TruthRevolt Editor-in Chief Ben Shapiro recently interviewed Darlena Cunha, the author of a Time article defending the Ferguson riots, to ask her to explain her reasons for writing the controversial piece and challenge some of her key premises. Shapiro pushed back against Cunha’s argument that the kinds of rioting that occurred in Ferguson have been historically productive, contending that a group rioting because they “perceive” that they are discriminated against is ultimately counterproductive.
Shapiro first gave Cunha a chance to explain why she chose to write an article defending rioting. The author said it was “an attempt to put rioting in an historical context” and “meant to look at the forces behind what causes people to riot.” By looking at the situation in Ferguson from a broader angle, she argued, we would be less inclined to “simply casting rioters out as animals and looters and horrible people—which I’m not saying they’re not—but there’s a bigger problem when people are rioting that we have to systemically attack.”
Shapiro then asked if it’s a systemic problem, why didn't she write an article about that systemic problem “as opposed to defending the rioting itself?” Cunha said that she simply wanted to start the conversation so that people would not need to resort to the type of “violence” she defended in her piece:
Cunha: The reason I went after the rioting specifically is because … you always need a catalyst to get people talking, to start a conversation. And, yes, there’s a lot of hatred being thrown at me, and that’s fine as long as people are talking about it and maybe somebody somewhere is thinking, okay, there are reasons behind these riots. There has historically been many riots in the United States that have led to political or societal change. Maybe we should change society without having people think they need to resort to violence.
Shapiro challenged Cunha on her assertion that riots have caused historical change, particularly the 1992 Rodney King riots, which he pointed out did not actually lead to policy changes. The riots actually put on hold the findings of the Christopher Commission, argued Shapiro, and thus set back systemic changes in the LAPD until the 1997 Rampart Scandal. This led to Cunha arguing against rioting:
Shapiro: The L.A. Riots, if anything, set back the cause of the folks who were challenging the LAPD because there was so much blow-back because of rioting.
Cunha: That is the problem with rioting. Well, there are a lot of problems with riots. The first problem is that innocent people end up being damaged in their businesses or physically. That is a huge problem. The second problem is riots do set back the cause because it polarizes the issue and it allows people from their armchairs, say in Florida where I am, to look at the issue from one standpoint or another, and to separate themselves from the victims of oppression and to say we’re better people than that. So, yes, it does set things back. I’m not saying it’s the best way to go forward, but I am saying that it is the last resort. And when people resort to rioting there is a message there that we need to hear.
When Shapiro asked her to explain why the African-American community felt that they had reached a "last resort" with so much evidence of progress, Cunha argued that racism in America was now more "insidious" than ever:
Shapiro: You say that it’s the last resort. Why are we at the last resort in America at this point? We have a black president, we have a black attorney general. The racism rates in America are at all-time lows. It’s very difficult to make the case that America is more racist now than it was even ten years ago—certainly fifty or sixty years ago…
Cunha: I don’t think it’s difficult to make that case.
Shapiro: Really? Please make the statistical case that American society is more racist.
Cunha: The dialogue of the racism has changed. I don’t think you’re getting racism in terms of segregation, in terms of possibly even equal opportunity. But you are getting racism in the fact that there is still a vast separation in society in social and cultural norms, in how people feel, in what people are allowed to utilize, how they are stereotyped. Modern racism is more insidious because when you think you’ve solved the problem, you don’t look at that problem anymore. So we have these populations of people who are still living what they consider a nightmare. Where they can’t get out of the system or they’re surrounded by poverty and crime and nobody is helping them because everybody thinks we’re not racist anymore and we don’t need to help these populations…
Arguing that “everybody of good heart wants to fight racism”—and those who are not “aren’t part of the rational conversation”—Shapiro asked Cunha to give some of the “specific obstacles”:
Shapiro: What I have a problem with is vague prescriptions, like “There is racism in American society,” which does not actually forward the conversation. It doesn’t help anything. What I want are specific problems that we can actually look at and solve.
Cunha pointed to the issues at hand in Ferguson, which Shapiro welcomed, asking her to explain why Wilson’s non-indictment warranted rioting. As she did consistently, Cunha turned away from specifics toward broader issues:
Shapiro: Please explain why the non-indictment of Darren Wilson was some sort of grave injustice against black folks.
Cunha: The non-indictment of Darren Wilson was a catalyst event that set off the riots, as well as the shooting of Michael Brown back in August, that brought everything to a boil. But the problem is deeper than that. The problem is that you have a population of people who don’t feel protected by the police department—and that’s not to say that they aren’t protected by their police department. It’s to say they don’t feel like they are. They don’t feel safe with the police. They feel like the police are an enemy. That is horrific… You cannot live in a society like that. … there’s a place there where we need to step in and educate the citizens and educate the police department too to openly communicate…
Shapiro pointed out that her argument about the black community’s perceptions was much like Barack Obama's, but that “perceptions are not always justified.” He then asked her again to give him a practical solution or policy change.
When she again only offered the idea of coming together to communicate as a starting point, Shapiro offered his own suggestion:
Shapiro: Wouldn’t a good solution here be to actually demand decent behavior of folks? Michael Brown, by all available evidence, did not act decently. The rioters are not acting decently. This is not a racial issue, this is a decency issue.
Complete interview above. Interview conducted Nov 26, 2014 on The Ben Shapiro Show on AM 770 KTTH.