Name: Daryl Davis Breaksdown His Technique for Talking to Klan Members
Uploaded: 2022-03-15T20:53:05.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Daryl Davis Breaksdown His Technique for Talking to Klan Members' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-15. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Daryl Davis Breaksdown His Technique for Talking to Klan Members' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-15. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience now Daryl I want to talk to you about your personal
experience on minds with this with what you're what you do what you're known
for
have you had interactions with people on minds that have been favorable that if
you've kind of pushed people and do a I've had yeah I've had a few and I've
had you know my share of detractors some people think you know what I'm doing
is
totally wrong and don't get me or whatever but yeah I've had it I've had
interactions with some people when so when you say like people have said it's
totally wrong like what what kind of criticisms do they have for that it
depends upon where they're coming from some people think it's not my job to
teach white people how to treat us us mean black people mm-hmm others think it's
ridiculous to sit down with a white supremacist why you know why why would
you waste your time you know those people can't change do you point to your
success
ratio because it's pretty oh yeah I point to that you know but a lot of you
know
they don't see that because they don't they would not tolerate the time to sit
down right and have somebody tell them some nonsense that Jews are the child of
the devil or you know some crazy yeah things like that I will sit and listen to
that and I will put up with it because in order for me to speak speak my mind I
have
to listen to somebody else's yes right so they're not willing to to put in that
time I am yeah and so when you how do you have the time to do this this is what
I
do you know in between my music gigs yeah but I mean like that's what kind of
commitment are you talking about like how much time do you spend doing this a
lot I
mean it's my life now how many like email dialogue oh god I get I get emails
all the
time I give me emails from people I don't even know I even get emails from
people who've seen me on podcasts or on TV shows these are white supremacists
Klansmen whatever
and say you know you made some sense in it would you like my robe I've even
gotten
robes in the mail from people I don't even know yes yeah I think there's a lot
of sad
people that just need a group of people to belong to and they'll decide that
what
these people are saying makes sense because at least they'll be a part of it
let me
explain something to you once percent as you already know once perception is
one's
reality okay you cannot change anybody's reality if you try to change the
reality
you're gonna get pushback because they only know what they know whether it's
real
or not it's their reality so what you want to do is you want to offer them a
better alternative perception and if they resonate with your perception then
they
will change their own reality because their perception becomes their reality
just a
quick example let's say you got a seven or eight-year-old brother right and he
goes
to a magic show with his buddies and he comes back and tells you Joe you know
this
magician he asked for a female volunteer and 50 women raise their hand he
picked up
this one come up on stage he told her to climb into this long box and stick her
feet
out that hole put her head out this hole and then he closed the lid told her to
wiggle her feet and she kicked her legs and he took a chainsaw and cut that box
in
half he cut that woman in half and you're like it didn't really happen like
that yes it did I was there you weren't even there I saw it with my own eyes
you
are challenging his reality he knows what he saw and that magician cut that
woman in
half and then to make it even more obvious to you he tells you that the
magician after he cut the box in half took the half with the legs sticking out
and moved it over here to stage right and the half with the head or we had a
stage left and then he went over there and talk to the head of the woman and
she
talked back to him and then he brought the two halves back together open the
box
and I'll pop the woman full form no blood he cut her in half he put it back
together you're saying it was just an illusion no it wasn't I saw with my own
eyes I was there you weren't even there so you again you're attacking his
reality he's gonna resist he's gonna fight you all right so what you do is you
offer him a better perception you say hey listen I hear what you're saying but
could it be possible that just maybe out of those 50 women that raised their
hands and he picked one maybe she works for him maybe he planted her in the
audience she knows the trick she travels to every show around the country with
him and when she gets in the box there's a pair of mannequin legs laying on
the floor of the box that are wearing the same stockings and same shoes that
she
has on she picks him up shoves him out the hole when he says move your feet she
shakes those things and then she brings her own legs up under her chest so her
