#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 1.23 RMU: GA voter suppression; Trump lies about Blacks and the economy; Fighting cyber-bullying

Episode Date: January 25, 2020

1.23.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: AJC report reveals Georgia's precinct closures hurts voter turnout; Trump plans to cut Social Security and Medicare; Victim of cyber-harassment fights back and wins; WTH?!? Detroit man settles race discrimination suit and a bank won't cash his settlement check + Meet the man behind Nagast Footwear #RolandMartinUnfiltered partners: Are you looking to enhance your leadership or that of your team in 2020? Join Dr. Jacquie Hood Martin as she engages others to think like a leader. Register and start the online course today! www.live2lead.com/Leesburg - The National Leadership Conference in issuing a call to action for the African-American community to mobilize participation in the 2020 census, advocate for oting rights, and the CBC's legislative agenda. Answer the call visit https://cbc.house.gov/2020summit/ #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a digital news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you. Today is Thursday, January 23, 2020, and up next on Roland Martin Unfiltered, a new analysis from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution finds that precinct closures in Georgia are actually hurting voter turnout. We'll talk with one of the co-founders of Black Voters Matter about this issue and its impact on the November election. Donald Trump plans to cut entitlements

like Social Security and Medicare at the end of the year, even though he said he wouldn't do it. But not only that, he went on this tangent talking about how great things are economically for African Americans. We'll have Bill Spriggs, economic professor at Howard University and lead economist for the AFL-CIO

to talk about the numbers. Who's lying, Trump, and lead economist for the AFL-CIO to talk about the numbers. Who's lying? Trump. And who's telling the truth? We are. And what can you do about, uh, if you're the victim of cyber harassment and bullying? Not listen to Melania Trump. She ain't doing a damn thing about it. We'll talk with the woman who fought back and actually won.

And what about crazy-ass white people segment? Detroit man settles a race discrimination lawsuit, goes to the bank to cash the check, and the bank discriminates against him. Now he's suing a trifling ass. Plus, meet the man behind the African-inspired footwear I told you about last week, uh, out of Atlanta. Folks, it's time to bring the funk.

I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fat, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief 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, yeah. Rolling with rolling now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know, he's Roland Martel now. Roland Martel.

A recent analysis by the Land Journal-Constitution mapped Georgia's 7 million registered voters and compared how distance to their local precincts increased or decreased from 2012 to 2018. During that time, county election officials shut down 8% of Georgia's polling places and relocated nearly 40% of the state's precincts.

The analysis showed that the further voters live from their precincts, the less likely they are to cast a ballot. Joining me right now is Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. Cliff, this is the kind of voter suppression we have been talking about for years. Republicans sit here and they say,

oh, no, we aren't doing these things. We talk about voter ID. We talk about gerrymandering. But shutting down precincts and moving them further away, it is all about keeping people from being able to vote. You're exactly right. And that's why, and thank you for having me on, Roland. That's exactly why we're seeing that all of this

has really increased ever since 2012, ever since the 2013 Shelby decision, of course, the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. It just so happens that when you look at these poll shutdowns, it's not just Georgia, it's all across the country, but particularly bad in Georgia under the previous Secretary of State Kemp. And so what you see is that ever since the gutting of the Voting Rights Act, you saw those shutdowns. That amounts to 214 polling places right here in Georgia. And it's not equally distributed. And so in some of these counties, even some rural counties, like there was an article that you mentioned, there was one county that was talked about, it was a rural county that only had five polling places. Four of them were shut down. In Randolph County, where we went with our Black Voters Matters bus, the blackest bus in America a couple of years ago, they tried to shut down seven out of nine polling places.

So the way that this distribution is taking place and the populations that it's impacted, it's clearly a voter suppression tactic. And that's before we even get into the other piece of that, which isn't just the shutting down of the polling places, but it's also the relocation of other polling places. That also has a disastrous impact. Well, and in fact, if folks actually go to, I'm pulling it up right now, democracydiverted.com. This is a report done by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. And there was a number of groups who put this whole thing together.

And what they showed is that across the South, a total of 1,200 polling locations were actually shut down. Henry, if you go to my iPad right now, folks, this is the map right here. And you see, okay, so you can't, I don't know why you can't see it. Folks, check that HDMI connection, please. I want to show this because, again, this is what people need to understand.

