Ep 94 ｜ How the Left Handed Black People 'Smallpox in a Blanket' ｜ Jason Whitlock ｜ The Glenn Beck Podcast
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 20 minutes
Words per Minute
137.90736
Summary
Jason Whitlock is an award-winning journalist, radio and TV commentator. He s worked for ESPN, Fox Sports, and has been called the most prominent Black sports writer in the country. But he will be the first to tell you that neither being a sports writer nor being black truly defines who he is. It s almost as if his entire career has been a rehearsal for the insanity of 2020.
Transcript
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Even though in Canada, I'm widely known for my controversial view that curling is not a sport,
00:00:08.280
I'm not a sports fan at all, which might lead you to be surprised.
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My guest today is one of the most prominent sports writers and commentators in America.
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Like I said, I'm not a sports fan, but I am a fan of somebody who understands the culture
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and sports is part of the American culture and those who stand for truth.
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I especially root for those who stand for truth when it be much easier for them not to.
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In fact, I really admire him because he has stood up for truth and lost his job because of it.
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Often the best cultural critics are those who hold a mirror up to society
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and note the flaws that the subjects fail to see or are unwilling to see.
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But to do that requires courage and a certain fearlessness
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because people don't really like when you're like,
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The truth can hit too close to home and it hurts.
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It can be too hard to deal with, might even shatter powerful but false narratives
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that I am the greatest, in shape, best-looking man on podcast.
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That's what my guest has been doing for almost 30 years now.
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Blasting floodlights of truth onto culture through the outside lens of America's sports.
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He is an award-winning journalist, radio and TV commentator.
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He's been called the most prominent black sports writer in the country.
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He's also been called the most hated sports writer in the black community.
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But he will be the first to tell you that neither being a sports writer nor being black
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It's almost as if his entire career has been a rehearsal for the insane cultural chaos of 2020.
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Because if there was ever a moment America needed to hear this man's voice,
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Jason, thank you for dressing up and shaving for us.
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Being a really good, God-fearing man, just nothing's going to stop you, is it?
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I've been on the same mission for a long time, and it's hard to move me off of what I'm passionate
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And, you know, I got into journalism because I wanted to speak truthfully on important issues
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related to the sports world, but also important issues related to American culture.
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And, you know, I had a vision when I graduated college in 1990 of what I wanted to do and
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So you saw this coming or you just felt what you had to say was important?
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When I grew up, I've read the paper, the newspaper, religiously because I was a huge
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And back then, Glenn, you're old enough to remember, again, the newspaper was everything.
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And so if you follow a team, you had to follow the newspaper.
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I thought that the writers actually wrote their material thinking about the coaches and
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the players that they were covering, not the readers.
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And so I came into this with a mission of I'm going to always write for the readers.
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And then the other thing, the other part of my mission was there was a guy in Chicago named
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Mike Royko, who was the best newspaper columnist in the country at that time, won a Pulitzer Prize.
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It was syndicated in the Indianapolis newspapers.
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He wrote about national politics and Chicago politics and race.
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And occasionally, sometimes he'd write about sports.
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I wanted to do what Mike Royko did in the sports world.
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And I felt like there was a way to talk about the rest of American culture through the lens of sports.
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So I just want to understand this, because I think that's part of the problem with sports.
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And I don't watch sports, so I'm not a sports fan at all.
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And everyone is sick of all the politics and the preachiness.
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And they're like, I just want to enjoy the game.
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So were you trying to inject things in to teach?
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What's the difference between what you saw and what we're doing now?
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Well, I'm going to give you a very narcissistic, arrogant answer.
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If you really understand my career as a sports journalist,
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I came into the lane of mixing sports and culture
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and writing about American culture through the lens of sports.
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And I did it from a traditional sports mindset.
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And if you go back and look at things I've been writing since 1990,
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there was always this conservative point of view.
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But I won a bunch of awards and became very popular as a sports writer.
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I appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show, won some national awards.
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You're the only sports writer to win the Scripps Howard Award.
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This is a very arrogant statement, Glenn, but it's factual.
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A lot of young journalists and my peers watched what I did.
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And what you're now seeing in the sports media world
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is a very bad imitation of the work that I did in building up my career.
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Most of these people don't have the courage, balls to do.
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And so they've come with a woke, left-wing version of what I did.
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So what you did as I listened to you would have been like what I always loved about baseball
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and particularly the way the NFL always imaged itself as these are heroes that are coming up.
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This is the American sport, and we love the country, and it's part of the fabric of America.
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That's where you were looking at the cultural connection.
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And it taught the value that best exemplified America at its best.
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I grew up as a football player, went to college on a football scholarship.
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If you look at what Pete Rozelle and the NFL did, they attached themselves.
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In order to overtake baseball, football became more patriotic than even baseball.
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The military flyovers, the national anthems before the game, all of that.
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The NFL tried to make you feel like the most patriotic thing you can do on a Sunday is go to church and watch football.
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And it was a brilliant business strategy that catapulted football to where it's America's national pastime.
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It's something that I authentically believe in.
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Sports do teach the values that best exemplify America.
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But I think that, and again, this is really big picture, but we're starting to now really understand it.
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Like China and our competitors figured out, if you really want to influence American culture, you have to get in the sports world.
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If you can turn that left, Marxist, progressive, whatever, then you have a chance to really influence American culture and spin the whole culture in a negative direction.
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Because it seems like, to an outside observer, the American pastime, American football, it was always America.
00:10:10.720
And then it's seemingly on the outside, on a dime, all of a sudden it's hate America.
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And this is what's wrong with America and preaching all the time.
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I don't think it was on a dime and there's been a process, but go look at, and again, I'm not some super harsh Barack Obama critic, but I'm just let the facts speak for themselves.
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Barack Obama intentionally partnered with ESPN because he wanted to get to speak to that sports audience.