whole body is on that half of the box so the saw doesn't even touch her and
obviously when he separates the two halves the feet are over there now she can't
move them so he has to distract your attention by going over here so you're not
looking at those feet and he's talking to the head and she's talking back of
course when he brings them back together she pulls the dummy legs we've
leaves them on the floor of the box she climbs out and then your brother says
hmm
you know I guess that would be the only way that would work you've offered him
a
better perception and that perception then becomes his reality so don't attack
somebody's reality regardless of what it is even if you know it to be false
give
them a better perception and allow them to resonate with it because it's always
better when somebody comes comes to the conclusion I've been wrong maybe this
is
something I need to think about yeah this will work it's a perfect example of
not
silencing people's ideas but giving them better ideas and this is what the
answer to censorship has been exactly and you know so Darrell always talks
about
how much he listens when he starts a dialogue and doesn't even try to you know
push ideas at the people that he's engaging with different extremists or
whatnot would you agree with that statement absolutely and let me just give
you an example of that okay so I'm interviewing a Klan leader white
supremacist right and I asked you know how can you hate me you don't even know
me
you know all you see is this come in my room five minutes ago and and you're
you've
already determined you know whatever you determine well mr. Davis you know
black
people are prone to crime and that is evidenced by the fact that there are
more blacks in prison than white people I'm just sitting here listening to this
guy he's calling me a criminal and but he's right he's a hundred percent right
the
data and the statistics show that there are more blacks in prison than white
people so that feeds what he already thinks he knows the data right but he does
not go to find out why does that data show that he doesn't realize there may be
an
imbalance in our judicial system that send black people to prison for longer
periods
of time than white people who've committed the same crime all right so I just
listen
to him right because when he walks in that room and he sees me I'm the enemy
his wall
goes up his ears are like this you know he's ready to defend whatever his
stance is so I'm just
listening and then he goes on to say you know black people are inherently lazy
they always have their
hand out for a freebie they're always trying to scam the government welfare
programs and all
that kind of stuff so now he's caught he's called me a criminal and now he's
calling me lazy and I'm
just sitting here listening I'm not pushing back and then he says and black
people are born with
smaller brains and the larger the brain the more capacity for intelligence the
smaller the brain
the lower the IQ so now I'm being called stupid now it's what he says that this
is evidenced by the
fact that every year the data shows that black high school students
consistently score lower on the SATs
than all white kids do again he's 100 correct that does show that right but he
doesn't realize why
all right where the most black kids in this country go to school in the inner
city where the most white
kids go to school in the suburbs it is a fact suburban schools are better
funded they have better
facilities better teachers etc I will guarantee you white kids who go to school
in the inner city can
score just as low as those black kids if not some lower black kids who go to
school in the suburbs can
score just as high as the white kids if not higher it has absolutely nothing to
do with the color of this of
the student's skin or the size of the student's brain but has everything to do
with the educational system in
which that child is enrolled but of course he won't go to research that because
the data already supports
what he already believes that I'm inferior so now he's called me all these
things I've already done my
research on him I know this guy sitting across from me just barely made it out
of high school
I have a college degree so do I throw that in his face no but because I sat
there and listened to him
that wall is coming down because you cannot impart information to somebody when
the wall is up it's
like hitting a brick wall you want that wall to come down and then the ears
open up so now he's
exhausted all his vitriol and now he's wondering like how come this black
person isn't pushing up
against me like I most of them do and he's curious as to what I think about
what he just said
so now the wall is down and he feels compelled to reciprocate because I sat
there and listened to him
insult me so now it's my turn I could go on the offense and say no you are the
one who's a criminal
you're the one hanging black men from trees and dragging them behind pickup
trucks and bombing their
churches and I would be 100 correct because the Klan has over a hundred year
history of doing that
but if I did that that wall would go right back up so I don't want that to
happen I want to keep
the wall down and let him hear what I'm saying so I say yes so rather than go
on the offense