We're not just talking about just Georgia. 1,200 across the south, across the south. And so a 50% decrease you see in the dark areas, you should be able to see it right now, 25% to 50% decrease, 10% to 25% decrease, 1% to 10% decrease. What you're not seeing on this map increases. The fact of the matter is, you're right, after the Shelby v. Holder decision,

Republican legislatures across the South and across the country raced to shut down precincts because they did not have to have preclearance on any of their changes to voting procedures. That's right. And when you think about the combination, right, because what we know is that they have an entire playbook, an entire voter suppression playbook. And so it's not just this issue of closing polls and relocating polls, right? We know that it's combined with the purges. But think about the way that these things combine, right, and reinforce one another. So you have the closing of the polling

places. You've had documented what the impact of that is on turnout. So you've got an increasing number of people who can't vote, who don't vote because of the closing. Then what do you do? If they don't vote because of these distances over a certain number of cycles, now you come in with the purges. Now you come in with use it or lose it. So in essence, what you're seeing is you're seeing one voter suppression tactic designed to decrease turnout, and then you come in and you re-penalize the very folks that you had already disenfranchised by closing the polling places. You double disenfranchise them by now saying, because you were so vulnerable to us closing these polling places and because your turnout went down, now we're going to take you off the polling list. Then you see what? You see absentee voting becomes more important

because for our older person that used to walk to their polling place and now it's five miles away or 10 miles away. So now absentee voting becomes more important. But at the same time, what we've seen is, and especially here in Georgia, that the Secretary of State was ruthless in coming down on organizations for registering Black voters, for using absentee ballots to get Black voters to get their polls counted when they can't get to the polls. So you see that whole voter prosecution issue also being overlapped with the closing of the polling places. And then you see what? You see attacks on people giving rides to the polls. Right here in Georgia, we had a party that was giving rides to the polls and through a unique partnership with some funeral

homes that were providing vehicles. And that person was pulled over and had eight, count them, eight patrol cars come over and stop him because he was parked on the wrong side of the road. They knew that he was in a vehicle that was being used for rides to the polls. The rides to the polls that were increasingly necessary. Why? Because of closing the polling places. So it's a layered strategy that we're seeing. Absolutely. Cliff Albright, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks

a lot. Co-founder of Black Voters Matter. Thank you, Roe. Alright, folks. In a moment, I'm going to go to my panel. Right now, I want to go live to the United States Senate where Congressman Hakeem Jeffries is making the case for the Democrats in the impeachment of Donald Trump. Let's go live right now. Ukrainians, Mr. Daniel Yuk starts to ask about a White House meeting, and Ambassador Bolton was trying to parry this back.

As you've seen, President Zelensky didn't just raise the Oval Office meeting on his April 21st call. He raised the meeting on July 21st, fifth call, with President Trump again. President Zelensky said on the July 25th call, I also wanted to thank you for your invitation to visit the United States, specifically Washington, D.C. After the July 25th call, the Ukrainians continued to into the President's misconduct as it relates to Ukraine, and the existence of a whistleblower complaint became public, did President Trump and President Zelensky meet face-to-face for the first time. That meeting was on the sidelines

of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. It was dominated by public release of the July 25th call record that had occurred the day before. It was a far cry from the strong demonstration of support that would have been achieved by an Oval Office meeting. Even President Zelensky recognized that a face-to-face talk on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly was not the same as an official Oval Office meeting. Sitting next to President Trump in New York, he again raised a White House meeting. Here is what President Zelensky said.

PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY, I want to thank you for the invitation to Washington. You invited me. But I think I'm sorry. I'm sorry, but I think you forgot to tell me the date. But I think in the near future. President Trump was not just withholding a small thing. The Oval Office meeting was a big deal. Ukraine remains at war with Russia.

It desperately needs our support. And as a result, the pressure on Ukraine not to upset President Trump, who still refuses to meet with President Zelenskyy in the Oval Office to this day, continues. David Holmes testified that the Ukrainian government wants an Oval Office meeting even after the release of the security assistance and that our own United States national security objectives would also benefit from such a meeting.

Although the hold on the security assistance may have been lifted, there were still things they wanted that they weren't getting, including a meeting with the president in the Oval Office. Whether the hold, the security system hold continued or not, the Ukrainians understood that that's something the president wanted, and they still wanted important things from the president. So I think that continues to this day. I think they're being very careful. They still need us now going forward. In fact, right now, President Zelensky is trying to arrange a summit meeting with President Putin in the coming weeks to his first face-to-face meeting with him to try to advance the peace process. He needs our support.

