US Is ‘Least Racist, Least Xenophobic Country’ in History, Prager Says
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
While speaking last year with a black man shining shoes at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, about his time in America, syndicated talk-radio host Dennis Prager said he asked the man whether he thinks America is racist.
There was a tense pause as the man nervously looked around.
“It was clear he was a little embarrassed to say, ‘No, it’s not racist at all. I love it here,’” recalled Prager, the founder of PragerU, a website that creates videos touting conservative values. “He felt like he was betraying what he was supposed to say because he was black.”
Prager says that the man’s feeling of “embarrassment” shouldn’t be occurring in America today.
“This is the least racist, least xenophobic, multiracial country in the history of the world,” Prager told about 800 15-to-18-year-olds at the High School Leadership Summit, an educational conference for young conservatives sponsored by Turning Point USA . The nonprofit organization says its mission is “to educate students about true free-market values.”
Prager shared what he said was a “little-known statistic” first reported in the New York Times by columnist William Safire in the 1990s.
“Africans want to come to America. … More blacks have come from Africa to the United States willingly [and] voluntarily than came as slaves,” he said in his remarks at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium. “Why would they come to a racist country? They want to come here because they know how well they will be treated.”
To Prager, American values and ideas should trump the identity politics of race and ethnicity. He noted, however, that there’s a difference between the left and liberals.
“If you are liberal or conservative, please understand that the whole liberal agenda is racial integration, and the whole left-wing agenda is race segregation,” he said.
Prager told his youthful audience that they could ascertain that simply by asking a single political litmus-test question.
“If you [ask someone], ‘Do you believe in separate dorms for black students?’ If they say they do, they are leftists and racists. If they say they do not, they are liberal or conservative.”
Today, America’s founding values are under attack, he said.
“You are not entering a happy America,” he warned. “You are entering an America fighting once again for [those values].”
Prager likened the overheated response to President Donald Trump’s Helsinki news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin to the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century.
“People can actually say on national television that Helsinki news conference between President Trump and President Putin was equivalent to Kristallnacht, which was the opening of the Holocaust,” Prager said, referring to Trump’s appearing to side with Putin as he criticized U.S. intelligence agencies.
“Let me tell you as a Jew, how disgusting and vile it is to compare the supporters of the president to Nazis,” he added.
Prager concluded his 30-minute speech by calling on members of his youthful audience to fight to preserve the United States.
“There is no American ethnicity, it’s American values,” Prager said. “America is an idea, and when you get rid of that idea, you get rid of America. … You have a fight on your hands, because what is at stake is the United States of America. ”
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This is all true but for some reason the far left wants to convince us all otherwise.
We're the least racist, xenophobic country in history because of all the liberals and progressives that live here. If the bigots got their wish and we all disappeared they'd be back to 1950's Jim Crow laws at a minimum.
Jim Crow indeed! It's a good thing good people blocked the Democratic party's racist agenda a long time ago, isn't it. Heck those bastards were still openly displaying racism in 1964! Remember the civil rights act and how they tried to block it? What was that Lyndon Johnson said about keeping some folks voting Democratic for the next 200 years again?
I remember that it was a majority of Democrats who overwhelmingly supported the 1964 civil rights act, more of them than there were Republicans. But that's because I remember facts.
1964 Civil Rights Act Vote By party and region
Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War . "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.
The original House version:
The Senate version:
That's 190 Democrats voting FOR the civil rights act along with 165 Republicans. The Southern Democrats and Republicans were almost unanimous in opposition so it was all about where you were from, not what party you belonged to. And the fact is those people didn't up and move out of the South. They're still there, they just don't vote Democrat any longer. If you're continuing to claim all the "good ol' boys" flying their "rebel flag", fighting to maintain the confederate monuments, voting for a party with the fewest minority legislators. "The 94 Democrats who are minorities comprise 39% of all Democrats in Congress. That's as representative as the 38% of the U.S. population that is nonwhite Hispanic and other racial minorities. The only 16 minority Republicans represent just 5.5% of all GOP members.". It's just what the bigoted wannabe confederate, KKK members and Neo-Nazi's who still inhabit the South want, nearly all white males in charge just like they believe is the superior form of government.
DP, I have personally posted the information you just did at least 5 or 6 previous times on this very forum.
Either people are in a trance or they do not understand simple facts. The idea that Republicans were "responsible " for passing the Civil Rights Act, and Democrats weren't, is one of the biggest lies that gets repeated by the right.
