Dear Netflix, Why Is Racism Against White People Okay?

How can you tell if something is racist?

"An easy way to figure out if you're saying something racist is change the colors and see if it feels racist," Co-host Stu Burguiere said Thursday on The Glenn Beck Program.

Maybe Netflix should have followed that simple rule before before releasing the trailer for its new show Dear White People.

"If it was Dear Black People, and it was teaching lessons to black people who don't understand the real world the way white people do, that would be an issue," Stu said.

Listen to this segment from The Glenn Beck Program:

PAT: Dear white people, you're evil, and you need to go. That's what I expect this is about, but I don't know that for a fact. I just know that a TV show called Dear Black People probably wouldn't go over that well.

STU: Hmm. Wow.

PAT: Dear Hispanics, Dear Asian People. Why is this okay?

STU: You know, I don't know. I was watching CNN, I believe, yesterday. And they had an African-American guest on. And he was -- I think at least believed himself to be a comedian. I don't know that he actually was.

PAT: Okay.

STU: And he apparently does some show for -- for CNN. And as they were talking about Trump, they -- they said, "Well, we've got a lot to cover today in the news." And he said, "Yeah, we have a lot of white people we got to look out for." I was curious to see how CNN would react if one of their white guests were to say, "Yeah, I know we got a lot of black people we need to look out for." That would be an interesting moment in television history.

PAT: They would be done. It sure would. If they worked for CNN, that would be their last statement on CNN. That would be it.

STU: And people are like, "Well, it's different." An easy way to figure out if you're saying something racist is change the colors and see if it feels racist.

PAT: Yes.

STU: And, you know, if you're saying something like I don't know, all these typical white people who have just this bred into them. If you were to change the wording on that, you would probably have some issues in society.

PAT: Typical black people who have something bred into them. Yes.

STU: You would have issues in society.

PAT: Which is why somebody -- oh, Glenn Beck questioned whether or not there were some issues there.

STU: Right. And that's just a good guideline for everybody. The idea of racism, you shouldn't be generalizing.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: You shouldn't be disparaging. There's no reason for it.

PAT: Well, do you remember Jimmy "The Greek," his generalizations of blacks was that -- it was something complimentary too, like they ran really fast.

STU: Like they ran really fast. That doesn't make it right obviously.

PAT: Tried to put forward some reason why they seemed to run faster or whatever. He got fired for it.

JEFFY: Right.

PAT: We never heard from him again, and then he died. That was it.

JEFFY: No. Then it was over. Yeah, he was professional gambler. And then, Jimmy who? It was over.

PAT: He was gone.

JEFFY: But the show White People is about a fictional largely white Winchester University, who often rail against the roles they're put in, paving the way to both comedy and conflict in their post racial world.

PAT: Post racial world.

STU: I will say --

PAT: I wish we lived in a post racial world.

JEFFY: Me too.

STU: The issue here is the standard and how it's not applied equally. Not even applied -- not even attempt to apply it at all. I have no problem with a comedy show making fun of these differences and the differences in our cultures. I think that's generally speaking a healthy thing. I mean, you see that from comedians all the time. And there's always these controversies where someone says something that is controversial. And comedians get in trouble for it, and I always side with the comedians.

JEFFY: George Lopez, it just happened to him.

STU: Yeah, it happens -- comedy is supposed to push these buttons. That is point of it. They're trying to put you in an uncomfortable position, to think about something differently. To criticize your own side. To sometimes criticize the other side. That is supposed to be part of it when it comes to comedy. So, I mean, I don't know anything about this show. It is interesting the way this standard is applied. Which you're right. If it was dear black people, and it was teaching lessons to black people who don't understand the real world the way white people do, that would be an issue.

PAT: Oh, man.

STU: However, I could say that same sentence and say, "Well, if it's a story about black people teaching white people about the way of the world, that they don't really understand, that's completely okay."

JEFFY: Completely okay.

