Why Trump May Be the First Post-Racial President: Bob Woodson and Joshua Mitchell

race is very emotional issue with black America and it has been manipulated for decades by people who use it to direct blacks to vote in a certain way in this episode I sit down with Bob Woodson and Joshua Mitchell Bob Woodson is a civil rights leader author and founder and president of the Woodson Center Joshua Mitchell is a professor of political Theory at Georgetown University the partisan debate on race is driven by guilty whites who are seeking OB solutions from crimes they never committed and entitled blacks who are seeking Absolution from injustices they never suffered what does Trump's election Victory mean for Black America Will trump be the first postracial president and how can America Revitalize its ailing communities we have levels of Despair and depression because the state has become this administrative Behemoth making citizen competence impossible so we've got this invitation to return to the founders vision where we have citizen competence the only way you can have small government is if you have massive citizen competence this is American thought leaders and I'm Yan [Music] Kell Bob Woodson Josh Mitchell such a pleasure to have you on American thought leaders pleased to be here glad to be here so Bob as someone who is deep in the civil rights movement and being a self-proclaimed radical pragmatist what happened with the black vote this time time around I think what you witness is uh Liberation I I think race is very emotional issue with black America and it can be very easily manipulated and it has been manipulated for decades uh by people who use it to direct uh blacks to vote in a certain way but I think uh over the time it's matured to the point where people are more concerned about their public personal safety and how much money they have in their pockets over what someone's race is and so I think you saw maturity there uh they became radical pragmatist and refuse to allow race to dominate their decisions fascinating so are we seeing a sort of postracial movement here Josh well um I add to what Bob is saying um Black America has been to put the matter baldly the the play thing of the state for a very very long time and I think since the 1960s the expectation would be that the Democratic party would deliver and since identity politics came to the four uh the idea the Democratic party had I think was that there would be this vast Alliance of people of color who would be known as the innocent victims and that this political Coalition would come to predominate but as Bob said Americans black and white everyone are are preeminently practical people and they I think a large number of so-called people of color woke up and realized it won't do simply to take the identity politics label the innocent victimhood label uh when in fact their bank accounts are are faltering when they don't have security so I think we've reached a cultural moment where where identity politics is at least for the moment vanquished and we have a whole new opportunity here in one sense blacks have lived in the Banana Republic for the last 50 years I mean all of the cities where there's major decline that have occurred over the last 50 years have all been run by liberal Democratic administrations so if if if partisan politics alone were the source of Salvation the question is why have have we witnessing all of this decline over the past 50 years I was born during the Depression uh in a lowincome black neighborhood in South Philadelphia there were no middle class people there but 96% of all households had a man and a woman raising children elderly people could walk safely without fear of being assaulted by their grandchildren never heard of gunfire children were not shot in their cribs it was unheard of we have the highest marriage rate of any group in society even though jury segregation was the rule so one can look at the the the circumstance of low-income blacks and ask yourself how were we able to achieve in the face of these circumstances when the Great promise of the civil rights movement and and political participation was if you vote for us these conditions will improve and I think now the blacks are waking up to that reality and beginning to uh be migrate towards becoming swing voters I don't think they're moving to become Republicans I think they're moving more towards becoming swing voters politicians are going to have to earn their vote Yes they have agreed to become competitive and that's that's wholesome for the country and it's in the best interest of the black community to be competitive so Josh what do you think the opportunity is here well uh a America is first and foremost a middle class commercial Republic and we have to get back to building things and so I I don't know that it's going to be easy I think there are huge challenges to to moving away from globalism toward a middle class commercial Republic but what we have to do is to uh is to is to recognize that the people who are working with their hands and this is not only whites but blacks and Hispanics and all the rest have to be given an opportunity our state Craftsman have to be thinking about how they can make sure that this group thrives from here on in uh in instead of thinking about global Capital we have to start thinking about the people uh who are living everyday lives Among Us and just maybe explain to me what does this mean exactly this uh uh uh middle class commercial public there's only one philosophical tradition in America that's ever developed and it's called pragmatism why because Americans unlike Europeans who are involved in very highlevel theoretical debates uh which led to the disasters of socialism and national socialism by the way uh Americans have always been a practical people and the disease of the last 20 years at least has been that we've been asked to think ideologically are you pure are you stained uh and what we have to do now is put away all that we have to become a truly postra racial society and of course the word on the street was that Obama was the first post-racial president it will probably be Trump who's the first post-racial president so we have to uh be be moving in that direction I think I think President Obama was in the position to be the first postracial president but as soon as he came out in that speech at Morehouse university where he proded young men to step up and be fathers and