Transcript for:
Exploring Race, Family, and Dialogue

[Music] as a straight white male myself I am the uh the Uber villain but the honest truth I would rather be villainized then be infantilized and told that I'm a victim today Matt Walsh joins me and he is the star of the Matt wall show on The Daily wire and he is also starring in and the creator of a new documentary out now called am racist and you can see it in theaters you can also go to mist.com and watch it there now for the those of you who know who Matt Walsh is he is extraordinarily conservative and very outspoken on his conservative points of view I believe what I believe um I'm not ever going to compromise that or hide from it we will not agree on everything but my goal is to always find common ground and engage in thoughtful conversations where we can agree to disagree but I think having these difficult conversations about racism we are not destroying the black family I'm not doing that you're not doing that we are the the law is not doing that systemically well hold on and gay marriage this is one type of pairing that that only this type only this type can create a person it's more important to speak with the people you don't agree with than the people that you do but the marriage is there very much there for the baby but then why would you deny children in a gay family to have those protections cuz there are tons of them so I'm sure the comment section is going to to go crazy here but uh here we go keeping it real with Jillian Michaels hey Matt Walsh hey how are you uh I'm doing great thanks for thanks for having me well thanks for coming yeah um so no secret just a just a preface you and I were talking a little a little bit before we started recording and you know we don't have a lot in common we differ on many things but I really appreciate the fact that you would show up and look for the common ground that we do have and be willing to have a conversation about the things that we don't agree on and that means the world to me so I respect you so much for that and I appreciate it and I want to start out with your new documentary that I watched twice until my link expired um CU I was only going to show it to my mom I first watched it then watched it with my wife and then I was going to watch it with my mom called am I racist so let's just start with what made you make this documentary and before this I'd kind of done I've been in the Pod the podcasting space but it's like the daily podcast and you know you put you put with in the in the podcasting space the whole deal is you just especially if it's a daily podcast you you're talking about news of the day and you put the show out and by tomorrow nobody cares anymore because it's a new the news has changed and then it was just kind of like well what's the next big what's the next big area in the culture where there's um that we should investigate and we thought and we thought well race is is sort of the obvious one you've got gender and you've got race uh and then it was really a question of how do you how do you get into it like what what's the how do you approach it where's where's the entry point it's a it's a big topic it's a broad topic um you did a great job with it though well I appreciate that I mean I I'll be honest you did a fantastic job and you know I'm not gonna take anything away I want obviously we want people to go see it but it is something very scary and you tackled it brilliantly in my opinion but um please go on so yeah an entry point is tough and scary right how do how do you get into it how do you kind of decide what aspect of this issue to um to to investigate really and so we wanted to really look at the kind of the race Hustle grifters the so-called anti-racist the Dei types um and because it seems to me that whatever kind of racial tension people are feeling in society a lot of it is because of these people that they they they want the tension to be there they want the division they want the resentment the suspicion the all that kind of stuff the guilt everything that gets wrapped up into it um and that's what we wanted to Target that's what we wanted to to expose with the film and we decided the best way to do it was to take kind of this satirical approach where a little bit of a curveball that we decided that well I'll start by asking questions but rather than remaining skeptical I'm going to believe whatever these people tell me I'll just accept it and I'll try to put it into practice and so we tried to we'll let them guide me on this journey um I'll believe everything they say I'll put it into practice and we'll go down the rabbit hole and we're not going to really know exactly where that leads us uh because we don't know what they're going to say exactly and uh and I think it kind of leads to some pretty wild and dark places but also but also I hope funny it was yeah I did not have you as this reinvented borad on my on my bingo card not to pick up a a saying that's been thrown around quite too much this year but I was I mean I was dying laughing it was absurd the thing that struck me is what I have experienced in my own life regarding these things you're tackling and if I could get on a soap box for a second because it's like well why I was why would Jillian want to talk about this I grew up in Los Angeles I appreciated um that obviously you look at a magazine cover when you're a kid and you're not conditioned to notice that most people on the magazine covers are white that there might be one black girl but as you get older and you start to become more aware it's like well there was The Cosby Show I didn't realize it was just the Cosby Show as a kid but as you get older you start to make changes and I thought that my generation Our Generation noticed these injustices these imbalances and they sort of naturally and this could be my own ignorance they naturally began to find their equilibrium and we had black people in positions of power in the Supreme Court in the Oval Office medicine entertainment law you name it and I thought we were in a pretty good place prior to 2020 and I adopted a child from Haiti not because I wanted to adopt a black child as though she was a handbag which has been stated to me like oh it's trendy so you wanted to adopt a black child it just happened to be the only country I could adopt from internationally because it was open whereas China's closed Russia closed and I did want to give a child the opportunity to become an American citizen because I figured if you're coming from a part of the world that's we'll call it developing but the reality is you know we both know what Hai is going through there's no shot I wanted to give a kid a shot that didn't have a shot so a lot of people did make little racist comments like that when I first adopted her but they were few and far between and they died out and I watched this child live a great life and I never saw any racism towards herever 2020 comes and all of a sudden I'm a white s savior I'm myself and everybody white is complicit in racism I'm watching my child now take on far more aggression and hostility than I'd ever seen her contend with prior race relations with my friends of color became tense and I was seeing posts on social media about how if white people own everything we need to take responsibility for everything and I thought myself like we've been friends for 15 years were you feeling this way the whole time I don't get it but here's what really triggered me and I'm curious because you touch on this in depth so I went to work with United na Nations Refugee agency because I'm part Syrian and this was at a time when Syrian children were washing up on beaches and I thought okay this is this is horrific what can I do to make a difference so I I go to work with the UN and they say like Hey You Know You're great and everything but we've got Angelina Jolie and Ben Stiller working on this issue here maybe you could help us out in South Sudan I thought sure I'll go to South Sudan the next thing I know I'm getting attacked by a group called The White saviors and everybody's like oh God you can't have these people after you like this is going to ruin you this is going to destroy your career so I I reach out like mopa like tell me what you know what is the issue a white girl from from the Midwest gets on the phone with me you have to make a donation and then proceeds to tell me how she's protecting black people in Africa from other white people and I'm like aren't you the ultimate white savior then so you have to make a donation and then it's a a white person engaging in this nobody black runs the organization and that was when I started to really question like what the hell is behind this what's going on and then I it was suggested that I read white fragility by Robin D'Angelo which I found really offensive and disturbing and then you know I haven't really known what to do I'll be honest I've lived in this very strange space of how to engage and how to discuss and how to interact and then you came out with this and you tapped on all of it and I thought first of all can we talk about the industry behind this you start racking up the numbers of how much you have to pay for all these Dei coaches and can you talk about that a little bit like is this corruption what is this yeah that's one decision we made um while we were making the film we kind of knew that we wanted to would be pretty transparent about what went into actually making the film because that's part of the story that we're telling and and part of what goes into making a movie like this apparently is that if you want to talk to these people you got to pay them um which is interesting because you would think you know we we're talking about race you would think that they this is their passion this is what they care about the most in life and you'd think that they just would be willing to sit down and have a conversation like we are right now but what we found with most of these people is yeah I'll talk to you but you got to pay me um I'm not I won't even talk about this issue unless you unless you Fork over thousands of dollars that's what we paid we paid so you could so they they'd be in the film and U I think most of them probably are not are not very happy with uh with with how it all turned out for them in the film but but then again it's you know we didn't we didn't uh deceptively edit it we didn't put words in their mouth we didn't create a s you know it it we depict exactly what they said and did um so all of that is completely honest above Bo but uh yeah it's all for them you know there there's kind of when it comes to the racial um sanity gripping our culture right now there's there's sort of two broadly two groups there's the average people living their lives who are getting caught up in this stuff and then there's the the the grifters the people that are in charge that are fomenting it um and I think for the latter group their motivations