Analysts of American Culture today. Author to change america, most of the most popular part in america. Following the conversation between you and i sessions with our moderator. At any time you think of something youd like to ask either of them, submitted in the questions box. And where you are as many questions as we can the time we have before we get to the discussion want to introduce a special guest to pick up the program. Special guest Heritage Foundation president , missus k gold james. Im so excited to welcome you to the Heritage Foundation in our virtual of the plot to change america. I want to thank you all especially want to thank michael joining us today, we are so honored to have you with us. We are so proud of Mike Gonzales and the time and research hes put into this tremendous book. Mike isnt afraid to show whats happening to our beloved country is not afraid to call it does into the destructiveness of our identity politics. Mike is awesome when it comes to these issues and he does it because hes a true patriot. He doesnt want to see our beloved country go any further down this treacherous road. Ladies and gentlemen, it was only in the 1960s when we are struggling to desegregate this country. Greatest white and black working to bring racists together and ensure america up to its promise of liberty and justice and equal treatment for all people. Today, most americans live in racial harmony. Weve had our first black president , women and people of all colors and backgrounds and highest ranks of American Business and government. Yet, our young people are coming out of our colleges and universities believing grievance politics, is the road to justice and equality. When in fact, it will bring us right to a place where the nation is working on our history with never been more destructive. This book wouldnt be any more timely with the rights and descriptions of monuments and rewriting of American History in the classroom, the American People need to wake up to the of identity politics they need to understand because they need to understand how it will poison our children and grandchildren if we just try to continue. We cant let that happen we wont let that happen. Mike, thank you thank you about that. Theyre all to the conversation. Will be virtually it is a pleasure to be accused when i looked around the scene and not just hearing them statues of the Founding Fathers of this country and using rhetoric of identity politics, some of whom are self proclaimed marxist, i cannot help but wonder if you hired this group of people as a Marketing Tool to promote the thesis in this book, it seems we are seeing the thesis played out horrifyingly in real time all around us. Michael, thank you very much for that introduction thank you for being here. Im happy that my book selling well in my getting out but im not happy at all, i did not hire these people. Everything you are seeing today, you put your finger on it. From the anarchy in portland to the 19th project in blm organization to antiracism Training Sessions socalled, all of this at the front of why i wrote my book. Little did i know a year ago as i was writing, that we would have the summer of 2020 is a consequence of the things weve done to ourselves. Its funny because trace the origin back to the 60s when you might see the summer of love and i think a lot of people were skeptical at the time but now i think your description, your stinky ideologies and its led to the summer of hate. There is one moment early on in the book that was a little surprising to me you are right, when people think of identity politics and all of the affiliated pathology, intersex reality, whatever term you like and we think of it, a lot of people consider it to be a sort of extra in sioux city, aside of american politics. Need to talk about foreign policies. What you say is much more specific and probably more damning. He say identity politics as our national hardware. What you mean by that . Its really the software of our culture. We have become divided into groups based on race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, even disability status. Anything that the degree that can be used to claim respect or attention or rewards or justice, from the moment you enter school when your daughters principle is saying this, then to high school when our kids are made to read within, doing a wonderful job because it is very bad history, it is really at the heart of this needs to work that way. Obviously the University Campuses have been taken over by this but it is the workforce. Hr is telling people to put a sign up saying that i am an ally. Are we in a time of war . So its really, i believe it is a jugular issue of our times. Not every group is to claim identity politics grievance status because even though i have a little darker for my heritage, honey other people do not qualify so what is it . Does one get to claim privilege of being considered oppressed . Decided in the 60s to siphon off people and call them minorities, we havent done this before. We have never done this before. We couldve done it in the 1920s and we have armenians in lebanese, facilitates or jewish people from eastern europe, people who could be identified, we siphon them off as minorities but choose not to. He chose to say no, lets have them join and become americans through assimilation. In the 40s have scientists who believe to associate the discrimination with the term minority and interim, minority as we know it today comes into its issue association victimhood. So we divide all these people into minority groups and have this sense of grievances, victimhood and it is that they well, the country is systemic country is that we must all the institutions and structures and systems themselves social scientists, institutions of imagination, identity is something about the grassroots. People spontaneously taking to the streets and coming toward a kind of consciousness as a group of people and demanding their rights in the face of oppression. As the official leftwing