In this episode, former Vice President Joe Biden talks about his campaign to end race-based affirmative action in America, why it s a bad idea, and why it should go away. He also discusses his new book, Nation of Victims, which explores the history of Black Victimhood, and the role that victimhood plays in shaping our understanding of who we really are. Biden is a former Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator from Ohio who served as the first black man elected to the Senate from Ohio in 1988 and served as Vice President from 1988-1993. He is also the author of Nation Of Victims and has been a frequent contributor to the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and other publications. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, and is one of the most well-known authors in the country. He has also been featured in the Hollywood Reporter, The New Yorker, and The Hollywood Reporter. His latest book is and he is a frequent guest on CNN s Most Powerful Person in American History. He has been featured on the Today Show, The Tonight Show, CBS Radio, and NPR s Morning Drive with John Dickerson, and in The Today Show with Rachel Maddow, and many other media outlets across the country, including CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, CBS and NPR, among other outlets. Adam Gooden joins us to discuss his life, career, and career, including his new memoir, The Black Victim . and his new novel, . of which he recently published in The Nation about the book, Nation of Victimhood. , which is out now available on Amazon which is available on the Kindle edition. . . . and the new edition of his new audio book is out in paperback in paperback edition to be available on Audible , and on the Apple App Store, and on the Audible app, It s available for preorder now! or wherever else you get your copy of the book is available. or you can get it. you can order a copy of his book. You can find him on amazon the book on the App Store or wherever you re listening to it is available, you can also get it on your favorite podcast download it on the service, it s free on the web, and other places you get it, too
Transcript
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00:00:02.000So one of my core policy planks in this campaign, as many of you will know, is to eliminate race-based affirmative action in America.
00:00:35.000I think that, yes, it is an anti-meritocratic policy in America that stops the best person from necessarily getting that job, getting that promotion, getting that spot in college or at the local prep school.
00:00:48.000But that's not the only thing that's wrong with it.
00:00:51.000I think a big part of what's wrong Is that it also teaches black children that they can't achieve something on their own, that they need a special leg up.
00:01:03.000And yes, it is true that the country has suffered a history of racial injustice dating back to its founding.
00:01:10.000But at a certain point, if you don't move on from that, you're going to keep running into the same obstacles over and over again.
00:01:17.000Not a lot of people know this, but even as recently as in the 1960s, Okay?
00:01:23.000A majority, I think it was over 70% of black kids were born into a two-parent household.
00:01:28.000The economic conditions in black America were actually better than they are today.
00:01:33.000Now it's fewer than 30% are born into a two-parent household.
00:01:39.000was actually Lyndon Johnson's Great Society that, first of all, created the incentives for the dissolution of the two-parent household, that created incentives for mothers to be single as single mothers rather than to have a father in the house, but also what Lyndon Johnson did as part of that same vision was implement affirmative action through executive order, where what did he say?
00:02:01.000He said that if you're going to do business with the federal government, then you have to adopt these race-based quota systems if you're a government contractor.
00:02:07.000Today, that covers over 20% of the U.S. workforce.
00:02:11.000I did go to a private Jesuit high school from 9th through 12th grade, but until then, 1st through 8th grade, I went to not that great of a public school, I'll be honest about it.
00:02:22.000There were kids who came from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds.
00:02:26.000I wasn't born into a wealthy family, but I was born into a family with two parents in the house who put an emphasis on education.
00:02:32.000But that was the real competitive advantage that I had.
00:02:34.000And there wasn't one of those black kids who went to school with me from first through eighth grade in Princeton schools in Cincinnati, Ohio, who couldn't have accomplished everything that I have in my life.
00:02:45.000I've gone on to found multi-billion dollar companies as the kid of immigrants who came to this country with almost no money.
00:02:50.000Every one of those kids could have done the exact same thing.
00:02:54.000If they enjoyed the true privilege that I had, which was two parents in the house who placed a value in education, and yes, raised us with a sense of faith and conviction, including our faith in God, I believe that's possible.
00:03:06.000And yet what we teach those next generation of black kids, really many kids, even in many races today, is to think of yourself as a victim of the system rather than to think of yourself as a victor, somebody who's able to actually overcome hardship rather than to be defined by it.
