The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 508 - The White Privilege Myth

00:00:00.000 Today on the Matt Walsh Show, we're told that all white people in the country are the beneficiaries 0.75

00:00:04.300 of privilege. But I have some examples of white people that would appear to have

00:00:09.520 no privilege at all of any kind. And I think that's because our notion of privilege,

00:00:15.840 this idea of white privilege, is far too simplistic and literally too black and white.

00:00:21.560 So we'll talk about that. Also, five headlines. And then today in our daily cancellation,

00:00:25.540 I will cancel the mayor of Oakland for claiming that a swing in a public park is a hate crime.

00:00:33.340 Somebody put up a swing in a public park and is now being accused of committing a hate crime.

00:00:37.620 And it gets even more ridiculous than that. So you have to stick around for that. But here's

00:00:42.140 something. We'll start with this. Here's something you probably didn't hear about. A few months ago,

00:00:45.600 a region of our country was gripped by a natural disaster, devastated by it. That region is eastern

00:00:52.160 Kentucky. It was flooded, entire neighborhoods, towns, underwater. Here's some footage from WHAS

00:00:58.500 in Kentucky. As you can see there, I mean, it looks biblical. Everything underwater, right?

00:01:04.580 And you never heard about this, did you? And that's not your fault. If you don't live in the area,

00:01:10.120 if you don't live in Kentucky, the national media doesn't talk about it, then how are you going to

00:01:15.140 hear about it? Here's an account from one man, a trailer park resident, who lost everything in the

00:01:21.860 floods. And here's here's what he has to say. Listen, I walked outside and saw everything that

00:01:29.840 it was already up. And I knew it had to be deep already up to my knees, at least. And I came

00:01:36.140 through the house and told my wife, you know, don't freak out. But we got to get out here right

00:01:39.800 now. We got to get kids out. And I carried two kids in the van, got her in the van, drove over there 0.53

00:01:46.200 and I was freaking out. I didn't know what to do. The only thing I could do was just try

00:01:51.580 to run over here and grab anything that I thought was sentimental and we possibly couldn't

00:01:56.040 buy back. I lost everything. Everything that took us years to build is gone. One night,

00:02:03.680 one day. Rebuild, try to find someone safe. One of my kids won't have to go through that again.

00:02:10.120 Start off small. Make it back somehow. Now, why? Why didn't you hear about this?

00:02:21.380 Well, because it's Eastern Kentucky. This is happening mostly to poor white people in trailer 0.97

00:02:26.960 parks. And the media simply doesn't care about poor white people in trailer parks. 0.81

00:02:32.740 And when I say poor, you know, I mean poor. I think the word poor almost doesn't quite

00:02:40.000 capture the situation for many people that live in that part of the country.

00:02:45.720 Now, as I tell you about Eastern Kentucky, I'm going to put up on screen, on the screen,

00:02:49.120 some pictures taken by Shelby Lee Adams, a photographer. These were published in an article

00:02:54.260 in NPR a few years ago. These are not pictures from the 19th century. This is life in Eastern

00:02:59.920 Kentucky today. Nine of the poorest counties in the entire nation. Nine of them are in this one

00:03:07.820 little small part of the country, Eastern Kentucky. The poverty rate in one county,

00:03:13.720 Owsley County, is 45%. That's nearly half. Nearly half of the residents are in poverty.

00:03:21.580 Across the entire Appalachian region, the poverty rate is almost 20%. The average income is

00:03:27.820 $37,000 across the entire region. In Eastern Kentucky, it's $30,000. That's $16,000 less than

00:03:35.760 the average income nationally. In 2014, the New York Times Magazine tried to compile

00:03:40.800 a list of the places in the country with the worst quality of life. And according to this calculation,

00:03:49.460 the worst place in the country to live, the worst quality of life in the entire country,

00:03:54.420 is Eastern Kentucky. Let me read from their article. This is published in NewYorkTimes.com

00:04:00.860 from their magazine. It says,

00:04:02.920 The team at the Upshot, a Times News and Data Analyst venture, compiled six basic metrics to

00:04:08.080 give a picture of the quality and longevity of life in each county of the nation. Educational attainment,

00:04:14.080 household income, jobless rate, disability rate, life expectancy, and obesity rate.

00:04:17.780 Weighting each equally, six counties in Eastern Kentucky's coal country rank among the bottom

00:04:24.540 10. Clay County in dead last might as well be in a different country. The median household income

00:04:30.060 there is barely above the poverty line at $22,000, which is $22,296. That's the median income. And it's

00:04:37.920 just over half the nationwide median. Only 7.4% of the population has a bachelor's degree or higher.

00:04:44.280 The unemployment rate is 12.7%. The disability rate is nearly as high at 11.7%. Nationwide,

00:04:51.180 the figure is 1.3%. Life expectancy is six years shorter than average. Perhaps related,

00:04:57.580 nearly half of Clay County is obese. Later on in the article, it says,

00:05:01.720 Despite this, rural poverty is largely shunted aside in the conversation about inequality,

00:05:07.100 much in the way that rural areas have been left behind by broader shifts in the economy.

