Saying ridiculous things like businesses can come back, but George can't. 0.81
00:52:09.880 Get out of here. 0.93
00:52:10.860 Get out of here with that. 0.99
00:52:12.060 Do you know what it's like going from paycheck to paycheck?
00:52:15.160 I don't, but I'm trying my best to put myself in their place to have the only affordable grocery
00:52:20.320 store in your area burned down, set on fire by rioters, many of whom don't even live where
00:52:25.160 you live, to now have nowhere to get formula for your newborn baby or diapers, to be a poor
00:52:31.820 elderly person who now has no public transportation to get where they need to go.
00:52:36.500 What are these people supposed to do?
00:52:38.380 That's the reality for thousands of people right now thanks to these riots.
00:52:42.120 And unlike some of you, apparently, I and a lot, millions of logically thinking people
00:52:48.340 can care about them, can care about the people whose lives have been ruined, and also care
00:52:53.920 about police brutality wherever it shows up, can also care about injustice, and also care
00:53:00.060 most importantly about George Floyd's murder.
00:53:02.680 I don't know why.
00:53:03.840 I don't know why except for, I guess, that so many people have ceased to be able to critically
00:53:09.720 think.
00:53:10.200 I guess that's why so many people are unable to simultaneously hold two thoughts in their
00:53:15.040 mind.
00:53:15.600 They're simultaneously unable to say, wow, this was murder, this was injustice, we should
00:53:21.980 be outraged about George Floyd's murder, and any instance of injustice, in any instance
00:53:26.740 of murder that we see, and we should also care about the people who don't have access
00:53:33.160 to food thanks to the riots.
00:53:34.700 That doesn't mean that we don't know the gravity and the permanence of murder.
00:53:38.400 Of course we do.
00:53:40.200 Christian woman, Christian woman. 0.80
00:53:42.080 I've been talking to you this whole time, but I am just, I'm trying to shake you by the
00:53:46.160 shoulders.
00:53:47.120 Do you think, do you think, honestly, from what you know about God, not what you feel
00:53:51.400 about God, but what you know about God in the Bible, do you think that God doesn't care
00:53:54.400 about both of these things?
00:53:56.520 God cares about justice.
00:53:58.220 Justice.
00:53:58.840 Floyd's murder was an injustice.
00:54:01.500 These riots also aren't justice.
00:54:03.220 They are evil, and all the celebrities, Justin Timberlake, Seth Rogen, Steve Carell, funding
00:54:08.660 bailouts for arsonists and assaulters and anarchists. 0.91
00:54:12.160 It's evil.
00:54:13.180 It's evil.
00:54:13.920 It is privileged. 1.00
00:54:14.720 It's idiotic. 1.00
00:54:16.120 Let's see if these celebrities want to bail them out when they come to their gated communities 1.00
00:54:21.620 to burn down their property.
00:54:23.220 Probably not.
00:54:24.480 Probably not.
00:54:25.200 And as we've already talked about, the numbers don't support the narrative that the media
00:54:29.600 and Democratic politicians are so passionately trying to push, which is only making the reaction
00:54:34.780 worse.
00:54:36.240 Barack Obama comes out in his subtle way, condemning the violence, but validating the feelings
00:54:40.960 of hate and insisting that Black people just need to vote in November. 0.91
00:54:44.320 And look, yes, go vote.
00:54:45.540 I'm all for voting.
00:54:46.880 Get politically involved.
00:54:48.040 But the question is that he doesn't address, and what none of these Democratic politicians
00:54:51.680 want to address is vote for whom?
00:54:54.380 For you?
00:54:55.200 Didn't Ferguson happen under your watch, Barack Obama?
00:54:58.680 Didn't failing schools continue to fail under your watch?
00:55:02.060 I am so sick and tired of the moral ambiguity of our politicians on the right and the left,
00:55:08.200 by the way.
00:55:08.940 Our journalists, our church leaders, who are all regurgitating leftist talking point after
00:55:14.320 talking point without stopping for one second to ask if what they're saying is true.
00:55:19.960 Have you looked at the numbers?
00:55:21.740 Do you care about the truth at all?
00:55:23.720 I am so tired.