I go on the defense and I say listen I hear what you're saying however I don't
have a criminal record
and I'm as black as anybody you've ever seen so I don't have a criminal record
um I've never been
on welfare as far as my brain size goes I've never measured the size of my
brain but I'm sure it's the
same size as anybody else's and as far as my SAT scores go they got me into
college now I already know
that he doesn't have a college degree I do does it make me a better person than
him no but it gives
me a better experience right so I let him know this he goes home and he thinks
just like we all do at
the end of the day we reflect on what we did during the day he thinks man I
just had a three-hour
conversation with a black guy you know when we didn't come to blows and what
that Daryl guy said
it makes sense oh but he's black but what he said was true but he's black so
they're having a
cognitive dissonance yeah right and they struggle with that for a while and
then they have that
dilemma I got to make up my mind what am I going to do so the the dilemma is do
I disregard whatever
color he is and believe the truth because I know it to be true and change my
ideological direction
or do I consider the color of his skin and continue living a lie in most cases
people will follow the
truth but then there will be those who don't want to give it the power or the
notoriety or whatever
and they will follow the lie well the way you're doing is brilliant because you're
you're doing it
so patiently and contrary to the way most people handle arguments most people
handle arguments by
trying to shut down the other person's argument and shit all over them instead
of trying to what
you're saying offer an alternative perspective which is really probably the
only way to get people to
think about things in a different light and Joe that comes from the fact that I've
done a lot of
travel okay I've been exposed to people from all over the world and we all got
along we all got along
we told the story on the podcast the first time you hear about not even
understanding racism exactly
until you were a child because you grew up overseas right exactly and we got so
I saw that so I saw something
that they have not seen right and that's why I want to share that with them vicariously
to let them know
no it's you know the whole every white person uh in the world is not like every
white person in this
country every black person in the world is not like every black person in this
country you know uh there
are white people over in France like in the 1940s and 50s a lot of black
Americans moved to France to
live some even gave up their U.S. citizenship because the French people were
treating them as equals they
didn't see color you know uh and those French people were a lot more white than
the white people here in
this country who might be missing something else so you know people need need
to see in fact my favorite
quote of all time is by Mark Twain or otherwise known as Samuel Clemens it's
called the travel quote
and Mark Twain said quote unquote travel is fatal to prejudice bigotry and
narrow-mindedness
and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts broad wholesome
charitable views of men and
things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all
one's lifetime
that guy was so good wasn't he he had so many great quotes exactly isolation
and so sam harris
actually did a study that we talk about in the in the paper about he did a
neuroimaging study of
people being exposed to political beliefs different from their own and actually
looked at people's
brains when they were going through this experience and they actually talked
about this thing called the
backfire effect which is sort of what you're talking about when the walls up
and so they sort of detected that
interestingly and I forget the exact name of the study but it's it's in it's in
the footnotes
so I think the patience is it that it's long-term
you're not changing someone's mind like in five minutes of you know
chattering on in comment sections or you know yelling at someone at the dinner
table like that you that you barely know like
Daryl knows how to create long-term relationships and not be like thirsty for
them to change their mind
like it's just by like look we're here we're we're hanging out but whether it's
a network or you know offline or online network
doesn't really matter and so I think the backfire effects that that Sam found
and that we're sort of talking about with walls going up is very real and that's
why
It's just it has to be long-term, you know, but Daryl
I'm just thinking while I'm listening here like these conversations that you've
had with these white supremacists and neo-nazis
How amazing would it be if that was a podcast it is if you know what I'm saying
If you sat down with those people from the beginning from first meeting them
and see that conversation play out
That would be very related
I've got some of that do you where where I've sat down with some of these
people while they were still in
And now I'm sitting down with them now that they're out
Some of them even come up on my lecture tours with me and stand on stage with
me and speak out against their former
Do you have videos of these conversations?
Yeah, some of them. Yeah. God are they online?