are pretty clear and pretty pretty obvious pretty simple uh money power influence tale is Old As Time right in a lot of ways um what's maybe more interesting is what about the average people like they're not benef they're not profiting off of it you know we do things in the film like we go and uh we go to a what's called a race to dinner which you saw in the film if you watch the film uh and and this is an organization where you've got Regina woman Nam Regina Jackson Cyra Ral and they'll you pay them thousands of dollars for them to attend a dinner that you throw right uh and they sit at your dinner table and they call you racist for two hours you actually Margaret you didn't say yours what your racist thing thing that you've done thought about or done you have something inside of you that's not quite like that's racist so you must have you must have examples in your own life I also work in environmental engineering I have absolutely no people of color or minimal people of color possibly the exclusion being slightly Hispanic know s doesn't like her attitude I can say a racist thing you've done because it just happened when you just talk to me the way you just did this is how white women talk to us all the time these are microaggressions when I say the exact same thing to my white girlfriend who says the same exact thing I don't care if you talk to everybody like that the way you just spoke to me was straight up white supremacy you actually just answered with racism white supremacy is said to be be hidden in innocuous phrases and banal Behavior Uh and only white women are allowed to be a part of this it's it's white women and then this Indian woman and a black woman who are running it and so the interesting thing to me is like okay I understand the two women running it they get paid thousands of dollars to and they get a free meal and they get to just insult the people at the table to get paid for it I can kind of understand what motivates them it's evil but I understand it um what about the women at the table who are paying for this really unpleasant miserable experience that that to me is a little bit more interesting and they feel absorved I think I think that's part of it I think that they some of it is virtue signaling I think some of it is signaling to their to their social group that uh that they're enlightened and Progressive and they want to be able to tell their friends that oh I did I did erase a dinner it was a great it was an eye- opening experience that's some of it but I also think that that there is that they are True Believers and so they do think they're they're getting something out of it and um we you know we I can't read their mind I don't want to over psychoanalyze them but I think that it's like they're carrying around guilt you know and all people have guilt because we've all done B we've all done bad things and so we feel guilty about it and that's natural but they have the guilt they don't understand where it comes from in their lives and they're very confused and then these these grifters come and say well I'll tell you why you have those feelings it's because you're white and here's what you can do to atone for your sins pay me $5,000 and I'll come to a dinner and then they do it and then and then afterwards the the grifters say well thanks for the money by the way sorry you're you're still racist you know nothing's been solved um so just keep keep keep paying me you can manage it in fact we um nothing's been Sol yeah there is no end to it though nothing Sol nothing nothing's cured so it's a disease uh this the way that they sell it is it's this racism is like this inherent disease if you're white you and it can never be cured it can only be managed um so there could be treatments to like Tamp down the racism but you're always going to have it and but that means you got to keep paying because they can't be a cure they can't you they can never say okay well all right if you did this and you do that and you do that uh then you're probably not racist anymore if they say that then then they've lost they've lost you as a customer you're not a repeat customer so they want they want have um you know it's like it's like the iPhone you want to keep coming back for the updates and and that's what they that's what they want which is why you notice with these with these uh people that uh they talk about things like systemic racism and systemic racism is unfalsifiable and what I mean is that there's nothing that could they claim that systemic racism exists in America there's literally nothing that could ever happen that would disprove the existence of systemic racism okay uh if you ask them if you accept their premise and say okay America's systemically racist what needs to happen for it to no longer be systemic what do you need to see so that you will be confident that systemic racism is not a thing anymore and they won't answer that because it's unfalsifiable what if what if I play Devil's Advocate because I do see certain areas where I think there's Injustice but I don't think it's your white neighbor who is complicit in being racist because they're fragile or whatever the hell the narrative is if I look at my industry which is of course Health right I see injustices there like the food companies do Target people of color 2: one I see them being targeted I know that they don't feel and I don't want to speak for a black person here I wish I had a friend who's explained this to me but they feel that they have had different uh reactions from doctors and medical experts over the years years they haven't gotten the same care doctors don't believe that a this is a sweeping generalization but this is this is what I've been told they don't believe that a black woman is in pain when she's in pain but they're more inclined to believe a white woman um horror stories like that do you think there's something there like I think or or like say sentences right a black person gets a different sentence than a white person I I tend to buy that you think I'm I I I buy that one I can't say that I do buy it and I'll tell you why okay um we're talking about systemic so if an individual says I had a negative experience I went to the doctor and they were rude and and you know I needed pay meds and they didn't give it to me um I who am I to tell them they didn't have that experience I wasn't there right I I can't say that it didn't happen right and so if an individual per black woman were to say that she had that experience I I I believe it you know that kind of thing does happen sure um the problem is the interpretation the problem is is is saying well I had this individual experience and therefore it is evidence that there is a systemic a systemwide deliberate conspiracy to to mistreat me because of the color of my skin that's the part where I don't I don't track anymore because you're G to need a lot more evidence than that um what about like studies that have shown statistically speaking more black women die in childbirth or study or um my god there was a book called I think it was called like The Immortal Life of Henri at Alx and it had to do with how they had really mistreated um this black woman who had cancer but it had to do with this type of cancer sh at the long story short is there's a history of it in healthcare where do you know what first of I was to say where does the history where do you think we evolve out of it because there's no question historically speaking one black T one black family on a TV show when I was a kid like we've seen it change though do you see that right yeah I mean if you that's and that's why we have to be careful when we talk about history because obviously right uh there was a time in this country when black people were discriminated against when slavery existed in this country Ju Just Like by the way slavery existed over the entire Globe but it also existed in this country and uh and that's all that's all real like nobody denies that and if we want to talk about history as history sure we could talk about it but if we're talking about right now in America uh systemic systemic racism which is not to say individual right again do racist people still exist of course they do of all Races you're right so so that no one's denying that systemic racism though means at least the type that they talk about means that there's a deliberate systemwide effort to discriminate against dehumanize deprive black people because they are black okay um so when we talk about rates of uh of of mortality among women who get child child birth dying in child birth and I've heard this the same thing that I didn't prepare for this as well as I should have because I didn't know I was going to go there so forgive me but I've I've heard this stuff PR I and I would I'd have to look at the studies right um and if we saw that study and we saw that the the numbers work out that way well then we have to think about okay well you have a higher number of black women who are you know there's a there's a class there's an economic a class issue here um uh who are you know higher number of black women who live in the inner city who are poor you know that that obviously contributes to the type of medical care you get argument there then would be well why are they in this position and what laws did be passed that would try to break up a black family cuz trust me I actually don't have guilt about this I don't feel responsible for this at all so I really don't appreciate being blamed if we go all the way back wait a second my parents cuz here's my question if you take this this is really what it comes down to if you take a uh a white woman from a trailer park okay in Appalachia somewhere and you take a black woman from the inner city and they go both at the hospital asking for painkillers um I think it's very likely that they're both they're going to have a very similar experience and it's possible that in both cases they might actually have have more difficulty getting painkillers if the Medical Institution if the doctors are making assumptions about well you know drug abuse is prevalent in these communities whether it's a trailer park or inner city and so we you know that that might happen but but that's not that's not racial it's not race based it's a bias it's a Prejudice so what what I what I would certainly deny is that systemically in the medical field for example you've got medical institutions saying well uh you're black so we're going to give you worse care I just don't think that's happening um I don't think there's any evidence of it and and certainly when it comes to our laws and this is really the main point is that there there are no laws at all period that Target black people or um that that deprive them of rights that white people don't have there are no legal privileges okay given to white people on the basis of their skin color that does not exist period in this country in fact if anything it's the reverse is it