Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hi everyone. And welcome to the 118th episode of the Atlas society asks. My name is Jennifer Anju Grossman. I go by JAG. I'm the CEO of the Atlas society. We are the leading nonprofit organization, introducing young people to the ideas of I'm Rand in fun, creative ways, like our animated videos and graphic novels. Today, we are joined by professor Charles NEK and before I even get into introducing my guest, I wanted to remind all of you who are watching us on zoom on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Uh, you can use the comment section to type in your questions and we will get to as many of them as we can. So our guest today, Charles ne is an author, a licensed psychologist and a tenured associate professor of psychology from the university of central Florida. Uh, he has studied race, ethnicity, and interethnic relations for over 30 years.
Speaker 0 00:01:07 He has published over 60 studies in psychology journals about ethnicity and sexuality, and has presented his research, um, and conducted training seminars throughout Latin America. In addition to his academic work in 2020, he published white shaming bullying based on prejudice, virtue, signaling, and ignorance, uh, the book and, uh, professor NE's social media commentary during the whole black lives matter protests and riots of the same year triggered some woke graduate students to, uh, Mount a campaign to get him fired. Um, but unlike so many academics who have been similarly targeted, professor ne refused to bow down and after unlike the arbitration process, he has been reinstated at the university. So professor, thanks again for joining us.
Speaker 1 00:02:08 My pleasure.
Speaker 0 00:02:11 So, uh, before jumping into your, uh, recent experience with cancel culture, our viewers always love to know a bit about your origin story. So, uh, maybe a bit about where you grew up and what led to your interest in psychology generally and interethnic relations in particular.
Speaker 1 00:02:33 Um, well I'm from Houston, Texas, and, um, my father was Mexican American and my mom was white and of course, Houston, very diverse city, even when I was around, I was born in 1960. Uh, and then of course, as a young adult, I moved to Southern California, which was even a diverse area. So we have a, it's a humorous comment in psychology that many of us do what we call research, which is the word research because many of us, our research programs actually reflect something about ourselves, trying to learn something about ourselves. So in light of my personal background, as well as my living situation in Houston and Southern California, uh, I was always interested initially in studying how Hispanic Americans seemed to vary so much in the extent to which they acculturate to the us culture. So that kind of, when I got into grad school, I decided to forge a research focus on the acculturation process of Hispanics.
Speaker 1 00:03:43 And then of course the more I got into doing research and becoming a professor, uh, I started expanding my focus to include other ethnic groups and looking at other aspects of Latin Americans or people of Hispanic ancestry. So really quickly I got my bachelor's degree from California state university Fullerton. And then I got my PhD in psychology from Texas a, um, university. And I started off teaching at a full time professor university of Texas. It's now called university of Texas Rio grand valley, which is in the Southern tip of Texas, was there for four years and been at university of central Florida for 24 years now.
Speaker 0 00:04:26 Okay. Uh, so you were doing research, um, and, and that, it sounds like it was stemming from, uh, your, your own experience, uh, with having, um, parents by
Speaker 1 00:04:39 Background
Speaker 0 00:04:40 Parents. Yeah. Um, well that, that, that resonates a bit. I spent about 12 years running a nutrition Institute and I was always struck by the fact that so many, uh, registered dieticians appeared to be struggling with their weight. And I, you know, and I think maybe that's partially what also motivated some of them to, to want to pursue that field. Um, you've also lived in three different countries, the us Spain, El Salvador, uh, and you've traveled to over 40 countries. Um, how has that experience informed your research?
Speaker 1 00:05:17 Uh, those experiences have collectively both informed and influenced my research, not to mention my personal lives, but my world view, et cetera. So most humans tend to be like goldfish in a goldfish bowl. The goldfish doesn't even know it's in water until it finds itself one day out of the water, and then it becomes aware of it. So growing up in one country, as I did for my life, my first early part of my life, I never really questioned anything about the United States. I just kind of did everything the way most people do the things that we do at the United States. So wasn't until I got to go out to other parts of the world and see how people really are diverse to use a trite term. And so I learned not only a lot about other people in, I learned a lot about myself and the us culture and Americans, because I, I had never questioned anything about the us. So in my mind, I, I learned what really are wonderful things about the us that we tend to take for granted and also learned about things that are not so good about the United States that I never knew were bad, but they are problematic in my view. Um, so having such a broad perspective on humanity, um, clearly has had its impact, uh, effect on my research. Excuse me.
Speaker 0 00:06:46 Great. Well, let's talk about something else which has had, um, impact on your work and probably your perspective, uh, your experience with the, uh, the cancel culture campaign at university of central Florida. What happened because I'm, you know, I can tell from reading your book, uh, that you take your job as a professor and as a teacher and an educator very seriously, uh, that you're not coddling your students, you care deeply about your students, uh, and you want to provide them with, uh, a effective learning, uh, environment. So tell us, uh, what, how this happened to you.
