The City of Dallas Has Lost Its Mind

BUCK: We gotta ask a question. It’s one you should probably ask your smug liberal neighbor or colleague at work, although this will probably lead to a fight. If you really care about social justice, if you really care about tackling institutional racism, is it enough, lib…? Whoever this lib may be. Is it enough to merely put a black square on your Instagram for BLM or to announce your pronouns when nobody’s asking?

Nobody’s saying, “I’m curious what your pronouns are.” You just announce them to show everybody who you are. Is it enough, though, to tackle injustice in society — and, specifically, systemic racism — just to say the right things? Don’t actions mean more than words? I feel we all know that as kids, Clay. If you’re really dedicated to something.

You gotta actually do something about it. Well, there’s a group in Dallas. Now, I will say, Clay and I have been going back and forth on this. It’s a new social justice organization called Dallas Justice. I went to their website. It seems like this is real, ’cause we thought maybe this was parody initially, yes, Clay?

CLAY: On the internet in general, there is so much absurdity that we’ve passed the point of satire, particularly as it comes to issues of race. We’ve talked with Democratic Party’s entire baseline argument now is everything is racist. So when I saw this circulating on social media, my thought was, “Is this possibly real?” because it’s so absurdly ridiculous. But it does appear to be real. The fact that we’ve reached the point where we can’t even tell what’s real and not, I think also helps to make the point here. But what are they demanding?

BUCK: Oh, it’s amazing. So Dallas Justice Now is the organization, and they have passed this out. This made the way on social media. Again, it all looks legit and real. And I’ll just say it now, if this is some kind of effort at proving what a farce some of these social justice efforts are, it still makes the point because I think this is great.

I think that this is what should happen. If you are a wealthy, white lib, you should sign on for this right now. You should have the courage of your convictions and actually sign it. Here’s what they say. It’s called the college pledge. “We are writing to inform you…” I won’t use the name, but they drop this off for a person.

“We are writing to inform you [redacted] that we understand you are white and live within the Highland Park Independent School District — this is the Dallas area — and thus benefit from enormous privilege taken to the expense of communities of color. You live in the whitest and wealthiest neighborhood in Dallas. Whether you know it or not, you earned or inherited your money through oppressing people of color.

“However, it is also our understanding that you are a Democrat and a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, which makes you one of our white allies and puts you in a position to help correct these cruel injustices. We need you to step up and back up your words with action and truly sacrifice to make our segregated city more just,” and here’s the ask, Clay.

Here we go: “We are asking you to pledge that your children will not apply or attend any Ivy League school or U.S. News & World Report Top-50 school,” and they say it’s because they obviously want to make sure that white privilege families don’t continue to have this privilege.

You are, quote, “taking spaces away from students of color who really need the opportunities, education, and influence these schools provide.” Clay, I want to ask all the sanctimonious CNN/MSNBC-watching, New York Times-subscribing white libs out there, “Is this too much to ask? There are so many other good schools!”

CLAY: This is the rubber-meets-the-road moment. For instance, why I thought the Rachel Nichols ESPN story that we talked about, her response to being replaced by a black woman was, “Oh, that’s fine. I understand that there’s diversity and inclusion issues. But don’t take my thing away,” and this is why ultimately all of the “white allies” out there, people who are white people with the BLM signs out in their front yards…

They’re blacking out their Instagram pictures or whatever it was during that protest and all of these ridiculous cosmetic theater movements social media. What you really need to do is give up your white privilege if you truly believe it exists and give something else to a minority to replace you, right? And what often happens is you really see how much…

Now, this is such a ridiculous request, but it’s the kind of thing that if you truly believed America was a systemic racist place, you have to give up your own privilege, and moreover, your kids have to give up their own privilege. And let me just defend Highland Park for a minute here, by the way. Great part of Dallas. Been there, have friends there.

Many people… This is what’s lost on the BLM community and people who are making arguments such as the one you just read. A huge percentage of people that live in Highland Park are there because they busted their asses to get there, not because they inherited some massive amount of wealth.

