#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 11.8 Bloomberg mulls 2020 bid; MD Black prison population; Man gets 10yrs for enslaving Black man

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

11.8.18 #RolandMartinUnfiltered LIVE from the #LifeLuxeJazz Fest in #LosCabos: Former NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg considering 2020 run; Report shows that Maryland has a larger black prison population than any other state; White restaurant manager who kept a Black man with disability enslaved for years is going to jail; Howard University football coach placed on administrative leave for abusive behavior; Washington Post op-ed questions Mayor Pete Buttigieg's claims that black people won't vote for him. - #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: Life Luxe Jazz Life Luxe Jazz is the experience of a lifetime, delivering top-notch music in an upscale destination. The weekend-long event is held at the Omnia Dayclub Los Cabos, which is nestled on the Sea of Cortez in the celebrity playground of Los Cabos, Mexico. For more information visit the website at lifeluxejazz.com. Can't make it to Los Cabos for the Life Luxe Jazz Fest? Get your live stream pass at https://gfntv.com/ #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: Ebony Foundation | Home by the Holiday Home by the Holiday aims to reunite Black and Latino families separated by bail, while challenging racial injustice and mass incarceration. For more info visit https://www.homebytheholiday.com/ Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Hey folks, today is Friday, November 8th, 2019. Roland Martin Unfiltered broadcasting live from the second annual Life Luxe Jazz Experience in Los Cabos, Mexico. As you see, folks are already assembling. The concert's going to be beginning shortly. We've still got a great show for you folks. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg looks like he may be jumping into the Democratic race. What the hell is he doing?

I'm going to explain to you why this is a horrible idea and why I don't think he's actually going to do it. Also on today's show, a new report shows that Maryland has a larger black prison population than any other state. Also, a white restaurant manager who kept a black man with a disability enslaved for more than 20 years is headed to prison. What the hell? Also, Howard University football coach Ron Prince has been placed on administrative leave for abusive behavior, and a recent Washington Post op-ed

questions Mayor Pete Buttigieg's claim that black people won't vote for him because he's homophobic. That actually was from a focus group. Is this a real thing or not? Folks, we got a packed show for you. It's time to bring the funk on Roller Mart Unfiltered. Let's go. Best believe he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics

With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's Rolling Martin Rolling with rolling now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Roland Martin Now

Martin Hey folks, Roland Martin here broadcasting live from the second annual Life Lux Jazz Experience in Los Cabos, Mexico. I'm going to step aside right here. And so you'll see, folks, all of the different folks out here, they are assembling. It is an absolutely gorgeous, gorgeous day here in Los Cabos, Mexico. And a number of that 14 different acts are going to be performing. Gerald Albright, Kirk Willem, Donnie McClurkin, Incognito.

Mark Curry, of course, is going to be the host of this whole deal. And so it's going to be a fantastic weekend. All the concerts will be live streamed on GFNTV.com. GFNTV.com. It's not too late for you to get your live streaming pass. Simply go to GFNTV.com to get your 1099 live streaming pass so every concert all of the concerts you will be able to actually watch live as it happens here in los cabos mexico and so we're certainly glad to be here and glad that

they're one of the partners for roland martin on filter let's get on with the news of the day former new york city mayor mike bloomberg last last night made the moves to announce that he is going to be filing for the Alabama primary. Of course, Bloomberg has been back and forth worth $52 billion. Apparently, he thinks that Vice President Joe Biden is fading, which is why he is jumping into the race. Really doesn't make much sense as far as I'm concerned. Let's go to my panel. Amisha Cross, she is political commentator, Democratic strategist, Joseph Williams, senior editor of U.S. News & World Report, also Derek Holley, host of Reaching America On Demand podcast.

Joseph, I want to start with you. I've long said that Michael Bloomberg is the Mario Cuomo of politics. Anybody out there who has any level of history remembers that Mario Cuomo toyed with the idea of higher office, running for president. Then, of course, he toyed with President Bill Clinton when Bill Clinton was going to nominate him to the U.S. Supreme Court. There was an airplane sitting on the tarmac, decided late, no, he's not going to do it. That's Mike Bloomberg. He's going to do it. That's Mike Bloomberg. He's going to do something, then he's not. Then it's like, well, will he get in? Will he not? This, to me, is too late in the game. The reality is to have him jump in right now,

it's not going to make a damn difference. Look, Tom Steyer, a billionaire, got in. He's still polling at 1%. Joseph, what say you? Well, just what we need. Another billionaire from New York running for president. I mean, the idea on his face is just kind of ridiculous to me because we're not in that position right now. We've already got a billionaire. People are not, they're not receptive to this sort of idea. Steyer's polling in the basement. Bloomberg, who is his constituency? Who is he looking to lure? Not to mention the fact that if he goes down to South Carolina, I guarantee you people are going to bring up Stop and Frisk.