Speaker 1 00:07:28 Okay. So let me start off by saying that I'm, I do not have an agenda in my studies or in my teaching. I do not go by an ideology. I'm not promoting an ideology. The only agenda I might have is that I want students to learn to question everything and to try to see the world the way the world seems to be. So, um, a very data driven, social scientist, I do my studies and whatever the data seem to indicate is the way I will portray that in my subsequent articles. And so, and that includes when I take a, when I try to examine the different cultural groups that I have in either my research or in my controversial course called cross cultural psychology, uh, we take the critical look at these cultural groups, not a negative look, we're not trying to denigrate anyone, but by contract, we're not trying to, I say, we, you mean my students led by me. I'm not trying to romanticize any groups. So, uh, my, uh, what was the question again? I'm sorry. Um,
Speaker 0 00:08:43 Well, what ha you know, what happened? How did, how did this happen? What triggered it and, um, yeah, because I'm, I'm taking it. Wasn't the, the, the letter that you, you sent to your students when, um, which you reprint in the book
Speaker 1 00:08:58 I was leading to, and I lost my train of thought, I'm on Twitter and we're having the George Floyd hysteria going on in the country. It seemed like the country was losing his mind and people of course are pointing out incessantly that there's systemic racism in the United States. And there's these disparities and the disparity between groups are all caused by racial discrimination. So I raise the question in a tweet, uh, and I'm paraphrasing my, my tweet. The question was, it was a sincere question. If on average African American had the same behavioral profile as Asian Americans, parenthesis being the most educated, having the highest income committing the least crime, would we still be proclaiming that systemic racism is prevalent in the United States? And I just wanted to sort of provoke comments and discussion among Twitter folks, but that along with another tweet of mine, which I was replying to someone else, and I mentioned the phrase black privilege, cause we we're hearing white privilege thrown around quite a bit.
Speaker 1 00:10:32 And I pointed out that there is such a thing as black privilege. And I mentioned a few examples. So those two tweets seem to draw the ire of, uh, African Americans, black lives matter affiliates. And they started attacking me on Twitter, uh, going after university of central Florida, demanding I'd be fired. And they, uh, contacted the journals for which I serve as an editor proclaiming, I'm a racist. And if they don't remove me from the journal, they're going to portray the journal online as a racist journal, they contacted Texas a M university or get my PhD like 30 plus years ago, demanding Texas a M make a comment, a public comment about me, which they did a performative denunciation of me, but Texas a M didn't even know I existed after 30 years yet they need to satisfy the, the mob.
Speaker 1 00:11:43 So, um, I wasn't worried about it at first because I had tenure at university of central Florida. And I'm known on campus for being a, a data driven, controversial professor who just calls things the way they really are based on data in my class. So university, the university knew that, but the problem was partly, we had just acquired a new president one month before, and this president came to UCF university supporter declaring from day one that his primary mission was to convert the entire university on a diversity in equity and inclusion camp, not to raise standards, academic standards, uh, not to try to encourage the best teaching effectiveness, et cetera, just to promote this ideology diversity. So I had already communicated with him, giving him a welcoming letter, letting him know that I, myself am a minority and I certainly am pro minority, but I already knew the diversity equity inclusion ideology was. So I invited him to have a meeting with me so we can discuss his agenda. He didn't get back to me, but a month later when the, the stuff hit the fan with the Twitter crisis, it fell into his lap. So he thought here's a chance to get rid of someone who's not going to be conforming to his
Speaker 0 00:13:15 Agenda.
Speaker 1 00:13:17 So he ordered the office of institutional equity, which is supposed to be an office that just makes sure there's no genuine harassment or discrimination occurring on campus. Actually, it's a, it's an office that enforces the ideology by and large. And so they were informed to launch a massive investigation into my entire 20. At that time I've been at UCF for 20 years. They, everything in my background, they did massive solicitations from every possible avenue or venue to get complaints from students from my entire career. And I've taught over 30,000 students. I've taught over 30,000 students. And, uh, they managed to find two to 300 students who came forward. And half of them just said lies about things that I've said in class and the other half would take things that I've said, but put a little nefarious twist on it so that it sounded far worse than what I had actually said.
Speaker 1 00:14:19 So in the end, they, they six, they didn't know what to do. I don't think I was still teaching. I was under investigation. Um, the director of that office interrogated me for two days, four and a half hours each day. And asking me just nonstop in 2012, did you say this comment in the class in 2014, did you say this comment 2005, did you say this comment and just went on for four and a half hours? And then I thought it was done after half a day. She said we've only finished half. Okay. Back the next week for another four and a half hours. I wasn't permitted to have anyone represent me. My private attorney was present, but she wasn't allowed to say a word. So anyway, the next semester came and COVID came. So we were all teaching online. I was still under investigation and I just thought nothing was gonna happen because I knew I had done nothing that would warrant any serious discipline, certainly not termination.