he was castigated by the Civil Rights leadership he retreated from that never spoke about personal responsibility again and he eventually devolved with the Trayvon Martin situation by saying Trayvon Martin could have been my son that was a death nail to racial uh ending racial polarization in America he became a a a a racial president from that moment on and it's ironic that President elect Trump attracted 30% of black Independence men and largest number of Hispanics because he spoke to the Practical needs of people and so that's why I think he is the first postracial president he's not a guilty white person and which to me is refreshing well so what do you mean by guil not a guilty white person my my my young colleague Delano Squire I think framed it he said a lot of this this the the the partisan debate on race is driven by guilty whites who are seeking absolutions from crimes they never committed and entitled blacks who are seeking absolute Absolution from injustices they never suffered that the biggest challenge that we're facing is a class phenomena from both the left and the right you have racial grievance Merchants the civil rights movement has dwarfed into a race grievance industry 70% of all these 22 trillion that we've spent in the past 50 years on poverty programs 70% of it goes to middle class people black white who are providing services to the poor so we've we've created a commodity out of poor people and we wonder why we fail so they ask which problems are are are fundable not which ones are solvable and going back to Josh's point that uh that a any group's participation in American economy isn't what government does for them is their small business formation rates in in a healthy economy only 3% of of Americans are entrepreneurs but they generate 70% of the jobs and and and entrepreneurs tend to be C students not a students according to David bur's study at MIT a students come back to universities and teach see students in Dow fascinating is that really true yes sir David purchased uh I didn't know that yes that that that whenever I say this to business groups they laugh I was speaking in Miami and they looked in the back of the room he said yeah this guy was the last person in our law law class and he can buy all of us I identity politics is built on on on guilt and I think part of the reason why there has been such a an an unpredictable reaction to Trump Russia collusion all this stuff is he's he's literally the the the way I've put it in print is the wrong kind of white man because if you're white and I have no interest in defending blood and soil politics so please don't misunderstand me but if you're a white man you have to be you have to be guilty you have to defend every innocent victimhood uh cause and if you don't you're considered toxic and Joe Biden and Waltz the Democrat model of a male is this guilty white male and and Trump literally cannot exist in that world this is why you have to invent a demonic source that that brings him forth like Russia or something like this and the Victory of trump uh is is a is a cultural declaration that America is done looking at people as if they're guilty or innocent victims it it does nobody any good we have a generation of men black and white who are told that they need to recede and they are receding with drugs and violence and pornography and video games we need to bring them back it cannot be the case that the the future is female and so I have two sons it cannot be the case that all of us who have sons and grandsons uh have to tell them that they need to step aside we need to build a regime based on competence full stop and give everybody an opportunity to develop along those lines and and what's so wondrous about Bob's groups is that they're not interested in talking about guilt and innocence they are interested in demonstrating competence to themselves and to others around them and they are looked up to to by by younger members of the community who are at risk and as one of Bob's uh people Julia had said in one of our meetings the reason why people uh succeed is they have somebody they don't want to let down and that person is a person of competence and we have to stop thinking in terms of of economic efficiency on on the libertar and right we have to stop thinking in terms of innocent victimhood on the left and we have to focus singularly on developing the competence of our fellow citizens gentlemen we're gonna take a quick break right now and we'll be right back and we're back with Georgetown professor of government Josh Mitchell and founder of the Woodson Center Bob Woodson you know this is a perfect opportunity to just talk a little bit about maybe let's start with your background Bob of course you've been on the show we've talked about the work you've done at the Woodson Center but just give us a thumbnail of you know how you came into this from the beginning well first of all I was born in South Philadelphia one the youngest of five children to a mother with a fifth grade education my dad was a laborer very strong uh she got a job uh at a time when men did not blacks did not drive uh trucks from the dairies I mean from the train to the dairies and they he took the job and he had to fight his way to keep it they say you can have it if you can keep it he's a very strong will guy but this is under Jim Crow basically yeah this was under Jim Crow 1937 in the midst of the depression and also uh Jim Crow and he was uh with the had some War related wounds he fought in the first world war with America uh New York hellcats Harlem hellcats but he had some uh chronic problems resulted in him dying when I was about nine leaving my mother uh with five children to raise in in this neighborhood but again it was Secure and so I had to rely upon my peers as an alternative family and so I gained an appreciation why kids join gangs but I was blessed to be equipped with the kind of values that I chose good friends and they uh there are three of us left today when they were a year older than me and they dropped so they went in to the college and I was unaffiliated and so I dropped out and went into the a Air Force in 1954 I was in the space program and the Air Force saw saw things in me and I went to college while I was in the Air Force University of Miami 12 credits only I had to be taught on the base because I couldn't walk on campus I have 12 credits from University of Miami at a time and I could not walk on the