In both the north and the south, a larger percentage of Democrats voted for the bill than Republicans. That is the fact, no matter how much "conservatives" try to confuse the issue.
And David Duke was a democrat? Oh wait, yea, he was but democrats wouldn't vote for him so he changed parties and BAM!!!!!! He was elected right out of the gate.
I just point out the dismal 5.5% of the Republican party that is of a minority and you list two of those in the 5.5%. Bravo. Now try to actually address any of my prior post.
There used to be many more minorities in the GOP. Why do you think they all left?
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Well that's just laughable on its face.
Most Liberals/progressives & Democrats support equality for all regardless of race, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, faith or lack thereof. They are open to new ideas, willing to abandon tired traditions that make no sense for todays world such as the sexism and prejudices of the past by creating more space for women, LGTBQ Americans and other minorities not only in their leadership positions, but also in the workplace and the military.
Many Conservative Republicans support inequality demanding special privileges for those of the Christian faith allowing them to discriminate in their businesses, demand that gays and women have no or limited roles in the military and they demand the right to fire any employee they find out is LGTBQ. They want to be able to put a Church on every corner but refuse to allow a Mosque anywhere near ground zero. They support what is essentially a Muslim travel ban. They are not open to new ideas but want to preserve traditions even when they are hurtful to many in the community like the confederate monuments that do nothing but glorify slavers and those who defended them. They reject the idea that women should have a right over her own body and are concerned what consenting adults do in the privacy of their own bedrooms with many trying to make homosexuality illegal. They can't even imagine voting for someone who wasn't Christian, and the truth is they have problems with even electing someone who isn't white, they just won't admit to it, but their representatives show that to be the case with just 5.5% of Republican legislators being diverse.
Not true, or they would favor the elimination of affirmative action programs wherever they exist.
Like charter schools? Like vouchers for health care? Like fracking? Like demanding that NATO countries finally pay their fair share? Like redoing old trade deals that mainly benefit other countries? I'd say these are all new ideas that abandon tired traditions and Democrats haven't embraced any of them.
Which largely remain in the past and were perpetrated (and later corrected) in a bipartisan manner.
They have all the space they need. The narrative that this people are oppressed is bullshit spread by leftists who want to be as heroic as civil rights leaders of earlier generations. Unfortunately for their egos, they were born into the world those brave people created and they don't have any real causes to fight for.
That's a rather interesting and very revealing claim which speaks loudly about how you view the civil rights of LGBT folks. Pretty much all of the civil rights progress over the past 50 years has happened despite people like you.
. . . are just fine.
Not at all. I support many of the achievements of the civil rights era. What you don't get is that the world is a little different than it was 50 or 100 years ago. You wish you could be at the forefront of some important civil rights movement because then you'd have a reason to be proud of yourself. But real life is thwarting you so you have to pretend that LGBT people need a champion and that you're it. They don't. And you're not.
From what I can tell it's conservatives and Christian extremists who want to return to the golden era of the Jim Crow south when businesses were free to refuse service to the minorities they hated, before that pesky Civil Rights Act interfered with southern Christian values. But the difference today is that it's primarily LGBT folks they want to deny service to even when the law explicitly prohibits it. Heck, the ADF hate group actually detailed that in their arguments to SCOTUS.
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Only someone who was willfully ignorant could make such a claim.
What service? What is it they need that they can't have?
I doubt that you're actually interested about this issue but here are some recent examples which don't involve wedding cakes:
So, I followed your link to see the rights being denied and this is the kind of thing I found:
ROFLMAO. Oh noes! Harsh language? That IS outrageous! And surprising, too because the trans population is well known for being so much more thick-skinned than the general population. /s
And of course it's all Trump's fault. Because Trump is in the head of every random pharmacist in the country.
Sounds like you're purposefully trivializing the kind of harm discussed which included denial of service by healthcare practitioners, denial of service by healthcare practitioners to the children of same-sex couples, violations of patient privacy by pharmacists who are Christian extremists, a rollback of civil rights protections by the Trump HHS, etc. I'm not sure why you chose to do that unless you have some kind of anti-LGBT agenda. Do you? I also wonder if you can name another demographic which is regularly on the receiving end of "harsh and abusive language" from their own health care provider.
Moreover that was just a report by Human Rights Watch about discrimination in health care and didn't include things like denial of adoptions or other services. Plus HRW isn't even in the business per se of specifically monitoring civil rights abuses against LGBT folks, at least not like HRC and other advocacy groups. I also doubt that you followed the link to the report itself since for some reason you choose to willfully ignore these problems which the Trump regime is purposefully causing or exacerbating.