Speaker 1 00:15:25 But, uh, the first week of January, I got noticed that they're putting me on paid administrative leave. Uh, they're canceling my spring classes. And then a week later they said, they're, they're terminating me in seven days. And they produced a 244 page report, 244 page report on which they just put together everything they could, um, including not only did they claim that I created the, uh, I engaged in harassment or discrimination in the classroom based on what I was saying all these years. But they found things from my past in, if you recall, from my white shaving book, I think I told a story about how 11 years ago I was in Peru about take a flight to El Salvador and a, uh, an airline employee told me false information that I needed a, uh, a vaccination, right. And I couldn't fly without it. And then he referred me to a clinic down the, in, at the end of the airport, mm-hmm, <affirmative> ended up paying $17 and getting a shot. I don't know what went in my arm, but the lady knew I had to put, have two doses of it. So she put down, I had a previous dose, which was false. So I used that story to, in the context of showing how much corruption there is America, and of course, UCF plane that I bribed a healthcare
Speaker 0 00:16:59 <laugh> well, so I, I wanna, uh, kind of get to some of our audience questions. So basically what I'm taking from you is that it was, it was not really a student campaign. It was a, uh, an online kind of campaign that was driven by black lives matter activists, your university succumbeded, but you were able to come back and challenge that, or take them to court.
Speaker 1 00:17:26 It was initiated by students and people from around the country who were not students mm-hmm <affirmative>. And, uh, and then from there, it took on a life of his own with the current administration who wanted to probably get rid of me because I knew I wasn't going to accept their DEI ideology. Um, and they also I'm sure wanted to set it. I think the president was concerned, the black lives matter might have started a fire UCF, president campaign, like a different, um, and that's be the last thing. He wanted to have a national campaign. He just got there a month earlier. And a national campaign might be from black lives matter, demanding he be fired if he didn't do something. So, uh, it took me a year and a half. They fired me in January of 2021. Luckily for me, uh, we have a union and it's a fairly strong union for all the Florida public universities. So they, they assigned me a attorney and, uh, picked up the tab for it. And so we grieved my, my termination took a year and a half. I had a four day hearing with an arbitrator and it, the, both the UCF attorneys and my union attorney had 30 days to produce a closing statement about why each side thought they should prevail. And after they turned that in the arbitrator spent four days getting his ruling back to everyone that I should be fully reinstated with all back, pay, all benefits, et cetera.
Speaker 0 00:19:04 So,
Speaker 1 00:19:04 Wow. That occurred May 16th and they're supposed to pay me almost a quarter of a million dollars, but they haven't paid me a dime, oh God, they haven't paid me a
Speaker 0 00:19:18 Dime. Well, that sounds like, uh, quite the, quite the ordeal. Um, you know, we all thought we had a stressful 2020 in 2021, but, but I think, uh, you, you probably take the cake in terms of having one of the, uh, most darkest chapters, um, of your, of your career and of your life. And, um, it's, uh, no, no stranger to us here at the out society. One of our senior, uh, scholars, professor Jason Hill philosophy professor at DePaul is, is also, um, dealing in taking legal action to overcome, uh, again, minority he's black, he's gay, um, but he has very strong pro-Israel views. And, uh, so he's, um, they're trying to cancel him for that. And he's not, he's not taking it down. So you guys haven't gotten together. Maybe, maybe you should. Uh, now, so there was what happened on Twitter. Uh, and then of course your book had exquisite timing in terms of coming out really in, in the middle of this.
Speaker 0 00:20:24 Um, this is quite a, a well researched reasonable book, white shaming bullying based on prejudice, virtue, signaling, and ignorance. Um, so I'd like to, to jump into that and also wanna in remind all of you watching us, um, to jump in with your questions, cuz uh, really would love to get to some of those as well. But let's talk a little bit about this phenomenon of white shaming. Um, you know, we've had James Lindsay, uh, author of race Marxism on the show to talk about sort of the, um, historical academic roots of critical race theory. And we have our, our latest drama life, uh, video on that as well. So, um, so how did, how does, how did this come about? How did, um, it, it come about as, uh, a, a force? I mean, you tend to say that there were some very good things that were going on, um, that minorities proclaiming the, the right to define themselves and, um, to have the, their ideas and, uh, contributions receive recognition, uh, that was on par with, uh, the value and of those ideas and contributions. So where did things go off the rails?
Speaker 1 00:21:53 Okay. So I'm reporting in the book, what I perceived to be happening starting from the early 1980s onward. So as I tried to report in the book prior to let's say late 1970s, I think it, it was common. It's just to be fair, that a lot of the literature and coming from universities about women or gays or, or ethnic minorities were actually written by white men. And, uh, much of that literature seemed to focus on the challenges that these different groups had. And I noticed when I was an undergraduate that something started to happen in the early 1980s. And that was, it seemed like these different groups that typically don't, uh, have much in common with each other. What I mean by that is typically you don't find African Americans advocating for Hispanic rights and vice versa. So they started people who are, you know, I'm not sure what to call them, maybe activists or just concerned educators.