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And every year, the NCAA tournament, Barack Obama filling out his bracket, Barack Obama, the greatest basketball fan in the history of the presidency.
00:11:04.000
Let's go do short stories on Barack playing basketball in the backyard of the White House.
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And so there was like a process of like, let's move left wing stuff into the sports world.
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I mean, I, I, I, I, I've never played basketball.
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And I, I, I, I almost have no feeling in my hands.
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And so it's like, it's like playing with, and we did this on the air.
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We, we did what Barack Obama did on ESPN with, you know, shooting the hoops.
00:12:00.720
So it had to be something from the inside also of the sports world saying, we're going
00:12:10.540
I think the other thing as it relates to basketball, and that was Barack Obama's big thing.
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Nike is a much bigger business, five, six times much more lucrative than the NBA.
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Nike's relationship with China is the key to all of this.
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Nike is such a cultural force with its commercials,
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going all the way back to Michael Jordan, Spike Lee.
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Nike is China's partner in the manipulation of the sports world.
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The NBA being first and foremost, but Nike has its reach all the way into the NFL.
00:13:05.160
And the next thing you know, Colin Kaepernick in 2016 is the ultimate Trojan horse.
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He's at some point reaches an agreement with Nike.
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And now protesting the national anthem is the greatest thing you can do in the sports world.
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That's the most heroic thing you can do in the sports world.
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And if you just notice, LeBron James, the demonization, the anti-American sentiment,
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Colin Kaepernick, the anti-American sentiment, they're Nike spokespeople.
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Nike has been the ultimate American critic through the sports world.
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And in doing that to make sure that China and the 1.4 billion people,
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they have access to sell shoes to those people and they have access to the slave labor you can get in Asia.
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That is really a pessimistic view or jaded view.
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I mean, it's just like this is such a jaded view that, yep, they're just selling out their country for shoes.
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Oh, it's it's I don't think there's any question about it.
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When you look, look at all the human rights abuses they ignore.
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And then for me, Glenn, it becomes personal because there was a kid.
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I'm very connected to all the athletes at Ball State.
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I probably met every football player that's ever played there since.
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One of our kids, 20 years younger than me, got arrested in China on some bogus charges,
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spent three years inside of a Chinese prison, black kid from Detroit.
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It cost me money to get him out of that prison in China after three years.
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And so I look at these LeBron James and these other athletes that go over to China every summer
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to get money from China and do all these appearances and their allegiance to China.
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And I just want to ask them, how do you think China treats black people?
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And then in comparison to America, how do you think China treats black people who aren't
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multi-millionaire international celebrities like LeBron James?
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If LeBron's name, his name was Jerome James, how would he be treated in China?
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Wendell Brown, that played football at Ball State, three years inside of a prison.
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And so the hypocrisy of the athletes, you know, I don't, and I know you were being a little
00:16:08.880
bit clever there, but I don't think I have a cynical view on Nike.
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I just, these corporations and their global agenda and how we in America are so
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asleep to the fact that all this money we've allowed in from foreign countries gives them
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the right and the access to influence our culture.
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And they're stealing America right from underneath us and we're doing nothing about it.
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And our corporations are actually aiding and abetting.
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Now, as I said in the opening of this podcast, I mean, all of this, I mean, it doesn't come
00:16:57.080
You don't know the hours I have spent behind a bowl of ice cream to get this body.
00:17:02.780
Now, my wife does that a lot when she thinks about me.
00:17:09.500
I mean, I have a sweet tooth and this year my daughter's making me all vegan food, which
00:17:18.920
And then I snack if I need a, you know, something for my sweet tooth, I get a Bilt Bar.
00:17:25.760
They are low calorie, low sugar, high protein, high fiber, they're great for the keto diet,
00:17:31.460
lose and maintain weight while indulging in a really delicious treat.
00:17:36.220
Each bar contains 110 to 160 calories, 16 to 20 grams of protein, five, three to five net carbs.
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So it's probably the healthiest snack you'll ever eat.
00:17:49.740
When you eat a Bilt Bar, you'll feel healthier.
00:17:52.320
You'll feel better about yourself because you're staying on track.
00:17:56.120
Bilt Bar, better tasting than really a lot of the candy bars that are out there.
00:18:01.200
Candy bars haven't evolved in about 100 years, but they have with Bilt Bar.
00:18:08.900
My personal is the mint brownie, 100% chocolate.
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They've reset the promo code for this relaunch.
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Go to BiltBar.com and use the promo code Beck at 20% off.
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People keep tweeting me about it, but I haven't.
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You need to just go to the WorldEconomicForum.com, so it's their website, and read up.
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I am convinced that some of these companies, because everyone at the global level, you know,
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everyone, all the big banks all over the world, all the world leaders, they're all for it.
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And I think some of these people know that a Great Reset is coming, and companies are going
00:19:12.740
Stakeholder capitalism, where the government pretty much dictates who owns companies, what
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And I think some of these companies didn't make a decision between America or China.
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They made a, somebody, you know, it doesn't take a lot of brains to realize, wait a minute.
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So if I choose America, I not only lose China, but I also lose the rest of the world in the
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end, because the, the option is go with China, the rest of the world, and, and eventually America
00:19:51.320
will be yours as well, because it's all fundamentally changing.
00:19:54.760
And it's, it is a very cynical view, but the evidence is all there.
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You've blown my mind and given me a lot to think about.
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How do we, well, the first thing, the very first thing we have to do is inform ourselves
00:20:20.340
and be able to get this out to the people, because immediately the press says it's a
00:20:33.400
John Kerry just did something with the economic, World Economic Forum.
00:20:37.900
And they said, so is the great reset too aggressive, do you think, for Joe Biden?
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And he said, oh no, I think people are going to be shocked at how
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all-encompassing and how breathtakingly fast this is going to happen under Joe Biden.
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How is that a conspiracy theory when they're saying those things and it's on their own website?