the reverse now though or or and I forgive me for interrupting you but the reason I asked that is because if you if you historically looked back at sentencing and looked at what a young black man would be who may have committed the exact same crime as a young white kid would the black kid be put away for longer and it seems like the answer's yes historically speaking and I'm just wondering has that recently changed is it changing because people are having riots in the streets which I personally hate and cannot figure out how that was a way forward this is what I mean when I say feel everything has gotten worse but I don't want to negate I'm trying to get to the bottom of where is there anything here we still need to be really outraged about so that is there any Nuance to this like are we missing the boat and I Pro I should have had a black person here but to be honest with you all the people that sit there and say we're so racist you can't get them to the table cuz van Jones I'll never forget this I always thought he was great voted for Obama don't throw up Matt so I did and I always thought he was This brilliant guy I watched him on TV all the time right up until he said all white people have a virus in their brain called racism and my kid was in the room who happens to be black and was old enough to get it and it could activate at any time and I will never never forget it I was so so mad there's another reality here that you're starting to see so even the most liberal well-intentioned white person has a a a a a virus uh in his or her brain that can be activated at an instant and so what you're seeing now is a curtain falling away and I but that's sorry I mean no please um because that's exactly the kind of thing that I'm talking about that uh in this country today if there's any law passed that deliberately disadvantages a group based on race if that happens or any policy whether it's a legal policy or policy in Corporate America if any policy or law passes that deliberately disadvantages or excludes a person based on race it is 1,000% of the time going to be excluding and disadvantaging white people based on race it it it's not going to happen in the reverse is that a now thing though that's my question like a like a now thing where it's certainly happening now yeah yeah because I I've seen it personally now I I mean I I I had a phone call with a person in the industry gosh I want to say seven years ago about changing representation and she said like you listen I'll be honest you know you're white you're in your 40s it's going to be tough and I was like what uh and what what you said about there's if you're white there's a virus in your brain which which is which is you know this is the anti-racism sort of um uh IDE this this is their doctrine that if you're white you're inherently racist um you can never not be racist and as I said it's a disease that you manage basically they call it a virus you know they use this kind of language um that's a horrifically racist thing to say to a group of people you don't find that kind of language being targeted at any other group now you talked about the the new is there any Nuance here there there is Nuance but the Nuance is on the individual level so I'm not there are people that will listen to what I'm saying and say well you're being you're oversimplifying I'm not I'm not oversimplifying we we go to we have to figure out what level we're talking about here if we're I'm talking if we're if we're discussing systemic systemically uh legally policy-wise I think everything that I've said is is the case um but on an individual level again are there white people walking walking around who are racist sure of course right um so if a black person says oh I was the victim of racism are they automatically lying am I going to just dismiss them out of hand no I mean it could have happened um I want to you know people do lie sometimes about these sorts of things unfortunately so I won't necessarily believe it right away either but um that's the Nuance really is just is that it becomes a more it's a more individualistic thing you have to God forbid treat people like individuals like human beings um and assess you know claims of racism and so on on an individual level and that requires a little bit more discernment it requires a more you know a more thoughtful process which I think that people um uh don't want and and and that's the irony is that many of the people who talk about Nuance that's the last thing that they want because true they want to be able to just C just wave a wand over a whole group of people and say well you guys are the bad guys you're the racist here the oppressed group over here that is to put a mildly a massive oversimplification it's not even over simplication it's just false um what they don't want is to actually you know do the work quote unquote which is a phrase that yes comes up in the movie A lot but the actual work here is treating people like individuals case-by case basis um and and assessing using judgment and assessing situations based on that I think that I think that's what a lot of people don't want to do why is this happening now and what I what I mean by that is I I lived my entire life without having to read every single day that I was racist until 2020 and now it's every article it's because white people are racist everything that goes on it's because white people are racist every single Injustice white people are racist why is the media behind this it's magazine every News Channel that isn't right and outside of fox or independent stuff on um like yourself daily wire is there an agenda for that yeah well I think there is an agenda I is it like how does how does Newsweek make money off of something like that I think um it it that'ss a lot of things like for the media it's well they bu ideologically they they feel that they these are all people on the left and um so they think they have to affirm things like systemic racism all white people are racist that sort it's just it's their Doctrine it's their IDE they believe it you think they they either Believe it or they have to pretend that they believe it um they have to operate as though they believe it I don't know how much of how many of them really believe it or not but they certainly operate as though they do they have to they feel like to be in corporate media um also it's you know it's a story it's like it's it's a narrative and the media operates on narratives they like to tell narratives and um most most of the time or very often those narratives are not true or at least not fully true and one of the narratives that they're working with is that we're we live in a systemically racist society and so anytime something happens that is vaguely related to race or even if it isn't it gets it gets it gets filtered through that narrative lens and so they they automatically see it in those terms and report it in those terms and then as I said for these um you know the people that are holding Dei seminars and so on uh there's money there's influence that I get yeah I we mentioned in the movie and and this probably is a simplification i acknowledge that because it's anecdotal but um you know I grew up in the 90s and uh I grew up in a diverse area I went to public school for all you know K through 12 13 years and uh went to school with you know a lot of black classmates a lot of Asian you know just a wide array right and as we say kind of at the beginning of the film have 17 black friends right well that comes a little bit later but prior to that it was it's like I think back to my own experience as a kid yeah the 90s it was not a racial Utopia obviously OJ you had race riots uh Rodney King um but I don't remember this being such an intense object of our Obsession and focus there certainly was not the constant conversations about racism I went all again all my public school career I don't remember being sat down even one time and told that well I'm I'm racist and we have to we have to Grapple with racism like it came up in other subjects but it was not like it is now and um I think for the most part people were able to you know just sort of be normal and and and if you're around someone of another race you notice that they're A different race that's fine we don't have to deny we don't have to say well race doesn't exist it's a it doesn't mean anything it means something it's part of who you are I'm a man you know that's part of who I am and and I don't deny that but it doesn't need to be this intense focus and it doesn't need to be fraught with anxiety and suspicion and guilt and all of these things and so I think that seems to me like in the 90s around that time we were getting to a point where get would not be Utopia but we were getting to a point where things were like basically okay right and and they were racially things were better in the United States than they certainly were anywhere else on Earth um and then it seems like these kind of grifter types came along and said well we can't we can't have that like we can't allow race to be taken off the table um because feels that way Matt that's it because that's how it feels right because it's a it's it's such a power ful tool that nefarious people and dishonest people can use to control us and they can't allow that to be taken off the table and so they had to find a way to bring our Focus back to it you know in the film we also talked to um uh we you know we talk to these Dei experts but we also talk to normal people we go to a a biker bar in the South yes um which is a bunch of white people there's Confederate flags hanging on the wall Confederate flag threw me for a major loop I was definitely like oh God yeah we we we chose this we chose everything's real in the movie these are all real people we chose this bar um and one of my producers actually just drove by it and said we we got to go in and talk to these people there Confederate flags all over the place like these are all bikers there motorcycles lined up outside um I'm walking in in my like left wing I got the the ponytail I got the whole left wi my leftist cartoon sort of costume going and I didn't know how they'd respond I I honestly didn't know uh I didn't know exactly how they would take all of this we got the cameras in there and I'm asking them these weird questions and what we got is what you see in the film that um it's not we didn't script it we didn't tell them what to say but what we got from these people is just like you know it's it's your black white it doesn't really matter to them they don't they don't care that much uh they're not sitting around thinking about it um they could be friends with someone who's black no big deal that's what they said we all bleed the the same is what they said and then and then we went down to uh New Orleans into the black community very poor areas of New Orleans and we talked to uh black people there and we got the exact almost verbatim the same thing