Speaker 1 00:23:09 They started coming together and in the early eighties, and they wanted to send a message to white men that they, they being women, minorities, sexual minorities, they wanted to be able to define themselves in the literature and college classes, et cetera. I'm fully on board with that and not, and also in addition to them wanting to be able to define themselves and not have someone else define them for them. Uh, they were pushing to have their contributions knowledged, and I'm fine with that too, provided the contributions, meet the standards of a given discipline. So, so far I'm kind of on board with all this, uh, but it was their tactic that they used to bring about change. And that tactic was, they decided they were going to ruin the life. They were like the early counselors, any white man researcher, professor, who said anything about black Hispanics, women, gays, even if it were accurate, they were gonna smear that person as a racist or a sexist or a homophobia and not just call them one time to their name and let go of it.
Speaker 1 00:24:33 But camp out in front of their office at the university and camp out in front of the deans or chair, the person's office demanding to be fired. So having done that a few times, white male professors got the message quickly. This is serious. And so quickly in the early eighties, white men stopped writing about minorities, women engaged, unless they said very flowery, romantic, positive things about them. So I didn't like that. Uh, silencing people is not the way to bring about POS positive change. Not to mention you ending up, you're ending up the literature. That's not accurate. It's not accurate it's romanticizing groups. And so, and then the late eighties and early nineties, I noticed that these same individuals who are involved in bringing about bringing about this change, they were, they would openly publicly denigrate whites and denigrate, heterosexuals and men. And whenever I would mention to people that this is unacceptable because I thought we're a country that's trying, trying to minimize and eliminate racism, sexism, et cetera.
Speaker 1 00:25:50 I would always hear the same thing. Oh, they're just minorities. It's okay. And I thought, no, no, it's not, no, they're not okay. But it seemed like whites and men and heterosexuals just dismissed all these, I think unacceptable expressions of racism and sexism, heteros sexism coming from minorities, women, gays kept on going for several decades. And so I started writing this book in around 2016 or 17 because I thought this was reaching a level, this starting to concern me because, you know, we're having changing demographics. You know, whites are diminishing every passing years, five years, 10 years, and, and people of color are expanding. And yet the rhetoric, the anti-white rhetoric seemed to just continue relentlessly. And, uh, so I'm here. I am writing this book, not knowing what was coming around the corner because the George Floyd incident just went, took this phenomenon that I'm describing were minorities are openly hostile towards whites and men and heterosexuals just took it and CATA it 20 yards in the air. So that's where I think the, the, the trajectory was to how we got to where we are today.
Speaker 0 00:27:21 Right. Um, you also write in the book that historically most minority groups with some exceptions have taken little interest in the agendas of other minority groups. Uh, but that changed in the 1980s. How so?
Speaker 1 00:27:39 Well, I think they found the common cause. So there is literature in social psychology talks about the enemy of my enemy, of my friend, essentially. And so these groups that typically didn't concern themselves with the agenda of other groups, that they now had a common enemy and a common cause. And that was to come combat in their minds, whites and men and heterosexuals. So there's a, a researcher named Vaca. I think his name is he wrote a book called presumed Alliance, which he addresses some of this that we, we used to always pres we got to, he, he was referring to his book is about how we now think there's a, an Alliance between these groups. And I would argue there still, there still is not an Alliance only if it comes to the issue of being anti-white that's when a facade is put forward with these different groups come together. But once you remove that anti whiteness, uh, or anti-women anti-trans whatever focus, these groups go into their separate camps.
Speaker 0 00:28:50 All right. Um, and we've got a lot of spectacular questions I'm going to get to them shortly, but just so that people can sort of recognize this phenomenon that you're talking about, what are some examples of white shaming, um, that we might recognize from, let's say, you know, popular culture or in education,
Speaker 1 00:29:14 They go from the, the relatively benign to the very problematic, in my opinion, you know, benign examples that if you look at every commercial that's been on TV for the last 10 plus years, it's a commercial has a black person in a white person in the commercial. The, the black person will always be portrayed as the sane, rational, mature adult in the room. The white person will be portrayed as some buffoon or dufus doing something kind of dumb. Um, but then you go to like diversity workshops that corporations are mandating across the country. I think people who have participated either voluntarily or it was required for them to participate in diversity training workshops, walk out feeling like if they're white, they've been badged because the, the whole real intent of diversity workshops is to kind of wa the finger in white people's faces and talk about how they, they and their people have done all these bad things in the past.
