Student: This would qualify as a racist institution,
the state of Alabama.
[audience boos]
Student: I have an answer
to a question that you commonly pose
whenever the topic of institutional racism is brought up.
Shapiro: Sure.
Student: You'll always ask, where is the institution?
Show me the racist laws so that we can fight them together.
Shapiro: Correct.
Student: Welcome to Alabama.
This would qualify as a racist institution,
the state of Alabama.
[audience boos]
Shapiro: So now I go back to the question
that you say that you answered,
which is, show me the law.
You've named an institution you don't like,
now show me the law.
Student: No, it's not an institution I don't like.
I've lived here my whole life, but...
Shapiro: I mean, you called it racist,
so I assume you're not super fond of it.
Student: Yeah. It has flaws, to say the least.
But the Constitution of Alabama demands that schools
be segregated by race.
If it weren't for the federal government,
there would only be white people in this room.
So we have tried to repeal this
language to get it out of the Constitution
at least once a decade.
And it has failed
every time. We have voted to keep
segregation as law in the state of Alabama.
So I'd say that that qualifies the state. And...
Shapiro: Yes, if that's...I will admit to you.
So a couple of fundamental assumptions.
I'm going to admit
I have not read the Constitution of the State of Alabama.
So I don't know the provision that you are talking about.
I will assume that it says what you say
it says for the purposes of this conversation.
If, in fact, there's a provision in the state law
of Alabama that says that segregation is mandated by law,
of course that's racist. That's Jim Crow,
and that would be institutional racism.
The point that I'm making is that
there are a lot of black people in this room today
because the institutional racism that you are decrying
was, in fact, wiped out at the legal level
by the federal government in the 1960s.
So if you're citing a law from 1873 or 1865,
whenever the constitution embedded segregation.
If you are citing that law to prove institutional racism,
and that law has not been applied for 50 years,
you're going to need to do better.
[audience applause]
Student: Well, there were several lawmakers
in the last few years caught on tape
talking about the need to suppress the black vote,
referring to black people as aborigines and illiterates.
Shapiro: Right. I've always said there are racist people.
And by the way,
when there are people who act in maliciously racist fashion,
in my opinion, I have donated money
to their primary opponents.
I did that a month ago for Steve King.
[audience applause]
Student: These are lawmakers, though.
These are people who are actually making laws in the state.
Shapiro: So I don't understand where we disagree.
In other words, if you show me the comment and I say,
I oppose the comment and therefore I oppose the lawmaker.
And then they pass a law,
and I agree that the law is racist
and I oppose the law, we don't disagree.
So the point that I'm making is,
are there people who are racist in the United States? Sure.
Are there people who are racist in the government?
I'm sure because the government
is representative of the United States.
But when people talk about institutional racism,
they tend to do so by suggesting,
and this is my main argument about institutional racism
to put this in kind of rounded context,
the main argument that I'm making about institutional racism
is not that racism doesn't exist. It's that to
attribute every disparity to discrimination,
which is what seems to be the intersectional argument.
That if one group of people has less property
than another group of people,
or one group of people has less wealth,
or one group of people is less economically successful,
or one group people is less educated.
That that is the result
of current present-day institutional racism.
That is not useful,
and in fact, it's counterproductive
because what it is doing is it is suggesting a fault
that does not occur in the present.
Now, I've also said in every speech
that I've made for multiple years at this point,
that to deny historic racism would of course be idiocy.
Of course, historic racism exists.
Of course, that has present day consequences.
But that does not answer the question as to which policy
currently in place is causing the disparity.
So if you can point to the policy that is intended
and designed to create disparity between groups,
and then you can say that
that is what causes the disparity between groups,
then we can agree on abolishing the law.
I want to get rid of those obstructions
the same way that you do.
My goal is that the law equally applies to everyone,
meaning that everybody has the same rights.
We're not all born with the same opportunity
because no one is.
Some of us are born rich, some of us are born poor.
Some of us are born short, like me.
Some people are born tall.
People are just born differently.
Some people are born smarter,
and some people are born stupid. That's why Democrats exist.
[audience laughter]
[audience applause]
But...it's just a joke.
There are lots of smart Democrats.
I just don't know why they do what they do.
But with that said,
I think what people make the mistake of doing
is suggesting that
because people end up in an unequal position every day,
that that is the result of current-day
people standing in their way
and obstructing legal anti-discrimination.
I don't think that's correct.