RUSH: This is Kendrick in Gaston, Alabama. Kendrick, nice that you called. Great to have you here.
CALLER: Hello?
RUSH: Hello.
CALLER: Oh, how you doing?
RUSH: Good.
CALLER: I’m doing fine. My mistake, man, I’m sorry, I wasn’t ready for you.
RUSH: That’s okay. You got the radio on by any chance, because if you do, you need to turn it down.
CALLER: Yeah, I’m upstairs, yes sir, but the radio is on downstairs.
RUSH: Okay. You can’t hear it, though?
CALLER: No, sir.
RUSH: Okay, good. Well, it’s great to have you here, Kendrick. What did you call about?
CALLER: I wanted to agree with your statement that America is a great place, with great opportunities, but I also believe that African-Americans deserve time to heal psychologically and gain more trust in this country. Approximately 40 years ago African Americans faced great injustice in the South and I think it is going to take time to embrace this country as you feel we should. I can’t understand why this isn’t logical to people with more intellect than I have.
RUSH: No, it’s not that it’s not logical, if you want to discuss it in a psychological sense. But it’s like I would ask Obama. You agree it’s a great place. I would say, when was America better than it is today?
CALLER: I mean, if there was a time, I should say possibly when the Pilgrims, when they first came over, when they were indentured servants instead of just slavery. That would be my opinion.
RUSH: So you gotta go back to the Pilgrims to find when this country — it wasn’t even a country then.
CALLER: I would say when it was great for us, or for my ancestors. I can’t say that we share the same justice —
RUSH: This is not an us vs. them question. I’m not asking when it was better for you. He’s talking about the country at large. When was it better?
CALLER: Well, see, that’s almost like somebody asking me, when was the Celtics game better when I never went to a Celtics game, that’s what I’m saying, we weren’t able to participate in this so how can I say when it was better when the descendants of where I’m from —
RUSH: Why are you comparing America to a sports team?
CALLER: (laughing) Because everything is a game. It is a game, life is a game.
RUSH: Well, some people look at it that way. If you do, that’s fine. Life is a game, yeah, you’ve got challenges, you’ve got easy money, bad money, you got go to jail cards. There’s all kinds of stuff that can happen to you in life. But what is so bad now, compared to when it was better? Not for you, but for all of us?
CALLER: Honestly, I understand what you’re saying the dangers of an African-American president, because there possibly could be, because of psychological things, dealing with this country. I agree.
RUSH: Okay, but before we had Obama, we had Oprah Winfrey.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: And arguably Oprah Winfrey is far more powerful and wealthy than Obama is.
CALLER: But she also is an entertainer. She’s an entertainer. She’s not a philosopher or doctor or scholar. She’s an entertainer.
RUSH: Her audience doesn’t know that — (crosstalk)
CALLER: — about African Americans who is on the platform — (crosstalk)
RUSH: We gotta stay on the same page here.
CALLER: Okay, okay.
RUSH: Because I really want to talk to you about this. To her audience, Oprah is a philosopher. She may well be a psychologist to her audience. She’s a self-help artist and all this sort of stuff, whatever —
CALLER: I agree.
RUSH: — and she’s learned to cry on cue, which, you know, she can command emotional responses from people. What’s wrong with being an entertainer? She’s wealthy. If we lived in such a racist country, how did this happen? To say that there hasn’t been progress and 40 years is not enough time to heal psychologically, did any of the stuff that happened in the 1800s happen to you?
CALLER: No, sir, not in 1800s.
RUSH: Did anything happen in 1900s happen to you?
CALLER: Not to me. But psychologists would agree that your past plays a great part of you.
RUSH: What do you have to psychologically recover from?
CALLER: The environment that I live in. The environment I live in is totally different than other environments. When I go to different other neighborhoods whether it’s Jewish, European, you don’t see people standing in front of stores selling drugs. It’s not allowed there. So many things are not allowed in other neighborhoods, but in my neighborhood, it’s chaos everywhere. And environment plays a great role in what you may become. And the environment that I stay in, it’s chaotic. And it’s like we’re supposed to overcome and rise above this environment. That is very hard to do. It is possible, though.
RUSH: But do you think any of that is going to change if Obama is elected president?
CALLER: Not without people behind him supporting him, no. I don’t think one person can change things that’s going on. I think it takes everyday people to change it.
RUSH: Okay, on so it doesn’t matter who the president is in terms of the environment you just described, people standing outside stores selling drugs and so forth, that’s going to go on —
CALLER: I agree.
RUSH: — no matter who, well, then what are the people in these neighborhoods and communities doing about this if they know that the first black president is not going to end it, what are they doing?
CALLER: They’re looking for a great black hope. They’re looking for a great black hope.
RUSH: Well, how many have there been? There’s been Jesse Jackson, there has been Martin Luther King, there has been Malcolm X, now there’s Obama, there’s been Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali, how many are needed?
CALLER: That’s a good question. I don’t know. I don’t know.
RUSH: I’ll be honest with you —
CALLER: You also have to understand —
RUSH: There’s no great black hope.
CALLER: I agree with you, there is none. It takes individuals, I agree.
RUSH: And it’s a waste of time looking for one because looking for one continues this notion of separation.
CALLER: It does.
RUSH: — non-integration.
CALLER: I’m not looking for one.
