Ep 569 ｜ Kim & Kanye, 'Conscious Co-Parenting' & Disrupting God’s Order ｜ Guest： Delano Squires
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Summary
Delano Squires is a writer for The Blaze and a homeschool dad of three. In this episode, he talks about how he and his wife decided to homeschool their kids, why it s important to home school, and what it s like being a Christian in a public school setting.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Tuesday. This episode is brought to you by Good Ranchers,
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better than organic chicken, Kraft beef, shipped right to your front door. That is
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All right, guys, today we are talking to Delano Squires. He is a contributor for The Blaze,
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and he is a writer. He's got so much insight that he is going to share with us today. We are talking
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about Van Jones and his announcement that he just had a child, not with his ex-wife, who he has two
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children with, but with another woman. They are calling it conscious co-parenting because they're
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not actually romantically involved. They are just friends who wanted to have a child. So he's going
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to tell us, what does that mean about our culture and how we view family? Why is this problematic?
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We're also going to talk about Kim and Kanye, and then we're going to talk about Leah Thomas,
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this swimmer that we've talked about several times, and how the rejection of God's created order,
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as is demonstrated in all of these stories, is damaging to our society. He is such a wise person,
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and guys, when I say that he speaks our language and the things that he says and how he talks about
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them, I mean it. You are going to love him and love this conversation. So without further ado,
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here is our friend Delano Squires. Delano, thank you so much for joining us. For those who may not
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know, can you tell everyone who you are and what you do? Sure. My name is Delano Squires. I am a
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contributor here at The Blaze. They know me as Professor D. I'm known as Professor D on Fearless
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with Jason Whitlock. I'm a Christian. I'm a husband, father of three, homeschool dad, and I've
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been writing for public consumption for the better part of the last 10 years. First with a site called
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Black and Married with Kids. Then I wrote for The Root, a couple pieces on The Griot. Then I had my own
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blog for a period of time, and then I wrote for The Federalist, and I've been with The Blaze since last
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July. Wow. And one thing that I want to talk to you about just briefly before we get into what we
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will actually be discussing today, you're a homeschool dad of three. We have a lot of homeschool parents
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out there, a lot of people who are considering homeschool, especially over the past couple of
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years. They're kind of intimidated by the prospect. Can you tell us how you and your wife decided that
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you wanted to homeschool your kids and what that looks like on a day-to-day basis?
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Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. Our oldest is six, so we have a six-year-old,
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a three-year-old who turned four in July, and then our last just turned two last week. So
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really, our oldest is the one who gets the bulk of the instruction. Yes. But we really decided,
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honestly, after just a number of years of discussing how we're going to do childcare and
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school, my wife is actually, prior to coming home, she worked as a social worker, and we realized that
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right before the pandemic, right before our third was supposed to be born, that the prospect of paying
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for daycare for a second child meant that she was going to be spending her entire day taking care
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of other people's children, and we were going to be paying someone to take care of ours.
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So part of it was a practical decision, you know, sort of based on dollars and cents, but honestly,
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a big part of it was just us growing in our faith, and particularly me, because when she first
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floated the idea of coming home years ago, I thought she was joking about it,
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and I realized now that my mind had been just as conditioned by sort of, you know, feminist thought
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around women's primary place being in the workplace and being wage earners, that I just, I didn't
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consider the impact of having her home with our children, particularly in their early years.
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So part of it was just, you know, our faith developing, listening to, you know, people like
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Pastor Votie Bauckham, who I know you are a big fan of, and your audience is probably a big fan of,
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hearing him explain that when Christians send their children to be educated by Caesar,
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that we shouldn't be surprised when they come home acting like Romans. And we start to see with our
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oldest at her public charter school, they had up some materials, you know, around Black Lives Matter.
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They had A as for activists in the school library. And even though I don't think it touched her
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classroom, because I mean, she was in the youngest, she was in a pre-K three class. And I think our
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teachers were, you know, really dedicated to helping the children develop like those basic building
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blocks. When I emailed the principal and asked, hey, do you all know what these groups stand for?
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What is your position on them? I never heard a response. So that was one of the final straws for
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me. But a big part of it was just thinking about my duty, particularly as a Christian father,
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to educate our children. And I see equal education is equal parts scholarship and discipleship. So
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once I started to reframe the issue that way, making that decision, you know, with my wife became a lot
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easier. And you mentioned that this happened as your faith grew, and you grew in wisdom and
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understanding. And of course, as we grow in the fear of the Lord, we do grow in wisdom. And that
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means a lot of things change. I'm curious if your politics also changed. You mentioned that you
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wrote for The Root, which is a pretty left wing publication. I'm not sure what the subject of your
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articles was, but have your politics changed as your faith and worldview have evolved?
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That's a great question. In some ways, they have. 2020 was the first time I ever voted for a
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Republican, you know, in any election. Part of it, I mean, I grew up in New York City, there weren't that
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many Republicans to vote for. And I didn't become eligible to vote until I went off to college anyway.
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But I was raised in a home, raised by a church-going family. So I've always been in and around the
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church as a kid. And I would say that the personal views of my parents and relatives and church family
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members would be considered conservative, even if their voting record wasn't so. So in some respects,
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my politics have changed. I think the biggest part of it is just trying to, you know, apply a biblical
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worldview to every issue I encounter. So even the interesting thing is that even when I wrote for
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The Root, my articles were on, one was the lessons my father taught me. So that was like a Father's Day
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tribute. One was talking about Bill Cosby and the fact that members of the left really started to
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have disdain for Cosby after his pound cake speech. It wasn't the allegations of sexual assault.
