So yesterday in the wake
of the tragic murders
that happened at the Atlanta spas.
There's been quite the controversy
that has broken out around
one particular comment from one of
the sheriffs that were involved in
the press conference yesterday.
I want to give you the context by
playing the video where
he said that, well, the murderer
had a bad day, let's start there.
>> The suspect did take
responsibility for the shootings.
He said that early on, once we
began the interviews with him.
He claims that these and
as the chief said,
widow still early but he does claim
that it was not racially motivated.
He apparently has an issue, what he
considers a sec fiction and sees
these locations as something that
allows him to go to these places.
And it's a temptation for
him that he wanted to eliminate.
Like I said,
it's still early on, but
those were comments that he made.
>> Could you discuss any kind
of religious motivation for this or
what do you even thought?
>> Not that I'm aware of.
Not that I'm aware of.
>> More political.
>> Non political,
I've heard nothing about politics.
They got that impression that yes,
he understood the gravity of it.
And he was pretty much set up but
it didn't come at the end of
his rope and
yesterday was a really bad day for
him and this is what he did.
>> Remorseful?
>> We're not going to go to that,
I don't know if he was
remorseful or not.
>> So yesterday was a really bad
day for him.
Obviously, that was a repulsive
comment that most people quickly
identified as sympathizing with
a mass murderer.
The New York Times picked it up and
said the following quote,
the comments were widely panned on
social media,
with critics characterizing them.
As callous and pointing to Facebook
posts from March 30 and April
2 of last year by Captain Baker.
In which he promoted sales of
an anti Asian T-shirt.
The T-shirt echoing the rhetoric of
President Donald J Trump referred
to the Coronavirus as and quote,
imported virus from China.
And the article went on to say,
place your order, this is a quote
from his actual social media posts,
place your order while the last.
Captain Baker wrote at the time of
one of the posts, he did not
immediately respond to requests for
comment on Wednesday.
So obviously, when he said this,
everyone's when he said that he
had a bad day.
Everyone rightly got the sensation
that there's something wrong with
this Captain Baker.
And social media quickly discovered
that, well, one of the reasons he
may have sympathies with a mass
murderer who targeted Asians.
Asian-Americans is because he
himself is a racist and
has racist racism towards
particularly that group.
And to bring the image on the
screen, you can see right now, you
can see the images of the COVID-19
T-shirts in the form of a Corona,
the alcoholic beverage Corona.
And then underneath that imported
virus from China with
the annunciation attributing to
Donald Trump.
So, Cenk,
this is a really terrible addition
to a story that's already tragic.
But it is really consistent in
terms of what Ray Baker said
yesterday at that press conference.
And the fact that it was quite easy
for social media to dig up the fact
that he himself is a racist.
>> Yeah, so Ben had explained me
before the show started why spelled
China CHY-NA and that's apparently
in reference to Trump saying,
China, okay?
If you act now, this
extra bit of racism thrown in for
free in this T-shirt, right?
And so and by the way, his message
almost read exactly like that.
So, look guys, the thing about
folks who have discretionary points
of view, you've got racist, bigot,
you name it.
Sometimes I try to hold off
on saying that because I know that
it's such a trigger for
right wingers that they immediately
shut off their minds.
They're no, racism can't exist,
I can't possibly have it.
So the minute you use that word,
I will go to a corner and
cry until you're done and but
I will not open my ears or
my mind, right?
But why would you wear a shirt like
that?
What is the message you're trying
to deliver with that shirt, right?
So like on TYT, we have a shirt
that says mount squat more,
that message is being delivered
is obvious.
We'd like to squat, right, and
that's in Congress.
This shirt is COVID-19 is bad, but
we all know COVID-19 is bad.
Like you're going to wear a shirt
that says, I don't like AIDS,
like but what's your point?
What why, what do you say?
And of course, especially with the
way that China is spelled there,
right, to make to evoke Trump's
racist way of referring to China.
And the whole point of the shirt
is, this isn't about COVID.
This about me hating
that this came from China.
