Beaten Black and Blue And The American Way – With Brandon Tatum: Should police be bashed to the point they’re afraid to do their job? What is a key to safer communities? What does the future of policing look like and how will it affect you? Should we teach American values in America? Tune in to hear this enlightening interview with Brandon Tatum to understand how the Marxist movement is affecting law enforcement and what the solutions are to the disastrous agenda!

Air Date: 10/05/2021

Guest: Brandon Tatum

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. It’s WallBuilders Live. We are talking about the hot topics of the day from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective. If you’re curious what WallBuilders means, that comes from the scripture of Nehemiah that says arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach.

30 years ago, David Barton started WallBuilders with that very purpose in mind, to rebuild the foundations of America, to bring back the truths upon which our nation was built, to teach the Constitution and the Declaration and a biblical worldview. And it’s had a huge, huge impact on our nation.

 I meet congressmen and legislators and teachers and people all over the nation that say, David Barton’s book “Original Intent” or seeing David Barton on America’s Godly Heritage or seeing David Barton on some television interview, that’s what got me interested. That’s what made me want to be a biblical citizen.

So that’s what WallBuilders is all about; for 30 years, we’ve been doing that. You can be a part of the solution. If you go to wallbuilderslive.com today, that’s our radio site, that’s where not only you can get these programs and share them with your friends and family, which is very important, that makes you a force multiplier. You need to get this truth in as many hands as possible. So make sure you are sharing the program.

But in addition, that’s the place where you can make a contribution. You can come alongside us. We are a listener-supported program. And when you make your contributions, it helps not only the radio program reach more people, helps us to train more pastors, more legislators, young leaders, you name it, all the different things we’re doing at WallBuilders to educate a nation on these truths, you can be a part of it by making a donation today at wallbuilderslive.com.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. And that same David Barton I was talking about, he is America’s premier historian, normally here with us on the program, he and Tim Barton are everyday normally, I should say everyday, because sometimes they’re traveling and sometimes we have special guests that we do the whole program, and sometimes we actually just play a presentation of David or Tim Barton. But Tim, by the way, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders.

Brandon Tatum

Anyway, David, and Tim will not be with us today, we’ve got a special guest today and they are on the road sharing and speaking and just spreading the truth. So, thank you to everybody out there that helps make that possible. Whether you’ve booked David or Tim to speak across the country, or you’ve made the contributions that make it possible for us to put this information out there, I just want to take a moment to say thank you.

Because not everybody is willing to get engaged and be a part of the solution; not everybody recognizes the need to give of our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor, all three, that means our lives our time, being engaged in the process, taking the time to share this program with your friends and family or repost it on social media. Fortunes, actually being willing to invest part of our own income into freedom. And that means giving to candidates, that means giving to nonprofit organizations and foundations and groups like WallBuilders. It means investing in freedom. It means thinking about not just our freedom, but the freedom of the next generation. And that requires an investment.

And so thank you to all of you that have been willing to do that in one way, shape, or form, whatever. However you’ve done it, thank you for being a part of the solution. We at WallBuilders greatly appreciate it as do those in the next generation that will get to be a part of that as well.

Alright, last kind of commercial I want to mention is that we are expanding dramatically right now with our Constitution courses. David and Tim and I did this new one called Biblical Citizenship in Modern America. We’ve had Constitution Alive and some of our other programs out for four years. But this new one Biblical Citizenship, we just launched in January, and it has absolutely exploded: 50,000 people have been through it so far this year. We hope to have 100,000 by the end of the year. You can be a part of that. You can be the catalyst for a restoration of biblical values and constitutional principles right there in your neighborhood right there in your community.

BiblicalCitizens.com

Our goal, our aim is a Constitution coach in every community across the country. And you can be the one in your community. It’s free. We give this program away for free. We train you as a coach for free. You can host your class for free. I mean all of it. It’s all available right now at our website biblicalcitizens.com, biblicalcitizens.com. Get signed up today. Get this class going in your church or in your living room.

If you’d like to get the actual DVDs and physical workbooks, instead of just doing the online version, and the streaming that we make available for free, you can get the DVDs in the workbook right now at wallbuilders.com. So that’s available to you at wallbuilders.com along with a lot of other great information, materials, articles. So dive in, folks, there’s something every single one of us can do to be a part of the solution. We’re challenging you to do exactly that at biblicalcitizens.com today.