in fact they said the same phrase we all bleed the same um and very very similar message from both of these groups which is interesting because if you listen to the media they would tell you that no way you get what they would tell you is that you're going to get Di Ally opposed views from these people they would tell you that from the bikers you're going to get abject just vicious racism and uh and you're going to get these two groups to hate each other and instead they're like yeah whatever it's fine you know they could have they could have all been together in the same biker bar and it would have been fine um and I think that that's so if you kind of leave people to their devices in this country where we all kind of grow up around different kinds of people and if you just leave people alone and leave them to their own devices I think things turn out okay um I feel like they're they're becoming not okay and the reason I'm saying that is I find okay Ben Stiller is I'm sure a great guy I don't know him but white dudes for kamla who why can't it just be you are voting for kamla white dudes for KLA and then it's like and she's black and she's Indian and she's a woman all Jewish guys want to be black and I thought wait a minute hold on wait what are you doing you're making it all about nothing about like she did a great job here I love her policy there I believe she can handle this well right gender race race my gender and race the whole video you know it's going to be the first woman president um and that's incredibly exciting and you know she's Indian she's black she's everything you can be more than one thing it's incredible you know I'm Jewish and Irish um I wish I was black every white Jewish guy wishes he was black I just felt so like being on Mars like what what are we doing and then there's something I wanted to ask if you'd seen I was going I wanted to run it where there's a guy I think in New York City it has to do with voter ID laws and he's going up to all these white people and he's asking do you think these laws are racist like having to have an ID to vote and their answers are actually the most racist thing you've ever heard because they're like well of course it is you know well they may not know they need an ID or they may not have access to a DMV or they may not have the money for an ID you need to know like do you realize that inherently you're saying people of color are too stupid they don't know they need an ID they don't have the money to have an ID they have know where to go where they would need an ID I think voter ID laws are a way to perpetuate racism would you say there would you go as far to say those laws are racist for sure do you think it suppresses the African-American vote definitely tell us uh because they're less likely to have state IDs minority voters are less likely to have the kinds of IDs that have been um described or required these type of people don't live in areas with easy access to DMVs or other places where they can get identification you can always get IDs um you do over the Internet is that also make it difficult for for black people in particular yeah you have to have access to the internet you have to be able to pay an internet service provider for certain fees do you think that's harder for black people to go online well I feel like they don't have the knowledge of how of like how it works a lot of people have smartphones but you might not have data for most of the communities they don't really know what is out there just because they're not aware or like they're not informed I also think there's a repression of like black voting with um how they how if you're a convicted felon like you're not allowed to vote and everything and when you look at swing States like Florida that's a huge population of the of the like African-Americans and then he goes and speaks to black people and they're like of course I have an ID what do you what are You' been talking about so for me I think the whole this whole thing unto itself is actually racist the whole virtue signaling unto itself is bizarrely racist and it it takes a group of people people in my opinion and I'd love to know what you think about this and it says no no no no no you're a victim and when you tell somebody they're a victim you're fundamentally disempowering them to take control of anything ever though yeah I I I think you're right and uh it's it's very infantilizing yes um really there the people in the video you're talking about I hadn't seen that video but but I I'll send it to you it's deeply upsetting uh but I I can imagine I can imagine very disturbing it doesn't surprise me that that those were the results of the video and really what you have is the white people in that video treating the black people like their children um because that that's what I would say like if you ask me is it reasonable to expect my 11-year-old son to have an ID I would say all those things I'd say well no he doesn't need an ID in his life he wouldn't know where to get one he wouldn't know how um and that would be true of a child but of an adult like if you're an adult not only do you have to have an ID to do normal things like I don't know drive right um uh get a house get a credit card you know rent an apartment like anything to be a functional person you need to have an ID in this country but it's also it it if you're an adult you can figure out it's it's a thing that million hundreds of millions of people do have done in this country um so to to suggest that someone because they're black would have trouble doing this basic thing that for you is no big deal they're racist it's it's very F racist to say that the person needs an ID because everything you just set right I think I think so incompetent and incapable they can never figure it out yeah it I mean it's it's a weird kind of I think it is racism it's a weird kind of racism because because the the people that are engaging in that form of racism they don't no they don't they don't dislike it's like they don't usually you think of racism as why I hate people of other races which is what racism usually is um those white people in the video I think they probably don't hate black people uh clearly think less of them that they clearly do they're exposing they think they think of them as inferior which is which is really what racism is that me is true racism but they would never say that if you ask them do you think black people are infu of course they would say they would deny that until the cows cows come home but how how else do you the proofs in the pudding I mean you think that these are people who are not capable of living adult lives um and yeah you and here's the thing I I as a white uh as a as a straight white male myself um in our society in the main stream I am the uh the Uber villain right like I you're this is the reason why all the bad things happen in the world because of those damn straightway males and and but but the truth is that I was thinking that about you right for sure of course and I and I don't really like being villainized but the honest truth I would rather be villainized based on my demographic group than be infantilized and told that I'm a victim you know in and and and and victimized on my behalf so I would rather I think we in a way we have it better because I'd rather you look at me and say you're a bad guy you're evil I don't like that but it's like okay but then for these other groups you're turning around say well you're you're a helpless victim and me personally I would rather you just think I'm evil than to treat me like a child like I'm a like I'm helpless like I can't do anything like I'm not in control of my own life um that to me is it's a hopeless message it's a it's a demoralizing message I watch my daughter times fall for it a little bit and this is what's so interesting is fortunately unfortunately she's grown up in a family of white people she lives in a part of town that's pretty white you know Miami thank God has more color there are more Haitians and that's great but the child never cared would make friends with everybody never had issues and then white people started giving me books about like Lup nongo wrote this and it's about how much she should love her hair like she doesn't have any issues with her hair thanks like you can take your she's like you know or how beautiful you know make sure she knows how beautiful her skin is she she's got zero issues with her skin in fact when she was little she would so black people get ashy I would lotion her skin when she was little so one day she was like five and she was lotioning my arm and she kept doing it like a week I go honey what are you doing she's like I'm trying to make you black tooa and I was like oh okay and I was like would you feel more comfortable if I was black she's like no I just want you to have better sun protection like she didn't see any of this stuff like oh should I feel like my hair's not pretty and I need a book about it or should I feel like my Skin's less than so I need a book to tell me I feel good about my skin or okay hold on everybody's against me and I'm a victim and that part part that alarms me so much is because when you tell someone that and I see it in my line of work oh you're genetically diseased that's why you're obese you take away all of their self- agency to improve their own lives and then they just get angry and it seems that it's like oh I I am a victim so now I maybe I do hate my white neighbor and then the white neighbor's there thinking wait I didn't do anything to I don't have anything to do with this and they become colder and less friendly and I'll tell you something you had this one part in the documentary about smiling at a black person who was that that said that it wasn't Robin D'Angelo it was Robel it was Robin okay so this actually struck such a cord with me because I've fallen for this and here's what I mean I I've had friends throughout the years that have expressed certain moments where they've experienced racism it could be at a department store where people you know follow them to see if they were stealing things like that but a case by case basis right and or somebody who like tucked their bag on a park bench if a black man walked by and so without question hearing this from my friends I would see a black guy walking down the street and make sure that I did not move over or like touch my back because I never wanted them to think that I felt concerned or was worried and I would go I would go out of my way to make sure that I I would smile and make eyeon get the door and I always felt pretty good about that like maybe I shouldn't have done it I'm nice to other people but it was my way of being like hey I just want you to feel comfortable with me I'm comfortable with you because I had black friends who would tell me they experienced things like you know sitting next to somebody on a bench and they would like tuck their back and I