00:55:25.620 I'm so tired of white women on Instagram who read the news, who maybe read the news for 1.00
00:55:30.940 the first time in their lives yesterday, all of a sudden becoming experts on social issues. 0.97
00:55:36.100 It is insufferable.
00:55:37.000 I'm sorry.
00:55:37.700 I'm sorry.
00:55:38.400 It is.
00:55:38.900 And most people on both sides of the aisle actually agree with this sentiment, like we
00:55:42.760 bonded over it over the past week.
00:55:44.380 Again, I ask, particularly to Christian women, do you know if what you are saying is true? 0.99
00:55:50.700 Do you know what your hashtag represents?
00:55:53.600 Is the narrative correct?
00:55:55.280 Are the remedies being prescribed just, truthful, and good?
00:55:59.760 White privilege.
00:56:00.340 That's something that I have seen going around a lot in white Christian circles on Instagram.
00:56:04.800 Instagram, we should just ask quickly, is white privilege a thing?
00:56:08.460 At one point, I probably would have said unequivocally no. 0.88
00:56:11.040 And if you ask a black conservative, they will definitely say no. 0.87
00:56:14.360 But honestly, I think from my opinion that it depends on how you define it.
00:56:18.160 What most people mean when they say white privilege is actually majority privilege.
00:56:23.280 Every nation on earth has it.
00:56:25.140 I'm not necessarily justifying all forms of that, but it's true.
00:56:28.080 There is majority privilege.
00:56:30.020 If you are the ethnic majority in the country, you have the privilege of being represented more
00:56:35.400 in the media, having more products that cater to you, having more politicians that represent
00:56:39.640 you.
00:56:40.340 This is true for every majority in every country on earth.
00:56:43.860 Now, that's not to say that white privilege that comes at the expense of black people has never
00:56:47.860 existed.
00:56:48.700 Of course it has.
00:56:50.320 That's very obviously seen throughout our history.
00:56:54.420 And majority privilege throughout the world often comes at the expense of the minority and
00:57:00.140 the marginalized.
00:57:01.460 And so, of course, that can absolutely happen.
00:57:04.140 But we have to be specific when we're talking about what white privilege is and what we actually
00:57:08.900 mean.
00:57:09.500 What most people actually mean is some kind of majority privilege, not something that is universal.
00:57:14.900 We can talk.
00:57:15.560 Sure, you can talk about white privilege, but you can't say.
00:57:17.740 It's this universal project.
00:57:19.520 People in Afghanistan don't have white privilege.
00:57:21.940 There are not people in China who have white privilege.
00:57:25.420 And the most important question isn't really whether it exists or what it looks like, but
00:57:29.400 what are we to do?
00:57:30.780 What are we to do?
00:57:31.820 I've seen a lot of commands for what people with privilege should do to make sure we are
00:57:35.640 sufficiently anti-racist.
00:57:37.920 Some of the things are overt and obvious and other things are not so much.
00:57:42.300 Apparently, a meritocracy, for example, is white supremacist.
00:57:45.280 MAGA is white supremacist.
00:57:46.940 Logic is white supremacist. 0.52
00:57:48.280 These are things that I've actually seen.
00:57:50.260 And this is what Christians' social justice, false liberation theology does. 0.98
00:57:55.360 It exchanges the free truth of the gospel for a social gospel, which is not about advancing
00:58:01.120 Christ's kingdom here on earth, but manifesting a socialist utopia where all outcomes are equal.
00:58:06.220 What Thomas Sowell calls cosmic justice, which is really not justice at all.
00:58:11.260 I highly recommend his book, Quest for Cosmic Justice, as well as Vision of the Anointed.
00:58:17.060 They place burdens on people that are heavy, that are unattainable.
00:58:21.220 You can't ever say exactly the right things.
00:58:23.300 You can't ever be contrite enough for the fact that your ancestors 200 years ago may have
00:58:28.920 owned slaves.
00:58:29.920 You either have to sit down or stand up. 0.99
00:58:32.740 You need to speak up or shut up. 0.58
00:58:34.080 You need to be humble or bold. 0.50
00:58:35.600 You can't ever be woke enough.
00:58:37.000 You're supposed to love yourself, but also divest of your whiteness.
00:58:40.520 Don't be ashamed, but repent of the white supremacy that you were never even guilty of.