He needs President Putin to understand that America supports Zelensky at the highest levels. So this doesn't end with the lifting of the security assistance hold. Ukraine still needs us and, as I said, still fighting this war this very day. All right, folks. hold. Ukraine still needs us and, as I said, still fighting this war this very day. Alright, folks, again, so the Democrats continue to make their case in the United States Senate. I'll first want to deal with our first story. That is, of course, the precincts in Georgia and across the South. Dr. Greg Carr, Chair of the Department of

Afro-American Studies, Howard University. Erica Savage-Wilson, host of Savage Politics Podcast. Eugene Craig, CEO of the Eugene Craig Organization. Eugene, I want to start with you. The reality is, after the Shelby v. Holden decision, Republicans could not wait to suppress the vote. They quickly moved to pass voter ID laws, shutting down of these various polling locations,

moving them further away. In fact, not just hurting African Americans and Latinos. In Wisconsin, I remember in 2012, a clerk stated that she purposely moved an early voting location off of a college campus because she said too many of those young folks were voting Democrat. Yeah, I mean, it's the effort to hurt Democrat votes.

Republicans know that, look, they turned it to a regional minority party. You know, 10 years from now, Republican Party's gonna be a regional minority party unless they get their act together. And so what you're seeing is a full-on assault, you know, 10 years from now, Republican party is going to be a regional minority party. Let's get their act together. And so what you're seeing is a full on assault, you know, funded by dark money and, you know, bad money. If I could characterize it that way to fund these efforts. And that's what you're seeing here. You know, they know that they can't win these constituencies. So

the best next best thing is to just make sure they don't vote or aren't able to vote or, you know, have a speed bump or five to vote. Great. Bottom line is that's what we're seeing here. Republicans know if there's a huge turnout, they lose. They do not want to see black people turn out in the elections like they did in 2008 and 2012. That's exactly right. And then to keep it Georgia-specific in a moment,

Roland, parenthetically, I want that top, brother. But anyway. But shout-out to the great thief, the illegitimate governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, who stole his most recent gubernatorial election. But they've got a particular eye on November 2020. Why? Because Johnny Axelson resigned from his seat,

and Kelly Loeffler is up for election to fill the last two years of that seat. And David Perdue's seat is also vacant. He's running for reelection. They will both be defeated in November if we power through this moment. Brian Kemp is pulling out all the stops. They're pulling out all the stops because they realize that they're about to lose two seats in Georgia if black people just do like we've been saying. And you laid out with this, every year we register. And go in there and wipe them off the face of that state,

because Mike Epstein can win in Mississippi, they can flip two seats in Georgia, the demographics are in our favor, and as we just heard our brother say, you're absolutely right. They are now dropping all pretenses, and they don't need hoods and sheets anymore, they are in the broad daylight

trying to steal everything going. Erica. Absolutely, and just to add to that, that North Carolina, there was just a decision that was issued in North Carolina. December 31st, they were still fighting to ensure that people would have to show up to the primary

with ID. And so the statement on the Secretary of State plainly says that Secretary of State cites plainly says that, listen, this decision is firm until further notice. So when we see these efforts, going back to another illegitimate person in a governorship, Ron DeSantis, that voting is not a privilege. Voting is a right. But what both of you brothers, I absolutely agree with, that the onus is on the people to show up and to over-index and to put that into plain language,

meaning you need to show up, your mama, your cousin, the trap boys, everybody has to show up. Come on, everybody has to make sure one another is registered and everybody has to go to the poll. The same way that we would wait for other things, you stand in that line and you make sure that you vote. And what's more important is that there are a lot of states that have their state legislature elections this cycle.

And so if folks turn out, you know, those same state legislatures are going to be the ones that are going to determine what the lines and maps look like during redistricting over the next year and a half. Let's turn to impeachment. Eugene, I'm laughing because the Republicans yesterday forgot to bring their slides and the videos. And I think it shows you the ineptness

of the folks who were trying to defend Donald Trump. Also, Republicans are doing their best not to pay attention. They're supposed to stay seated for the entire time, many of them walking in and out. John Roberts refuses to hold them accountable, let them do whatever they want to. So it's laughable watching this whole deal and how they cannot

in any way actually own up to what happened. So you have one senator from Indiana who just said, oh, no, no, no, Trump did nothing. When the duty, when he is, when Trump is in Davos saying, yeah, we have the documents, they don't have anything. He was admitting, yeah, we obstructed.

