A Reasonable Latino Responds to Phil Vischer on Race

Responding to Phil Vischer’s Race Presentation

Hi, I'm A .D. Robles, and if you're new to the channel, please consider subscribing to it, and if you are subscribed, make sure you hit the little notifications bell so you're alerted every time I upload a new video.

I wanted to respond to this Phil Vischer viral video about race briefly today, and if you enjoy this content, we could do a deeper dive as well. Just let me know that you wanna do it, and we'll see how the response is to this video, and I'll make a decision on whether or not to do that.

But before I begin, I just wanted to let you know I don't have any feelings towards Phil Vischer. I don't even really know who he is. I know he created the VeggieTales show. I never saw it. I never watched it as a kid, and I don't get it.

The only memory I have of VeggieTales is I used to mock my brother because him and his girlfriend used to watch VeggieTales all the time, and they were way too old for it. I mean, they were in high school, and they were watching VeggieTales, and I used to mock them mercilessly.

Now, my brother, he was probably doing it just for the girl. The girl was inappropriately into VeggieTales, so I don't know what was going on there. I've never seen an episode. I remember watching one clip of it about a hamburger song or something like that.

I don't know. I don't get it. But this presentation is interesting. Now, looking at his YouTube channel, he kind of strikes me as kind of a progressive type of a Christian. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's how his content strikes me.

But this presentation is something you need to be prepared for. This is standard social justice warrior fare. In fact, I wasn't even gonna respond to this video, but I saw how much traction it was getting, and I figured it'd probably be a good idea to put something out there for it.

Biblical Commands, Covetousness, and Wealth Disparity

And so what I'm trying to do today is I'm trying to give you some context or how to deal with a video like this, how we should think about a video like this. And I wanna bring some scripture to bear on this video, because the reality is that I've made this argument on my YouTube channel many times.

The responses to social justice in the Christian church, they're very basic. They're very basic, and they're very easy to understand. God gives us lots of commands, and if we just applied them in a very straightforward kind of way, it would upend a lot of this social justice nonsense that we see in the church.

I'll never forget that I had a friend, a close friend who has since disowned me because of my social justice content. He's a white guy. He's like a B, C-lister, and big Eva. He, before I was a YouTuber, I would make Facebook posts about social justice, and he would respond to them and push back, and he would give me all the same stuff that this guy's giving you.

Oh, what about redlining? What about Jim Crow? What about the wealth disparity and stuff like that? And the idea was that if I just knew about this stuff, obviously I was ignorant. If I just knew about this stuff, then I would agree with him.

And then he called me white privileged on a couple occasions, and the reality is I'm not white, and I do know about this stuff. And even if I didn't, this idea that you're ignorant if you don't agree is just so condescending and ridiculous.

But a little bit about me, if you don't know, I'm Puerto Rican. And if you know anything about Puerto Rico, then you know that most of us have at least some African blood in us. And in my case, about 20 African, specifically from the Nigeria area.

And what that means is that my ancestors were brought over in the slave trade. I mean, there's almost no doubt. I don't have my family trade stout, but if you know about our history and you see the DNA, that's the situation.

I've got slave ancestors. And I think that I've got some context to provide to this video from Phil Fisher. So let's jump into it. And if you do like this content, please share it, please subscribe, and let me know so we can do a deeper dive at a later time of the actual facts that he brings to the table here.

Anyway, let's jump right in.

We need to talk about race.

We definitely don't need to talk about race, but we will.

Why are people protesting? Why are people angry? Slavery ended 150 years ago. The civil rights movement was 60 years ago. Racial discrimination is illegal now. Heck, we even had a black president. So why are people still upset?

Watch a video like this,.

You need to hear how they frame it because it gives you an idea, a window into what his goals are. Phil Fisher's goal in this video is to explain to you why blacks are so angry, why they're protesting, why are they so upset?

And he frames it, he knows about this a little bit because he's like, well, the responses typically are, well, slavery ended a long time ago, civil rights happened a long time ago, the laws have changed, discrimination's illegal, we even elected a black president, so what's the big deal?

And what he wants to do is he wants to justify and explain the anger of black people. And the reality is, and this is something we need to get out of the way right away, is that not every black person is upset.

Not every descendant of slaves is upset. There's only a portion of people that are upset. And that might sound like an obvious, kind of like, duh, AD, obviously, but we need to really kind of internalize that because the presentation here is that he's gonna give you all of this stuff that apparently justifies the anger of blacks and people who had slave ancestors or whatever.