STU: And that's just -- just dumb. You should be able in a creative environment to be able to say pretty much anything. I mean, pretty much anything. That is what -- that's -- you get a boring world if you try to apply standards to things like comedy. Just take it out of this weird political context that everything falls into these days. The show starts sucking, right? Look at Saturday Night Live with Barack Obama. They were so terrified.

PAT: Well, they couldn't find anything funny about him.

STU: Yeah.

PAT: He was so perfect. We couldn't find anything to laugh at. The man is so wonderful.

STU: He's so amazingly wonderful. We can't find anything to criticize or make fun of. So what you get is eight years of terrible programming.

PAT: Uh-huh.

STU: You know, now, gosh they -- you can't get A list stars to that show fast enough. Melissa McCarthy is making 20 million a movie. She's showing up on her Saturday nights to do Sean Spicer. Like all of a sudden they can find comedy everywhere.

PAT: Uh-huh.

STU: And it's like -- then you have Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy like, you know, doing like recurring -- not hosting, recurring episodes, where they're like, "Eh, they're in one episode, and then they're out."

PAT: There was a time too, and it wasn't that long ago -- maybe ten years -- where you could get away with certain things because it was comedy. You know, you could make fun of people. You could do accents. You could say certain things. It was a joke. Okay? We were joking. It was parody. It was comedy. It was satire. And you'd be like, "Oh, yeah, okay. Well, I mean, that was kind of distasteful." But people would move on. Now, you lose your career over that. You just lose your career. You're done.

JEFFY: We're not moving on. You don't make fun of it.

PAT: We don't move on.

STU: And you see this sort of thing as it's applied even surprises some of the comedians.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: I remember after Trump was elected, Seth MacFarlane, who is the guy behind Family Guy and Ted and other various projects that you would know from the world of pretty harsh comedy.

PAT: Ted, is that teddy bear thing?

STU: The teddy bear thing with Mark Wahlberg.

PAT: Okay.

STU: Big movie. Made a lot of money. Made a sequel.

PAT: It looks stupid.

JEFFY: It sure does.

PAT: Has anybody seen it? It looks just atrocious.

STU: Oh. The second one was not pretty good. The first one was very funny. Very funny. Yes, I thought so.

PAT: Oh, was it really?

STU: And I like Family Guy a lot. And they take -- I mean, they put things on that show -- it's utterly unbelievable the stuff they get away with, not from just the perspective of it's on. Remember, on Fox. It's not on FX. It's not on HBO. It's on Fox the network. The same place that owns Fox News Channel, which they mock relentlessly on that show. But they make jokes about the handicapped. Jokes about races. Jokes about rape, sexual assault, all sorts of stuff on there.

PAT: Wow.

STU: And they push that envelope so far. If a conservative ever tried to do it, they would be thrown out of society. But because Seth MacFarlane is, A, very talented and, B, very liberal. He somehow skates away with most of this stuff. Even he gets some of it sometimes.

But his complaint after the Trump thing -- obviously, he did not want Donald Trump to win. But his complaint to his liberal friends was, look, people are rejecting this world we've created where everyone gets offend over everything. That's what they're rejecting with this election. And I think he's on to something there.

PAT: Yeah, I think so too.

STU: People are sick of this. They understand that, you know, people can say offensive things and we can all move on with our lives. When someone says something -- this is why I'm never for boycotts. If someone says something you don't like, generally speaking, and I know we don't all agree in every instance of this, but it's like generally speaking we come together --

PAT: And in the exception of Jeffy, certainly we would boycott him.

STU: Well, I would boycott him. I'm against all boycotts except for the Jeffy boycott.

PAT: The Jeffy boycott.

STU: But you just move on with your life. You go on to another show.

PAT: I know.

STU: We talked about this with Simon Sinek yesterday who was in here and talking about social media and how ten to 14-year-old girls have this big spike in suicide rate, which is obviously terrifying. And I don't know how this applies to everyone else. I don't know how you get here. But I can tell you, on social media, the way to defeat being bullied on social media is to not care about it.

And I don't -- we are -- we have this gift.