We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, Brandon Tatum is with us. So excited to have Brandon, I’ve been watching him on PragerU’s and on Candace Owens program and other interviews for several years now and I’ve been wanting to interview him for quite a while. So, really excited to have Brandon with us. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

PATRIOT ACADEMY

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Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. I am so excited about this interview, Brandon Tatum is with us. You got to watch is PragerU by the way. We’re going to have a link to that at our website today. And also, author of the new book “Beaten Black and Blue”, Brandon Tatum, founder of the Tatum Report. Tatumreport.com is where you go to find it. Brandon, thanks for coming on WallBuilders Live today, man.

Brandon:

And thank you guys for having me on.

Beaten Black and Blue

Rick:

Absolutely, our pleasure. Just appreciate your voice out there. I love watching you on Candace and everywhere I can catch you, and following you on Twitter and other places where I can find you. Just really important what you’re saying out there and the voice that you’ve had and of course we’d love PragerU anyway, I required of all my Patriot Academy students. One PragerU a day keeps the leftist away, is the way I see it. Anyway, tell us about the new book. Is it out yet? Can we get it yet?

Brandon:

Well, the book is available now for preorder, you get the signed copy or the non-signed copy at beatenblackandblue.com. It will be available officially, the release date is November the 30th.

Rick:

Alright. Alright. And I want to ask you first, I mean, you’re a former police officer there in Arizona, Tucson. Was it Tucson or Phoenix?

Brandon:

I’m former police officer in Tucson.

Rick:

Tucson. Okay. Last summer, when all the anti-police, defund the police stuff started, I mean, how did you respond to that? What was your take on that? And do you think we’re past that? Or is that still being pushed across the country?

Enforcing Damaging Principles

Brandon:

Well, first, I was very upset about it and I thought it was legitimate, they demonized probably the bravest people in the United States of America. By and large, most people are doing their job and protecting and serving on a day to day basis. I thought it was disgusting. And I know that it’s not real. It’s just push because there’s a political agenda which comes around every election season. So I think that it died down a little bit. The rhetoric to a certain degree has died down a little bit.

Police Departments all over the country are enforcing damaging principles and things and defending their police department, and they’re doing some things that are damaging, but the rhetoric is slow down. However, in 2022 election cycle, and when 2024 comes around, just know that it’s going to ramp up again. But I’m very disgusted by what I see in the way people are portraying police officer.

Rick:

You point out in your Epic Times article earlier this summer how much crime is increased in so many of these areas where they did slash police budgets. I mean, it’s significant you point out in Philadelphia 40%, this is the murder rate; New York City, 22%; LA, 27%; Minneapolis, 56%; and then you point out in Portland a staggering 800%. Do you think that’s a direct result of the defund the police movement?

Brandon:

Yes, I think it’s a direct result. When police officers are not out, little confident and able to proactive police, criminals are going to run rampant. And if they understand the criminals, if they understand that the city didn’t have the back of the police officers, and there’s going to be police officers that are going to be afraid to just do their job. If you have those things occurring, people, they’re going to act up, and it’s a simple mathematical equation.

Defund Police = Rising Crime

All you got to do is look at the fact that they’ve been bashing police negative rhetoric, defunding police departments and the crime rate is going up. But there’s no other explanation besides what they’ve been saying about police. So if they want to make sure that crime goes down, and communities are safer, then they need to change their rhetoric.

Rick:

Yeah, and it seems like I mean, I remember reading massive exodus basically, I mean, a lot of police officers around the country said enough is enough. If the leadership in the community is not going to back us, and we’re going to be constantly put into a situation where we’re literally not even able to defend our lives and other people’s lives, and then our livelihood is put on the chopping block, all these things. I mean, it was a mass exodus from Minneapolis. And as you talk to former police officers or police officers across the country that are considering that, how concerned are you about recruiting for police forces across the country and people’s desire to even go into the field anymore?

Brandon:

Yeah, it’s going to be a struggle. I mean, you got multiple things going on here, the negative rhetoric against police, actual defunding of police, prosecuting police officers that are actually doing their job, illegally arresting people and using force against individuals. And then now you have them trying to mandate vaccines on police departments, and some police officers do not want to get vaccinated. But they managed found another way to demonize police and separate them or discriminate against them. And it’s not going to be easy to recruit. I mean, recruiting police officers in general is very difficult thing to do because most people don’t want to die, or put their lives at risk for other people they don’t know.