00:05:10.960 The sheer intractability of rural poverty raises uncomfortable questions about how to fix it or

00:05:16.220 to what extent it is even fixable. I should mention the suicide rate in Appalachia is 17% higher than

00:05:22.640 the national average, which is not surprising given everything that I just read. And then,

00:05:29.420 of course, here's the one thing that you probably have heard about Eastern Kentucky and the Appalachian

00:05:32.940 region generally is that it's beset by drug addiction, particularly opioid addiction. The opioid

00:05:37.900 crisis has hit this part of the country perhaps harder than anywhere else. Now, why do I bring all

00:05:44.900 this up? Because I have a question for you and it's something to consider. Take a hypothetical person

00:05:53.720 living in Clay County, Kentucky. Apparently, perhaps the worst place in the country to live,

00:06:02.720 Clay County, Kentucky. And let's say a child, a white child living in a trailer park in Clay County.

00:06:09.720 Father committed suicide years ago. Mother's addicted to painkillers. Household income is $18,000 a year

00:06:16.140 in a good year. He lives in a two-bedroom trailer in a low-lying area susceptible to flooding.

00:06:24.600 According to New York Times Magazine, he has maybe the worst quality of life of anyone anywhere else

00:06:31.040 in the country. Now, this is a hypothetical example, but it represents the situation that a great many

00:06:36.420 children in that part of the country are in. There's nothing absurd about this hypothetical.

00:06:47.140 It's not far-fetched by any means. And now the question, in what sense, in what possible sense,

00:06:56.080 in what specific sense, could we say that this child is privileged?

00:07:01.900 You know, we hear a lot about white privilege. We hear that all white people everywhere in the 0.86

00:07:08.060 country are the beneficiaries of this privilege. And yet, when we look at the reality, okay,

00:07:14.980 when we look into, to borrow a phrase from the left, when we look at the lived experiences of so

00:07:22.300 many white people in the country, this privilege doesn't seem to amount to very much at all.

00:07:28.980 So again, where does the privilege come in for this child? When does he get to cash it in?

00:07:36.480 In what particular moment of his life can we say, oh, that happened because of white privilege?

00:07:44.980 What kind of privilege? What do you mean? What sort of privilege is this? He's dirt poor,

00:07:52.100 so it's not economic privilege. He doesn't have access to a good education, so it's not an

00:07:56.880 educational sort of privilege. He doesn't have good healthcare, so it's not healthcare privilege.

00:08:02.480 There's no privilege in any of those senses. What about systemically? Does the system favor him?

00:08:09.240 I think this is, in fact, what we would be told. We would be told that, okay, yeah, I mean, he doesn't

00:08:14.800 have economic privilege. He doesn't have educational privilege. He doesn't have privilege in terms of

00:08:19.780 his health, but he's got systemic privilege. Really? Do you think the system favors this child that we're

00:08:29.360 talking about? I mean, whatever system we're referring to here, it would seem to me that

00:08:37.560 all of the systems have forgotten about this child and everybody else living in that part of the

00:08:42.700 country. There is just no sense in which you can say that a poor white kid in a trailer in Appalachia

00:08:49.240 is favored by the system. There is no system, no system anywhere that favors him. He is forgotten

00:08:58.180 by every system. Do you think when he walks into a job interview one day, if that day ever arrives

00:09:05.300 for him, which very likely it won't, but do you think if he does as a poor Kentucky kid with a thick

00:09:11.820 accent, you know, living in poverty all his life, do you think his resume is going to go to the top of

00:09:17.900 the sack? Do you think he's not going to suffer any discrimination, any negative assumptions given

00:09:23.600 his background, his economic, his economic status, his accent, his mannerisms and so on?

00:09:31.200 What employers are going to favor hiring people out of trailer parks?

00:09:39.080 It would seem like none of them do because if they did, there wouldn't be trailer parks because

00:09:43.940 all those people would have jobs and good jobs by now. The claim of white privilege just doesn't

00:09:51.600 hold up to the reality that many white people experience and live through. And in fact, I would 0.75

00:09:56.760 argue that the very concept of white privilege, the very claim of white privilege is proof that white 0.51

00:10:04.420 privilege doesn't exist because the only way you can claim it is if you have completely forgotten

00:10:09.940 about and discounted the millions of dirt poor white people forgotten by the system across the

00:10:16.000 country. That's the only way that this, the whole notion of white privilege, when you hear white

00:10:20.220 privilege, your mind immediately comes to, you know, relatively well-off white people living in the

00:10:25.540 suburbs. That's what you think of as the sort of the picture of white privilege. And so we have

00:10:30.940 erased, to borrow another popular term from the left, we have erased all of the white people who don't fit 1.00

00:10:38.520 into that. Just, they don't count forgotten about them. And for this hypothetical child, who is not

00:10:44.960 really hypothetical because millions of kids are in this position for this child and for the people

00:10:49.480 there, that's what they're used to. They're worse. They're used to being forgotten. They've been

00:10:53.700 forgotten by every single system. There is no system, no system that is saying, let's go to those

00:11:00.840 people and help them out. This is why our discussion of privilege is too simplistic.

00:11:08.280 It is literally black and white, which is absurd. It doesn't work with the reality.

00:11:17.840 And this is when we get into the, you know, the back and forth of anecdotes.

00:11:22.160 And so somebody will respond by talking about a black child growing up in the inner city

00:11:26.060 and the struggles and hardships he faces. Struggles and hardships which are immense, of course.

00:11:36.940 And just like the white child in the trailer park, these are struggles and hardships that

00:11:40.580 for many people are insurmountable. But the problem is we could go back and forth with anecdotes all day

00:11:48.540 long. You give me one, I give you one. Literally of millions of examples on both sides.