People are going to bring up some of the other initiatives that he had that were hostile towards blacks and browns in New York. He was the law and order guy. And I saw him at the convention in Philly in 2016. He sounded like he needed to be in Cleveland at the RNC because he was talking about all the things that the Democratic Party didn't need to do. And among those were kind of appeasing or going soft and nominating somebody like Hillary Clinton. He said the only reason why he was there

was because he was her friend. And that's the reason why he was able to diss everybody else. I think it's a bad idea. Amisha Cross, this is very simple. That is, Mike Bloomberg is a horrible choice to even be a Democratic nominee. Will he appeal to independents? Will he appeal to moderates? Sure. But look at John Huntsman. John

Huntsman could have been a great general election candidate, but he couldn't get through the primary. There is no way in hell Mike Bloomberg is going to be able to get through the primary. There is no way in hell Mike Bloomberg is going to be able to get through the Democratic primary. It's more than just the primaries, because it's going to be extremely hard for him to break through the rules to actually get on the debate stage. At the end of the day, you have to have a certain level of approval among various polls. And right now, he's not doing that well. And I think that part of that is because the American public is used to him toying with,

well, I'm going to get in and I'm not going to get in. He's done it about four times at this point and through various elections, and I think that people are kind of tired of that. Also, more and more voters are pushing against this whole idea of billionaires basically taking it all and ruling this country. And to have somebody else decide that this is what they're going to do, and to your point earlier, I think that part of the angst is also that he doesn't necessarily appear as a Democrat. And with a party that continues to grow more and more progressive,

that moves away from the center to a certain extent, it's going to be a lot harder for someone who is like him, who I would probably argue is right of moderate at this point, to actually break through and have policies that make sense to a party that is trying to be more inclusive, that is trying to push forward in a lot of the policy and economic issues that we've seen create real hurdles for people across this country. Derek, Holly, let's be real clear. First of all, Donald Trump is not a billionaire.

Let's just be real clear with that. He's not. Here's what I appreciate, though, about Republican billionaires. What they focus on is what they do. And that is you take Sheldon Allison. Sheldon Allison every year goes, you know what? I'm going to spend $100 to $200 million every four years to elect a Republican. That's what Allison does. The Koch brothers, that's what they do. Tom Steyer is wasting, not great, he's a billionaire. He's wasting $100 million. He's going nowhere. Mike Bloomberg, wasting money.

So the reality is this here. Those two could have a much larger impact on this race if Bloomberg says, I'm going to drop $100 million on PACs and also to drive turnout in critical places, Starr says, I'm going to drop $100 million, that's $200 million alone that's separate from what the candidate is going to raise. That's how he should be spending his money, not running for president, which is a joke. I agree with you that it's probably too late in the game

for him to get into it right now for all the reasons that everyone has talked about. But at the same time, the Democratic candidates right now, he feels like they're just not meeting the expectations of the voters or the Democratic Party. So, again, I don't think it's the right time for him right now, but someone needs to step up from the Democratic Party to take the lead, and right now, it's the right time for him right now, but someone needs to step up from the Democratic Party to take the lead, and right

now it doesn't appear that Joe Biden's going to be it, and with Elizabeth Warren and her policies, I don't think she's going to win the nomination either. Joseph, I think, first of all, now I heard Derek at the end there. Joseph, that's the real deal here. That is, how do you impact a race?

You impact it with those dollars. Again, running is nuts. Look, the field is set, okay? And let's be clear. Seth Stack, a whole bunch of other people, they're going to be going out. They're not going anywhere. What's going to be happening, real healers, is that, look, the top three right now, Warren, Sanders, Biden. What's going to be happening, Real Healers, is that, look, the top three right now, Warren, Sanders, Biden. That's it. Bloomberg, you're not going to be in the top three. It's

not going to happen. It's not going to happen. But also, I think that that point is legit. And I think it needs to be made in one of these two guys' ears that, listen, why not take that money and drop it on get out the vote? Why not take that money and use it to lobby for repeal of some of these voter ID laws? If you really think you look in the mirror and see a president, you know, reality check is going to be hard for you. And also not to mention the fact that a lot of this cash that they're burning, you know, yeah, they find in their sofa cushions or whatever. You know, that's that's all well and good. But do you really want to make an impact? And do you really think that the field is so bad? I mean, keep in mind, we had a Republican field

that was almost as big, and we ended up with Donald Trump. I mean, and there were some very less reactionary people who ran in that primary. And we still ended up with somebody who was to the far right. So if the field is there, and if the field is set, and also keep in mind that the primary is where you test these ideas. And if they go someplace, that's fine. If they don't,

that's fine too. But to have a set field and try to disrupt that field because of an ego trip, I don't think that's a very wise use of money, especially when we're... Could he possibly be