Speaker 1 00:30:16 And they're still doing them supposedly today, and they should, and they should feel responsible for things that people did in the past. And then we had these courses on college campuses. Stanford has a course. Stanford university has a course in anthropology about whiteness and all they do in the course. If you were read this syllabus, in fact, I covered this in my, my book. It just talks about how to abolish whiteness, white supremacy, microaggression white privilege. I want you to understand your views. Imagine if a university were to permit a professor, to have a course on blackness and the entire course focused on all the negative things about African Americans in terms of their disproportionate commission of crime. They're on average, poor math, they're on average, poor performance and reading, uh, their, they, they commit on average. They commit more hate crimes, more murders than anyone, any other group, et C imagine an entire poor, just focusing on denigrating African Americans.
Speaker 1 00:31:21 It would not be permitted. It would not be permitted. And yet these courses, it's not just Stanford university, other universities across the country have similar in a variety of, uh, departments also. Yeah. Okay. So K through 12, I mean, all these K through 12 schools that are sometimes divide kids into affinity groups. And so they're dividing them from whites versus non-whites and they're and various degrees. They're communicating to the little white kids that they're, they should be ashamed. And they're because they're privileged. And the, the minority they're being told that they're, they're, they're victims of oppression and media seems to support all this. And I mean, what the hell do we want a racial war seriously? And it seems like that's what a variety of factions want, media, universities, corporations, et cetera, politicians, et cetera.
Speaker 0 00:32:16 Well, we have a couple of questions along those lines, coming in across our various social media platforms. Uh, Joe Z on Instagram is asking and, and I'll ask you whether or not you even agree with the premise of, of the question he's asking. Do you think the promotion of white guilt and shaming, essentially the, the white shaming that you are talking about is causing radicalization in whites becoming exactly what these minorities are condemning them of being. So, you know, there's question, there's kinda a two, two part question, whether they're this radicalization is occurring and whether white shaming is, is driving it
Speaker 1 00:33:00 Well, it's hard for me to make a statement about cause and effect on matters, such such broad matters as those two variables, the white shaming Vivi, the alleged radicalization of some whites. But, um, so I don't keep up with quote, unquote, radical white groups like white supremacists or the KKK. I don't follow them, but so I'm try to, I can't answer the question directly. I would speculate and that's all I can do is speculate that the more this country promotes that each group ought to have a racial identity. I think Charles Murray has made this case, uh, and his book facing reality that we should expect that at some point some to many whites would begin to feel the need to form their own little coalition among whites, because they feel like they're gonna be trampled upon, especially as every passing five or 10 years, we're gonna see that the number, the percent of whites and the diminishing and the number of non-whites are gonna be increasing. So to answer the question quickly, probably, but I can't prove it.
Speaker 0 00:34:27 Okay. Uh, let's take a look here. Um, not related to race, this is Eddie Kay on Twitter, uh, said, do you recall that the male shaming ad that Gillette had at the super bowl a few years ago, uh, do you think both whites and males are subject to a lot of shaming? And I thought that was interesting going back to your, uh, your book and, uh, without defending some of the things that, um, Donald Trump had said, you said, well, if you used the term and applied it to, uh, men, as opposed to, to women, you know, that it's actually quite common. So do you recall that specific ad? And then maybe to the general question about whether whites and males are both being subject to SHA?
Speaker 1 00:35:23 So in my book, I guess some examples of commercials and of similar nature to that Gillette, uh, advertisement best. I don't recall much. I do recall it existed, but I recall the details of that particular commercial. But, um, I, I, I do recall thinking that this is just unacceptable that now on public television commercials, even targeting like higher racial class and with the intent of shaming them essentially.
Speaker 0 00:36:04 Okay. Uh, Candace Salvato on Instagram asks your thoughts on single race clubs or organizations in college, um, are they damaging racial relations? So that would be things like black dorms and, you know,
Speaker 1 00:36:24 Well, here's, here's my opinion. First off, I think it's natural for groups to tend to want to hang around their own kind. So I'm not necessarily opposed to people tend to hang around their own kind. What I'm opposed to is when it is institutionalized by either the government, a university or company. So if, no, if, if just take an example, if a group of black students want to rent an in an apartment complex and they try to get in the same section of the department complex, that doesn't bother me. It's when an institution like the university is facilitating that and supporting it and simultaneously would never, never let whites do the same thing. So it's sending a really wrong message. Nothing's been going on for a long time that is acceptable for these groups to segregate with the blessing and the facilitation of institution. And yet, in my book, I covered an example of a young lady at a high school who tried to form a ethnic club based on Caucasians. And she didn't have bad intentions and read all about her. It, it was open to everyone, but she was announced vilified and had to even leave the high school to go to some other high school, because she was just smeared as a, a horrible racist. So I, again, things like ethnic student organizations in are contributing to increasing tribalism, which may not end well for us.
Speaker 0 00:38:04 I'd like to, to get back to your, your book. And, uh, you know, of course, as I mentioned up at the top, the ATLA society is introducing young people to the ideas of I Rand and I Rand's insights into racism, I think are some of the most, uh, compelling out there specifically. She had this to say like every other form of collectivism racism is a quest for the unearned. It is a quest for automatic knowledge, for an automatic evaluation of men's characters that bypasses the responsibility of exercising rational or moral judgment and above all it is a crest for an automatic self-esteem or pseudo self-esteem. So, um, given your many years of, of study into, to racism and, and racial relations, uh, how does that square with your observations in terms of white shame or his motivations? Are they trying to get some kind of unearned or automatic, um, whether it's prestige or some kind of advantage by, by taking this socially approved shortcut?
