The Charlie Kirk Show - Exposing the True Meaning of Juneteenth with Pedro Gonzalez

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today in the Charlie Kirk Show, Juneteenth.

00:00:02.000 Should it be a federal holiday?

00:00:04.000 How should we think about Juneteenth?

00:00:06.000 I talk about it to start the show, and also then we are joined by Pedro Gonzalez, the great Pedro Gonzalez from Chronicles magazine.

00:00:13.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and subscribe to the Charlie Kirk Show podcast.

00:00:18.000 Take out your podcast app and type in Charlie Kirk Show and hit subscribe in the upper right-hand corner.

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00:00:46.000 Here we go.

00:00:47.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:49.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:51.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:54.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:58.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:59.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:01:00.000 His spirit is love of this country.

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00:01:29.000 When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature is God entitle them.

00:01:41.000 A decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

00:01:48.000 We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

00:01:57.000 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

00:02:04.000 I'm reading, of course, our birth certificate, July 4th, 1776.

00:02:12.000 The founding of America on July 4th, 1776 is a profound and meaningful day.

00:02:18.000 You see, America did not stumble into existence.

00:02:21.000 It was summoned into existence.

00:02:23.000 It was a moral claim written by Thomas Jefferson and signed by these incredible men, from Roger Sherman to William Williams to John Hancock, that men deserve the ability to govern themselves.

00:02:39.000 Let me read that again.

00:02:41.000 Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

00:02:45.000 This was and is the great shot forward.

00:02:50.000 What was special about July 4th?

00:02:54.000 Everything that you enjoy, the fruits of Western civilization, all came to a culmination moment on July 4th, 1776.

00:03:03.000 Now, why would I be mentioning July 4th on June 20th?

00:03:05.000 Well, it's because the national regime media is in the process of trying to create a new Independence Day, a new federal holiday.

00:03:14.000 Now, on the surface, it looks like an innocent enough day worthy of celebration.

00:03:20.000 And if you take it word for word, it absolutely is.

00:03:23.000 It's wonderful news that the news of emancipation hit Texas and the slaves were freed.

00:03:31.000 A day worthy of celebration.

00:03:33.000 But let's not be naive.

00:03:35.000 Let's look below the surface and see precisely what is happening and what is being pushed by the people at the top levels of elite society.

00:03:47.000 Having Juneteenth as a federal holiday is a direct attempt to create a summertime competitor, a racially focused Independence Day, a new Independence Day, to compete against July 4th, 1776.

00:03:59.000 July 4th, 1776 is a colorblind day.

00:04:03.000 It's a day where you don't care about black or white, but red, white, and blue.

00:04:07.000 I just read the Declaration's beginning, and nowhere is skin color mentioned.

00:04:12.000 It is a moral claim that regardless of background, regardless of how you look, the melanin content in your skin, that it says when in the course of human events, it means at all times.

00:04:25.000 The founding fathers believed in a natural law.

00:04:28.000 They believed in an unmoved mover.

00:04:31.000 But unfortunately, the people, the top levels of our society now, the people running our country, they have been successful in creating a new national holiday, something that we pushed back against.

00:04:43.000 Now, we didn't push back against, obviously, what Juneteenth means if you read it word for word for word for word.

00:04:50.000 But no, instead, we push back against some of the claims that are embedded in the propaganda campaign the media is pushing right now when it comes to Juneteenth.

00:05:00.000 One of them being that somehow July 4th, 1776 was insufficient.

00:05:08.000 July 4th, 1776, well, it was really July 2nd, but that's a different issue.

00:05:14.000 We'll talk more about that actually on our July 4th special week because they actually signed it on July 2nd and 3rd and it wasn't publicized until July 4th.

00:05:22.000 However, the culmination of those couple days was a step forward in the revolution of self-government, the separation of the colonies and their ability to have constitutional government and the British Empire with tyrannical and autocratic rule.

00:05:43.000 But now we have people in the media saying we have a new Independence Day.

00:05:48.000 Despite the fact that the abolitionist slavery was triggered by the Declaration of Independence, Vermont abolished slavery in 1777 inspired by the Declaration.

00:05:58.000 Despite the fact that nine out of 13 colonies had independently abolished slavery by the time the Constitution was ratified in 1787, despite the fact that the Northwest Ordinance, the first act of the Continental Congress post-war, one of the first acts, I should say, in Article 6, said that all new territory in Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa would be free of slavery, a reflection of the values of the nation.

