Larry Wilmore is a stand-up comic, writer, and host of the show, "The Larry Wilmore Show" on Comedy Central. He's also the creator of the hit HBO sitcom, "Blackish" and the Co-creator of "Insecure" on HBO. In this special, Ben and Larry discuss how they got into comedy, what it's like being black in Hollywood, and why it's okay to be racist if you don't think you're funny. Plus, Larry explains why he thinks it's a good idea to have a prisoner exchange across the bridge between the U.S. and the other side of the prison, and what it means to be a prisoner for a reason. Ben Shapiro is a writer, comedian, and podcaster. His work has been featured on the Daily Show, Comedy Central, HBO, and the New York Times, and he is a regular contributor to the New Republic and The Daily Wire. He is the author of the book, and hosts the podcast, . He is also the co-creator and writer of , and co-host of the podcast, Blackish and on the air, which he hosts with his wife, Rashida Jones. Larry is also a partner in the podcast Blackish . with whom he co-created the show Blackish, Blackish , and Blackish. with his daughter, Rashid, who is also stars in the show. . In this episode, we talk about how he got his start in comedy, how he s funny, and how he came to comedy, his background, how his parents got him into the business, and his relationship with his comedy career. and why he s a little too much blackness. He also talks about why it s okay to laugh at other people s blackness, and if it s racist, which is a good thing, right? or not racist, and whether it s OK to be funny, or not funny, really? in the first place in this Sunday special. We hope you enjoy this one, and we hope you like it. Thanks so much for tuning in! -Ben Shapiro's Note: This episode is sponsored by Policy Genius. Go check out their service, Policygenius. Go check them out! - The Policy Genius team is the easy way to compare quotes from top insurers and find the best value for you.
00:00:22.000This is the Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special.
00:00:24.000I'm excited to welcome to the show Larry Wilmore, who you will remember from the nightly show on Comedy Central and also the Larry Wilmore podcast, Black on the Air.
00:00:31.000He's also the creator of shows including Black-ish, the co-creator of Insecure on HBO.
00:00:35.000We'll get to all of that in just a moment.
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00:01:43.000I gotta say, I'm super excited about having you because, you know, it's rare to have somebody who, I know we don't share politics on some of these matters, and it'll be interesting to discuss that, but it's really important, I think, to have these Interesting and civil conversations, and I really dig it, dude.
00:01:57.000I couldn't agree more and thanks for agreeing to be on my podcast, too.
00:02:58.000I mean, for folks who don't know how you got into the Hollywood business and kind of where you come from, what's your background?
00:03:03.000Well, my background, it's funny, a lot of people ask how I got into comedy, and I say, really, I got into showbiz so I could get comedy out of me.
00:03:10.000Like, I was cracking jokes in school, you know, making people laugh and that sort of thing, and I had a pivotal moment when I was in college trying to figure out what I wanted to do, because at that time, my parents were divorced, and, you know, my mom raised six kids, and I was a really good student, and the kind of promise for me, it seemed like, to go the academic route and really You know, go more traditional route to have something solid, as they say, to fall back.
00:03:33.000And I had a lot of pressure for that because, I mean, we really didn't have any money or anything in that type of thing.
00:03:38.000But I knew I really loved showbiz and comedy and that kind of stuff.
00:03:43.000But I really didn't know what that was at the time.
00:03:45.000And I came from a big sports neighborhood, too, and there were a lot of people that played professional sports.
00:03:50.000And I saw that it was possible to go from this to that, you know, into something.
00:03:54.000But in college, I sold bookstore to go.
00:03:56.000I had an amazing summer where I went into a lot of people's houses.
00:03:59.000And I saw so many people that seemed like they were unhappy with their choices.
00:04:02.000And I thought, you know, Larry, at the end of the day, just do what makes you happy.
00:04:05.000And I decided to just go into showbiz.
00:04:08.000And I started as a stand-up comedian and as an actor.
00:04:10.000And the reason why I liked stand-up comedy was because I got to write my own material and you got to perform.
00:04:15.000And acting was very frustrating because you had to wait for auditions all the time and that kind of stuff.
00:04:19.000But I always had kind of an entrepreneurial attitude towards my act.
00:04:22.000I always felt that it's my business and I'm going to run my business in that type of way.
00:04:27.000And I've always kept that attitude, and I've always shifted over the years, but I always liked making people laugh.
00:05:18.000But it wasn't what you would call a street act, you know.
00:05:21.000And by that I meant I mean like seeming like you come from the ghetto, that's your point of view, you know, you have that language.
00:05:27.000I didn't sound like that so it was hard for me to get into doors of people that were hiring then because it seemed like Hollywood was focusing on that.
00:05:33.000So I decided to become a writer at that point and kind of take control of my career.
00:05:39.000So I kind of transitioned from being just a stand-up comic to writing on TV shows in Hollywood and that really started my long career of writing and producing.
00:05:47.000So my evil little plan was to one day create my own TV show, and it ended up happening too.
00:05:52.000So what do you think Hollywood's relationship is with black folks?
00:05:55.000Because obviously you talk a little bit about that right there.
00:05:58.000How do you think that's changed over time?
00:06:00.000I don't think we have the time to go through all of that.
00:06:03.000Hollywood has had an interesting relationship with black people.
00:06:05.000I don't know how far we can go back, but in my time, let's say there was the black ceiling, let's call it.
00:06:14.000And what that is, it's hard to describe.
00:06:16.000There are a lot of different ways that Hollywood likes to pigeonhole you.
00:06:22.000And I always said that the color that Hollywood likes the most is green.
00:06:24.000As long as you can make green, the pigeonholing goes away and they just want you to do more of that.
00:06:29.000But one of the resistances that I found as a writer was there was an opinion in Hollywood that if you're a black writer, you weren't as good as the white writers.
00:06:39.000And this was an opinion that I've kind of fought against over the years by trying to create shows and opportunities for people.