Look, you could turn that around
and say the people that are most
responsible of Coronovirus is us
here in America.
And we had the most cases,
we had the most deaths.
We also spread it to
the most places.
So in China, it appears to have
started in Wu Han, right, and
so that's bad.
I don't know what,
well first of all,
we don't know why it started.
The most likely reason is
transmission from animals to
humans, and it might have been in
a roundabout way.
So that's kind of random,
that's not anybody's fault, right?
And then the question is,
how do you deal with it?
The Chinese government is at fault
for not immediately being honest
and transparent about it.
But again, we don't have a great
leg to stand on here.
Our government was not very honest
or transparent about it,
let alone knowledgeable.
Hydroxy and inject the bleach and
all that stuff, right?
So no, you're trying to make
a political point about
Asians, right?
Like so like, if you put on
a T-shirt about the Spanish flu and
you like the goddamn Spanish did
it to us.
The point is the Spanish man not
the Spanish flu part, right?
So, and by the way,
that also did not start in Spain.
Okay [LAUGH] That
also started not also,
but that one started in America.
But now back to the really
important part here of, okay, why
does, what are we concerned about?
We're concerned about whether the
sheriff can deliver equal justice.
So when he has a shirt like that
and proudly puts that out
into the world,
you get a big sense of his mindset.
But that is right, you get more of
a sense of his mindset from the
press conference that everybody's
focusing on he had a bad day.
It makes it seem like sympathetic
to him, like the people
who died had a much worse day.
That's not how he framed it.
He thought about it from
the perspective of the shooter.
Now that's not something that
cops do often.
Now, I've never heard
a police officer of any kind saying
about a Muslim terrorist attack.
Well, to be fair,
Ahmed had a bad day.
Never, no one's nor
will you ever see that.
And you know that everybody knows
that even if you're a right winger,
you know that, right?
It's about perspective, right?
So then I want to talk about
the things that have not been
talked about in the press as much.
He also said,
this is that people have
talked about this to some degree.
What he says is that it was not
racist.
Well look, I get some of the logic
if he said it was about race and
it makes it easy and
apparent, right, and
he's relaying information to you.
It's not all bad, but I'm also
not overly concerned about what
the homicidal lunatic said, right?
It's right, and a lot of people
have made these comments online.
Serial rapist don't go around say
no, no, it's because I hated women.
But their actions are fairly
clear, right?
So and then but finally,
the part I don't think
a lot of people have talked about.
He said he takes responsibility for
that.
Again, I've never heard that
framing from a police officer.
When a black person
takes responsibility,
it's called a confession.
Now when a white guy who hates
Asians kind of like you does a
confession, it's not a confession.
He's taking responsibility
like he's a stand up guy.
That goes to frame of mind and
that's what we're concerned about
in equal application of justice
by police officers.
>> Wow, Cenk,
that's such an important point how
just the turn of phrase, right?
And the fact that he had the frame
of mind, this sheriff's officer
whoever, he had the frame of mind
thought presence of mind to
turn that phrase.
Really points to the fact that this
is a comrade of his.
This is somebody who he has more
identification with
than the victims.
And as it pertains to those
T-shirts, one of the things
that jumps out the most to me in
this country is the need.
And how effective,
quite honestly Donald Trump and
conservatives were with deflecting
from our culpability.
Our responsibility,
their responsibility for
this virus spreading as fast and
as viciously as it did.
And they know clearly the technique
to get away with that is to other
somebody, like to vilify someone.
Someone had to be the villain in
order for them to get away with,
quite frankly,
the stupidity that we've seen.
Not only since last year, but
all the way to today with
Rand Paul's still suggesting that
we shouldn't wear a mask anymore.
So this China T-shirt is part and
parcel of the strategy
of Conservatives to make sure that
the Republican Party, Donald Trump,
specifically.
Fox News and everyone
else who played this pandemic down,
bore no responsibility and
how do you get away with that?
You make another villain and
that's what they did here.
>> That's 100% right.
And and look, by the way,
there could be a range of options
as to why he did what he did.
And it's not binary,
people are now trying to say, well,
is it random?
