As if wannabe Vice President JD Vance didn’t say enough heavily viral, meme-worthy things during his campaign trail, the film he claims is “extremely influential to his entire political worldview” might actually top the list
In an interview with Joe Rogan, Vance explained he used to watch the 1991 John Singleton classic “Boyz n the Hood” all the time when he was eight or nine years old.
“I didn’t realize how much that movie has had an influence on me until I watched it last night,” he said.
I’m sure you’re wondering how the hell Vance would resonate so deeply with a film depicting the reality of Black people living in the hood. Vance said he was inspired by Laurence Fishburne’s character Furious Styles and his stance on not letting financial institutions buy up the community. For Vance, the decades-long agenda of gentrification was first identified to him through that film.
What brought the film into conversation seemed to be Rogan’s jab at the liberal party’s debate over whether math is racist. Vance highlighted Furious’ comment in the film about the SAT’s being culturally biased with the exception of the math section in an effort to debunk the liberals’ argument.
As yet another example of Vance’s oft-shared moral viewpoint on raising families, he said the film examined the importance of fatherhood particularly for young boys — a topic that resonated with him given he lacked a strong relationship with his own father. He also stated that some of the ideals from the film stemmed from what he called “Black nationalist philosophy” or “old school Black leftism.”
“This movie in the 1980s is saying something that I, I wish a lot of white liberals would hear today, which is actually math is not racist. It’s what, it’s one of the things that’s like, not definitively not racist is math and numbers, you guys are losing your damn minds,” said Vance.