And the reality is that it doesn't make everyone angry. People look at the world in different ways. There are some blacks and Latinos and all other races that aren't angry. I'm not, they're not protesting.

I'm not, they're not upset, I'm not. And I had slave ancestors and I was never, my family, my dad, when he raised me, I knew about racism, I've experienced racism. My father has experienced racism in the church.

So I know it's there, I know it exists. I know people are jacked up, I get that, I get that. But somehow I didn't grow up angry and somehow I've grown up and I've been relatively successful and I'm trying to improve upon my situation and stuff like that.

And there are plenty of black people that aren't upset. And so we need to account for that somehow. We need to account for that because the reality is he's gonna try to justify black people's anger but we need to identify and we need to account for the fact that not every black person is angry.

And that's an important fact to identify. Let's see how he's planning on doing this. We're gonna go through history and we're gonna look at some data and we're gonna go quickly so this video doesn't get too long.

So hang on. So he's gonna do what every social justice presentation does, look at history to show you why what's going on today is okay or justified or whatever. That's the point. And so let's, we're not gonna go into every point.

We will, if you like this content, we will. And I've actually got a couple people that I'm talking to that have more of a historical mind and the methodologies to respond to some of this.

These are two households in America. One is black, the other is white. Today, the average black household has 60 of the income of the average white household, but only one 10th of the household wealth.

Why does that matter? Well, household wealth helps send kids to school, helps launch small businesses, stabilizes loss of income and helps families survive catastrophic events like divorce or unemployment.

What's amazing about this number is that there are lots of extremely wealthy African-Americans, movie stars, pop stars, 75 of the NBA, 70 of the NFL, Oprah, Tyler Perry, Ben Carson, Morgan Freeman.

And there are a lot of extremely poor white families. Think of Appalachia and other parts of rural America. But even when we factor all that in, the average black household still has only one 10th the wealth of the average white household.

How did that happen?

This is the point of this video, right? So again, he's trying to justify and explain to you why people are so angry, they're so pissed off, they're protesting in the streets. And his big thing is this disparity.

It's an income disparity and a wealth disparity. The income disparity is not as bad. It's a 60%, a 40 disparity, right? But the wealth disparity is pretty intense. Black families have one 10th of the wealth of white families.

And that is why blacks are so angry in his opinion, right? And so I'm trying to think of, I'm just gonna say it, I'm just gonna say it. If you're white and you're going along with what Phil Vischer is saying here and trying to explain and justify the anger of a portion of black people, cause we wanna be careful here.

Not every black person is feeling the same way here. And your go-to is a wealth disparity or an income disparity or something like that. You are not doing your black brother and sister any favors because God's, it's one of the 10 commandments, ready?

One of the 10 commandments, you shall not covet. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his donkey or his ox or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

What's amazing about this command is that so many of the commands of God focus on externals. This one is about the internal. You shall not covet your neighbor's stuff. You shall not be angry. You shall not be frustrated and pissed off because your neighbor has something that you don't have, whether it's your neighbor's wife or their house or their money or anything.

It's just all encompassing. And God says, anything that your neighbor has, you shall not covet. So before you hear another word out of Phil Visser's mouth, what we need to realize is this doesn't justify anger.

It doesn't matter what else you have to say. The fact that your neighbor has more stuff than you doesn't justify your anger unless he stole it from you. And that's the reality. So like if you're angry because someone steals your laptop, well, I would say that's pretty justified, right?

That's pretty justified. But here's the reality, like this disparity here, God's commands, God says again and again and again in his law that he is not partial. He doesn't show partiality, therefore you shouldn't show partiality.

And so it doesn't matter if you have nothing or if you have a lot. It doesn't matter if all you have as far as a shelter is a blanket or if you have a mansion, you still are not allowed to covet, okay?

God doesn't give the same to every person. We need to realize that God's hand is in this wealth and income disparity. Do you understand what I'm saying? Like you need to recognize that God has done this.

God is in control of how much stuff you get. We see this in the parable of the talents. He doesn't give everyone the same. He gives one guy one talent, one guy 10 talents, all this kind of stuff, and yet he is still expecting a return based on what he did give you.

Of course, if you've been given much, much is required. If you've been given less, then less is required, but you still need to get a return on what God has given you. God's commands aren't partial. It doesn't matter if you're poor or rich.

God tells you, you shall not covet your neighbor's stuff. So the fact that there's a wealth or income disparity, doesn't matter how it's explained, because he's about to try to explain why this happened.

He's gonna say, there was all these laws. People couldn't get mortgages. People were put in jail because they weren't working, and then all the jobs were moved so that they were put in jail. Okay, okay, fine, but if that leads to a wealth disparity, you still are not allowed to covet your neighbor's stuff.