PAT: That's really hard. When it comes to 14-year-olds.

STU: And it's impossible. And I don't know how to apply it. But I can tell you that being here in this job, you get the gift of being assaulted, of being called Hitler so many times.

PAT: Sure. But we're adults. We're big boys. We can take it, and we can ignore it.

STU: Right. I know. But, I mean, adults don't do this well, Pat. This is not -- it's not an adult thing.

I see this with people all the time, that get their lives turned upside down because someone made a comment that disagrees with them on their Facebook feed.

This happens all the time. We've even seen it in this room from Mr. Glenn Beck many times.

PAT: Yeah.

STU: The only cure for it is to not care. People call me the most genocidal maniac of all time. Adolf Hitler. How many times have we been called that?

PAT: Many.

STU: How many times have we been called every nasty horrible word people can come up with.

It never impacts me because I don't care what you think. I don't care if you think I'm a terrible person. I don't care if you think I voted wrong. I don't care if you think I should -- my opinion on red velvet Chips Ahoy cookies is incorrect, which, by the way, is not, they're delicious -- I don't care about anything you're saying when it comes to calling me names. It doesn't impact me because I think we've been so saturated with it because of the business we're in, that we just are able to just toss it off to the side. Most people are not. Most people, you know, get a comment that is distasteful, and it eats them up the whole day.

And I think maybe because we're developing a whole new society here based on social media and outward angry criticism, constantly flowing, maybe at some point, the saturation hits everybody and nobody cares about this stuff anymore. But until then, it's going to be hard for people to deal with

PAT: Yeah, this discussion began with the Dear White People show that's moving to Netflix.

STU: Yeah.

PAT: This is original programming. And I can't -- it seems like we spent some time talking about the dear white people thing on Pat and Stu a while ago. Do you remember this? And I think this all began with some -- I don't know -- just a clip or a trailer of somebody. And then it developed into a movie. And now it's a Netflix phenomenon. But here's the trailer that they've developed for this soon to be Netflix story.

VOICE: Dear white people, here's a list of acceptable Halloween costumes: Pirate, slutty nurse, any of our first 43 presidents. Top of the list of unacceptable costumes: Me.

PAT: She's black.

VOICE: Wow.

PAT: So you can't look like her.

JEFFY: No.

PAT: Nor can you look like the 44th president, Barack Obama. You can look like any of the others. How do you -- how did we get there to that standard?

STU: Would she be able to dress up as Richard Nixon?

PAT: Yes.

STU: Yes, right?

PAT: I mean, the answer is yes.

JEFFY: Yeah, yeah.

STU: The answer is yes under this standard. It's bizarre.

PAT: It is.

STU: I mean, look, I have no interest in going out on Halloween as a black person in the year 2017. No interest at all.

PAT: Still, this culture appropriation stuff is silly.

STU: And this goes back to -- who was it back in the day? It was Ted Danson, famously came out -- remember? With Blackface. And he was very liberal, obviously. So it didn't ruin his career.

JEFFY: Yeah, they even tried to cover him up because Whoopi said she told him to do it.

STU: Yeah, they tried to cover it. Every once in a while, you see something like this. Most people know that these lines kind of inherently -- that doesn't mean you can't say how ridiculous they are. I have no interest in mixing that up. But it is a weird thing.

PAT: It really is.

STU: We see it all the time. I mean, weren't pirates people too?

PAT: Yes.

STU: If you want to talk about the pirates of today, if you wanted to be a pirate today, the most logical costume you would dress up is as a Somali pirate, which would be completely off-limits.

PAT: Right. Off-limits. You can't do that.

And she was saying that being a slutty anything is okay for white girls.

JEFFY: Yeah.

PAT: You go ahead and act like a slut, and that's fine because that's your area.

STU: That's you.

PAT: That's you. That's your culture. You are sluts.

(laughter)

PAT: Is that what that is? That's pretty weird. Pretty weird.

[break]

How did Trump's would-be assassin get past Secret Service?

