The Megyn Kelly Show - Daryl Davis on Getting KKK Members to Leave the Klan, Policing in America, and Lacking Bitterness ｜ Ep. 106

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00:00:31.120 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.360 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.620 Today, Daryl Davis.

00:00:48.060 He is an R&B musician, very successful, very well-traveled.

00:00:53.380 He is a pro-human activist.

00:00:56.540 This is a guy who's immersed himself in the Klan as a black man.

00:01:01.940 I use the term deprogramming Klansman.

00:01:04.300 He doesn't use that term, but you'll understand what I'm after there.

00:01:09.060 Over and over and over, he's been successful in convincing,

00:01:12.820 showing people a different way of looking at race that leads them to leave the Klan.

00:01:18.400 I mean, hundreds.

00:01:19.740 When you hear what he's done, you're not going to believe it.

00:01:21.440 He's the author of a book called Klandestine with a K, K-L, and Destine Relationships,

00:01:27.480 a black man's odyssey in the KKK.

00:01:29.480 And he's the host of a successful podcast called Changing Minds, the appropriately named Changing

00:01:34.080 Minds.

00:01:34.900 And star of the documentary Accidental Courtesy, Daryl Davis Race in America, which is well worth

00:01:40.760 your time.

00:01:41.520 If you're sitting around one day and you know how, like, you watch bad TV, find this instead,

00:01:45.580 Accidental Courtesy, Daryl Davis Race in America, because it sort of explains his journey.

00:01:50.500 And they've got all these Klansmen on there talking about Daryl and their own thoughts,

00:01:53.860 and it's crazy stuff.

00:01:55.800 And he's been immersed in this whole thing since the time he was a very young child.

00:02:00.260 So you're going to love him and the way he looks at life and what he's done, his courage.

00:02:05.400 He's coming up in one second.

00:02:06.700 We're going to start kicking off with a little bit of music.

00:02:09.860 And before we get to Daryl and his music and his thoughts on life, this.

00:02:15.140 I'm going back to the country Lord, that's where I belong

00:02:26.540 When you wake up, city girl This country, boy, we go home

00:02:32.180 I'm going to pack my clothes And I won't even say goodbye

00:02:40.260 Honey, you know how I hate To see a city girl cry 1.00

00:02:45.860 Yes, Daryl Davis, the one and only.

00:02:52.040 Talented in so many ways.

00:02:53.640 So glad to have you here.

00:02:55.520 Thank you, Miss Kelly.

00:02:56.320 Really appreciate it.

00:02:57.340 I'm excited.

00:02:58.160 And that got us all stomping our feet and sort of shaking our heads and ready for a great exchange.

00:03:03.660 Can we just start on the music?

00:03:05.280 Because I love your background.

00:03:08.560 And I can't believe you've actually played with Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis.

00:03:16.540 First of all, you don't seem old enough to have done all that.

00:03:18.520 Did you start playing in the cradle or what?

00:03:20.780 I wish.

00:03:21.960 No, I started after college.

00:03:25.720 I was a late bloomer, but I didn't play with Elvis.

00:03:28.260 I saw him many times and I met him, but I played with his band after he died in some tribute shows.

00:03:34.540 But I worked with Chuck Berry for 32 years.

00:03:36.440 Because, you know, I mean, originally as a kid, I always had in mind that I was either going to be a spy or a computer programmer.

00:03:43.480 And, you know, yeah, James Bond was my hero.

00:03:46.600 And back then, computers, you know, were as big as your office, you know, cafeteria or something.

00:03:52.760 Yeah.

00:03:52.980 And I knew, you know, they would get smaller in size and that's where the money was.

00:03:57.340 And each vocation was pulling at me in opposite directions with equal force.

00:04:01.180 So I couldn't go either way.

00:04:02.760 And then somehow I made a left turn, went to a concert.

00:04:06.080 I saw Chuck.

00:04:06.940 I saw Elvis.

00:04:08.240 I decided, you know, that's what I want to do.

00:04:10.160 So originally I was self-taught, taught myself how to play by ear.

00:04:13.780 And then I bought books, taught myself how to read music and went and auditioned for college.

00:04:19.320 And by a stroke of luck, I was accepted and graduated four years later.

00:04:24.500 And here I am, a touring musician.

00:04:27.060 Wow.

00:04:27.560 How many instruments do you play?

00:04:29.940 Um, proficiently piano.

00:04:31.820 I play some guitar and I sing.

00:04:33.940 Okay.

00:04:34.400 Yeah, I've seen you on the piano.

00:04:35.720 But it seems like most musicians who play piano can also do some guitar.

00:04:39.260 And they seem like easily transferable for some reason.

00:04:42.180 So what, can you just take us back to that?

00:04:44.220 Like in your movie, which I want to get to in a minute.

00:04:46.580 But they talk about, there's somebody in there saying, you know, Elvis is the king of rock and roll.

00:04:50.440 Elvis invented rock and roll.

00:04:51.740 And you were like, are you serious?

00:04:53.800 And gave him a little lesson about Chuck Berry.

00:04:56.480 So can you just take us back to that time and how music was evolving and what you saw?

00:05:01.620 Sure.

00:05:02.120 Well, you know, um, rock and roll evolved out of people like Chuck Berry taking elements of country, of blues and boogie woogie and combining it and putting a backbeat to it.

00:05:14.180 Before Chuck Berry, there was no backbeat to the music.

00:05:17.120 It was swung, swung and shuffled.

00:05:19.420 And so, uh, you know, Elvis, uh, came out and, and, uh, back then, you know, white radio stations would not play black records.

00:05:27.720 Most of them, there were a few that would.

00:05:29.660 And in order to, to, uh, to sell records, people have to hear the records and they hear them on the radio.

00:05:35.560 And of course, back in the day, they had to leave their house, go to the record store and get it.

00:05:39.540 It wasn't like, you know, just go on, go online and download the song back then.

00:05:43.680 So, uh, it was very hard for, for, you know, black artists to, uh, to make a lot of money because the radio stations weren't playing their records.

00:05:52.140 And the black radio stations did not have the wattage, uh, that the white stations did to, uh, to broadcast all across the state and on in, into other states before, you know, the FCC put, uh, you know, guidelines as to how much wattage, you know, they could use.

00:06:07.160 So what, what, what are we talking here?

00:06:08.720 Fifties, sixties?

00:06:09.940 The fifties.

00:06:10.300 Yeah.

00:06:10.520 The fifties at the, at the birth of rock and roll.

00:06:13.420 And then, uh, so then white artists, uh, black, I mean, white kids began gravitating towards that music.

00:06:20.760 You know, they were tired of hearing how much is that doggie in the window and, you know, that their parents were listening.

00:06:27.440 Exactly.

00:06:28.240 And, you know, they want to hear whop, bop, a blue, bop, a lot, bam, boom, you know, and the stuff that was happening on the other side of the railroad tracks.

00:06:34.700 So they gravitated that way.

00:06:36.620 Well, the powers that be, uh, decided to pull them back by putting in a white artists playing those songs, singing those songs like Pat Boone, for example, singing a fast dominant. 0.82

00:06:48.840 Yeah. Singing Tutti Frutti and, and Blueberry Hill and all these, uh, great rock and roll hits in order to pull the, uh, the white kids back. 0.98

00:06:56.560 But then along comes Elvis Presley and Elvis, you know, Pat, don't get me wrong.

00:07:01.920 Pat Boone's a great balladeer, but he is not a rock and roll singer.

00:07:06.240 Elvis had it going on.

00:07:07.320 Yeah.

00:07:07.640 Elvis had it going on.

00:07:08.900 He had everything.

00:07:09.740 And, uh, so, and that's why he was so controversial back then.

00:07:14.020 Uh, even, uh, the white parents that would hear him on the radio thought he was black, uh, because of the way he sounded and he was doing this black music.

00:07:23.020 So the DJ had to call him into the station and say, you know, so Elvis, you know, uh, how old are you?

00:07:29.100 19, sir.

00:07:30.060 What high school do you go to Elvis?

00:07:31.600 I go to Humes high school, sir.

00:07:33.320 Well, that right there told the parents that this man was white because of course, back then, uh, you know, schools were segregated and Humes high school was the white school in Memphis, Tennessee.

00:07:42.700 So that, that kind of calmed parents down a little bit until they saw him on TV, wiggling his knees, you know, and so hips going exactly.

00:07:53.220 And all of that came from Chuck Berry, from little Richard, from Bo Diddley, uh, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Bill Haley in the comments, Buddy Holly, all these other great musicians were able to popularize it, but they did not invent it.

00:08:06.620 And of course, you know, once, once, um, once they figured out how much money Elvis generated from playing this music, they, you know, once they hated him, now they're appointing him king of rock and roll and saying that he invented it.

00:08:21.560 Yeah, that's right.

00:08:22.460 But, but did, would you say then that he helped open the door in a way to these other guys becoming more popular because they weren't, they weren't getting airplay prior to him?

00:08:31.320 Absolutely.

00:08:32.040 No question about it.

00:08:33.020 He, he, he popularized it more than anybody else.

00:08:36.020 I remember growing up in the 1970s and Elvis movies were everywhere, both before and after his alleged death.

00:08:46.540 My friends were conspiracy theories about it.

00:08:49.360 And, um, you know,

00:08:50.460 You saw him in Burger King?

00:08:51.940 You know, there's been a couple of randos.

00:08:53.840 You never know.

00:08:54.640 Hope Springs Eternal in Vegas many times.

00:08:57.120 Um, and I mean, every little girl was in love with him because he was so good looking.

00:09:02.000 I mean, I speak pretty much of young, thin Elvis, um, but he was, there was an appeal when he was older too.

00:09:07.900 And, you know, it was just like between the movies and everything.

00:09:10.540 That's sort of how you got to know your parents' music, right?

00:09:13.840 In this 1970s, which is a great decade for music.

00:09:16.900 On television, you were seeing more of that genre and Jerry Lee Lewis.

00:09:21.380 Uh, I would say even back then though, not so much Chuck Berry, right?

00:09:24.480 I, I, I think it took a while for black music to catch up overall in the music industry and the mainstream.

00:09:30.880 Yeah.

00:09:31.200 And I mean, even, even later on than that, in the eighties, when MTV came out, they did not put black artists on there.

00:09:38.060 Uh, they only put one on there for a long time.

00:09:40.720 That was Michael Jackson.

00:09:42.080 Yeah.

00:09:42.340 I was going to say Michael Jackson, who couldn't be avoided.

00:09:44.360 I mean, he was just one of the greatest talents we've ever had.

00:09:47.740 Right.

00:09:48.380 Indeed.

00:09:48.800 So, so how did you do in the music scene?

00:09:51.660 Did you, did you in the early days have any trouble getting booked?

00:09:55.380 Was race a factor at all for you?

00:09:56.960 Or was it just all about the music?

00:09:58.160 If you were good, you got booked.

00:09:59.120 If you weren't, you didn't.

00:10:00.540 No, I mean, I, I got booked quite a bit.

00:10:02.880 Um, but yes, race was, was definitely a factor.

00:10:05.640 You know, I remember going to a club and, uh, I went to see a country band and, um, I came in there, you know, and they were playing and the people were dancing and I'd ask people, you know, if they would, you know, if I could dance with them.

00:10:18.900 And they were like, no, you know, they didn't want to dance with me.

00:10:20.780 Uh, well, one of the people in the band recognized me and asked me on the break, if I wanted to sit in and I said, sure.