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And another one was a critique of Republicans, particularly Black Republicans,
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based on how they would do outreach to potential Black voters.
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And long before people heard of Candace Owens, there was a woman named Crystal Wright, known as GOP Black Chick.
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And on the first day, I think it was February 1st, 2016, so basically the first day of Black History Month,
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she was on, you know, Fox and Friends and called Black people, I think it was politically ignorant,
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political dummies. That's what it was. And I sort of get the point she was making in terms of her thoughts
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that, you know, Black voters were being abused by the left. But I just thought that was a totally wrong way
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to go about it. So I was calling balls and strikes, you know, even back then. But, you know, to your
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question, I think in some ways my politics have evolved. And I think more than anything, I have
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started to see more clearly the types of the impact of the policies that the left pushes, and particularly
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in the Black community. So even something, for instance, like
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voucher program in D.C., you know, where I'm located,
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you know, when he came into office, he said his daughters couldn't go
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to D.C. public schools. And then the first thing he did when he got in office was try to
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cut a voucher program that actually served low-income
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residents in the city. And I started to realize that the left's
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promotion of diversity is really superficial representation
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masking as, you know, legitimate, you know, political interests.
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And once I realized that, I said, like, this is just smoke and mirrors. A lot of times
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these policies don't really benefit us. They really serve the politicians who are promoting
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them and their interests, the teachers' unions, and in the case of, you know, abortion, Planned
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Parenthood, and so on and so forth. So I think over the last couple of years, I've just evolved
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in some of those areas. And for lack of a better term, the scales have been lifted off of my eyes.
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Yeah, I think that happens for all of us in one way or another as we try to apply more accurately
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a biblical worldview. That doesn't necessarily mean we come to all of the same conclusions when it
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comes to different policy issues. But we certainly see about a number of ideas that the things that
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we thought before just weren't true, or we saw them in the wrong way, and we see a fuller picture
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now. It really is amazing how biblical wisdom really does enlighten us and the practical and
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the political and the social as well. One area that I think that you are just so strong in that you
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really have been a beacon of light in is talking about the family, not just, you know, the black
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family, but the family in general, the family that God created mom, dad, children, and the importance
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of the cohesion of the family. And I came across one of your articles that you shared on Twitter for
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The Blaze talking about Van Jones and his friends deciding to engage in what he is calling conscious
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co-parenting. So he was married. He had two kids with his wife. He divorced her in 2018, or they got a
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divorce in 2018. So people were kind of surprised that, okay, he had another kid, a girl just recently,
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and that he says that he is parenting with a woman who he's just friends with. Tell me your take on this.
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Is this, you know, a fine alternative to a married mom and dad having kids together?
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That was a nice alley-oop, Allie. I mean, it's, I think what the ideas that Van Jones is promoting
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are incredibly harmful. Because in his announcement, he didn't just say, I'm doing this, this is a private
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decision, you know, between me and my friend. He said, this is a, this is a, a model for parenting
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that I think other people should explore. And I think that that was really one of the most harmful
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things about it. And what I've written before for The Blaze and in other venues is that issues around
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family, and you're right, it's not, it's not just the black family, but I focus in that area for
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particular reasons. And I can mention those really quickly. But, you know, this issue in terms of
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family breakdown to me is the single biggest social issue facing our country today. And when people
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like Van Jones or other celebrities on the left erode the natural family, one, one man, one woman
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for one lifetime, you know, committed to each other and the well-being of their progeny,
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it really has impacts that go, that reverberate far outside of their households.
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So I think it's one of these things where, you know, sometimes people, celebrities do this a lot,
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where they will adopt an alternative lifestyle, quote unquote, and then try to come up with language
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and new concepts to try to justify it for the masses. This almost never happens in the reverse,
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right? So a lot of the things that we've accepted, even some of the issues around, you know, sex and
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gender identity, have only found firm footing in our society because of who's promoting them,
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right? If, if transgender ideology and gender theory was being pushed up from mechanics of the
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jiffy lube, nobody would take them seriously. But because they come from the ivory tower and the
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academy, then people, you know, grant them a level of legitimacy that they that they shouldn't have.
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So I think what Van Jones is doing is extremely harmful. And I hope it's not something that catches
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on, particularly in this day and age where I said, so many children across ethnic groups are being
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raised by parents who aren't married. And I'm of the position that, and this is where I want to be
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specific in terms of, you know, what I'm saying. I don't equate not married to father absence or
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father abandonment. And sometimes on the right, people will use those terms interchangeably. They'll
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say, for instance, you know, 80% of black kids are abandoned by their fathers. And that's not true.
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Um, now what you can say is between 70, 75% of black children are born to unmarried parents.
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That is true. Um, and that, again, you can chart, you can see that rise in non-maryland births across
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groups. Um, but I think it's good to be, to be specific about what we're talking about. And
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as I said, I think what Van Jones, Van Jones is doing is, is pretty, pretty destructive.
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Yeah. And, you know, I raised some, um, questions on, on Twitter. What happens if one of them gets
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a new job and has to move away? What happens if one of them decides to get married and wants to have
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kids with someone else? And so there are all kinds of different logistical questions about this. And
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of course, some pushback that I got was, all right, but that could happen with anyone. That's true of any
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relationship that could happen in a marriage or that could happen, you know, with any two people.