the alternative or that moderate that the Democratic Party needs right now? Because that's what Joe Biden was supposed to be. If Bloomberg wanted to be helpful, he would be able to funnel some of this funding to congressional, to people who are running for Congress in some of these heated and contested seats. One of the reasons that we have Robin Kelly in my district in Illinois is because of the funding of Mike Bloomberg. We have to be certain that we are consistently fighting to protect a lot of the legislation that we're working towards,

that Congress has worked towards, that has not been made law through the Senate. And it would help to have some of these millionaires be able to fund those types of policies. Well, and Bloomberg is a moderate Republican. I mean, he's not a moderate Democrat. Again, I heard his speech and it was remarkable that this dude was talking at the DNC. It was very much a law and order platform. That's where it makes sense. But this whole idea is that, you know, save a billionaire comes along. And let's also be real honest. We haven't talked about Derek. I want to go to you first. OK.

The real deal is these billionaires. Oh, lost him. Lost you, baby. Where'd you go, Roland? Yeah, call me. Just a moment. Well, the billionaire's going to look after their own. I think his point is the billionaire's going to look after their own. Yeah, yeah. But one thing about Bloomberg, I just, I didn't notice until earlier today, he just became a, he was a registered Republican

until last year, midterm elections, he registered as Democrat. But I think right now, it's just as late in the game for him, but there has to be a middle ground with one of these candidates. Because right now... But you don't think Klobuchar's in the middle ground? Well, I agree with you. Klobuchar's in the middle ground. This tells I agree with you. Klobuchar's in the middle ground. This tells us more about the race

than it does Bloomberg jumping in. Because there are a lot of people who feel as though we don't necessarily have the moderate candidate who can win. But then we have another debatable point with we're seeing these huge fractions within the Democratic Party in and of itself. When you have these people who are left of the left and you have these people who are trying to stay moderate,

then you have people who know that certain candidates aren't going to be able to get that diverse vote out and they're not exciting people. So I think that that does leave room for folks who may be on the fence, who have the type of money to jump in to think, hey, you know, I could jump in and disrupt this. But why do you think he's doing this? I mean, does he really look in the mirror and see a president? I think he does. But I'm just looking at the field of candidates right now. No, no, but are they a president? Are either one of them presidents? Yeah, but even apart from that, right, take the field and put it aside, right?

What about Mike Bloomberg makes him a president? Beto looked in the mirror and thought that he was going to be one, so I'm not going to say that it's not something that, you know, people think of that probably don't have a snowball chance in hell. But this guy has been on the fence about this four different times at this point. But did Donald Trump look himself in the mirror and say, I want to be president? Absolutely he did. So did Bloomberg to this point.

He looked himself in the mirror, yo, I can do this. Talk about the soft bigotry of low expectations. And I think that goes to your point, too. If we've seen another millionaire, whatever his financial status is, go through this point, who didn't have any ounce of the political experience or the acumen that Mayor Bloomberg does, then why not throw your hat in, especially when you feel like the field is, to a certain extent, wide open, because he's watching the polls. He's watching the fact that people aren't necessarily resonating 100% behind any candidate

right now. I would argue part of that is because it's really early. But yeah, I was going to say, it's the primary. I mean, we haven't had the first vote cast yet. We haven't had the Iowa caucuses yet. I mean, yeah, if he was going to run, you're going to start a way back when, because we knew pretty much who was running. I think he assumed that Biden would have a much stronger... Sure, he did, yeah.

Everybody did. No, I don't think everybody did. I think Biden is... He did. I was just reading one of the articles in the Post just a few minutes ago. He felt like that Biden would have been a solid candidate, but he's been sliding. For who? But that's kind of – I mean, you know, Biden is 0 for 2, right? Biden is 0 for 2. I'm with you. I mean, and he flamed out in – he flamed out after Iowa in 2008, and he flamed off before Iowa in 2018.

But we can't deny that there are people who felt like he was heir apparent. And heir apparent to that throne means that, you know, he carried the Obama legacy and he was going to have a certain amount of people who backed him by the sheer basis of carrying the Obama legacy. And I don't think that that was a false estimation.

What we're seeing is that, you know, performance wise, your performance still matters. And I do think that, you know, we do have to say something about it being early. And after Iowa, we're gonna is that, you know, performance-wise, your performance still matters. And I do think that, you know, we do have to say something about it being early. And after Iowa, we're going to see some things shift for people who thought that they were doing really well who might not be doing really well. Right. A la Beto. Yeah. Kamala. Yeah.

Corey. But do you take anything from the fact that all the candidates of color are polling in the single digits and can't get money? Is that like a thing? Absolutely. I think there's something to be said about that. And I know that we probably have a lot to say about it, but we do also have to take a break. There you go. Child care now! Child care now! Child care now! Child care providers do some of our most important work.