00:03:23.000Hardship is not the same thing as victimhood.
00:03:26.000Hardship can be part of what helps us discover who we really are, whether or not you're black or white or gay or straight or Democrat or Republican.
00:03:36.000And I want to introduce our guest today who understands that better than most people I've met in my life and I feel like I got to know him, not because we've spent a lot of time together, but because I read his book.
00:03:46.000Actually, the best way to sometimes get to know somebody is to actually read what they wrote.
00:03:50.000You'll know much more about them than just spending an evening together in the company of others.
00:03:55.000No, you actually dig beneath the surface when you get to somebody's heart and soul by actually seeing what they took the time to put on a piece of paper.
00:04:03.000And that's what I did when I was writing my book, Nation of Victims.
00:04:06.000One of the books I read was about black victimhood culture.
00:04:09.000It was a topic that I felt like at the time, even today, you're not supposed to touch it.
00:04:13.000It's supposed to be one of these sacred cows you leave alone.
00:04:16.000The person who's here today is actually brave enough to have taken that subject on head-on in a first personal way in a book that moved me.
00:04:24.000And I want to welcome him to the podcast.
00:04:28.000We've seen each other briefly in passing, but it's the first time we're actually properly sitting down one-on-one and I've been really looking forward to this.
00:05:33.000But basically, I was watching everything that was happening in the media with George Floyd.
00:05:38.000And, you know, my trade is I was an IT guy.
00:05:41.000I was an IT manager for a small business.
00:05:44.000And every day I would sit at my desk and watch the news and listen to podcasts.
00:05:49.000And I just remember hearing people say, you know, if you want some sort of change, you got to do something about it.
00:05:55.000And the other part was I felt like I couldn't talk about it.
00:05:59.000There was no medium for me to actually speak about, well, I don't agree with this narrative.
00:06:05.000Social media didn't feel like the platform to do it because I wanted to talk about it in a very deep way, you know, with some significance.
00:06:13.000Social media is designed to be the opposite of deep.
00:06:36.000I grew up under my mother with my sister as well.
00:06:40.000And we went through in and out of hardships.
00:06:42.000We went through moving four states before I was 18. Where all did you go?
00:06:48.000I was born in Detroit, moved to Alexandria, Virginia, was there for less than two years, and then moved up to upstate New York, Orange County, and then moved to New Jersey.
00:08:18.000I remember the very first computer was a Commodore 64. And then the first real, real computer that could actually do something was a Compaq.
00:09:25.000I've worked for a telecommunications company, did over-the-phone tech support.
00:09:31.000And then it took me a while to kind of break into in-person support for companies and just kind of grew from there in the past six, seven years.
00:10:07.000But where did you think in the – so in the middle of this – I mean, I know this first personally – Because I've done it.
00:10:14.000It's a big commitment to take and write a book.
00:10:17.000Like, yes, okay, we all saw the George Floyd thing.
00:10:20.000Actually, in many cases, we share something in common that's part of what sent me on my journey to write Woke Inc because of the demands that landed on me as a CEO. But it sounds like it was a similar catalyst for you.
00:10:32.000I mean, what lit the fire to actually take on that undertaking of like writing a full-on – I mean, it was a full-on book.
00:10:40.000It's a serious work you put out there.
00:10:42.000What led you to actually, you know, generate the commitment while having a full-time job to do that and then talk about the substance of what the thesis of the book was about?
00:10:52.000So to kind of get at the core of it, I would say maybe like a year or two prior, I thought about writing a book.
00:10:58.000I just had no idea what to write about.
00:11:00.000But the purpose of writing it was to leave a legacy for my son.
00:11:03.000I was going through personal transformations and, you know, some of it was political, some of it was personal growth.
00:11:34.000And once I felt stifled as far as not being able to speak, not being able to say how I really felt, I actually went to free speech forums and just started talking in depth.
00:11:45.000And actually people were saying, you should write more often.
00:11:48.000What did you want to say and what made you feel stifled in terms of not being able to say it?