And what's crazy, what's crazy is that these folk live their lives at this point so day-to-day, hour-to-hour, just trying to make sure they aren't pissing off Donald Trump. They aren't looking at the long-term ramifications of this, which you probably want to see after all this is over. Look, we know that, you know, Trump's going to be acquitted, right? It's like, you know, I think the best definition of this

is essentially having his frat boys, you know, convict him of something that we know he did. We know Trump's going to be acquitted by the Republican Senate, but what's going to happen in the next two election cycles, you're going to see Susan Collins probably get booted. You're going to see Cory Gardner probably get booted. You're going to see Martha McSally get blown out by Mark Kelly. And that's just three. And then you can run the gamut and pick one from people like Tom Tillis, 82 in Georgia, and a litany of other races that are—

Possibly McConnell. Possibly, possibly, you know, cocaine Mitch could be gone. And so, you know, but they aren't thinking long term. They're thinking hey, how do I not piss Trump off in this day-to-day environment? Not hey, I'm on a daily basis

pissing off voters that are going to remember this in 2020 election. What I tell people all the time is that you know, look, in 2018, you saw a record turnout for people having the first opportunity to vote against Donald Trump. What the hell do you think they're gonna do when they have the opportunity to vote

against Donald Trump himself, not just his party? Right, right. Yeah, they're not counting the cost. And I love what Dr. Jason said yesterday when he was on RMU. He said, you know, whatever that is that Donald Trump has on them, you know, bottle that up and sell it. So this short term, the other thing that I hope that people are remembering is something that I shared on Twitter the other day,

is that you have a John Roberts, a Roberts court. This is the same person that's responsible for the 2010 Citizens United decision, and then you also have him responsible for the 2013 Section 5 gutting of the BRA. And so to the extent that the American people are seeing that there's such a lackluster involvement in democracy on the behalf of the Republicans from a person who was, who got his go-to seat from a Republican president, that, again, that when they show up to the polls to make sure that they are issuing a personal referendum on who they want to see in power, who they want to see leading what fragments we have left of democracy.

That's absolutely right. I mean, and as a student of American democracy, and we all are, but listening yesterday, and y all are, but listening yesterday, and y'all talked about it yesterday on the show, but listening to Adam Schiff, I think that was one of the most remarkable flights of public oratory, really, in American history. He was making a direct plea

for the future of American democracy. And as we've just heard, as y'all both have just laid out, what we're really seeing on trial is American democracy. And once it's broken, it's not going to be rewoven. America's a settler state. It was never a nation. It's a state with many different nations in it. Once you have violated the principle

that there is the law that holds us together, as Schiff said yesterday, there's nothing to stop anyone who has power from doing whatever the hell they want. And so what I think the mistake the Republicans have made, as you're saying, Eugene, is that they think perhaps they can overplay this, expecting that other people believe in American democracy more than them.

No, no one really believes in American democracy. That social contract is only held together if the possibility that the law is above us exists. Once they've destroyed that, then it becomes, let's just get our people in. And as Schiff said yesterday, if it's a Democrat that comes in and says, I'm gonna do everything by executive fiat,

the Democratic Party then just says, can we stack the legislature to back our woman or back our man? You've destroyed the idea of the rule of law. And that is what they're risking in the federal legislature. Even as Hakeem speaks and as Al Deming demonstrates, they're risking it all. Right. Or competing interests for that matter.

You know, the Congress and the executive branch, the way our Republicans design is for them to clash. You should have competing interests. You should have competing interests, you should have competing powers, but what you're seeing with the way of the filibuster and the way these folk, I mean, a lot of these folk even stood up to Bush on things. They stood up to Bush on things and they're just rolling on Trump.

It's sad to see. All right, folks, we'll talk about this here. And so I just saw this video here. So Elizabeth Warren is campaigning in, I think it looks like, in Iowa. And this white man rolls up on her and is complaining about her proposal to pay off or wipe out student loan debt. I want to play this, and I want to talk about this, because just here we go. My daughter's getting out of school. I'm saying to my mother, she doesn't have any student loans. Why do you need no money back? because just here we go. All right, let me go ahead and be real clear.