00:06:45.000I've been on the board of directors for the Writers Guild and I've seen it firsthand.
00:06:50.000Now that's an opinion that is not, you know, it wasn't held by Hollywood alone but it was certainly an opinion in there that as a writer who was black we had to fight that type of thing, you know.
00:07:01.000So, you know, Hollywood has always had a, you know, that kind of relationship, I guess.
00:07:08.000Well, now, obviously, you've got a couple of successful shows on the air, and they deal largely with racial matters in a pretty complex way, in a really interesting way.
00:07:16.000I'm more familiar with Black-ish than I am with Insecure.
00:07:19.000Now, Black-ish I didn't co-create, but I did help launch it.
00:07:24.000And help run part of the first season.
00:07:25.000So, I mean, the shows that you are involved with, I think at least heavily, are shows that do have kind of an interesting take on black identity that's I think different from a lot of what Hollywood has been pushing for years.
00:07:37.000When you talk about race in America and sort of where we stand at this point, I mean, it's a broad question, but where do you think we stand in America on race?
00:07:45.000It seems to me, I can give you my theory, which is I think we were better off Well, racial polarization is a very specific term, you know, as opposed to racism or racial relations or that type of thing.
00:07:52.000as far as racial polarization in the country.
00:07:54.000But, you know, I'd love to get your take on it.
00:07:57.000Well, racial polarization is a very specific term, you know, as opposed to racism or racial relations or that type of thing.
00:08:06.000I think racial polarization can be attributed to more racial issues are in our face, in everyone's face, as opposed to just in our face, maybe.
00:08:14.000You know, I think a lot of, I think what caused a lot of issues to come up are smartphones, believe it or not.
00:08:20.000You know, people were able to videotape many things and social media, people were able to share more things than normally we could share.
00:08:27.000And I think more people became aware of things that were happening and at the same time, people could express themselves in ways that they normally couldn't express.
00:08:36.000You know, whether it was through anger or through hyperbole or whatever it was, you know.
00:08:40.000And I think that's had more to do with it.
00:08:41.000I don't think the racial situation in America has changed over the last ten years.
00:08:46.000I think people are more aware of how it expresses itself.
00:08:50.000Like for instance, I'll give you an example.
00:08:53.000Like, many people think the relationship with blacks and police have gotten worse, and I will argue that what has gotten more apparent is people's ability to see what it is.
00:09:04.000Because many, I think many people in America, when they see a story, a bad story about blacks and police, they look at it as a story, and for the merits of that story, and who's right and who's wrong, and most people kind of view it in that box, which is a fair way to view it.
00:09:21.000They see it as another chapter in the book, in the large book of the history of police abuse on black people.
00:09:29.000So whether that's fair or not, it's kind of how it's viewed.
00:09:32.000So many times when an incident between blacks and police gets reported, and by the way, many of them are reported now than they were before.
00:09:40.000I don't know if the number has gotten larger or smaller.
00:09:43.000It's hard to know that, but I do think the reportage of it has gotten larger, so it makes it seem like the number is larger.
00:09:49.000And that's a whole different issue, right?
00:09:50.000Because now when blacks get to see more of that, to them, it's almost like confirmation bias, you know?
00:09:55.000It's confirming this long story that you already know about.
00:09:59.000So that's how kind of the different experiences, I think, occur and why people kind of have a disconnect sometimes in not being able to relate to what the actual black experience in America is in relationship to cops.
00:10:10.000And I say that As a child of someone who's in law enforcement.
00:10:13.000My father was a probation officer at L.A.
00:10:36.000There's a lot there, but, you know, with relation to that, you know, My view is that when President Obama came into office, and you're a big exponent of President Obama's obviously, when he came into office I felt like, even for me, I opposed him, I didn't want him to be President of the United States, I didn't think he was qualified, his politics were not my politics, but one of the things that I felt, and I think most Americans felt, was that this could have been a moment of reconciliation.
00:11:00.000That was one of the messages he seemed to be promoting for good or ill in 2008, 2009 when he was running for office.
00:11:06.000And then instead it seemed like he would change.
00:11:09.000And then he sort of reverted in 2012 particularly to a more polarizing rhetoric with regard to sort of these incidents.
00:11:16.000And now I'm thinking a little forward to Ferguson and Baltimore.
00:11:20.000And trying to take specific instances and anecdotes and then try to draw a broad narrative from those instances and anecdotes.
00:11:26.000So you contrasted a moment ago the view that many people in the United States have of a police incident.
00:11:33.000You look at it in isolation and you see how it goes down with the kind of broader black view of, okay, this confirms priors about what the relationship is.
00:11:42.000And I wonder if the country would be better off not to discount the narrative completely, because obviously there is that history there, but would we be better off on an anecdotal basis actually looking at the facts of the case and trying to do that in isolation to a certain extent?
00:11:55.000Well, would we be better off is an interesting question.
00:11:59.000There's a lot of would we be better off doing what, I don't know, you know.
00:12:03.000I think by a case-by-case basis is the best way to look at it and see how we should judge a certain thing.
00:13:05.000I did feel Obama may have overstepped when he said, if I had a son, it would have been like Trayvon.
00:13:10.000But I didn't think his emotions there and his intent was overstepping, you know, because it was an event that was polarizing America and America was discussing.
00:13:21.000So, you know, as the head of the country, I didn't think he was out of line in discussing that, you know.
00:13:25.000But that to me is another one of those incidents that black people related to differently.
00:13:31.000When that came down there were polls and the polls were fascinating where it was like a huge majority of black folks thought this was a racist killing and basically white folks thought that it was, that most of the polls said we need more information to come in and then the Obama DOJ obviously came out and said that it was not, at least there was no evidence that it was a racist killing.
00:13:49.000The media coverage was in my view very skewed in one direction in that particular debate.
00:13:54.000Well, and for blacks, we don't need media coverage and all that stuff, you know.