campus so I knew what racism was all about long story short after I got out I uh worked my way through college uh to a black college thank God it was an affirmative action that would have put me at pen but I went to a small black college Cheney where I got the kind of intellectual nurturing I needed that prepared me for a full scholarship to University of Pennsylvania got involved in the Civil Rights Movement but became very disenchanted when I realized that people that there was a bait and switch going game going on where we use the demographics of poor blacks to promote remedies and when funding came it did not go to poor blacks it went to middle class providers so I left the Civil Rights Movement following the death of Dr King and began to work on behalf of low-income people of all Races and so I have been singularly focused on on serving the needs of the least of God's children which means that I have to be clear and constant in that commitment and so therefore I I I thought it was necessary to be humble but also in the words of Dr King be open to self-criticism so those are the principles that have guided my work so I have worked now on behalf of low-income people since the late 60s I have worked on behalf of low-income people of all Races I work with Native Americans and take over Alcatraz I worked with Caesar Chavez and helped them get a Farm Workers help them to develop a acquire a medical facility affordable to help Farm Workers so my work has singularly been concentrating on the class issue and that's what's missing today and and I may if I may add through this unique approach of going into communities that are you know let's call it disadvantaged I don't know what term you're you're supposed to use in finding people that are succeeding there and empowering them for many years the name of my organization was had the word Enterprise in it it was only changed to the Woodson center for the past six years because my name is more associated with the principles than the Enterprise but the reason I selected it is because the same principles that work in the market economy work in a social economy and so what the what Woodson Center does we go into low-income communities with sort of like a venture capitalist without Capital we go into there and we look for social entrepreneurs people who are were in prison people who under had overcome tremendous odds in their lives they were alcoholics they were prostitutes through God's grace they became redeemed and they use their Redemptive qualities to influence others and this is where Josh and I come together because a lot of conservatives believe that the way you change people is to teach them and so there's a great Reliance on intellectual white papers and if we just have the right policies then people's practice will change well to me I understood that values are not taught they're caught and so Grassroots leaders are are able to uh redeem and promote Redemption and reform of individuals by actually modeling the kind of values that they want people to emulate and as a consequence I have been a party to the restoration of whole communities just based upon the enterprising work of three or four people they're able to affect hundreds and so the Woodson Center has been there to not only document it but also provide access to Capital so two things that a venture capitalist brings to an Enterprise they bring Capital but they also bring managerial expertise because entrepreneurs are poor bookkeepers and Grassroots people are poor bookkeepers and so what the Woodson Center does is provide training and also access to Capital so they can take what works for 10 people and affect a thousand but the qualities that make these Grassroots uh healing agents effective makes them invisible and that's because elitism prevents uh both conservatives and liberals looking to them to untutored people as a source of Solution that's why I say there is wisdom that is learned and the wisdom that is earned Grassroots people earn their wisdom and therefore what we as a society can benefit from them but they're ignored as a source of new insight and that's why this Administration is poised is in a position to really Harvest that knowledge and put these people to work healing this commun this Society if a mother who lost two sons in a toxic violent neighborhood Who able to forgive the people who committed these crimes and used turned that pain into purpose and caused 20 other moms to find Healing perhaps they have something to teach a middle class mother who lost a child to suicide and so the the biggest challenge we're facing is a moral and spiritual freefall that is consuming people of all Races and all colors but we're not going to be able to find the sour of dissolution if we are separated by race and that's why we must become postracial so what should Doge in your mind be doing or what should other institutions be doing on day one to facilitate this Vision well well minimally I think we have to ask the question or it people involved with it have to ask the question what can be devolved back to the State Department of Education for example this the the federal government has no business in my view being involved in education so decentralize decentralize decentralize where possible uh but with a full understanding that you don't just cut spending and then everything takes care of itself what it means is citizens are going to have to step up again uh and so what we have now is is is infantilized citizenry that's concerned with Instagram and and x and and the rest spending way too much time on that rather than engagement uh at thecal level I tell my students I would like every parent in America to go to sleep at night and wonder whether the educational system in the next School District or the next county is better than the one that they have and and if they're worried about it they need to spend their energies figureing out how to make their own school system much better as opposed to uh infantilized citizens who just say oh the Department of Education will take care of it yes emphasize cutting spending but but they have to doubly emphasize the fact that the burden will then come back to citizens to develop competencies to deal with these issues well Bob Woodson Josh Mitchell such a pleasure to have had you on thank you thank you all for joining Bob Woodson Josh Mitchell and me on this episode of American thought leaders I'm your host Yan Kellick [Music]