When you have to list "harsh language" to make a claim of a civil rights violation? Yeah, I am going to trivialize that. Cuz it's stupid.
Yeah, but this doesn't hold up under even a cursory critical examination. This alleged discrimination is self-reported by the same people breaking down in tears over harsh language, so I'd say their credibility starts off on shaky ground.
Regarding the complaints, the truth is we don't know what kind of services they were seeking or why they might have been refused. There might be good reasons. For example, maybe someone wants sexual reassignment surgery or hormone treatments, but the surgeon feels what they really need is some counseling.
Doctors tend to favor the least invasive reaction to an issue while patients tend to favor all the bells and whistles. You may want an MRI while your doctor (or your insurance company) is satisfied with the eyes and hands of your doctor. I'm straight, and my doctor doesn't do every damned thing I ask, either.
And if I get a new prescription, my pharmacist usually wants to have a chat with me about it, both for my protection and the pharmacist's. Doctors and pharmacists have to be careful about the treatments they hand out because they get sued all the time.
It's not a conspiracy and it's not discrimination. That's the world at work.
Really? Does your doctor ridicule you when you seek health care or deny you health care services?
Sounds like what you're really doing is trivializing discriminatory and unethical treatment merely because it happens to a minority you think doesn't deserve full civil rights.
How many times do you need to be told that discrimination in public business has never been one of your religious rights? You can repeat this lie from now until Rapture but it isn't true. You are not required to like your customers or their religious beliefs but you cannot deny them equal service because of your religious beliefs when you operate a business that is open to the public.
Racists said the same thing about the civil rights inequalities faced by African-Americans before the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
I doubt there's any "biblical belief" which one can plausibly claim to be legitimate since it's all superstitious nonsense anyway, but in fact the largest non-Catholic sect in the country was founded to promote slavery and white supremacy. The Southern Baptists found all sorts of "biblical reasons" to support their racist beliefs. Ditto for the Mormons. And both still preach hatred of LGBT folks so only the target of their hate has shifted since those sects were founded. Both sects are also profoundly misogynistic.
Heck, even mainstream sects like the Episcopal church were officially segregated until the late 1950s (at least), and other loony sects like the one Ben Carson belongs to are still racially segregated.
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It's very revealing that the exact same moronic arguments made by Christian extremists against mixed-race marriage have been recycled in recent years to be used against same-sex marriage. Of course only idiots would find those moronic and bigoted arguments convincing in either context.
We already know that the ADF was one of the anti-LGBT hate groups promoting Session's "Religious Liberty Task Force", but the reality is that it would have no impact in states like Colorado and Oregon where the civil rights of minorities are protected by law. And the federal courts will simply ignore it.
The Bible does not in any way supersede secular law in the US because of it did we would be living in a theocracy. The constitutional rights of others do not depend on the business owner's religious beliefs. If they cannot abide by secular law then sell the business to someone who is a bit less bigoted and superstituous. They chose to open that business and were not forced to do so by the government, so sell if it they cannot live by the laws required of operating a business that is open to the public.
Where does Jesus tell his followers to act in this manner?
Matthew 25:40.
She might. Depends on how stupid I'm being. Who cares? What makes you think anyone is ridiculing these people? I did a search on the report you linked and the word "ridicule" (or variations on that word) does not appear in it.
Sounds to me like you're making shit up and accepting accusations without evidence.
It's a good thing you're not in the health care profession otherwise you'd be unemployed with an attitude like that......much like the CVS pharmacist who was recently fired due to how he treated a transgender customer with extreme disrespect. CVS probably made the 1st mistake when they hired a Christian extremist as a pharmacist.
And of course the issue isn't limited to healthcare at all. Just in the last few weeks a married couple in Michigan were denied an adoption because they're gay by two different agencies, despite the fact that both agencies are state funded. Even in states like Colorado which protect sexual orientation we've recently seen that bigoted Christian extremists can ignore public accommodation laws without any penalty. Same thing with the Alaskan airline which bumped a same-sex couple to make room for an opposite-sex couple.
You just accept any claim that suits your politics. You have no idea how this person behaved or what their religion is. It's just as likely some overly sensitive bed-wetter complained and executives reflexively fired a competent person just to avoid bad press from PC lunatics. It happens all the time.
I know enough about that case to know that CVS did exactly the right thing by firing the Christian extremist. You simply can't allow these bible-babbling extremists to harass customers, violate their medical privacy and deny them service. In fact no large company today will allow that sort of harmful and superstitious crap to interfere with the workplace.