00:13:59.000It's hard to explain sometimes because we just have a different experience of it from the beginning.
00:14:04.000And one of the things that's toughest for me when I see these things, especially as a father now, is that the fact that he is not an adult and that he's a minor gets thrown out right away.
00:14:16.000And blacks for many years in history, it didn't matter what age you were, you were treated just like you were an adult, you know.
00:14:25.000And, you know, and treated like you're some animal or that type of thing or something to be feared.
00:14:31.000And it felt to me that Trayvon Martin, and I don't know much about the kid really about his life or anything, but that immediately he was automatically to be feared more even than this other person who had a gun.
00:14:42.000Like, this kid with skittles was to be feared more than this guy who had a gun.
00:14:46.000And that is the type of stuff that makes my head explode.
00:14:48.000And how can you have a gun and you're afraid of this person that is unarmed, you know?
00:14:53.000Those type of situations, I think, makes people's head explode around that type of thing.
00:14:57.000So in a second I want to ask you about, you know, the 2016 White House Press Correspondents Dinner that you did.
00:15:04.000Because obviously that was a real hot button.
00:17:00.000There was a councilman who wanted to ban it, and we just tortured him.
00:17:05.000But what's interesting is that, and I even had a black person ask me not long ago.
00:17:10.000He said, do you ever get any follow-up when you call the president the N-word?
00:17:13.000You know, I'm doing an impression of him right now.
00:17:15.000And I said, well, I didn't call him the N-word, you know, I didn't say, you know, and the president's a N-word, you know, like I didn't say that.
00:17:23.000I'm cleaning it up for Ben's... For my sensibilities, I appreciate it.
00:17:42.000And the moment started when I was talking about, because I'm the same age as Obama, and he's done a little bit better, but what are you going to do?
00:17:49.000You know, you're going to do that old president thing.
00:18:06.000You know, white people said, no way we're going to follow a black person, you know, in almost any aspect of time.
00:18:10.000Couldn't be the quarterback of a football team.
00:18:12.000And for me, the emotional weight of the fact that a black man could now be the leader of the free world was almost overwhelming.
00:18:18.000In fact, when I wrote that, I was almost crying, you know, just the realization of that journey, knowing that that was his actual journey.
00:18:25.000And so I wanted to express that to him.
00:18:26.000And then the colloquial way that I wanted to do it was to kind kind of have a private public moment.
00:18:31.000In acting, we call that public solitude, you know, where it was kind of almost a personal cultural moment to that, and I knew it was going to be controversial, and I almost didn't do it.
00:18:40.000And I tried to talk myself out of it, and the people I told said, no, Larry, you have to do it.
00:18:45.000I'm like, what are you guys trying to do to me?
00:18:47.000So I was concerned about it, actually, but I thought, you know what?
00:18:52.000And I have to tell you, man, during the correspondence there, I absolutely was keenly aware that the whole room had turned on me, you know, that it wasn't going well.
00:19:03.000I did a joke in the beginning that didn't go too well.
00:19:06.000And you could just feel, as a comic, you can feel when a room turns on you, where they're not giving you the benefit of thinking that you're funny.
00:19:12.000Now they're giving you the benefit of, no, Emma, if you've got to prove that to us, we're just going to see.
00:19:18.000And I think I said something horrible about Wolf Blitzer.
00:19:32.000I didn't mind going after CNN and MSNBC.
00:19:35.000In fact, I was probably the lightest on Fox News, you know.
00:19:37.000I actually had kind of a fun joke about Megyn Kelly, you know, about her, I think, calling her Becky with the good hair or something like that, you know.
00:19:47.000So, you could feel it, that they just were not having this at all.
00:19:50.000So, in the middle of that, I swear to you, I'm thinking, you know what, screw this, I'm going to do this.
00:19:56.000I almost skipped over it, but in the middle of it, I did it, and Obama immediately got up, and he kind of embraced me, and I was like, phew, you know, I think that he liked it.
00:20:06.000I wasn't sure, you know, I'm still not sure how the First Lady thought about it, but both the black intelligentsia, I'll say, I call it the black karate, I have a harsher word, but I won't say that right now.
00:20:24.000People like April Ryan, I think CNN, some people on there.
00:20:26.000I think Van Jones said, I would never be on a show with Larry Wilmer, so some people were saying that stuff.
00:20:31.000Van and I have since appeared together.
00:20:37.000Maybe older establishment black people and many people on the left, too, just really slammed it and did not like it at all.
00:20:43.000But a lot of younger people, and I, because I got a lot of attention, of course, online, loved it and saw it as, they said, that was the blackest thing I've ever seen, what some people said.
00:20:52.000And some people saw it as just really saying something that no one ever says and saying it in a way that they understood, you know.
00:21:00.000And they appreciated the fact that I went after everybody.
00:21:03.000And the other part, you know, and I thought I really bombed afterwards.
00:21:10.000And then, you know, much after that, I just, you know, didn't worry about it too much.
00:21:14.000But Obama brought me up in his speech to Howard University, which was very nice.
00:21:18.000By the way, Obama was very nice about it.
00:21:20.000He was very kind because he didn't have to be.
00:21:21.000You know, the president can easily throw people under the bus, hardly doing anything at all.
00:21:25.000And he went out of his way to say, and as Larry Wilmore said, I was watching TV, he says, as Larry Wilmore said, I'm like, is he going to say the N-word or what?
00:21:32.000He said, you know, when I was born, a black man couldn't be a quarterback, so he just said the N-word.
00:21:43.000I mean, so the part of the routine that I critiqued, I remember doing this on my show, was the part where you talked about you didn't care about his policy as long as he's still black, he's still good with you.
00:21:53.000And that was the part where I said, you know, if that is the actual perspective, then I got a problem with that, obviously, because, you know, if you're just talking about he's black, therefore, like, I don't even think you believe that, obviously.