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And then the other thing that is critically important is that you make your choice now,
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because otherwise you're going to be swept up into it.
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And you either believe in standing for American values, American justice, you know, we're a
00:21:25.000
flawed nation, but we're trying to build a more perfect nation.
00:21:31.920
Um, you have to decide whether you're going to stand in and the first stand has to be go
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If you're an entrepreneur, open your store because to, for this to happen, they must have
00:21:47.800
American, uh, the American economy and the entrepreneur overwhelmed with debt and no place
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I mean, it's almost, I mean, they're running the small business man every day.
00:22:06.860
It's, it's, I mean, we're in the, uh, we're almost at the two minute warning mark.
00:22:11.820
We may be at the two minute warning mark, but there are things we can do.
00:22:16.900
Um, and it may mean that we have to, um, regroup at a later date, uh, and, and start again, because
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it's going to be, if they get their way, it's going to be bad.
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I mean, you're already seeing it in the social media.
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Social media is now telling us what you will and will not read whose opinion you can get,
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You will listen to these authorities and not these, and they'll be banished.
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And I mean, they get to tell you, it's like Jack Dorsey is one of the most powerful people
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We know a bit more about him, but I just, we've given people immense authority and we
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have no idea what their qualifications for that are.
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The, the constitution and the bill of rights is becoming completely meaningless because it's
00:23:58.140
And the bill of rights doesn't tell corporations what they can and cannot do.
00:24:04.920
Let me, let me go back to your story and, and, um, sorry to get off on that tangent with
00:24:13.880
Um, dead spin said that you are the racist rights unwitting attack dog.
00:24:20.080
People, people, people have accused you of, um, uh, talking to white people and defending
00:24:31.100
America and everything else and doing damage and great harm.
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And you're a danger because I know I'm guilty of racism, uh, and you just make me forget about
00:24:48.480
Uh, dead spin certainly spent several years trying to cancel me and trying to, uh, limit
00:24:58.600
my ability to speak to a black audience and to have any credibility with black readers
00:25:08.080
Uh, and it's, uh, you know, I take it somewhat as a compliment to be quite honest with you,
00:25:15.760
because I think they know that my message has value, real value for black people and for
00:25:24.780
But I have, I do have a mission of trying to reawaken, uh, black people to what we're losing
00:25:35.360
spiritually by, uh, by believing that anything that's labeled conservative is against us.
00:25:45.480
And I don't say that again, I don't say that in a political sense, uh, but, but I do say
00:25:51.720
it also in a political sense in terms of they've created this like cold word.
00:25:59.280
And so that basically means anything in the Bible, because trust me, the left is labeled
00:26:05.760
virtually everything in the Bible as conservative.
00:26:08.020
And so it's like, ignore that that's no good for you, or it's unimportant.
00:26:13.140
Your political left wing, progressive liberal identity is the most important thing to you.
00:26:20.520
And anybody that studies my work, uh, with my argument is, nah, I'm not so sure that liberal
00:26:33.160
And I'm not so sure that everything conservative is the worst thing in the world.
00:26:38.280
In fact, the conservative principles taught in the Bible, I think are the greatest thing
00:26:50.120
And, and I think what's really problematic is, is that I have credibility, I think with
00:26:59.240
athletes and with young people and, and, and I, they've done an amazing job of smearing
00:27:05.040
my name and reputation, but people find my content, even if they disagree with it, even
00:27:13.300
if they've been trained to disagree with it, they still read it.
00:27:17.660
They, I can still challenge the prevailing sentiment and wisdom of black Twitter or, uh, black
00:27:30.140
Uh, my voice is still out there and being consumed by black people.
00:27:34.780
And so I think then standing up progressives find me a threat and, you know, they've smeared
00:27:42.440
I've Thomas Sowell's been through the same thing.
00:27:45.160
Uh, every other, Shelby still, every other black conservative, Ben Carson, uh, every other
00:27:52.200
black person that sticks to any kind of conservative values that has any kind of public platform
00:28:04.780
That, I mean, that is really, truly the moves of oppressors.
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You do and believe as I say, or I will destroy you.
00:28:17.120
That is, I don't have a right among white liberals to think the things that I think.
00:28:24.780
And, uh, black liberals are incentivized to attack me.
00:28:45.620
They smeared him and he didn't do anything but great things for black people and for
00:28:55.400
Du Bois as if he's the greatest thing in the world.
00:28:59.240
And he came up with one of the most racist theories in the history of the planet, the
00:29:04.140
I have to, I have to tell you, I think that that was the point in black history where it
00:29:13.860
I mean, Booker T, when he was alive and when you're here next time, I, cause I know you're
00:29:23.240
I brought a box of his handwritten, uh, notes and thoughts on education and, and, uh, you
00:29:35.000
It's just a, uh, just, I just got it a few months ago.
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It's just loose notes from all of his speeches when he was thinking things through, uh, before
00:29:47.140
they actually got to their final, uh, draft, but you'll love it.
00:29:51.060
But as I, as I read Booker T and then I see what W.E.B.
00:29:57.260
did, right after he died, there was this effort to demonize him, destroy everything that he
00:30:09.260
believed in, um, and take African Americans into this really, which I think is happening
00:30:20.960
Would you agree that that was a major turning point?
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I, I, I don't know if I know as much about it as you do based off of what you're telling
00:30:32.760
me, the information you have, but I certainly know there was a concerted effort to destroy
00:30:39.400
the image, legacy and reputation of Booker T Washington and lift up W.E.B.
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DuBois as if he was the greatest man of that era.
00:30:48.780
And I've always rejected it just based off of W.E.B.
00:30:54.700
came up with the theory, the talented 10th, the most elitist theory in the world, that
00:31:00.260
there was this 10% of African Americans who were meant to excel and they would take care
00:31:09.020
And he eventually, to his credit, disavowed that theory, but it still lives on.