00:11:56.060 Maybe, maybe that that's a good signal that it's, we're thinking about this topic of privilege all

00:12:02.640 wrong. Because I, you know, I personally would not want to go up to someone living in one of those

00:12:13.820 trailer parks, which is now water damaged because of flooding that nobody cared about.

00:12:19.680 I wouldn't want to go up to someone like that and tell them about their privilege. That's not,

00:12:24.020 that's not something I would want to do. I don't know about you.

00:12:29.620 So I think it's time to expand our notion of privilege. And here, because I'm not saying that

00:12:35.280 privilege is non-existent. I'm not saying that privilege is a myth. I think white privilege

00:12:38.880 is a myth. Privilege though is not. There is something called privilege. There are, there are

00:12:44.080 people who are privileged. But what does, what is privilege? I mean, how do you get privilege?

00:12:48.100 Who are the privileged people in this country? And I think that, that we could, we could think

00:12:53.640 of privilege in two broad categories. So there's economic privilege. We could say that someone who's

00:13:00.120 born in a well-off family, a well-off community is privileged in many different ways. You know,

00:13:08.580 they're going to, they're going to get the best of everything in terms of, of luxuries and necessities.

00:13:13.260 And they're going to probably have good schools and they're going to have good healthcare and

00:13:17.400 they're going to have access to whatever they want. That's privilege, of course.

00:13:24.320 But we already have established that not every, what to put it mildly, this is an understatement,

00:13:29.760 not every white person is economically privileged. A great many of them are not.

00:13:34.960 So that is not something that can be separated by race.

00:13:37.120 But then there's a deeper sense. I think there's a deeper sense of privilege.

00:13:42.440 The sense in which I would say that I am privileged.

00:13:45.720 I mean, I wasn't born to a well-off family or rich, I wasn't born in dirt poverty either.

00:13:49.880 So I suppose I did, I am the beneficiary of, of some kind of economic privilege.

00:13:54.460 Just to be born in the middle class is a lot better than being born in a trailer park or being 1.00

00:13:58.600 born in the, in a, in the inner city, economically speaking.

00:14:01.900 But I'll tell you the real privilege that I had. Okay. The real privilege that I had in modern

00:14:08.320 society is that I was born to a household with two parents, um, who were both living,

00:14:16.580 both in the home, married, stay married, stayed married throughout my entire childhood and are

00:14:23.880 still married today, by the way, uh, cared about my wellbeing, cared about my education and cared

00:14:30.400 about my moral formation as a person. That is, I think the real privilege that I inherited.

00:14:37.140 And I think that's what privilege really is for most people. If you have that, if you, if you have

00:14:44.000 that, if you have, if you have that going for you, then you're going to probably get a fair shake at

00:14:48.480 life. And there are plenty of people in trailer parks in Eastern Kentucky or in the inner city who

00:14:54.320 have that, but a great many don't. If you look at the fatherless rate, the rate of broken homes and,

00:15:00.340 uh, domestic violence and, and domestic turmoil in the inner city and in, uh, poor trailer park areas

00:15:07.940 in, in, in the Appalachia region, you're going to find that those rates are very high, much higher

00:15:12.020 than they are for a lot of us. And that doesn't, that doesn't explain everything. I mean, if you,

00:15:19.680 if you are born to a two parent household with parents that love you and care about you and you

00:15:24.060 live in dirt poverty, you're still going to have a lot of challenges. And there's a very good chance

00:15:27.500 that you're going to be, you're going to be in that dirt poverty for your entire life because

00:15:30.860 it's going to be a very hard obstacle, obstacle to get over even then. But even so, that is a,

00:15:37.600 that is a great advantage. That's a great leg up for any kid. Now it's kind of sad that, um,

00:15:47.160 these days we have to talk about this as being a privilege because this should not be a privilege.

00:15:50.980 This should, this, this, this is natural. This is how it should be for everybody. This should be a

00:15:54.640 given, but that's not the case. And we know that the rates of broken homes and, and, and fatherless

00:16:01.060 homes are high and getting higher for communities across the country. In the black community, it's, 0.99

00:16:05.740 you know, 70% about the 70% of black kids, uh, in the inner city, it's even higher grow up without 0.98

00:16:11.580 fathers in the home for white people. The rate is lower, but it's much higher than it should be. And it's 0.95

00:16:17.200 getting higher. That's what we should be focusing on. If we're really, if we're really, if we really

00:16:26.360 want to talk about privilege, I think these are the two areas we should be looking at.

00:16:31.800 And we shouldn't be looking at them because we want to punish the people who have that kind of,

00:16:37.540 someone who has the privilege, uh, the economic privilege or the privilege, uh, the, the, the,

00:16:42.080 the much better privilege, a much deeper privilege of being born to a, you know, two parent household

00:16:46.920 with loving parents. Uh, it's not like we're looking to punish them or take anything away from

00:16:52.060 them to even the score. That's not the right way of approaching this. It's to look at the kids who

00:16:57.920 don't have that and figure out what can we do for them so that they do have it. I think that's how

00:17:06.520 our discussion of privilege, uh, should work. We're going to move on now to headlines. Uh, number one,

00:17:12.620 and here's a thing that no one could have seen, seen coming. Um, well, no one could have seen it

00:17:18.200 coming except for, you know, people with brain cells, people with brain cells did see this coming

00:17:21.680 protesters. That would be Reed felons pulled down a statue of George Washington in Portland last

00:17:26.620 night. Uh, here's the, here's the footage of that. Yes, nobody could have seen this coming.