00:10:27.500 So I got up there and I played some country songs with them on the keyboard, you know, the keyboard player stepped aside for a moment.

00:10:33.340 And, uh, when I came off, then everybody wanted to dance with me and the club owner came over to me and asked me, you know, if I had a band and I said, yeah.

00:10:42.320 And he said, you know, I'd like to book you.

00:10:44.520 And so he takes me to his office, puts out his calendar.

00:10:48.420 And back then, you know, we used to carry like little notebooks, you know, we didn't have cell phones with calendars on them and write down these dates.

00:10:54.260 And after he gives me several dates, you know, right on the spot, he says to me, um, do you have a mixed band?

00:11:02.140 Now, when he said, I'm a little naive, right?

00:11:04.540 So when he said that, I'm thinking, you know, is it male and female, like, you know, female vocalists?

00:11:09.260 No, you know, and, um, I, I described, I said, no, you know, I got five guys, but I can bring in a, uh, a female vocalist if you like.

00:11:16.720 He goes, no, no, no, no.

00:11:17.940 How many blacks, how many whites?

00:11:20.240 And, um, I said, well, it varies depending upon who I hire for the night.

00:11:24.120 He goes, well, try to keep it, you know, more white or, you know, or, or mixed, you know, half and half. 0.90

00:11:30.260 Wait, what state, what state was this in and what year was this in?

00:11:33.240 We're talking Maryland, um, Maryland, right outside of Washington, D.C.

00:11:38.260 And, and, um, this was in 19, I would say 82, 1982.

00:11:45.520 Wow.

00:11:46.720 And because he was afraid that his customers would not like, you know, a predominantly black band.

00:11:51.760 Now, back then, the, the Moose Lodge, uh, had, had a rule.

00:11:56.960 It was a written rule.

00:11:58.420 No blacks were allowed in the Moose Lodge, not as guests, not as members, nothing.

00:12:04.960 And I was, I was working with another band at the time before I had my own.

00:12:09.200 And, um, they got booked into the Moose Lodge.

00:12:12.040 Um, and so about two weeks before the gig, the, uh, the, the governor of the Moose approached

00:12:20.580 the band leader or called him and said, Hey, you know, all my members know Daryl, you know,

00:12:24.600 they've seen him play before and they all like him.

00:12:26.520 And, but however, you know, we have a rule.

00:12:29.060 We can't, we can't allow him in here.

00:12:30.820 Can, um, can you bring a white piano player?

00:12:33.580 And the band leader said, no, where we go, Daryl goes.

00:12:36.820 So the Moose Lodge in Rockville, Maryland rented an outside facility.

00:12:43.280 Oh no.

00:12:44.000 Yeah.

00:12:44.720 Just to have the band.

00:12:47.220 And now I'll tell you a funny story.

00:12:49.140 So you could get in so that you were there, but you weren't actually in the Lodge.

00:12:52.680 Is that the thinking?

00:12:54.280 Precisely.

00:12:54.920 Precisely.

00:12:55.360 Oh my God.

00:12:55.840 I mean, he, he was just following, you know, the rules or whatever.

00:12:59.020 Uh, so, you know, we, you know, we did the gig and then, um, oh, I don't know, maybe

00:13:03.960 eight, 10 months later, uh, we're the same band.

00:13:08.340 We're doing the Elks Lodge and the Elks Lodge didn't care, you know, what color you were.

00:13:12.080 They didn't have those rules, but a lot of members of the Moose are also members of the

00:13:15.980 Elks.

00:13:16.660 And so a lot of those same people were there.

00:13:19.080 It was some kind of bowling league tournament for the Elks Lodge.

00:13:21.640 And we were on break and the governor of the Moose walks over to me and he says, Hey,

00:13:26.640 Daryl, can I talk to you for a second?

00:13:28.460 And I said, sure.

00:13:29.960 And I just remained sitting in my chair and he kind of like stood there.

00:13:33.120 So it indicated to me, he wouldn't talk to me in private.

00:13:35.600 So I got up and I walked with him and he apologized for what happened, you know, at the Moose

00:13:40.260 Lodge.

00:13:40.480 He says, you know, but I'm working on it.

00:13:41.640 I'm going to, I'm going to get you in there.

00:13:43.240 And I'm thinking to myself, you know, I could care less about whether I get into the Moose

00:13:47.320 Lodge or not.

00:13:48.200 You know, it's not going to make me or break me.

00:13:50.180 But the funny thing is he didn't know at the time I was running around with his daughter.

00:13:56.660 Wait, this is a white man.

00:13:57.880 And so he has no idea that you're dating his daughter.

00:14:00.760 Yeah.

00:14:01.300 I mean, I wasn't dating her exclusively, but you know, we were very good friends.

00:14:04.600 Used to hang out a lot.

00:14:05.500 That's spectacular.

00:14:06.860 I didn't even know there was a Moose Lodge.

00:14:08.400 I knew about the Elks.

00:14:08.940 Why is everybody naming their lodges after Montana animals?

00:14:11.860 Like what's next?

00:14:12.760 Big horn sheep lot.

00:14:14.880 The bear lodge.

00:14:16.560 Yeah.

00:14:16.900 Your guess is as good as mine.

00:14:19.340 I never heard of them.

00:14:20.600 So, you know, when I'm listening to you talk about this, one thing I'm taking away is I

00:14:25.680 don't I don't sense bitterness.

00:14:27.060 And that's one of my main takeaways in watching Accidental Courtesy.

00:14:30.960 I sense no bitterness.

00:14:32.280 And when I watch scenes in that movie in which people are talking to you, Klansmen, or even

00:14:38.080 some of the fights you had with some BLM activists, I was getting angry.

00:14:42.020 I'm getting angry.

00:14:43.220 Yeah.

00:14:44.160 You don't seem to wind up in that place.

00:14:47.480 How is that?

00:14:48.380 Like, do you are you just really good at controlling your anger or does it not surge in you in the

00:14:53.020 way it does in a lot of us?

00:14:54.300 Well, yes, to both of those questions.

00:14:56.640 But let me give you just a little bit of background.

00:14:59.180 You know, my parents are U.S.

00:15:00.640 Foreign Service.

00:15:01.580 So I was an American embassy brat and I'm 63 years old now.

00:15:05.720 I began traveling around the world at the age of three.

00:15:09.020 You go to a country.

00:15:10.060 You're there for two years.

00:15:11.540 You come back home here to the States, the State Department, and you're here for a few

00:15:16.180 months, maybe a year.

00:15:17.460 And then you're back overseas again for two years in another country, back and forth,

00:15:20.780 back and forth.

00:15:21.480 I did that throughout my formative years.

00:15:24.020 My first exposure to school was at the age of three, you know, kindergarten, preschool,

00:15:30.220 and then first grade, third grade, fifth grade, seventh grade.

00:15:33.180 And my class, we're talking, you know, the 1960s, my classes were filled with kids from

00:15:41.760 all over the world, Nigerian, Italian, French, German, Swedish, Russian, Japanese, whoever

00:15:47.360 had an embassy in those countries, all of their children went to the same school.

00:15:51.960 So to me, that was the norm.

00:15:53.580 That was my baseline, right?

00:15:55.280 If you were to open the door to my classroom, you would say, oh, you know, this looks like

00:15:58.620 the United Nations of little kids, because that's exactly what it was.

00:16:02.820 But every time I'd come back home here to my own country, I would either be in all black 0.65

00:16:07.640 schools or black and white schools, meaning the still segregated or the newly integrated.

00:16:13.200 Even though desegregation was passed by the Supreme Court in 1954, you know, it didn't just

00:16:18.860 happen overnight.

00:16:19.860 Sometimes it took a decade or so for it to happen.

00:16:23.140 But anyway, so I was not accustomed to this separation of people.

00:16:28.620 You know, I don't know if you were, you know, because you're kind of young.

00:16:31.560 I don't know.

00:16:31.920 Do you remember black and white TV?

00:16:34.100 Of course.

00:16:34.900 Yeah.

00:16:35.500 I, we had it in my, at my Nana's house for a while.

00:16:39.000 Well, there you go.

00:16:39.720 I mean, growing up in the seventies, there was still a hangover when it came to the black 0.99

00:16:43.800 and white televisions.

00:16:45.140 It like, it like opened up a whole new dimension and widened your perspective when it went from

00:16:49.320 black and white to color TV.

00:16:51.640 And it was great.

00:16:52.620 Well, my coming home from overseas back to the, back, back to this country was just the

00:16:58.500 opposite.

00:16:58.980 It went from color to black and white because, you know, we did not have the diversity in

00:17:04.400 the classroom here in this country in the early sixties that I had overseas.

00:17:08.500 So just black kids and white kids here, you know, very few Hispanic, very few Asian kids

00:17:12.800 in the classroom.

00:17:14.060 Today you walk into a classroom, you know, it's, you know, the United Nations again.

00:17:17.440 So I was living practically 10 years ahead of my time when I was overseas.

00:17:23.460 And even though we came from different countries, spoke different languages, looked different,

00:17:27.860 we all got along.

00:17:29.780 We played together, worked together, had slumber parties together, all that kind of thing.

00:17:34.640 And so when I came back here and saw all this separation, I couldn't understand it because

00:17:39.620 I knew it worked.

00:17:40.760 I knew it worked because I lived it, you know?

00:17:43.640 And so I think-

00:17:45.060 Yeah, exactly.

00:17:45.880 And so I think, you know, that has a strong element of how I am.

00:17:52.160 You know, when you ask me, how do I remain calm and these kinds of things, because I know

00:17:56.540 it works and I realize many of the people that I'm talking to, whether they're BLM, whether

00:18:02.480 they're Klan or neo-Nazi, outright, whatever, they have not had those experiences.

00:18:08.120 So they're only reacting to what they know.

00:18:11.440 And it doesn't make me a better person because I've traveled more.

00:18:14.400 You know, as a kid, I traveled around the world.

00:18:17.020 Now, as a musician, I travel around the world.

00:18:19.060 When you combine those two travels, childhood and adulthood, I've been to 57 countries on

00:18:25.020 six continents.

00:18:25.960 I've played in 49 of our 50 states.

00:18:28.060 So I've experienced a multitude of ethnicities, colors of skin, ideologies, persuasions, religions,

00:18:36.420 et cetera.

00:18:37.140 And all of that has helped shape who I've become.

00:18:39.360 And I know we can get along.

00:18:41.220 So when people have not experienced that, you know, they don't have that capacity to

00:18:46.520 see it.

00:18:47.180 It doesn't make me a better person.

00:18:48.720 It just gives me a broader perspective.

00:18:50.660 And that's why I don't get angry for somebody not having what I've had.

00:18:54.560 Wow.

00:18:55.460 Well, I mean, we're going to have to talk more about how to control that, because I

00:18:58.280 would say as a as an Irish woman, I don't I feel it, you know, and then somebody's going

00:19:05.260 to get it.

00:19:05.780 And I just yeah.

00:19:06.360 But I admired how in the face of someone insulting you, someone saying deeply racist

00:19:11.880 things right to you, you just maintained your cool.

00:19:14.700 And it didn't even seem hard.

00:19:16.200 It seemed like came naturally to you.

00:19:17.600 Well, you know, I know who I am.

00:19:20.380 If my parents were to say some of those things to me, perhaps I would, you know, take heed

00:19:25.220 because, you know, they brought me into this world.