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And my response would be, well, that's, that's actually the point, whether they're dating or not
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anytime, especially this, I think brings it to another ethical and moral level in a problematic
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way that they are purposely creating a child outside of the bonds of marriage. It's not that,
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oh, this was a surprise pregnancy or, oh, uh, you know, they were married, they had a child and
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something happened, you know, circumstances happened. That's unfortunate. They're purposely
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creating a child outside the bonds of marriage. And my point is, in bringing up all of these
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questions, what if this happens? What if this happens? It's not to say, okay, this particular
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scenario is, uh, you know, practically different than if they were dating. My point is that, yeah,
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these are the questions you have to ask anytime you bring life into the world. When you're not
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married, marriage is a child friendly institution. As you talked about in this article, the data has
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been in for decades that when kids are born to a present mother and father, when the mother and
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father are in the home, they simply have a greater chance of emotional and social and even financial
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success. That doesn't mean that the child that is born to a single mom or who is even abandoned by mom,
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whatever it is, can't have a successful life or that they won't thrive and have a wonderful family
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and be productive one day. But the best foundation for a child is a married mother and father. To me,
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it is unethical. It is entirely unethical and immoral to, like I said, deliberately bring a child
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into a situation that is going to be inherently unstable and insecure, going from house to house,
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not really knowing fully who they belong to, knowing that your parents don't love each other.
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And it just goes back to me, to this narcissistic age that we live in, that we believe that we have
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a right to have a child. We don't have a right to have a child, that we basically view having children
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as just kind of something that if we want to, we can check it off the box. And we imagine that
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children are just, you know, endlessly adaptable, that they can just do whatever we say,
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you know, oh, they'll be fine. They'll be fine. They'll be fine. But it's not true. Children are
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not fine. They actually need some kind of stability and security in their life that is really brought
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to them by marriage. Absolutely. I mean, you hit on so many key points. I use this analogy, right?
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There's a difference between, you know, someone on a road trip who gets a flat tire and has to drive
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from, I don't know, Houston to Dallas on a spare and going in and purchasing a brand new car,
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right, that already has a spare tire on it and going to the manufacturer and saying, hey,
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what's going on with this vehicle? And they say, well, we've decided since it's possible to drive
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long distances with a spare, that for the sake of, you know, cost cutting measures, we're going to
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start building all of our cars that way. Because we all know intuitively that the best way to get,
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you know, efficient usage out of your vehicle is for it to have four fully functional tires.
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Now, you can, again, you can ride on a spare for a period of time, but no one would advise that
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you build cars that way. Right. And in the same way, it takes two people to make a child,
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but somehow our society has been convinced that it only takes one to raise them. And I also think
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that this discussion would be entirely different if, for instance, 40% of mothers lived separately
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from their children. Because no one debates the importance of mothers when it comes to rearing of
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children. But somehow for fathers, they become expendable in some respects. And I think a big
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part of that has to do with, you know, financial security and financial security is important,
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right? I believe every child is entitled to be supported by both mother and father. But when you
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look at men as just a paycheck, what you end up doing is sort of supporting the argument of people
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say, well, single motherhood or single parenthood generally is not particularly bad if the woman
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in question has the resources to support a child. And what you end up doing is losing the part of
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fatherhood that's about, you know, the protection of your child, the affirmation of their worth and
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dignity, the types, the ways in which fathers interact with children differently. We play
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differently. We encourage them to take more risks. Sometimes we discipline differently. And children
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need both of those things. But for some reason, we've convinced ourselves that, you know, dads don't
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particularly matter. We're like the cultural appendix, right? Great if you have one, but not
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particularly necessary. Yeah. And I think that's that's a really, really bad move.
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You know, gosh, that's a that's a really good point that fathers are seen as more expendable,
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it seems like, than mothers. And yet, you know, because I have talked recently and have had a few
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guests on talking about really the corruption that's in the surrogacy industry. And also I had
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I had someone who is an advocate for the right of children to have a mother and a father, there are a
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lot of ethical and moral problems with this with the reproduction industry. And one of them is that
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through a lot of these processes, a child is taken away from either their biological mother or their
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biological father to be raised by two moms, or to be raised by two dads. And because of that,
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you're actually seeing a phenomenon that we've never seen before in human history. And that is
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motherlessness. So you have a child that is being raised by two dads, they, you know, picked a
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surrogate and an egg donor, maybe out of the catalog. And they have this child because like a lot of
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people today, like Van Jones, they think they have a right to have a child, no matter the ethical
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questions. And so now you are creating a generation of kids who their mother is actually seen in
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as expendable. That is, I'm not saying that that's better or worse than the father being seen as
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expendable. I'm just saying, I don't even think that we have seen the repercussions of that long
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term. We've kind of seen, unfortunately, fatherlessness throughout history. It's much more difficult for a
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woman to do that just because she's physically attached to her child. There's even more bonding
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that happens when that child is born. So we've seen, unfortunately, the damaging effects
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of fatherlessness throughout history. Now we are actually manufacturing motherlessness,
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which just goes to show that when we view children as basically, you know, possessions,
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when we don't take the formation of the family seriously, which I think goes back to not taking
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God seriously as the authority over and the creator of all of these things, there's going to be really
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serious consequences for kids who, by the way, don't consent to any of this and unfortunately are
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forced into a situation where they don't know their mom or dad. Yeah. And I said that in articles like
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the adults want to reap the benefits, but the children are the ones who pay the cost. Yeah. I mean,
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you hit the nail on the head again. I think in many respects, our culture sees children as
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trinkets, as baubles, as, you know, a capstone on a self, you know, self-fulfilled life. And I think
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all of those things, as you said, have a tremendous impact on the fabric of society, on the well-being
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of children. You know, I also mentioned in the column how in generations past, the children of
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divorced parents would be seen as sympathetic, you know, sort of victims in some respects,
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collateral damage of the fallout and breakdown of relationship between a mom and a dad.
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But now with the genre of divorce made me better essays and books, primarily by women.