00:17:40.380 Nobody at all, except like I said, people with brains, uh, because this was inevitable. Some of

00:17:45.300 us like yours truly years ago were warning that tearing down the Confederate statues, allowing the 0.99

00:17:51.580 mob to tear them down or tearing them down at the behest of the mob would lead to this. It was always

00:17:57.100 going to lead to this. And yet a lot of dumb, weak, spineless conservatives said, no, no, that's not

00:18:02.720 going to happen. You know, three, four years ago when they were going around tearing down all the

00:18:05.400 statues, uh, there were even a lot of conservatives were saying, yeah, this is time. It's time to

00:18:10.260 take them down. The left will stop here. I'm sure they'll stop and they'll be satisfied and we'll

00:18:15.360 get rid of the Confederate statue. And they're not going to cross any other lines after that.

00:18:19.840 These people will never learn. They'll just never learn. The mob does not stop. The left doesn't

00:18:25.940 stop. Never going to be satisfied. It's not hard to see how one leads to another. That's the very

00:18:31.720 frustrating thing is that you didn't have to be a prophet to prophesy into the future. Uh, you didn't

00:18:38.060 have to look into a crystal ball to know that this was going to happen. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's a,

00:18:42.640 it's not hard to see it. The Confederates were slave owning secessionists. The founders were slave

00:18:50.900 owning secessionists. Okay. Now there are nuances. There are just, there are ways to distinguish the

00:18:56.960 two. There are distinctions you can make, of course, between the two groups, but the mob doesn't do

00:19:01.920 nuance. And that's why I've been saying all along, even if you don't like a particular statue and you

00:19:08.080 think that, yeah, it'd be better if that statue didn't exist. Yeah. It'd be better if that, if we,

00:19:11.000 if we could take that statue down, we don't take it down now in this circumstance, in this situation

00:19:16.720 at the behest of, of, of the, the raging mob, because it sends the wrong message. It's the wrong

00:19:24.280 symbolism. And it's not a thoughtful act taking down a monument that has stood for a hundred years or

00:19:31.440 more, a priceless piece of art. Taking that down should be a thoughtful act. And everybody should

00:19:38.540 understand why we're doing this if it needs to be done at all. But this is not thoughtful. It's

00:19:44.980 mindless and simplistic. So we take down the, the statues. What do they say when they're taking down

00:19:52.180 Robert E. Lee statue or Jefferson Davis? Um, what do we hear? We hear these were racist. They were

00:20:00.440 slave owners, you know, um, or they were traitors. Those are the three things we hear racist, slave

00:20:07.180 owner, traitor. Okay. Well, if that's the standard now, um, for tearing down a statue, then a lot of

00:20:16.080 other statues are coming down. Arguably all of them, certainly for racist, as I've talked about many

00:20:21.860 times over the last couple of weeks, everybody in the 19th century was racist by our standards today.

00:20:26.360 Everybody by our standards, racist. Um, and certainly before that, you want to go back to Columbus

00:20:33.420 500 years ago? Yeah. Everybody was, it was horrible bigots by our standards today. So all the statues are

00:20:41.020 coming down. Slave owners, there are slave owners all over the world. And if not slave owners, people

00:20:47.100 who, uh, were fine with slavery, you know, either supported it or just had no problem with it,

00:20:53.400 didn't, didn't question it. Traitor. Well, George Washington was a traitor of the British crown. If,

00:21:00.700 if, if, if the revolutionary war had gone the other way, they would have been hung as traitors.

00:21:03.880 Um, if that's the standard, those statues are going down and it's not going to stop here either.

00:21:13.120 I mean, I think we see now all the statues are coming down, all of our historical heroes

00:21:17.440 and icons, all of them. Number two, here's the CEO of Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy doing,

00:21:24.940 well, you just have to see it yourself. Watch.

00:21:27.220 I know we're starting to get into some of our closing moments here, but a story that was

00:21:30.780 shared with me by a dear friend who shared with me about a revival that was taking place at a church

00:21:36.940 in Texas. And, uh, at that revival on the front seat was an older African American young, uh,

00:21:43.100 older African American men, man that was sitting there. And this young man got up that, uh, was

00:21:50.380 there in that service. And he'd been so gripped with conviction about the racism that was in that

00:21:56.680 local community in a small town in Texas that he, he took a, uh, a shoe brush and he walked over to

00:22:04.700 this elderly gentleman and he knelt on his knees and began to shine his shoes and, uh, tears began to

00:22:10.720 flow, uh, in that service. Uh, it was an attitude of, uh, conviction. So I, I invite folks to just to,

00:22:19.260 to put some words to action here. And if we need to find somebody that needs to have their shoe shine,

00:22:25.760 we need to just go right on over and shine their shoes. And, uh, whether they got tennis shoes or 0.99

00:22:32.620 own or not, maybe they got sandals on, it really doesn't matter. But there's a time in which we need

00:22:39.520 to have, you know, some, some personal action here. Maybe we need to give them a hug too.

00:22:44.960 Brother. And some, and some, and some stock in Chick-fil-A.