00:19:26.900 They know me better than anybody else.

00:19:28.480 But somebody just walking in the room and seeing my black skin is going to call me lazy,

00:19:32.740 criminal and worthless and whatever else, you know, hurt people hurt people.

00:19:37.260 So somebody doing that is obviously very hurt themselves.

00:19:40.280 And they want to reach out and hurt somebody else.

00:19:42.500 You know, misery loves company.

00:19:43.580 So I keep my emotions behind me.

00:19:45.940 I know who I am going into that room.

00:19:48.720 And if you don't know who you are before you go in, you've got no business going in because

00:19:52.940 they will tell you who you are and you might leave there believing them. 0.75

00:19:57.120 You know, this is what this is what's so frustrating about our society right now.

00:20:01.040 The extraordinary focus on race as the be all end all defining trait of all humans and the 0.96

00:20:08.080 teachings in schools that you are an oppressor if your skin is white, you are the oppressed 0.78

00:20:12.440 if your skin is black and locate yourself on the oppression matrix for all the white people.

00:20:17.520 It's like we're we're, of course, as you know, going away from the principle of try to be

00:20:23.960 colorblind or don't make race the defining characteristic of your life.

00:20:29.240 Right.

00:20:29.420 You know, we should not make race the defining characteristic of anyone, you know, their their

00:20:34.520 whole life or any part of their life.

00:20:36.120 You know, we strive we should strive to, as Martin Luther King said, you know, be judged

00:20:41.700 on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

00:20:44.940 And I think, you know, there are some schools that do that, others that don't do that.

00:20:49.440 And that's where, you know, where the problem comes in.

00:20:52.840 Yes.

00:20:53.380 You know, there is a lot of racism in this country.

00:20:55.540 There's no denying it, no turning a blind eye to it.

00:20:58.300 It's definitely here.

00:21:00.180 All right.

00:21:00.480 It's we've come a long ways, but we still have a very long ways to go.

00:21:04.680 And this is not the way to address it by making, you know, race what first of all, I believe

00:21:10.260 there's only one race, the human race.

00:21:11.840 And, you know, the races, black, white, Asian, et cetera, are manmade constructs. 1.00

00:21:16.580 But we should not use that to define somebody's mental ability or their traits or profile them

00:21:24.280 that way.

00:21:25.140 I think the vast majority of parents just don't want race to become such a huge focus.

00:21:29.600 They're worried about creating racism against their kids, in their kids, right?

00:21:34.960 It's just the messaging is very damaging.

00:21:37.660 Yeah, I agree with you.

00:21:38.860 But I think that, you know, demonizing people because of what happened, you know, hundreds

00:21:44.640 of years ago is wrong.

00:21:47.600 You know, no one today is to blame for what happened long before they were even born.

00:21:52.400 But it needs to be taught what did happen and what is still going on in our country so that

00:21:58.540 it can be addressed.

00:21:59.280 We can't turn a blind eye to it.

00:22:00.800 Like, for example, you might remember the state of Texas, I understand some other states,

00:22:05.920 tried to remove the word slave from the history books and wanted to replace it with immigrant

00:22:13.820 workers was the term.

00:22:15.920 And there was a big time.

00:22:16.640 I do not remember that.

00:22:17.640 Oh, yeah.

00:22:18.200 Yeah.

00:22:18.540 Look that up.

00:22:19.120 All the textbooks in Texas public schools were changing the term slavery to immigrant workers.

00:22:27.040 And it kicked up a storm and they had to recall all those books and reprint them.

00:22:32.140 OK, but let me ask you this, because that's that's insanity.

00:22:35.140 That's just and it's just factually inaccurate on top of that.

00:22:38.900 Um, but I don't see that as a massive problem in terms of our textbooks.

00:22:43.700 What I see is a massive problem right now is this infiltration of critical race theory where,

00:22:48.360 you know, you've got schools.

00:22:50.420 It used to be this sort of one off thing that was lived mainly in universities and obscure

00:22:56.460 academic journals.

00:22:57.540 And now it's becoming the default ideology in in our in our public schools, in our private

00:23:03.280 schools, in our universities, of course, in our corporations and so on.

00:23:07.020 And when you look at what they're actually teaching kids, it's it's downright disturbing

00:23:11.460 and really divisive there.

00:23:14.660 There I'll just give you one example, because this one I talked about on Bill Maher.

00:23:17.500 But in Buffalo, New York, the the the public schools there in kindergarten, the children

00:23:25.580 are first being asked to compare their skin color with an arrangement of crayons.

00:23:29.940 This is from Chris Rufo's reporting an arrangement of crayons.

00:23:33.180 And then they watch a video that drum dramatizes dead black children speaking to them from beyond

00:23:39.900 the grave about the dangers of being killed by racist police and state sanctioned violence.

00:23:45.320 By fifth grade, students are taught that America has created a school to grave pipeline

00:23:50.160 for black children and that as adults, one million black people are locked in cages. 0.97

00:23:55.580 Now, to me, that's insanity.

00:23:58.520 You don't show videos like that to kindergartners and and just the messaging in general is us

00:24:04.920 versus them.

00:24:05.780 It's it's pitting whites against blacks on the oppression matrix and on the you know, 0.60

00:24:13.260 the whites are the dominant culture that, you know, you have to learn how to be a white 0.92

00:24:17.320 abolitionist if you really want to be an ally to your black friends. 0.94

00:24:21.480 Meanwhile, they abolish the requirement to turn in homework on time in places like San

00:24:25.660 Diego because they think homework on time is racist, that they're they're taught.

00:24:30.760 That's another place in San Diego.

00:24:31.680 Teachers are being taught whites are directly responsible for the plight of, quote, dark

00:24:35.140 children.

00:24:35.600 And in my school that I pulled my boys from, they were the message was, and I quote, in 0.79

00:24:41.940 every school where white children learn, there is a future killer cop. 0.90

00:24:46.380 This stuff is madness and it has to stop. 0.98

00:24:51.260 It's becoming widespread and widely accepted.

00:24:53.760 Yeah, I've heard that.

00:24:55.540 I've heard that that definition before as well.

00:24:58.340 And I've heard other definitions of critical race theory that seem to be somewhat along

00:25:03.740 those lines, but just the opposite, where it's being supported by, you know, by white

00:25:08.340 supremacists or people of that of that mindset.

00:25:11.140 Well, they're two sides of the same coin.

00:25:13.360 Exactly.

00:25:14.300 Exactly.

00:25:16.380 So how did Daryl get connected with the Klan?

00:25:19.200 How does one meet a Klansman and start exposing them to new ideas?

00:25:23.700 He spent his life doing it.

00:25:24.860 So we'll find out right after this.

00:25:28.340 Can we talk about how you came to take this on?

00:25:31.580 Because I haven't known a lot of Klan-D programmers in my time, but that's what I think you are. 1.00

00:25:37.940 You know, that's one of your many gifts.

00:25:39.720 It goes back to your ability to hold your temper, to talk to people, talk to anybody, and to

00:25:45.520 you've devoted your life to effecting change, to finding common ground.

00:25:49.640 How did this first come about?

00:25:51.840 Okay.

00:25:52.080 Well, at the age of 10, I had just returned home from overseas with my parents.

00:25:58.340 Uh, on one of their assignments.

00:26:00.480 And, um, I was in an all white school with another black kid in second grade.

00:26:05.220 I was in fourth grade.

00:26:06.660 And I, so all of my friends were, you know, white and in fourth grade.

00:26:09.720 And, uh, a lot of my guy friends had joined the Cub Scouts and they invited me to join.

00:26:14.380 This is 1968.

00:26:16.040 And so I joined the Cub Scouts and we had a parade, um, in which I was the only black scout

00:26:23.340 in this parade.

00:26:23.840 The Girl Scouts, Brownies, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, 4-H club, et cetera.

00:26:27.460 And people were smiling and cheering us and waving.

00:26:30.700 Everything was going on fine until we got to a certain point, uh, on this parade route

00:26:35.400 when suddenly I was getting hit with, uh, bottles and soda pop cans and small rocks by just a

00:26:41.500 small group of white spectators off to my right on the sidewalk.

00:26:45.340 And having never experienced this, I had no idea why they were doing this to me.

00:26:50.580 At first I thought, oh, you know, those people over there don't like the Scouts.

00:26:53.600 I didn't realize I was the only scout getting hit, right?

00:26:56.100 Yeah, that's how naive I was.

00:26:57.560 But see, that comes from, from my growing up in that multicultural environment, right?

00:27:01.460 I didn't experience racism.

00:27:03.400 So anyway, it wasn't until my den mother and my Cub Master and troop leader all came running over

00:27:09.300 and huddled over me with their bodies and escorted me out of the danger.

00:27:12.780 And I kept saying, what did I do?

00:27:14.620 I didn't do anything to them.

00:27:15.600 And all they would do is shush me and rush me along and telling me everything's going

00:27:19.840 to be okay.

00:27:20.400 So they never told me why this was happening.

00:27:22.380 And I had no clue.

00:27:23.860 And when I got home at the end of the parade and stuff, my mom and dad who were not, you

00:27:30.700 know, at the parade, they were putting band-aids on me and asking me, how did I fall down

00:27:35.360 and get all scraped up?

00:27:36.620 And I told them I didn't fall down.

00:27:38.380 I told them exactly what had happened.

00:27:40.060 And for the first time in my life, my mom and dad sat me down and explained to me what

00:27:46.840 racism was.

00:27:47.800 Now, believe it or not, at the age of 10, I had never heard the word racism.

00:27:53.820 I mean, there was no reason for me to, you know, that was not in my, in my sphere.

00:27:58.060 And when they told me this, I did not believe-

00:28:01.260 This is again a man who was born, what, 19, what year?

00:28:03.600 58.

00:28:04.140 I was born in 58.

00:28:04.900 Okay.

00:28:05.340 Yeah.

00:28:05.540 So at a time when it was pretty rampant in the United States, especially, but as you point

00:28:09.140 out, you were overseas.

00:28:10.660 Right.

00:28:11.080 And I was around people from all over the world who didn't engage in that kind of behavior.

00:28:14.740 And so now I understood that this, this phenomenon does exist, but I didn't know why, why are people

00:28:21.660 racist?

00:28:22.480 So I formed a question in my mind at that age of 10, which was, how can you hate me when

00:28:28.780 you don't even know me?

00:28:29.700 And as a teenager and through my adolescent years, I began buying every book I could find

00:28:35.920 on black supremacy, white supremacy, the KKK, the Nazis in Germany, the neo-Nazis over here,

00:28:41.640 trying to learn, where does that come from?

00:28:44.100 You know, how do people go this way?

00:28:46.040 But it all talked about it, but they never answered my question.

00:28:49.200 So lo and behold, fast forward, I graduated college in 1980 at the age of 22, and I began

00:28:55.580 playing professionally and been doing it ever since.

00:28:57.520 Well, country music had made a resurgence.

00:29:00.860 There'd been a movie out with John Travolta called Urban Cowboy.

00:29:04.560 And Deborah Winger, you're a real cowboy, aren't you?

00:29:10.000 Got my 10-gallon Stetson, right?

00:29:12.420 And they had a mechanical bull and all the line dances.

00:29:16.520 So, you know, if you want to work in music, you know, that's what was happening.

00:29:20.480 So I joined a country band.

00:29:21.920 And let me tell you something, country music and blues is the exact same music.

00:29:26.380 They're kissing cousins, the same three chords.