You understand what I'm saying? We can lament the injustices of the past and still accept our station for what it is and not covet our neighbor's stuff. That's just, not only can we do that, we're actually required to do that.

And so I would recommend, you know, for a Christian, you know, what we need to do is take a look at the book of Proverbs, because the book of Proverbs shows you the difference between someone who has their act together and someone who doesn't.

And it doesn't matter if you're poor or rich. Like, it explains the things you need to do to get your act together, whether you're poor or rich, versus the thing that an unwise person does, the fool and the wise person.

And there's different things you can do. I'll never forget this Facebook post. Joel McDermott, back when he was with American Vision, he posted an article of a black man who had never made more than minimum wage, had like three kids or something like that, retired a millionaire, retired a millionaire.

How did this happen, right? How did this happen? A man who has never made more than minimum wage, he had kids, all the stuff that says that puts you behind the eight ball, makes you incapable of making any wealth or making any money, how is it that he became a millionaire?

Well, he did it by applying biblical wisdom. He was thinking about his children's children. I wanna leave an inheritance to my children's children. He was probably very frugal. He had to do things that maybe rich people didn't have to do, but he did it.

He took care of it. He took care of business. It's just that simple. And so, we need to recognize that whether you're rich or poor, it doesn't matter. The commands of God still apply to you. You're not allowed to covet your neighbor's stuff, even if he has more than you, even if you have a 10th of what he has, even if his community has 90 more or 100 more than what you have or whatever it is.

It doesn't matter. You're not allowed to covet, okay? And so, one of the things that I beg you, if you're a social justice-minded Christian, from a Latino, listen to this. This is someone who's got slave ancestry, right?

Don't treat us with kid gloves. The commands of God are required for us too, whether or not we have a lot of stuff. And you don't do us any favors by trying to justify inappropriate, and I would say sinful anger, about the stuff you don't have.

When you try to justify that with all this history and stuff like that, you actually put us in peril. You put us in harm's way. You put us in a situation where we don't feel like we have to repent of the sin that we're committing in our hearts.

It is a sin to covet white people's stuff. You understand what I'm saying? It's not a sin to wanna make more of yourself. It's not a sin to wanna make more money. It's not a sin to wanna provide a good life for your family.

It is a sin to covet your neighbor's stuff. And that's the reality. And so, when you watch the rest of this video, which we're not gonna go into the whole thing here. Like I said, the rest of it, he's gonna try to justify, essentially, what is a sin in the hearts of people who are angry about this disparity.

Now, let's show you an example of how he's gonna justify, and then I'm gonna give you some more pointers.

History, Injustice, and the New Jim Crow

Well, here we go. What happened after we freed the slaves, after the Civil War ended? Nine states enacted vagrancy laws, making it a crime to not have a job. The law was applied only to black men. Eight of those states then allowed prisoners, the black men who'd just been arrested for not having a job, to be hired out to plantation owners with little or no pay going to the prisoners themselves.

So, that's right. Men who had been freed from the plantations found themselves right back on the plantations. Additional laws prohibited mischief and insulting gestures, which allowed more black men to be arrested and created a huge market for convict leasing.

We're gonna go through the history of all the bad laws that existed, all of the partial laws, all of the unjust laws that existed in order to keep black people down. Here's my suggestion to you. I've got two suggestions that I think will help you understand this.

By the way, all of this comes from the New Jim Crow, the book, The New Jim Crow. So, if you wanna know more about this, read the book, The New Jim Crow. This is one of the woke church's canon, if you will.

It's actually not a bad book. Anyway, one piece of advice, just accept everything that he says. I'm not saying that it's all true. I'm not saying that he gives you the whole story. What I'm saying though is for the purposes of how to respond to a video like this, I think it's helpful to just accept everything as if it's gospel truth and see if it actually does the work he wants it to do.

Because remember, he's trying to justify people being angry about a wealth disparity. And so I just say, this might be a lazy way out, but I think anyone can do this. Just accept it all. Just accept it all and see if it's biblically okay to now be upset about this disparity that you have.

That's a suggestion for you. The second thing that I wanna suggest is that what's just as helpful as hearing his presentation on some of the laws that we had, because we don't wanna deny the unjust nature of a vagrancy law.

There is no such law in the scripture that's unjust to make it illegal to not have a job, obviously. And so we don't wanna deny that that's unjust. But keep in mind here, he's gonna leave a lot of stuff out.