00:22:51.760 But, uh, I bought about 1500 of these and I gave them all our Chick-fil-A operators and staff a number

00:22:58.540 of years ago. And, uh, so any expressions of a contrite heart of a sense of humility, a sense of

00:23:06.880 shame, a sense of embarrassment, uh, began with an apologetic heart. I think that's what our world

00:23:12.900 needs to hear today. I'll tell you what, Dan, here's my, here's my alternative suggestion.

00:23:18.220 How about I don't shine anybody's shoes or bow to anyone or kneel to anyone or apologize to anyone

00:23:27.540 for things I didn't do because I have no remorse and I have no guilt and I have no shame and I have

00:23:34.560 no embarrassment for historical racism or slavery. And do you know why? Because I had nothing to do

00:23:39.520 with any of that. And that's not some sort of, uh, technicality. Okay. I'm not being pedantic here

00:23:48.200 by saying, well, technically I had nothing to do with it. I didn't, I didn't exist. I didn't exist

00:23:54.460 when those things were happening. How could I possibly be responsible? And my ancestors were

00:23:58.980 in Ireland, in fact, and they didn't have such a great life either. Historically, they were persecuted

00:24:03.880 by the British. Are any Brits going to shine my shoes? And then they came here and they were 1.00

00:24:08.540 discriminated against too. The Irish people, my ancestors historically have not had a, had a,

00:24:16.560 had a good time of it. Many other groups could be, you could say the same about. So what am I

00:24:24.480 supposed to be sorry for? My ancestors were busy dying in the potato famine while people were buying

00:24:30.040 slaves in this country. They weren't slave owners. I literally cannot apologize for it.

00:24:39.160 It wouldn't make any sense for me to do. And I'm not going to do something that's incoherent and makes

00:24:44.420 no sense just because the emotional mob has demanded that I do it. Um, but Dan Kathleen, you know what?

00:24:51.640 Chick-fil-A, if you want to apologize for something, don't apologize for racism. Uh, but you could

00:24:57.240 apologize for your waffle fries because let's be honest about that. Your waffle fries are bad.

00:25:04.840 Certainly overrated. I would call them outright bad most of the time. And I think it's, it's time

00:25:09.480 we have an honest conversation about Chick-fil-A. Yes, their chicken sandwich, the number one on the

00:25:13.580 value meal is good. That's it. They have nothing else on the menu. That's anything to write home

00:25:19.400 about. Their wraps are actually bad. Um, like stale and it's like something you'd buy at a gas

00:25:26.580 station. Uh, salads are okay, but you get a salad just as good at McDonald's or any other fast food

00:25:31.340 place. Waffle fries are not good. Undercooked, under seasoned, bland, flimsy, flabby, disgusting.

00:25:38.060 If I want great fries, I'll go to Arby, get a curly fries. I go to Sonic, get a, get, get tater tots.

00:25:43.040 Okay. Any of those options. I mean, go to McDonald's or their fries are better than Chick-fil-A. That's

00:25:50.400 the real point here. That's what we need to talk about. Number three, here's something that happened

00:25:53.200 in Southern California. A mother was attending a protest with her child. Um, the child stopped

00:25:58.040 breathing. She screams for help. A cop rushes in. This is the footage right now. Clears the child's

00:26:03.120 airwaves and saves his life. Now, I, you know, you see that and you think, okay, if we defund the

00:26:07.440 police or if there are no police, who's running in to save the kid's life? Call a social worker to come

00:26:12.880 in. Who are we calling? A lawyer? Somebody from the ACLU? They're going to come save his life?

00:26:19.740 This is what cops do all the time throughout the country every day. I mean, there's hundreds

00:26:24.480 of examples probably every single day of cops saving somebody's life. Um, all that's going

00:26:32.120 out the window if we get rid of the cops. Number four, Amy Klobuchar is, uh, withdrawing her name 0.99

00:26:36.620 from the VP consideration, saying that a woman of color should be picked instead. Here she is. 0.99

00:26:40.460 You know, Lawrence, uh, I have never, as you probably know, on many, many shows, um, since

00:26:46.860 I endorsed, uh, the vice president on that joyful night in Dallas, I've never commented

00:26:51.920 on this process at all. Um, but let me tell you this, after, uh, what I've seen in my

00:26:57.700 state, what I've seen across the country, uh, this is a historic moment. And America must

00:27:05.560 seize on this moment. And I truly believe, uh, as I actually told the vice president last

00:27:11.820 night, uh, when I called him, uh, that I think this is a moment, uh, to put a woman of color

00:27:18.400 on that ticket. Um, and there are so many incredibly qualified women. Um, but if you want 1.00

00:27:26.100 to heal this nation right now, my party, yes, but our nation, uh, this is sure a hell of a way to

00:27:33.680 do it. Um, and that's just what I think after being through this in my state, I am very inspired

00:27:39.900 by that. I find that so inspiring that I like to announce that I am also withdrawing from

00:27:44.020 consideration to be Joe Biden's VP so that a woman of color can be picked instead. Hashtag hero

00:27:50.440 hashtag and racism. In fact, I'm withdrawing from consideration. I'll go, I'll go a step further.

00:27:57.000 I'll go several steps further. Okay. I withdraw from consideration to be VP. I also withdraw from

00:28:01.600 consideration to be a NASA astronaut, to be a professor of physics at Princeton, to be a head

00:28:07.380 chef, to be a, the quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I will not accept any of those

00:28:14.380 positions. I'll tell you right now, I will not accept it. I am withdrawing from consideration.

