Shapiro: That's okay, no, no, that's okay.
Student: F*** you, I'm talking.
Shapiro: Guys, I actually want to hear... Student: No, no, no.
Shapiro: I want to hear, it's okay, it's okay, I want to...
Student: I promise he wants to hear me.
Shapiro: I want to hear, let's at least hear the argument.
Let's hear it, let's hear it, go.
Student: Do you come from Holocaust survivors
or are you a Jewish family that didn't?
Shapiro: My great, great grandparents arrived here.
A lot of our extended family
was killed in the Holocaust,
but our immediate family did not.
Student: Your great, great grandparents,
but not your grandparents.
Shapiro: Right.
Student: Do you have friends whose grandparents
were Holocaust survivors
or anything like that? Shapiro: Of course, many of them.
I've helped write memoirs
of Holocaust survivors. Student: Yeah, yeah.
Their families are kind of messed up, right?
My family is very messed up.
Shapiro: If you go through a trauma
like the Holocaust, I would imagine
it would have impact. Student: They teach that trauma
between generations.
You know what I mean?
Shapiro: Trauma very often, in a lot of circumstances,
is passed down. I know some kids
of Holocaust survivors who turned out fantastic
and some who didn't. That's
the way it goes.
Student: Okay, so you are officially woke.
That is what wokeness is about.
It's like, people's grandparents
or their great grandparents were slaves.
[audience boos] Shapiro: That's okay.
No, no, that's okay. Student: F*** you, I'm talking.
Shapiro: Guys, I actually want to hear... Student: No, no, no.
Shapiro: I want to hear...
it's okay, it's okay, I want to...
Student: I promise he wants to hear me.
Shapiro: I want to hear, let's at least hear the argument.
Let's hear it, let's hear it, go.
Student: He wants to hear me.
Shapiro: I do want to hear it, it's fine, let him go.
Let's hear it. Student: Come on, come on.
I'm talking.
Shapiro: Explain how that's woke.
Student: The whole thing is...
During Silent Cal, Calvin Coolidge's administration,
do you know about the great Mississippi flood
back in the 1930s?
Shapiro: I understand that American history
is filled with racial evil.
Student: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that causes some intergenerational trauma
which affects people's ability to be...
Shapiro: Okay, so let me... Student: Affected,
things like that. Shapiro: Fine.
Let me ask you a question.
Student: Yeah, yeah.
Shapiro: If the idea is that history has consequences,
of course that's true.
That's not wokeness, that is not wokeness.
What wokeness suggests is that fundamental institutions
in American society are so... Student: No, it doesn't.
Shapiro: Yes, it a hundred percent does.
Student: I ran Elizabeth Warren's campaign.
I helped organize her volunteers around here.
[audience boos]
I am a representative of wokeness.
And this is all it is.
Student: When I went to go get my first tattoo,
the guy had lightning bolts and 88s tattooed on his neck.
And as a Jewish person, that's really messed up.
It's basically a threat.
Shapiro: There are racist people who exist.
The argument that you're making,
and I'm going to close with this
because this is going in weird directions,
and I don't really want to... Student: No, no, no.
Shapiro: I don't really want to get...
Just hold up a second.
I let you get out your arguments,
now it's time for me to respond.
Because I let you say them full out.
Student: I'll let you respond, but...
Shapiro: No, no, not but. Now it's my turn.
Student: You are not characterizing
what I'm saying accurately.
Shapiro: Now it's my turn.
Your definition is inaccurate.
The reason your definition is inaccurate
is because any sentient human being would acknowledge
that history has consequences.
Student: Right.
Shapiro: But that's not what wokeism is.
Wokeism is a different thing.
Wokeism suggests that all inequalities of today
are attributable to not only historic injustices,
but also continuing injustices in the now,
and that all disparity is attributable to discrimination.
Not just that...
Student: I want to know,
why is it that conservatives
are the only people who define it like that?
Why are conservatives the only people?
Shapiro: We're going to have to
stop here because this is going nowhere.
Student: What's up?
Shapiro: I'm going to have to stop with this with you
because this is going nowhere.
All I'm going to say is this to sum up.
Student: I just am trying to understand your perspective.
[audience boos]
Just one more second.
You say... Shapiro: On a fundamental
level, you are shifting definitions
to avoid the consequences of your own argument.
And if the idea is...
[audience cheers]
Student: This is not free speech, this is being censored.
Shapiro: And final point. If you are going to... hold on...
If you are...
Also, just final point to sum up there.
[audience cheers]
Final point to sum...
I just want to make, honestly,
I want to make one final point to sum up there.
If the idea is that traumas of the past
invariably bleed down into the present,
that does not explain why certain groups
that have been historically not only marginalized,
but slaughtered in mass genocide
are some of the most successful groups in our society.
So if the idea is... [audience cheers]
If the idea is that past trauma
always equals current inequality or that my actions
in, say, robbing a convenience store are attributable
to bad actions that happened in Alabama in 1930,
the answer to that is no, don't rob the convenience store.
The only way that you're going to be able
to break the chain of history is to make good decisions.
What people on the left don't like to talk about
is actual solutions.
What they like to do is bitch about problems
that existed 60 years ago
and blame those for failures to solve them now.
[audience cheers]