I was conscious of that and respectful of that but then all of a sudden it's like well you're racist if you're smiling at them and okay so here's my second part of this story I go to Whole Food the other day and a black woman walks in with the baby and I wanted to look at the baby cuz he was so cute and I was like all right I don't this is right before I watch the documentary like I don't want to look at the baby because I don't want her to think I'm racist I walk out why would you think you're racist cuz you looked at her because Matt because then it's all of a sudden white fragility is like well you're a racist because you're virtue signaling so now you're if you're smiling at the person of color which is why you're documentary with this whole absurdity of smile don't smile look at them don't look at them you're racist if you don't look you're racist if you look and smile I can't even be human anymore so I didn't look at the baby and I didn't smile at her I just kept my head down and minded my own business I walk out of Whole Foods and she stops me and she's like I know who you are she was the sweetest lady in the world and then I yelled at her for buying cake and we had this like great moment together I thought like what the [ __ ] am I doing what is going on with me when did I lose the ability to be human and these these narratives have gotten into my head they have made me insecure uncomfortable unsure of how to behave and then I watched your documentary and it's like this absurdity of you're racist if you smile and you're racist if you're not and I'm just these narratives I think are corrosive in every way yeah and that's that's why I think it's so what you're describing um part of that is having these these uh these grifters which just the word I my umbrella term I use for people that that are that are that spread this stuff uh part of it is they they make racism itself into this um ambiguous uh thing that it's you know Amorphis it's like hard to pin down what you can't really Define it um it it also it's inherent and like I said you can never get rid of it it's always there and if you buy into that well then iess guess yeah you are walking around your everyday life and he like well is this part of my racism or is it not but but you it's for me it's quite easy to it's absurd you you never fell for it once well I mean look I mean I I have many flaws that's that's just not that's not one of them I haven't I have not been tempted to fall into that only and the reason is this that for me I recognize racism is a simple thing uh you hate people of another race because they're because of that that race or and or you think that they're inferior to you because of their race um if you do not feel that way about other races then congratulations you're not racist right period like no matter what else you do in your life you're not racist you could even this is the part this might scandalize you a little bit uh even if you see the black man walking down the street and you you hold your purse that doesn't make you racist it only makes you racist a little bit Prejudice no it doesn't a little bit here here's what that means here's what it means would you do the same thing if a white guy walked down the street you I well I wouldn't have a purse Fair um but would I I'll put it this way if I'm uh walking down I would never do this but if I'm walking down a back alley at night in the city and I see a a I see you I see a white woman walking past me I'm not going to be that worried I'm very vicious well so you know maybe in your case I should be but in most cases I wouldn't be my level of concern is going to change slightly depending on the demographics of the person I'm sorry and and that's not it's not racist it's not uh in fact it's just rational it's a recognizing uh statistics it's recognizing levels of risk it's just it's basic self-preservation um gender is also part of this by the way oh yeah I understand sure I I say this as a man right so using that analogy in the in the the the back alley if we don't know each other at all and you have no idea who and you look at me well I'm I'm a man so you probably have a a larger level of concern um than you would if I was a woman right yes again we don't know each other we're just generic people walking around uh does that make does that make you sexist does it mean that you're some kind of man-hating um whatever misin interest no it just means that you're you're you're recognizing certain patterns you're recognizing statistics and you realize that it's statistically more likely that uh you could be harmed by a man than a woman especially in in this scenario where it's a stranger just a reality um so and that's that's where a lot so what we're really talking about is like stereo ypes yeah and in most cases stereotypes exist for a reason uh they don't just fall out of the sky they they they they come along because there are patterns of behavior that people notice and then they come up with stereotypes based on them now the problem with stereotypes is that a pattern of behavior with a certain group of people gives rise to a stereotype that doesn't mean that applies to every person in that group but if I don't know you and I have to make a quick judgment call based on no information other than what I can see that stuff gets factored in it just does say that that's that's like the black kid in the hoodie that gets stabbed by the Trayvon Martin isn't that the kid's name yeah well he was also but he was also uh pummeling someone he was he was on top of George Zimmerman pummeling him and you don't want to do that you might get yourself but didn't George Zimmerman attack him first I all know the story of like black kid in that everyone thinks is like a criminal it's a kid zimman yeah Zimmerman approached him he didn't attack him but but I don't no I don't think if Zimmerman attack came up to me and like you know was aggressive I'd start pummeling him I would be concerned let let me give another example yeah I I'll use my so uh if if I wanted to get a babysitter for my kids um I am or a nanny I would never hire a man I get this I would never the white black is different why is it different because here's the thing if there's a man in an alley the the male piece is different in my opinion simply because women aren't going to rape somebody but a man can right as far as I know I mean God God forbid those statistics that that's some way that's possible but as far as I know if I'm not in a female prison I'm not getting raped by a woman but men do far more often one in three women are raped or molested so that's got to mean there's a good number of guys out there who could perpetrate such a crime but I if I was walking down an alley I would not think like oh he's white so I'm probably not going to get raped and I actually think the gods would never think that um but I feel like if you see a black guy and you think you're in more danger not that you're a racist but you definitely have succumbed to a bias without question and I I think that has so much harm for for race relations especially because then do you think do you think we should be we should completely ignore patterns that we can all see like what do you mean well okay um young black males commit a wildly disproportionate amount of violent crime wildly disproportionate okay statistically statistically yes I have I have heard these statistics right it's just a fact it's just a fact of life I don't like it I wish it wasn't a fact um it doesn't make me uh hate black people or think that but it's just a it's a fact un it's a very unfortunate fact um so the question is when you're going about your daily life are you supposed to just pretend you don't know that or uh is there is there never a scenario where that knowledge just like it does with men versus women the knowledge of the statistics the likelihoods the so on and so forth um is there never a scenario where you could act on that to some degree and I in a moment of self-preservation I mean I wouldn't fall for it I don't think because it would depend on the part of town I'm into so like you could go to a bad part of town and there's guys of all different colors that are belonging to gangs Asian gangs Latin gangs wh skin heads black gangs in that part of town I would think this is not a good part of town if I was walking in a good part of town wouldn't care the color skin of the individual I was walking past that part I really think I try with these generalizations and these statistics not to succumb to this not to label People based on generalizations and maybe that's naive but I don't think anything good comes out of that I would also wonder when we look at you know I could make the argument somebody could and it's not going to be me cuz I'm not intelligent enough to do it and I don't know the information behind it but somebody might turn around and say to you well there's more black crime because of systemic racism and the position we've put black people in and we've destroyed the black families and there have been all these laws over the years because I know that argument would be made by a person who's far more educated on it than me do you think there's anything to that because I I hate to tell you that I I do think years of putting people in this position you know what I mean you you fund and then you fundamentally disempower someone and you tell them also the man's out to get you well if the man's out to get you then you have no hope and maybe you will think well I need to make money this way I I I think I agree with that last part that the message like we talked about this infantilizing message um really really to to any group that is not white is is well maybe to the exception of excluding all other nonwhite groups are infanti with this message and told that you don't you don't have power over your own um life and I think that that that has a terrible effect on on people and so I agree with you there um the first part of it you say well we we destroyed the black family uh I mean I've heard those arguments now and forgive me again I'm I'm not super educated I can't engage in an intelligent debate with you but I have heard those arguments and they have sounded pretty credible and it has to do with like giving benefits to families if the father's not there that there I'm sure I'm butchering this but there's an incentive to break up black families do you think I'm wrong about this am I yeah well first of all I mean you you're saying you're you're butchering their you're actually not you I think you're it right well no you should get yeah you're you are credibly representing what the other side would say Okay um so no I don't think there's any worries there uh but what I would say to that is well no we are not destroying the black family I'm not doing that you're not doing that we ar the the law is not doing that systemically well hold on if you if you're giving benefits though right if