Usually, when it's why folks,
people say random lone wolf,
nothing we could do.
No political angle,
no religious angle,
no nothing, right?
And then is it religious or
is it racial?
The answer could be some
combination thereof, right?
So is he mentally unbalanced?
Well, obviously,
killed eight people, right?
Is a Muslim tears unbalanced?
Yeah, obviously,
they killed eight people, right?
Even angry people of a certain
ideology don't kill eight people.
They do when they're mentally
unbalanced, right?
And so then secondarily,
are racial and
religious components present here?
They appear to be.
I'm not foreclosing any options,
but I'm saying you don't have
to put it in just one bucket.
But one thing to me is absolutely
clear, the guy says over and
over again.
He thought he had a sexual
addiction, his particular church
and that doesn't mean that it
applies to everyone at that church.
It's just that interpretation
taught him that having sex with was
terrible, and
you should hate yourself for it.
But then on top of that layered in,
women have tempted you and
hence the implication is
you should hate them as well.
So if you want to protect that
interpretation of religion, you are
wrong, it does lead to misogyny.
And oftentimes,
it does lead to crimes like this.
It doesn't matter what religion
it comes from.
If you're teaching people, men that
it is women's fault for x, y or z,
not based on any fact, but based on
old, misogyny and sexism etc.
Yeah, you're culpable,
you put that poison in his head.
So let's be real about that.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay,
I think we've got a poll here.
Let's go to TYT.com/polls,
will the Georgia sheriffs
spokesperson loses his job over
racist social media posts?
Yes or no?
Okay, it's a good question,
another good question for
another day is should he?
And so, look, Ben, on that front,
one more thing.
Sometimes I even catch myself
feeling guilty about
pointing out other people's racism.
I want to cushion the blow for
white folks in the audience,
because they really, really do get
very sensitive about that.
And sometimes rightfully so,
not often, right, but sometimes and
sometimes wrongfully so.
And I catch myself being like,
look guys, can you see why this is?
Partly as a way of better
communicating with folks.
I'm reaching out to them and
trying to evoke empathy to have
a human conversation.
But partly because if you're
going to say, hey,
maybe that guy might be
discriminatory towards Asians.
And he has a gun and a badge, etc,
maybe we shouldn't do that.
I know that a lot of white folks
are going to react with.
Now you're being totally unfair to
him just for
being [CROSSTALK] >> Yeah,
I can see what you're saying, Cenk.
But I've got so many gray hairs
from trying to deal in good faith
with people who intentionally
have no intention of dealing in
good faith in these conversations.
And I'm kind of at the point now
where it's like,
I'll use myself as an example.
I used to get really sensitive when
I would see posts about misogyny or
all men do this and
all men do that.
And eventually,
I just had to come to terms with
the fact that you know what,
even if it's not me, it exists.
And if I'm so sensitive about them
saying something that hurts me and
my feeling is just because I'm
a man, then I'm probably
complicit with this entire problem
in the first place.
And it wasn't until I was getting
off a train in Boston one year.
And this guy just acting normal
asked me for a pin, pre pandemic,
obviously, I gave him a pin.
And this young woman got off
the train and he went from
professional to complete barbarian
in 0.001 seconds.
And I was like, you know what,
I'm going to shut my mouth anytime
someone says something about men.
Because it may not be all men, but
having just one who can act on that
level of vitriol towards women is
extremely dangerous.
So that's my world.
>> Yeah, last piece of irony here,
Ben Shapiro has that
line about facts,
don't care about your feelings.
But man, the right wing's got a lot
of feelings.
And you and we all have to be so
sensitive like couch or critique
and like, are you guys okay?
Like, that's a cop that might not
care about Asians that are
suffering a crime and he's a cop.
Or he might even do things against
Asians with his badge in his gun.
Are you guys okay?
Are your feelings okay?
Co who your feelings are okay?
All right, now can we get to the
facts about anti Asian crime, etc.
We spend so much of our collective
energy worrying about
the feelings of right wingers.
>> Yeah, yeah.