More here:
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Note that this is one of the areas of protection under the ACA which the Trump regime has been trying to dismantle.
Yeah I got all that. I stand by what I wrote before. I suggest you go back and read it.
Yes, it's quite clear where you stand. LOL.
Dennis Prager is a pseudo intellectual (thus the existence of conservative propaganda videos characterized by Prager as "Prager University").
For 250 years there was unabated slavery of Africans in the U.S. For another hundred years after that it was legal to discriminate based on race in the United States. From 1620 until 2018 is just about 400 years. For 7/8 of those 400 years it was legal to either own or discrimate against blacks or other racial minorities. People like Prager want to forget about the residue of those 400 years, which exists today as racism.
But even so, he wants to brag about how committed to equality America is. That didnt happen because of people like Dennis Prager, it happened because of civil rights activists in the 1950's and 1960's, and native American rights activists and Latino rights activists and womens rights activists.
Dennis Prager, were legal discrimation based on race ethnicity or gender still in effect today, would be fine with and would STLL be saying that America is the least racist and sexist country of all time. His comments are self-congratulatory and not based on reality.
When Africans come here it is not only because they think the US is not racist, it is for educational and work opportunities that do not exist in their home countries.
A few years one of my first cousins daughters got married. The girl was white. The groom was a black as coal recent immigrant from Africa. She had met him at some work related conference in another state. When they got married, the groom's family traveled from Africa just to attend this wedding. I am talking about 15-20 people who came from Africa to Chicago for this wedding. I regret having to say there were a noticeable number of the bride's family who did not show up, including my own brother and his children. Which was a little odd since the church was a block from their house. Some things have changed concerning race, and some havent.
For crying out loud, a 5th grader knows that the U.S. is not 250 years old. Don't try to blame all the traditions of the human race on the United States.
It was the United States that undid the injustices of millennia. And we did it on our own, without having to be forced either by rebellion from within or military force from without. We have a legal system and a uniquely American set of values that have fundamentally transformed not only this land but much of the rest of the world. We have managed to undo in a couple of centuries traditions that were taken for granted for thousands of years. America is a beacon of liberty and justice unlike anything the world has ever seen.
The beautiful thing is that most of the rest of the world sees and understands these facts. That is why more people consistently want to migrate to America than anywhere else. It's why we have immigration crises other countries can't even comprehend. The only people that can't see these truths are the self-loathing leftists who already live in America.
I am sure the people of Rome said the same things.
If America were so racist, those educational and work opportunities wouldn't be available for Africans.
Haaha. The source of this blog is the Heritage foundation.
Where do they come up with this shit?
Right now I could go up to 20 people and ask them what they think of black people. I could not even say here what their answers would be.
Denying racism does not mean that it does not exist.
Saying that there is only one ethnicity and/or culture in the US is also denying reality. There is more than one ethnicity and many cultures.
Do it. I dare you. Report back with real answers. But don't declare that America is full of racists just because of your feels.
Wow. Reading Comprehension Fail or Strawman? Choose one. Prager didn't deny that racism exists. He said that America was the least racist country.
Wow, are you even trying to engage with the posted material or are you just talking to yourself? He didn't say there was one ethnicity in the US. He said,
Seriously, you're not even close to absorbing what he actually said and considering it.
I did read this drivel.
Typical leftist bad and we will fight against them bullshit.
But you can't explain why it's drivel.
Uh, I did in the same comment.
I believe this to be true, but, our president is the most racist and most xenophobic president in history. Walls, shitting on our allies, (while kissing up to dictators), and the whole, "there were good people on both sides" BS... Yea, trump is not aligned with what the USA currently is, not even close.
It's also rather amusing that HA is citing a known bigot who hates Muslims and LGBT folks. I wonder if Prager is really complaining that there's not enough dumb bigots who support his views against minorities?
Prager also has a bad habit of sponsoring racist tripe like the one discussed here:
I can see why you, Prager and the KKK fear the SPLC.
LOL......I don't think the SPLC ever had any credibility with most right wingers for rather obvious reasons. Neither do other civil rights groups like the ACLU, FFRF, AU, etc.
Right.......they've got just one misattribution in over 45 years of work, yet right wingers have been whining about the organization ever since it was founded.
Me thinks you protest too much.
LOL.....All kinds of Christian-based hate groups from the KKK to the FRC to the ADF can't stand the fact that the SPLC and other civil rights groups properly identify them as hate groups and monitor their activities.