PATRICK T. FALLON / Contributor | Getty Images

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday was targeted in an assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. It occurred just after 6:10 p.m. while Trump was delivering his speech.

Here are the details of the “official” story. The shooter was Thomas Matthew Crooks. He was 20 years old from Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. He used an AR-15 rifle and managed to reach the rooftop of a nearby building unnoticed. The Secret Service's counter-response team responded swiftly, according to "the facts," killing Crooks and preventing further harm.

Did it though? That’s what the official story says, so far, but calling this a mere lapse in security by Secret Service doesn't add up. There are some glaring questions that need to be answered.

If Trump had been killed on Saturday, we would be in a civil war today. We would have seen for the first time the president's brains splattered on live television, and because of the details of this, I have a hard time thinking it wouldn't have been viewed as JFK 2.0.

How does someone sneak a rifle onto the rally grounds? How does someone even know that that building is there? How is it that Thomas Matthew Crooks was acting so weird and pacing in front of the metal detectors, and no one seemed to notice? People tried to follow him, but, oops, he got away.

How could the kid possibly even think that the highest ground at the venue wouldn't be watched? If I were Crooks, my first guess would be, "That’s the one place I shouldn't crawl up to with a rifle because there's most definitely going to be Secret Service there." Why wasn't anyone there? Why wasn't anyone watching it? Nobody except the shooter decided that the highest ground with the best view of the rally would be the greatest vulnerability to Trump’s safety.

Moreover, a handy ladder just happened to be there. Are we supposed to believe that nobody in the Secret Service, none of the drones, none of the things we pay millions of dollars for caught him? How did he get a ladder there? If the ladder was there, was it always there? Why was the ladder there? Secret Service welds manhole covers closed when a president drives down a road. How was there a ladder sitting around, ready to climb up to the highest ground at the venue, and the Secret Service failed to take it away?

There is plenty of video of eyewitnesses yelling that there was a guy with a rifle climbing up on a ladder to the roof for at least 120 seconds before the first shot was fired. Why were the police looking for him while Secret Service wasn't? Why did the sniper have him in his sights for over a minute before he took a shot? Why did a cop climb up the ladder to look around? When Thomas Matthew Cooks pointed a gun at him, he then ducked and came down off the ladder. Did he call anyone to warn that this young man had a rifle within range of the president?

How is it the Secret Service has a female bodyguard who doesn't even reach Trump's nipples? How was she going to guard the president's body with hers? How is it another female Secret Service agent pulled her gun out a good four minutes too late, then looked around, apparently not knowing what to do? She then couldn't even get the pistol back into the holster because she's a Melissa McCarthy body double. I don't think it's a good idea to have Melissa McCarthy guarding the president.

Here’s the critical question now: Who trusts the FBI with the shooter’s computer? Will his hard drive get filed with the Nashville manifesto? How is it that the Secret Service almost didn't have snipers at all but decided to supply them only one day before the rally because all the local resources were going to be put on Jill Biden? I want Jill Biden safe, of course. I want Jill Biden to have what the first lady should have for security, but you can’t hire a few extra guys to make sure our candidates are safe?

How is it that we have a Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle, whose experience is literally guarding two liters of Squirt and spicy Doritos? Did you know that's her background? She's in charge of the United States Secret Service, and her last job was as the head of security for Pepsi.

This is a game, and that's what makes this sick. This is a joke. There are people in our country who thought it was OK to post themselves screaming about the shooter’s incompetence: “How do you miss that shot?” Do you realize how close we came to another JFK? If the president hadn't turned his head at the exact moment he did, it would have gone into the center of his head, and we would be a different country today.

Now, Joe Biden is also saying that we shouldn't make assumptions about the motive of the shooter. Well, I think we can assume one thing: He wanted to kill the Republican presidential candidate. Can we agree on that at least? Can we assume that much?

How can the media even think of blaming Trump for the rhetoric when the Democrats and the media constantly call him literally worse than Hitler who must be stopped at all costs?