narrative for the people pushing identity politics. You say the origins are a little different. You say they were much more specific involving the small group of people and it was highly intentional so which is it and whos behind it . It is not in all grassroots effort. In fact, it was written by elite activists, different groups of people who formed the bureaucracy thing is to promote this in universities and in the 60s, the foundation gave money, 600,000 or so to ucla researchers, the horrible news for the activists, mexican americans did not feel there were minorities, they didnt know they faced discrimination which they did they thought they could solve their own problems at an individual level. Use their own agency to overcome their problems. This was very bad news for researchers which then undertook a process to create identities, is giving money already in the late 60s, the gift to really support all of this creation. Behind all this is post modernist that wanted to rephrase the narrative, with the american dream, which we are not a perfect country by any means but it could be improved. They see themselves again and again and again the people who create the groups. You mentioned the founder of the italian communist party, probably the most significant philosopher ever, perhaps even karl marx himself. A marxist at the beginning from relating these ideas as you mentioned that there out and into critical theory and bonner university. Few today have people with politics who are openly describing themselves as training marxist, the blm organization. I see this Common Thread seems to be karl marx, people who are wildly communist and when you race that people say that is a crazy conspiracy theory. Nursing communist every where, is a scare. Is this conspiracy . The one who first came up with the idea, he went to prison to stop his brain from working which was a bad idea. People do a lot of thinking and present, a lot of great writing so he begins to think in the 20s and 30s, while revolutions happen. They have succeeded in only one place, back order of europe and russia in 1719 but they have failed since 1948. There is no italian soviet, he failed in italy and he begins to say the reason is the worker has become an appraiser, accepted the socalled oppressive class. The family, religion, Economic System and all the institutions so the need to destroy this narrative. This is what we are seeing today. The creator of the 1619 project, this is the narrative of ameri america. In 1937, first comes up with the idea of critical theory. It is an attack on the northwest. Jay who wrote the book notes that ignoring the union, there were no attacks on stalin even at the height of the files and massacres, it is really an attack on the american norms. Whether you have critical theory, its something that has infiltrated every faculty if youre in law school, he study critical legal theory, all the Ethnic Studies Department which we started in the 60s, the 70s actually. By these activists are about replacing the narrative, angela davis, former black panther member of the communist party with a, another one of the gurus of the west, she says the studies are the revolution, she knows what shes saying and she says it openly. I think we should take it seriously when we see today whats happening, having echoing repeating the same phrases that these cultural marxists used in the 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s. You can trace this evolution, intellectual revolution that overflows into this crazy politics we are seeing around us. One interesting. Is you did not dedicate a chapter to black identity because of the unique role of black people in the history of the united states. Legal slavery and jim crow and everything that accompanied the institutions. Identity politics tends to conflate other minority groups as they continue to be graded day by day with the black experience in america so as a matter of chronology, how do these minority groups develop, perhaps we can begin with hispanic or latino for the new term they want to see his ex, i dont know how to pronounce this but i wont even try but i noticed your last name is gonzales so what is the hispanic identity and assuming people did not buy into it when it came out, why has it stuck . It is the unique black experience that is. The National Organization for women were talking in terms of jane crow at the time to make a Clear Association with jim crow, marshall said, he said no, our experience is unique. I am not going to have a chapter on africanamericans because they are a unique experience. I dont think is helping fill the hearts of minds of africanamericans hatred but i do think slavery happens, segregation happened. I fight so hard because i dont want to go back to the era of ferguson, is very rapidly going back to ferguson with identity politics. The hispanic model is a very clear one when they try to organize in the 40s with the election, organized mexican americans, they did not think they were organized enough and then half this believes that mexicans should be considered a race, it is a nationality as many are european origin, indigenous origin so they do have the realization that they want to expand the coast to coast. Thats when they start to come up with the idea of hispanic. The bureaucracy finally goes in in 1977. The budget comes out with that policy direct in the 60s. The hispanic identity and a few years later, hes introduced to the census of 1980, this hispanic identity and had Asian Americans with is another huge Umbrella Group that brings together americans of many different origins, people from india or pakistan or the philippines, so americans are very different groups and cultural indicators brought in under the umbrella of Asian Americans. Its the same thing as hispanic americans. Many people listen to this and they will be surprised to hear hispanics concocted by the theocracy and they will think has been around forever. It is professor of the university of california system who wrote about