RUSH: And it also invests the responsibility for cleaning up messes and improving circumstances on somebody you don’t even know, rather than on the people that live in these neighborhoods.
RUSH: I agree. I agree.
RUSH: Why do you think this stuff isn’t tolerated in these other neighborhoods you mentioned, European neighborhoods and the Jewish neighborhoods, I think you said, why is that stuff, why is storefront loitering and selling drugs, as you described it, why is that not tolerated in those neighborhoods?
CALLER: Because they don’t tolerate it.
RUSH: Why?
CALLER: Because of their upbringing, they’re understood not to do that.
RUSH: Ah. Ah.
CALLER: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But see, we also have to understand what the name African-American means. It’s African descent who took on a culture that was totally misunderstood and forbidden to learn until a certain amount of time, past in years, and then we were able to learn certain things, so you gotta think of the time scale that we’re behind —
RUSH: I’m going to be —
CALLER: — don’t even know our own culture.
RUSH: I want to be brutally honest with you.
CALLER: Please do. Please.
RUSH: See, I really feel bad for you, and I have, it’s not sympathy, I’m frustrated, because there’s a whole country out there that is filled with robust opportunity, and you, if you want to look, can see all kinds of African-Americans who have done it, from Bob Johnson at BET on the left, to all of the economists and judges that are black on the right, nobody’s stopping ’em. What’s happening is that you — maybe not you personally — but too many people in minority communities in this country are being raised under influences that have you believing by the time you’re five or six that life is stacked against you because you’re black or you’re minority and you live in America. The sad thing is that there are people who are profiting, people in your own race who are profiting from that attitude spreading as far and wide as it can within the minority communities, because as long as you’re mad — I’m using the ‘you’ generically, not specifically —
CALLER: Understood.
RUSH: — as long as you’re mad and angry and feeling inferior, and as long as they’re willing to tell you that it’s somebody else’s fault and that no matter what you do, you’re never going to get out of these circumstances, well, I would be mad, too, if I believed in that stuff.
CALLER: (laughing) I understand.
RUSH: But you’ve got enough evidence out there, this is what’s amazing about Obama, to say this country is not what it once was. I think every day in this country is better than the day before. And you’ve got all this evidence out there of how prosperity is just waiting to be tackled, it’s just waiting to be pursued. It’s there, the country provides it for anybody who wants to try. We all have our own obstacles to overcome in pursuing. Your obstacles happen to be a slavery tradition that you think requires psychological healing from. And that may be true. But the problem that I see is that there are too many people that have too much influence over the black community that don’t want that psychological healing to take place, and those people are out there saying even if Obama is elected, that it doesn’t mean race relations in this country have changed an iota. Well, now, that is silly!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Lowly in Romeo, Michigan, you’re next sir on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hello, Rush. Mega-20-year dittos.
RUSH: Thank you.
CALLER: For what it’s worth, I think you’re grossly underpaid.
RUSH: (laughing)
CALLER: I’d like to respond to Kendrick at the bottom of your second hour.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: My — my grandparents were both born in different country. I’m a first-generation American on my father’s side who came from Canada in Winnipeg, and I’m a second generation American from my mother’s side. She was born in America, but my grandparents were born in Sweden. They’re all gone now, but if I had 15 minutes with them I’d spend the whole time thanking them for coming to America so that I could be born here. There’s no place in the world I’d rather be. Every day when I pray, I thank God that I’m an American and that’s where I was born. And I think if he had that attitude, he would have a whole different life.
RUSH: Yeah, but he’s not raised with that attitude, I understand that. We have observed on this program over the years… Because, frankly I’ve been curious. We’ve had callers like Kendrick call in and I’ve asked them, ‘Have you noticed, for example, the Asians that emigrate to this country who end up practically owning all the enrollment at places like Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley? Now, how is it that people who weren’t born here can emigrate and start running rings around — in terms of education performance, start running rings around — people who were born here, whatever race? See, the key is they weren’t born here. Kendrick would tell you that black people born here are raised with the notion that because of slavery in the past, that they have no chance, that this is a racist country. They’re raised to be mad; they’re raised to be angry and to feeling inferior. It’s a tragedy. It’s a genuine tragedy. This has been sponsored and this has been promoted by the Democratic Party. It has been one of their political purposes in order to secure that vote every four years. It really has been tragic. The things that have been done in the name of power for the Democrat Party, to the black population of this country are just this side of criminal.
RUSH: Jerry in Chicago, you’re up next, sir. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush.
RUSH: Hey.
CALLER: Congratulations on your first 20 years.
RUSH: Thank you very much, sir.
CALLER: I just wanted to tell you, I’ve heard a number of times you mentioned Barack Obama’s limited experience. I think you should dwell on his experience. He spent a number of years in the Illinois state legislature, which is one of the most ineffective, dysfunctional legislatures in the country. Last session the only thing they passed was a raise for themselves.
RUSH: Yeah. He also voted against a bill that would make criminal the killing of ‘a fetus born alive,’ in other words, a baby.
CALLER: Yes. But, you know, I think you should focus more on that.
RUSH: We could do that. We could focus his experience as a ‘community organizer’ as well. But if we do that, we’re going to be short. That can be done. Obama’s experience can be done in the opening segment of one hour, and then we’re done. There’s nothing to talk about, in terms of Obama’s experience.