This is why I got a serious issue with the arrogance of this white man. And guess what? If there was a black man in the video, I would call his ass arrogant as well. To sit here and confront by saying that, oh, I worked my butt off, I did the right thing and paid off my child student loan debt, well, way to go. And then to use your buddy who you say

who took vacations and who didn't and he would get a free ride. But guess what? It's a whole bunch of people who are white, who are black, who are Latino, who work their butt off, and guess what? Still don't have any extra money left to pay off student loan debt. And so here's what I would also be interested in.

And I wish, and I know Elizabeth Warren couldn't do it, but I also would have asked that white man, so what do you have to say about the $30 billion that farmers have gotten because of Trump's tariffs, many of them here in Iowa? What do you have to say about the billions of dollars American taxpayers have footed in subsidies, also called welfare, to Iowa farmers to not grow food in order to keep food prices artificially high. Please tell me, white man in Iowa, what do you have to say about the billions of dollars and ethanol subsidies that have gone to people in Iowa? Hmm.

Do other folks work their butt off? See, Greg, what bothers me with guys like him is that you could apply that to anything. You could apply that to the earned income tax credit. You could apply that to anything. And so this whole deal of, yo, do I get my money back? Well, guess what? It's a whole bunch of stuff that happened in the past that laws were changed.

And so what do you want? You want to go back 30 years and say, can I get my money back? How about this one? Y'all got free-ass labor. My, my, my. My, my. Can we get our money back? My, my.

See, I mean, if you want to go there, if you want to go there, but it bothers me, it bothers me where, okay, you said you work double shifts. Guess what? It's a bunch of people who wish they had a job where they could have had double shifts. Come on, brother.

People take jobs sometimes at colleges, and I work at one of them, getting paid very low wages for the opportunity to have their children go there reduced or tuition. In other words, no one has ever, people talk about free, everything is subsidized. We pay taxes. So, I mean, and this is the thing, after we get past the white primaries, Iowa and New Hampshire,

then we get into the real primaries. And what is terrifying now, commercial news entertainment media, is that Bernie Sanders' numbers are not going down, they're going up. Is that Elizabeth Warren, even though she's dipped a bit, is still there. And is that Bernie Sanders' numbers are not going down, they're going up. Is that Elizabeth Warren, even though she's dipped a bit, is still there. And is that combined,

those two represent a plurality of the voters, and that the younger you go in the demographic, the larger their numbers are. Why is that terrifying? Because there's a consciousness shift in this society. And that shift is around, really, the concept that if we're going to have a society, extreme wealth inequality is going to have to be addressed.

This white man is irrelevant. His little state is irrelevant. His state receives subsidies from other states. States like Maryland, places like the District of Columbia that has no political representation in the federal legislation. So ultimately, his comments are fodder for news entertainment media.

And it's infuriating, but ultimately, I think we're going to see a shift as people say exactly what you're saying. We got to move toward a different type of government. But it also bothers me, Erica, because, look, I've got some black people on my Twitter page who are saying, oh, you call this guy's comments are dumb.

They are dumb. They're dumb in the sense that, okay, so you worked a double shift to be able to save money. How about the people who are the working poor? Okay. Whose children are the first generation to go to college. People who literally are going to college with $50 in their pocket. That's me, bro.

All right. Not having enough resources to be able to eat. Look, my parents had three of us in college at one time. I got it. My brother was a junior. I was a sophomore. Sister was a freshman at one time. Parents never made more than 50 grand combined in their life

and still had two sisters at home. Come on, Roland. So I'm sitting here going, so you're tripping because of a proposal. How about this? How about realizing that sometimes stuff is bigger than your trifling ass?

How about realizing that you know what? You're dealing with a trillion dollars in student loan debt where what has happened is you're going to have kids and their kids' kids

saddled with debt. And so her proposal is talking about using the powers, if she's president, to wipe 50 grand off. If you got $130,000 in student loan debt and she wipes away 50, you still got 80. Yes, sir. Yeah, that's a whole salary for some people. And thinking about that, there was a whole salary for some people. How about that? And thinking about that,

there was a gentleman who was homeless a part of that whole unfortunate sweep that they're doing on K Street, and he was very frank. He said, listen, you got to be honest. He was like, to live in D.C. proper or in the D.C. area, you've got to make at least 80 grand.