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Right. Yep. Children don't even factor into that. Right. So when the woman who wrote that
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recent essay in the Atlantic said that she destroyed her family, I mean, the children really were an
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afterthought. They were only mentioned to the extent that, you know, she said, well, now we have,
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you know, two apartments and the kids go in between both. But who knows how that is going to affect,
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you know, children and her children, both now and in the long term. And a lot of times people will focus
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on obviously the well-being, the financial security for kids. But one of the key benefits of marriage,
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and particularly in family formation in the way that God designed it, is that it has incredible
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modeling benefits for children. When kids get to see mom and dad up close negotiating their relationship,
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loving and respecting one another, and seeing what the type of security and safety that that brings,
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that gives them something to model their own relationships after. But if all they know is
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adults who either don't or can't commit to one another, or adults who commit to one another and
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then break up because one of them says, I don't feel fulfilled. I'm tired of being known only as
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your mom or dad or, you know, your wife or husband. I think it makes it a lot more difficult
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for those children to then want to have, you know, marriages of their own. And I think that's part of
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the reason we're starting to see this, and particularly among millennials who grew up hearing, you know,
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first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage. And now are living,
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if I had to make a new rhyme, I'd say, you know, Chris and Jessica staring at their screens, T-E-X-T-I-N-G,
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first comes sex, then comes baby, then comes marriage, but that's a big maybe, right? The paradigm
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has completely shifted where we're putting the cart before the horse and the kid has totally
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dropped off the cart. So, you know, I think it's one of those things where we are doing a lot of
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social experimentation in this country around gender, gender identity, sex, sexuality, family
00:26:02.940
formation. And we have no idea what the doors we're opening will bring forward in the years to
00:26:12.600
come. Yep, absolutely. We say a lot on this show that children are always the unconsenting subjects
00:26:19.240
of progressive social experiments, whether it is the redefinition of marriage and the family,
00:26:25.520
whether it's reproductive technology, a lot of forms of reproduction, reproductive technology,
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whether it is COVID policy, whether it's gender ideology, or whether it's abortion. Children are
00:26:36.880
always the one placed on the altar of basically adults' whims. And it just takes a lot of hubris,
00:26:46.160
a lot of pride. I think it's the result of people believing that they are their own God. And so they
00:26:51.860
can take people who don't have the power to know or say otherwise and say, well, I want you to live how I
00:26:58.340
want you to live in the context that I find convenient and good for myself, and you'll just
00:27:04.020
be fine. And unfortunately, I don't know that we will get a whole lot of research out of
00:27:09.720
intelligentsia of the true consequences of this, because they're bought and paid for by politics.
00:27:16.360
They're driven by ideology. And so at the end of the day, for the Christian, even though data is
00:27:21.140
important, facts are important, studies are important, what we can trust in is that we can
00:27:27.860
trust in Genesis 1. We can trust that the family is supposed to be a certain way because God created
00:27:32.920
it that way. And anytime we go from what's natural to what's possible, there are going to be questions
00:27:41.340
that Christians really need to grapple with. That doesn't mean that what's possible through technology
00:27:46.040
or, you know, social change is bad. It just means that there are always going to be questions,
00:27:52.660
especially when kids are involved. And that kind of transitions into and if you have comments on that,
00:27:59.100
I would love to hear them. But that kind of does transition us into what I want to talk to you about
00:28:03.760
next, which kind of just emphasizes everything we're talking about, which is Kim and Kanye,
00:28:08.680
based on what you just said, like you talked about that Atlantic article and how these articles are mostly
00:28:12.820
written by women, that they're liberated from their past life of motherhood and marriage and all of
00:28:18.140
this stuff. I mean, it's just really sad and bitter to me. But Kim Kardashian recently said,
00:28:22.820
according to Vogue, that I've chosen myself. She said, for so long, I did what made other people
00:28:28.440
happy, the 41-year-old explains. And I think in the last two years, I decided I'm going to make
00:28:33.340
myself happy. And that feels really good. And even if that created changes and caused my divorce,
00:28:39.380
I think it's important to be honest with yourself about what really makes you happy.
00:28:43.240
I've chosen myself. I think it's okay to choose you. And of course, they have two children or four
00:28:50.940
children together. And so this whole thing, as well as the public drama that has unfolded has really
00:28:55.580
made me sad. What's your reaction to all of that? Yeah. So, I mean, I wanted to touch on your first
00:29:02.940
point because actually, I had the benefit of being connected to a great local church. And in our men's
00:29:10.380
theology class this past Friday, we were talking about common grace. And we talked about why believers
00:29:17.680
need to have discernment when it comes to things like, you know, scientific advances in medical
00:29:23.040
technology. Because if we have no limit, if everything that science produces, we see as an
00:29:29.500
unadulterated good, then when scientists begin to play God, the Christian has no basis on which to
00:29:41.840
say, okay, that far and not a step further. Exactly. So whether it's the reproductive technology
00:29:49.160
or certain types of stem cell research, if we don't have a biblical worldview on these things,
00:29:57.100
we're going to get swept up, you know, with, you know, the rest of the mainstream. And I think is
00:30:03.960
one of the most disappointing sort of aspects, and particularly the last two years, um, with the
00:30:10.820
rise of, you know, some social justice movements and, and, and BLM and racial rec talk of racial
00:30:17.780
reckonings. Um, I have seen prominent evangelicals who spend more time talking about what white
00:30:27.580
conservative Christians thought about, you know, the civil rights act of 1964, then they do talking
00:30:34.060
about the impacts of the equality act of 2021. Um, and it's one of those things where I understand you,
00:30:40.860
you want to address the past and, and I'm, I'm off of studying history primarily to, to learn from it,
00:30:47.640
not to relitigate it, but the silence of, of in many respects, the, the Davos evangelical crowd
00:30:56.480
means that we are compromising the future of our children. Um, and to me, that's, that's much more
00:31:02.380
important, um, than whether you can get, you know, the members of your church to, to, to mimic three
00:31:09.820
words and say, yes, I, you know, I, I believe in racial justice. Okay. Well, first of all, what does
00:31:15.500
that even mean? And, and two, how is, you know, how are the things that the people you are following,
00:31:22.560
how do they square with the scripture? Um, and I, and what I, what I found over the last couple of
00:31:26.960
years is that a lot of pastors, theologians, public intellectuals who identify as Christian,
00:31:32.040
um, have just been asleep at the wheel. So, so, so that's on that point, um, on the Kim and Kanye
00:31:38.260
stuff. I mean, I, I think we're seeing, you know, the, that passage you read from Kim Kardashian squares
00:31:44.640
perfectly with what I see every single day. And again, men have their own challenges around family.