00:29:29.080 You know, it's society that separates us.

00:29:31.400 So anyway, I joined this country band.

00:29:33.300 What are the chords?

00:29:34.120 What are the chords?

00:29:35.520 The one, the four, and the five chord.

00:29:38.700 I'm an aspiring guitar player, so I only don't know, like, A, B.

00:29:42.880 Okay, so if you, what chords do you know?

00:29:45.660 I'll tell you.

00:29:46.300 Well, I know A, C, D, A, C, D, E, E minor, F.

00:29:50.980 If I'm working on still, it's an interminable experiment.

00:29:53.940 All right, so pick a key, any key.

00:29:56.580 D, I like D.

00:29:57.780 Okay, so if you're in the key of D, the chords would be D, G, and A.

00:30:02.700 The one, the four, and the five.

00:30:04.220 Oh, those are easy.

00:30:04.940 I'm writing this down.

00:30:05.940 D, G, A.

00:30:06.400 Okay.

00:30:07.220 D, G, A.

00:30:07.520 I can play those.

00:30:08.620 And tell your teacher to teach you how to play a 12-bar blues.

00:30:12.500 Are you volunteering?

00:30:13.800 Because I don't have a teacher at the moment.

00:30:15.180 Could we soon?

00:30:15.600 Yeah, I'll be glad to.

00:30:17.540 I'll be glad to.

00:30:19.000 But, you know, Hank, of course, you know Hank Williams Sr., yeah?

00:30:22.120 Yeah, of course.

00:30:23.320 He was the father of country music.

00:30:25.000 And did you know that he learned to play guitar from a black blues street guitar player named Rufus T. Tot Payne?

00:30:33.400 What?

00:30:33.960 No, I did not know that.

00:30:35.140 Okay, well, Hank was from Montgomery, Alabama, and Rufus T. Tot Payne was a black blues guitar player who would sit on the sidewalk with his guitar case open, and, you know, people would throw nickels and dimes in, and he'd play the guitar.

00:30:48.320 He'd play in the blues.

00:30:49.700 And Hank was very fascinated with him and would go there every day and hang around watching him play.

00:30:55.240 And he would bring T. Tot, which was his nickname, bring him sandwiches in exchange for guitar lessons.

00:31:00.980 And even Hank Jr., his son, wrote a song called T. Tot, dedicated to Rufus T. Tot Payne.

00:31:08.060 So it's no accident that these two genres bear a lot of similarities.

00:31:11.880 Exactly.

00:31:12.560 Exactly.

00:31:13.080 We all borrow from one another, but society is what separates us.

00:31:17.060 So anyway, I joined this already established country band in the area, and we played a place called the Silver Dollar Lounge up in Frederick, Maryland, which is about an hour and 20 minutes outside of D.C.

00:31:30.580 The Silver Dollar Lounge was known as an all-white lounge, not meaning that blacks could not go in, but blacks did not go in, and that was by their own volition because, you know, they did not feel welcome there. 0.98

00:31:42.900 And, you know, when you go somewhere where you're not, you know, where you're not welcome and alcohol is being served, it's not a good combination, right?

00:31:50.800 So here I was in this place.

00:31:52.420 It's like me at the NBC Christmas parties.

00:31:54.220 Well, yeah, I hear you.

00:32:01.220 Keep going.

00:32:02.080 So here I am in this place, and we had just finished playing.

00:32:06.380 I'm the only black guy in the band, only black guy in the place.

00:32:09.120 And we just finished the first set, and we're taking a break.

00:32:12.400 I'm following the band over to the band table, and I feel somebody come up behind me and put their arm across my shoulder.

00:32:19.240 Now, I don't know anybody here, right?

00:32:20.700 So I turn around to see who's touching me.

00:32:22.440 And it was this white guy, I don't know, 15, 18 years older than me, big smile on his face.

00:32:28.240 And he says, man, I sure like your piano playing.

00:32:30.980 I said, thank you.

00:32:31.840 I appreciate that.

00:32:32.440 And I shook his hand.

00:32:33.520 And then he says, you know, this is the first time I ever heard a black man play piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.

00:32:39.940 Now, I was not offended, but I was rather surprised, given his age being older than me, he should know the black origin of Jerry Lee Lewis's piano style.

00:32:49.500 Right, right.

00:32:50.160 He's got it wrong.

00:32:50.720 Yeah, and I told him, I said, look, you know, I got it from the same place Jerry Lee did, from black blues and boogie-woogie piano players.

00:32:57.560 That's where rock and roll and rockabilly came from.

00:33:00.020 Oh, no, no, no, no, Jerry Lee invented that.

00:33:01.960 I had never seen no black man play like that, except for you. 0.98

00:33:04.440 He was so fascinated, he went to invite me back to his table and buy me a drink.

00:33:08.340 I don't drink, but I went back to his table and had a cranberry juice.

00:33:10.720 He paid the waitress, then took his glass, and he clinked my glass and cheered me and says, you know, this is the first time I ever sat down and had a drink with a black man.

00:33:19.140 Now I'm totally mystified.

00:33:21.260 Like, how can this be?

00:33:22.160 Because, you know, in my years on this face of the earth, I had sat down literally with thousands of white people and had a meal, a beverage, a conversation.

00:33:31.900 And this guy had never done that.

00:33:33.340 So innocently, I asked him why.

00:33:35.300 He didn't answer me at first.

00:33:36.480 And I asked him again, and his buddy sitting next to him elbowed him and said, tell him, tell him, tell him.

00:33:42.140 I said, tell me, because I'm mystified.

00:33:43.980 And he looks at me, he says, I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

00:33:47.860 I burst out laughing.

00:33:49.720 I burst out laughing because I didn't believe him.

00:33:52.960 As I told you, I have all these books.

00:33:54.880 And in none of my books, it was to talk about how a Klansman will come up and embrace you if you're black and praise your talent and want to hang out and buy you a drink.

00:34:01.740 You know, it doesn't work that way.

00:34:02.860 So this guy had to be pulling my leg.

00:34:04.660 I'm laughing.

00:34:05.260 He goes inside his wallet, pulls out his Klan card, membership card, and hands it to me.

00:34:10.640 I looked at this thing.

00:34:11.720 I recognized the Ku Klux Klan emblem, which is a red circle with a white cross and a red blood drop in the center of the cross.

00:34:18.080 And I realized, oh, man, this thing is for real.

00:34:20.480 So I stopped laughing.

00:34:21.640 I gave it back to him.

00:34:22.660 Now I'm wondering why am I sitting at this table.

00:34:24.720 But he was very friendly.

00:34:26.520 He was very friendly and very inquisitive.

00:34:29.200 I'd forgotten about him.

00:34:30.420 Long time had passed.

00:34:31.300 And then it dawned on me, Daryl, the answer to your question, how can you hate me when you don't even know me, that's been plaguing you since age 10, it fell right into your lap.

00:34:41.780 You didn't even realize it.

00:34:43.380 You know, who better to ask that question of than someone who would go so far as to join an organization that has over 100-year history of practicing hating people who don't look like them and who don't believe as they believe.

00:34:58.140 Get back in contact with that guy and get them to hook you up with Klan leaders around the country or start here in Maryland, go up north, go down south, Midwest and west, and write a book about it.

00:35:08.980 Because no book had been written at that point in time by a Black author conducting in-person interviews with the Klan.

00:35:16.360 So that's how that started.

00:35:18.440 And I'll tell you, you know, all I – I never set out to convert anybody.

00:35:22.560 You know, when you see my name in the media, it will say, you know, Black musician converts X number of KKK members or white supremacists or whatever.

00:35:30.740 No, I did not convert anybody.

00:35:33.180 I didn't even convert one.

00:35:34.900 I am the impetus for over 200 KKK and white supremacist people to leave that ideology.

00:35:41.820 Yes, I influenced that.

00:35:43.640 But I prefer to say that they converted themselves.

00:35:45.960 I gave them food for thought.

00:35:47.300 And the more I would talk with these people and have return visits, people began changing.

00:35:54.480 And lo and behold, one of them quit.

00:35:57.720 And I got his robe and hood.

00:35:59.800 And then it happened again and again.

00:36:02.320 Because I never thought anybody was going to quit.

00:36:04.460 You know, as children, we all have heard a tiger does not change its stripes.

00:36:08.320 A leopard does not change its spots.

00:36:09.980 So why would I think that a Klansman or Klanswoman would change their robe and hood?

00:36:14.760 In other words, change their ideology.

00:36:16.340 You were just seeking understanding, not to deprogram.

00:36:19.780 Precisely, precisely.

00:36:20.820 Exactly.

00:36:21.960 And when it started happening, I realized I had stumbled onto something.

00:36:26.440 And I was employing some principles that I had learned.

00:36:30.960 I wasn't doing it consciously, but more subconsciously.

00:36:35.000 You know, in all my travels around the world, no matter how far I've gone from this country, whether it's right next door to Canada or Mexico or halfway around the globe, no matter how different people may appear to me, they don't look like me, don't speak my language, don't worship as I do or whatever. 0.98

00:36:53.180 However, I always conclude the same thing when I return home.

00:36:56.800 Everybody I met was a human being.

00:36:59.200 And as such, we all want the same basic five things in our lives.

00:37:04.020 We all want to be loved.

00:37:05.640 We all want to be respected.

00:37:07.540 We want to be heard.

00:37:08.620 We want to be treated fairly.

00:37:10.700 And we want the same thing for our family as anybody else wants for their family.

00:37:15.420 And if we employ those five core values in any society or any culture we may find ourselves in, in which we are unfamiliar, I will guarantee you that your navigation will be much more positive and much more smooth.

00:37:30.640 And I, you know, I, and that's what, you know, write that down.

00:37:34.360 Absolutely.

00:37:35.080 And that's what I've been doing my whole life.

00:37:37.240 And perhaps it came from being the child of diplomats.

00:37:40.620 You know, we were American diplomats overseas because, you know, my dad's job was to foster better relations between foreign countries and our country.

00:37:49.520 You know, that was his job in the, you know, with the State Department.

00:37:52.300 And so I just naturally came by it honestly.

00:37:55.040 Yeah, we talk about a couple of the specific instances because they're really extraordinary.

00:37:59.360 Uh, this guy, at one time, he was the Grand Dragon from Maryland and he went to prison for four years for conspiring to bomb a synagogue in Baltimore.

00:38:12.360 And then while in prison, he ran the Klan, you know, through his grand playlist, which means like, you know, Vice Dragon.

00:38:18.300 Well, I wrote him while he was in prison.

00:38:19.980 And when he, when he got out, you know, we got together. 0.84

00:38:22.500 He was vehemently violent, anti-Semitic and racist. 0.94

00:38:26.920 Everything, the whole problem with the whole world were the Blacks and the Jews, you know, and I listened to this hour after hour after hour of interviewing him. 0.94

00:38:36.500 But anyway, um, yeah, like I said, when you're in the Klan, uh, you don't make money from being in the Klan.

00:38:43.320 If you're a leader, you might get a small stipend out of, out of some of the dues, but not enough to pay your mortgage or your rent.

00:38:49.580 But this particular guy that I'm telling you about, he, his day job was Baltimore City police officer.

00:38:57.200 And he went on to become one of my best friends.

00:39:00.600 And today I, yeah, today I, I, I even invited him to my wedding and he came.

00:39:05.140 Stop it.

00:39:05.880 And today I'm, I'm serious.