00:28:19.540 Don't even consider me. I'm not going to take the job. And I'll tell you why a woman of color 1.00

00:28:24.440 needs to be in all of those positions. I will cede my position, which I don't have to her.

00:28:32.000 You want to talk about heroism. There it was folks. You're welcome. Number five. Finally,

00:28:39.280 a report from the daily wire says flyers passed among members of the New York city police departments

00:28:44.860 NYPD are reportedly urging officers to go on strike on July 4th. The New York post reports that

00:28:50.400 multiple cops inform them that the flyers are retribution for police reform and a perceived

00:28:55.420 anti-cop climate following the outrage over high profile police killings of unarmed black men across

00:29:00.680 country. One text message that has been shared among police officers reads, NYPD cops will strike

00:29:05.400 on July 4th to let the city have their independence without cops. Cops that say we can't strike because

00:29:09.920 of the Taylor law, the people and the city doesn't honor us. Why honor them? And then it goes on from

00:29:17.100 there. So I don't know if this is actually going to happen or not, but you hear reports of this all

00:29:19.880 across the country of cops that are going on strike or will go on strike. And, you know, and I think

00:29:24.360 they should, this is one area I'm not, I'm not always in favor of or impressed by strikes, but

00:29:33.440 in this case, yeah, I think that if there was ever a time, if there was ever a time for a group of

00:29:39.540 people to go on strike, I think this is it. And I hope they do it. We're going to get to our daily

00:29:43.260 cancellation just a second before we do. If you're not a daily wire member, you should consider getting

00:29:49.120 a reader's pass to dailywire.com. Um, it's a great value for only $3 a month. And when you sign up,

00:29:55.920 you get that first month for only, um, 99 cents. And the thing is, you know, there's a lot of leftist

00:30:01.740 spin and, uh, you know, there's, there's a lot going on in the news. It's hard to know exactly

00:30:07.540 what to think of all these things and what the truth is. And that's why you need, um, a daily wire

00:30:15.040 pass. Uh, if you, uh, one of the, one of the articles, for example, that you could

00:30:20.800 read, if you get a reader's pass is a article I just wrote last week called it's time to face the

00:30:26.940 facts. We cannot be united. Um, kind of a depressing article. I've talked about it on this show. The fact

00:30:33.380 that I think unity is impossible in America at this point, and we are headed for some kind of

00:30:39.160 fracturing or break. I think that's almost inevitable at this point, but I make my case for that in that

00:30:43.300 article. If you get a reader's pass, you can read that. Um, and, uh, go to dailywire.com right now

00:30:49.380 and sign up. All right. Today for our daily cancellation, I'm, uh, canceling the mayor of

00:30:58.620 Oakland, mayor Libby Schaff. I think that's how you pronounce it. Some background here. A few days ago,

00:31:05.160 somebody was walking through a park in Oakland. They found some rope hanging in a tree, which they

00:31:10.440 interpreted immediately as a noose and as a hate crime. Here's the footage of that.

00:31:14.760 You could, you could sort of barely see some rope there. That's actually not a noose, but it is a

00:31:20.720 rope with like a little loop at the end. Um, it doesn't really look like a noose to me at all.

00:31:26.600 I see that. And I think of the context, it's in a park. The first thing I'm going to think is that

00:31:32.720 that was there for someone to like, there's probably something connected to that. And it was there as a

00:31:37.440 swing or some sort of activity. Um, you know, there was a, people were climbing the tree with it.

00:31:44.080 That, that looks exactly like the sort of thing I see in a tree, trees around my house, like where,

00:31:49.460 where my kids will put, put, you know, ropes and stuff and trees so they can climb and they can

00:31:53.760 make, uh, swings and all kinds of different things. That would be my first assumption.

00:32:00.320 And what do you know? That's exactly what it is. A guy named Victor, a black man,

00:32:05.660 put the rope there for kids to play on. There used to be a whole swing system for exercising and

00:32:11.540 for playing. And, um, and he put it up there. And in fact, here he is on camera explaining that he

00:32:18.120 put it there and why he put it there. You know, out of the dozens and hundreds and thousands of people that have walked by,

00:32:24.000 no one, you know, has thought that it looked anywhere close to a notice.

00:32:29.880 So there you go. There's nothing here. There's no hate crime, nothing. It is a hundred percent confirmed.

00:32:35.760 With zero doubt. That is, this is not a hate crime. It's a completely innocent and even, you know,

00:32:41.640 there's no hate crime, nothing. It is a hundred percent confirmed with zero doubt. That is, this is not a hate crime.