00:31:52.420
A couple of generations ago, the, the mid-level manager, madman type of ad exec who runs off with
00:32:00.480
the secretary to start a new life was sort of a well-worn, um, archetype. But now what we have is
00:32:08.160
the, the generation of me first mommies. Um, and obviously you, you know, this, I know you are
00:32:15.020
speaking our language. Yes. My wife read your book. She loves it. And, uh, but, but I see it all the time.
00:32:22.200
It's always about me, you know, finding myself and my truth and my happiness. And I think that,
00:32:28.780
that follows that pattern of general narcissism in our, in our country, which is a bipartisan
00:32:35.140
sort of, uh, fair across all ideological lines where everything is about how I as an individual
00:32:44.180
feel, always about rights, never about responsibilities. And as I said, and we're both saying,
00:32:50.740
you know, the kids are the ones who end up getting left in the lurch. So I'm not particularly
00:32:55.460
surprised, you know, by, by Kim and Kanye. And as a, as a dad, there's some things that Kanye West
00:33:01.580
has done that I just find extremely concerning and disappointing. And just, just being able to
00:33:07.580
have private conversations with your, your spouse or potentially soon to be ex-wife without leaking
00:33:13.660
them to the media. So he, he has his own challenges, but nothing about her statement surprised me
00:33:23.360
Yeah. And you know, this is not about, at least on this show, we're not even getting into like
00:33:28.260
the details of the back and forth and the drama or saying that, you know, their marriage was great.
00:33:33.560
And that's like you said, that Kanye is without fault. It's not about that at all. Unfortunately.
00:33:38.420
I mean, it's been really sad, honestly, to watch all of this unfold and to get, to see their kids
00:33:44.740
caught in the crosshair. I know one thing I don't even know. I'm sure I disagree with Kanye on a lot,
00:33:49.520
but one thing that he said, which again, I agree he should have handled privately, but
00:33:52.860
he talked about, you know, their eight-year-old daughter being on TikTok and Kim even shared like
00:34:00.160
some thoughts about that, that basically it just makes her happy. It makes her daughter happy.
00:34:05.600
That also seems to be an issue among a lot of parents, not just when it comes to social media,
00:34:12.460
but maybe especially when it comes to social media. Well, this makes my child happy. This is what
00:34:16.960
satisfies them right now. This is what they want to do. It makes them feel good about themselves.
00:34:21.160
So it doesn't really surprise me for like a mom. If a mom thinks that the highest priority,
00:34:26.620
the only priority in life is doing what makes you happy in the moment. You pass that down to your
00:34:30.820
kids that manifests itself in potentially like really dangerous behavior. My personal opinion is
00:34:37.640
that kids should not be on social media at all, especially TikTok. So like I got his point there,
00:34:43.140
but all of this kind of makes sense, but it's also like the consequences of a fractured family too.
00:34:49.380
Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. And I mean that, that, um, the type of culture that has created,
00:34:56.440
you know, children's happiness, quote unquote, at all costs. I mean, we, we've been seeing that play
00:35:02.480
out for a number of years that that's part of what has fueled the, you know, participation trophy
00:35:08.100
generation. And part of the reason I think so many, you know, children are, and young adults are so,
00:35:15.000
um, sensitive and anxious and neurotic and fragile is because they have been trained their entire lives
00:35:21.740
that their happiness is what counts, you know, more than anything. So, um, that, that part is not a
00:35:29.380
surprise at all. And I share your perspective in terms of social media, um, or even honestly,
00:35:35.760
just things like screen time in general is just so much of what we're getting, um, from our culture
00:35:42.060
is about instant gratification. And it's hard enough as adults to manage some of these things and,
00:35:47.000
you know, some training and discipling a generation of children in these things is, is even worse. But
00:35:53.540
yeah, I mean, ultimately it's, it's the kids that get caught, caught in a crossfire. I believe they
00:36:00.160
have four children together. Um, I don't doubt that both of them are involved in caring parents.
00:36:06.740
What did I say that, you know, the, the breakdown of their family is in many respects, similar to what
00:36:12.540
we see in other families. It's just, they have, you know, way more resources to, to deal with it.
00:36:17.700
And, and, um, it's interesting because in some of Kanye's responses, he's, he has talked about
00:36:23.060
himself as, you know, as, as a black man and the father of black children. And one of the reasons
00:36:29.080
that, that I've written about the black family specifically, um, it's, it's not that the issue
00:36:34.320
is different, but the breakdown of the black family specifically has been attributed to different
00:36:41.940
causes than other families. So if, you know, white liberals and white conservatives are at a
00:36:49.180
conference and they're talking about, you know, why the non-marital birth rate, uh, among white
00:36:56.020
Americans is higher than it was among black Americans. When the Moynihan report came out in the
00:37:02.680
mid sixties, um, none of those people is going to respond that has anything to do with slavery, right?