These questions need to be answered if we want to know the truth behind what could have been one of the most consequential days in U.S. history. Yet, the FBI has its hands clasped on all the sources that could point to the truth. There must be an independent investigation to get to the bottom of these glaring “mistakes.”

POLL: Do you think Trump is going to win the election?

Kevin Dietsch / Staff, Chip Somodevilla / Staff, Kevin Dietsch / Staff | Getty Image

It feels like all of the tension that has been building over the last four years has finally burst to the surface over the past month. Many predicted 2024 was going to be one of the most important and tumultuous elections in our lifetimes, but the last two weeks will go down in the history books. And it's not over yet.

The Democratic National Convention is in August, and while Kamala seems to be the likely candidate to replace Biden, anything could happen in Chicago. And if Biden is too old to campaign, isn't he too old to be president? Glenn doesn't think he'll make it as President through January, but who knows?

There is a lot of uncertainty that surrounds the current political landscape. Trump came out of the attempted assassination, and the RNC is looking stronger than ever, but who knows what tricks the Democrats have up their sleeves? Let us know your predictions in the poll below:

Is Trump going to win the election?

Did the assassination attempt increase Trump's chances at winning in November?

Did Trump's pick of J.D. Vance help his odds?

Did the Trump-Biden debate in June help Trump's chances?

Did Biden's resignation from the election hand Trump a victory in November? 

Do the Democrats have any chance of winning this election?

What is the Secret Service trying to hide about Trump's assassination attempt?

KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Contributor, Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

This past weekend we were mere inches away from a radically different America than the one we have today. This was the first time a president had been wounded by a would-be assassin since 1981, and the horrific event has many people questioning the competency and motives of the supposedly elite agents trusted with the president's life.

The director of the Secret Service apparently knew about the assassin's rooftop before the shooting—and did nothing.

Kimberly Cheatle has come under intense scrutiny these last couple of weeks, as Secret Service director she is responsible for the president's well-being, along with all security operations onsite. In a recent interview with ABC, Cheatle admitted that she was aware of the building where the assassin made his mark on American history. She even said that she was mindful of the potential risk but decided against securing the site due to "safety concerns" with the slope of the roof. This statement has called her competence into question. Clearly, the rooftop wasn't that unsafe if the 20-year-old shooter managed to access it.

Glenn pointed out recently that Cheatle seems to be unqualified for the job. Her previous position was senior director in global security at America's second-favorite soda tycoon, PepsiCo. While guarding soda pop and potato chips sounds like an important job to some, it doesn't seem like a position that would qualify you to protect the life of America's most important and controversial people. Even considering her lack of appropriate experience, this seems like a major oversight that even a layperson would have seen. Can we really chalk this up to incompetence?

Former Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / Contributor | Getty Images

The Secret Service and DHS said they'd be transparent with the investigation...

Shortly after the attempted assassination, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the Secret Service, launched an investigation into the shooting and the security protocols in place at the rally. The DHS promised full transparency during the investigation, but House Republicans don't feel that they've been living up to that promise. Republican members of the House Oversight Committee are frustrated with Director Cheatle after she seemingly dodged a meeting scheduled for Tuesday. This has resulted in calls for Cheatle to step down from her position.

Two FBI agents investigate the assassin's rooftop Jeff Swensen / Stringer | Getty Images

Why is the Secret Service being so elusive? Are they just trying to cover their blunder? We seem to be left with two unsettling options: either the government is even more incompetent than we'd ever believed, or there is more going on here than they want us to know.

Cheatle steps down

Following a horrendous testimony to the House Oversight Committee Director Cheatle finally stepped down from her position ten days after the assassination attempt. Cheatle failed to give any meaningful answer to the barrage of questions she faced from the committee. These questions, coming from both Republicans and Democrats, were often regarding basic information that Cheatle should have had hours after the shooting, yet Cheatle struggled with each and every one. Glenn pointed out that Director Cheatle's resignation should not signal the end of the investigation, the American people deserve to know what happened.