00:12:34.000For one, that we're all victims and the likeliness of us being killed by police is extremely high when it's actually the complete opposite.
00:12:51.000So was that like – it's interesting to me.
00:12:53.000I mean, so you're talking about like in 2019, 2020, like it would be a popular – even amongst just like social conversation, these social issues would come up about – Whether or not policing is a source of death in the black community, whether or not victims of a society.
00:13:12.000That's a normal conversation, you would say?
00:13:17.000The narrative has always kind of existed.
00:13:19.000It's always been something that someone might throw out.
00:13:23.000But the thing that concerned me was, one, how often the media was harping on this particular topic.
00:13:29.000And then they went from George Floyd to other ambiguous situations implying things.
00:13:36.000And it just felt like a machine, right?
00:13:40.000You had the Black Lives Matter organization.
00:13:41.000That was relatively new, and it actually was being hyped up even more so than, you know, the Mike Brown situation where they were protesting, but it wasn't nearly as what it turned into.
00:13:54.000They raised tens of millions of dollars off of that situation.
00:14:00.000But it just felt like there was a machine behind it this time around.
00:18:09.000So what drew you to the topic of black victimhood and black victor mentality, the victimhood to victor mentality?
00:18:18.000Back to that, so that's in the context you're going through this political transformation.
00:18:22.000You have this sense of hunger that I'm hearing to leave a legacy for your son, maybe in a way that you felt like, I'm not putting words in your mouth here, but maybe it was a gap from what your father left for you and so you're being thoughtful there.
00:18:39.000You've had this potential transformation coming out of this friendship and intellectual friendship with somebody on the other side of the Atlantic.
00:19:38.000And tell them what to be outraged over.
00:19:41.000And I thought that was something that...
00:19:44.000It was happening amongst Black Americans as far as all the industries, you know, the grievance industries that make a lot of money off of them but do nothing actually for them.
00:19:54.000And I saw it being perpetuated in other groups.
00:19:59.000Like right now, you could talk about the LGBT and how they use victimhood narratives to get them to do certain things, to be upset about, you know, feminists.
00:20:45.000Everyone tries to cash out when the bubble's trading at a high because pretty soon what happens with the bubble is it's going to burst.
00:20:51.000But everyone's right now in the phase where they're cashing in while they still can.
00:20:54.000And the funny thing is we see is – my parents are from India, the Indian American community.
00:20:59.000I take a look at like my kids and their generation and my nieces and nephews and their generation.
00:21:04.000There's now a trend there which is different than the way – My parents raised us and many people – so many people like my parents raised us in the mid-80s and 90s where now those kids are taught to see themselves as victims too, to say, no, no, no, we're persons of color kind of, right?
00:21:19.000And we too are victims because that's just how you get ahead in the country.
00:21:23.000But there's no winner in this game because you lose your own fortitude when you – even if you're doing it as a tool, you start to believe the lie and And then you become a hollowed out husk of yourself.
00:21:36.000And so I don't care whether you're black or Asian American or Indian American, if you see yourself as a victim, you're less likely to actually realize your fullest potential.
00:21:46.000Now, like, what do you say in response?
00:21:48.000And a lot of what I hear in response to this is, you're just rejecting the reality of That black people have been victimized in this country, slavery, 160 years ago.
00:22:00.000Even the need for civil rights laws in response to the Jim Crow era in this country, even other systematically racist practices from redlining or otherwise that made it more difficult for black Americans to compete in this country.
00:22:15.000How can you not recognize that and just say that, okay, you shouldn't see yourself as a victim anymore.
00:23:04.000We're saying, hey, this is bad, but we shouldn't exaggerate from there on that this unfortunate situation is even commonplace, because it isn't.
00:23:39.000Every time I turn on the television, it's showing black people being killed by police.
00:23:43.000I mean, it's not far-fetched for you to think that this is actually a problem, right?
00:23:49.000So we kind of have to- And then you combine that with insecurities that want you to fill your own hunger for meaning in life by becoming a savior to them.
00:24:37.000Acknowledge, you know, why they might be hypervigilant about stuff, but steer them into the direction that makes the most sense.