00:31:19.260
And so I do think what you're talking, what you've pinpointed is the birthplace of the
00:31:26.760
split and the, the kernel, the thought, the seed that was planted that LBJ and the great
00:31:34.860
society said, okay, it's time to harvest this or harvest this fruit or back to this and replant
00:31:46.080
I do think Booker T and W.E.B., they represent that.
00:31:50.280
Do you believe that, and I, this is one of the things I want to research, you know, in
00:32:00.160
I just want to know the answer, but it'll take me years to find it.
00:32:04.000
I have this theory that you, you don't, you're not the racist that LBJ was in 1960 and then
00:32:15.960
suddenly be the champion of civil rights and still say many of the same things behind closed
00:32:25.720
Because I, because the, the, um, great society, that package was poison to the spirit and to
00:32:39.440
the, uh, effort of the free man, um, and the free thinker, it's just, it's destroyed marriages
00:32:50.260
Do you think they knew that when they put this together, was this a, uh, racist attempt?
00:33:00.920
And I'm going to make an analogy that, uh, will be a bit controversial, even for me.
00:33:07.560
Uh, because one, I'm not, I've heard some people say it was a myth that, uh, the settlers
00:33:16.520
put smallpox in blankets and sent them to native Americans.
00:33:22.300
Some people say that's a myth that it didn't happen.
00:33:24.520
Some people say that it did, but LBJ, the great society is smallpox in a blanket and, and
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And literally the great society is a blanket that has been poisoned.
00:33:46.040
And it's really there for you to wrap yourself in and die.
00:33:51.340
If I'm not mistaken, in 1960, African-Americans had a better record at entrepreneurship.
00:33:59.360
Um, they had the, the most stable marriages and stable families, more stable than whites
00:34:07.080
were, and then 10 years later, that's all destroyed.
00:34:14.140
I think the stable marriages deal is true for the 1920s, but I do believe in the 1960s, we're
00:34:22.760
at about 84%, uh, kids born into two parent homes and, uh, certainly the great society,
00:34:34.240
Taking look, integration, taking kid forced integration.
00:34:38.800
I might say taking kids from their neighborhood school and sending them out of their neighborhoods
00:34:45.140
away from the teachers and principals that their parents actually knew.
00:34:52.680
And it was not, I don't think it was, uh, calling it a mistake.
00:35:00.100
And, and again, the, the thing I, well, the reason I compare it to native Americans is
00:35:06.100
because I do think it was intended to destroy us.
00:35:13.300
And if you go back to, uh, Patrick Monahan and, and the Monahan report that was done under
00:35:20.720
LBJ and then rejected by LBJ and, and Monahan pointed out like, no, no, we have to invest in
00:35:34.760
And if we don't invest in the black family, there's going to, it's just going to get horrible
00:35:44.640
And I just don't, I just don't believe that the guy who's one of the most racist had this
00:35:52.280
big change of heart and then accidentally gave a smallpox blanket.
00:36:02.840
And the fact that we haven't awakened to this reality, this obvious truth that's staring us
00:36:12.660
in the face that, and that's what gets me so upset when we start defund the police and let's
00:36:23.580
There have been no great societies built without families.
00:36:34.300
Um, because I think that there are good intentioned people that I know, cause I've met them, um,
00:36:43.300
that have marched with black lives matter, but they had no idea what the organization was.
00:36:53.200
And they were just like, yeah, I want somebody to listen.
00:36:58.620
Um, but once they know what black lives matter really stands for, which one of their tenants
00:37:05.960
is destroy the nuclear family, that's not just a black thing.
00:37:12.320
That's a black, white, Chinese, Indian, every family you've got to destroy the nuclear family.
00:37:25.060
What has to happen, I think for white liberals in order for us to move beyond this is I think
00:37:38.360
a lot of people adopt the liberal label just because it's like, I'm liberal.
00:37:49.080
And so I'm not going to ever give up that label.
00:37:53.360
And if I put on the conservative label, oh my God, you can call me racist.
00:38:04.000
And so I want to just appeal to people, Americans, just like, hey man, being American and protecting
00:38:14.400
what we built in this country requires hard work.
00:38:22.480
You can't just sit here and say, well, you know, those people 150 years ago, they were
00:38:30.500
But I'm not even willing to give up this liberal label that I know is BS, that I know has justified
00:38:41.460
We're not even willing to make that small sacrifice, give up that label, engage in the marketplace
00:38:50.800
of ideas, because that's what has been destroyed with this liberal label in my mind right now
00:38:56.960
is because anything they disagree with, oh, that's racist, that's sexist, that's homophobic.
00:39:06.420
I was called a racist for saying that Barack Obama, this is the exact quote, I think Barack
00:39:17.760
He just seems to have some sort of deep-seated hatred for the white culture.
00:39:23.800
I didn't know at the time what critical race theory is.
00:39:40.060
And nobody's, nobody, I was called a racist to silence, to be destroyed.
00:39:52.880
Well, Glenn, a lot of times, well, it's not even about you.
00:40:03.100
Don't you do that, because what we just did to Glenn Beck, we'll do to you.
00:40:07.140
What we just did to Jason Whitlock, we'll do to you.
00:40:10.160
And so no one is even willing to come to your defense and say like, hey, you know, I know
00:40:26.200
And any time you engage in high level conversations that are honest.
00:40:32.960
You're probably going to say something that could be construed as insensitive.
00:40:39.440
And that's what that was, was a, because I followed it up with, no, that's not quite right.
00:40:44.640
I'm, I was trying to noodle it out thinking we lived in an America where you could noodle
00:40:52.060
Well, when you can't noodle something out, when you can't talk to each other without fear
00:40:59.700
of, I mean, I had no problem people looking at me and none of them did at the time.
00:41:04.120
Um, but looking at me and going, oh, wait a minute, that's really offensive.