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Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. When you're live, changes happen and plot twists. I'm your host now. So a recent report released by the Justice Policy Institute shows that Maryland has a higher number of black prisoners than any other state. More than 70 percent of Maryland's prison population was black in 2018, compared with 31 percent of the state population. That rate is far higher than the next closest states, Mississippi, South Carolina and Georgia. Joining us to talk more about racial disparities in prison is Mark Schlimmler, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute. Good evening. How are you?

Pretty good. So, Mark, we really want to know, have a little bit of a deep dive into what the differences are in Maryland and why Maryland is ranking so high in this. Sure. It's a good question. So we looked at a couple of things. As you noted at the outset, we looked at the overall prison population in Maryland and found that it has the highest percentage of African-Americans in the prison compared to the overall population in the state related to any other state in the country. As you said, it leads both Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia. And we've been doing a lot of work in Maryland at JPI for about 20 years now.

So this in some ways doesn't surprise us, but we thought it was important to highlight. We also looked at a particular subset of that population, and that's the people who are serving the longest terms, longest sentences in Maryland. And we found that of the people serving the longest terms, there was a very high proportion of young African-American males. highest proportion in the country of those who went into prison when they were under the age of 25, which we refer to and others around the country are now referring to as the emerging adult population. And do you see any levels of advocacy to help to not only raise awareness, but also to help people understand how detrimental this is? Because these numbers are really shocking. When I look at them and we compare them to some states across the country that we know have astronomical rates of African-Americans in prison, we don't think of Mississippi as someplace that would ever be comparative to to Maryland, a state that most people see as a lot more progressive.

What do you see on the ground in terms of people getting involved, pushing towards getting more action around and understanding of just how dire the situation is? Yeah, that's a terrific question. And you're right. Maryland is viewed and views itself as quite a progressive state. So to see these types of racial disparities should be quite concerning, I think, for people in the state. And there's been a lot of advocacy going on for quite a number of years in Maryland on a whole range of issues in the state. And there's been a lot of advocacy going on for quite a number of years in Maryland on a whole range of issues in the justice system. That includes trying to reduce the use of cash bail and the pretrial system to the other end of the system, looking at trying to safely release older folks who are incarcerated in Maryland's prisons. Right now, tonight, as we sit here, there's almost a thousand people over the age of 60 in Maryland's prisons and over

3,500 who are over the age of 50, right? And these are people who pose very, very low risk to public safety, but cost an extraordinary amount to incarcerate. So there's been advocacy in that area as well to try to states, move towards our pretrial prevention and a lot of bail reform and issues of that matter, do you think that it will reduce some of this prison population? I think it absolutely can if we're serious about it. Right. And so there are plenty of examples, and a little-known fact in this country is that the population of young people in juvenile facilities across the country has decreased more than 50 percent over the last 12 years or so. So there's been very drastic reductions in but there are lessons learned on the juvenile justice side that we believe can be applied to what's going on in the adult criminal justice system. And we should be able to reduce the number of people who are incarcerated quite substantially. Mark. Derek Holly.

I'm a resident of Maryland. I have a 17-year-old son who's in high school. He's a junior in high school. And we just recently had a conversation with him a couple of days ago just about he's starting to drive and what to do and what he shouldn't do when he's pulled over by the police. In the study that you guys just found,

was there any particular reason or any type of conviction that stood out more that had our young black males incarcerated in Maryland more so than anyplace else? That's a really good question. And, you know, I feel for you having to have that conversation with your son, you know, not necessarily in this report, but we've done a lot of research more broadly, both in Maryland and nationally, that looks at those issues of how people of color, particularly African Americans, are treated differently in the system. In this report, what we saw is that young black males under the age of 25 are disparately

incarcerated to extremely long terms. And so in some ways, as I just mentioned, Maryland has a very high number of what we refer to as the geriatric population in prison. And when we think about the prison population, geriatric is anybody over the age of 50. So I would be considered geriatric because I'm over the age of 50. But the reason that age is used is because we see that people age quite quickly when they're incarcerated. So Maryland has a very high number of 50, 60, 70. In fact, it was even just reported this week by the Baltimore Sun that there's five people in Maryland's prisons who are over the age of 80, clearly posing no public safety threat at all. And what we are advocating for is really to think about how we can best use resources, right? So there's these very high number of older people who don't need to be incarcerated, but cost a lot. If we can safely reduce those number of people,

take those savings and do a better job with young people in the criminal justice system, not through incarceration, right, but through making more investments in being able to supervise them in the community and provide opportunities and supports in the community, we can have much better outcomes, much safer communities at lower cost. And so there are things that we can do that would prevent these young people from going in for quite long, long terms. Because what we're seeing is these young people go in for long terms. In Maryland, they become the geriatric population, right, because they're serving very lengthy sentences.