Speaker 1 00:39:19 Well, without disagreeing with what Ms. Rand has articulated, um, I have my own views.
Speaker 0 00:39:29 Okay. Well, you wanna hear 'em
Speaker 1 00:39:31 Okay. Well, I think racism can have multiple, so, and each person who has a negative view of another group can have a different type of motive from some, from someone else. So I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that back to my, or earlier comment. I think it's natural for people to tend to like their own group. We sometimes have a soft word for that in the social sciences called ethno centrism. Just thinking that your group is kind of the better group that doesn't bother me. It's the dis it's the strong dislike or hostility or hatred for some other group that becomes problematic. So, uh, a, a common popular idea that floats around this totally inaccurate is that minorities cannot be racist. And the people who promote that idea say that it's because they don't have the power a, you don't need power to be a racist.
Speaker 1 00:40:24 B minorities have lots of power in the United States. If they can get you fired either. Like don't like your views. That's a lot of power not to mention there's over 2 million businesses owned by African Americans in the us. There's over 3 million businesses in the us owned by Hispanics. You know, we've had Obama for eight years or black president, the, his attorney general Eric Holder for almost eight years of, of black attorney general. Uh, we've had, uh, under George Bush, we had an attorney general, who's a Mexican American from Texas. Most major cities have black mayors. Their chief of police are black, et cetera. We have the black caucus I can go on, but the idea that quote, we don't have power and therefore we can't be racist. It's just nonsense. Those individuals, in my opinion, are looking for an excuse to be able to express their own racism and not be called out. So, um, you know, people, there's, there's all kinds of theories about why are people racist, sometimes there's competition, you know, economic competition sometimes to improve your self-esteem. Uh, sometimes you're just a, you're just a hateful person <laugh>. And so, and sometimes you've had, sometimes you've had bad experiences with a small number of people from a certain group, and you end up realizing from that point onward about everyone from the group.
Speaker 0 00:41:45 So well, that, that does give a, a richer, uh, spectrum to it. Another question, um, coming in from Facebook, Michael Caswell asks, uh, looking out at, at your research that you've done on different ethnic groups. Um, do you think that there is any particular racial group that struggles or refuses to assimilate into American culture as a whole? So I, you know, he might be talking about immigrant groups, or I'm not sure if that applies to groups that have been here for a long time
Speaker 1 00:42:21 To pivot a little bit on that question. And here's what I say, which might surprise some people. So Obama was once asked by someone who is a very white, liberal, do you think the criminal justice system is biased against blacks and Obama, who I don't necessarily agree with many of his politics, but I, I must confess. He's a very smart man and his responses. He said, this is what he said. He said, I think there's an intersection between bias within the criminal justice system against black with the fact that for multiple reasons, African Americans commit a disproportionate amount of crime in the United States. So he was acknowledging that. And from his point of view, his opinion, there is racial bias in the criminal justice system, but he didn't put all the blame for potential bias on the feet of the system. But the fact that even though the majority of blacks don't commit crime, a large portion of crime is permitted by blacks.
Speaker 1 00:43:39 So having said that, I'm gonna give a similar, what I think is a nuanced answer, even though it's, again, a pivoted answer from the question I do think in the United States, others have made this case as well. There is a divide divide is black versus non-black. So, and what I'm getting at is I think there's a trend among Asians, Hispanics, and whites, to sort of share some views that, that join them together in terms of thinking the system is relatively fair, long as you work hard or become educated, you'll have a chance at a decent life versus African Americans who there are many African Americans who also share in that view, but there are many who do not <laugh>. So I think there are some people who are trying to make the case that the us isn't just anti-white per se. It's more, anti-black, there's a more of an anti-black sentiment that exists than more of anything else, any other type of bigotry regarding race. So just like previously, I, I forgot the, the essence of the question <laugh> but, uh, I, yeah,
Speaker 0 00:45:08 It was, it was about which, which groups, like, if there any particular groups that you've seen. Okay. You know, who are the ones who jump in? Like, let's just, even if we were just to take it in terms of immigrants, like who are the ones that just come to, you know, they get their citizenship and boom, they wanna do everything American. They wanna get the language. They, uh, and, and if there other groups on the opposite side of that spectrum who have a very hard time assimilating, and that might, you know, possibly be for things like having nothing to do with, uh, with racial identity, uh, could have to do with language.
