Chairperson: How can you argue that racism is not a driving factor in income inequality?
Shapiro: Because it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with culture. When you have a culture that doesn’t…and when…
(Audience laughs.)
Shapiro: You know what? Explain to me. You explain to me why black kids aren’t graduating high school. Explain that one to me. Explain to me why black kids are shooting each other in rates significantly higher than whites are shooting each other. Explain to me why thirteen percent of the population is responsible for fifty percent of the murder. Explain to me why the number of blacks–black kids–in prison, not for innocent reasons, not for walking down the street and getting pulled into a prison is so high. Explain, if it has nothing to do with culture, explain to me why the single motherhood rate in the black community jumped from twenty percent to seventy percent in the same course of time the civil rights movement has made such tremendous strides. Is America more racist now than it was in nineteen-sixty, and if it is, please explain to me how that happened.