Well, Mark, Joe Williams, I have a question as well. I mean what sort of crimes are they being incarcerated for. Number one. And number two. How did we get here. Yeah that's that's a great question. You know the crimes that we're looking at actually are are fairly serious crimes. Right. So they are assaultive type behavior, whether that's robbery or more serious, where you would get up to 10 years or more. So we're not talking about the least serious crimes. That said, and it's very important, we've done work we respond to violence in our communities is we have to look at the risk that a person poses looking forward in terms of the behavior and other risk factors. And we shouldn't measure that just by the offense, right? What we typically do is we assign a set of years to an offense and we don't look any further. It doesn't mean that people shouldn't be held accountable. It doesn't mean that punishment to some degree is not appropriate.

And we also have to be mindful that there's been somebody harmed in many of these cases. But what's happened is our system has gotten so out of whack. It used to be years ago that a sentence of 10 10 15 or 20 years was considered quite a long time. Now we have sentences of 30 40 50 years more which are being considered normal. Right. So we've really changed what's considered normal in our justice system. And we would suggest the reason that's been allowed to happen is because these sentences are being posed disproportionately on people of color. I would suggest that if most of the people who were incarcerated for long periods of time in Maryland look like me, white people, that we wouldn't have these very long sentences. We would figure out another way to do it that wouldn't result in people being incarcerated

so long. Thanks, Mark. And we are running short on time, but I did have one question that I'm hopeful that you can answer quickly. It's going to be related to risk assessment tools. Obviously, you know what risk assessment tools are, but for our audience, risk assessment tools help to set the basis of how criminals are actually viewed and whether or not they should be released into the public. In many cases, these tools have been used and have been cited as being used incorrectly and have weighed more heavily on African-Americans than they have on other populations. What do you think is the effect that the risk assessment tools in Maryland have had in terms of increasing this prison population? Yeah, it's an excellent question and one that we need to look at much more closely.

There's no question that risk assessment tools have been found, not all of them, but can be found to be racially biased and when used incorrectly can absolutely exacerbate the disparate impact on people of color, particularly African Americans. What needs to happen, it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have risk assessment as part of the decision-making within our system, but it should be just one data point, right? It should be just one piece of information that is considered, and we have to be very careful that the information that's used for risk assessment is not biased in terms of the racial impact. And that is something challenging to do, but we have to do the hard work to do it. Make sure that we're checking about how things are being applied. At the end of the day,

the decision should be made by human beings, not by risk instruments. But it is information that at least should be considered. Absolutely. And thanks so much, Mark. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. According to a press release from the Justice Department, Bobby Paul Edwards received a 10-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to one count of forced labor. Edwards, the owner of J&J Cafeteria in Conway, South Carolina, forced John Christopher Smith to work extensive hours at the restaurant. Prosecutors said that Edwards would subject Smith to physical and emotional abuse when a victim made a mistake or failed to work fast enough, and he would beat him with belts, fists, pots, and pans at times. Edwards was also ordered to pay $272,952,000 in restitution to Smith, who was mentally challenged.

Now we're going to hear from our panel on why this is a problem, how this happened in America, and how we could stop this from happening in the future. I think the bigger question is, how did it happen? And did this guy not have any family members or anybody that, a brother, a sister, someone who could step in at some point and see that

this was taking place and for it to go on so long, it just, I'm just, I'm confused how it happened and how it took place for as long as it did. Well I think that one of the reasons that occurs to me is that he's a disposable person, right? I mean we have people who are mentally disabled all the time. I mean they're wandering around on the streets every day. They're on the metro. And these are people who are not being tracked.

They're disposable people. You know, they disappear. It's like they never even existed. So I can understand intellectually how it happens. How it happens in the United States is another question entirely, right? But even more than that, 20 years of this man's life and he gets $272 million. $272,000, wasn't it? Yeah, $272,000 and only 10 years in jail.

I mean, it's absurd. I think there's a certain level of frustration there. I appreciate your point on this being a population that people don't necessarily always follow up on, check up on, and really pay much attention to. Which is why he abused him in the first place, because he knew nobody would check on him. And I think that that's something that we have to remember, especially with those who are disabled, those who have mental health issues and all of these other things. I personally have an older brother who has a developmental disability. Even though he is 36, he has the mental capacity of a 12-year-old.

So when you're talking about people who are often employed in restaurants like this or organizations that literally seek to employ those who many times have these developmental or other disabilities they do so under the code of they're helping them with their you know with their development they're helping them to actually maintain a job sometimes they do not treat them well and I think that this is a very egregious case but there this happens not well maybe not the slavery aspect of what was happening here but those levels of abuses at various levels happen across the country every day for those of the disabled population.

