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Robert Woodson...Race Is Not The Reason Black People Are Struggling! · Gil I Am

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: It is not a race problem in America. We look
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: at the evidence. Look at the evidence. You know, a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: lot of people are like the farmer that came to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the creek when it was like coming. It was three
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: feet high and moving at about twenty miles an hour,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and he forced the mule in and they were swept
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  Speaker 1: down the creek. A year later, he came to the
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: same crossing. This time it's only six inches. The mule
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: refuses to go in because the mule had good memory
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: but poor judgment. Conditions were not like they were back
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  Speaker 1: in segregation when I was locked up twice in Mississippi.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: The conditions have changed, but many of us. But again,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: look at the evidence. When whites were at their worst,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: we were at our best. As I said, in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty to nineteen forty, when segregation and racism was enshrined
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: in law, blacks had the highest marriage rate of any
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  Speaker 1: group in society. Elderly people could walk safely in those
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: communities without fear of being assaulted by their grandchildren. So
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: let's look at the evidence. When we refuse access to hotels,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: we built our own hotels, financed by our own means.
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  Speaker 1: The Wallahajjie in Atlanta, the Carver and Calvert Hotel in Florida,
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  Speaker 1: the Saint Charles in Chicago, the Saint Teresa in New York.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I could go on and on. When we were denied
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: access to colleges, we built our own and in fact,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: our small business formation rate was higher than whites in
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the twenties. And that really determines any group's participation in
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the economy. It is not what government does for you
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: or what white people do. In fact, I think those
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: who continue to push this race agenda are Eurocentric. They
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: assumed that the destiny of blacks is determined by what
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: white people do. That hasn't never been the case. We
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: closed the education gap in the South between nineteen twenty
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: and nineteen forty. How do we do it? Julius Rosenwall,
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  Speaker 1: the CEO of Sears, came together with Booker T. Washington,
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  Speaker 1: and he put up four million dollars. The black community
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: matched with four point eight million. We built five thousand
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  Speaker 1: schools to teach ex slaves how to read and write.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: And as a consequence of that study that the in
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: between nineteen twenty and nineteen forty, the education gap in
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  Speaker 1: the South between whites and blacks was three years eighth
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: grade for white's fifth grade for blacks. Within twenty years,
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  Speaker 1: that gap closed within six months. There were four five
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  Speaker 1: high schools at the turn of the century in New York, Baltimore, Washington, Atlanta,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and New Orleans. They had used textbooks, overcrowded classrooms, half
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the budgets of white schools. But every one of those
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  Speaker 1: schools out tested every white school in those cities. If
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: we were able to close the education gap between nineteen
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  Speaker 1: twenty and nineteen forty through self determination and hard work,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: if we were able to outtest of white schools in
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  Speaker 1: those cities, then the question is in those same schools
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  Speaker 1: today in Baltimore, for instance, where they're run by blacks,
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  Speaker 1: not a single student could read a grade level or
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: perform at grade level. And so how can you say
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: that it is racism that is the cause of the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: present day challenges when under segregation we achieved. One other
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  Speaker 1: example we gave from our studies. In nineteen forty three,
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  Speaker 1: blacks were prohibited from being naval officers. Eleanor Roosevelt persuade
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  Speaker 1: her husband to train them. So they selected sixteen black
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  Speaker 1: college educated men for training the Naval Academy, not the
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  Speaker 1: Academy of Naval Training Center. The Navy says, oh, how
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  Speaker 1: we're going to give these black cadets in eight weeks
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  Speaker 1: what we give white cadets in sixteen. So theyn wash out.