00:58:46.240 I have good news in exchange for that.
00:58:48.300 I don't have good news.
00:58:49.140 The Bible has good news that that is not the gospel.
00:58:52.140 The gospel is that Jesus died to save you from your sins and reconcile you to a holy God
00:58:57.000 in exchange for the heavy burdens and difficult yoke of sin and worldly standards of righteousness.
00:59:02.200 He gives you a light burden and an easy yoke that he empowers you to carry, which is this.
00:59:08.300 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor
00:59:13.200 as yourself.
00:59:15.020 Don't get caught up in the worldly virtue traps.
00:59:19.160 The virtue trap says, unless you post right now and you repeat all the woke talking points
00:59:24.400 and express appropriate outrage toward the things that you must care about, you are not truly virtuous.
00:59:29.760 Girl, you are free from that.
00:59:32.040 You're free from that.
00:59:33.440 Following Jesus means that you are free from trying to meet the ever-changing standards of the world,
00:59:37.760 however virtuous they may seem.
00:59:39.880 When the church is taking cues from the world on how to respond to tragedy, we've got a huge problem.
00:59:45.260 So what should we be doing?
00:59:46.660 Of course, we should be mourning with those who mourn.
00:59:49.660 We should be loving God.
00:59:51.060 We should be loving our neighbor.
00:59:52.260 Go to my Instagram profile.
00:59:54.080 You can see how to help people who are rebuilding their businesses and cities, at least in Minneapolis.
00:59:59.120 I'm going to try to do this for multiple cities.
01:00:01.180 Give your time, money, energy to those who need it.
01:00:04.360 If you care about changing things on a political level, get involved in local politics.
01:00:08.540 See what's going on in your public school system.
01:00:10.400 You never know.
01:00:11.260 You never know if you are the impact, if you are the change by the grace of God that your community needs.
01:00:17.320 And if you care about racism, which of course does exist because people are sinful and we have hate in our heart.
01:00:23.300 As my friend, Daryl Harrison says, though, we have a sin problem, not a skin problem.
01:00:28.660 Then stand up where you see this kind of hate.
01:00:31.420 Stand up where you see all hate, not just when people assume it, but when it's actually there.
01:00:35.960 Fight for the vulnerable.
01:00:36.800 Cling to true justice, God's justice.
01:00:40.280 Avoid selective outrage, which I too have been guilty of.
01:00:44.880 It's so easy.
01:00:46.380 Remember the names of the people that we listed at the top who have recently been shot and killed by the police?
01:00:52.360 You probably knew some of their names, but not all of them.
01:00:55.960 Because the media only promotes one set of names.
01:00:58.980 My mom was giving me this analogy that if you look, if you only saw, if you were, held a microscope, if you had a microscopic view of a beach ball and you only saw the red part of the beach ball, you would assume that it's a red ball.
01:01:11.800 But it's actually just a portion of the ball.
01:01:14.440 There are lots of different colors on the ball.
01:01:15.820 That is what, that's what the media does when it comes to the racial narrative.
01:01:21.380 It only shows one side of the story.
01:01:23.060 And unfortunately, Christians, along with everyone else, we take our, we take our cues from the media.
01:01:28.600 We take our cues from the secular world.
01:01:30.140 We take our cues from the mainstream and we, um, we gin up outrage and we follow along with movements without knowing the other side of the story, without knowing the rest of the data, without knowing or caring about the truth at all.
01:01:41.320 Because we want to fit in with the world's.
01:01:43.460 We want the world to, we want to fit in with the world's definitions of compassion and justice and truth.
01:01:50.520 Remember that Minneapolis cop who murdered the white woman in cold blood? 0.86
01:01:55.260 He was a black police officer. 0.84
01:01:57.220 She was a white woman, only got 12 years of prison. 0.98
01:01:59.900 Like we care about that too.
01:02:02.200 Like we care about instances of injustice.
01:02:04.520 We don't just care about what the media tells us to care about.
01:02:06.960 That means we seek truth.
01:02:08.300 We look at the facts at hand.
01:02:09.540 We don't jump onto trends and fall into virtue traps.
01:02:12.480 We speak what we know is true to the best of our ability.
01:02:16.220 And above all, believe in and share the gospel, which changes hearts.