He's gonna leave a lot of stuff out. He's gonna leave stuff out that are critical to understanding what has happened in the black community, why there's this disparity that is so intense, right? And again, the disparity itself isn't a problem.

It's the why, of course. And so we wanna know where people stolen from, where people, you know, this and that. Can we make restitution and all that kind of stuff? Because that's what a Christian should be focused on, biblical restitution.

He leaves a lot of stuff out. And I would recommend looking into the economist, Thomas Sowell. Thomas Sowell has researched this stuff pretty extensively. And he is very keen on the kinds of things that presentations like this leave out.

One of the big ones is the welfare state. We should eliminate the welfare state immediately, not only because it hurts the black community, but because it is unbiblical. It is unjust to support the welfare state.

He won't talk about that kind of stuff in any serious depth, but that's a critical piece. Thomas Sowell, check out his stuff. It's very helpful for stuff like this. So again, I don't think there's any need to really reject his points here.

The question is, does it justify anger? Does it justify you coveting your neighbor's stuff, wanting to have as much as your neighbor has, wanting to have as quality as your neighbor has? It doesn't, it doesn't.

I mean, the way of a Christian, it's different than the way you're naturally inclined to react. You know, when you see someone that has more stuff than you do, or a better life than you do, or more advantages or more privileges than you do, the natural man is always gonna feel like it's unfair.

It's always gonna feel like you deserve something that you don't have. And you're gonna start to resent the other side, and you're gonna start to maybe scheme to see how can I get some of that stuff that's theirs?

How can I get some of that stuff? And oftentimes you do it in unjust and devious kinds of ways. That's how the natural man reacts. We're very given over to grumbling, right? The lack of contentment is rampant.

Many people struggle against that. And yet in the Bible, we have example after example after example about how to deal with unjust circumstances. The best one that I always think of is Joseph, right? Joseph was beaten up by his brothers who were jealous of him.

They coveted what he had. And he was beaten up, sold into slavery, left for dead, that kind of thing. And you know, when he meets his brothers again, he had been through a lot. He'd been in jail, he had been unjustly treated, he had been a slave, all this stuff.

And it all ended up working out because God was working through Joseph. And what does Joseph say to his brothers? His brothers are scared when they find out that it's him. They think he's gonna get revenge because that's what the natural man wants to do.

And Joseph says to them, look, I know you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. And so as a Christian, I look at my past, my ancestors were enslaved and stuff like that. And I don't think that that in and of itself was good.

I know people meant that kind of thing for evil, but I thank God for that kind of thing because God meant it for good. You see, God's hand is in all of this. God's hand is in the disparities in income and wealth that we see in our country today.

And as my role as a Christian being in the group that is on the shorter end of the stick of that disparity is to be grateful for God for what I do have and to be faithful to God with what I do have, even if it's one 10th of what the typical white family has.

You see, that's the thing. We don't need to be treated differently than any other person. We are not allowed to covet. That's what the message of the Bible is for minorities or people that are on the short end of the disparity stick.

And the reality is a presentation like this where it tries to justify anger over not having as much stuff as somebody else, that is not doing us any favor. Look, what I just said is not gonna win you any friends, but this is the way of a Christian.

This is the way that the scripture commands us to behave. And I think you would see it. I think you would see it if I came to you and I said, look, that man over there, that individual over there has more than me, and I'm angry, and I'm gonna protest about that, and I deserve some of that.

You would see it if something like that happened. But all of a sudden when it becomes a group, when it becomes a community, the white community, what is a community except a group of people? It's the same exact thing, except you're trying to make it different because it's community and stuff like that.

That's a problem. That's a problem. Guys, you're not doing us any favors if you try to justify us and affirm us in inappropriate covetousness. I'm just going to call it what it is. It is covetousness.

Everyone in the Christian community, black people and Latinos and people with slave ancestors included, have to work on being content. Philippians 4, 11. Now that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I have.

I know how to get along with humble means. I know how to live in prosperity. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both having abundance and suffering need.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. I mean, that is a verse we all know. And there are so many verses like this that talk about being content with what God has given you because all the things that you do have, all the good gifts that you do have come from God.

And he has chosen to give some of us a lot and some of us a little bit. And regardless of what we have, we need to be content with our station. Now, what I want to do is, the next thing that we have to talk about, we absolutely have to talk about solutions here because we can't just go, okay, so let's just say that there were some injustices in the past because I think we all agree that there were some injustices in the past.

Some of these laws that he brings up in this video, like I said, we didn't go over all of them, but they were actually unjust. Like if you look at the scripture, you know that they're unjust and we need to get to the solutions because what we don't want to do, what we have to avoid as Christians is to perpetuate injustices, right?