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  Speaker 1: When these brothers found out what the deal was, they
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  Speaker 1: covered the windows in their barracks and stayed up all
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: night and studied. When they were tested, they scored in
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  Speaker 1: the ninetieth percentile. Wow. So then they said, well they cheated,
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  Speaker 1: So they tested them individually. They scored in the ninety
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  Speaker 1: third percentile. Thirteen of them. Eventually, thirteen of them eventually
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: became naval officers. They called them the Golden thirteen. You
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: can look at us that test. The test scores today
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  Speaker 1: has never been bettered. So again I respond people with evidence.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: The incarceration rights of rates of blacks from a turn
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  Speaker 1: of the century up to the sixties was under twenty
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  Speaker 1: five percent. Incarceration under twenty five percent. It just shot
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  Speaker 1: up to I think it was like ninety thousand blacks
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  Speaker 1: were in jail in nineteen sixty. That went up this
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  Speaker 1: nine hundred thousand over the next thirty years. Why do
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  Speaker 1: you think that is what happened? What changed in the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen Again, in our studies red, white and black. We
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: looked at the we looked at the experiences. We looked
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  Speaker 1: at six major plantations to find out what the state
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  Speaker 1: of marriage was of slaves. Seventy five percent of those
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  Speaker 1: slaves had a man and women raising children. The nuclear
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: family continued to prosper in the phase of segregation for
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: one hundred years, but all of that changed in the
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: sixties with the poverty programs. Lyndon Johnson, Yes, Johnson came
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  Speaker 1: in and and and what happened was the social scientists
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: who were pushing socialism on America, houd and Pivot at
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Columbia said, if you disconnect work from income, then school
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: dropout rates will increase, drug addiction, all of those things
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  Speaker 1: and the and so what the government did was offer
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  Speaker 1: welfare as an alternative to a man in the house.
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  Speaker 1: We relaxed the rules, we we we separated work from income.
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  Speaker 1: And as a consequence, UH that was supported by the
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  Speaker 1: Black power movement. Also, the women's movement was anti man.
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  Speaker 1: And so you had a combination of social policy. But
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  Speaker 1: policy alone wouldn't have done it. The federal government UH
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  Speaker 1: enticed welfare black to co own welfare Blacks. Welfare used
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: to be stigmatized in the black community, but the federal
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: government began to interpret it as reparations and as entitlements.
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  Speaker 1: They withdrew any requirement that you should tell the paternity
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  Speaker 1: of the father of paternity in cases of pregnancy. All
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of these so that more blacks were came into the
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  Speaker 1: welfare system in the first five years of the seventies,
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  Speaker 1: that millions floated into the system at a time when
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the undeployment rate was under four percent. So it is
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  Speaker 1: a combination of social policies plus the civil rights movement
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  Speaker 1: morphed into a raised grievance industry, and many of those
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  Speaker 1: civil rights leaders became mayors and elected to public office.
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  Speaker 1: Where seventy and we spent twenty two trillion dollars during
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  Speaker 1: that period on programs at age the poor, where seventy
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  Speaker 1: cents of every dollar went not to the poor, but
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  Speaker 1: those who served the poor. What percentage of it seventy
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  Speaker 1: seventy poor. They ask which problems are are are fundable,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: not which problems are solvable. So, in other words, a
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  Speaker 1: friend of mine described the district He's having a cabin
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  Speaker 1: built in Wisconsin. His electrician is a drunk, and the
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  Speaker 1: carpenter is an alcohol has one leg his value. Their
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: value to him is their skill. But if he was
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  Speaker 1: a disabilities directly, their value to him would only be
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  Speaker 1: the disability. So we have a situation where we have
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  Speaker 1: really created a commodity out of poverty. Well, first of all,
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  Speaker 1: we got here because we we had the social policy
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: that that incentivized single parents. In other words, I had
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  Speaker 1: a young couple. She said that my husband, I'm a
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  Speaker 1: My husband's a janitor and I'm a secretary. And he
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  Speaker 1: lost his job. She said, I applied for welfare as
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  Speaker 1: a married couple and they refused me. But she said
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: if if, but if I was a single mother, then
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  Speaker 1: I can get help. And so so you really provide
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  Speaker 1: a disincentive for marriage, and you wonder why you get it.
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  Speaker 1: You get more of what you reward and less of
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  Speaker 1: what you punish. And so over the over those decades
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  Speaker 1: we have we have punished single parent households. The more
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: you work, the more your you know, other words, the
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  Speaker 1: more you work, the more of perverse incentives for you.
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  Speaker 1: If I work and get a raised, I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: get lose child care. So so that's that's that's why we
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: have a system that disincentivizes work and in marriage. But
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  Speaker 1: I also realize that that the that that you you
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  Speaker 1: the questions what are solutions? If you say that seventy
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  Speaker 1: percent of those families are raising children that are not
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  Speaker 1: dropping out of school, it means thirty percent or not.