00:32:50.760 So there you go. There's nothing here. There's no hate crime, nothing. It is a hundred percent confirmed

00:32:59.840 with zero doubt. That is, this is not a hate crime. It's a completely innocent and even friendly act

00:33:06.940 by a black man who was on camera saying, not a hate crime folks. I just put it there for, you know,

00:33:13.060 you're, you're, you're wildly misinterpreting this. So let's all move on. Can we move on? No,

00:33:20.760 apparently we can't. The patrols will start around the clock here at Lake Merritt starting tonight

00:33:26.560 until Sunday. Organizers say they want to create a presence to ensure safety. We can organize ourselves

00:33:34.420 to take care of ourselves. That's what's happening tonight at Oakland's Lake Merritt. I'm going to be

00:33:39.160 behind you guys trailing. A group called Community Ready Corps is taking to the streets. Three to five

00:33:45.380 nooses that have been found hanging around the lake. Folks can't quite identify where they come from

00:33:51.680 and who did it. It all started Tuesday when someone spotted what appears to be a noose tied to a tree

00:33:58.620 branch on the Grand Avenue side of the lake. A Facebook video of that rope with the hashtag end

00:34:05.080 racism went viral. Mayor Libby Schaaf is condemning what she calls symbols of hate. These symbols are

00:34:12.240 symbols of racial violence and it's incumbent on all of us to have that sensitivity, to have that

00:34:18.320 knowledge. The mayor says even though there are claims, the ropes aren't nooses and were used for

00:34:24.800 exercise equipment that doesn't excuse the person who put them there. She is calling for a hate crime 0.96

00:34:31.180 investigation. A man shared this video with us telling us the ropes have been there for months

00:34:37.460 and there was no malicious intent behind them. That's not how the public feels about it tonight,

00:34:44.100 especially after two men found hanging from trees in Southern California were ruled suicides and are now

00:34:50.800 being investigated. For a noose to show up on Monday morning after two Black Lives Matters events

00:34:57.520 just seems far too coincidental. And for those who are patrolling, it is not acceptable. We have to

00:35:04.580 transition into systems of community safety. In Oakland, Cheryl Hurd, NBC Bay Area News. Yes, it is

00:35:11.520 100% confirmed that this is not a hate crime, but that's not how the public feels about it. They don't

00:35:16.900 feel that way. That's not how they feel. Their feelings are wrong. They were wrong in how they felt.

00:35:22.920 They felt a certain way. They interpreted a certain way. They're just wrong. That's it. You're just

00:35:27.720 wrong. People are wrong all the time. And this is one of those times. So you're wrong. Stop being

00:35:34.980 wrong. I don't know what to tell you. But the feelings. No, the feeling is what matters. Not the fact.

00:35:40.580 Not the reality. So they're going to go on patrols. They're setting up patrols because of a swing in a

00:35:49.140 tree. Did they say they're doing overnight patrols? I don't know if I wasn't really.

00:35:56.540 I was too depressed to pay very close attention. Are they setting up like overnight

00:36:00.440 sentries on the border?

00:36:06.000 Then, you know, the one person says it's not it's not a coincidence that these ropes showed up after a

00:36:10.640 Black Lives Matter protest. Well, you're right. It's not because they didn't show up after the

00:36:14.460 protest. They've been there for months. It's just that you just noticed it. But the truth doesn't

00:36:21.300 matter. The truth doesn't matter at all anymore. It makes no difference. Here's the mayor doing a

00:36:25.800 press conference about the swing. And keep in mind, as you listen to this, she knows that it's a swing.

00:36:32.940 And this is what she said.

00:36:34.660 The Oakland Police Department has turned over the evidence to the FBI. We have to start with the

00:36:41.020 assumption that these are hate crimes. We cannot take these actions lightly. These symbols are

00:36:47.860 symbols of racial violence. And it's incumbent on all of us to have that sensitivity, to have that

00:36:53.960 knowledge. And that is why I've directed our staff to remove any such symbol of hatred, regardless of

00:37:01.740 the intention of what put it there. What a privilege for those of us that don't feel complete fear and

00:37:09.160 terror when we see a rope in the tree. That is a privilege that so many of our African American

00:37:17.980 residents do not enjoy. You see an overwhelming amount of anguish, of rage, of fatigue, of grief.

00:37:31.200 And yes, the fact that we had an extremist charged with the murder of Patrick Underwood, an extremist

00:37:40.820 group, the Boogaloos, that is trying to ferment a race war. We have to see this moment for what it is, 0.98

00:37:51.180 a reckoning. And in Oakland, we cannot further terrorize or traumatize our black residents. And yes,

00:38:00.380 the incidence of the last few weeks, but frankly, of the last few centuries is the backdrop upon which

00:38:08.060 we have to make these decisions today. Enough is enough. And again, the intentions do not matter

00:38:16.060 because the harm is real. Okay. First of all, I want to note for the record that she did say that

00:38:21.740 extremists are trying to ferment hate. I don't think I misheard that. She did say ferment, didn't she?

00:38:27.120 So they're putting hate in like a big barrel and they're letting it ferment for a few days

00:38:32.240 to get that alcohol content. And then they're bottling it, selling it like moonshine on the

00:38:36.220 street. Fermented hate. Delicious. But of course, I shouldn't be surprised that this woman doesn't 1.00

00:38:42.560 know the difference between foment and ferment because she is, of course, profoundly, deeply,

00:38:47.540 impressively stupid. Notice at the beginning, she says, we have to start with the assumption

00:38:54.460 that it's a hate crime. Those were her actual words. Start, we have to start with the assumption

00:39:01.420 that it's a hate crime. No, no, we don't. No, Mayor. You see, that's exactly the opposite

00:39:07.140 of what we have to do. That's not, no. When something happens, you don't come in and say,

00:39:16.160 okay, everybody, calm down. Calm down. Let's just begin with the assumption that your worst

00:39:23.180 possible interpretation of this event is correct. Let's begin with that, okay? In order to clarify

00:39:27.880 things, imagine in your head what is the worst possible explanation and just assume that it's

00:39:33.080 true. No, that's not what you do. And in this particular case, when it comes to assumptions,

00:39:40.280 the assumption should be that it's there for a swing. That should be your assumption to begin with.