And in many cases, it’s a calling on your life, to be a police officer. It’s not just a job. So when you have a career field that’s dispersed as being a police officer, and then you add all these other components in, it’s like most people, they’re not going to want to go down that path. What’s the point? It’s not a desirable career. And in many cases, what was going on in the economy and some of these police departments, they’re doing away with the pension plan.

The Fallout

And now people doing 401Ks so it’s going to be a struggle to get qualified police officers, not just police officers in general, but qualified, people who are upper echelon they want to be in the career field that are not only educated but have technical experience for the military, it’s going to be very difficult to get solid people that want to put on a uniform.

Rick:

Are a lot of those officers are moving out of the cities where they don’t have the support the big cities and just moving to other places? I mean, or do you think they’re just getting out of the field completely? I mean, these mayors like in Portland and Seattle, what an embarrassment. But are they just saying fine, I’m going to go to a rural area where they appreciate my service and what I’m doing or to a state like Texas, do you think that they’re still going to stay in the field or do you think we’re losing them completely?

Brandon:

And I don’t know. I’m not sure. I don’t have the numbers to support on either one way or the other. I’m really hoping that good quality police officers don’t leave the career. And many police officers are certified police officers. So I mean, they could go in lateral to another agency, even within the same state, because there are some agencies that are completely woke in how to control. And there’s some agencies in that very same state, whether it’s the sheriff’s department, whether it’s the highway patrol that are not.

So I would hope that many police officers who live the career, who have an actual active pension plan in that particular state with just lateral to another more effective agency or lateral out of state, there’s plenty incentive packages. I saw a police department, I can’t remember which one, they were given $30,000 to officers that were lateral in. I mean, that’s significant amount of money for a police officer.

BLEXIT Foundation

So I’m hoping that they are lateral in at this point, and that we’re not just losing people in general where there’s a shortage of policing even in good areas where the police department will support their officers. So I’m really hoping that is not the fact that people are just getting out of the profession. If I had any advice to give a police officer, I’ll tell him pursue your career in a place that respects and appreciate law enforcement before you throw in the towel completely.

Rick:

That’s good. That’s good. Well, you talked about this in the article and other places. It’s so much more than just defund the police. It really is a Marxist movement to create chaos and division, whether they divide us based on race or vaccines or mask or whatever, they just want to divide us. They just want to create that chaos. And you’re giving actual solutions in response to this movement, the BLEXIT Foundation that you started with Candace Owens. You’re out there in minority communities saying, hey, there are answers to these problems. Let’s talk about a few of those before I let you go today.

You talked about advocating for school choice. What do you see that doing in not just minority communities, really for the education system as a whole, especially after this last year of CRT being crammed down the throats of so many schools and kids and parents speaking out against that? Do you think school choice is an answer to all that?

Brandon:

It’s definitely a part of the answer. It’s not a complete answer. I mean, you can have school choice and your kid can go to a private school, but the parents have to be actively involved. I think the biggest issue that we see is the lack of male leadership in a lot of these families, whether they’re there but not there, you know, meaning that there’re not an active father in their kids life, even though they live in under the same roof. Or you have people having children out of wedlock, and it’s an epidemic in the minority community at 70+% of household are children are born out of wedlock, which is an incredible issue.

What do the Stats Say?

You can look at any statistical data, and I have this in my book. You can look at statistical data that shows that kids that without a father are more likely to go to jail, more likely to commit suicide, more likely to drop out of school, all of these different numbers that suggest that we need strong male leadership in the family, and parents need to be active in their children’s lives.

This is one thing that I hate when I hear people say, when they complain about the school system, the school system is a part of it. But at the same time, you as a parent need to be accountable for supporting your children and know what they’re teaching at school and helping them when they get home. But I do think this school choices is a winning strategy, because parents who want to be involved, children who want to learn can have an opportunity to learn at an institution that can teach them properly, and not some rundown school that they don’t really care about the students, they’re only aiming for the money. So definitely, those two components are very effective and something that we preach at BLEXIT as much as we can.