00:06:22.000 As George Washington privately mused, it's not a matter of if we will get rid of slavery.

00:06:28.000 It's a matter of how and when we'll get rid of slavery.

00:06:32.000 All of us as human beings have something in common.

00:06:34.000 We are born into a world we did not create.

00:06:38.000 And by the time the founding fathers were passing away in the 1820s and 1830s, they were leaving a world where slavery was less common, was questioned, and was on the way out.

00:06:50.000 These are people that are worthy of examination and praise.

00:06:53.000 Abraham Lincoln knew that our founding as a nation was four score and seven years ago, 1776.

00:07:00.000 But listen to this, cut two. 0.58

00:07:01.000 CNN hosts says that Juneteenth will now be seen as Black Americans True Independence Day.

00:07:07.000 Play cut two.

00:07:08.000 Today in the United States, we celebrate Juneteenth.

00:07:11.000 For decades, Black Americans have marked June 19th as their true Independence Day.

00:07:17.000 And this weekend, all across the country, there will be public parades and private family barbecues.

00:07:24.000 And of course, now that it is a federal holiday, plenty of corporate and political statements attempting to latch on to the holiday's symbolic meaning.

00:07:32.000 CNN article, Juneteenth is America's true birthday.

00:07:38.000 This is by Peneil E. Joseph, the Barbara Gordon Chair in Ethics and Political Values and the founding director of the study of race and democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

00:07:49.000 So for any of you out there that say, oh, Charlie, what's possibly wrong with talking about Juneteenth?

00:07:55.000 How could you possibly be against the federal holiday?

00:07:59.000 Well, very simple.

00:08:00.000 We know what they're doing.

00:08:01.000 They first introduce it as an innocent enough resolution.

00:08:06.000 Okay, we're going to celebrate the news of the emancipation of slaves hitting Texas.

00:08:11.000 Fine.

00:08:12.000 But let's look at how things are, not how things, how you want things to be.

00:08:18.000 Let's not be naive of who we're against. 0.92

00:08:20.000 This is a hyper-racialized, now multi-day propaganda campaign from the people at the top levels of our society. 0.98

00:08:27.000 Juneteenth, which the nation officially celebrates Monday, is unfolding against extraordinary twin backdrops. 0.50

00:08:33.000 The ongoing hearings of the House Select Committee.

00:08:35.000 What does that have to do with Juneteenth?

00:08:36.000 You see how all of a sudden it goes from Juneteenth to January 6th?

00:08:40.000 That's interesting.

00:08:41.000 And the continuing legislative efforts to halt or disrupt the teaching of the very history of Juneteenth.

00:08:47.000 Now, I would be all for that if they actually taught the accurate history of Juneteenth, that a Republican president Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves, but that's not what they're talking about, is it?

00:08:56.000 No, instead, it is an opportunity for them to hyper-racialize the American conversation, say that we are still in a systemic racist moment.

00:09:05.000 As the nation prepares in only four short years from now to celebrate 250 years of independence, it is worth remembering that Juneteenth, as much as 4th of July, represents American democracy's true birthday.

00:09:18.000 No stable country can have two Independence Days.

00:09:22.000 What makes our Independence Day so special, July 4th, 1776, is that it was intentional.

00:09:28.000 It was thought over.

00:09:30.000 We did not back into it and kind of stumble over it and say, oh, well, America exists now.

00:09:35.000 No, as the Declaration beautifully ends, ends on a universal note.

00:09:40.000 It ends with, and for the support of this Declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

00:09:53.000 Juneteenth, by its opening argument, says that July 4th, 1776 is insufficient and that we need a new Independence Day, one that focuses on race, not on character.

00:10:12.000 Pay very close attention, everybody.

00:10:14.000 Charlie Kirk here.

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00:11:15.000 Despite the Emancipation Proclamation being on September 22nd, 1862, today is the day that the media and the academics say that we celebrate the freeing of slaves.

00:11:27.000 Understandably, this is a Texas tradition.

00:11:28.000 The news hit Texas that slavery was abolished. 0.99

00:11:34.000 It's phenomenal news.

00:11:35.000 No one is debating that.