00:22:03.000I don't think that if Herman Cain had been running in 2008, you probably wouldn't have voted for Herman Cain.
00:22:08.000No, but I would have voted for Colin Powell in 2000.
00:22:10.000In fact, I wanted to support Colin Powell in 2000, but I also like Colin Powell.
00:22:39.000But yeah, some people take it completely literal and think, well, the black pizza man can be president as long as he's black, Larry will vote for him.
00:22:48.000But to me, what the meaning is behind the joke is how much that really meant to me in that moment.
00:22:53.000And that Obama didn't have to overprove everything.
00:22:57.000That was enough for me for that election.
00:22:59.000But then the rest of the joke that I said, and I don't know if I said it that night, I said, now the next brother, he's going to have to prove something to me.
00:23:05.000That was always the second part of that joke.
00:23:08.000But yeah, the joke speaks more to how I really feel historically about Obama's election.
00:23:15.000So that says less about Obama than it does sort of how you believe America has treated the possibility of a black president, it sounds like.
00:23:21.000I think people would have voted for Colin Powell.
00:23:50.000So one of the things that you've written extensively about on your shows, you do talk a lot about black identity.
00:23:55.000I mean, your show's called Black on the Air.
00:23:57.000So that raises some really interesting questions about how should Americans view black identity?
00:24:02.000Like, when I think Jewish identity, I know that breaks down in several different ways.
00:24:06.000The one that people usually use is Jewish ethnicity, which is one I actually don't care about.
00:24:09.000As a religious Jew, I don't care if you're Jewish ethnically.
00:24:12.000I don't care whether you eat matzo balls or something.
00:24:13.000As a religious Jew, I care about the religious aspect.
00:24:16.000But when it comes to black identity, how does that break down?
00:24:19.000It seems like a lot of the shows that you've worked on sort of struggle with, is there such a thing as black enough or not black enough?
00:24:26.000Well, it is a multi-layered question because it's something that is a question that blacks have within themselves, too.
00:24:32.000My parents are from Chicago and they experience a lot of different types of of racial incidents and racism or whatever, but a lot of it comes from within the black community.
00:24:42.000Even back in the slave days, there was something called the paper bag test, where you couldn't be darker than the paper bag because the idea was to be white.
00:24:51.000So the closer you looked like that, the better it was for you.
00:24:54.000This was an idea that blacks had back then, too.
00:24:57.000So there's always been kind of an interest struggle.
00:25:01.000I think Spike Lee talked about this a little in his school days, but I could be wrong about that, between what are called light skin blacks and darker skin blacks.
00:25:08.000And there's a lot of opinions about that, you know, and those opinions are still in there somewhere, you know, some valid, some invalid, you know.
00:25:18.000And black identity, I used to make jokes about this all the time, where I said, when I was growing up, People would say I wasn't black enough, or that I don't talk black.
00:25:26.000And I said, well, I'm talking, and I'm black.
00:25:37.000And in fact, I did a bit early in my stand-up career where I had this product called Blackaway, where you could put it in your mouth and it takes the black out of your voice.
00:25:45.000So you could do job interviews on the phone and that kind of stuff.
00:25:53.000So I've always struggled with the idea of black identity myself.
00:25:56.000I've never, like, sometimes what people think is black identity is a cultural thing, like, tied to how you speak, you know, the clothes you wear.
00:26:04.000I mean, there are these questions about Obama early on in 2008.
00:26:18.000You know, so black identities had some cultural views about it that aren't quite accurate.
00:26:23.000But people own that feeling that that's what blackness is.
00:26:26.000Blackness to me means so many different things.
00:26:29.000And it's been said more eloquently than I've ever said it by many poets and people long years, people from James Baldwin to Toni Morrison to all sorts of people, right?
00:26:40.000So I think it has a meaning that is very much tied to the journey of black people in America.
00:26:46.000And that's what makes being a black American different from being black anywhere else in the world, I think.
00:26:52.000And it's hard to quantify from a specific culture point of view because there's not a direct line to a place, you know, and a place with a specific culture.
00:27:00.000So I can't trace my ancestors back to a town in Italy where there's a specific culture that's Italian and that type of thing.
00:27:06.000You know, blacks were kind of stripped of that.
00:27:07.000So that's why there's a lot of discussion about what black identity is because, you know, it has different meanings for different people, you know.
00:28:16.000And this does make for some weird and awkward political conversations because very often somebody will make a point that they don't think is racist in any way and then immediately they are labeled a racist by people who may not be black, may be black.
00:28:30.000And one of my views of the Trump phenomenon is that there was a whole swath of people in the middle of the country who had been told by the media that a lot of their critiques of America were based on race.
00:28:40.000And they were sick of being lectured about that.
00:28:42.000And here was Trump, and he just didn't give a shit.
00:28:46.000And so there was a lot of kickback to that.
00:28:48.000So I guess the question is, you know, using your kind of, you know, Potter Stewart, I'll know when I see a definition of racism, how much racism do you think is still endemic to the United States?
00:29:01.000I mean, I'm not, you know, I'm not that type of, I have no way of quantifying that at all, you know.
00:29:07.000Right, I'm not going to ask you percentages or something.
00:29:10.000I mean, I guess the reason that it comes up in politics so much is because very often people look at, for example, wealth disparities between black folks and white folks.
00:29:17.000And obviously some of that is the result of historic discrimination from slavery to Jim Crow.
00:29:22.000And then you get politicians up there talking about slavery reparations and people say, well, I didn't enslave anybody.
00:29:27.000And current wealth inequalities, income inequalities, forget wealth, income inequalities, Those seem largely driven by personal decisions, not by decisions made in the past.
00:29:37.000Well, the black, let's call it bottom class.
00:29:40.000To me, especially when you look at the urban areas, I'll use that term, in the cities where there's ghettos and that type of thing, to me it's a direct result of the Jim Crow laws and the segregation and redlining and that sort of stuff.