00:39:07.220 I had Klan people at my wedding. 0.78

00:39:08.420 I did.

00:39:09.520 Were they dressed?

00:39:10.620 Did they wear their robes?

00:39:11.820 No, no, no.

00:39:16.260 That would have been a sight.

00:39:17.540 But I'll tell you what though, I, I, uh, you'll, you'll love this next story, but, uh, but check this out.

00:39:23.080 So, um, uh, today I own his robe and hood and his police uniform because he got out of that, uh, you know, through, through my influence, he and I became the best of friends.

00:39:33.620 But now if you remember, uh, four years ago in two months, August, four years ago, Charlottesville, what happened down there, there was a scene there, uh, where this Imperial wizard in the Klan, uh, pointed a gun at a black person's head who was wielding a improvised flamethrower and, and spraying this flame towards these Klansmen who were coming down the steps of this Confederate statue park.

00:40:01.360 And, um, he pointed the gun at the guy's head and, and yelled a racial epithet and then lowered the gun and fired it.

00:40:08.460 And the bullet went down into the gravel, just a less than two feet from the guy's feet.

00:40:14.020 And, um, you know, he went on, you know, he turned and went on, walked right past the cops who watched the whole thing go down and did nothing.

00:40:20.420 Uh, anyway, um, he, I called him up and I said, listen, man, you and I need to talk.

00:40:28.520 Not a Klansman to black man, but man to man, American to American.

00:40:35.060 So he said, okay.

00:40:36.760 So we set a date.

00:40:38.460 I drove an hour and a half to his house, unarmed, just myself.

00:40:41.980 I sat in his living room, all kinds of KKK stuff all over the walls, Confederate flags.

00:40:47.420 In fact, his couch where I was sitting was covered with a Confederate flag blanket.

00:40:51.040 So I sat there, yeah, uh, I'll send you pictures.

00:40:55.500 Um, I sat there listening to him and his Klans lady fiance, give me a two hour lecture on American history from a Confederate perspective, of course. 0.56

00:41:06.320 Right.

00:41:06.880 So I just sat, sat there and listened.

00:41:08.480 Some things he got right.

00:41:09.340 Some things he got wrong, but I didn't cut him off.

00:41:11.340 I just sat back and listened because I know everybody likes to be heard.

00:41:13.900 So I let him be heard.

00:41:14.880 And then when he finished, it was my turn.

00:41:17.540 First thing I did was I corrected him on the stuff that he got wrong, but I also commended him on the stuff that he got right.

00:41:24.840 And so I decided, you know, listen, before I, you know, I go into my little speech, here's what I want to do.

00:41:29.940 I want to invite you and the Klans lady here to come down to my house. 1.00

00:41:34.240 We'll set a date.

00:41:35.140 I will get tickets to this newly opened, um, uh, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture just opened downtown in DC back then.

00:41:44.700 So I said, let's explore it together.

00:41:47.540 He said, okay, we toured the museum and, um, you know, we, he learned a lot.

00:41:54.620 Uh, but you know, you can't take it all in and, and, you know, two or three hours, but, uh, he learned a lot.

00:42:00.740 And now this is about a year later, uh, at when we toured the museum, um, the, the incident happened in Charlottesville on August 12th, 2017.

00:42:11.640 And we toured this museum in late June of 2018.

00:42:14.840 So now I've been working with this guy for a year, right?

00:42:17.620 Getting together, talking with them, you know, getting to know him, letting him get to know me, et cetera.

00:42:21.800 So he's going to marry, uh, that clans lady in a few weeks after the museum tour.

00:42:28.220 So they invite me to the wedding.

00:42:31.080 All right.

00:42:31.880 Me at a clan wedding.

00:42:33.040 Right.

00:42:33.480 So it goes, it goes deeper than that.

00:42:36.520 The, the girl is from, uh, is from Chattanooga, Tennessee.

00:42:40.340 And her father was too ill to, to come up this way to, uh, do the fatherly duty by walking his daughter down the aisle and giving her away.

00:42:48.280 Rather than ask, um, some of, some of their trusted, uh, clansmen in that group.

00:42:54.940 Don't tell me.

00:42:55.860 Yes, you got it.

00:42:57.060 You got it.

00:42:57.700 They asked me.

00:42:59.000 And I said, okay.

00:43:00.900 So I walked.

00:43:02.860 I did it.

00:43:03.420 I did it.

00:43:04.000 I can show you footage of it.

00:43:05.660 Oh my God.

00:43:06.320 Did you wear a bulletproof vest?

00:43:08.440 I mean, wouldn't you?

00:43:08.980 Not at all.

00:43:09.780 Surrounded by clansmen.

00:43:11.220 You weren't worried for your safety.

00:43:12.960 I was not because he's the imperial wizard.

00:43:15.100 So they have to abide by whatever he says.

00:43:17.140 It takes knowing who you are, you know, keep your emotions behind you.

00:43:21.560 You know who you are.

00:43:22.300 You're not going to let anybody else define who you are.

00:43:24.420 Yeah.

00:43:24.760 But how do you get their mind to change?

00:43:27.420 I mean, is it, is it a matter of just exposing them to an actual black person?

00:43:33.600 You know, so they can sort of deprogram themselves when it comes to their beliefs, or is it a

00:43:37.860 matter of convincing them that the foundation for their beliefs is wrong?

00:43:43.040 You don't, you don't want to attack their reality.

00:43:45.040 Okay.

00:43:45.380 Let me, here, here's a very important thing.

00:43:48.040 One's perception is one's reality.

00:43:50.920 Whatever somebody perceives becomes their reality, whether it's real or not, it's their

00:43:55.940 reality.

00:43:56.680 And you cannot change anybody's reality.

00:44:00.400 The more you try to change it, the more they will defend it.

00:44:03.360 So what you want to do is you want to offer them a better perspective or better perception.

00:44:09.860 If they resonate with the perception that you offered them, they will change their own

00:44:14.720 reality.

00:44:15.400 I'll give you an example.

00:44:17.680 Let's say, let's say you said you had two boys, right?

00:44:22.320 Two boys and a girl.

00:44:23.640 Okay.

00:44:24.020 So let's say one of your boys, when he was seven or eight years old, he goes to a magic

00:44:30.000 show with his school or buddies or whatever.

00:44:32.860 And he comes home and tells you that, uh, this magician on stage, you know, asked for

00:44:38.760 a female volunteer and, you know, 50 women raised their hands and he pointed to one and

00:44:43.920 asked her to come up on stage.

00:44:45.240 She got up there and then he put her in this long box with her feet sticking out this end

00:44:50.520 and her head sticking out that end. 1.00

00:44:51.880 And then he closed the lid and he took a chainsaw and he cut that box in half.

00:44:57.100 This man cut that woman in half to that seven or eight year old son of yours.

00:45:01.620 He saw a man cut a woman in half.

00:45:05.180 You cannot tell that boy what he, what he saw and didn't see.

00:45:08.800 He knows that is his reality.

00:45:11.040 He saw that man cut that woman in half and then put her back together.

00:45:14.520 And there's nothing you can do to change what he saw, what he knows he saw.

00:45:19.180 All right.

00:45:19.360 So what you do is rather than attack his reality, give him a better perception.

00:45:24.900 So what you might say is something like, well, could it be possibly that, um, the, the woman

00:45:32.140 that he chose out of, out of all the women raising their hand, maybe she works for him. 0.88

00:45:37.640 Maybe he planted her in that seat and then he changes his own reality because you've given

00:45:43.080 him a better perception rather than, so he comes to the conclusion that he needs to change

00:45:48.880 something.

00:45:49.420 You don't want to come, you know, you don't want to force change on somebody.

00:45:52.340 You want to give them enough information so that they arrive at it.

00:45:56.580 And that will hold a lot better.

00:45:58.320 I mean, it's clearly working.

00:45:59.600 Can you tell us, you went on Geraldo Rivera's show and met a 12 year old named Aaron, who

00:46:04.900 was there with her sister, mom, and dad, all in the KKK.

00:46:07.640 Aaron loved the KKK, planned to join when she was older.

00:46:10.280 And after the show, um, you reached out to her, something extraordinary happened.

00:46:17.380 Tell us what happened and how it landed.

00:46:19.740 Well, uh, her father was the Imperial wizard of that particular clan group.

00:46:22.940 Like I said, another Imperial wizard.

00:46:24.720 Yeah.

00:46:24.920 Yeah.

00:46:25.140 Every, every clan group, every faction has an Imperial wizard and a grand dragon and all

00:46:29.700 that.

00:46:30.260 So, um, she was on, you can join the clan when you're 15 and, uh, then you, you can come,

00:46:36.980 you know, a full fledged member by joining the clan youth core.

00:46:39.160 So, uh, she and her 14 year old sister, uh, were on Geraldo and along with it, with her

00:46:45.360 father, the Imperial wizard and her mother, and they all are in the clan.

00:46:49.200 And, um, you know, they were vehemently racist.

00:46:52.620 They were saying all kinds of stuff.

00:46:53.780 And I could tell that these girls were programmed. 1.00

00:46:56.580 And so I felt so bad, like, you know, how can you destroy some kid's life before they've

00:47:00.860 even had a chance to live, you know?

00:47:02.620 And so I went to meet them and I met them, you know, they were not warm and friendly, but

00:47:06.700 they were cordial.

00:47:07.720 And then a few months later, uh, I got into a fight with, with the Imperial wizard.

00:47:13.480 And I mean, a physical confrontation and, um, the, uh, sheriff's deputies had to break

00:47:19.460 it up.

00:47:19.760 It happened in the courthouse.

00:47:20.940 I was, uh, I was trying to leave.

00:47:23.000 Uh, I was watching the trial of two Klansmen who were charged with assault with intent

00:47:27.600 to murder.

00:47:28.780 Shortly thereafter, the Imperial wizard went to prison for 10 years, not because of what happened 1.00

00:47:34.060 with me, but some of the stupid stuff he was doing in the Klan. 0.97

00:47:37.140 And, uh, about three years after he went to prison, Jenny Jones, a TV show called me up 0.97

00:47:43.760 and wanted to know if I would come on there.

00:47:45.480 I thought, you know what?

00:47:46.260 I'm going to be nice.

00:47:47.000 I'm going to reach out to that Klansman's, um, wife, you know, the guy who I beat up,

00:47:50.720 the, uh, Imperial wizard and, um, and see if she wants to come on the show and debate 1.00

00:47:55.540 me.

00:47:56.400 And now her husband, the Imperial wizard, the guy who was on Geraldo, uh, he's in prison

00:48:02.220 in Marion, Illinois, which is a, which is one of the toughest, uh, federal prisons we

00:48:07.120 have in our country.

00:48:08.360 And he's there for 10 years.

00:48:09.640 Now I knew she hadn't seen him in three years, uh, since he'd left.

00:48:13.140 I called her and I had to track down a number on her.

00:48:15.840 I called her.

00:48:16.740 And when I told her who I was, she cussed me up one side and down the other. 0.90

00:48:21.200 I just told her to shut up and listen to me for a second. 1.00

00:48:23.780 I said, listen, I'm going out to a Chicago.

00:48:26.400 I said, if you want to come on the show and debate me, I said, I'll be happy to rent a car.

00:48:31.860 And drive you out to Marion and you can see your husband.

00:48:35.720 I know you haven't seen him in three years.

00:48:37.360 And I rented a car and I drove them all the way out to Marion.