there's an incentive like oh you get more uh the food stamps or whatever it is if there's no father in the house technically isn't that legal legally you would get better benefits in a home with no Dad yeah and I myself don't know exactly how the benefits part works out but but I do know that whatever I do think welfare yeah right and and I will say the welfare state I think has a terrible effect on the family it has it has hurt the family the family gender institution of family white and black um if there was anything that like specified black people in those policies to try then that would obviously that you'd have an example there of um systemic racism but it doesn't I mean the effect that the welfare state and overly over Reliance on uh the government the effect that that has can be felt and can be seen in low-income um white families and and and and black families and so you have you have an 80% and and especially in in urban the urban black community I think the fatherless rate is about 80% Nationwide about 70% for for the black community now the white white people were it's way higher than it should be I think we're at like 30% maybe even pushing 40 someone will fact check me on that but it's it's it's way too high um it's not 70 or 80 though and when you get to a 70 or 80% fatherless rate um out of wedlock birth rate at 70 that's that's apocalyptic that's that you can't a society cannot sustain itself that way that you you are ushering in and welcoming um every negative thing you could think of in society I mean I mean drugs crime violence suicide uh mental illness Dropout rates it's go like all of that is tied directly back to the fatherlessness epidemic and so what what's the solution what's the solution in the in the black community to reclaiming the family because it wasn't always this way in the black what's the solution well you know you have you have to make a baby and then get and then and get well really you want TOS to get married first then make a baby and uh and raise your child together like that's the solution and if you had if you had rather than 80% of black children growing up in a fatherless home if you had 80% who were growing up in homes with a mother and father um then completely changes the picture okay all all the the the crime the prison incarceration rate all of that stuff uh doesn't disappear but it drastically drastically reduces why do you think not to negate the role of fathers but do you think that fathers are the ones that stop the child from going down that path I think fathers are um indispensable uh I wouldn't say fathers alone uh stop that because you you also need a mother but fathers are indispensable um it's a it's a it's a biological need I mean everybody has a mother and father that's that's that's biology and um and it's that way for a reason and it clear we can clearly see when we look at the statistics that when kids are raised without a father in a home and they rais in a broken home um there's a kind of like emotional chaos a lack of of discipline um a lack of guidance and I have four boys myself um four boys and busy house yeah and two girls so I got I have six kids um and so I know this from experience for raising my boys that um that boys they don't they're boys they're children and they don't know how to grow into men that that's not something that that you that you're born just knowing it's not innate um they're looking to me to show them and I can I can feel that all the time when I'm with my boys I can I can feel them uh well two of the boys are not even two yet so it's a little bit less for them because they're young but especially the two older 11 and seveny old almost 8y old um I can feel them just like looking at me and to me and for a queue just it's not just like one time it's like constant they're constantly looking to me for a cue on how do you respond in this situation how do you respond Under Pressure how what do you do with all of the kind of energy that that boys have like what's a good outlet for that um how how do you take risks you know boys are Risk Takers they they love to take risks even more than girls do and um and that's how boys end up you know you end up with teenage boys that are you know speeding down the road at 150 M hour they end up in a car wreck and they all die like why do they do that girls don't do that nearly as much in fact for most girls they would look at that like I don't want to be in a car it's going 150 miles an hour are you crazy um and they have done that before but I am not the norm right not the norm most girls probably because my father was that kind of guy though that but right but for boys they do that kind of thing because they have this real urge and need to take risks and this is another thing they need a father there to show a boy well here here are ways to take risks here are here are uh smart uh safe relatively safe risks that you can take and when it's a young boy it's like it's it could be simple things like uh I'll help you climb a tree you know there's a little bit of a risk involved there but um and then as you get older the risks become so more significant right more significant and so you've got in the in the black community in particular you have these young M Young boys who are growing up in homes they have no male role model at all they have no idea how to be men because no one has shown them uh they have all the same energy that any boy does and they don't know what to do with it and they ended up taking it to you know so so for them they take it into gangs and violence and drugs just kind of like just just just like often times casual kind of pointless violence you know that you see in the inner city and it's very tragic um a father in a home is not a not a definite guard against that I mean it could still happen but um if you have a father I think the boy has a much better chance of becoming becoming a man because again he has a man that he can look to to say I'm going to model myself after that man because I respect him and he's here for me he's here every day and I and I'm going to you know pick up on every little thing he does um and so that's the solution like you have to raise your kids you have to be there for your kids all right I want to push back on you a little bit so I do agree with you about the importance of fathers um I'm not even going to deny that I understand the psychology of it um I agree with you that that said not everybody gets the perfect father some people get the opposite of a perfect father some couples white black the father's not present and it it segu me into an area where we don't agree on things and I think it's important to show people that we can still have a civilized conversation about the things we don't agree on and I I understand how you feel about gay marriage I think I do um and it seems to me that it's somewhat of an existential threat to something that you hold very dear am I right in presuming that uh yeah I think I would agree with that okay characterization okay so at the same time right gay I'm married I have two kids so your position would be I'm not for this and that should inherently be an existential threat to me and my family and yet I can sit here and like you and agree with you on so much um so I wanted to talk a little bit about this for two reasons one so we can disagree and not kill each other and hopefully walk out and be friends and shake hands and talk again in the future um and I can continue learning from you and take what I like and leave what I don't but also because Matt right now I just had Cara swisser on and there are things that I find deeply alarming like the medicalization of children who are confused about their gender and I know you do I know you do too I can present this conversation to somebody on the left I just had this conversation with Caris swisser she's like well that's a problem but you're getting distracted because the right's trying to take away all of our all of our rights they're trying to destroy our families and you've become weaponized the fact that you would engage in this conversation and you you've become an Uncle Tom if you will of the gay community and I was like I don't see it that way at all um I would never want that to happen I'm not for for it now you're talking to me Cara's not going to like that yeah but I want to talk to you and I want to talk to Cara that's my whole point and I want the audience to listen to everything both of you have to say and make their own decision that's the point that's the point and I would also say to you simply like some of these positions it's tough because you're like you're doing such like you're just you're in it and you're making such good points about like all this crazy stuff that's I think Crea racial division not bringing people together right but then the left is like oh bigot told you and they don't listen to anything you have to say and I I know I won't change your mind on this but I feel like some of these farther right positions are costing in the areas that are really serious and people need to really hear you um so so tell me why and I've watched a little but tell me why this is so alarming to you if one family does something different than yours and it's not to say I don't agree with you I do think I do think children need a mother and a father however I would prioritize love first because not all fathers are great and not all mothers are great but I tell me how you feel about it sure um so a couple things just to start at the start at the end and then work my way back yeah um the point about my my farther right positions alienating people who would otherwise agree with me on on the other stuff you don't care uh well just think big picture though D you you stole my you stole my Thum um well I yeah I basically don't care uh I I I care in the sense that like I want I want people to listen to what I'm saying so I do care about that but you I believe what I believe um I'm not ever going to compromise that or hide from it or be embarrassed about it um and also in my worldview you know everything I believe there's a coherence in in what I believe they all you all it's not like it's a random hodgepodge you know I have a core value system and as I think everybody does I would hope although I question that sometimes I was going to say yeah but yeah maybe everyone doesn't that's part of the problem but I have a core value system everything I believe Springs from that core value system and uh and so it all it all it all points back to that um and I also think that you can't it'd be easy to say well I could be more effective on the gender issue and the race issue if i s would just stop soften it just soften it man if I come over to left a bit on you feel like you'd feel disingenuous right what go to the may go to the left on gay marriage go to the left on things like abortion um but even if that was the case I still wouldn't do it because again I believe what I