00:39:45.680 Because all you have to do, all you have to do is count how many swings are hanging in parks

00:39:51.700 versus how many racist nooses are hanging in parks. And I think that the ratio is probably

00:39:59.040 something like 80 billion to one, approximately, which means that your assumption should be that

00:40:05.040 it's a swing until evidence to the contrary emerges. And in this case, evidence for the swing

00:40:09.760 emerged. Evidence in the form of a black man saying, yep, it's first swing. I put it up. 0.99

00:40:14.300 And then this white woman goes on about what a privilege it is for people who aren't traumatized

00:40:21.500 by ropes. A black man put it there. You're saying that what? He's privileged? You're saying that the

00:40:31.140 black man put a swing up for kids because of his privilege? What are you babbling about?

00:40:37.560 And of course, the coup de grace at the end where she says, intentions don't matter.

00:40:45.880 Intentions don't matter. Yes, Libby. And I love that her name is actually Libby, by the way.

00:40:53.140 Libby the Lib. Yes, Libby. Intentions do matter. They're all that matter, actually. When it comes to

00:41:00.200 a hate crime, the only thing that matters is the intention. That's how you judge if a hate crime has

00:41:08.020 been committed or not. When it comes to a person's actions, when it comes to an action, a statement,

00:41:20.440 an event that can be interpreted in multiple ways, the only deciding factor is intention.

00:41:29.780 If somebody does something and you're not sure how to interpret it, what you do is you go to them and

00:41:37.160 say, why did you do that? And then they'll tell you and they'll say, oh, I did it because of this.

00:41:42.400 And that's it. Now, if they tell you that, oh, I did it because it's, you know, I, I, I'm trying to,

00:41:50.080 I'm a racist. I'm a Klan member. It'd be kind of, it'd be kind of odd for that particular gentleman to

00:41:55.000 say that. But, you know, because the other thing is like, if, if there's a racist group out there

00:42:02.780 that are planting nooses and trees, they, they would, I imagine like terrorists. Okay. Terrorists want you

00:42:11.440 to, when they commit an act of terrorism, they want you to know that it was terrorism and they're

00:42:15.840 going to claim credibility, credit for it because that's the whole point. They're trying to terrorize

00:42:20.840 you. And so if someone for a racist reason, put a noose in a tree to terrorize the community and

00:42:28.240 then someone else comes along and claims credit for it and says it was just a swing. Well, then the

00:42:31.940 person who put it there is going to come out and say, no, no, no, no, no. My point was to terrorize

00:42:35.480 you. Here's no, that's what that's. So be terrorized. I mean, words to that effect will

00:42:41.200 be communicated. So that's why when it comes to intention, um, attentions do matter. Number one.

00:42:48.720 And in order to know the intention, you have to ask someone. And when they tell you,

00:42:52.260 all you can do is just take them at their word. That's all you can do.

00:42:56.820 If I say something and you're not sure how to interpret it,

00:43:00.000 it sounds like it could be horrible or maybe it could go at, all you could do is say to me,

00:43:04.300 Matt, why'd you say that? And I'll gladly tell you, this is why I said it. This is what I was

00:43:09.660 trying to communicate. It doesn't make any sense for you to then say, you claim that's what you

00:43:15.880 meant, but I feel like you meant this other thing over here. So I'm just going to assume that that's

00:43:19.880 what you actually meant. What now you're a better authority on what was in my head than I am there.

00:43:27.780 When it comes to actions and intentions, there is only one authority on earth. There is only one

00:43:34.260 person on earth who is an authority and an absolute authority on that subject. And that is

00:43:39.480 the doer or the sayer, the doer of the deed or the sayer of the words. That is the, that is the one

00:43:44.640 absolute authority on planet earth on that subject. The only person who can speak to their own

00:43:51.160 intentions is the individual themselves. And once you hear them explain it, all you can do as a

00:43:56.160 thinking person is just accepted. Uh, but again, I mean, I, here I am trying to be reasonable and

00:44:04.320 explain and give arguments and everything. And it doesn't matter because we're way past the point of,

00:44:09.040 uh, of explanation or logic or rationality. And this is just blind hysteria.

00:44:16.920 Um, and that's why the mayor of Oakland is canceled. Like so many other mayors across

00:44:23.720 the country are canceled and really have just canceled themselves, I guess, by stepping back

00:44:27.000 and letting anarchy take over in their streets. So maybe it's a little bit redundant to cancel

00:44:30.380 them. We'll leave it there. Have a great day, everybody. Have a great weekend. We'll talk on

00:44:33.540 Monday. Godspeed.

00:44:34.380 Thank you.

00:45:04.380 Edited by Danny D'Amico. And our audio was mixed by Robin Fenderson.

00:45:09.200 The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production. Copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:45:13.840 If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by the brutal truth, and you can still laugh at the

00:45:18.560 insanity filling our national news cycle, well, tune in to the Ben Shapiro Show. We'll get a whole lot

00:45:23.120 of that and much more. See you there.

The Matt Walsh Show - June 19, 2020

Ep. 508 - The White Privilege Myth

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