00:11:36.000 But let's go a level deeper because if we've learned anything throughout the last couple years, it is not what the media tells us, it's what's actually going on.

00:11:45.000 Mask and facts.

00:11:47.000 What's actually going on here?

00:11:47.000 Wait, hold on a second.

00:11:48.000 We must stand with Ukraine.

00:11:50.000 What's actually going on here?

00:11:51.000 Well, cut nine, Josiah Johnson, an academic on television, says how Juneteenth is the black 4th of July.

00:12:00.000 And if you don't think so, you need a history lesson.

00:12:02.000 This is exactly why we stood against making this a federal holiday.

00:12:08.000 So according to Josiah Johnson, we now have a black National Independence Day and a white National Independence Day. 0.84

00:12:16.000 Do you see how destructive and corrosive that is? 0.69

00:12:19.000 That each race has their own Independence Day? 1.00

00:12:22.000 Play cut nine.

00:12:23.000 Before we start celebrating, can we at least agree that Juneteenth, one of the most legendary days in American history, is way more important than Columbus Day and should be a national holiday already.

00:12:34.000 Now, I know some of you are scratching your heads right now, trying to figure out exactly what Juneteenth is.

00:12:39.000 No idea.

00:12:40.000 So, how about a little pop quiz?

00:12:43.000 Is it A, the Black Fourth of July, B, the day that slavery ended in the United States, C, African American Independence Day, or D, all of the above?

00:12:53.000 For everyone who literally picked any of those choices, respect.

00:12:57.000 For everyone who didn't, hmm.

00:12:59.000 I guess it's time for a black history lesson. 1.00

00:13:02.000 All the above. 0.77

00:13:03.000 It's a black independence day. 0.97

00:13:04.000 It's a black 4th of July. 0.67

00:13:06.000 As if somehow blacks were excluded from the promise of the Declaration of Independence. 0.69

00:13:11.000 Our true founding as a country sparked the movement of freedom that gave birth to the freedom of slaves.

00:13:20.000 You know, in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson admonished King George for bringing slaves to the United States?

00:13:28.000 Do you know the first ever anti-slavery convention was hosted by Benjamin Franklin in Philadelphia in 1775?

00:13:35.000 John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams, intentionally re-ran for Congress despite not wanting to do so, inspired by his faith, inspired by the courage of the founding generation, he was the second generation to go and abolish, to go fight for the abolitionist slavery in Congress.

00:13:53.000 Do you know there's more slaves today on planet Earth than there were back in colonial times?

00:14:01.000 Let's go to another cut here.

00:14:04.000 Let's go to this one right here.

00:14:06.000 That's right, cut 13.

00:14:08.000 This is now coming to our schools.

00:14:11.000 Teacher does the pledge not to the United States flag, no, but to the pan-African flag with students.

00:14:20.000 Play cut 13.

00:14:22.000 One, two, three.

00:14:24.000 I pledge allegiance to the flag of the Afro-American people.

00:14:29.000 Under God, I will protect freedom, seek peace, honor our ancestors, and encourage and support the development and prosperity of people of African descent.

00:14:47.000 You may be cheated.

00:14:48.000 Did you hear that?

00:14:50.000 We will support our ancestors. 0.91

00:14:51.000 We will defend and support people of African descent as she is doing with a black power fist above her head. 0.99

00:14:59.000 That is what Juneteenth gives you.

00:15:02.000 And for the naive Republicans that voted for this to become a federal holiday, as somehow this would lessen racial tensions, this increases racial tensions. 0.63

00:15:11.000 You have given BLM a national holiday to be able to write these ridiculous op-eds in CNN. 0.72

00:15:18.000 How about this one, Time magazine?

00:15:21.000 Juneteenth is now a national holiday.

00:15:23.000 Are reparations next?

00:15:27.000 You see, they look at that as a starting point. 0.89

00:15:29.000 You validate their racial disharmony agenda. 0.94

00:15:35.000 You platform and recognize and give power to the very same people that burned and looted the entire country for weeks and months. 0.88

00:15:47.000 Somehow we're now the very same academics that said that looting is acceptable, that the proper way to honor George Floyd is to blow off a little steam.

00:16:02.000 This is what is called the movement of a million steps.

00:16:06.000 They start with Juneteenth, but they're not done.