No surprise that many of those hate groups are closely associated with or run by members of the Southern Baptist sect.
The SPLC fully documents their claims and almost all the stuff about these hate groups has been widely reported by the MSM and is pretty well known by anyone who doesn't have their head stuck in the sand. For example it was rather amusing that you cited the "Alliance Defending Freedom" given its history of working against the civil rights of LGBT folks both in the US and in other countries (where it's actually lobbied for the criminalization of homosexuality). What does that say about your views? No wonder you hate the SPLC.
Feel free to look into that case if you like. I think the SPLC had legitimate reasons for thinking that Nawaz was preaching Islamophobia but I can see why he disagreed. Not everything is black & white or simplistic despite what most right wingers think. Also note that the SPLC has gone above and beyond their duty here since no lawsuit was ever filed and the SPLC would likely have prevailed anyway, but instead they're staying true to their mission by issuing an apology and financially contributing to his cause.
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They do, both for Nawaz and for the hate groups they research. Here's what they found about the ADF hate group which you like (more details at the links):
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More here:
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Of course you would have known all of that if you had done your own research and weren't biased.
I'm saying they thought being right was more important than the money. There's no way Nawaz would have prevailed in court since the SPLC merely gave their own opinion of what Nawaz himself had said. Opinions aren't actionable despite what the Trump regime and its supporters think.
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As I said feel free to do your own research into the case; you quite obviously have not done so. The SPLC has admitted they made a mistake but I'm sure you can find the internet archive of the SPLC where they documented what Nawaz said. And it is rather revealing that you're whining about just one error since they were founded in 1971. Your priorities and your agenda are clearly skewed.
Let's put it this way......virtually every other "out of court settlement" includes a statement that the payer is not admitting fault or assuming any liability. Plus those settlements usually occur AFTER a lawsuit has been filed.
In this case no lawsuit was ever filed and the SPLC still fully admitted that they erred and they issued a credible apology. To me that speaks volumes about the ethics of the organization and I can see why you and other right wingers hate it.
Yet more proof that the vast majority of right wingers have a simplistic black & white view of the world. Maybe you should investigate the case before you make another comment which reveals that you're obsessed about one mistake in the many thousands of cases which the SPLC has taken on?
One thing that's clear is that Trump and the GOP would never do what the SPLC did and admit they made an error.
I'm sure that Trump and the GOP hate the SPLC, ACLU and other civil rights advocates with equal passion. Your views are no surprise in that regard at all......you're focused on one small error and ignore the huge body of great work that they've done. No doubt that's because you're a straight white conservative Christian male from Texas.
I think you've expressed your views quite clearly given that you fret about one error the SPLC made while you simultaneously treat hate groups like the ADF as credible.
Are all Texas conservatives like you?
Still, the SPLC and my views are not the topic here.
You're the one who unwittingly exposed your odious views by whining about the SPLC. All I did was cite their page which documents Prager's racist, homophobic, transphobic and Islamophobic views. A bit ironic given the seed don't you think? It's exactly like David Duke claiming the US is the least racist country in the world.
My comment was directly on topic. You're the one who whined about it and thus exposed yourself.
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Canada quite obviously. They're rather embarrassed by how xenophobic and racist the US has become under Trump. Same with the EU, and unlike the US they have a good reason to be off their game since they're handling all the refugees caused by the recent wars the US started.......something which the US takes no responsibility for.
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White man asks black man if there's racism in this country and, SURPRISE, black man reassures white man that no way is there any racism in this country. NO WAY. And no way would a black shoe-shine man tell a white man something the white man wanted to hear. Oh, that never happens in this "never-racist-and-not-in-any-way-racist now USA."
That you people could still be pushing this bilge when our our "lyin'" eyes and ears see and hear white nationalists flying the emblem of slavery and calling the statues of slave owners "their culture" and proud nazis on the march should explain why you get such well-deserved ridicule.
I guess it's a sign of social progress that most right wingers no longer like to be exposed as being racist. They used to be darn proud of it but now they tell themselves fairytales about not being racist while simultaneously advocating policies with a racist intent......like excusing cops who shoot unarmed black folks, and enacting laws which make it much harder for marginalized demographics to vote.
I'm sure that's why the majority of minorities are dem's...We must love racist and segregation. Of course your comment defies logic.
Gad, that's pathetic. I don't think even you really believe that. It's just one of your pre-programmed automatic BS responses.
the "American people" are behind Trump
the wons that are are truly lindosers , who should be left behind such a one of a kind loser of a behind