00:41:09.280
And then having a conversation instead, everybody's shutting up and then knowing what's coming and
00:41:16.100
I want nothing to do with it, especially on something like Marxism.
00:41:20.240
Where now I was also called a racist because I said, I think he's a Marxist.
00:41:35.380
You're admitting you're a Marxist and it's not racist now.
00:41:40.540
Why is this a badge of honor when a few years ago is a racist?
00:41:49.280
We'll talk about it when we decide to talk about it.
00:41:55.080
Glenn, one of the things, it's one of the reasons why I've never given up on writing
00:42:01.000
because I, one, I know how dangerous it is out here when you're trying to, uh, express
00:42:09.260
new ideas and so that's why I love, I love being a writer and I'll, I'll never again give
00:42:17.000
up a written platform because I like to write about things first and then talk about it.
00:42:23.460
And if anybody wants to question what I said, go read my column, my exact thoughts are right
00:42:33.660
And again, it doesn't provide you the ultimate protection, but it does provide you some,
00:42:37.840
some protection, uh, because again, these, I gotta say this other side is very clever
00:42:44.340
and they're very invested in, uh, they got a lot of financial backing and, and guys like
00:42:51.820
yourself, guys like every word that I've written probably since 1994 has been scrutinized and
00:43:04.200
And he said this in 1996, it's, it's the price of doing business today.
00:43:11.700
So let me take you a jump some years here and go back to 2013.
00:43:17.840
You were hired by ESPN to write the undefeated, which would explore race, sports, and culture.
00:43:31.260
And before it went on the phone, on the air, they removed you as a guy who doesn't know
00:43:45.440
Uh, I, John Skipper, who was the president at that time hired me because he thought I was
00:43:54.620
the best sports writer in the country and there, and therefore he thought I was the best black
00:44:02.600
sports writer in the country and it was, it's supposed to be a written platform.
00:44:09.020
He didn't vet his decision with the politicians within ESPN.
00:44:15.120
There was no disagreement about how good I was as a sports writer, but there was a lot of
00:44:23.780
disagreement about my point of view and you can't allow a conservative to lead a website
00:44:35.780
And so for two years, uh, the politicians within ESPN, uh, the leftists at Gawker and
00:44:50.300
And, uh, eventually I think ESPN settled on, well, we're going to keep him around and we'll
00:44:57.740
get him to write a, uh, handbook on how we should do the undefeated.
00:45:06.100
We'll get his ideas and then we'll dismiss him.
00:45:10.240
And so they, they had a guy that they'd send out to LA to take notes and allegedly helped
00:45:19.780
Uh, they, you know, they didn't allow me to hire anybody for about a year.
00:45:24.500
And then after two years, they finally, after I'd written a handbook on here's what the
00:45:29.960
undefeated should be, they let me go and they handed the project, uh, to a guy named Kevin
00:45:35.720
Merida that worked at the Washington post who had the right kind of politics to do the site.
00:45:45.840
I want, cause I'm, there's like 40, 50 black journalists that have jobs because of the undefeated
00:45:51.740
and I've, I've never been critical of the undefeated, but the site doesn't have teeth and
00:45:57.360
it, it, it, it under the other guy's leadership and what it's, it's, it's a pretty harmless
00:46:03.820
I'm glad people have jobs, but they have not published a lot of important work.
00:46:12.440
That's one of the things that launched me on a national platform when he said the nappy
00:46:18.080
headed holes, you know, 2006 or 2007, I wrote a piece that said, defending, I wasn't much
00:46:26.800
of a defensive hand, but it was more like, does he matter?
00:46:32.240
And there's all this vile stuff and rap music that we know every word to.
00:46:37.540
There's all these TV shows and celebrities and black people.
00:46:41.440
We all kind of disrespect we have towards each other.
00:46:49.360
I had never listened to Don Imus's show before that moment.
00:47:01.360
Cause at that time you could actually have opinions like that.
00:47:08.920
So Don was a good friend of mine and not a racist bone in his body that I ever saw.
00:47:19.040
I mean, and I like, I mean, I have a dark sense of humor and he would, he would write
00:47:25.460
to me, he'd send me an email just of a screenshot of me and he'd go, and all it would say is
00:47:31.820
You know, he just busted on every, on everybody.
00:47:38.740
Is there going to be a time when we're going to be able to just bust on everybody again and
00:47:48.000
Uh, yeah, I think eventually I'm hopeful we're going to get back there because I don't think
00:48:00.040
what we're doing right now is sustainable because it's so fraudulent.
00:48:09.500
And so I just don't think that can be sustained forever.
00:48:13.080
Now it has lasted longer than I thought because the same question in a different form, I can
00:48:22.680
remember an executive at Fox sports asked me six years ago, seven years ago, like, Hey man,
00:48:32.780
When, when do you think we're going to get back to normal?
00:48:35.440
And I, I, at that time I thought it would be two or three years.
00:48:38.980
Here we are seven years later and it's still ongoing, but I, I just, I see certain people
00:48:47.500
online starting to play the other side, starting to just let it rip and be themselves and build
00:48:56.780
And I'm hoping there's enough capitalism left in America that capitalism will win and that
00:49:06.620
Because right now I don't think people, there's money being pumped into the left wing stuff,
00:49:20.240
And I, and I, um, I think that's the only way this survives is, I mean, that's why the great
00:49:28.480
That's why what Silicon Valley does is so terrifying.
00:49:31.280
Cause the only way, um, to sustain something this unnatural is through force, through total
00:49:43.440
Um, and that's, and, and I would love your, I wonder, cause I've, I've been saying this
00:49:50.540
for a good five years, this tech deal and so much of it concentrated in Northern California,
00:49:59.040
big tech and these tech billionaires overnight billionaires.
00:50:03.960
And that's giving people a lot of power, that much money.