01:02:19.700 And is the only way to change communities and society as a whole.
01:02:24.720 Pastors, pastors, why aren't you preaching the gospel right now?
01:02:29.240 What the world needs isn't another conversation about white privilege.
01:02:34.660 Preach the gospel.
01:02:35.860 Don't you know that that is the only good news that truly reconciles, that first reconciles us to a holy God,
01:02:41.820 the most important reconciliation that exists and also makes our relationships right with other people.
01:02:47.880 And no, this is not a truncated gospel.
01:02:49.920 I understand that the gospel saves.
01:02:51.660 It also empowers us to do good work.
01:02:53.640 Absolutely.
01:02:54.280 But I'm seeing too many pastors not talk about the gospel at all.
01:02:58.140 And all of their tributes and all of their posts and all of their, I'm sure, very well-meaning conversations about social justice.
01:03:04.600 I am seeing so many pastors say, you know, we've got to do better.
01:03:08.260 Hashtag this.
01:03:09.120 Hashtag that.
01:03:10.220 Join this activist group.
01:03:11.960 We need to be aware of our white privilege.
01:03:14.260 We need to be aware of our history.
01:03:16.220 And nowhere in that post did I see two simple words.
01:03:19.680 That Jesus saves.
01:03:21.220 That Jesus reconciles.
01:03:22.700 That the gospel is the only answer to what ails us. 0.96
01:03:25.720 Do you not care about people's souls?
01:03:27.820 Do you care only about skin and not sin? 0.76
01:03:30.020 That's not your job as a pastor.
01:03:31.320 And by the way, that's not your job as a Christian. 0.94
01:03:32.860 I've seen so many Christian women resharing these popular worldly memes about what we need to do 0.99
01:03:38.540 and talk about what they're going to do in the way of social justice, not mentioning Jesus's name once.
01:03:44.540 Who do you think Jesus is?
01:03:46.100 What kind of power do you think he has?
01:03:48.280 Do you think he doesn't care about people's souls?
01:03:51.600 He does.
01:03:52.380 He does.
01:03:53.080 And I find it so patronizing as well.
01:03:55.320 This is something else that I see.
01:03:57.180 When I see white pastors, they talk about on Sundays to their mostly white churches.
01:04:02.860 They talk about the gospel.
01:04:04.580 They preach the Bible to their white congregants. 0.86
01:04:08.020 But then when they start talking to black people and the black community, they don't talk about the gospel at all. 0.99
01:04:13.800 They talk about social justice.
01:04:15.440 They talk about being woke.
01:04:17.060 They talk about only earthly issues.
01:04:19.920 And not the issue that all of us have is that we live forever.
01:04:25.180 That is the issue, that we live forever, that our souls are going to one of two places, and that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only life.
01:04:32.940 And no one comes to the Father except through him.
01:04:35.140 Do white pastors that only talk about white supremacy to black people, that only apologize for white privilege, that only talk about systemic racism rather than the truth and the transcendent reality of the gospel of Jesus Christ? 0.92
01:04:51.060 Do you not care about their souls? 0.79
01:04:53.280 I don't know.
01:04:54.180 I don't know.
01:04:55.160 If you're a Christian that is only preaching, I'm not saying we can't talk about justice.
01:04:58.720 Of course we can.
01:04:59.420 Can't talk about politics.
01:05:00.540 Of course we can.
01:05:01.120 Of course I believe that.
01:05:02.500 Of course I believe we should talk about earthly issues that are also, of course, spiritual issues.
01:05:08.820 Of course I believe we should talk about controversial topics.
01:05:11.240 But if your answer is social justice, a hashtag, blacking out your Instagram picture, or conversations that are not actually rooted in truth, and not sharing the saving gospel of Jesus Christ, maybe it's time for you to check your privilege.
01:05:27.600 Just saying.
01:05:29.420 Okay, that's all I have today.
01:05:31.420 I know there are a lot of other things that you guys want me to talk about, but I will be back here on Friday.
01:05:35.100 I'll be talking to Albert Moeller, and he is host of the podcast called The Briefing, as well as he holds several other titles.
01:05:42.740 And it will be a great conversation.
01:05:44.020 I will see you guys then.
01:05:44.720 I'll be talking to you guys then.