Rick:

Well, one of the things you all specifically zero in on teaching his entrepreneurship and free enterprise, I mean, those have been demonized in every community in America. It seems like you know, if somebody is wealthy or made money, they must have cheated or stole or whatever that’s kind of the image we even call it, greedy capitalist pig is better known phrase than successful entrepreneur. So it’s vital to a free society and a free enterprise system to start championing entrepreneurship and free enterprise again and talking about how those can be the escape, as you say it from government dependency, and poverty. So talk a little bit about that, and how that’s been received, and how you guys teach that?

Americans Should Learn American Values

Brandon:

Well, that’s a good question. First of all, we live in America, so we’re only teaching American values, freedoms. I don’t know why everybody’s not on the same page with these things, American exceptionalism, capitalism, you can be as great as you want to be, all you got to do is work hard.

Now, you may not be a billionaire, but you can still be successful within you being the best version of yourself, the gift that God has given you and your life, and the goals that you should accomplish based on your desires. So that’s all we do, we just teach people the American way.  We live in this country, it’s very simple.

And what we do is, not only do we talk to our young people about this on a day to day basis when we go into the inner cities, and we talk to young kids, and we do outreach, I mean, because mostly what we do is we’ll go do book bag drives, we’ll go and cook out in the communities and that’s what we use the opportunity to speak, and give advice in different things like that. It’s not only we have an event you got to come to this, like we go into the community and reach out and meet people where they’re at, and being we have these conversations with families and young people. But we live by example.

 Candace Owens and I, we’ve been able to accomplish a lot and become very successful. We’re married. We have children. We want to be an example. And that example matriculates down to the young people that we speak to, even without us directly saying some of these things. But we do teach that you live in America, you’re not a victim. What do you want to be? Make a goal. Have integrity. Be loyal to the principles that you stand by and you can accomplish a lot of great things. And we tell people that we talk to, the young people and adults, that don’t put limits on what God can do for you and that’s the simple message that we have.

Role Models

Rick:

No, it’s powerful, man. I mean, like you said it’s the American way. It’s not Republican or Democrat values, it’s not black or white values. We’re back to the Superman comics, man, truth justice and the American way. I mean, that’s what you’re teaching and what is so desperately needed.

You also talk about and I think it was in Larry Elders Uncle Tom movie, where you talked about the importance of putting guys like Thomas Sowelland Walter Williams and these great minds in front of these young black kids that nobody showed you that or taught you any of their materials until you were something like 30 years old, and how important it is to put these black heroes in front of these black kids and say look, the American Dream is available for you and have these brilliant guys teaching these things. Talk a little bit about that and how you use the history, tell the good, the bad, and the ugly, tell it all, but using that to inspire minority kids to succeed and want to be a part of the American Dream.

Brandon:

Yeah, great question. So when you when you were a young kid, and you’re looking for role models, and you’re looking for people that that you can aspire to be like and someone who can hold the torch or pass the torch to you. When you’re in the community looking for that or when you’re looking for those things, you need to find quality people that you can admire, these rappers and drug dealers and stuff. Some of those people become prolific because they are very famous.

But there’s people like I said, like Thomas Sowellis probably one of the most brilliant people to ever live, the black, white, green and orange, he’s one of the people to ever live. His philosophies permeate generation. And I think young people need to listen to what he has to say and understand that look at his success. He’s an intellect. He’s written over 20 books. I mean, he can really walk you through even an economic success in life, and then also a moral success in life and just being open-minded, free thinking person.

So I really wish that we had some additional role models, not just people who are famous and actors in Hollywood, but like individuals who are grassroots, black man came from nothing, becoming something very special and being educated while doing.

Thomas Sowell

Rick:

I love it. I love it. Well, my son has undergrad in economics and a master’s in Homeland Security type things. And Thomas Sowell is absolutely his favorite. He says he’s the greatest economist to ever live. And I agree. I mean, I’m telling you, in fact, I saw a meme the other day, you probably seen it, it said, “Schools now stopping teaching, reading for fear that students may discover Thomas Sowell.”

Brandon:

Right. It probably sounds funny, but I really do believe that there’s an effort in these school systems to avoid exposing students to people like Thomas Sowell. They don’t want you to talk about he doesn’t exist in the Black History Museum. He does not exist in Black History Month.