00:29:58.000And that sort of inability to be engaged in society is something that's been passed down for generations, unfortunately.
00:30:04.000And to be able to participate in a way that is reflective of the way the rest of the society can, I'll say.
00:30:13.000You know, and it's happened in two fronts, Ben, which is kind of interesting.
00:30:17.000One front is the obvious one, you know, of how blacks were kept out of society in many different ways, you know, much of which can't be talked about too much because people either get tired of it or there's guilt or that sort of thing, but it is a reality in this country.
00:30:31.000I remember a friend of mine showing me an old deed from a house he bought where it said you can't sell to blacks and Jews, by the way, you know, just putting Ben in there with me.
00:30:42.000You know, it's one thing for the collusion to be just, you know, something that people don't say, but it's another thing to see it written down.
00:30:49.000And much of what was kept out of society was written down, was written into laws.
00:30:55.000You know, Plessy v. Ferguson actually, you know, set up the whole separate but equal, which of course doesn't even make sense, you know.
00:31:03.000The fact that you have to make it separate means you don't feel it's equal, you know.
00:31:07.000Otherwise, why are you making it separate, you know?
00:31:11.000So that was one aspect of it, you know.
00:31:13.000Now, what's interesting is that many blacks still were able to thrive in that system.
00:31:17.000You know, you had many doctors, you had, you know, professional people, people that started their own businesses, you know, people that were very successful.
00:31:23.000The black middle class in the 50s was growing faster than the black middle class in the 60s or 70s.
00:31:27.000The difference has been they lived in black communities, in almost strictly black communities.
00:31:31.000Now, this is one of the ironies of desegregation.
00:31:33.000Many of them moved out of those neighborhoods and out of those situations.
00:31:37.000That leaves you with almost a permanent underclass in many of those situations.
00:31:40.000So, you had kind of almost a combination of black flight and white flight that happened over the same course of time, which many resources and the ability to use your community, which by the way, people understand how important communities are in helping people, you know, get out of their situations, you know.
00:31:59.000I mean, Hillary Clinton was made fun of for saying, You know, what is the village line?
00:32:07.000But it takes a village really has meaning that I think both sides agree with, but because it was a political statement, people took jabs at it.
00:32:14.000But what it takes a village means is there's many important parts of the community that work in order to help people get out of situations.
00:32:23.000One of them is the home, of course, but the extended community is very important as well.
00:32:27.000And I think a lot of the black communities lost some of that support, unfortunately.
00:32:32.000So it was almost a double attack. - So in a second, I wanna ask kind of your perspective on black Republicans, and whether they're ignoring that past or whether they just have a different perspective on how to get out of that going forward. - Sure, but can we take just a quick break for a quick word?
00:32:49.000You want to get in shape, but it's not just about losing weight.
00:32:51.000It's about learning healthier habits and feeling better about yourself.
00:32:54.000Whether that's more stamina to keep up with your busy life, finally getting into the goal genes, or being more in tune with your body's needs and practicing more self-care.
00:33:57.000That gives, to me, one of the bigger reasons why it looks different than any other part of society.
00:34:02.000You know, part was the separation and the part was the other separation, you know.
00:34:07.000I mean, so how do you view black Republicans then?
00:34:10.000So I know obviously a lot of black Republicans.
00:34:12.000Those are the circles in which I move.
00:34:14.000And their view from, I don't want to sum up everybody's view, but it seems like their view is basically the same as a lot of Republicans view, which is, okay, so given all these historical circumstances, you now have a group of people who are living in poverty.
00:34:25.000It's not unique to black America to live in poverty.
00:34:27.000You have a lot of impoverished white folks in Appalachia.
00:34:29.000And the chief ways of getting out of poverty are you go to high school, you finish high school.
00:34:36.000And these are all things that presumably are within rational bounds.
00:34:41.000Like you should be able to do this if you apply yourself.
00:34:44.000So perhaps government is creating an incentive system that is actually creating too much of a safety net for making bad decisions, particularly in terms of single motherhood and the welfare programs, for example.
00:34:55.000And so what actually needs to happen is more policing in inner cities to make sure that property rights are respected and businesses can move in and bring a tax base.
00:35:03.000Perhaps what we need are stronger churches because we need more people who are encouraged to get married as opposed to having kids out of wedlock.
00:35:10.000That seems to be the perspective of, you know, black Republicans like Larry Elder or Thomas Sowell or Do they also have a cure for Appalachia?
00:35:21.000And yet, very often, if anybody sort of says this sort of stuff, then they are tarred with the not black enough, or if you're black, Republican, not black enough.
00:35:30.000My black Republican friends get that a lot.
00:35:32.000And if you're white, then if you say that, then you're racist because you're not taking into account history enough.
00:35:39.000You know, notwithstanding all of the points that you made, which you are correct, those are the points said.
00:35:45.000I wouldn't say black Republicans so much as I would say black conservatives, I think is more fair.
00:35:54.000Shelby Steele, some of these people who have written very eloquently about some of these things, you know.
00:36:01.000I always look at things from the historical point of view as well.
00:36:04.000It used to be the other way around then, which is interesting.
00:36:06.000I was working for Whoopi Goldberg once on a show, and she used to have parties at her house, Scrabble parties, that type of thing.
00:36:12.000And I used to kick some butt, let me just say.
00:36:16.000But Whoopi is a real collector of things, and there's this book called, I think it's called The Negro Handbook, and it was like from 1911 or something like that.
00:36:25.000And I was just looking through it and said, do you want that?
00:36:29.000And I found it fascinating because it was a snapshot of 1911 and the black experience in 1911.
00:36:34.000And like one thing that was devastating was like it listed the number of lynchings that year.
00:36:38.000I was like, oof, just to have in a book listing the number, like this was something that was recorded, you know, I mean, and to have that book speaking to you now is like, oh, you know, and it's almost like it's a matter of fact type of thing, you know, which is fascinating, but it had everything in there from black doctors and people that were doing things.