He was like, so I'm where I have no choice but to be. How about that? So to listen to the audacity of whiteness, the same profile of a person that can be in a Virginia and march down a road with guns in tow and have police escorts and not have the police to tackle them down. I'm listening to him and I heard that clip before and I thought to myself, I was like, well, damn, that sounds like a lot of what happens in the black experience. And what usually has to happen is that, as you pointed out, your parents had three children in college at the same time. There's a waymate.

Somebody gets a second, third job. Somebody babysits. Somebody does hair in the house. So, you know, this kind of whining really does speak to why, number one, Iowa needs to not be one of the first states that a primary is held in. You have a 90-plus percent folks that are white that live in that are supposed to speak to the lived experiences of America. Please, that ain't even it.

And then number two, you have people that stay in lenses that really are, when you look at it, they're people that are in more unfortunate situations that have to make a way. So this, for me, was just white male mom whining at his clients. But you know what? Here's what's interesting, Eugene. I was watching this 730 for 30 documentary about the cheating scandal that took place

at some of the city colleges in New York. Oh, yeah. Do you know what people don't realize? You're usually able to go to college for free in New York. Oh, no question. How many people were able to get a free education, going to city schools in New York, and so what?

See, this whole idea somehow, oh, my goodness, that that's not right, that's not just. All right, dude is mad because he saved money to pay his kids' debt off. All right, so are you upset with the GI Bill? Are you upset if soldiers are able to go to college at reduced rates. See, the problem with this whole deal of, well, this is just me and my life, you act as if there's nobody else out there,

as if there's nobody else out there working hard, okay? If you have a job that's paying you $9 an hour and you go get you another job that's paying you $9 an hour, and you go get you another job that's paying you $7 an hour, that means you've now got two jobs paying you a total of $16 an hour. Right. I'm sorry.

Please show me how you have the capacity to live off of that and save money to be able to pay your child's debt off. This is whiteness. That's what this is. And guess what? There's a reason why black kids have twice as much student loan debt as white kids.

I agree with you. I mean, look, this guy wants to live in reality. Let's talk about some things that are slightly more expensive than wiping out student loan debt that I'm pretty sure he has no problem paying. Like, hey, let's increase this defense budget almost to a trillion dollars per year. Or, hey, let's kick in more than just the $30 billion that they've gotten in relief. That's not the actual subsidies that's gone to Iowa farmers or middle America farmers. Let's talk about you know subsidies that's gone to green cars that one more time benefit states

like Iowa. Let's talk about you know all the dollars that go out of states like Maryland or California or New York or the big blue diverse states that you know hey states like Iowa New Hampshire tend to scoff at because one more time they're big blue and diverse. Okay, here's the deal. Right here. I'm pulling up right here. Again, just so people... The $2 trillion we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just so you understand, in terms of farm subsidies...

Break it down. Okay? These are just facts. Farm subsidies. Total USDA subsidies from 1995 to 2019. Number one, Texas. Big-ass state.

Got $37.5 billion in farm subsidies. What's number two? Iowa. Little bitty-ass Iowa. Got $33.2 billion in farm subsidies.

Where does that come from, bro? Federal taxpayers. Which means I paid for that, you paid for that. Precisely. Right. And you want to know what's going on? Right, right. You want to know what's crazy?

You want to know what's crazy? You want to know what's crazy? If you look at that list, if you look at that list right there, right, you take away number three, Illinois. Number three, Illinois. Four, Minnesota. Five, Kansas. three, Illinois, four, Minnesota, five, Kansas, six, Nebraska,

North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Indiana, Arkansas, California, blue, Ohio, red, Mississippi, red, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, went red, Georgia, Montana,

Colorado, North Carolina, Louisiana, Michigan, Washington State, Kentucky, Tennessee. So, of the top 25 farm subsidy states, let's see. Illinois blue, one. Minnesota blue, two. California blue, two. California blue, three. Uh, Colorado, call it blue, four. Trump, one. Michigan, Washington State, five.

Of the top 25 states, 20 are red states. 80%. Give us our money back. And the thing is this, the thing is this. And if you look at... If you look at the total amount of cash, you know, those states population-wise probably all equal up to Texas. That's right. And the thing is this, if you look at a total amount of cash, you know, those states population-wise probably all equal up to Texas. That's right.

