Elder Statesman

He was a promising young lawyer when he quit to stat a business. It thrived. So he sold it, moved across the country, and became Los Angeles's most controversial talk radio host. When Larry Elder talks about opportunity, people listen.

Nick Gillespie & Steve Kurtz from the April 1996 issue

(Page 4 of 6)

Here's a microcosm of a lot of things that we're talking about: Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton saw the different penalties for crack cocaine and powder cocaine as Exhibit A that the criminal justice system is racist. I'm not saying I accept the different penalties. Unlike Jackson or Sharpton, I think the drug war is bogus. Philosophically, I think that if somebody wants to sit around and get stoned that's up to him or her. And if that ruins your life, so be it. Any government intrusion ought to be viewed with great skepticism and this is another example of that.

On a practical level, add up all the costs of the drug war: all the people robbing and maiming and shooting and stealing in order to get money to support their drug habit, lost work when your car gets stolen by somebody who wanted it because he or she wanted to sell it for drugs, police protection, border patrol. William F. Buckley estimates that the drug war is costing the American taxpayers $205 billion a year. Our prisons are full of people for drug trafficking, many of whom never committed a violent crime.

So I'm for drug legalization. But if you are running a war on drugs, don't tell me that different treatment for crack and powder has to stem from racism. The fact is that many people believe that the crack trade is a violent trade. It certainly can be proved that in the mid-'80s, when crack became a drug of choice of the inner city, murders went up.

Reason: So how do you get out of a cycle where all discussion is focused on race, whether or not it's relevant?

Elder: To straighten out race relations, whites have to stop condescending to blacks. They have to tell blacks frankly and candidly why they are scared: "We're scared because 45 percent of those arrested for violent crime in this country are black. I'm scared because I've been mugged by a black person. I'm scared because my purse has been taken by a black person. I'm sorry, but when I go into the inner city and interact and go to Raiders games, I've had some negative experiences. That is why I am afraid." That's not irrational, that's dialogue. But whites don't do that. They either deny it or don't want to talk about it or they say something very condescending: "It's horrible that I feel this way, it's terrible, but I don't know, I'm fighting the feeling." It's a horrible, horrible condescension that comes from whites that prevents blacks from confronting the truth.

Here's what I mean about condescension. A third of all blacks believe that AIDS is a plot against them. Why aren't scientists--white and black--writing op-eds to the Los Angeles Times saying this is bullshit? Why are white people rolling over and playing dead when blacks make assertions that are just totally unfounded and offensive? To me, it gives it an aura of legitimacy. And I submit to you that at kitchen tables across America, black kids are listening to mommy and daddy talk about these kinds of things as if they are plausible and you leave the table with an attitude that you can't do anything anyway.

Reason: Wasn't there a time when the system was rigged?

Elder: Yeah. It's not anymore. And that's a problem when I make the argument that I just now made to you. I frequently get a phone call from people who say things like, "Well, what about Emmett Till?" or "My great-grandfather tried to vote one time and they told him not to vote." Well, fine. You can regale me with a lot of stories, but we're talking about 1995.

Reason: You've written that America owes a debt to blacks and that 30 years of affirmative action hardly makes up for slavery and Jim Crow. But you're against affirmative action. What pays off the debt?

Elder: America owes a debt to black people: When blacks were freed they should have been compensated, but they weren't. There's nothing that can be done about that now.

I think what America has done in paying on this debt is affirmative action. And frankly, that's 30 years of failing to hold blacks to the same standards of behavior as they would expect their own sons and daughters to adhere to. What America owes black people is a statement that we are going to evaluate you based on your talents. America owes the commitment not to discriminate. All a state can be is just in its own time, and America must attempt to be just in its time.

Reason: By your own admission, you've benefited from affirmative action and it didn't turn you into a self-hating individual. So what's wrong with it?

Elder: I think there was a statement to be made: The welcome mat is here. A lot of institutions historically discriminated against blacks and for a certain period of time, to demonstrate our sincerity and our commitment, it was appropriate to vary standards to achieve some degree of diversity.

Reason: Did you benefit from having lower standards?

Elder: I think it is likely that my résumé would've looked different if I was subject to the same standards as everybody else. Having said that, I did very well on my SATs.

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