00:36:57.000But there was this one letter that I found very interesting, and it was a letter to black Americans imploring them not to give all their support to one party, and that they felt that this was a problem, and that party was the Republican Party.
00:37:08.000And it was almost the same exact speech that a black conservative would make now to Democratic Party.
00:37:15.000And it's interesting that black political behavior is one of the more interesting, hard-to-figure-out things that me, even as a political junkie and people who watch it, can't always put my finger on why.
00:37:29.000Obviously, Republican Lincoln freeing the slaves makes sense.
00:37:33.000Blacks are going to be Republicans coming out of that for a long time.
00:37:38.000But I think blacks have been very Oh, what's the right word?
00:37:42.000Maybe collective in how they've approached politics, almost like it's a team game in many ways, I think might be a fair way to put it.
00:37:49.000And if you look at the, I would say the 30s with Roosevelt was the first crack in that Republican armor and with blacks kind of testing out the Democratic Party.
00:37:59.000But the Democratic Party was very racist in those days in terms of being overtly racist.
00:39:13.000But, it wasn't considered a bad thing to be a Republican.
00:39:16.000Martin Luther King's father was a Republican, in fact, you know.
00:39:19.000But, I believe it was the Kennedy-Nixon election, and then it was the Johnson administration that got the Blacks, if you look at this as a team sport, you know, that Black people said, wait, I don't think the Lakers are doing it over here, I'm going to go to the Clippers, you know.
00:39:35.000And the Black people, I think, in large parts, switched teams based on what happened politically in the 1960s.
00:39:42.000And I think if you look at history, it takes a long time to change people's minds on those things.
00:39:48.000And even though some of the anecdotal opinions on it and some of the observations on it aren't wrong, People don't quite operate that way, I think, when you look at human nature and the specific experience of black people in America.
00:40:01.000That's the best way I can describe that.
00:40:03.000So for me, I don't have an observation, and I try to look at these things differently, that one side is right or wrong in that, because there's a lot of things that are completely true in that.
00:40:13.000And by the way, many black people, socially for many years, have been conservative.
00:41:37.000But if you look at Late Night, what you're seeing is Jimmy Kimmel, who I will say I have used the term woke pope to describe him, that he is the pope of woke politics.
00:41:46.000He did start on The Man Show, but he's come a long way since his roots.
00:41:50.000Since he was doing bouncing boobs with Adam Carolla.
00:41:53.000And then you've got Jimmy Fallon, who's basically been excoriated for the great sin of touching Donald Trump's hair.
00:41:58.000And then you have... So Fallon isn't, he's not in the category that you're talking about.
00:42:02.000No, he sort of moved political after that happened.
00:42:04.000Specifically, I mean, he had to come out and he had to apologize for it and all this kind of stuff.
00:42:08.000And then you have Colbert, who's obviously very loud and proud.
00:42:13.000did a Bill O'Reilly routine to mock him, and all of that.
00:42:16.000And so a lot of conservatives look at the comedic world and they say, "Why is this so one-sided?
00:42:21.000Why isn't there..." They'll even look back fondly to Jay Leno and Johnny Carson and say, "At least these guys made jokes about both sides." And as a conservative, I can say that when I watch a lot of these shows, I feel the same way.
00:42:30.000I look at them and I say, "No one made a joke about Barack Obama for eight years." Now that I agree with you.
00:42:36.000I talked about this very recently, the Obama part.
00:42:39.000And I felt that, first of all, white comedians, especially comedians, definitely on the left, were afraid of making the wrong joke about Obama.
00:42:45.000And when they did make jokes about Obama, they were flattering jokes.
00:42:49.000You know, like nobody really made real observational jokes about Obama.
00:42:53.000That's why the impressions of Obama weren't that good, because nobody was making really good observations about him, you know.
00:42:58.000And someone said, well, what about the angry translators?
00:43:01.000They said, that is an observation on black culture, not really about Obama.
00:43:06.000And it was flattering to Obama, though.
00:43:07.000The whole thing was, Obama's so self-controlled, he's so poised.
00:43:11.000It was funny, but I mean... Yeah, but people were so precious with him, and I wish there was more of that, you know, because to me, that's part of a comedian's job.
00:43:17.000Now, the other part of it, I believe we're in a cycle.
00:43:21.000A lot of these things go in cycles, and I think what's popular now is that.
00:43:24.000It's kind of maybe the Jon Stewart effect, because Jon was just very good at that.
00:43:29.000But remember, when Jon did it, nobody was doing that.
00:43:31.000You know, we did it on my show, The Nightly Show, going with that approach.
00:43:34.000And John Oliver, certainly, in his show.
00:43:37.000But, you know, I think these things go in cycles in the marketplace.
00:43:40.000And I feel, you know, when you feel like you're on the outside of it, how come I can't be in on the joke?
00:43:45.000But I don't think all of it is like that.
00:43:47.000I think Saturday Night Live really tries its best to be fair in that way, you know, as much as they can.
00:43:52.000And they've gotten criticized for some of that, you know.
00:43:55.000And by fair, I mean really trying to poke holes at both sides, you know.
00:44:00.000Um, but I think a lot of it is driven by the marketplace and what seems to be popular and that sort of thing.
00:44:06.000As well as, that's what, you know, someone like Colbert, that's what he wants to do and that's what he wants to talk about as well.
00:44:48.000You know, and sort of sympathetic laughter as opposed to the laughter of recognition of a reality, which is usually the best kind of comedy in my under, an observant opinion.
00:44:57.000It's tough to say, Ben, because many times these kind of critiques are resisting something as well, you know, because sometimes these critiques are, people want something to be like what they've seen already, you know.
00:45:10.000And many times when you're doing something new, people don't like it because it's different, and it doesn't conform to rules that they like.