this, it would be corrective amnesia, people will forget this is new and it will be shifted always. This is what they wanted to do with me and create an Identity Group for group of americans at this time. The development which im pleased to say we have collective amnesia because it was a new Identity Group the left tried to hoist on us during the Obama Administration and it just never took off so when one for the good guys that theres not one more Grievance Group concocted because as you say in the book for the vast majority of our history, they were considered right. You named the former governor of indiana or other people of the middle eastern arrows. It raises the question the books written on the subject, you cant take a job or go to school about attending a Training Session where you are what raises the question, one receives special privilege by virtue of being wise, why are activists clamoring to remove their designation as white and create a new identity Politics Group . Seems to be a problem. This idea of white privilege, or five years ago, he described getting to gail, he did not know, is unaware of what was expected of him cultural, think of this moment, including a radical activist, the very idea the Census Bureau brought them to the office in 2000 team to advise on the creation, everything want to know about this, easy to capture by the left, they were very clear about what they were discussing, they discussed the fact that americans do not want this, they are not asking for that category than a professor said they understand they would benefit in terms of racial preferences or hiring practices or government contract, they will embrace it and it showed how using these racial purposes is a gateway drug to identity politics, but it shows also you could divide benefits of improving your not white. Right. You might call it oppression privilege. Its become totally inverted, you quote from the book, she began to work the job which she now wears in all her public appearances because without it, she was just another white woman and that was advantageous politically. The one question comes up as well because in addition to these racial categories, there were sexual categories and what struck me as very strange is that women make up the majority of the population, womens makeup in America Today, majority of college students, how is it that the majority could become an aggrieved minority. In the 60s, they identify women, they use jane crow analogy, a new generation, they are seen as being moved to the oppressor class, the new term hearing that comes in and people are mocking women as karens which is really bizarre and i believe, i havent read her bo book, white fragility including a chapter called white womans peers so i think that yes, you can get that for being a woman but i believe, this could be happening maybe being moved back into the oppressor class. I am with you, i have not read the book but it has become very popular. As has this term karen. The term karen, though it is, use, it is a racial slur. It explicitly to white women. Its a socially acceptable racial slur. You see this evolution, a change in what racial categories are protected but sexual categories are protected, theres a juice agreement between the new feminist and all feminist. The old bonus and second wave very much believed in biological effects and women hear me roar and now the category has been completely obliterated. Theres a news agency that referred the other day to individuals with the cervix. They didnt use the term woman, might say i am a woman, hear me roar, is replaced with i have a cervix which creates a contradiction, a problem within the particular identity category but im searching for any hope here that we can recover from this identity politics nightmare, is there a chance because of these contradictions, identity politics will collapse in on itself or will it require a greater effort to rid ourselves of that problem . I am hopeful, the reason i wrote my book is to shed light on what has happened. I think americans need to be aware of what happened, who did it, how they did it and why before we can start inking of ways of reversing of what has happened. At the end of the day, these are marxist ideas. The conflict is the concept of it being nothing but conflict between groups and Power Dynamics but at the end of the day, marxist set out to do the impossible. It is an attempt at changing human nature. Human nature is unchangeable. If you read the bible, you come across people like moses and abraham and sarah and you recognize them right away. They have vices and virtues that we have, human nature is unchangeable so when they fail to change human nature, marxist have to pull back on pilots. I think the American People to attached to freedom. To attach the liberties. Against hate speech because they are being used to silence. They explain how this is done, how these groups came about and why and teach how we talk about this. Change the conversation get us to think about differently in a more formal way. I am optimistic. You sit on a constellation here,. Reality is reasserts itself in the end. I take a long time. Ultimately the reality will reassert itself. In the book, it does appear people are coming to realize identity categories listed on them by elites by specific individual people, individuals you name in the book, they dont describe them, the reality that they see. Just one particular issue on ideology, the transgender ideology, i think people know a man is not a woman, men and women are different. The matter how many times a professor say they know its not the case for various Identity Groups. No matter how many times hispanics are say you must go by hispanic, latino, latin x, they say no, i dont think that describes me very much. Id like to close but before we move on to the q and a, id like to get back to the points you made it in the beginning, we hear now is a constant mantra. Adversity is our strength. What people mean, their small Identity Groups. We can look around at