And again, I understand how this population can sometimes be, you know, no one's following up on them and that kind of thing, but it wasn't just him, it wasn't just the guy, the worker, but it was also the employer. And so for no one to intervene for 10 years and see all this taking place, I'm just wondering what else is happening in South Carolina right now. Well, there you go. That was going to be my next point is this is the guy who got caught, right? This is the one we know about. And probably somewhere else in America, probably somewhere else

in South Carolina or even the South, there's another case like this that's happening. And we've had at least two of them in the last 10 years that I can think of. So this is the one we know about. And it's part and parcel because they're not checking up on it. You know, they aren't having social service agencies have been cut to the bone, so they don't do due diligence like they used to. And that is also part of the problem is that we don't have the staff to make sure that people like this man don't get abused and thankfully we have

this case that has been highlighted here and I'm hopeful that it will get highlighted in other news programs as well because people need to know that this goes on I don't think that there is a logical push to see things change when people aren't aware of what's happening and I agree with your point that if if it's happening in South Carolina it's happening in other places in the country. And we need to make sure that people are willing to stand in guard and be able to fight for it as well. In a Washington Post op-ed entitled The Ugly Lie About Black Voters and People to Judge, writer Jonathan K. Park reminds readers that African Americans have evolved on LGBTQ equality just like everyone else.

According to the Pew Research Center, only 29 percent of blacks supported same-sex marriage in 2009. Ten years later, a majority, 51%, now does. Sure, that's lower than any other ethnic group, but not significantly so. Also citing that gap contributes to the intellectual laziness on this matter, especially while ignoring other relevant data points. So is black homophobia even a thing?

Absolutely it's a thing. And I'm not, you know, you can look at the Pew research and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I think in this poll they only had a small number of black people that they, you know, they polled for this. You're talking about the focus group. Right, the focus group. What was it, 14 people? Yeah, it was a very small sample. What kind of results are you going to get for 14 people? I mean, the two of us are going to disagree on something, right?

So to say that, you know, to use a pool of 14 people to put this kind of research out, I think it's just false and misleading. Well, I think that there are a couple things going on. The first is that, yeah, it was a very small sample size, and that sample size does not speak for the entire African-American diaspora, right? This is just a small group of people. Does homophobia exist? In certain instances, yes, it was a very small sample size, and that sample size does not speak for the entire African-American diaspora, right? This is just a small group of people. Does homophobia exist? In certain instances, yes, it does.

Is it as widespread as it used to be? The numbers say it's not. But the second thing that occurs to me is that when it comes to politics, black people will vote for a three-headed alien if that three-headed alien stands for voting rights, affirmative action, and can help them get ahead and put this nonsense behind us of Trump. I mean, black people tend to vote in

their interest. They do not know Pete Buttigieg, number one. Number two, what they know about him, they've heard about him, kind of perhaps on the periphery. Number three, he really hasn't done a broad introduction of himself to black America. So, yeah, it's understandable that a small focus group would feel this way. But I think the larger point is that he has to introduce himself and demonstrate why people should vote for him, not just the fact that he's a gay white man, but the fact that he is going to do something to improve their lives. Absolutely. And with that, we actually have Roland back. All right, folks, so we lost our signal here, but I'm back. OK, let me let me deal with this issue here. How is Pete Buttigieg polling across the country? Low as hell.

OK, let's just be real clear. OK, let's be real clear. There are black people who have run for school boards in America who have gotten more votes than Pete Buttigieg did. You're trying to go, you're trying to go from being the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who has never gotten, let me just be clear. And again, I'm hating on Pete Buttigieg. I'm stating facts. Pete Buttigieg has never gotten more than 8,000 votes in elected office. 8,000. So we're talking about being a small town mayor who wants to be president of the United States. Okay. White people don't know Pete Buttigieg. This ain't got jack to do with him being gay. Look, let's look at the polling numbers. Kamala Harris, she ain't gay. What is she polling at?

Cory Booker, he ain't gay. What is he polling at? Julian Castro, he ain't gay. What the hell is he polling at? And so this is that BS game that folks want to play because they want to say, oh, black people are more homophobic than white people. White folks go to church too. The bottom line is nobody knows this guy. White people are more homophobic than white people. White folks go to church, too.

The bottom line is nobody knows this guy. And so you are not going to get the black vote if we don't know you. On this show, I have said that Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Cory Booker made a mistake in not doing a full court split to black people in the last three years. You can't assume just because you're black and you're running for president black people are going to vote for you. No. Black folks know Joe Biden more than they know Senator Kamala Harris. Facts are facts.

