Shapiro: This is true for virtually everybody in the room.
At some point, somebody came over here
and they were dirt poor and didn't speak English.
And that doesn't mean that on a generational level,
people are going to go from zero to 100,
but it does mean that we're going to need
to move in the right direction
as opposed to sitting around and talking about historical
injustice all day, because that doesn't get anything done.
Student: While I agree with you that when you look
at white America, it's silly to say
that the majority of white Americans are actively
trying to prevent you from getting to where you want to be.
I'm east Indian,
and I've definitely experienced some racism,
but I never felt as though it keeps Indians from succeeding.
So I do think there's a cultural component
that supersedes the color of your skin.
But I also think that it's naive to say
that it just so happens that the same minority groups
that have been historically oppressed
happen to have cultures that are less conducive to success.
I believe that environment can create culture.
Can you acknowledge the historical reasonings
that led these so-called "unsuccessful cultures"
and not put blame on these minority groups?
I know that in your heart,
I don't think you're a racist person,
but in my opinion, to blame people
for their cultural failures without taking
into consideration
the history in general, conceals a lack of empathy
and sort of hints at racism.
Shapiro: I'll fight back on the last point
that there's anything to do with empathy or racism here.
But I fully agree with you,
not like 90 percent, like 100 percent.
I think that bad cultures are generally the result
of bad things that have happened in the past
or bad modes of thought that have prevailed over time.
For example, there's a great book by Thomas Sowell
called "Black Rednecks and White Liberals."
And that book essentially suggests that a lot
of the pathologies that exist about single motherhood,
for example, in the black community,
or high rates of violence are actually outgrowths
of a slave and post-slave culture that was imposed
by a white society that didn't bother with policing,
that didn't care about inculcating
morals or virtues in slaves.
Obviously they actually actively fought
against it because they didn't want that to happen.
And so there was an active fight
against assimilation by white people.
And that created an underground culture that's really bad.
And that existed in parts of white America, too.
It exists in Appalachia.
So yes, I think bad cultures have nothing to do with race.
This is why I'm saying
I don't know why it borders on racism
to say the cultures are bad.
Some cultures are bad, some cultures
are good and that has nothing to do with race.
Charles Murray wrote an entire book called "Coming Apart"
about pathologies in white communities
that are really destructive.
So bad cultures do arise very often
from historical circumstances,
including historical discrimination.
What I say is that today, there's nothing preventing
an individual from superseding the culture
in which you grew up in making good decisions.
In a free country, somebody's
going to have to break this chain.
Somebody's going to have to break this cycle.
And so I don't care if you want to say
that the pathology that exists in the black community,
black inner-city community, of high rates
of single motherhood and violence, for example,
or lack of institutional wealth,
that that is a result of historical racism.
I'm fine with you saying that.
I don't have any problem with that.
I'm not talking about historical racism
when I talk about white privilege.
I'm talking about right now, the idea
that there's a superstructure of rules and laws
that are preventing you from succeeding
or a culture that is trying to keep you down.
I don't think that's the case.
So the question becomes, if you are here,
let's say that on average, the culture in white America,
or with regard to single motherhood
to take an example is here, right?
Because there's less single motherhood
in the white community than the black community.
And in the black community,
it's here because it's 70 percent single motherhood rate
and the white community is 40 percent.
Okay so the question is before,
thanks to racism and thanks to discrimination,
there was a cap on the black community
that was here and they couldn't get past it.
Now, the ceiling has been removed.
So what do you as an individual black person
to change your life?
And I don't think it's helpful, and in fact,
I think it's actually quite hurtful
to spend an enormous amount of time talking
about the legacy of discrimination and racism,
instead of talking about what can you do
right now to fix your problem.
Now, this is a general issue
that I have in all of my relationships.
When my wife comes to me and she says,
there's a problem in my life,
before we even have the conversation I say to her,
is this a listening conversation,
or is this that you want me to fix it conversation?
[audience laughter]
And I think that when it comes to politics,
there should be far fewer listening conversations
like I want you to tell me about all the crap
that's happening, because I don't care.
I mean, I care, but now the question is
what you're going to do, right?
That's a much more important conversation
because we only have five minutes together.
Is that five minutes going to be spent on
all the terrible things that happened,
which I fully agree with, that I would have
fought if I were there, but I wasn't?
Are we going to spend five minutes talking
about all the terrible things that happened
to blacks and Jews and gays and women
and Hispanics in the United States?
Or are we going to talk about right now,
what you can do to succeed?
Because I don't think that the rules are holding you back.
So I've never, ever, at any point suggested
that there's not been historical discrimination
against black people,
or even that current day poverty is, at least in part,
an outgrowth of that historical discrimination.
What I have suggested is that if you are using
that historical discrimination as a reason
why you are not as an individual human being,
becoming more income mobile and not making good decisions,
no one is making the call for you right now
as an individual to get that girl pregnant.
And that's the argument that I'm making.
Student: So you have to admit,
though, that between different races and
different cultures there are different levels
of success, and
you would expect that somebody who grows up
with being able less to succeed,
you would expect that that would happen
in certain communities.
Shapiro: That's why they're called pathologies of culture.
Yeah, for sure.
If you grew up in a worse situation
than somebody else who grew up in a better situation,
of course you're going to grow up having obstacles
that that other person has to overcome,
but that doesn't mean that other person
number one, victimized you, right?
There's no one in America today, for example,
who has enslaved a black person that I know of,
or if they have, they'd be in jail.
I'm sure that nobody in this room,
none of the young white people in this room
were alive during the times of Jim Crow.
So the question is, do we take away
from the white people in this room
to rectify historical injustices or do we recognize
that history is filled with historical injustices
and now we're going to have to find a way
to overcome those obstacles together
without redistributing income, for example?
Now I have called for movements, for example,
for companies to go into inner cities
and make a deal with students in inner cities
and say to them, listen, you get good grades
and we'll pay for your college
and then you come after when you work for us
for three years to pay off that debt.
I think there are things that we can do
in the private sector.
This is why I think religious communities are so important.
I'm not against charity.
I'm not against us as individuals
going out and helping people.
What I am against is the idea that the government
can fix this problem because the government
can not fix historical inequity.
All the government can do is set the rules
at an equal level, equal law,
equal judgment under the law, equal justice under law
is the only way that we're ever going to approach
anything that looks like a fair society.
There's no such thing as a fair society where the government
plays God and give some to others and takes from others.
Student: Would you say that
other people who are not
in an oppressed state, they should wait
for other people to pull themselves up?
You think that's how we should solve it,
or you think there is a moral responsibility?
Shapiro: I think every culture in American history,
every individual in American history
who has succeeded has had a combination
of people who help them out, not in the government,
people who help them out
and their own capacity to bootstrap it.
When my great-grandparents got here,
they were dirt poor and didn't speak English.
When my great, great grandparents got here,
they were dirt poor and didn't speak English.
This is true for virtually everybody in the room.
At some point, somebody came over here
and they were dirt poor and didn't speak English.
And that doesn't mean that on a generational level,
people are going to go from zero to 100,
but it does mean that we're going to need to move
in the right direction as opposed to sitting around
and talking about historical injustice all day,
because that doesn't get anything done.
Student: Thank you Shapiro: Thanks so much.
[audience applause]