00:16:09.000 Now they're saying, are reparations next?

00:16:13.000 And Republicans' unwillingness to fight on what July 4th actually is, and instead say, well, yeah, sure, this seems innocent enough, goes to show how naive our own side is in dealing with the arsonist left.

00:16:30.000 I'm sure a lot of you are wondering how you can learn about things that are good, true, and beautiful.

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00:16:52.000 And C.S. Lewis was a master at addressing life's most important questions through vivid language that's entertaining and fascinating.

00:16:59.000 You may know Lewis as the author of The Chronicles of Narnia, but he's also considered the greatest Christian apologist of the 20th century.

00:17:06.000 As a radio host, I appreciate Lewis' ability to communicate an inspired fact.

00:17:10.000 Not people don't know this, but Mere Christianity, his book, began as a series of radio messages.

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00:17:23.000 And did I mention his course is entirely free?

00:17:26.000 So go watch the trailer video of C.S. Lewis on Christianity and sign up for this new free online course at charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:17:34.000 That's charlieforhillsdale.com.

00:17:36.000 Look, charlieforhillsdale.com.

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00:17:46.000 It's charlieforhillsdale.com.

00:17:49.000 Again, Charlie, F-O-R, Hillsdale.com.

00:17:55.000 A terrific article written by the brilliant Pedro Gonzalez.

00:17:58.000 The meaning of Juneteenth.

00:18:00.000 I want to read one paragraph here that I found to just be phenomenal.

00:18:05.000 Juneteenth, in truth, marks the dead of the old American nation and the birth of a new one, clawing out from the chest of the Republic in a nightmarish vision that would make Ridley Scott squirm.

00:18:18.000 The new holiday emerged from the mists of June with feeble opposition from Republicans who spent months railing about the evils of anti-white critical race theory and the New York Times 1619 project, only to turn around and inaugurate a national holiday and honor and validate the basic narrative underlying those things.

00:18:34.000 With us right now is Pedro Gonzalez.

00:18:36.000 So Pedro, let me play devil's advocate.

00:18:38.000 I totally agree with the article.

00:18:39.000 My open was all about this, but let me just play devil's advocate. 0.55

00:18:41.000 Isn't Juneteenth about the good news about emancipation?

00:18:45.000 Why should we fight on this?

00:18:46.000 Shouldn't Shouldn't we just kind of turn the page and just say it's okay?

00:18:50.000 Why is it important to articulate the meaning of Juneteenth, your own opinion of it?

00:18:55.000 What's your thoughts here?

00:18:57.000 Well, Charlie, thanks for having me back.

00:18:59.000 So, Juneteenth, as a regional thing, as a minor regional event, had meaning, real meaning for a particular group of people in Texas in reference to a particular time in a particular place.

00:19:13.000 But by taking Juneteenth, out of its historical and regional context and nationalizing it, all it has been reduced to is just another element in this national tapestry of shame alongside things like the 1619 project, which serve only to remind us of how America is evil, how we must always be begging for forgiveness, groveling, hating our past and ourselves.

00:19:38.000 So in other words, the original meaning, the good meaning that meant something to these people in Texas who have been quietly observing it for all this time is now gone.

00:19:47.000 Instead of, for example, community fundraisers and things like that, right?

00:19:51.000 These organizations of giving thanks that would occur in Texas.

00:19:56.000 Now, instead of giving thanks, Juneteenth becomes the basis for ever more demands of diversity, equity, or inclusion, or as you noted out, reparations.

00:20:05.000 That's all it has become now.

00:20:07.000 The abstraction of Juneteenth into this national holiday has completely stripped all of the otherwise benign or good things that the holiday symbolized for a particular group of people.

00:20:18.000 It's just a weapon now.

00:20:20.000 Yeah, and it's in some sense, it's almost a jumping off point, right?

00:20:24.000 It's kind of a trampoline to be able to get to the next level of reparations, institutional CRT.

00:20:32.000 It helps move the Overton window in their direction, as if racial politics is something necessary for us to continue to talk about.

00:20:40.000 One thing that stood out for me in your piece, Pedro, and I am, you and I both are big promoters of his book, and we don't get royalties for it, but he deserves it, is Christopher Caldwell's book, The Age of Entitlement.

00:20:53.000 You actually, your insistence for me to read this book largely prompted me to read it right after our week together with the Claremont.