00:24:45.000And I just, I don't think that there's enough care about rhetoric.
00:24:48.000I don't think that there's enough care about saying something, not just because they said it, we'll say the opposite, but actually saying, you know what, maybe they have a point about this, but they're wrong here.
00:25:00.000And so we can admit that and still be right.
00:27:32.000If the time is right, you find some reason to kind of come together with people.
00:27:36.000And so what I wanted to do with the book is talk about childhood trauma significantly because that is our point where we can actually come together over and we can have some sort of unfortunate bonding over childhood trauma.
00:27:52.000Because when I talk about not having my father in my life, most of the people who tell me I went through the same thing or my family's going through the same thing, they don't look like me.
00:28:03.000There are more white Americans who are growing up without their fathers in their lives in separate households than black Americans.
00:28:11.000But the narrative, even with me writing the book, talking about black victimhood and black people growing up disproportionately high without both parents in the home, more white people are actually going through that situation than black.
00:31:27.000And then after that, I have a chapter about conservative victimhood, about how the victimhood culture is spreading to the right and we're in a race to the bottom playing the victimhood Olympics.
00:31:36.000But the number one thing I hear, I even heard this over the weekend when I was talking about this issue too, is you shouldn't talk about this.
00:31:44.000Like, let's say you and I have the exact same view.
00:31:49.000And you're talking about it, that that is more socially or fully socially acceptable in a way that it's not for someone who isn't black.
00:32:02.000My gut reaction to that, I'm very open-minded about this, all right?
00:32:06.000And if your view is different, I'm open to being persuaded.
00:32:08.000But my view is we should be able to espouse whatever ideas that We believe get us to a better place regardless of what our own individual race is.
00:32:19.000And so if you want to talk about issues in the Indian American community, you should feel free to do that.
00:32:25.000And if I want to talk about issues that I think are standing in the way of black empowerment in America, human empowerment in America that include black empowerment, I should be free to do that.
00:32:39.000These are topics that are historically fraught in the US. Yeah.
00:32:44.000So tell me if you think I'm wrong about that.
00:32:47.000I'd be curious for your perspective there.
00:32:49.000But right now, so far, the approach I've been taking is actually to be uninhibited.
00:32:53.000But at the same time, I get a lot of feedback even from friends, including black friends, who I think mean very well when they say, hey man, like, I don't think you should be able to talk about this unless you're talking to a black audience or you're, you know, somebody who's black should be saying these things, but not you.
00:34:29.000There's an aspect, because I hear this too, when I talk about race in front of what is perceived or what may actually be a majority white audience, it is, oh, you're talking negatively about us.
00:34:57.000Because there are situations where I'm like, I get why they don't like this.
00:35:02.000Not necessarily something, but let's say I see a prominent right-wing figure who may be black who says something, and then I see the people that I would generally disagree with saying, no, that's not right.
00:35:14.000I'll be like, you know, they have a point in there.
00:35:16.000Because what I see too often is people acting like they care, but really they're just trying to make some point or take a dig.
00:35:26.000And I think that's why I say how really matters.
00:35:29.000Or why are you even talking- You mean people even on our side of this issue.
00:35:35.000You know, when- Like if George Floyd happens, then you talk about race.
00:35:39.000It makes sense because it's the topic of the moment.
00:35:41.000But when nothing is happening and you're just taking digs, You know, or at least it's perceived like, why are you talking about, why are you constantly putting up, let's say, crime videos of black people every day and making, you know, you're making- Insinuations about- Insinuations like, oh, well, see, this is what they do.
00:36:01.000You know, oh, I just care about crime.
00:36:07.000I mean, to tell you the truth, I think that Like these issues are very personal to me about – Actually, where are you on affirmative action before I ask you, race-based affirmative action?
00:36:57.000I went to a pro-life rally yesterday but talked about actually – talk openly about the fact that Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood.
00:37:04.000With the objective, like the stated objective of reducing black population growth.
00:37:27.000She shared her perspective, her powerful story.
00:37:30.000I spoke right after, but it was actually a mostly white audience.
00:37:33.000And we were talking about this very issue.
00:37:35.000And, you know, I tweeted something after that.
