Matt Walsh Breaks Down The Faulty Logic Behind Reparations [Weekly Walsh Original]
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
183.80957
Summary
After decades of racism, San Francisco officials voted unanimously to formalize an apology to the city s black residents. But is it enough, or is there still more to be done? And will the city ever move past its racism problem?
Transcript
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We've talked about reparations quite a few times on this show,
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and I wish there was a subject that we could move past,
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but the race hustlers, of course, will not allow it.
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In fact, that is, you might say, that the single objective of the race hustlers
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is to make sure that we never move past anything.
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And the announcement came in a press release which said the following,
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The commission, formed through legislation signed in December 2023,
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and is tasked with examining the legacy of slavery,
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subsequent discrimination against people of African descent,
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and the impact these forces continue to have in the present day.
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Through the work of this commission, our state can lead
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in what should be a national conversation about the truth of our past
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and the healing work required to create a more just future.
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Yes, well, that's what we need most of all, isn't it?
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A national conversation about all the bad things that happened in this country
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Now, you might think that we've already had that conversation.
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You might think that we've been having that conversation for years.
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You might think that we talk about our historical sins more than any country in the world
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or history has ever talked about their historical sins.
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You might think that our national self-esteem has sunk into subterranean levels
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and there's absolutely nothing to be gained by continuing to talk incessantly and exclusively
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about all of the terrible atrocities, whether real or imagined,
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You might think that our problem isn't our lack of focus on our flaws,
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but rather that we don't focus on anything but our flaws.
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You might think of all that, but that's because you are a normal, emotionally stable,
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Unfortunately, our country is not run by people like you.
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and that's how you end up with reparations commissions.
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Personally, I would probably enjoy seeing this proposal put into practice in San Francisco.
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Just let them put themselves out of their misery
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and embrace the final ruination of their city and community
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through this crazy, you know, harebrained scheme.
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But the mayor isn't quite insane enough to go along with it, so it hasn't happened.
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And instead, in lieu of making every black person in the city an instant Powerball winner,
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the city voted last week instead to just issue an apology.
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Today, San Francisco supervisors may take another step
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towards formally apologizing to the city's African-American people
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NBC Bay Area's Chris Sanchez joins us with the vote the supervisors will take up.
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Laura, this has been in the works for a while now,
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and the recommendation from the reparations committee is unanimous.
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We expect that the supervisors will approve and move forward with that formal apology,
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Well, that ought to do it. Now we can all move on.
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I have to say, although this apology is pointless and stupid,
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It's like promising your wife a trip to a tropical island for your anniversary,
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but instead you just give her a postcard with a picture of a tropical island on it.
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But in practice, that rarely turns out to be the case,
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this apology has not been entirely well received.
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A reparations expert says that San Francisco's apology to black residents
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won't mean anything if it's not backed with actions.
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Reparations are the redemptive act that makes the rhetoric of an apology meaningful.
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Reparations scholar Roy Brooks, a law professor at the University of San Diego,
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You can't just say you're sorry and walk away, Brooks added,
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San Francisco voted Tuesday to formally apologize to black residents
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All 11 of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors signed on as sponsors of the resolution
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to apologize for the city's complicity in systemic and structural discrimination.
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Although the city officials voted unanimously to formalize an apology,
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some slammed the measure before it passed as insufficient
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due to other reparations being put on hold due to budget issues.
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a member of the San Francisco Reparations Advisory Committee
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and the official who proposed for the city to formally pass the apology,
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An apology is just cotton candy rhetoric, Brown said.
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and that is the action of putting cold, hard cash into the Reverend's pocket.
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This is how you know that someone has been sincerely and genuinely harmed.
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You know, when you apologize to them and they say,
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no, it's not enough, nothing will ever heal my wounds,
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nothing but a briefcase with $5 million in cash.
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And speaking of which, as New York and San Francisco
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another viral video on the subject attempts to debunk objections to the reparations scheme.
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Here's how most white people respond to the idea of reparations for African Americans.
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We're not giving away free money just based on race.
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But every white person who is alive today is still benefiting from the transatlantic slave trade
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And every black person who is alive today is still being negatively impacted
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by the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery.
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It's not giving away free money to people based on their race.