00:37:08.280
But that's one of the things that you hear in the black community often. Now the data suggests
00:37:12.280
that, um, from emancipation up until, you know, the middle of the 20th century, um, black Americans,
00:37:23.280
I think under men and women under 35 were more likely to be married, um, than, than their white
00:37:28.680
counterparts. So what you see is, is a trajectory of the black family that obviously was decimated
00:37:36.120
by slavery that got stronger from emancipation through Jim Crow, um, reached sort of, uh,
00:37:45.120
uh, uh, a tipping point in the mid sixties, which sort of necessitated the Moynihan report.
00:37:52.380
And, and at that time it was 25% of black children were being born to unmarried parents.
00:37:57.440
And by the time you get into the mid eighties, it was over 50% and it's been over 70%, um, for
00:38:03.680
well over the last decade. So, um, the, the other thing really quick that I think needs
00:38:09.020
to be addressed is, uh, it's the fact that in, in the black community, there are so many
00:38:16.240
intellectuals, academics, media professionals who, who aren't just sort of ambivalent about
00:38:24.220
the family. They are actively hostile to the notion of the nuclear family, because these are
00:38:30.440
people who have been influenced by Marxism, um, and feminism, um, and they see patriarchy
00:38:39.820
as a much more sort of dangerous influence, particularly to black women and black children
00:38:46.740
than, you know, sort of the loss of the nuclear family. And I, and I've been in debates with some
00:38:52.600
of these people who will openly say the black family, the black community does not need nuclear
00:38:57.960
families to thrive. Um, this is the same ideology that was sort of mimicked in BLM's black villages
00:39:06.060
principle that starts out that they are committed to disrupting the Western prescribed nuclear
00:39:10.720
family. And then they go on in that principle to talk about supporting villages, quote unquote,
00:39:17.260
and other family structures to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
00:39:24.440
They never mentioned that website. Yeah, right. They never, they never mentioned fathers as if,
00:39:29.700
as if fathers don't exist. And I even said this yesterday in response to, you know, a related tweet
00:39:34.780
that for people who think like this, black men are only needed for their seed to create life
00:39:43.220
and for their corpses to fuel activism, never as a husband or head of his home. Um, and I think
00:39:51.320
it's important to name that specifically. A new phenomenon increasingly women are, and this is not
00:40:02.000
even a racial issue at all, but women are just seen as, you know, as, as wombs, or I'm not even sure
00:40:10.000
the term woman has become so arbitrary in the same way that a man and what he actually brings to the
00:40:17.600
table brings to a family brings uniquely to different spheres of society has kind of been,
00:40:25.020
it's been patronized. It's been belittled. I mean, we saw the father in sitcoms for the past 30 years
00:40:33.060
has been turned into a dunce and silly while the serious mother has been the one who is, you know,
00:40:39.180
actually keeping the family together. That's certainly reflected in society. And then, so while
00:40:45.320
male has been belittled, the definition of female has become completely arbitrary. I don't know if
00:40:52.660
those two things go hand in hand, like the feminization of masculinity has turned into
00:40:58.380
men trying to become women. And then the term woman also becoming belittled and arbitrary.
00:41:05.060
I'm just kind of like flush. I don't know if the, I guess those things come together and maybe this
00:41:08.940
just, again, goes back to the rejection of God as the creator and the authority and the rejection of
00:41:15.340
Genesis one. And obviously we're seeing the consequences of that in the family, as we just
00:41:19.900
described, but we're also seeing the consequences of that in men now infiltrating women's spaces.
00:41:25.680
That's not happening the other way around. And you've talked about this recently. So I do,
00:41:30.920
I want to get your, um, your take on Leah Thomas, the swimmer that we've talked about several times,
00:41:37.820
previously Will Thomas, a man identifying as a woman swims for the university of Pennsylvania
00:41:43.780
was like 462nd. I think when it came to collegiate swimmers, when he was identifying and presenting as
00:41:51.400
a man and competing against men. And now is number one, of course, among collegiate swimmers. Um,
00:41:57.700
now that he is competing against women. And then there is also, uh, there's also a, uh, a woman
00:42:05.280
who identifies as a man who has gotten surgery, who still gets to compete against women. Why doesn't
00:42:12.180
this person who now goes by Isaac compete against men? It's just kind of funny. Um, but I want to get
00:42:18.220
your take on that after we watch this clip of Leah Thomas dominate smoke, uh, his competition.
00:42:27.700
Thomas heads in for the final turn. It's going to be a race for second place. It might be
00:42:33.680
Penn going one, two with Barroker making the turn currently in second place. And over the last half
00:42:40.080
of the pool, nobody will touch Leah Thomas, who will finish at 437-32. Leah Thomas, Ivy League champion.
00:42:48.100
Wow. Delano, I don't know about you, but I just feel inspired and proud to be a woman with that
00:42:58.600
dainty, lovely lady who is just setting records. It just makes me feel so proud. Um, and so feminist-y
00:43:07.160
and so happy to see a woman be such a dominant athlete. What about you?
00:43:13.700
I mean, I think you framing this in, in, in, in biblical terms, right? In terms of what happens
00:43:24.160
when people reject the truth of, of God's creation is important, particularly for Christians, because
00:43:31.120
this is exactly what we're seeing. Right. And many of us would understand this issue. If, for instance,
00:43:38.520
if someone used their, their, um, their iPhone as a coaster, someone looking at them do that would
00:43:46.780
say, well, that's, that's not the purpose of an iPhone, right? That's not what you use it for.