00:21:00.000 And so everyone just kept on talking about Caldwell.

00:21:02.000 I was like, my goodness, you guys won't shut up about this.

00:21:04.000 So I read it on the flight home and I was just blown away by it.

00:21:07.000 You write here, in the age of entitlement, Christopher Caldwell similarly identifies the engine of this radical reconstruction as the rival constitution effectively created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

00:21:18.000 As with Juneteenth now, the King holiday then, writes Caldwell, quote, mark not the end, but the beginning of shame of an official culture that casts their country's history as one of oppression and its ideals of liberty as hypocrisies.

00:21:31.000 Elaborate, Pedro.

00:21:32.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:21:33.000 So again, we're talking about removing the original meaning from these things and then filling them with a different or a new set of symbols.

00:21:42.000 And that is exactly what has happened originally with the MLK holiday.

00:21:45.000 As Caldwell pointed out, MLK is a figure that I think most people would look at and say, okay, there's a lot of good things about this person.

00:21:54.000 But taking him and turning him into kind of like the leading light of the American pantheon, it wasn't for a lot of people a kind of moment of relief.

00:22:02.000 It was just a day that we would remember how bad America is.

00:22:05.000 That's exactly what the MLK holiday has become.

00:22:08.000 It's just a day to remind people how bad America is.

00:22:10.000 And as part of that project, the Constitution, the original way of doing things of federalism, due process, and things like that, all of that stuff is an obstacle to the revolution, which things like the MLK holiday originally and now Juneteenth symbolize.

00:22:26.000 That's all of the people that are the people that have been saying things like, this is the real Independence Day, they're the honest ones.

00:22:34.000 They actually are telling the truth about the symbolism of Juneteenth, that basically it represents a new kind of nation.

00:22:42.000 But if you're creating a new nation, that means the old one and all of the things that accompany it have to be discredited, deconstructed, and ultimately discarded and replaced.

00:22:52.000 And you bring up a great point about federalism, which actually goes to your point about Juneteenth being a regional celebration, which is fine.

00:22:58.000 It's wonderful, great.

00:23:00.000 But it's the hyper-federalization of this, which almost, which it actually creates more radicalism is what it does.

00:23:08.000 Is that the whole idea of federalism is that people have different tastes and wants and interests and backgrounds.

00:23:13.000 They literally have different geographies they have to deal with.

00:23:16.000 And federalism says, okay, I'm going to kind of not agree with you on certain issues, but I'm going to live in a different state and so be it.

00:23:23.000 And that was kind of the promise of live and let live.

00:23:26.000 A lot of us were naive to believe that actually ever existed when in reality it was live and let them rule.

00:23:33.000 So where does this go in the next couple of years?

00:23:35.000 You know, you and I and a couple others, Candace Owens, Brandon Tatum, they deserve some credit, came out against Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday.

00:23:43.000 So did Tucker Carlson.

00:23:45.000 I see this only intensifying in racial discord, almost being a summertime competitor to July 4th.

00:23:53.000 No strong nation can have two Independence Days.

00:23:57.000 Your thought?

00:23:58.000 Yeah, well, ironically, there was actually a shooting at, I think, the first national Juneteenth celebration in Oakland, California.

00:24:06.000 So, yes, I think that it will only make things worse.

00:24:10.000 Things are only going to get uglier.

00:24:12.000 It's only going to increase more polarization.

00:24:14.000 But I also think that there are things that we can learn from it.

00:24:17.000 And there's a common conception of how power works among conservatives, that basically politics are downstream of culture.

00:24:24.000 But in this case, when you look at Juneteenth, only 7% of Republican voters thought that it should be federalized.

00:24:34.000 60% of Americans, according to the New York Times, said they knew nothing or little about Juneteenth.

00:24:39.000 About 35% of Americans didn't think that it should be a, or did not think that it should be a federal holiday.

00:24:45.000 They didn't see the point.

00:24:46.000 They weren't necessarily opposed to it, but they didn't see the point of making this a federal holiday.

00:24:54.000 I think that's significant, but because basically, when you look at all of the data, when you look at all the polls and surveys, the consensus among most Americans was we either don't care about this, we don't know about it, or we don't really want it to be a federal holiday because to your point, it seems to make things worse, right?

00:25:10.000 And it happened anyways.