And so this is the silliness that we play and black people need to say to white people, these white media reporters, you're not going to sit here and try to frame us this way that's bs joseph it's bs well it is but it's also standard operating procedure right i mean when has this not been the case that there has been a candidate that has gotten a buzz or been slightly different but you go to black people and they either collectively shrug but because they don't know who this person is or they gravitate somebody who they do and that it's, ah, you know,

I remember stories about Barack Obama, is he black enough for black people? Well, because they didn't know him. So I think that to your point about the fact that he hasn't introduced himself to America writ large, I think that plays a large role in here, and it's also very easy to vilify African Americans for things or project onto black people some things that even white people are feeling. Look, I don't care what they got to say. I mean, sure. Peter Buttigieg knows he has an issue. And look, I've been talking to the Buttigieg campaign. I've had a conversation with him. He knows the

issue here. And here's what happened here the blue judge campaign said hey we didn't release this focus group somebody did and so again this whole notion that and and here's the other piece here's the other piece let me just go ahead and say this black people in south carolina are not the only black people who are voting okay yes it's a critical state but how is he polling among black people in Maryland, in Georgia, in North Carolina? And so what we have to do is tell people, you're not going to play this game with us trying to sell black folks as more homophobic than anybody else. The reality is, guess what? It was a whole bunch of white folks who didn't support same-sex marriage. Let's just be real,

okay? As simple as that. So Amisha, he knows he's got some damn work to do. No, I think that that's absolutely correct. And I love the point that you made about Cory Booker and Kamala Harris, who also are not necessarily pulling that strongly in a demographic that is their own. But I think that for Mayor Pete, there's something else here. As somebody who created the Douglas plan, which I personally think is a great plan, he hasn't necessarily marketed and been able to campaign on it in the black community in the way that he should have. When you create a campaign initiative specific towards black people, economic development, educational infrastructure, housing supports, health care, you should have an infrastructure

around how you're going to talk about that to black people. I think that one of the hardest things that his campaign is now facing is that you can't necessarily, you're not going to make it in this election or beat Trump unless you have black support. And they may be coming around to this ideology a little bit too late, but putting it off and saying that this is because black people don't support LGBTQ individuals is completely ridiculous because I don't think that there is any more upset about or angst against LGBTQ community individuals in the black community than there is outside of the about or angst against LGBTQ community individuals in the black community than there is outside of the black community. There are religious sects and religious people of all races and demographics who may carry within themselves some idea of a lesser approach or a

lesser appreciation for it. But I think that overall, it has to do with what policies will work for black people. Black people are going to vote for the policies that help move our community forward. And at the end of the day, if you're not able to transmit those, to have conversations about those, to appear that you are moving along with the black community to help move things forward and to help to bridge a lot of the gaps that we see in a lot of our economic situations across this country, you're going to have a hard time. Okay. Now, let me introduce another topic that we have seen take place this week, and that is all of these folks on social media saying there's this erasure happening with Senator Kamala Harris. They say that Warren is getting all this attention and that people are ignoring Senator Kamala Harris.

They talk about the fact that Higher Heights, a group that represents 90,000 black women who endorsed Senator Kamala Harris. Then you had another group of about 100 activists who endorsed Senator Elizabeth Warren. Okay, Joseph, I'm going to go to you first, and I'm going to go to Amisha, then Derek. Here's the thing that I will say to the people. This is the difference. The group that endorsed Senator Warren is a group of 100 activists who are active on social media. Even though a larger group, Higher Heights, endorsed Senator Kamala Harris, that was their board of directors.

What should have happened with the rollout is that Higher Heights should have said to all of their members, we are endorsing Senator Kamala Harris. Flood the zone talking about Senator Kamala Harris. And so I think people need to, people all of a sudden talk about erasure. But look, Senator Harris's campaign has been up and down. It's been like a roller coaster, whereas Warren has been steadily building.

And so look, the responsibility to maximize attention with your endorsements ain't on the people on social media. It's on the candidate and their campaign. Joseph. Two months ago, she was as hot as can be. She had the moment with Joe Biden. She smacked him upside the head about busing. And then she was everywhere, right?

And to go from everywhere to nowhere, that's kind of on the campaign a little bit I think I mean there you go so the fact that all the I mean there's a different issue that that that that's kind of a bug in my bonnet which is about how all the candidates of color are polling low but she had her moment yeah and she needs to be more consistent and that was the knock against her going in does she have the stamina does she have the approach does she have the organization for the long right and I will say also one other thing is that we have not had a single vote cast yet what I've been hearing is that her ground game is pretty good will it be good enough for her to win Iowa we don't know the proof is in the

pudding but I do think that it that that the rollout should have been a lot more visible if you've got that many african-american women who are voting a woman of color that should have been everywhere Amisha and and that's what this boy boils down to if you study both of these campaigns this ain't got jack to do with who's black or who's a woman or who's white. The reality is the Warren campaign has been a lot steadier, a lot smoother in terms of how they have been driving their narrative. The Harris campaign has not. Look, her biggest Achilles heel was the fact that she was a prosecutor. There you go.

She didn't release a criminal justice plan until the Monday, the middle of September, the week of the TSU debate. You went five months and didn't release a criminal justice plan. And so a perfect example, this week, okay, she releases her education plan. All right, 10 hours in school. I'm sorry. No. That's a very hard one. No.