Some of them I think are but if not I can send you some I think those videos
would be a great tool for someone that's maybe trapped
But like at least partially open-minded where they have this like view of
things like maybe I'm incorrect about this
Maybe I need to reevaluate. Yeah, you know
You know like that, but as a podcast that would be brilliant

Daryl Davis Breaksdown His Technique for Talking to Klan Members

the Joe Rogan experience now Daryl I want to talk to you about your personal
experience on minds with this with what you're what you do what you're known
for
have you had interactions with people on minds that have been favorable that if
you've kind of pushed people and do a I've had yeah I've had a few and I've
had you know my share of detractors some people think you know what I'm doing
is
totally wrong and don't get me or whatever but yeah I've had it I've had
interactions with some people when so when you say like people have said it's
totally wrong like what what kind of criticisms do they have for that it
depends upon where they're coming from some people think it's not my job to
teach white people how to treat us us mean black people mm-hmm others think it's
ridiculous to sit down with a white supremacist why you know why why would
you waste your time you know those people can't change do you point to your
success
ratio because it's pretty oh yeah I point to that you know but a lot of you
know
they don't see that because they don't they would not tolerate the time to sit
down right and have somebody tell them some nonsense that Jews are the child of
the devil or you know some crazy yeah things like that I will sit and listen to
that and I will put up with it because in order for me to speak speak my mind I
have
to listen to somebody else's yes right so they're not willing to to put in that
time I am yeah and so when you how do you have the time to do this this is what
I
do you know in between my music gigs yeah but I mean like that's what kind of
commitment are you talking about like how much time do you spend doing this a
lot I
mean it's my life now how many like email dialogue oh god I get I get emails
all the
time I give me emails from people I don't even know I even get emails from
people who've seen me on podcasts or on TV shows these are white supremacists
Klansmen whatever
and say you know you made some sense in it would you like my robe I've even
gotten
robes in the mail from people I don't even know yes yeah I think there's a lot
of sad
people that just need a group of people to belong to and they'll decide that
what
these people are saying makes sense because at least they'll be a part of it
let me
explain something to you once percent as you already know once perception is
one's
reality okay you cannot change anybody's reality if you try to change the
reality
you're gonna get pushback because they only know what they know whether it's
real
or not it's their reality so what you want to do is you want to offer them a
better alternative perception and if they resonate with your perception then
they
will change their own reality because their perception becomes their reality
just a
quick example let's say you got a seven or eight-year-old brother right and he
goes
to a magic show with his buddies and he comes back and tells you Joe you know
this
magician he asked for a female volunteer and 50 women raise their hand he
picked up
this one come up on stage he told her to climb into this long box and stick her
feet
out that hole put her head out this hole and then he closed the lid told her to
wiggle her feet and she kicked her legs and he took a chainsaw and cut that box
in
half he cut that woman in half and you're like it didn't really happen like
that yes it did I was there you weren't even there I saw it with my own eyes
you
are challenging his reality he knows what he saw and that magician cut that
woman in
half and then to make it even more obvious to you he tells you that the
magician after he cut the box in half took the half with the legs sticking out
and moved it over here to stage right and the half with the head or we had a
stage left and then he went over there and talk to the head of the woman and
she
talked back to him and then he brought the two halves back together open the
box
and I'll pop the woman full form no blood he cut her in half he put it back
together you're saying it was just an illusion no it wasn't I saw with my own
eyes I was there you weren't even there so you again you're attacking his
reality he's gonna resist he's gonna fight you all right so what you do is you
offer him a better perception you say hey listen I hear what you're saying but
could it be possible that just maybe out of those 50 women that raised their
hands and he picked one maybe she works for him maybe he planted her in the
audience she knows the trick she travels to every show around the country with
him and when she gets in the box there's a pair of mannequin legs laying on
the floor of the box that are wearing the same stockings and same shoes that
she
has on she picks him up shoves him out the hole when he says move your feet she
shakes those things and then she brings her own legs up under her chest so her
whole body is on that half of the box so the saw doesn't even touch her and
obviously when he separates the two halves the feet are over there now she can't
move them so he has to distract your attention by going over here so you're not
looking at those feet and he's talking to the head and she's talking back of
course when he brings them back together she pulls the dummy legs we've
leaves them on the floor of the box she climbs out and then your brother says
hmm
you know I guess that would be the only way that would work you've offered him
a
better perception and that perception then becomes his reality so don't attack
somebody's reality regardless of what it is even if you know it to be false
give
them a better perception and allow them to resonate with it because it's always
better when somebody comes comes to the conclusion I've been wrong maybe this
is
something I need to think about yeah this will work it's a perfect example of
not