believe but I also think that I actually wouldn't be as effective on those things because I'm if I'm effective at all on these issues it's because I'm I'm I'm being honest and direct and transparent about what I believe um I think I'm being authentic when people can tell that and nobody wants to listen to someone even if you have great even if what you're saying is very smart if people don't think that you're authentic they won't listen to you um so I would even argue that that probably ultimately the fact that I'm very open about these other things that I know are unpopular positions but uh I think it might actually help me on these other it might actually help people listen on the other things because they know that look if I'm saying I wouldn't say it if I didn't believe it I'm not seeing that I'd see every single conversation about the craziness on the left get shut down because of certain issues on the right but I get what you're saying and you know that's something that you feel is a compromise to your integrity and I appreciate it um okay so tell me why a family living independently of your of your family is upsetting and you've described well the definition of marriage but I've looked up the definition of marriage I like I don't see it say I I got Wiki I've wented the well on this one Miriam Webster like what am I missing so Miriam Webster what Webster say the state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law like what am I missing about because i' I've heard you get very deep into the definition it's it's a procreative union but then you also get into the conversation of what about the married couples that don't have kids like tell me what's the what's the deep offense I just want to understand it because Well here here's what I would say the uh you said how is a is it religious well it's part of my faith I don't I don't deny that um I also think that what I'm saying even if I was not even if I didn't have a deep Christian faith uh my stance on marriage and the family I think would probably be the same now it's impossible to say that because I you know you take my faith away from me I'm a totally different person so who knows what I would say um so your question was well how does someone have a gay couple how does that impact my family and the answer is that an individual so you uh for example did take me right uh you you individually don't have any impact on me or on my family obviously um we're not walking around every we don't we don't like get up in the morning and we're like oh man you know Jillian Michaels is we can't getting married can't make breakfast this morning because you know it's not that's that's of course not what's happening and and I would never claim that um the issue is it's a societal it's it's an issue in society it's a societal wide issue that when a society abandons what has always been recognized as the definition and meaning and purpose of the marital Union they when they abandon what marriage is um that has vast implications for society and then you're because I'm saying everything I find is matrimony or wedlock culturally often legally recognized Union between two people called spouses it establishes rights and obligations between them as well as is them and their children if any between them and their in-laws what is the definition that you have that's outside of what's in the dictionary that's what I'm saying that's what I'm trying to understand is it religious and then which religion because there you know there's different definitions of marriage per polygamy this common law marriage tree group Mar I mean that's because ma marriage codifies protects uh sanctifies the inherently procreative Union of a man and a woman okay and that's for you though that well it's first of all it's not just for me it's for it's for society since the dawn of human civilization until approximately 15 seconds ago um so it's not just me uh and there's something very real here like this is the way I've it's the way I've tried to explain it uh explain my view that let's say Society were to um come crumbling down around us and you know we we we wake up amid the ashes with with no memory of anything that happened before and we're we're rebuilding from scratch it's like fundamentally from the ground up we have to rebuild everything right and we look around and we see like the the survivors the people and we see that they kind of have a tendency to pair up you know and we see that there's this one pairing that has this funny habit of creating people um there's this one type of pairing that and only this type only this type can create a person okay I think we would would say well that's a diff that's different this is a different kind of thing because because it's different from these other relationships because it has this capacity that no other relationship does and that capacity is not it's it's not a small thing it's not it's not incidental it's not uh it's it's it's not superficial I mean this is it creates people in fact that the further existence of sex creates people right SE between one night stand can create a person right I would say a marriage yes but nurtures a child in a loving marriage with kids you're there to love them you're there to guide them I can teach my son how to take risks although I do appreciate I do appreciate the necessity of a father's role and that is a huge thing I don't disagree with you on that I'm not trying to take that away from you but two idiots having a one night stand can have a baby sure and that exactly and that's that I think only proves my point that this Union this coupling of a man and woman is loaded with implications and with a power that no other type of relationship let let me finish yeah you're right no other type of relationship has and so I think it makes sense for a society to say well this is a different kind of thing and this is frankly more important than any of these other kinds of relationship because of the power that it has and so we are going to call that something else and we are going to protect it in a way that we don't protect other relationships because those other relationships do not have this capacity um and for thousands of years of human history uh that's what that's what marriage did that was the point of marriage it was it was to codify and protect the inherently and uniquely uh Pro creative Union of a man and a woman okay um a union that that by its nature can procreate although although of course we know that there plenty of cases where they don't they don't have kids right right and I would say that it's not marriage that makes a baby it's sex between a man and a woman that makes a baby and marriage doesn't make the baby right you're right married or not and marriage is there to protect and uh solidify that family for for the baby is is is is created of course the marriage doesn't create the baby but the marriage is there very much there for the baby but then why would you deny children in a gay family to have those protections because there are tons of them there are over 1,00 rights that come with marriage I'm a taxpaying American why would I be denied that I mean the list is like insane it's everything from making spousal medical decisions being able to jointly adopt a kid joint filing of taxes I mean the list is so long property tax exemptions it's 1,00 and these are things that I I do want to be able to protect my wife when I die to pass all things on to her for her to be able to visit me whenever you know if I'm sick for her to be able to say DNR if I'm dying and vice versa and then there's all kinds of things that protect kids like what if I was a scumbag and I don't want to pay from the two kids that I I had from my previous relationship like I Lally have to do that like well if we were married we actually I did not marry this woman um but I protect my kids but imagine if I was a scumbag if we were married there's laws that I have to take care of them and if she said well you know the boy child's mine I would have no right to the child if I didn't have the rights that are provided she could take my son and Boogie and so there's so many protections that this provides for the kids and for people who love each other that I I can't understand I get why you feel like hey you're threatening what I have that's special I don't agree with it but I understand it and I wish there was a way for me to make you not feel diminished it's not you threatening it's the societal recognition um of it as a marriage the they're trying to equate it with what I would consider to be true marriage that that becomes uh the threat if you will if that's the if that's the language you want to use I I don't know that's how I'm interpreting it from you is that it feels like a threat to the things that you hold dear and it feels like where does it stop I'm interpreting how I think you feel so please correct me if I'm wrong well it is because the look The the institution of the family the institution of the family is the bedro of human civilization um marriage is the Bedrock of the family and so anything that threatens the family yes it does it it threatens the things I hold dear because I hold civilization dear um and so and so in that sense yes um but you're okay now you're talking we're if we get into the conversation of like a hierarchy of family right and sure I I'm not going to be the one who's going to disagree with you that in a perfect world and people can get pissed all they want in a perfect world kid would have a mom and a dad I understand how important those two roles are trust me which arguably I was like I don't you know I wanted do adopted child my ex wanted to have one I didn't want to take that away from her I'm not sorry kids the both of them are the apple of my eye that said it was a deep concern to have a boy without a father I don't disagree at all and have a brother is a very dear friend of the family that's been a father figure is that a father no however if we if we get into the hierarchy of it what about the dad that never showed up what about the dad that took off what about the dad that was an alcoholic what I I know I didn't have a super duper Dad it's better now but I know a lot of people like I was just this morning with Brigham berer who um is great guy I'm not sure if you know him he's on Rogan all the time foster kid and and we I was talking about speaking with you he's like well love is the most important thing and I was like I would say that that would be my argument because from a hierarchal perspective I'll give you the top of the mountain but then I think love and that would be you know a marriage without love I think you lose too so if you said men women love I would go yes I'm with you number one but when in the world are you getting this unicorn Society like your house might be that and that's wonderful but I would tell you I don't think the majority are and I I think providing kids with love and structure