JD Vance to Rogan: Liberals Should Learn from ‘Boyz n the Hood,’ Math Isn’t ‘Racist’

Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) told Joe Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience Thursday that liberals should learn from the classic John Singleton 1991 film Boyz n the Hood that math is not “racist.”

Vance, who taped the episode with Rogan on Wednesday, noted that he had re-watched the film recently, and recalled watching it often when he was growing up — in his own version of poverty, in a white working-class neighborhood.

Vance said that he related to Singleton’s coming-of-age story — and especially to the idea that “math isn’t racist.”

That line is delivered by Laurence Fishburne, who plays Jason “Furious” Styles, a father and mortgage broker who is determined to keep his son from following a path into violence and death on the streets of South Central Los Angeles.

Vance said that Styles was an inspiration to him, since he himself was growing up without a father. He also related to Styles’s effort to stop large financial institutions from buying up all of the real estate in the neighborhood, which spoke to him as a resident in a small town dominated by far larger economic forces.

At one point in the film, in a discussion of college aptitude tests, Styles observes that “most of those tests are culturally biased to begin with.”

But he adds: “The only part that’s universal is the math.”

“The philosophy of this movie is what you might call old-school black leftism,” Vance told Rogan. “This movie … is saying something that I wish a lot of white liberals would hear today, which is, actually, math is not racist!”

The subtle message is that math, rather than a force holding black children back, is a path to achievement, precisely because it is unbiased.

Some liberal states and public school districts have adopted an “equity” approach to mathematics that discourages high achievement, seeking to pare back advanced classes or programs for gifted students.

Former president Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, appeared on Rogan’s show last week. Vice President Kamala Harris was invited but declined to appear, citing scheduling conflicts.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.