00:43:50.640
That's not what it was created for. Um, if Steve Jobs was still alive, he would tell you that he
00:43:55.340
would say, you're using my creation in a way that is outside of my intention. But when it comes to God's
00:44:02.760
creation, somehow we reject it, we think we know better. We think we know better than the manufacturer.
00:44:09.060
And what we're seeing is, you know, the, the malfunctioning of a society that's using its iPhone
00:44:17.060
as a coaster basically. So I think there are people who desire, um, an androgynous future where male and
00:44:26.180
female, um, have no particular meaning. And I know, Ali, you, you've, you've probably seen this.
00:44:32.760
There was a time where, when we talked about transgenderism, you would hear about gender
00:44:36.440
dysphoria and, and mental health and mental illness that has sort of faded away. There was a time
00:44:42.820
where people would draw a clear distinction between, um, a person who identified a male who identified as
00:44:50.300
a woman. And now people are saying that, for instance, someone like Leah Thomas is a female.
00:44:56.480
So when the New York Times says that, um, the, the deputy secretary of HHS has become the first female
00:45:04.640
admiral, they're, they're, they are capturing sort of rhetorical and cultural territory that to this point,
00:45:13.680
um, you know, sort of the normals have, have had access to, and, and they're moving us further
00:45:20.020
and further away from God's truth. So yeah, I've, I've written about Leah Thomas, you know, a number
00:45:25.500
of times and, and what his victory means both for women's sports, but really, I think it's a reflection
00:45:31.760
of, of something I wrote in a, in an article for the blaze, you know, about a week or so ago. And it's
00:45:38.440
really that I think feminists hate women. Um, and I hate to put it so, so boldly, but it's hard to,
00:45:47.840
to claim you care for a group of people when you reject the very things that make those people
00:45:53.900
unique. And ultimately for feminists, they want to be wherever the men are. And, um, if, if,
00:46:04.440
and, and, and, and I mean, that was the case, you know, years ago, if the men were in the workplace,
00:46:08.760
they say, okay, we want to be in the workplace. If the men were at certain private clubs, we want to be
00:46:13.400
there. It never goes in reverse. You know, men don't typically say we want to break in on women's
00:46:19.340
night at the bowling alley because we say, okay, but women have their own spaces and we respect that.
00:46:24.420
Now what the feminists are doing are saying, we want to get the men into where the women are
00:46:29.320
and the rise of Leah Thomas and swimming, um, CC Telfer and track, same thing, uh, uh, biological male
00:46:39.460
who quote unquote transitions and goes from mediocre racing against men to an NCAA champion
00:46:47.120
racing against women. Um, and it really is sad. It's sad to see so many young girls being forced
00:46:55.320
into enduring the indignity of having to look up at a person they know is a man smiling with the gold
00:47:05.240
metal around his neck and them having to turn and smile at the camera as well. So that's why I was
00:47:10.480
really inspired by, um, the young lady you had on a couple, a couple days ago was talking about
00:47:16.760
correct her, her op-ed and, and the need to protect women's sports. And I think that, that these young
00:47:25.100
women, girls and women need voices to speak up for them. We know that they're not going to get it
00:47:32.160
from corporate media. They're not going to get it from ESPN or, or, you know, Fox sports or any of
00:47:38.800
these other sort of mainstream publications. Um, so they're going to need to get it from
00:47:43.920
traditionalists, from complementarians, from, you know, the toxic patriarchy, because at the very,
00:47:52.580
for whatever people, whatever issues people may have a patriarchy, one thing patriarchs acknowledge
00:47:59.640
is that men and women are different and that women deserve protection. Um, and that it's on men to
00:48:07.440
provide that. Um, so it really is disappointing to see it, but that's why I have a tremendous amount
00:48:12.380
of respect for what you do. I mean, you hold that line way better than anybody at ESPN. And, um, I think,
00:48:19.900
you know, it's, it's to be commended. Well, thank you. I mean, I appreciate that. This is
00:48:24.760
just something that I can't, that I can't budge on because I can't, I really can't think of anything
00:48:31.000
more absurd to say that a man is a woman or that a man can identify as a woman. And, you know,
00:48:38.080
there are people who identify as feminists. They're more rare, but who identify as feminists who, even
00:48:43.600
though I disagree with them on almost everything, they do insist they're mostly in the UK, but who do
00:48:48.800
insist that, okay, a woman is a woman and, um, you know, a man is a man. So I do of course commend
00:48:55.120
them for that. But I think you're right that the people who push this men and women, it truly does
00:49:00.040
come from a place. And this is typically like a left-wing talking point, but I think it's actually
00:49:03.860
true. It comes from a place of misogyny. It comes from a place of really hating women, not just trying
00:49:09.140
to, you know, diminish their accomplishments, but truly victimize them.
00:49:18.800
Women are not just losing competitions, but they're actually truly safe in private spaces
00:49:25.120
are being infiltrated. There was this story that I'm, I'm sure you saw that at a California science
00:49:31.280
camp, they allowed quote, non-binary men who go by they, them to be housed with fifth grade girl
00:49:38.140
campers. The parents did not know this. Um, they were told by their fifth grade girl. So we're talking
00:49:43.460
10 and 11 years old. They were told by them when they got home, of course, the parents are livid.