00:37:38.000I said, like, one of the way home from the event, we took a couple pictures from my iPhone, and one of the points that came out of my dialogue with her was that actually a black baby is probably safer in the inner street of Chicago, in the inner city of Chicago, than in the womb of his own black mother.
00:37:57.000And I think that that's actually a problem, and it's directly the product of what Margaret Sanger envisioned years ago when sending Planned Parenthood into motion.
00:38:06.000I think it was perceived to be very insensitive coming from me.
00:38:11.000And I think a lot of people struggled with that.
00:38:16.000But in a way that they wouldn't have if I were black.
00:38:19.000And one of the things I'm thinking about is this question of the how, right?
00:38:23.000For me in this presidential campaign, a big part of the whole cultural movement I'm trying to create.
00:38:29.000It's not just relating to issues of race.
00:38:32.000It could relate to the use of military south at the border to fight cartels in Mexico.
00:38:36.000But I think we are better off when we are able to just start talking openly.
00:38:42.000And if you're going to say it behind closed doors, you might as well say it in public.
00:38:46.000What would your advice be as somebody who is not just who's black but who has thought about these issues of black identity and its relationship to victimhood and somebody who I think has a nuanced perspective as you do you're not like an ideologue about this would your advice to me be to Speak without a filter, unapologetically, full stop, as long as it's honest and grounded in truth.
00:39:10.000Or to add a layer of filtering, but filtering through the lens of like, maybe be, make sure you're filtering to be empathic and make sure the message lands the right way.
00:39:22.000Like, I think there's a reasonable case to be made for that.
00:39:25.000That's not the approach I'm taking right now.
00:39:27.000Should that be, in your view, the approach that I should take, which probably wouldn't have had me put out that tweet yesterday, actually.
00:39:34.000So I would say, and this is just my general stance, I always lean on empathy.
00:39:41.000I try to find something where there's some sort of common ground as to what I'm discussing.
00:39:47.000So when it comes to something that you know is going to be sensitive, or maybe even perceived even more sensitive for you...
00:41:21.000Some, it could be $200, $2,000, $2 million, right?
00:41:25.000But it removes you from that area of being hyper-rhetorical, of being partisan or something like that, especially because you are running for office.
00:41:38.000That veneer of being a private citizen and maybe something will automatically be replaced that, oh, you're just a politician who's trying to, you know, sweeten the pot for yourself or rile up your base.
00:41:52.000These would be accusations that someone will levy towards you.
00:41:55.000But even worse with something like that tweet, they'll say you're using Black people to rally the base, right?
00:42:01.000And if they already think the right is racist, all this stuff kind of compiles and it doesn't look good for you.
00:42:07.000So, I always tell people, if you want to talk about race, talk about race.
00:42:12.000And I have conversations with people who don't look like me, who finally feel comfortable to kind of like ask questions.
00:42:19.000They just don't know how to talk about it without sounding insensitive, but I have good faith in them, so I hear them out.
00:42:28.000But you have to understand that there is some sensitivity and I get where it comes from because unfortunately, even though you're not that person, there are people who do this and I criticize them.
00:42:44.000And I criticize these people because I see what they're doing, you know, and they're taking shots and they're using this and getting people to say, yeah, yeah, he's right.
00:42:54.000And then retweet it and get more followers.
00:42:58.000And if I were you, I would try my best to not even be remotely close to appearing as mixing in with these people.
00:43:07.000You know, I mean, it sounds like then you've been following a lot of my commentary.
00:43:10.000What's your perspective on the way I'm talking about the affirmative action issue?
00:43:25.000So one thing I try to do, like with articles, for example, if I'm talking about race, oftentimes I deviate from race to talk about class because I think classes are really big.
00:43:48.000So you can easily frame it as what is supposed to help the average Black American is actually uplifting the upper class.
00:43:58.000If you were to frame it in that way, then it sounds a little bit different versus, you know, something, you know, whatever talking point someone might use for affirmative action that they don't, you know, merit-based doesn't work or something like that.
00:44:12.000You know, we want a very particular way.