00:50:09.000
And so that's what I see, like sustaining all this, that there's such a concentration
00:50:14.760
of big tech wealth in Northern California and the culture of Northern California is being
00:50:32.680
When 5g hits and the internet of things, it's, it's, it's mind boggling how it's going to
00:50:40.540
change and how much power and control those that control those portals will, will have,
00:50:48.540
you know, bring, let me bring it back full circle.
00:50:50.520
I was just going through, you were in our museum in the vault and, uh, yesterday I was
00:50:58.160
We're trying to organize and I found a document, um, that is the founding document of Silicon
00:51:08.020
And it was, we need a high tech zone in, uh, Northern California.
00:51:17.020
We're going to put it in Northern California and it's going to be an entrepreneurial high
00:51:48.600
And, you know, I've told some people here in Nashville that if people that believe in
00:51:57.140
America and traditional America, if we're not willing to organize and write up documents
00:52:07.240
saying what we're going to do and what we're going to build, we're going to lose the country.
00:52:13.480
I said, because the other side is organized and they're doing, but, and they got, but I
00:52:19.540
think we don't have to, we don't have to come up with anything new.
00:52:24.120
I cannot think of a greater mission statement than we believe it's self-evident that all men are created equal and they have certain inalienable rights from God and governments are instituted among men to protect those rights.
00:52:42.080
And I just don't think there's a bigger idea than that.
00:52:51.760
We've had places where we were a little closer and a little further away from it.
00:52:55.980
But tell me what a goal should be for, for a nation or for a group of people that would be better than that.
00:53:07.660
I don't have something better than, than maybe the solution is somebody less caustic has to take the baton from Trump.
00:53:23.660
So somebody smooth with as much resolve has to take the baton.
00:53:36.180
And then again, I don't, um, because I don't, I never liked the tweets.
00:53:42.240
I never liked the way he would make fun of people, et cetera, et cetera.
00:53:46.400
Um, however, he's a human bulldozer or a human wrecking ball.
00:53:55.360
And it was his unwillingness to flinch when all the guns were pointed to him.
00:54:06.240
It was that, that allowed him to expose everything he did because they exposed themselves because they didn't know what to do.
00:54:21.860
I think there's a time and a place for everything.
00:54:26.080
And, and I think for the four, I don't know if he could have played it any other way and survive, but I think now it's crystal clear that, cause here's my takeaway from the election.
00:54:43.600
I believe there was a lot of corruption and I do believe the election was stolen.
00:54:54.060
How many, how did they get so many conspirators?
00:54:57.160
And it's because, and look, I agree with Trump, the media is fake and it's, it's irresponsible, but, but they got so many people to be involved in that conspiracy or fraud because they convinced them that they were stopping America's Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump.
00:55:23.240
Um, the difference between Trump and Reagan, do you remember, you remember Reagan very clearly, right?
00:55:31.600
Um, they tried to do this to Reagan in a softer way.
00:55:36.500
They tried to paint him as a monster and a warmonger, but he always deflected with just great humor, you know?
00:55:45.700
Um, and so he had charm and humor instead of bombast, uh, and boxing gloves.
00:55:54.800
And so my fear right now is that the same way they baited everyone into like, look, we got to cheat and this ain't even cheating because we're stopping Hitler.
00:56:09.080
It's the same thing going on right now in terms of president Trump.
00:56:16.080
And I say it respectfully, I'm not trying to denigrate, but, but he's the distraction in terms of why people can't see like, Hey man, China's overtaking this country and the things that you value, you guys can get all upset about, uh, the guy in the white house, but you're ignoring what China is doing to this country.
00:56:37.960
And so I got to, I want someone who can get us to focus.
00:56:53.520
And I'm going to say this, I could say this on your show.
00:57:03.400
No, no, but it may, to, to get, to take the race thing off the table, because that's one of their biggest, uh, tools is race, race, race, race, you know, everybody's racist.
00:57:16.360
If you, if you say you're against China, well, that's racist.
00:57:23.680
It's why I didn't agree with Barack Obama before he became president.
00:57:31.740
The whole Jeremiah Wright thing made me very nervous about who he actually was.
00:57:36.340
But actually on the day he was elected, I got on the air the next day and I said, well, let's hope for the best because he's all of our president now.
00:57:45.720
And I don't want any president of the United States to fail.
00:57:48.840
So let's hope for the best because this guy, if he believes the words of, I'm not a, I don't see things black or white.
00:57:59.220
I see as a human thing, we're all supposed to come together.
00:58:04.300
He had the greatest chance to just push that right over, uh, you know, the, uh, the goal line.
00:58:22.180
Um, if, if, and, and I, I try not to be, cause I'm, I've, I've never really been critical of any president.
00:58:31.560
Uh, but where Barack let me down is I did think he was going to be more of a racial unifier.
00:58:40.020
Uh, and, and I thought he would, because he on the surface has a great family, I thought he would be.
00:58:52.180
A champion of families and particularly the black family and that's the fundamental issue for black people.
00:59:07.600
He could have, but he could, I'm careful to say this.
00:59:12.020
He could have so easily been Bill Cosby without all the rape stuff.
00:59:17.680
And that would have been, it would have been the, it would have put to bed all of this stuff because every, I mean, back in the eighties before the rape stuff or the, we knew about it.
00:59:29.800
Cosby was everyone's dad or everyone's dream of a dad.
00:59:36.780
That was, I didn't, I don't care what color you were.
00:59:45.260
And I, look, I don't, I don't know if there's anybody out there, black or white who, uh.
00:59:53.500
Well, you could announce, you could announce for 2024.
01:00:01.740
But, uh, yeah, I know that feeling, but there's gotta be somebody out there who has had enough, uh, black, white, Hispanic, just somebody out there.
01:00:18.100
And, and, and, you know, I know the media makes it so hard because they require, the requirement now is you have to have lived this perfect life.
01:00:28.420
And if we find out you did anything, we'll, you know, we'll try to destroy you.