What we DO and DON'T know about Thomas Matthew Crooks

Jim Vondruska / Stringer | Getty Images

It has been over a week since 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks narrowly failed to assassinate President Trump while the president gave a speech at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennslyvania. Despite the ongoing investigations, we still know very little about the would-be assassin, which has left many wondering if the agencies involved are limiting the information that Congress and the public are receiving.

As Glenn has pointed out, there are still major questions about the shooter that are unanswered, and the American people are left at the whim of unreliable federal agencies. Here is everything we know—and everything we don't know—about Thomas Matthew Crooks:

Who was he?

What we know:Thomas Crooks lived in Bethel Parks, Pennsylvania, approximately an hour south of Butler. Crooks went to high school in Bethel Parks, where he would graduate in 2022. Teachers and classmates described him as a loner and as nerdy, but generally nice, friendly, and intelligent. Crooks tried out for the school rifle team but was rejected due to his poor aim, and reports indicate that Crooks was often bullied for his nerdy demeanor and for wearing camo hunting gear to school.

After high school, Crooks began work at Bethel Park Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation Center as a dietary aide. In fact, he was scheduled to work on the day of the rally but requested the day off. He passed a background check to work at the facility and was reportedly an unproblematic employee. Crooks was also a member of a local gun club where he practiced shooting the day before the rally.

It was recently revealed that sometime before his attempted assassination, Crooks posted the following message on Steam, a popular computer application used for playing video games: "July 13 will be my premiere, watch as it unfolds." Aside from this, Crooks posted no warning or manifesto regarding his attack, and little other relevant information is known about him.

What we don't know:It is unclear what Crook's political affiliations or views were, or if he was aligned with any extremist organizations. Crooks was a registered Republican, and his classmates recall him defending conservative ideas and viewpoints in class. On the other hand, the Federal Election Commission has revealed he donated to a progressive PAC on the day Biden was inaugurated. He also reportedly wore a COVID mask to school much longer than was required.

Clearly, we are missing the full picture. Why would a Republican attempt to assassinate the Republican presidential nominee? What is to gain? And why would he donate to a progressive organization as a conservative? This doesn't add up, and so far the federal agencies investigating the attack have yet to reveal anything more.

What were his goals?

What we know: Obviously we know he was trying to assassinate President Trump—and came very close to succeeding, but beyond that, Crooks' goals are unknown. He left no manifesto or any sort of written motive behind, or if he did, the authorities haven't published it yet. We have frustratingly little to go off of.

What we don't know: As stated before, we don't know anything about the movies behind Crooks' heinous actions. We are left with disjointed pieces that make it difficult to paint a cohesive picture of this man. There is also the matter that he left explosives, ammo, and a bulletproof vest in his car. Why? Did he assume he was going to make it back to his car? Or were those supplies meant for an accomplice that never showed up?

The shocking lack of information on Crooks' motives makes it seem likely that we are not being let on to the whole truth.

Did he work alone?

What we know: Reportedly, Crooks was the only gunman on the site, and as of now, no other suspects have been identified. The rifle used during the assassination attempt was purchased and registered by Crooks' father. However, it is unlikely that the father was involved as he reported both his son and rifle missing the night of the assassination attempt. Crooks' former classmates described him as a "loner," which seems to corroborate the narrative that he worked alone.

What we don't know: We know how Crooks acquired his rifle, but what about the rest of his equipment? He reportedly had nearly a hundred extra rounds of ammunition, a bulletproof vest, and several homemade bombs in his car. Could these have been meant for a co-conspirator who didn't show? Did Crooks acquire all of this equipment himself, or did he have help?

There's also the matter of the message Crooks left on the video game platform Steam that served as his only warning of the attack. Who was the message for? Are there people out there who were aware of the attack before it occurred? Why didn't they alert authorities?

We know authorities have access to Crooks' laptop and cellphone that probably contain the answers to these pertinent questions. Why haven't we heard any clarity from the authorities? It seems we are again at the mercy of the federal bureaucracy, which begs one more question: Will we ever know the whole truth?