00:49:49.140
The camp confirmed that according to California state law, they have to allow, and we're talking
00:49:54.560
about counselors, by the way, we're not even talking about other 10 year old boys, which would
00:49:57.960
be a problem, but we're talking about counselors. So teenagers, young adults housed with fifth grade
00:50:03.380
little girls, parents are not told they're not giving consent. The camp confirmed that that's what
00:50:08.640
they have to do. According to California state law, there's this another, another terrible story
00:50:13.140
by Fox news, which uses she, her pronouns for men, which I really hate. Um, this man named Hannah
00:50:19.540
Tubbs, and we'll put up a picture for YouTube looks completely like a man. Um, he says he's
00:50:24.320
transgender. Now he sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl in 2014 and is actually caught on tape saying,
00:50:31.620
okay guys in court, you've got to call me. She, her, so I can avoid being registered as a sex
00:50:36.560
offender. Um, and I can go into the women's prison men are infiltrating women's prisons
00:50:41.260
and places like Washington and California, um, domestic shelters, bathrooms, locker rooms.
00:50:47.720
The activist side says that this doesn't happen. It's happening every day. You have to hate women
00:50:52.520
and children to allow this kind of stuff. And I think calling a man, she, her actually in it.
00:50:58.660
Cause you're getting, sorry, I'm on a rant, but you're giving into the premise. You're giving
00:51:02.560
into the premise that a man can identify as a woman. And so if you're giving into that premise,
00:51:07.420
why shouldn't that, why shouldn't that so-called woman go into a girl's bathroom? Why shouldn't
00:51:13.480
they house with a 10 year old little girl? If you are saying that a man is a she, then what you're
00:51:19.480
doing is you are enabling the premise that is then enabling those who are actually predators to prey
00:51:25.640
upon these women and girls. And that is why I think it is so important to hold the line on this.
00:51:31.600
Okay. My rant is over final commentary before we close this out.
00:51:37.060
I mean, I, I agree with you a hundred percent. I mean, it's, I think it's a mat, an act of moral
00:51:43.160
cowardice to see how many people and particularly men. I mean, I couldn't, Ali, I'm, I'm, I'm,
00:51:49.880
I'm a fairly mild mannered guy, but if, if it was, if that was my 10 year old daughter, I mean,
00:51:56.040
my wife would probably be telling me, babe, calm down because I would want to flip something over
00:52:01.800
if a school took those types of liberties when it comes to the safety of my child. Um, but so many
00:52:09.900
men have just abandoned their posts. And I think part of what's going on here is that, um, that cowardice
00:52:17.820
in men has been growing for a long time because, you know, the, the same type of, of guy who posts
00:52:26.340
his pronouns and, and, and, and where's his, you know, the future is female type of t-shirt is also
00:52:33.020
the guy who's not going to stand up for his own daughter because if he can't stand up, um, to women
00:52:41.020
who are promoting bad ideas, he's not going to stand up for women who are being subjected to bad
00:52:47.420
ideas. And, um, I, I think that cowardice has, has just spread like a virus throughout our, our
00:52:54.280
culture. Um, but, but I'll say one last thing. And I said this on Twitter the other day, and I said
00:52:59.620
this in my conversation with Jason Willock on Friday, is that obviously we are subjecting women to,
00:53:06.940
to, you know, the things that we're talking about, right? The invasion of their private spaces by
00:53:12.200
biological males. Um, obviously we are engaging in a form of reality distortion by calling women,
00:53:22.000
she, and using terms like birthing person on ironically, right? Those things are obvious,
00:53:28.100
but particularly as Christians, we are not being kind and loving when we affirm someone in a lie.
00:53:36.700
And when you tell someone who is a man, that they are a woman, that's, that's exactly what we're
00:53:44.240
doing. And we're making it more difficult for them to come to the knowledge of, of the truth. Um,
00:53:50.480
and, and that's something I just, I can't abide that I can't for the sake of my own reputation,
00:53:55.640
because that's exactly what this is. This is part of it is cowardice, but part of it is people who
00:54:01.720
don't want to be seen as bigots and haters, um, and the equivalent of the Ku Klux Klan,
00:54:07.880
they are engaging in their own reputation management and, and are willing to sacrifice
00:54:15.800
the wellbeing of a generation of children to do so. Because I'm of the position that if we don't get
00:54:22.320
this corrected soon, we're going to have a generation of children who look back in 10 to 20
00:54:27.720
years and ask us, the adults, why did you let me do this to myself? Why did you let me cut off
00:54:34.500
healthy breast tissue? Why did you let me mutilate my, my genitals? Why did you let me pump myself
00:54:40.500
full of hormones? Um, just because I told you, this is how I felt. Yeah. All right. And, and,
00:54:46.240
and the adults in this generation are not going to have an answer other than, well, you told me
00:54:50.440
that's how you felt and I want to affirm you and I'm sorry, but that's, that's just not good enough.
00:54:54.460
Yep. And that goes back to everything that we have been talking about. There is something more
00:54:59.100
important than temporary happiness when it comes to ourselves, when it comes to our kids and it all
00:55:05.200
comes back to submitting to the authority of God. Um, very well said. Thank you so much for all of the
00:55:10.780
insight that you shared. I know people are going to love this conversation. People can follow you
00:55:15.100
on Twitter, follow your writing, and of course, watch you on Jason's show, correct?
00:55:21.060
Yes. Um, my Twitter handle is at Delano Squires, D-E-L-A-N-O-S-Q-U-I-R-E-S. Um, same on Instagram.
00:55:29.840
I write twice a week for the blaze. Um, typically my, my, my columns come out on Tuesday and Friday
00:55:35.120
and I appear twice a week on Fearless with Jason Whitlock. So they can follow me there.
00:55:39.920
Awesome. Thank you so much, Delano. I really appreciate it.