BUCK: I don’t know, Clay. I feel all these microaggressions piling up.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: I feel the white privilege exuding right now. Talking about hard work and capitalism?

CLAY: Getting good test scores.

BUCK: How dare you, sir! Can I just add in, ’cause, first of all, when you said that it’s a ridiculous request, I agree with you insofar as the whole thing is absurd. I also don’t believe in systemic racism that BLM talks about and all the rest. But you do have affirmative action in schools at the very, very powerful tool at these elite universities in particular.

CLAY: Oh yeah.

BUCK: It is making its way to the Supreme Court right now. You may, in fact, have the case, ’cause, remember, it was… What was it, Grutter v. Bollinger? “In 25 years, we won’t need this.”

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: We’re about 15 years since that decision.

CLAY: That case went through I believe in like 2003-ish was, if I remember the year right, I was in law school when that affirmative action case was decided. And now we’ve got a brand-new Supreme Court and that case as you well point out although it doesn’t discuss much, they say in 20 or 25 years it won’t be necessary.

BUCK: Affirmative action is unconstitutional.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: But we’ll see if they actually have the courage to say in college admissions that it is and anybody who doesn’t understand how it’s so obviously unconstitutional should speak to the Asian meshes who are applying to Harvard who are saying, “What’s our privilege here?” Anyway, that’s it.

CLAY: That’s a real good discussion we should have at some point, by the way.

BUCK: Back to the college pledge from this Dallas Justice organization. They wrote this, and this is why I love it. Quote, “We know that this sounds like a tough commitment,” as in: Don’t let your kid going to an elite school, elite university. “But it is truly disheartening to see wealthy white folks sending charitable donations, hosting #BlackLivesMatter on social media and putting up yard signs as if to say that minimal effort is all they’re prepared to do in the fight for racial justice. The quest for justice requires commitment from our white allies.” I absolutely agree! White libs, give up your kids’ elite spots in university. Otherwise, you’re a bunch of phonies. I love what they’re doing here.

CLAY: I think it’s even funnier if they specifically targeted with these letters, people who had Black Lives Matter sort of signs in their yards, right? And if they targeted based on donations and everything else. Because one of the things you learn and maybe these super white liberals who are “uber-woke” are recognizing this, too. It doesn’t end and you can never do enough.

That’s ultimately what this demand is. The demands just keep growing. It’s analogous to me for mascots. This idea that you’re sudden gonna change the Cleveland Indians name and people are gonna say, “Oh, okay! Well, now we’re all good.” No. It’s the tip of the progressive sphere they have to demand more.

BUCK: I’m also a little traumatized by the fact that you just said that on radio, Clay. Um, it’s the Cleveland Guardians.

CLAY: (laughing)

BUCK: It has been adjusted accordingly. It is not “the Cleveland Indians.” We’re gonna have go back and retroactively bleep every time Clay brings up the I-word!

CLAY: That I dare say “the Cleveland Indians.”

BUCK: Anyway we’ll come back into more of this in a second with another store out of Dallas that Clay is gonna the lead us into.

CLAY: Dallas is falling apart, boys and girls.

BUCK: If you thought that British soldiers in the trenches of World War I had it rough, these Texas Democrats from the statehouse who have had to fly to D.C.? Oh, my gosh, what they’re being put through right now. It’s amazing.

CLAY: You’re gonna love this.

BUCK: But you’re supposed to help them. Clay will tell you what when we come back in a second.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: The city of Dallas has lost its mind. First up, you have the progressive coalition demanding that BLM’s white supporters not send their kids to top-50 institutions. Meanwhile, you may well recall that we had and still have the Texas Democrats who have fled the state to avoid any sort of change to the overall voting bills in the state of Texas, and they are struggling.

They are mightily, mightily struggling in their relatively high-end Dallas neighborhoods. They departed Dallas, and they are now in their high-end Washington, D.C., hotels. And I swear to God this is true. This is not made up. The Dallas Democratic Party is requesting that their constituents send care packages to them! So in case you’re listening out there — and, by the way, I think we could put some really funny things in these care packages.

BUCK: A lot of soy milk. A lot of soy milk, Clay.