silencing people's ideas but giving them better ideas and this is what the
answer to censorship has been exactly and you know so Darrell always talks
about
how much he listens when he starts a dialogue and doesn't even try to you know
push ideas at the people that he's engaging with different extremists or
whatnot would you agree with that statement absolutely and let me just give
you an example of that okay so I'm interviewing a Klan leader white
supremacist right and I asked you know how can you hate me you don't even know
me
you know all you see is this come in my room five minutes ago and and you're
you've
already determined you know whatever you determine well mr. Davis you know
black
people are prone to crime and that is evidenced by the fact that there are
more blacks in prison than white people I'm just sitting here listening to this
guy he's calling me a criminal and but he's right he's a hundred percent right
the
data and the statistics show that there are more blacks in prison than white
people so that feeds what he already thinks he knows the data right but he does
not go to find out why does that data show that he doesn't realize there may be
an
imbalance in our judicial system that send black people to prison for longer
periods
of time than white people who've committed the same crime all right so I just
listen
to him right because when he walks in that room and he sees me I'm the enemy
his wall
goes up his ears are like this you know he's ready to defend whatever his
stance is so I'm just
listening and then he goes on to say you know black people are inherently lazy
they always have their
hand out for a freebie they're always trying to scam the government welfare
programs and all
that kind of stuff so now he's caught he's called me a criminal and now he's
calling me lazy and I'm
just sitting here listening I'm not pushing back and then he says and black
people are born with
smaller brains and the larger the brain the more capacity for intelligence the
smaller the brain
the lower the IQ so now I'm being called stupid now it's what he says that this
is evidenced by the
fact that every year the data shows that black high school students
consistently score lower on the SATs
than all white kids do again he's 100 correct that does show that right but he
doesn't realize why
all right where the most black kids in this country go to school in the inner
city where the most white
kids go to school in the suburbs it is a fact suburban schools are better
funded they have better
facilities better teachers etc I will guarantee you white kids who go to school
in the inner city can
score just as low as those black kids if not some lower black kids who go to
school in the suburbs can
score just as high as the white kids if not higher it has absolutely nothing to
do with the color of this of
the student's skin or the size of the student's brain but has everything to do
with the educational system in
which that child is enrolled but of course he won't go to research that because
the data already supports
what he already believes that I'm inferior so now he's called me all these
things I've already done my
research on him I know this guy sitting across from me just barely made it out
of high school
I have a college degree so do I throw that in his face no but because I sat
there and listened to him
that wall is coming down because you cannot impart information to somebody when
the wall is up it's
like hitting a brick wall you want that wall to come down and then the ears
open up so now he's
exhausted all his vitriol and now he's wondering like how come this black
person isn't pushing up
against me like I most of them do and he's curious as to what I think about
what he just said
so now the wall is down and he feels compelled to reciprocate because I sat
there and listened to him
insult me so now it's my turn I could go on the offense and say no you are the
one who's a criminal
you're the one hanging black men from trees and dragging them behind pickup
trucks and bombing their
churches and I would be 100 correct because the Klan has over a hundred year
history of doing that
but if I did that that wall would go right back up so I don't want that to
happen I want to keep
the wall down and let him hear what I'm saying so I say yes so rather than go
on the offense
I go on the defense and I say listen I hear what you're saying however I don't
have a criminal record
and I'm as black as anybody you've ever seen so I don't have a criminal record
um I've never been
on welfare as far as my brain size goes I've never measured the size of my
brain but I'm sure it's the
same size as anybody else's and as far as my SAT scores go they got me into
college now I already know
that he doesn't have a college degree I do does it make me a better person than
him no but it gives
me a better experience right so I let him know this he goes home and he thinks
just like we all do at
the end of the day we reflect on what we did during the day he thinks man I
just had a three-hour
conversation with a black guy you know when we didn't come to blows and what
that Daryl guy said
it makes sense oh but he's black but what he said was true but he's black so
they're having a
cognitive dissonance yeah right and they struggle with that for a while and
then they have that
dilemma I got to make up my mind what am I going to do so the the dilemma is do
I disregard whatever
color he is and believe the truth because I know it to be true and change my
ideological direction
or do I consider the color of his skin and continue living a lie in most cases
people will follow the
truth but then there will be those who don't want to give it the power or the
notoriety or whatever
and they will follow the lie well the way you're doing is brilliant because you're
you're doing it
so patiently and contrary to the way most people handle arguments most people
handle arguments by
trying to shut down the other person's argument and shit all over them instead
of trying to what
you're saying offer an alternative perspective which is really probably the
only way to get people to
think about things in a different light and Joe that comes from the fact that I've
done a lot of
travel okay I've