00:48:42.840 And I sat in the parking lot.

00:48:44.740 They went in to visit with their father and a husband, uh, the mother's husband.

00:48:49.660 And when they came out, you know, they were all excited, all glad we drove all the way

00:48:54.800 back to Chicago.

00:48:55.820 And that night, uh, the mother, Tina was her name, um, stayed inside the hotel room and

00:49:00.940 babysat the little ones.

00:49:02.340 And Aaron and I, the 15 year old I, we went out on the town of Chicago, which is where

00:49:06.820 I'm from originally.

00:49:07.820 And we went to a couple of blues clubs, went to house of blues.

00:49:10.560 Willie Nelson was playing there and I had dinner and I got some souvenirs and we come back

00:49:16.220 the next day or the next morning, I should say on, on the, uh, Jenny Jones show, we're

00:49:21.460 in the studio, the, uh, Indiana clan group had come that Imperial wizard was there.

00:49:25.820 And so he's trying to, you know, rip me a new one and, and Tina, you know, the, uh, this

00:49:31.820 clan's lady, she's defending me, Aaron and Tina are defending me.

00:49:35.180 So, so I'm sitting in the middle and these two clan groups are, one's defending me, the 0.53

00:49:39.580 other one's attacking me.

00:49:40.620 It was the craziest thing you've ever seen.

00:49:42.360 And so, because nobody in the clan had done for them what I did for them, you know, took

00:49:49.060 them out to see their, their husband and father.

00:49:51.200 And so on the, on the flight back from O'Hare airport, back to BWI, Aaron and Tina quit the

00:49:57.020 clan.

00:49:57.560 And when they got home and told the older daughter about it, she quit two years later, while still

00:50:03.760 in prison, the Imperial wizard quit.

00:50:06.160 So now the whole family got out of the clan.

00:50:09.180 Wow.

00:50:10.360 And Aaron eventually got married too.

00:50:13.920 She married, she, she, she married a black guy. 1.00

00:50:16.580 She married a black guy. 0.98

00:50:18.100 And, and she, yeah. 0.65

00:50:19.720 And she said, you know, the worst form of, uh, of, uh, teaching, teaching racism to your

00:50:25.320 children is the worst form of child abuse.

00:50:27.880 That's what she said.

00:50:30.540 Up next, we're going to get into, uh, BLM and what Daryl thinks of the pushback he's

00:50:36.500 gotten in a show in the, in the film about Daryl's life from some BLM activists that he's

00:50:40.820 fighting the wrong fight.

00:50:42.280 Uh, so you'll see, you'll hear for yourself, some of that pushback and we'll talk about it.

00:50:45.720 And we're going to get into the police.

00:50:47.120 What does he think about the police and what if his experience has been, um, that's coming

00:50:50.980 up in one second, but first we're going to bring you a feature we have on the MK show

00:50:54.440 called you can't say that or think that or do that.

00:50:58.700 Oh, wait, this is America today.

00:51:01.340 We go way back to college and see what's happening with my bad hair.

00:51:05.420 When I was dying at my, no, it's not about that.

00:51:07.500 It's not about me, but it is happening about what's happening on college campuses.

00:51:10.640 When it comes to language policing, I'm going to say some words and you try to think about

00:51:16.960 why they have been deemed very offensive.

00:51:20.040 Okay.

00:51:20.340 You ready?

00:51:21.900 Freshman, upperclassmen.

00:51:24.940 Yeah, you got it.

00:51:26.740 You ready for this at Penn state university?

00:51:29.580 The state schools Senate committee has approved the implementation of the quote preferred name

00:51:36.980 and gender identity policy and quote gone are the terms that can seem male centric and male

00:51:43.800 specific freshman, fresh man.

00:51:48.100 You see how evil it is that we've been saying it all these years without realizing what sexist 0.99

00:51:52.700 pigs we were. 0.98

00:51:53.440 It has to go instead, Penn state will be calling incoming students, stale, gender neutral people. 0.84

00:52:01.500 No, it will now be just first year, first year.

00:52:07.200 That's it.

00:52:07.760 Don't say freshmen, upperclassmen.

00:52:10.040 I mean, that one is riddled in problems.

00:52:12.320 It also has man in there.

00:52:13.860 That's, that's just one of the problems.

00:52:15.160 One of them, one of the many, because of course you've got upper, upper class.

00:52:19.220 That's not okay.

00:52:19.940 It can be interpreted quote as both sexist and classist and upperclassmen will now be

00:52:25.080 upper division.

00:52:26.380 He's an upper divisioner, upper division nest, but it's not just terms that have man in them

00:52:32.680 because the committee also was not happy with junior and senior.

00:52:37.380 Oh my God.

00:52:38.160 You can find anything offensive.

00:52:39.840 I mean, there's just no limit to how they will find ways to offend themselves now on these

00:52:43.640 campuses.

00:52:44.440 Why you may ask because quote terms such as junior and senior are parallel to Western

00:52:49.620 male father, son, naming conference conventions, junior and senior.

00:52:54.960 I see.

00:52:55.460 Okay.

00:52:55.700 Like, you know, John Jr.

00:52:57.960 This is what they wrote.

00:52:59.040 Now it's just third year and fourth year.

00:53:02.120 Okay.

00:53:02.400 So we've got first year.

00:53:04.520 What are we doing for second year?

00:53:06.180 Or do they have a problem with sophomore?

00:53:07.520 Because that's, that's insulting too, right? 1.00

00:53:09.660 Like you're a moron. 1.00

00:53:10.580 Do we know Steve? 1.00

00:53:11.340 What is it?

00:53:11.940 Yeah.

00:53:12.180 Yeah.

00:53:12.300 They're just going to call a second year.

00:53:13.540 Second year also.

00:53:14.520 So sophomore does not get to live on.

00:53:16.480 It's just first year, second year, third year, fourth year.

00:53:19.000 And instead of upper classmen, upper division. 0.99

00:53:22.700 Oh my God.

00:53:23.380 When are they going to have time to study?

00:53:25.140 When are they going to have time to figure out bio?

00:53:27.340 Okay.

00:53:27.700 And by the way, obviously he knew this one, the terms such as he, him, his, and she,

00:53:32.020 her, hers will now be replaced with they, them, theirs, or non-gendered terms for all

00:53:37.300 students, faculty, and other staff and course descriptions and program descriptions.

00:53:42.280 So you can't even say their favorite pronouns.

00:53:46.240 Now you can't even say them.

00:53:47.500 Every, everyone's got to be a they, right? 1.00

00:53:51.580 This language policing may feel new, but it's really not.

00:53:54.300 This actually happened at my own alma mater, Syracuse.

00:53:57.400 And way back in 2004, they used to call our school mascot, the orange men and Syracuse orange

00:54:04.160 women for the girls teams.

00:54:05.800 Well, that had to go.

00:54:06.540 In 2004, the offensiveness of gendered orange people long before Trump was running for office 1.00

00:54:12.440 was eliminated in favor of non-gendered athletic teams.

00:54:16.100 And from that moment forward, the sports teams were known as the Syracuse orange, just

00:54:21.100 orange, which I objected to because how is this scary?

00:54:25.220 Aren't you trying to, you're trying to be like the warriors against the orange.

00:54:30.740 Who does that intimidate? 0.87

00:54:32.420 That's not scary.

00:54:33.400 I need to have some level of threat in your school mascot.

00:54:36.080 No, because whether it's gendered fruit or calling first year students freshmen, you

00:54:42.100 can't say that.

00:54:43.940 Now back to our guest right after this.

00:54:51.480 Our listeners are going to be cheering this in the same way I am, but I thought it was

00:54:56.920 a really interesting part of your movie.

00:54:59.080 You know, you're the star of Accidental Courtesy when they included pushback.

00:55:03.860 You got on doing this from some BLM activists.

00:55:08.380 And I'm going to play the clip.

00:55:09.880 But I think, you know, just to summarize, they think you're putting your effort into the wrong

00:55:16.420 community and in the wrong place.

00:55:19.260 I'm going to play a clip.

00:55:20.300 This is you.

00:55:20.680 You go into sort of a bar.

00:55:21.960 You meet with two BLM activists, Kwame Rose and Tariq Ture.

00:55:26.520 And then another man comes in after them who's a BLM. 0.90

00:55:29.740 He seems to be more of a BLM organizer.

00:55:32.720 But we have a clip of what happens between you and these two guys.

00:55:36.300 First, let's play it.

00:55:37.700 How many robes have you collected?

00:55:39.880 Roughly, I'd say maybe 25, 26.

00:55:43.400 How long you was doing it for?

00:55:45.600 Since about 1990.

00:55:47.060 And you only got 26 robes?

00:55:48.240 You only got 25 robes?

00:55:49.540 You didn't say Klan memorabilia.

00:55:52.000 I got tons of stuff.

00:55:53.260 So since 1990, which is longer than I've been alive, you've been trying to infiltrate the

00:55:58.560 Klan.

00:55:58.900 But what does that do for people?

00:56:02.820 Well, I'll tell you what.

00:56:03.480 I'll tell you what it does, okay?

00:56:05.420 The state of Maryland had a large Klan organization.

00:56:09.160 When the Imperial Wizard, which means the national leader, when he turned in his robe to me, the

00:56:14.740 Maryland Ku Klux Klan fell apart.

00:56:16.860 Today, there is no more Ku Klux Klan.

00:56:19.340 I beg to differ.

00:56:20.280 Let me finish.

00:56:21.700 Today, well, you can't because I got the facts, okay?

00:56:25.320 Today, there is no more Ku Klux Klan in the state of Maryland.

00:56:28.640 Infiltrating the Klan ain't freeing your people.

00:56:31.260 I disagree with you.

00:56:32.680 I don't see how.

00:56:34.400 What about Timothy McVeigh?

00:56:37.360 He's in jail.

00:56:38.680 Oh, he is?

00:56:39.300 Wasn't he killed?

00:56:40.220 Something like that.

00:56:41.160 So what?

00:56:41.600 Obviously, you're very uneducated about it.

00:56:43.340 And you're uneducated about the reality of most of the people that look like you. 0.99

00:56:47.240 Every day on the hour, young black men and women are being snatched and kidnapped off

00:56:52.160 the streets. 0.99

00:56:52.980 They're ruining people's lives, right?

00:56:54.980 Not rehabilitating them and sending them right back in the same neighborhoods that are already 0.95

00:56:58.400 screwed up anyway.

00:56:59.600 So when you say, oh, well, we need to be worried about somebody blowing something up.

00:57:03.360 No, somebody's getting locked up right now that's 16 years old.

00:57:06.860 There's never may see the light a day again just because they look like my skin or Kwan 1.00

00:57:11.040 may skin or your skin for that matter.

00:57:13.300 So did I'm talking about the energy that you're putting into all them years.

00:57:17.180 That's a whole lot of years to be doing that, to be stuck.

00:57:19.940 It's not like a fetish.

00:57:21.200 Befraining a white person who don't have to go through the same struggles as you, me,

00:57:24.860 the son in the barbershop or that father.

00:57:26.760 That's not an accomplishment.

00:57:28.320 That's a new friend.

00:57:29.780 You ain't doing nothing but collecting something that's going to build your own credibility. 0.92

00:57:33.340 You're nothing but a pimp in a pulpit. 1.00

00:57:35.460 And you're nothing but ignorant. 1.00

00:57:36.580 Very powerful, very, very good choice, I have to say, by the producers of the director 0.99

00:57:43.380 and yourself to leave that in, to do it in the first place and to leave it in because

00:57:46.400 it's important to hear how people who were actively involved in today's struggle would

00:57:52.860 view this.