No, no, no, but follow me here. On his marriage, yes. Where's the live stream of the summit of educators? Where's the event with teachers, with principals, with parents, with students? If that was gonna be your key issue this week, how did you not flood the zone with it? I'm sorry. That's on the campaign. And so I hear people, but they got to stop all this. Oh, my God,

they're trying to erase the black woman. No, you can't erase yourself. No, I agree with you 100 percent. I think that there's an easy trope for her to use to say that, you know, things are harder. You know, they are looking at her differently. She's being weighed differently in the media and in the spotlight because she's a black woman. Fact of the matter is she has not run a steady campaign. She's run a campaign that's been flimsy at times that has been even worse at others. And I agree with you when you release something that is as specific as this and as large as this education proposal she just did. We're coming off of a 10 day teacher strike in Chicago. Can we not have teachers who are actually on those picket lines be voices for this? Can we not have the CEO of the National Teachers Union actually be there?

Because at the end of the day, she endorsed that actual plan. But if you don't endorse it in terms of commercials, if social media doesn't hear it, nobody really cares. Kamala's campaign released a statement, but that was it. So I think that part of this is them not really having the campaign infrastructure that actually makes sense at the level she's trying to run at. And there is no comparison for me right now between her campaign and Warren's. One was out of the gate. I'm a winning horse and I'm going to keep striving until I get there. The other one was kind of teetering from the beginning, had a moment of shine with Joe Biden in the second debate, and it's completely fallen apart ever since. So I think that right now, you know, she's smart to restructure. She's letting go of a lot of people. She's deciding that, you know, she needs to have different top

brass staff. But it may or may not be too late. Derek, at the end of the day, when you run, you are going to you're going to deal with bumps. OK? Warren dealt with the Pocahontas bump at the beginning of her campaign, but it's been a steady bill. All of these people, and let me say this again, to all these people who are out here saying, oh, Warren, is the white woman getting more attention? Let me remind you, the first two town halls, not the first two town halls, of the first town halls that were on CNN and MSNBC, the two highest were involving Senator Kamala Harris.

Her campaign did not build on that. That's the problem, folks. And I think they now are trying to correct that the question is can they do it? The next debate there is November 20th. She is gonna be a Tyler Perry studio in Atlanta Let me be clear. She's got to come out have a lot stronger, but she wasn't the TSU debate She's gonna have to come out smoking hot November 20th debate. That's what she needs to do Yeah, I agree with you. And I think right now she could possibly be campaigning for vice president.

You know, and so I look at her, she's polling right now. She's shutting down different offices. She just shut down New Hampshire and she shut down a couple of other offices right now. And I just don't think, I look at it as a prosecutor, Roland, and I look at her record in terms of what she did out there in terms of just locking up African-Americans when she targeted them, the parents of truant students. And so when

I look at her record that way, and it's not just her dropping the ball with her campaign, it's also her record. And I think a lot of people have looked at that over the last few months, which has also caused her to have a lapse in the polls right now.

Hey, all I'm saying, everybody out there talking about erasure, no. That's on the campaign. You gotta do what you gotta do. First of all, folks, let me thank Derek, Joseph, and Amisha for being with us today. Sorry we lost the signal there. Again, we are here at the second annual

Life Lux Jazz Festival taking place here in Cabo. And so what's happening right now is let me step aside. What's happening right now is Mark Curry. He's out here somewhere. He's walking around. He's he's walking around sitting here talking to folks. You see him right there. And so we've been we've been here since yesterday. I'm assuming Mark right here. So so we've been here since yesterday. I'm going to zoom in, Mark, right here. So you see what he's doing. But, again, folks, we've got a great audience out here. 14 days we're here, 14 days.

I know I'm zooming out real fast. But 14 days, 14 acts, 14 acts, three days. If you want to watch the live stream, folks, what you should do is go to gfntv.com and you can actually see the live stream. $10.99 for that live stream pass. That's what you should do. Folks, it has been great.

I'm going to be back in studio next week. We've got the HBCU rally taking place on the campus outside Indianapolis at the state capitol, trying to fight for funding for, the HBCU rally taking place on the campus of, excuse me, outside Indianapolis at the state capitol, trying to fight for funding for those four HBCUs. And so we are

so glad to be here. We got a lot of things that are going on. We appreciate all of your support. If you want to support Roland Martin Unfiltered, all you got to do is go to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com and then what you can do is you can join Bring the Funk fan club. Every single dollar that you give goes to support what we do as we, of course, cover the issues that matter to you.

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Again, GFBandTV.com. Watch the live stream. So I got to go. Y'all have an absolutely fabulous weekend. This is an early birthday present for me. I turn 51 November 14th. So we're about to go have some fun here. Y'all take care. Have a great one.

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