Woodson Center founder and president Bob Woodson criticized the concept of slavery reparations, calling it “fools gold” that will do nothing to help the black community in the long run.
During a Friday night appearance on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Woodson bolstered his point by bringing up an uncomfortable fact about once-rich NFL players, that the vast majority are broke within three years after ending their football careers.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson began the segment by pointing to several Democratic presidential candidates this Spring falling over themselves to pander to Al Sharpton at his National Action Network (NAN) conference.
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“I think it’s fools gold,” Woodson told Carlson when asked about the concept of slavery reparations. “It demeans both whites and blacks. To black America, you can monetize oppression. Also, what it does … the message to black America is somehow your destiny is determined by what white people do, what white people give you and not what you are able to do for yourself.”
Woodson noted that the concept is “bandied around by people with six figure incomes” who live “in gated communities with their children in private schools” rather than black people in the inner cities suffering from violence.
“[S]o I just think that it is virtue signaling for white candidates, and for some white guilty people it’s an easy fix, but it’s very crippling to the nation,” he said.
“So, hypothetically, if we were to get it tomorrow, some reparation scheme, do you think that there would be fewer shootings in St. Louis or Chicago?” Tucker said, drawing laughter. “Or Baltimore?” (RELATED: ‘Blame Whitey Movement’ — Former ACLU Exec Slams Reparations ‘Buffonery’)
Woodson used the NFL as an example of how money itself isn’t always the answer:
No, I don’t think so. The very fact that the NFL, where the average salary is like $2 or $3 million, five years after they retire 70% of them are bankrupt … So, I’m not so sure. If it doesn’t work for rich people, what’s it going to do for poor people?
“It is pandering,” he concluded. “It is insulting to black America, and as I have said, I have suffered my last rich angry black and my last guilty white person. That’s it.”
“I don’t think I have heard it as powerfully expressed as you just did, Mr. Woodson,” Carlson said.