00:57:54.300 And I will say to me as a viewer, it was the one part of the movie where you looked sad.

00:57:59.540 To me, you looked a little regretful.

00:58:01.720 You know, I just it didn't seem like in the moment you guys were able to connect.

00:58:05.620 And these guys who are out there on the street doing the marching and so on seem to be saying

00:58:11.800 you're you're wasting your time.

00:58:14.040 You're you're out of it and deprogramming or whatever.

00:58:18.600 Changing the thinking of KKK members means nothing.

00:58:22.220 You're you're in the wrong fight.

00:58:24.200 What what were you feeling and what was your reaction?

00:58:27.340 OK, so that scene that you saw, you saw about eight, almost nine minutes in the movie.

00:58:35.200 And yes, I want to leave that in because I want to show, you know, nobody has a monopoly

00:58:40.100 on racism or ignorance.

00:58:42.020 You know, it has to be addressed 360 degrees all the way around with everybody.

00:58:46.960 So that's why we left it in.

00:58:48.180 And believe it or not, you know, during that came out in 2016.

00:58:52.200 And so, of course, it made the film festival circuit.

00:58:54.820 And there was one film festival that refused to to show it because of that scene.

00:59:00.580 They thought it was staged.

00:59:02.340 It was not staged.

00:59:04.520 That that scene, that eight or nine minute scene that you saw in the movie, it went on for about an hour and it almost culminated in physical violence.

00:59:11.260 You know, that's how passionate, you know, some people were about.

00:59:13.720 Well, yeah, because the next guy came in, he refused to shake your hand.

00:59:16.760 He went off.

00:59:17.600 He was like, you could have been doing work in the black community all this time.

00:59:19.960 Where were you when we marched with the Klan? 1.00

00:59:21.860 Who gives a shit? 1.00

00:59:22.760 You hate yourself. 1.00

00:59:23.520 It was got very feisty after that.

00:59:26.660 And well, now, here's the thing.

00:59:27.840 About a year later, they reached out to me and they had been seeing me in interviews, this other, the other.

00:59:34.280 And they they they more they understood a little bit more about what I was doing and they want to get together and have dinner.

00:59:40.480 So we got together.

00:59:41.580 Kwame is the one who actually, you know, reached out to me.

00:59:44.100 And why does this not surprise me, Daryl?

00:59:47.860 This does not surprise me.

00:59:50.000 But what about the point that they were trying to raise?

00:59:52.160 I mean, what how do you why does it matter?

00:59:55.100 Why does it matter?

00:59:56.420 It's a moot point.

00:59:57.340 OK, because, listen, racism is a is a multifaceted problem and it has to be addressed on every front.

01:00:06.060 What they are doing is they are fighting the systemic end of it, which is fine.

01:00:11.160 You know, that needs to be done.

01:00:12.740 All right.

01:00:13.300 I am dealing more with individuals.

01:00:15.840 I believe individuals are behind the system because the system does not run by itself.

01:00:20.120 It's put together by by individuals who run the you know, who program the system and make it systemic.

01:00:26.320 So when you put somebody, you know, you know, if you have a racist boss, then everything that trickles down is going to reflect that.

01:00:33.680 So when you when you get somebody else in the top position, you vote them in or elect them in or whatever, then that changes what happens down below.

01:00:43.960 So I work with the individuals.

01:00:45.580 They work with the systemic.

01:00:46.860 But the important thing is that we need to work together.

01:00:51.360 What about somebody who says what you're doing is teaspoons in the ocean, you know, taking out one person at a time?

01:01:00.400 Well, yeah, you know, any time you change one person, it changes a generation.

01:01:05.380 You know, if you could change one police officer, that would help because he might help change the culture of another one.

01:01:10.700 You know, so you're not going to change the whole department.

01:01:12.660 You know, you know, what Derek Chauvin did to George Floyd reflected on the whole department.

01:01:20.820 OK, but had somebody tried to address Derek Chauvin, who already had 18 complaints against him, maybe if one of those complaints had been addressed instead of ignored, George Floyd might still be alive.

01:01:33.400 So, you know, one person can make a difference.

01:01:36.580 Suppose suppose Dylan Roof was one of the people that I sat down and talked with before the Charleston, South Carolina incident.

01:01:44.420 Who knows? Right.

01:01:46.260 So every little dent helps.

01:01:48.680 So there are those who appreciate what I do.

01:01:51.240 And then there are those who want to rip me a new one.

01:01:53.180 Can I just can I just round back and say, I see the news media taking a tape and putting it on loop and leading people to believe like that one guy said to you in that clip every minute black men are being killed by police in this country.

01:02:07.200 It isn't true.

01:02:08.800 It's it.

01:02:09.560 And I know that you you're an honest broker on this because I saw, you know, you've interviewed cops trying to get to the bottom of how what does the problem actually look like?

01:02:16.860 And I respect what you've been doing, but I I think we have to be honest about what the problem really is.

01:02:23.280 And the problem is not that black men are getting killed every minute and certainly not even when it comes to unarmed shootings of police by black men.

01:02:32.560 In 2019, it was 13. 0.74

01:02:34.260 In 2020, it was 18 out of 10 million arrests, 300 million contacts between police and people out there.

01:02:42.900 So it's, you know, you're your chances of being killed by a police officer as an unarmed black man are infinitesimal.

01:02:51.740 If you if you sort of look at, you know, the number of contacts that police have with with individuals out there.

01:02:59.240 No, I hear exactly what you're saying.

01:03:02.260 Now, there is there is a lot of racism on many police forces, even right here in affluent Montgomery County, where I live, Montgomery County, Maryland.

01:03:11.120 And, you know, we we see incidents of it.

01:03:13.460 I've been victim of it before.

01:03:15.120 And, you know, I'm not a criminal.

01:03:16.460 I'm not out there dealing drugs or shooting people or, you know, committing whatever transgressions against the law.

01:03:22.260 But I've been victimized by by racist cops, you know, and and I, you know, I have filed 11 complaints with internal affairs against against the police.

01:03:34.200 And only one of them was sustained.

01:03:36.580 Like what kind of things have happened to you?

01:03:38.040 Um, I I've been I've been pulled out of my vehicle, have my vehicle search for no reason because I had dark windows on my van.

01:03:47.640 I'm a band and all my band guys are in the band.

01:03:51.340 You know, they're I mean, they're in the van and and they make us wait while they call the canine unit.

01:03:56.200 And we all have to get out and let the dog run through the van, sniff up and down the seats and sniff through our amplifiers and drum kit and my keyboard looking for and then they and then they don't find any.

01:04:05.660 And then they say, oh, you know, we're just conducting, you know, a training for the dog.

01:04:09.980 No, you don't conduct training for the dog on civilians on the highway.

01:04:14.000 You know, things like that.

01:04:15.880 Um, my well, if they only knew you, all you do is cranberry juice.

01:04:19.620 There's no they're looking up the wrong tree.

01:04:22.360 Um, I my my wife is white. 0.99

01:04:24.860 And, uh, one time we're going to the movies just a few blocks from the house.

01:04:28.620 You know, we, you know, we were out and, um, get pulled over because she's in the car.

01:04:34.560 She's in the car.

01:04:35.320 That's it.

01:04:35.940 And so, you know, ask for my license registration.

01:04:38.600 So on and so on.

01:04:39.280 And the guy tries to tell me that I crossed the line, the double yellow line.

01:04:42.900 And he was, he just wanted to make sure I wasn't, I wasn't drunk because he didn't find anything on my license.

01:04:47.520 You know, we won't do what when he went back to his car and got on his computer.

01:04:50.380 So now he has to make up an excuse.

01:04:52.300 And I said, no, I didn't cross the line.

01:04:53.800 He goes, yeah, yeah, you did.

01:04:54.840 You know, I'm just checking you.

01:04:55.740 And then he, then he leans down, looks across me over at her and says, ma'am, are you okay?

01:05:01.180 What was that about?

01:05:02.800 You know, so I, before she could answer, I turned back to him and say, yes, my wife's fine.

01:05:07.100 How's your wife this evening?

01:05:11.180 Oh, but you know, I see this is now like you're getting to it, right?

01:05:15.040 Because I, I know, I know just from speaking in particular to black male friends that they do get pulled over.

01:05:23.520 But their experience of being pulled over, of being harassed, of being mistreated by police, you can't compare it to what somebody like me experienced.

01:05:31.620 I have an experience.

01:05:32.840 I've had a couple of experiences with cops, some of which have been very negative, right?

01:05:37.000 But also some very positive.

01:05:39.320 But it just doesn't compare to the average story of a black man in America.

01:05:42.560 And I recognize that I think where we diverge, you know, I and Black Lives Matter and the facts and Black Lives Matter messaging is on shootings, on killings, which has become the narrative.

01:05:53.660 They overstate their case to their detriment because the numbers are what the numbers are.

01:05:58.520 It's fit.

01:05:58.800 You can, you can know it.

01:05:59.780 Now, I'm not saying the numbers are perfect.

01:06:00.980 We can do better in terms of our national database and reporting all this stuff.

01:06:04.660 But there's not some epidemic.

01:06:06.440 It's not happening every minute. 0.95

01:06:08.020 And whites are getting killed, too, at in bigger numbers. 0.93

01:06:12.600 And, you know, for every George Floyd, there's a Tony Tempo where the same thing happened. 0.91

01:06:16.160 It doesn't get the media coverage.

01:06:17.320 And so the narrative gets corrupted when I think we should be talking about what about the things that happened prior to the shootings?

01:06:23.880 Right. Like what about the I don't know how to describe it, lower end harassment, you know, less than death, harassment or prejudice or encounters between blacks and cops. 0.56

01:06:35.960 And let's be open about the crime rate.

01:06:38.520 And how do we get that down so that interactions are less and so that profiling happens less so that when a police officer sees a black man in the city, he doesn't have an instant reaction of that's the that's the group that commits crime.

01:06:50.820 Yeah. But it's also, you know, Dylann Roof got to go to Burger King.

01:06:56.900 Yes. But they said they were trying to calm him down.

01:06:59.860 I mean, this is a.

01:07:00.300 Oh, give me a break. 0.60

01:07:01.900 I'm just saying this is what they said.

01:07:03.720 I'm not going to defend Dylann Roof, but this is.

01:07:05.900 Right.

01:07:06.680 They said he was he surrendered calmly and they were basically trying to keep him calm and get him.

01:07:11.400 You know, I mean, Dylann Roof wasn't going to be facing a good future.

01:07:13.840 Everybody knew that.

01:07:14.500 But you have to admit that nine times out of 10 where the serious problems happen, where the shootings or the killings happen, it's where a defendant of whatever color is resisting arrest, which I mean, I will say. 0.71

01:07:26.020 I disagree with that.

01:07:27.640 I disagree.

01:07:28.400 Really?

01:07:28.740 Yeah.

01:07:29.520 Yeah.

01:07:30.260 Yeah.

01:07:30.460 How come?

01:07:31.020 Because I've experienced it.

01:07:32.900 I've been there.

01:07:34.360 And, you know, I'm talking about killings.

01:07:36.320 I'm talking about killings.

01:07:38.040 Uh huh.

01:07:39.020 Not not harassment.