Speaker 1 00:45:45 Okay. Tie in. I, I don't wanna let go of what I was commenting on. If you don't mind. I still think society might be moving in the direction of where we are a society divided by blacks versus non-black, which suggests there is a group African Americans who may struggle, and it's not all on them. It's on us as well to fully and integrate that particular racial group. And just like Obama, the reason I brought up to Obama situation, because that's not all based on analyst, that's not if, to whatever extent, what I just said is, has any validity to it that there is this anti-black bias that exists. It's not just based on pure anti-black prejudice. It's partly based on how some to many African Americans behave in terms of on average being the worst people in school, in math and reading, committing more crime, more murders we see on the internet, these incidents that are just horrible.
Speaker 1 00:46:56 These brawls that are occurring in the airport and high schools, and McDonald's with a small, small, small group of blacks committing them, but the whole world sees those things. And so there's some misbehaviors occurring among some African Americans, which is giving the entire group a bad name. But so I think that's one group. I, I answer that person's question. That's one group that I think struggles to be totally integrated with the rest of the country. And then regarding immigrants. Here's the deal with this? If you let, and this is my opinion, my it's an informed opinion, but it's still on opinion. If you let immigrants come in and small numbers, there's more pressure on them to assimilate, not to mention many immigrants come here because they're attracted to some very basic values that we have in the United States.
Speaker 0 00:47:50 We can put speech,
Speaker 1 00:47:50 They're already free speech law and order. Uh, the idea that if you work hard, there are, there are opportunities for you to, uh, ascend your mobility ladder or whatever. So, but the problem is if you let lots of immigrants in, at the same time, they start forming their own little communities and these have the potential to become miniature micro countries in and of themselves. We have Dearborn, Michigan, which I haven't been there, but I've seen in read where Muslims and everything about Islam is visible everywhere. And you hear the call to prayers and the streets. Um, you, you got east LA and even section of Houston, where for miles and miles and miles, you would think you were in Mexico. And I've worked in east LA for three years in a grocery store, LA being Los Angeles, of course. And you'd be amazed at how many people live in Los Angeles for decades. And you would never know it. They know nothing about the United States. They don't speak a word of English. Um, and I would be, I would just so dumbfounded. Cause I worked in a grocery store at the cashier meeting, these individuals, chatting with them from the community and I'd be shocked to find out they've lived here 15, 20 years. And I swear you would never know it it's like they had never met left Mexico. So that's right. Okay.
Speaker 0 00:49:17 Yeah. So, you know, um, what you had mentioned Obama and, uh, he's biracial, uh, you yourself are a BI ethnic. And so I, I did, uh, want to ask about people who are biracial individuals, how do they fit into the whole white shaming construct? Is there even an incentive to identify with the non-white heritage to avoid being shamed?
Speaker 1 00:49:44 Well, you, you know, I can't speak for the million people in the United States who are multi-ethnic multiracial, whatever. So in a broad sense, of course our country rewards people being minorities, scholarships, um, being given special consideration for jobs and admission to elite colleges, et cetera. So frankly, I think they'd be darn fulls to not take advantage of that in their own best. And there are those who are like myself, who I always let my students know I'm the both backgrounds I'm Tex and I'm not, I'm neither ashamed nor proud of my background is, is not that important to me. It, my qualities as a person are more important to me than my either sexual orientation or my, but so in a broad sense, of course there are incentives for some to identify with their minority status, not their white status, but I'm, I'm sure there are people I know there are people like me who, uh, just say it as it is identify they are.
Speaker 0 00:50:59 Um, so we're coming to the top of the hour. I do want to get into some of the solutions that you advance at the end of your book. Um, 10 ideas in there. And, uh, we've had a lot of audience engagement. I have a feeling there's gonna be quite a few people and I hope you guys did go out there and, uh, and get this book, cuz it really is. Um, fascinating, a lot of great research in here. And as I mentioned, some solutions at the end of the book, so what are some of those that each of us as individuals could start implementing, you know, in our own sphere of influence.
Speaker 1 00:51:40 Okay. So, you know, you've already learned that if I don't say things up tip of my mind, I'll forget it. So mm-hmm <affirmative> cause lemme say to your viewers, my email address is Charles ne gmail.com. They're free to email me with any questions or subsequent conversations they want to have with me and I'll do my best to respond to each. And every one that
Speaker 0 00:51:59 Thank you. That's very generous first time on our, on our webinar, put it, we'll put it in the, uh, in, in the chats.
Speaker 1 00:52:07 Okay. So first thing I would really advocate for is that our school systems at all levels ought to provide and historically accurate education about issues of race and slavery and so on and so forth. So what do I mean by historically accurate? So, you know, you hear people claiming that, um, conservatives don't want students to know that about slavery in the United States. No, I, I think everyone knows about slavery that occur in the United States. And I don't think I don't, I'd be shocked if there are people who are trying to really, uh, prevent that information from being taught in schools. But the problem is so much more, there's so much more information about slavery. That's not taught in schools. Number one, there are about 12 million black Africans who were forced to come to the new world to be slaves about 2 million died in route. So that's leaving 10 million over 96% of them went to Latin America less than 4% came to the United States.