00:25:12.000 And so a holiday that went from being an obscurity, a regional thing, is every year going to become more and more potent as a symbol of this new nation.

00:25:21.000 And it's going to breed more and more resentment as time goes on.

00:25:23.000 In other words, political power is changing the culture.

00:25:27.000 That's the lesson I think of Juneteenth.

00:25:29.000 But that wouldn't have been possible without the Republican Party because just 14 Republicans voted against making this thing a national holiday.

00:25:36.000 Those Republicans actually used religious language here.

00:25:40.000 Ted Cruz, I'll just use this as one example.

00:25:42.000 Ted Cruz said that Juneteenth was a reminder of our original sin.

00:25:46.000 Original sin?

00:25:47.000 You're talking about something that's concrete and permanent and will stick to each generation to come.

00:25:53.000 That's a Republican talking about America.

00:25:57.000 And it doesn't even recognize or notice how complicated this issue was at the time.

00:26:04.000 It'd be one thing if every single one of the founding fathers and signers of the Declaration were enthusiastically for slavery.

00:26:09.000 It's not true.

00:26:11.000 It's not even close to being true, actually.

00:26:13.000 In fact, the first anti-slavery convention was held in 1775 before the Declaration was signed.

00:26:18.000 As we've mentioned on this program, nine out of 13 of the states had already abolished slavery by the time the Constitution was ratified.

00:26:24.000 So what original sin exactly?

00:26:27.000 Right.

00:26:27.000 So it'd be one thing if every founder was in unanimous agreement and they wrote extensively and they had books that said the case for slavery, that's not true.

00:26:35.000 In fact, that didn't come until like the 1820s by people like John C. Calhoun and others post-CottonGen.

00:26:41.000 I want to play a tape here.

00:26:42.000 Cut 11.

00:26:43.000 This is what Pedro was mentioning.

00:26:45.000 New video of Juneteenth mass shooting in DC, PlayCut 11.

00:26:50.000 Nobody key.

00:26:51.000 These police ain't kid.

00:26:54.000 But on Juneteenth, as you can see, says Mocelle ended early.

00:27:04.000 There they go, Lo.

00:27:06.000 Man, they see.

00:27:09.000 And if I'm not mistaken, Pedro, there were young ladies as well twerking on top of police cars yesterday. 1.00

00:27:15.000 Is that right?

00:27:17.000 Yes.

00:27:18.000 Yeah.

00:27:18.000 I don't think it was, I'm not sure if it was yesterday, but yeah, they were twerking as this whole thing went down and the scene devolved into total chaos, which is actually, again, kind of symbolic of this entire debate that we're having.

00:27:30.000 And I'm sorry, I think I misspoke earlier.

00:27:32.000 Just 35% of Americans thought that it should be a federal holiday.

00:27:36.000 Most people, again, didn't see the point in this.

00:27:39.000 Did Juneteenth prevent that shooting from happening?

00:27:42.000 Did it result in racial healing?

00:27:45.000 No.

00:27:45.000 No, it did the exact, on the one hand, it didn't solve anything.

00:27:48.000 But on the other hand, it has made people hate each other even more.

00:27:52.000 And again, I don't think you can drop that point.

00:27:55.000 You can't just pretend that, okay, it's fine now.

00:27:57.000 It's part of the culture, which is what some conservatives are saying.

00:28:00.000 Just let it go.

00:28:01.000 Well, no, actually, we can't let it go because it's going to get worse as time goes on.

00:28:06.000 Again, each subsequent generation will inherit this new, this myth of the American nation as irredeemably evil that everyone has to kind of get on their knees and apologize for something that they have nothing to do with.

00:28:19.000 No one alive has anything to do with this mythical history that Juneteenth represents.

00:28:26.000 Again, this narrative of America as evil from the start, evil today, and evil until we, I guess, hand over the keys of the kingdom to the most radical people in this country.

00:28:38.000 I believe it's an intentional, they picked this date for a summertime competitor against July 4th.

00:28:44.000 They could have picked November.

00:28:46.000 They could have picked January, which would have, for example, they could have picked Emancipation Day, where Abraham Lincoln signed the emancipation, but it was kind of they want it within a two-week window of July 4th to kind of create a contrast. 0.73

00:29:01.000 And based on all the academics at the top levels of CNN and Princeton, they're writing openly that blacks should not celebrate July 4th and that local communities should go all in on Juneteenth.