CLAY: (chuckling) Yeah. Before 5 o’clock on Tuesday, they are requesting Dr Pepper — this is real — salsa, hard candy, hair spray, travel toiletries, hand sanitizers, sewing kids, first aid, and/or money to pay for shipping. Now, I went to college in Washington D.C. You lived there for a while, Buck. I don’t remember it being that hard in the city to buy whatever you needed to in order to get on with your day-to-day existence.

BUCK: I’m pretty sure from my six years or so of living in Washington, D.C., that they still — ’cause I know when I lived there, you could. You can still buy hair spray and, yes, even salsa.

CLAY: And Dr Pepper.

BUCK: In fact, there are some places I know in D.C. where they make very good homemade salsa.

CLAY: If you’ve got kids right now, it’s summer camp season. So we had kids, two of ours were at an overnight, week long camp, and so we packed a care package for them. They think it’s fun to hear from mom and dad and get some candy to be able to share around. Whoever came up with this idea? Does Dallas Democratic Party fire them? I mean, it’s so insanely tone-deaf.

BUCK: First of all, we shouldn’t be sending them, what is it, Michelob Light or something they had on the plane?

CLAY: Miller Lite.

BUCK: Miller Lite. Close enough. I mean, it’s one thing… You send care packages to troops downrange in Kandahar —

CLAY: Yes, yes.

BUCK: — who could use some decent quality coffee and, some other things, whatever it is. You want to send them some goodies ’cause they’re out on the front lines.

CLAY: A taste of home when you’re a long way from home.

BUCK: They don’t have all that stuff. It turns out that Washington, D.C., even for the Texans listening right now, they may think, “Oh, my gosh. D.C.? I would never want to go there.” True. However, they also have Walmart, and they have stores.

CLAY: CVS.

BUCK: Amazon.

CLAY: On every corner. Yeah, even Amazon, if you’re not happy with your local retail establishment. It’s such a tone-deaf thing to send out, particularly because there are so many people that are still struggling to a large extent because of Democratic lockdowns that led to millions of lost jobs. And these guys voluntarily, on the taxpayer dime, have bolted, and they are staying in a luxury hotel in Washington, D.C.

BUCK: I also think this is — and I believe this from the very beginning — this whole thing from a PR perspective, for the messaging, the narrative the Democrats are going for here? This is backfiring. I mean, everyone can see the sad little salad selfies, “Look at what I’m having positive put up! Oh, gosh!” These guys are taking photos of themselves. “We’re standing here to voting rights,” and all this stuff.

Governor Abbott’s just saying, “Can you guys stop being a bunch of clowns? Come back and do your jobs, please?” Who ends up looking the adults in this process who are serious about governance, Clay, and who look like the little activist crybabies who, when they can’t get their, way refused to do their jobs and are actually the ones blocking democracy, the democratic process in the state of Texas and all of this?

So we can see what’s really happening here. So, in a sense, I’m pleased with the fact that they’re so tone-deaf that everyone can see what a stupid stunt this is. But we’ve also gotta make sure those Texas build get passed he can’t lose sight of the voting rights issues, the voting integrity issues that are at stake.

CLAY: Yeah, and we should mention governor Greg Abbott literally as we’re talking about this tweeted, “I will keep calling special sessions until we address every emergency item. Funding for foster care, property tax relief, bail reform…” (chuckles)

By the way, also the University of Texas is moving to potentially the SEC for football. I know you’re not a sports guy. But this is involved now in the Texas legislature. Maybe the thing that brings them back from D.C. is something that unites the whole state of Texas, which is football.

BUCK: I will tell you one fun thing about doing this show now, Clay, is I see people out there in the world. I talked to a friend this weekend. I said, “Yeah, we had the Big Ten commissioner on for a real interesting talk.” I just threw in Big Ten, blah, blah, and bunch of things I learned from that interview, and all of a sudden, it’s like I pass for a normal American who likes college sports.

CLAY: That’s right. It’s a new world for you! A new world.

BUCK: Like the padawan here is listening to Obi-Wan on the sports, and all the sudden I’m throwing a lightsaber around.