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  Speaker 1: What we do at the Woodson Center is we go
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  Speaker 1: into low income communities and we go into the homes
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  Speaker 1: of the thirty percent to find out what is going
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  Speaker 1: on in those households. These are people who are raising
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  Speaker 1: children that are not dropping out of school. They're not
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  Speaker 1: in jail, they're not on drugs. They're confronted with the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: same economic circumstances. But and so the question is what
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  Speaker 1: is it that's going on there that's not clues success?
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  Speaker 1: So that's why I fall conservatives also, is that they
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  Speaker 1: have been preoccupied when it comes to poverty, but only
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  Speaker 1: studying failure. So Charles Murray and some of the others,
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  Speaker 1: all they do is talk about, okay, if people on welfare,
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  Speaker 1: let's provide let's take the way to perverse incentives. I'm
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  Speaker 1: for work requirements, I'm for drug testing, but you can't
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  Speaker 1: stop there. What we do at the Woodson Center is
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  Speaker 1: that we go look for capacity and so many of
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  Speaker 1: the people in the thirty percent. We need to hold
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  Speaker 1: them up and take what works for the thirty percent
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  Speaker 1: and expand it to the seventy percent. And that's what
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  Speaker 1: we do. But as a moral and spiritual crisis, and
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  Speaker 1: it is not an economic and social crisis. But policy
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  Speaker 1: be the left the right of center takes very little
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  Speaker 1: into account of restoration, moral redemption, faith. And many of
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  Speaker 1: our groups who have been able to survive under the
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  Speaker 1: worst of sake is because of their faith. But the
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  Speaker 1: whole issue of faith is not even a factor in
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  Speaker 1: supporting people's restoration. We have gone into some of the
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  Speaker 1: most good drug infested, crime ridden neighborhoods where there were
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  Speaker 1: fifty three gang murders in the five square block area
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  Speaker 1: in two years. Twenty five years ago in DC, we
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  Speaker 1: supported five young men who were ex offenders who came
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  Speaker 1: to Christ and became redeemed. But they have a moral
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  Speaker 1: authority and the social trust of their peers, and so
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: they went into these neighborhoods and brought the leadership of
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  Speaker 1: these kids who were doing destructive things, and they became
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  Speaker 1: agents of remralization of these kids. And it's just like
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  Speaker 1: in the marketplace, only three percent of the people are entrepreneurs,
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  Speaker 1: they generate seventy percent of the jobs. Right, well, a
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  Speaker 1: lot of these organizations are social entrepreneurs only takes a
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  Speaker 1: small number of them. If you can change them and
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  Speaker 1: make them an agents of a restoration, they can change
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  Speaker 1: the whole community. And we found out to be the
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  Speaker 1: case where in this community called Benning Terrace, by just
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  Speaker 1: going in and reaching sixteen kids who were leading predators
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  Speaker 1: and changing their values and their attitudes. How do you
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  Speaker 1: do that by witnessing to them. You take some man
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  Speaker 1: who has been in jail, who has been faced all
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  Speaker 1: the challenges from an abuse household, and saying you are
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  Speaker 1: not defined by the worst of what you were you
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  Speaker 1: and I'm a witness that you don't have to stay
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  Speaker 1: there because you've been there what we did in the past,
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  Speaker 1: in other words, what I've done by learning if our
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  Speaker 1: people could, in the face of slavery and discrimination, build
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: families and restore their communities, then all we've got to
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: do is go back and take the values that serve
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  Speaker 1: the interests of our people then and apply them today.
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  Speaker 1: In other words, taking old values and apply them to
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  Speaker 1: new realities. With the consequence that you can but a
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  Speaker 1: witness is more powerful than an advocate. An experience will
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: always prevail against an argument. I debated this with Hawk
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Newman it's on YouTube for one hour. I didn't argue
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: with him. I confronted his proposition with my facts and saying,
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  Speaker 1: if we were able to learn and close the education
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  Speaker 1: gap under segregation, why can't we do it today? And
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: so that's what you have, But we don't realize the
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  Speaker 1: power of somebody coming to a young man or young
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  Speaker 1: woman who has been engaged in antisocial behavior, supply them
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: with a mentor that that witnesses to them to say,
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  Speaker 1: why don't you use your your skill and talents to
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: rebuild the community and not tear it down.