00:29:16.000 And so basically now we have two summertime independence days. 0.95

00:29:20.000 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:29:21.000 And again, some people are saying that out loud that Juneteenth is the real Independence Day, that the other Independence Day is just for white people.

00:29:30.000 In other words, it's illegitimate.

00:29:32.000 They're saying it out loud.

00:29:33.000 We're just not listening to them.

00:29:35.000 Or there are people among us, especially among conservatives, who don't want to believe that, who are still kind of attached to, again, the previous, their regional benign meaning of the holiday.

00:29:46.000 But I'm sorry, that's not what it stands for anymore.

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00:30:54.000 All right, Pedro, I want to ask you: you did mention some other piece here and you just touched on it.

00:30:59.000 14 Republicans voted against federalizing the holiday.

00:31:02.000 You mentioned how disconnected the Republicans are from their voters.

00:31:05.000 Why is it that Republicans are afraid to fight early?

00:31:09.000 And then, once all of a sudden, let's, for example, CRT takes over the land, then they're comfortable opposing it.

00:31:14.000 Isn't it the early fights that matter the most?

00:31:17.000 Yes.

00:31:18.000 And that's why I don't think we should let this go.

00:31:20.000 Although we technically lost the early fight, thanks to Republicans. 0.82

00:31:24.000 I think it's a combination of fear, as silly as that sounds. 0.94

00:31:27.000 These people truly do fear being called racist. 0.89

00:31:31.000 They fear getting a bad article in Vanity Fair, getting a bad line in the New York Times.

00:31:36.000 They really are afraid of that.

00:31:37.000 But on the other hand, I think this is worse, is they actually believe in these things.

00:31:41.000 And maybe some of these people change their mind or realize that they have to qualify their support for what they previously heralded as the best thing ever.

00:31:50.000 But by then, it's too late.

00:31:51.000 And I think that's why it's incumbent on the base to aggressively hold these people accountable.

00:31:58.000 I think it's insanely unacceptable that just 14 Republicans after the riots, of course, we can't forget the context in which this occurred, right? 0.81

00:32:07.000 It was basically a concession to these BLM terrorists that, okay, you get a holiday. 0.81

00:32:13.000 And there was even Republicans that talked about replacing Columbus Day, getting rid of Columbus Day, and instead establishing Juneteenth. 0.92

00:32:20.000 We kept Columbus Day and we have Juneteenth.

00:32:22.000 But just the fact that Republicans were floating that was absurd.

00:32:26.000 And again, in the context of BLM, of national rioting that killed dozens of people and caused billions of dollars in damage, irreparably ruining communities.

00:32:37.000 And we give this concession of a national holiday that is deliberately designed to reduce in stature the 4th of July and all of the things that that represents.

00:32:50.000 I mean, sorry, that's a long answer to your short question, but it's a complicated one.

00:32:56.000 And I think it's important to really cultivate this sense of anger and outrage at our own supposed allies.

00:33:04.000 And I think, again, going back to the poll numbers and stuff like that, 7% of Republicans thought this was a good idea, Republican voters.

00:33:11.000 But there was unanimity among not only the Republican political establishment, but also among, frankly, a lot of conservative pundits, especially in legacy magazines like National Review, kind of looking down at people like us, thinking that we're rubes for suspecting that there could be something more to Juneteenth than just a kind of national day of kumbaya, right?

00:33:32.000 All those people were wrong.

00:33:33.000 And importantly, they're all completely disconnected from the Americans that they claim to represent.

00:33:39.000 It's well said.

00:33:40.000 Pedro, thank you for joining us today.

00:33:42.000 The meaning of Juneteenth, it's chroniclesmagazine.org.

00:33:45.000 We're going to be linking to it at charliekirk.com.

00:33:48.000 It's just terrific.

00:33:49.000 And thank you for the courage and clarity, Pedro.

00:33:51.000 Thanks for joining us today.

00:33:53.000 Thank you, Troy.

00:33:57.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:33:58.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:34:00.000 Thanks so much for listening.

00:34:01.000 God bless.

00:34:05.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk dot com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - June 20, 2022

Exposing the True Meaning of Juneteenth with Pedro Gonzalez

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