01:00:33.640
But, you know, I, I guess if, and I don't even know where Colin Powell is politically, but like if there was some Colin Powell out there 20 years younger.
01:00:45.400
Um, you know, it would be an ideal time for, for him.
01:00:54.180
I think he's, I'm not sure which he is, but he's a globalist.
01:00:57.580
So, you know, the problem is, is trying to find somebody or anyone who can truly articulate a, a true aspirational vision for all Americans to strive, to strive for, you know what I mean?
01:01:17.740
There's, we have to have somebody who believes it in their gut.
01:01:21.620
You know, I think the one thing about Donald Trump is he believed in capitalism and he believed America was the greatest.
01:01:31.420
Um, but we need somebody who can then articulate that in an aspirational way.
01:01:38.980
So people look at it and go, I want to be like that.
01:01:44.520
You know, Donald Trump was this, this love hate thing where you spent a lot of time going, I know, I know, I know, I know.
01:01:56.060
But, you know, we, we, we, we all kind of felt like there was this part of him I really love.
01:02:06.280
You know, I'm going to give you, this is like throwing Hail Marys and it's crazy.
01:02:11.440
It's an uncle, you know, who I think of is Tony Dungy, the football coach.
01:02:23.440
He's great American, great Christian, great family man.
01:02:54.160
He's a guy who says, look, here's where we want to go.
01:02:59.300
Kennedy, he didn't put the space program together.
01:03:06.920
And we're going to do it by the end of the decade.
01:03:24.900
I'm sure he's going to say, I don't want to be president.
01:03:29.080
Let me, let me go back to sports here and political correctness.
01:03:33.520
I have this theory and I, I'm probably wrong, but the Washington Redskins have been the Washington
01:03:46.440
It was a, it was a badge of honor for the first coach who was a red skin.
01:03:58.420
And that guy fought and fought and fought and fought.
01:04:02.220
And I thought he'd fight till his dying breath.
01:04:04.960
Is the name, the Washington football team, a placeholder?
01:04:17.040
And when all this nonsense is over, I'll give it a name.
01:04:30.400
I think they, didn't they announce that that is now the name they're sticking with it.
01:04:35.780
They're sticking with it for until they can figure out what to call themselves.
01:04:44.840
I'm not surprised that he raised the white flag because he's in the crosshairs.
01:04:50.080
He's a, they've done story after story about sexual harassment and they've been trying to connect it to Daniel Snyder.
01:05:00.620
They, they've been after this guy for a decade and here in the last year, last year or two things got really hot.
01:05:08.960
Now, fortunately, he's done, he's made some good hires.
01:05:12.640
The football coach, Ron Rivera is doing a nice job.
01:05:15.620
I think they won four or five games in a row, have a chance of making the playoffs.
01:05:21.720
Um, I can't think of his name right now, but some black guy, uh, their team president.
01:05:28.340
And so he's fought them off, held them at bay pretty good.
01:05:33.360
And maybe they'll have enough success and there'll be enough heat off of him in two years from now.
01:05:38.760
Maybe they do return to call themselves the Redskins.
01:05:52.860
I get a job, um, as a producer for the morning show in Washington, DC.
01:06:00.260
I go out the first day for a job interview and I'm supposed to just kind of talk to all the people and see, you know, what I think.
01:06:07.560
The program director at the end of the day, he, uh, comes in, he says,
01:06:12.580
And I said, well, I have to tell you, I don't know who the hell that sports guy thinks he is, but he is, he is just, uh, a loud mouth all the time.
01:06:25.080
And he said, you don't know who he thinks he is.
01:06:29.200
Well, he thinks he's Joe Theismann from, from the Washington Redskins.
01:06:36.540
And I'm like, okay, he's staying, he's staying.
01:07:00.220
You were talking about growing up in Indianapolis and you said, Jimmy Whitlock, my dad, quit working the assembly line at Chrysler Motor Company and started his own business in the early 1970s because his supervisor questioned him about reading the autobiography of Malcolm X on their lunch break.
01:07:19.300
Uh, you know, my dad worked at Chrysler and, uh, you know, he eventually opened a barbershop and then opened a neighborhood tavern in Indianapolis in the inner city.
01:07:39.280
And he did so because, uh, his boss or his supervisor questioned him about reading the autobiography of Malcolm X.
01:07:47.420
And my dad said, I don't want to work anywhere where they're questioning me about what book I read.
01:07:55.900
I didn't know if he was reading it or the boss was reading it.
01:08:09.600
Uh, like all of us would, you know, I've read Martin Luther King, I've read Malcolm X.
01:08:14.460
I'm trying to now, I'm trying now to figure your dad out.
01:08:18.800
He's either really open-minded and reading everybody as we all should.
01:08:23.380
Um, or there's a conflict because isn't he the root of your love for Booker T, your dad?
01:08:31.660
And so take, you know, this is happening in the early 1970s.
01:08:37.260
My dad's reading this book, but my, my dad as a kid and as a young person, uh, you know,
01:08:45.780
went through some crap here in America, real scars.
01:08:49.880
And you got in the seventies, you know, it's about a decade or so after, uh, Malcolm X has
01:09:03.360
My dad's reading the book, like a lot of people were reading that book as one of the wildly
01:09:10.900
But my dad, uh, if you understand Malcolm X or the nation of Islam, uh, it's all about
01:09:19.480
self-responsibility and taking, uh, responsibility for your life and for, uh, the progress of black
01:09:32.220
And he, you know, he certainly believed in Booker Washington's mentality of cast down
01:09:39.440
Basically, you know, Booker T Washington was the property, the original America first guy,
01:09:46.820
you know, born here instead of dreaming about doing something a hundred miles away, a thousand
01:09:54.080
miles away, a hundred miles away, a hundred miles away, a hundred miles away, start right
01:09:59.040
He built a barbershop in the neighborhood he grew up in, eventually, uh, built two bars,
01:10:12.080
And my dad loved being around black people, loved working with black people, loved socializing
01:10:19.940
And so he built a business and a life basically in the neighborhood he grew up in or in the
01:10:25.940
city he grew up in and found his happiness in America, right where he planted his bucket.