Speaker 1 00:53:26 Why know why shouldn't our students know that the bulk of Africans during the Atlantic slave trade went to Latin America and the Caribbean, uh, instead of just focusing on the us all the time, not that I'm trying to, not that I'm trying to absolve, uh, whites from the past and the us who had slaves, but if you're really gonna want to be educated about slavery, you should know the broader picture of it. The another thing is all of those 12 million were captured forced to walk by foot miles and miles and miles to the ports of the coast of west Africa by other black Africans. It was black Africans who captured all of them and put them on the international market. The slave market, uh, and native Americans practiced slavery for thousands of years before Europeans ever came. And even when Europeans did come, they bought tens of thousands of black Africans, the trail of tears, that sad story, that sad sob story that you used to induce white guilt.
Speaker 1 00:54:30 You know, it's a true story. You know, white farmers and ranchers with the government's health re removed native Americans with pay, I should say, and had them marked to Oklahoma and Louisiana for reservations. But what's not told is those five tribes took with them, their over 5,000 black African slaves that they owned. They forced them to March with them so that they would have them in Oklahoma continuing to be a slave for them. If we knew a full picture of things like slavery, uh, and even colonization colonizing every group, oh my God, the Aztec empire, the Inca empire, the Maya empire colonized stole lands from other Indians, brutalized slaughtered people, different black African kingdoms did the same thing. The course, Japanese empire, Chinese dynasties, I that Arab empires. So there's so much more to colonization and slavery, et cetera, that I think ought to be included so that people have a historically accurate education.
Speaker 1 00:55:37 So that's one thing that people ought to demand in K12 and that universities, the other is you hear people saying that whenever we encounter racism, which you speak up about it, whenever we encounter someone, mistreating someone, we should speak up about it. Well, it seems like they only want you to speak up. If you think it's a white person, aging in some type of racial mistreatment for someone else, other instances where minorities are the ones who are actually manifesting some racial mistreatment of someone seems to go UN criticized. We should find it with ourselves to point out to those individuals on that occasion, that they're the one behaving like a racist right now. Now it's gonna, I know it's gonna cause a confrontation. So you have to decide for yourself whether you're up to that battle or not. But I gave some example in of my book of minorities in public, during the daytime engaging in clearly racist behavior and no one would say anything to them about it.
Speaker 1 00:56:33 The other is, uh, parents and students at colleges. If they only knew the extent to which they're being indoctrinated these days by not only the diversity equity inclusion ideology, but a bunch of half truths about colonization, about slavery, about racism, you know, racism is just exists all over the world. In my book, I've gave plenty of examples and try to document them. That's, they're getting all this indoctrination, either blatant indoctrination or passive indoctrination by leaving out truths about other groups, students and parents ought to demand that universities stop indoctrinating and stay neutral and try to present information from multiple angles, et cetera.
Speaker 0 00:57:18 So I'm gonna say, since we, we just have a couple of, uh, minutes left, I am going to encourage our viewers go out and, uh, get professor NE's book because, um, I thought each of, of the 10 solutions that he offered at the, at the, uh, end were really worth digging into at length, um, were not gonna have, have time to cover all of them here. Uh, and we can also keep up with you. Um, I understand on Twitter probably primarily, would you say,
Speaker 1 00:57:54 Yeah, I'm on Twitter and I'm pretty active and it's my Twitter name, Charles NEK. So, uh, it's me.
Speaker 0 00:58:01 And, uh, and so are you back to teaching this, uh, coming fall semester
Speaker 1 00:58:06 After a year and a half? I just taught courses this past week.
Speaker 0 00:58:11 Wow.
Speaker 1 00:58:12 So far some, but I, I am recording all my lectures.
Speaker 0 00:58:16 Wonderful. Well, uh, we, I, I hope those students, uh, appreciate it. Um, of course, uh, that remains to be seen, but I'm, uh, I think we can all take some inspiration from, uh, the struggle that you've been through and, and from your, your victory and maybe, uh, take some lessons into our own lives that, uh, we don't just have to accept the way things are going. We can, each of us do something about it and continue the struggle. So thank you very much, professor Maggie. I really appreciate, uh, you taking this time today and, um, also for your continued efforts to speak out for individualism and reason and, um, and sweet, sweet, so free speech
Speaker 0 00:59:07 Free speech. All right. Um, thanks all of you for asking such excellent questions for joining us. Uh, really appreciate it. If you are a regular on these programs. Uh, I, I think you probably at least agree with, I ran that, uh, you don't wanna be one of thes or the looters or the free loaders. So if you are really enjoying the content of the ATLA society puts out, please consider making tax deductible donation to support our work. And come on back next week, I'm gonna be speaking with actor and objectiveist mark PE Greeno. We're gonna talk about his, I ran origin story and as well, his efforts with the American capitalist colleagues. So hope to see you then. Thank you by the way. Thank you.