Like we can't fix an injustice with more injustices. So we have to look at the scripture and you would think that a Christian who's gonna post on this kind of thing would have biblical solutions because the solutions in the Bible for how to fix some of this stuff are very clear.

They're very simple to understand and they're easy. So let's see what he has to say.

Solutions, Justice, and the Christian Response

And sold grenade launchers to the police. As a result, a white boy born in America today has a one in 23 chance of going to prison in his lifetime. For a black boy, it's one in four. And that is why people are angry.

Many people care deeply about these issues. Many have suggested solutions. Some of those have been tested with results ranging from moderate success to abject failure. I'm not here to tell you what the right solutions are because I don't know.

I'm just... This is so typical of a Christian social justice presentation. They tell you what all the problems supposedly are and then they leave you there. And they just kind of shrug their shoulders and they're like, well, I'm not here to talk about solutions.

In fact, there are some Christians that say, let's not talk about the solutions. That's not for us to decide. And it's like, who would ever... Why would you do this? This is so irresponsible. And I would say it's also sinful because in the great commission as Christians, when we're spreading the kingdom of God, right?

Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And what does it say after that? Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded. What kind of a gospel presentation would it be if you said, okay, here are all the problems.

You're dead in your sins and all of this kind of stuff. And then you left it there. There were no solutions. Like as Christians, we need to make sure that we're putting on the full armor of God. My son loves talking about putting on the full armor of God, right?

And what is our weapon, right? What is our weapon? My son knows this. It's the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. We have a very powerful weapon, a double-edged sword. It can chop anything in its path, right?

And we're over here like, huh? It's like, what is that, right? Like why would we not bring the scripture to bear on this? You see, the reality is all of the stuff he said in the beginning of this video, where he talks about these unjust laws, vagrancy laws, all this kind of thing, you know, drug, the drug war, all this stuff.

I know that that's unjust, but the only reason that I know that that's unjust is not because it affected the black community, because that would be the very essence of partiality. I know it's unjust because it goes against what the scripture says to do.

And so if I know that that's unjust because it goes against what the scripture says to do, then I better know what the scripture says to do to fix that stuff, right? That's the reality. Like anyone who presents this kind of stuff and they're like, I don't have solutions, I'm sorry, but at that point, you need to step away from the conversation and let the adults talk.

Because here's the truth. People like this, and I don't know if he's a progressive Christian, but it certainly seems like he is. They want to throw you to the wolves when it comes to the solutions. Often, when you do get solutions from people like this, it always parrots and directly imitates what the world's solutions are.

Reparations, further welfare state, affirmative action, and all of this kind of stuff actually upends the law of God. Affirmative action is not in line with the scripture. You can't fix unconscious bias with conscious bias.

It doesn't work that way. That's trying to sin your way out of sin. Welfare and reparations and stuff like that. Again, if you want to give your money to black people because you think you stole from them, then go ahead, but don't make others pay for it.

Don't make your children pay for it because that's really what we're talking about when we talk about reparations and welfare state. We don't have any money. We're in debt up to our eyeballs. And so who's going to pay for that?

Well, your kids are going to pay for that. And if you make people's kids pay for a crime they did not commit, that too overturns the law of God. You're trying to sin your way out of sin. And that's a big problem for me.

And so let's not go to war talking about race in America without our sword. That would be stupid to do that. Let's bring our sword and have a Bible study. And the Bible study will reveal to us what do we do about wealth disparities, if anything?

What do we do about unjust laws, if anything? And that's the reality. Like we can't fix an injustice with further injustice that will not work, number one. So pragmatically we can't do it, but also it dishonors the Lord and lies about who God is, which we dare not do.

So I hate this kind of thing. I really do. When you say, well, here's all the issues. I don't know the solution. What are you looking at me for? It's like, no, we have the solutions in that word. Let's let him finish.

And then we'll go, we'll continue from there. Just here to ask you to do one thing. It is the thing that begins every journey to a solution for every problem. What am I asking you to do? Care.

Well, it's a nice Bible verse, but if we're gonna be able to do it, we need to learn what is doing right. What is seeking justice? What is, who are the oppressed? What is the cause of the fatherless? Let's plead the case of the widow.

And if you don't have the solutions, who does? You can look into a camera for 15 seconds in uncomfortable silence, blinking at me and breathing heavily all you want, but we have the solutions. Why aren't you providing them?

Anyway, let me know if you want me to do more in-depth analysis of some of the things he brought up. I hope you found this video helpful. God bless.