01:10:33.020
He built a brand new home, uh, like a mile from his bar and he existed in a small little
01:10:44.440
And, uh, you know, I think my dad was influenced by Booker T Washington.
01:10:51.940
Um, and you know, he certainly had a big influence on me.
01:10:59.400
Um, I understand your dad's, uh, era somewhat as much as anybody our age can not living through
01:11:10.380
Um, one of the, I think one of the most tragic stories, um, that didn't end in violence,
01:11:31.400
I mean, I think she is, she is the, the greatest jazz voice and talent, I think, of the 20th
01:11:42.120
Um, and she had been so horribly abused by her husbands and she couldn't get an education.
01:11:51.940
I think in the state of South Carolina is where she, uh, where she grew up because she was
01:11:58.420
So she went to, uh, New York, the Juilliard took her.
01:12:02.420
The woman was a genius and the struggle that she had gone through, the struggle that the
01:12:09.720
sixties were, and then she snapped with the killing of Martin Luther King.
01:12:17.840
Um, and she, she went into the Black Panther parties and she was like, I mean, one of her
01:12:24.640
songs is, uh, I think it's, excuse the language, fuck Mississippi.
01:12:31.280
I think the name of it is in 1968, um, or goddamn Mississippi.
01:12:38.140
Um, and, uh, and she became more and more anti-American, et cetera, et cetera.
01:12:45.060
She actually moved to Africa that didn't work out.
01:12:48.420
Then she moved to France and now nobody knows her name really when she was, she should be
01:13:02.500
The reason why I bring this up is I understand the anger and the vitriol and everything from
01:13:09.760
that generation, can you compare any of your dad's experience or something like Nina Simone?
01:13:19.580
Can you compare that to anybody who is growing up today or, you know, is, is in their thirties
01:13:30.300
that is out, you know, being the big marchers of how much America sucks?
01:13:35.020
Uh, no, uh, America has come a long way and I think, uh, anybody with an objective view
01:13:53.040
I remember 15 years ago, my mother firmly believed, was it 15 years ago?
01:14:02.680
Um, yeah, 15 years ago, my mother firmly believed there would never be a black president.
01:14:12.000
And I can remember calling her in 2008, uh, after Barack Obama won.
01:14:19.540
Uh, and, and she, she just, she couldn't believe it.
01:14:23.840
And it made her at that time recognize like, Oh my God, look at how far I've come.
01:14:31.340
I went from when she was a kid, she couldn't go into a shopping center and try on clothes.
01:14:40.160
Uh, and, uh, to, to now and to have both her sons be college educated, both of them be
01:14:48.340
successful, uh, both of them with the ability to live basically anywhere they want.
01:14:59.720
And, and, and, and for me, I, I really don't get it because I, my, there's been two unbelievable
01:15:07.100
and three, uh, but the two biggest influences on my dad, my grandmother, and, and that's not
01:15:13.900
to slight my mother in any way, because my mother was awesome.
01:15:16.820
But my grandmother was the embodiment of Christian love.
01:15:22.040
And my, my grandmother's father was nearly lynched by the KKK when she was a child, they
01:15:29.220
came, took him out of the house, going to string him up on a tree.
01:15:33.000
He did some kind of stance that showed them he was a Mason.
01:15:39.900
They moved to Indianapolis, they moved from Kentucky to Indianapolis, and my grandmother
01:15:46.200
had great bitterness and hatred towards white people.
01:15:57.120
And that she was baptized and really got deep into Christianity and all of her bitterness
01:16:11.080
And I just think of my grandmother and all that she saw.
01:16:15.980
She died before Barack Obama became president, but, but all that she saw and all that she overcame
01:16:23.640
and we are now acting as if imprecise words, hurt feelings or whatever are the same as what previous
01:16:39.220
generations experienced and the laws, the laws that they face, there were obstacles to them.
01:16:50.080
Glenn, I'm sure when you were a kid and even today, your wife may say something to hurt your
01:16:59.300
America does not promise you, oh, you'll never get your feelings hurt.
01:17:05.280
And so it's just this impossible standard that we have set up.
01:17:12.520
And, and, and look, I, I have seen people, two of my best friends in high school, I felt
01:17:23.760
like were denied an opportunity to make the basketball team because the coach had a bias against
01:17:30.800
black kids, uh, one of them has a very successful insurance agency, great family, has raised three
01:17:40.600
kids, been married for 20 some odd years, successful businessman.
01:17:45.080
The other guy, uh, been married for a good 20 years, has a daughter that's on a swimming
01:18:00.140
You can't stop moving ahead and you certainly can't, uh, just demonize America or ignore
01:18:10.780
Glenn, I just keep repeating this over and over again, the last few months, as I've watched
01:18:18.220
And, and it's like, people don't have a fundamental understanding of America and what it promises.
01:18:31.440
And so if you really understand that America, America is going to give you freedom, make the
01:18:38.680
Cause not every country gives you the kind of freedom we enjoy here, but America does not
01:18:50.440
It doesn't say, Oh, you know, there's going to be some unfairness, America freedom.
01:18:54.860
And we're going to have laws that try to protect your freedoms.
01:19:01.920
And that's so much more than virtually every other country offers its citizens.
01:19:10.300
And right now we just don't, or not enough of us do.
01:19:15.100
I can't thank you enough, Jason, for being on with me.
01:19:18.460
I'd like to invite you into my little NATO pack I'm making with people that believe in
01:19:25.320
If you believe in the bill of rights, I'd like you to join the NATO pack, which is an attack
01:19:33.060
And we just, we all have to watch each other's back and be there when one is in trouble or
01:20:03.200
I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast and pass this on to a friend so it