00:45:32.000I'm happy for her that she's earning wealth and fame, all that's fine.
00:45:35.000But the redefinition by critics of comedy itself, in order to meet somebody who they agree with politically, I find troubling, simply because it used to be that you would watch something that was either funny or it was not funny.
00:45:45.000Like, I can acknowledge that Jon Stewart, who I disagree with politically, is a deeply funny human being.
00:46:27.000The other night my wife and I made the mistake of watching Airplane again.
00:46:31.000And Airplane is a very funny movie, but it's a time-bound movie.
00:46:34.000Like, you watch it now, and you can watch it sort of in the privacy of your own home, looking around to make sure that nobody else is watching.
00:46:47.000And we did a joke on there with this observation 20 years ago, where Thurgood, the head of the projects, he finds one of Richard Pryor's old albums.
00:47:07.000Because I... I've always been worried about that.
00:47:09.000But I realized in some ways there's nothing I can do about it.
00:47:12.000Look, I ran into this in the early 90s.
00:47:14.000I told you a little bit about this on the phone, where another comic kind of shut me down not airing something because didn't agree with what I was saying.
00:47:22.000And to me, that was like, how is she making assault on speech?
00:48:09.000Let me break down the 2020 race in a second.
00:48:11.000But first, with the ever-increasing number of car makes and models, it's pretty much impossible to stock all the parts you need in a traditional chain storefront.
00:48:17.000Why endure the often pointless or seemingly intimidating questioning like, is your Odyssey an LX or an EX?
00:49:20.000So, you know, going back to sort of this comedic distinction, one of the things that I find, you know, difficult is that it's also, it's reached into the issue of politics.
00:49:29.000It feels like two things have happened.
00:49:31.000One, you can't have open conversations with people anymore because if you do, you might violate some unspoken rule, which means that you must be ousted.
00:50:36.000I mean, the distinction I've made a thousand times is between leftist and liberal.
00:50:40.000A liberal is somebody who disagrees with me on tax rates and government involvement, but also agrees that we have to have some interesting, wide-ranging conversation.
00:50:46.000A leftist is somebody who wants to get me demonetized on YouTube.
00:50:48.000I would be called a classic liberal, in my beliefs.
00:50:51.000Yeah, so, you know, where do you think we're going?
00:50:53.000I mean, is it possible to... Well, I don't know if I agree with your premise completely.
00:50:57.000Like, for instance, if you look at a lot of the stuff Disney puts out, like, the Pixar movies I think are fantastic, you know?
00:51:04.000And I don't think they're preaching, like, in that sort of way that you're talking about.
00:51:07.000You know, and I think they're made for the entire family.
00:54:17.000And the way he systematically, almost like a You know, just someone with a surgical knife just took apart, like, from Jeb to Marco to those people was fascinating.
00:54:32.000I was hoping my prediction would be wrong that he still would not beat Hillary Clinton, who I felt was, as unlike as she was from both sides, was still a very formidable opponent, you know, which the fact that she won more actual votes than him even proves that point.
00:54:46.000So, to me, I thought he tapped into many different things, and I've written about some of this, but I did think he tapped into an anger.
00:54:54.000People have many different opinions of what people are angry about, but I'll just call it that people were angry, and that Trump represented them in a way that they felt other people weren't carrying the bucket for that anger, and that he would happily carry that bucket, whether it was the anger about immigration, whether it was about, you know, I don't know if they were angry about trade, but certainly about, you know, wages and that sort of thing.
00:55:15.000I think they felt Trump was the only one who carried the bucket and meant it to.
00:55:28.000Because the left is so dominant in terms of culture that the right has responded by saying, we have no power in the cultural sphere, and so we're going to respond with the political sphere.
00:55:37.000But if Trump's not a celebrity, he's not the president.
00:55:41.000Right, the fact that he was a celebrity is the reason, because for a lot of Republicans, the idea that somebody who's a celebrity, even a D-rate celebrity, as Trump was by the time he ran, I mean in 2010 he's an A-rate celebrity, by 2016 he's a D-rate.
00:55:54.000But for Republicans it was like, wow, a celebrity who's not crapping on us.
00:55:59.000And you got that feeling from a lot of people, like he was sort of the legitimation of them in the cultural sphere.
00:56:04.000Here's where I'll disagree with you on that.
00:56:06.000I don't think it's a bad observation as to why a lot of people like him, but I don't think it's why they voted for him.
00:56:12.000I really think he came out in his first speech about immigration and the way he talked about how the country was being invaded and that he would build a wall.
00:56:21.000And I think he borrowed a lot of that from Ann Coulter and from her book, but those are the magic phrases that energize people to vote for him, which I believe is different than liking somebody.
00:56:31.000To actually vote for somebody, I believe, is different.
00:56:33.000I don't disagree with you of why they like him, but I think why they voted for him started with that, and that policy.
00:56:39.000And that, by the way, is his most divisive policy, even with his base.
00:56:43.000And I talked about this a little bit when I said, when he said Mexico's going to pay for it, he was bullshitting when he says that.
00:56:49.000But he's being completely honest when he talks about what he views as the problem in America that is being invaded.
00:56:55.000And the people who relate to that statement are Not going anywhere in terms of being his base, and that's why they pulled that lever from my point of view.
00:57:03.000I think the pop stuff, it's interesting, but I don't think that's why that base is strong.
00:57:09.000I think there's a lot of truth to that.
00:57:18.000They're willing to run away because of that issue, not because of trade.
00:57:22.000You know, trade's hurting a lot of people that voted for Trump, you know, not because, not for how he appears on the world stage, which both sides have disagreements about that, and he's been blasted, you know, particularly by his own party, even right now, you know, people, you know, the Republican Party's upset over a lot of things he's done, especially with Mexico and these tariffs and everything.
00:57:39.000But people aren't leaving him because of that.