is the most important thing if you don't have this perfect scenario and allowing gay parents to get married is so much better for the psychology of their children and I I think it's a fantasy world to think they won't have kids well um well they I mean they won't have kids that's that's part of the point well my ex had a kid but in a in a gay relationship you're not going to have kids in the sense that uh a man and woman have create kids true but she created a kid with a friend of the family I don't think you're you're correct that in so many scenarios this ideal that I'm talking about is not realized I mean we just talked about the black community 70% 80% FS rate uh White Community like I said I think it's 30 or 40% it's rising it's a crisis in its own right um I think the the the way to address that is not to just give up on the concept of marriage and family as it's been understood for thousands of years but but where but to solid to to solidify and protect what we have and I mean it has been thousands of years men have had numerous wives too in different cultures like if you go what what book are we talking and forgive me I'm not well versed on on different religions because I my parents poly yeah polygamy polygamy has didn't Abraham Sarah had numerous wives and then hence the reason you had like ishma and Israel and all this chaos because there were numerous wives yeah you'll find historically I'm an idiot on this stuff but I well here's what I'll say you'll find historically that polygamy has been um there have been cultures that practice polygamy even now today you you'll find that uh but and I'm certainly not a good myself and I don't I don't condone it uh may be missing out no I I don't think I I'm quite happy I'm kidding I'm kidding but but but here's the point that that those those marriages uh were still fundamentally procreative and and so it was still the recognition of this basic deep truth that I'm talking about even even in societies of practice in fact in fact for them procreation was so much the point that that's part of the reason why they had polygamy was so they could create even more kids um and if you go back far enough in time into human history when there weren't that many people on earth why be married if it's all about having kids I mean well you could you could AR if you go back far enough in history You could argue that um that way back when that polygamy served a purpose in like populating the Earth and and and and uh we don't so you know but it's always been that fundamental purpose that there has never been a society until ours right now that has said well actually marriage has nothing to do with procreation at all that Society has never existed unless you can think of an example no there's rights that pertain to the kids but my ex procreated also I adopted a kid we adopted a kid and what happens to all these protections then if you hypothetically got your way well I mean it you'd have tough individual situations like that I don't deny it and uh when you allow uh for the institution of marriage to be essentially disbanded as it has been in this country I don't see that Matt any any effort to I don't see that allowing people to be a part of something that is special I don't see how that disbands it how would you def how would you define marriage well I mean I would go with these literal definitions so the state of being united spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law that is literally how I Define it and also called mag or wedlock culturally and often legally recognized Union between two people called spouses and yes I know historically the spouses were man and woman but it establishes rights and obligations between them as well as between them and their children do you do you recognize at least that that removing the family removing the creation of children from the definition entirely me means you have a me you it means you have a definition there that is would you at least recognize that it is okay that it is unprecedented in the history of human civilization I guess so I mean I I would have to go I don't know I know that there's been homosexuality throughout history I I would presume to I guess so I've done zero homework on this so if somebody knows better than me please leave it in the comments but at the same time people women were getting raped slavery was legal like you know there's a lot of things we had to evolve out of so you know if we dive I but I don't think marriage was one of those things but marriage has marriage was again it's it's the foundation of human civilization rap not okay but your defin and this is where I guess we would have to agree to disagree is your definition is copulation to me that's copulation marriage is this and so to me it's about protecting the that's the entire definition of marriage or of making a that's that is a uh procreation I'd prefer to say okay is is not the entire definition of marriage but it is an essential component of of what marriage about people that don't have kids that are married I don't see you going after their marriage or are you I mean did I miss it I miss no no I I certainly wouldn't because these are these are um it doesn't that does not challenge the inherent nature of the thing so you you could have couples that but you're saying the inherent Nature's procreation right what if they're not procreating right and there and there are it's like um I could say that it it's it's natural it's in our nature for a human being to be born with two legs um there are humans that are born without them it doesn't mean they're not human but this is a this is a there's something has gone wrong and so they were not able to fully participate in that aspect of being a human unfortunately but that doesn't challenge the nature of what it means to be human and um I would say that that one of the natural the nature of marriage is procreative and even though you have men and women who get together and turn outs turns out they can't have kids uh tragically it doesn't challenge the nature want to have kids do they get their rights tripped to win also I would simply say being a person of Faith obviously you believe in God why would God create something that is not okay like somehow I you know unless if you if you're an atheist or you're agnostic then you know maybe you could say like this is an this is freak Show but if you believe in God why would he she whatever did you have that Let's do let's do he Let's do let's do God so so we don't get into too much trouble um God like say you'll say he let's let's settle on God um I'm actually genderist with my God okay moving on Jill point being why would God allow for gay people to exist what are you Christian are I'm totally agnostic I would uh I agnostic but you believe in God I believe in more agnostic okay so my understanding of atheist I don't believe in anything agnostic I do believe in something I don't know exactly what it looks like I wasn't raised with an organized religion um because my mother was Jewish and my father was Greek Orthodox so I think both of them felt like you know what let's she'll figure it out um I love science I like listening to astrophysicists talk about the universe and you know that stuff really to me is proof of God when I hear about that stuff um but it's you know I think there's more I think everything's just far too awesome for there not to be some creating energy I don't judge people for their religion whatever it may be none of my business don't care respect all of it um but if you if you are a Believer why would God create something that's wrong historically speaking even if you look at the animal kingdom there have been gay animals then they take care of orphaned animals like maybe that's why people are gay I I don't know I didn't I adopted a child because I felt something in me telling me this is what I needed to do calling I I don't know maybe I the only thing I would say to that is that is uh what I would say in my faith is that just because you we find in ourselves a desire to do something that doesn't mean that God wants us to do it I mean there are many examples and we could list examples of things that people want to do that they shouldn't do um does that mean that God ordains it just because they find that desire in them I would say No in fact even even a let's take a married man who might experience the desire to have an affair um he didn't choose to want that but he wants it and did that come from God I would say that it didn't and fact what what God what God wants in that case is for you to reject that desire that you have and put it on and and but that's like saying black person to reject being black gay people a lot of us are just born this way and and to be honest with you I grow up very homophobic and I would have taken any other path Matt trust me for how unpopular that may sound this this is also a different conversation from yeah I know from Marriage yes it is because well you I've interpreted it as a segue into like I want you to reject it and I I would tell you that I don't even think I think people would be so miserable who are inherent genetically whatever it may be I think there's a genetic component for sure because it's not really something you can at least for me and everybody I know it's not a choice it's you know and also I don't I think there's more harm done by rejecting who you are than being who you are whereas if you're in a marriage and you cheat I don't see anything good coming out of that um if you're unhappy I you know I would say you've V grown the marriage that's unfortunate I understand you would fight for it I think people can grow apart I would say maybe this isn't the marriage for you personally I wouldn't make that choice willy-nilly listen um first of all I can't thank you enough for being here we'll agree to disagree which I imagine is how you may leave this conversation with different people who have different opinions um I wish I could have changed your mind a little but I respect that I can't and I really hope that you'll continue our conversations on different subject matters going down the road cuz I respect you a ton um and people don't always have to agree on everything to have common ground uh and in fact I think it's most important to talk when you don't agree on things um yeah well I appreciate you you having me here and being willing to talk about these things and um yeah I can't say I've changed my my view at all but but I'm not going to stop trying I like like nothing come on man just say you're not going to ordain a gay marriage or anything probably not not today um but it's an interesting conversation and hey I'm always open to talking to anybody about anything so I appreciate it thank you so much thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed the podcast please like comment subscribe and share and make sure to let me know what guests you want to see on in the future sh [Music]