They don’t talk about him. They don’t want nothing to do with him. Because God is my witness, he was very convincing to me when I watched him because he’s very smart. He has all this back together. He’s a compelling person in an argument. And if people had exposure to Thomas Sowell, the black community will never be the same again, I believe.

Rick:

Yeah. Oh, it’s true. And I mean, even his own personal story of as a young man leaning towards Marxism and how he came out of that, and anyway, it’s incredible, it’s powerful. I couldn’t agree with you more, man. I would really want encourage people to get the book, beatenblackandblue.com, you can do your preorder right now. You can go to the website, beatenblackandblue.com. Also go to blexitfoundation.org. Brandon Tatum, God bless you, man. Keep up the great work. I hope we can get you back again soon.

Brandon:

Be Part of the Solution!

God bless you, thank you and anytime.

Rick:

Special thanks to Brandon Tatum for joining us today. A real treat, as I mentioned at the top of the program, I’ve been a fan of Brandon’s for a long time and watching his videos and seeing him on Candace Owens and the different things, just a great voice. And certainly, last summer, during all the rioting and the destruction of cities across the country, as a former police officer, it was just really cool how he stepped into the gap and brought some common sense to the chaos. And so anyway, thrilled to have him on the program today, and I hope that you’ll share this with your friends and family.

Listen, this is not a one-time thing. When you hear this program, start thinking about people you want to share it with. Go to our website, wallbuilderslive.com, grab the program’s right there off the website, share the link on social media, send it out in text to friends and family that you know need to listen to these trues. It is hard to find truth in America right now. You’ve really got to work at it. You’ve got to search for it. There is a concentrated effort to prevent any opposition from speaking, from having a voice, from having a platform, anything that doesn’t go along with the government narrative, or the social media giants narrative that they prefer, is shut down and silenced.

So the only way we get around that is we share the information with each other and we get it out there to our friends and family. So I really do want to encourage you to be a part of that solution. Be a part of being a force multiplier out there and sharing with other people. Plus, it’s going to encourage you: you’re going to see how many other people get excited. I’m absolutely convinced that right now in this culture, if you raise the banner of truth, people rally. Man, they are looking for someone else to stand up. They are looking for truth. They’re looking for the opportunity to come together.

We are seeing it all over the country, community after community, state after state, even at some of the most Blue states where people sign up to be one of our Constitution coaches, they host a biblical citizenship class, and people I mean, they come from all over. They’re hungry. They get to the classes. They’re excited. They watch the videos. They get hope. They realize they’re not alone. They realize there are biblical solutions to every issue we’re facing in our culture today.

Beaten Black and Blue And The American Way – With Brandon Tatum

And you can be one of the ones that helps to make that happen and get people in that position of being able to learn those truths and learn the solutions to the things we’re facing today. Be encouraged. Don’t look at what’s happening in the culture and frankly, the leftism and the Marxism that is permeating so many different areas of our government and the draconian orders, the willingness to leave our border open and so many people will be harmed. All the things that they’re doing, don’t be discouraged. Let that wake you up and say, wait a minute, why is this happening? It’s because of the leadership in our country.

And we live in a country where we choose the leaders. We choose the people that design the systems that are how we choose our leaders. In other words, if you’re thinking right now, yeah, Rick, we used to get to choose our leaders, but all the election systems and the cheating and all of those things, listen, we also choose the state legislators that make the decisions about how that voting system is going to work and whether or not it’s going to be secured and whether or not there’s going to be a requirement for voter ID and all of those things necessary to once again give us that faith in the voting system. So it still always comes back to us.

And if you think for a moment you can’t make a difference, watch all those videos going around right now, these parents speaking at school board meetings and winning and pushing the school board to do the right thing. There are victories happening all over the nation because of people just like you. Do your part. Get involved. Sign up today at biblicalcitizens.com to be a coach. It’s free. You can host these classes in your home or at your church. Sign up and get it started. Or go to wallbuilders.com today and get the DVD set for Biblical Citizenship. Get you a workbook, go through it yourself, if you want. But I’m telling you, it’s more fun to go through it with a group, much more encouraging, and just it’s just a wonderful time of fellowship. Check it out today at biblicalcitizens.com. Thanks for listening to WallBuilders Live.