00:57:41.000The only reason why people would abandon him is over immigration and building the wall, which is fascinating to me.
00:57:45.000So this brings me to the tripartite distinction that you sort of hit on a little bit there, but I wanted you to explicate it for folks who haven't heard your podcast, which you should go listen to, The Larry Wilmore Show.
00:57:58.000But you made a distinction the other week that I thought was really good and fascinating because it does get to the heart of what is happening in politics generally, and that was this tripartite distinction between bullshitting Sure.
00:58:28.000I was using, I was talking about my Lakers and Magic Johnson.
00:58:31.000I was so upset because I felt Magic, he talks about how much he loves the Lakers and all this stuff.
00:58:36.000And then he was, he was telling us this lurid story of what happened behind the scenes, if he was backstabbed and how Genie isn't running the company right.
00:58:43.000And then he tells us how much he loves the Lakers.
00:58:45.000I'm like, And people are like, oh, it's so brave that Magic told the truth.
00:58:51.000He was focusing on his feelings and, you know, how he felt about this situation and he was backstabbed and all this.
00:58:57.000But the truth of the matter was Magic was there part time, you know, and that Rob Plinko wasn't wrong, you know, and that, you know, people should be upset about that.
00:59:08.000You know, honesty was what he was focused on, and I think our society, because we're so in love with feelings these days, I think there's too much interest in people's feelings these days.
00:59:18.000It's one of the things I've talked about for actually a long time.
00:59:21.000And not enough in people's actions, you know?
00:59:23.000And I'm one of those actions over feelings type persons and have been for a very long time.
00:59:28.000But I think what honesty represents is how you feel about something, primarily honesty is about you.
00:59:34.000Telling the truth many times has nothing to do with you.
00:59:37.000Might be completely against what you actually want or what you stand for, you know.
00:59:41.000But the interest is in telling something outside of yourself that represents an actual thing, you know, the actual event or whatever it is.
00:59:48.000And then both, I was making a political distinction.
00:59:50.000I was talking about politics in particular, how people are actually trying to sell you something that really, you know, is all about whatever it is that they're trying to sell you or that type of thing.
00:59:59.000You know, I can't remember the exact words that I use, but I was talking about politicians and how they occur.
01:00:03.000And I was saying, Trump's base like him because they view that he is honest.
01:00:40.000Now, most people are used to politicians' bullshit because that's the tool they've used forever.
01:00:46.000So the people that really love Trump don't necessarily like his bullshitting, you know.
01:00:51.000And so, like, when Trump does talk about immigration, when he talks about, you know, rapists are coming here and blah, blah, blah, where he's being honest about how he really feels about it, that's what people connect to.
01:01:01.000No one would say what Trump just said, you know, he's being so honest, right?
01:01:04.000They applaud him because they feel no one would say that, and he's doing an act of honesty.
01:01:09.000When he says Mexico paid for it, that's bulls**t, you know?
01:01:12.000And that's the part that they're frustrated about.
01:01:15.000You know, this is bulls**t. Because now he has to actually sell this thing that he was honest about, you know?
01:01:20.000So I was kind of giving, I guess, him credit for that and making an observation between that and how it occurs.
01:01:26.000Even though it feels like an oxymoron, I believe that's how it occurs in politicians.
01:01:30.000And I was going through some of the lists of presidents and that who I felt, who were honest, who were more truth-tellers, you know, and I put bullsh** in there too.
01:01:37.000Well, who do you think is capable of beating him on the Democratic side since you think that he's...
01:01:42.000I mean, right now, I mean, we're so early.
01:01:45.000Biden is the only one, possibly, I think, who has a chance, just because of name recognition, and as you say, because of popularity, because people know who you are.
01:01:52.000I think that goes a long way in America.
01:01:54.000Biden is primarily a bullshitter, though, from my point of view.
01:02:00.000I don't know if he's very honest even and I think people discredit him for that.
01:02:03.000I mean the whole plagiarism thing is an example of that.
01:02:06.000And I believe he has been a bit of a truth teller sometimes but not enough to make that a distinguishing issue.
01:02:14.000That's where he got in trouble with the crime bill and that sort of thing.
01:02:16.000Even though he's been very political with that as well.
01:02:27.000As we, as you know, I mean, this time during 2008, I mean, or 2007, whenever it was, Obama was so far, nobody thought Obama had a chance, you know, and even far into the debates.
01:02:38.000Like, many black people weren't supporting Obama yet, because they thought he didn't have a chance.
01:02:41.000It's when he took Iowa, where he got a lot of the black support, and felt that he had a chance.
01:02:46.000That's one thing about these presidential elections I always find interesting, is that it can change so fast.
01:02:58.000It was going to be Giuliani and Hillary at that point!
01:03:00.000You know, and McCain had this surge that was unbelievable, you know, and became the frontrunner.
01:03:04.000I mean, one of the things that's fascinating to watch, actually, in the Democratic polls is the huge share of the black vote that Biden is getting right now in the polling, which obviously is an after effect of Barack Obama.
01:03:34.000She's a sneaky bullshitter because she's very talented politically and I think she has an interesting career.
01:03:40.000I don't know if she's running for president at the right time.
01:03:43.000It may be premature for her in terms of strategy I'm talking about, not in terms of being able to do it because the field is so crowded and everything.
01:03:50.000I don't know if she can cut through all that.
01:03:52.000But I think she's much more talented than Corey, but she's a bit of a bullsh** too, you know?
01:03:57.000But I think, you know, when you come from that, when you're a DA and that type of thing, I don't know.
01:04:02.000It always feels like those kind of jobs, there's a little bit of that in there anyway, so.
01:04:05.000So in a second, I want to ask you the final question, which will be, you know, what do you think the future of the country is, given all the problems that we've talked about and some of the lack of discourse, civil discourse that's happening right now?
01:04:15.000If you want to hear Larry Wilmore's answer, you have to be a Daily Wire subscriber.
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