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It's an overdue debt that has been owed for hundreds of years that has yet to be paid.
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Other cultures did not have chattel slavery where people were born into slavery in perpetuity
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with no way to get out of it and by no fault of their own and then terrorized.
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It's also about the white supremacist domestic terrorism against black people
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And also for the government-sanctioned violence, displacement, dehumanization,
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criminalization, and marginalization of black people ever since chattel slavery ended.
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But she shouldn't be proud of that shirt with the spiky shoulder pads.
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It's like something a Star Trek villain would wear.
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She should ask for reparations from whoever sold her that shirt.
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I'm not equipped to give fashion advice, of course.
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We're in the midst of Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter.
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Many Christians are choosing to give up alcohol, social media, and other distractions
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Hallow's annual Pray 40 Challenge is one of their most popular.
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This year's Pray 40 Challenge focuses on surrender
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and includes meditations on the powerful book, He Leadeth Me.
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This is a story about a priest who became a prisoner and slave
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and we're called to offer up our worries, anxieties, problems, and lives to God.
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There will also be Lent music, Lent-specific Bible stories,
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and other Lenten prayers like the Seven Last Words of Christ with Jim Caviezel.
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Hallow is truly transformative and will help you connect with your faith on a deeper level.
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Download the Hallow app at hallow.com slash mattwalsh.
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That's hallow.com slash mattwalsh for an exclusive three-month free trial
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As we know, everything she says in the video is false.
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It's not true that chattel slavery was unique to the Western world.
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This form of slavery existed all over the world,
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was practiced by non-white cultures for thousands of years.
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This is just the kind of thing that if I already,
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if I didn't already have zero faith in the education system,
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I would find this very troubling that this, I mean, anyone could think this.
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given the ubiquity of slavery across the world for so many centuries,
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then we should by all rights have 30 different reparations programs
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to cover everyone whose ancestors were negatively impacted by it,
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If it's true that people can be owed restitution for the legacy of harm
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that impacts them in unspecified and unknowable ways today,
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then again, reparations should come in many forms.
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But of course, you know, when you think about it,
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you realize that indeed the reparations mentality does come in many forms.
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The basic idea behind reparations is that a person is owed something from society
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because of the theoretical disadvantages that they experience.
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Slavery reparations is just one manifestation of that spiritual sickness.
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Indeed, our culture and our politics is driven by this mentality.
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So just yesterday, we talked about programs in cities across the country
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that give no-strings-attached cash payments to disadvantaged people.
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Cash payments that, as we read, are often used on spa treatments
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And this was not, you know, framed as slavery reparations,
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We're giving people money that they didn't earn because, for some reason,
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in some way that no one can explain, they are owed it.
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Now, if you go up to a person like this and you ask them to tell you about their goals,
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about their ambitions, about their deepest longings,
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and if you ask them that, they probably wouldn't be able to answer the question.
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They wouldn't be able to tell you what their goals are, what they want to accomplish.
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But if you ask them to list all of the ways that their lives are unfair,
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You know, I could tell you for six hours about that.
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And this is the worst thing about reparations in all of its forms.
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It's not that the schemes are always economically suicidal, though they are.
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It's rather that they feed and encourage a mentality that dooms people to lives of discontentment and envy.
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A life spent waiting for someone else to come along and give you what you think you are owed.
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When in reality, you're not owed anything at all.
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Nobody is in debt to you simply because you exist.
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Does that mean that you haven't been negatively impacted by things that have happened to you,
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and even things that happened to your ancestors generations ago?
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Whoever buys me, they better kill me the first day.
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I'm going to go buck wild on the whole operation.
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If you're a person, there have been bad things that have happened to you.
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And bad things happen to your ancestors, whoever you are.
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And some of those bad things may even reverberate today.
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Regardless, your history is what it is, or was what it was, we should say.
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If things were different, you could be in a better place.
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As we've covered before, you could not even exist at all.
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And when this thought exercise becomes the animating force of your entire life,
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when this idea that you could have it better if only this and that thing hadn't happened in the past,
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then it becomes incredibly harmful because it's preventing you from living actively and proactively.
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If you want to make your life better, then go make it better.
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Stop waiting for someone else to do it for you.
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And it's why reparations, in all of its many diverse forms, is today canceled.