00:44:15.000But I think if you were to steer it to something that people can kind of understand more and kind of unite over, because I do believe that the race discussion is valid to have, but not all the time.
00:44:28.000And even though affirmative action appears to be race-related, There's a way that you can always kind of frame it and steer it away from race to something that is more understanding to other people.
00:44:41.000So, you know, white Americans get pissed off when the upper class takes stuff from them.
00:45:27.000And, you know, I know we were talking about what made you do the book, but what kept me going and the words that kind of came out weren't all me.
00:47:34.000Coincidentally, thanks to New York Post, I have a Dutch friend who is a theologian, and we just started having Bible lessons in With someone you met through?
00:48:00.000But yeah, I just started studying with her and she's very fluent, not only in Christianity, but she's familiar with the Muslim faith and And a whole bunch of different faiths, but especially Christianity for herself.
00:49:12.000For one, I don't usually talk about faith in God because I don't feel equipped enough to talk about it in a very in-depth manner.
00:49:22.000I do have some very small amount of referencing God and faith, but nothing significant.
00:49:29.000The reason I brought it up is it was one of the unanswered questions from reading your book is, So David Hume, okay, he's a famous philosopher.
00:49:40.000You may have heard of him in Britain or whatever.
00:49:48.000It means that he believes you can only know the things that you see or empirically experience to be true.
00:49:54.000But the paradox that he never wrapped his head around was he had this theory of the missing shade of blue.
00:50:00.000Where if you had different shades of blue on that wall but one shade were missing, he says, I could still see what that shade of blue was there even though I didn't quite see it.
00:50:19.000I'm saying it as many times as I can so people can find your book for themselves.
00:50:22.000But it seemed to me that journey, like reading it from the outside in, I felt like I was reading the work of a person of faith, a believer, and whose belief and faith was part of that, you know, personal journey to being a victor.
00:50:41.000And yet you didn't – at least as I remembered it, it sounds like, you know, it was the case that you did not actually explicitly say something in the book.
00:50:48.000It was like my missing shade of blue is like the missing shade of Adam in that book.
00:51:38.000I just encourage you – you gave me a lot of good advice in this conversation.
00:51:42.000I'll give you one back is – Don't be super shy about talking about your own journey through agnosticism, through doubt, maybe coming back to faith in the way you have.
00:51:52.000I think that can actually give a lot of people some inspiration.
00:51:57.000Yeah, that was one of the areas where after I wrote the book, because even after writing the book, there's been a lot of growth with me personally, that I felt more comfortable.
00:52:06.000I'm actually glad that I started a Substack where it's less political, sometimes political, but it's actually more personal.
00:52:14.000I talk about a lot of different things.
00:52:23.000One of the things that has been extremely difficult For me to talk about, and I really wanted to talk about it, was when I was admitted to a mental health institution when I was six.
00:52:36.000And going through that experience, and the other week was the first time I talked about it, like, on stage.
00:53:46.000The three months is a long time for a six-year-old, but even more so, the three months was a long time not knowing when you're actually leaving, because that's the other part of it.
00:57:22.000She was actually, she was a little bit upset at the very beginning because I told her, I wrote in the book that I felt like I was a burden.
00:59:26.000You know, I don't think, you know, I'll agree with most of the things you say, I don't agree with all of them, but I know I'm getting the real thing with you, which is why I've been so grateful for our relationship since the first time we met.
00:59:40.000And, you know, if you got your Dutch friend over there and your friend in Spain who came from Manchester, you know, I feel like we have Maybe a nascent version of that on this side of the pond here.
00:59:57.000I hope you and I will be continuing this conversation The conversation we started, we were seated together in Wisconsin two years ago for a long time to come.
01:00:08.000And, you know, if I do succeed in this endeavor and we're embarking on it with the full expectation and hope and commitment to success, I hope we'll continue these conversations for the sake of the country, you know, all the way from the White House and on through.
01:00:26.000And you'll be one of those people who I know I'll call, especially when I'm tackling those issues that do relate to Race in America in particular who can be a gut check on making sure that on one hand I want to be unvarnished and unapologetic and yet on the other hand really care about making sure that we're doing it to solve the problems and not to create more of them.