01:07:40.280 I can tell you I can tell you a situation that I pulled up on one time where a cop had a gun pointed pointed at someone.

01:07:47.740 And had I not been there with this lady looking at them, looking at him, that guy would have been shot and killed in the middle of the night on my way home from a gig.

01:07:57.540 The fact that I was there and I was witnessing was what caused that cop to put that gun down.

01:08:03.560 I mean, I don't doubt that.

01:08:06.140 And I don't doubt that there are bad cops.

01:08:07.640 And I hate having to be in the position of defending police officers because they really can get drunk on their own power and be absolute pricks.

01:08:13.460 I mean, I think most Americans have experienced that, but especially black America. 0.77

01:08:18.660 I am a, you know, a supporter of law enforcement.

01:08:22.040 My father was one of the first black Secret Service agents in this country.

01:08:26.200 My dad wanted to be an FBI agent.

01:08:28.820 And J. Edgar Hoover was a racist, among other things, and a male chauvinist, among other things. 0.83

01:08:33.820 And he was not hiring any blacks or any women.

01:08:35.960 So my dad went to to the Secret Service, which was run at the time by a fellow named Harry Anslinger.

01:08:42.700 And Harry Anslinger hired five blacks for the first time, all at the same time, five black men.

01:08:48.300 And my dad was one of those five black men.

01:08:50.180 And he worked his way up, became as high as they would let a black person go. 0.66

01:08:56.440 I have a lot of respect for law enforcement, but I also, listen, the problem, you know, part of the problem is this.

01:09:02.440 There are more bad apples in the police department than there are good apples.

01:09:07.020 And let me explain this to you.

01:09:08.300 We all know what a bad cop will do.

01:09:12.760 A good cop will not do those things, but the good cop will turn a blind eye and not a snitch on the bad cop.

01:09:20.700 The good cop will not participate in bribes or brutality or whatever, but he will not tell on what he witnessed.

01:09:26.900 That's called the blue coat of silence or the thin blue wall.

01:09:31.300 Exactly.

01:09:31.940 Okay.

01:09:32.640 Now, the third category is the minority category.

01:09:36.300 And I don't mean minority in terms of skin color.

01:09:38.000 I'm talking about in terms of numbers.

01:09:39.840 That is the honest cop.

01:09:42.020 An honest cop will not participate in those things, but the honest cop will tell.

01:09:47.160 And as a result of the honest cop whistleblowing or whatever, he or she endangers their own personal safety from their fellow officers.

01:09:56.940 Because what happens is nobody likes to snitch.

01:10:00.800 You know, if you're in the mafia and you snitch, you know what happens, right?

01:10:03.760 Same thing with the cops.

01:10:05.000 If you snitch on your fellow officers, it will leak down to you.

01:10:08.760 And what happens is, you know, let's say you're an honest cop and now, you know, you got a call, you had to go investigate something and you get there and people are shooting at you.

01:10:18.920 You know, you get on your radio for backup.

01:10:21.380 Well, of course, your name is, you know, goes across the air, your number or whatever.

01:10:25.000 And the other police officers in the area, they know you're a snitch and they hear your name coming up.

01:10:31.020 Then I'll come back you up or if they come, they're going to come very slowly.

01:10:35.320 In other words, they're going to endanger your life.

01:10:37.200 You remember Frank Serpito?

01:10:39.820 I understand.

01:10:40.640 Yeah, I know.

01:10:41.280 But I understand there are risks to turning against your own, quote, gang, police officer or elsewise, but otherwise.

01:10:48.880 But I would say, and even though a lot of them can, they can be like bouncers, you know, on a power trip and out to sort of exercise it.

01:10:56.320 And they're dangerous.

01:10:57.720 But I have to say a word in their defense because my brother is a police officer.

01:11:02.440 He was a lieutenant in Albany, New York.

01:11:04.680 And he I got to know plenty of police officers through his experience.

01:11:10.660 And I know him.

01:11:11.820 And this is an honorable group.

01:11:14.860 He is honorable and spent his life helping people in the inner city in Albany in really, really dangerous situations.

01:11:21.720 Never hurt anybody.

01:11:22.820 In fact, he was hurt many times and never became sullen, racist, bitter, just kept getting back out there and doing it and trying to improve the community.

01:11:33.040 And I hate when they get demonized writ large because I think of Paul and I think about his colleagues and I think of how the risks they take every day and how dangerous policing is.

01:11:44.320 And I just I think it's really unfair, the narrative that goes around about them.

01:11:48.980 I don't believe that there are more bad cops than good cops.

01:11:51.520 I think it's exactly the opposite.

01:11:52.800 I don't know if I'd use the phrase bad apples, but I think we're we're being really tough on these guys who do a really dangerous job and and at great risk to themselves.

01:12:02.500 Keep many black people, black women, black children safe in cities where black men drive up the crime rate and nobody else will protect them. 0.99

01:12:13.720 OK, so let me say this. 0.97

01:12:16.100 I still say there are more bad, bad cops than good cops, but I'm not doubting you about your brother.

01:12:22.420 You know, your brother is one of the honest cops.

01:12:24.560 So say he's an honest cop.

01:12:26.020 Right. And there are honest cops out there. 0.98

01:12:28.000 I'm not I'm not paying a broad brush across the department, but here's the problem. 0.88

01:12:31.760 So a good cop who turns a blind eye trying to uphold the blue wall, turns a blind eye on one of his colleagues who's beating the crap out of somebody or shooting somebody or planting a gun beside somebody and then shooting him.

01:12:45.240 You know, say I pulled a gun on me or whatever or stealing drugs or stealing money or whatever he does.

01:12:50.900 When when that when that good cop turns that blind eye, that makes him complicit.

01:12:56.400 Here is the solution.

01:12:58.300 A couple of things.

01:12:58.920 One, we need some kind of mechanism where good cops, because, you know, most people don't go join the police in order to go out and do bad things.

01:13:09.120 They want to help the society.

01:13:10.960 Yes, there are those who are bullies with badges.

01:13:13.240 OK, I went to school with people who become cops.

01:13:16.360 If they were goody two shoes in school, they're great cops out here on the street.

01:13:19.980 If they were bullies at my school, they're bullies with badges now.

01:13:23.240 OK, but the majority of people join the force because they want to do right.

01:13:28.320 They want to solve crime.

01:13:29.380 They want to protect the public, et cetera.

01:13:31.480 I got I got that. 1.00

01:13:32.820 But when they get caught up in, you know, they have to turn a blind eye if their partner does something stupid. 0.99

01:13:38.640 They need a mechanism by which they can report it anonymously. 0.93

01:13:42.740 Sort of like we can report tips, you know, so that way they don't have any ramifications.

01:13:47.200 Because when you go directly to the brass, the brass is what they call the higher ups.

01:13:52.400 Right.

01:13:53.320 And you and you report on officer so and so down on the street.

01:13:56.760 Believe it or not, the brass is going to leak that.

01:14:00.440 And word word will come out that you told. 0.99

01:14:04.120 And the reason the brass does that is because, you know, back when they were on patrol, they were doing the same crap. 0.99

01:14:11.420 And it doesn't reflect well on them to have a department of bullies. 0.99

01:14:15.500 Exactly. So, you know, these good cops need a mechanism in which they are protected from their own.

01:14:22.380 And the other thing that they need is they need a national registry for bad cops, for cops who've been convicted or terminated for, you know, whatever. 0.52

01:14:32.940 Just like we have the trash. 0.75

01:14:35.160 You can't pass the trash because just like these bad just like these bad priests, you know, they get moved from parish to parish. 0.65

01:14:41.460 It's the same thing with cops.

01:14:42.880 There is no national registry.

01:14:44.940 Just like, you know, you have a national registry for child abusers.

01:14:47.860 You know, you abuse some kid in New York.

01:14:49.540 You can't go get a gig out in California at some daycare center because your name is on that national registry.

01:14:55.540 So we need the same kind of thing for cops because they continue that behavior if they've already been convicted.

01:15:02.500 That's all they know how to do.

01:15:03.660 I like both of those.

01:15:04.020 I like anonymous.

01:15:05.500 I mean, I've been saying in the schools right now, the parents who object to these insane teachings, some of which I mentioned earlier, they need to be given an anonymous way of reporting it, too.

01:15:14.380 Because when it comes to, you know, saying, I don't want that, you know, people are so paranoid in this environment to speak out against something that they are labeling anti-racism that they keep silent at their children's peril.

01:15:27.700 And, you know, not everybody's like a loud mouth, like some one half of this conversation and they don't want to do it.

01:15:36.660 So let me let me switch gears and just end it with this, because I have to ask you about FAIR, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism.

01:15:43.520 You are on the advisory board.

01:15:45.140 I, too, am there with some great, great people, people I love and admire and respect.

01:15:50.200 John McWhorter was just on the show.

01:15:52.180 Glenn Lowry.

01:15:52.820 I could go on.

01:15:53.480 So why did you why did you agree to do that?

01:15:57.340 And what do you think why do you think this is a good organization that people should consider?

01:16:01.940 What do you what do you like about their mission?

01:16:03.920 Well, FAIR, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, I think it's an excellent organization because, I mean, you know, they're trying to promote, you know, equality and fairness that treats people as individuals rather than just, you know, some token of a racial group or something.

01:16:20.300 And I'm all about fairness.

01:16:21.740 I'm all about treating people, you know, people equally.

01:16:24.620 And there needs to be more groups like this or patterned after this to do that.

01:16:31.200 And when Byron Bartoning, you know, contacted me about it, and I had a long conversation with him on the phone as to what his mission was, what he hoped to do, it all lined up with, you know, what I'm trying to do out here.

01:16:44.960 And so I said, hey, you know, let's, you know, let's do this together.

01:16:48.140 Daryl Davis, what a pleasure.

01:16:50.340 Thank you so much.

01:16:51.000 My pleasure.

01:16:51.560 Thank you for having me.

01:16:52.380 I really, really appreciate it.

01:16:53.560 Hope we can call this part one and do part two some other time.

01:16:56.920 Yes, you're on.

01:16:58.240 It's a done deal.

01:16:59.400 All right.

01:16:59.700 And call me for those guitar lessons.

01:17:01.480 Yeah, I will.

01:17:02.460 Don't say you don't mean it.

01:17:04.440 Okay.

01:17:04.800 Don't miss the show on Wednesday because we are going to tackle the latest in all the COVID nonsense and the interminable masks, despite being vaccinated, despite the risk of catching it being exposed is very, very low in schools.

01:17:23.840 What's happening with our children who were hanging out to dry?

01:17:27.660 They have to be a mask forever.

01:17:28.900 Basically, every child under the age of 12 is going to have to be in a mask forever if we let these lunatics get their way and don't start pushing back.

01:17:36.740 And you will, too, by the way.

01:17:38.440 Your vaccine passport is coming already.

01:17:40.400 The EU is saying, yeah, come on, come on over just as long as you can prove you've been vaccinated.

01:17:45.100 It's the camel's nose and the camel's coming under the tent and we got to talk about it.

01:17:49.080 So we will.

01:17:50.380 That's on Wednesday.

01:17:51.140 Don't miss that show.

01:17:51.840 In the meantime, see you then.

01:17:53.160 Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. 0.94

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The Megyn Kelly Show - May 24, 2021

Daryl Davis on Getting KKK Members to Leave the Klan, Policing in America, and Lacking Bitterness ｜ Ep. 106

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