And they're all, and, you know, they're getting probably up, you know, if you look at the cash distribution, you know, they're probably getting 10 to 1 combined, you know, to the state of Texas. So it's not even right to read it in terms of states. It's really right to read it in terms of population, which means what? D.C., black-ish, right?

Baltimore, black. All because New York State, New York. Because they don't have farmland. No question. We paying, and these cats in the hood paying every kind of tax from sales tax. Hold on. And then don't forget,

the tax law is also set up to benefit those who own real estate. Yeah. So, see, look, bottom line is this. If you're going to have the United States, this extreme inequality has to be addressed. Elizabeth Warren comes out of Oklahoma. She's trying, and in a minute we're going to hear from,

you know, my colleague Bill Spriggs who's going to walk us through this Social Security. The majority of people who get subsidies in this country because of the population are white. This man, whether it be Social Security, whether it be Medicare, Medicaid, whether it be any of these, these are things we've already paid for. And so what they have to understand is there's going to come a day in this country, this is why you say whiteness,

when if you choose your whiteness over your life, we're going to choose differently too. And we're going to stop carrying the Dakotas. We're going to stop carrying Iowa. And what they're doing right now down in Congress, they are threatening the fabric that holds this idea together. And there'll come a day we turn our backs on y'all, and you ain't got enough guns to keep the United States together this time. All right, folks, gotta go to a break. When we come back, we're gonna talk about...

So Donald Trump was in Davos, and he was just extolling how wonderful life is for African Americans under Donald Trump. We're gonna fact-check his ass. That's next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. You want to check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. 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. All right, for us, join Reverend Dr. Jackie Hood Martin as she engages others to think like a leader. Are you looking to enhance your leadership or that

of your team in 2020? You can join her online course and mastermind group, How Successful People Think. She'll be your guide as you learn timeless leadership principles to apply to daily living. The offer expires on February 28th. To register or start the online course, go to

www.livetolead.com forward slash Leesburg. livetolead.com forward slash Leesburg. Livetolead.com forward slash Leesburg. Again, it is the online leadership course that you want, and it's called How Successful People Think. And so the deadline is February 28th. And so, livetolead.com forward slash Leesburg. All right, folks, Donald Trump is in Davos, where all the rich people are, for the annual event there. And he gave the interview on CNBC, and he was talking about Social Security, Medicaid.

But then he got into how just wonderful things are in America, especially for black people. I dare. One last question. Go ahead. Entitlements ever be on your plate? At some point they will be. We have tremendous growth. We're going to have tremendous growth this next year. It'll be toward the end of the year. The growth is going to be incredible. And at the right time, we will take a look at that. You know, that's actually the easiest of all things, if you look, because it's such a willing to do some of the things that you said you wouldn't do in the past though in terms of look we also have assets that

we never had I mean we never had growth like this we never had a consumer that was taken in through the different means over $10,000 a family we never had the kind of the kind of things that we have look our country is the hottest in the world we have the hottest economy in the world we have the best unemployment numbers we've ever had. African-American, Asian-American, Hispanics are doing so incredibly best they've ever done. Black, best they've ever done.

African-American, the numbers are incredible. The poverty numbers, the unemployment and the employment. There is a difference, actually. But the unemployment and employment numbers for African-Americans are the best we've ever had. You know, we just came up with a chart and it was a very important number to me. African-American youth has the highest by far unemployment, the best unemployment numbers that they've ever had and the best employment numbers. Right now, we have almost 160 million people working in the United States, and we've never even been close to that Joe all right there's a reason I

use the hashtag Trump lies matter because you saw lots of lies there you heard we had to say about Social Security but you know there's always a tweet or a series of tweets whenever he talks the first one please this was what he said I'm going to save Medicare and Medicaid. Carson wants to abolish and failing candidate Governor John Kasich. Doesn't have a clue. Weak. Hmm.

Really? You're going to save it like you said you save HBCUs, huh? I was the first and only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Huckabee copied me. Still lying. Republicans who want to cut Social Security and Medicaid are wrong. A robust economy will make America great again. Another lie. That's what happens. But really what was bugging the hell out of me was how he was talking about how great things

are for black people. Joining me now is Howard University economist, Dr. Bill Spriggs. Doc, glad to have you here. I want to show you this here. This is from this report dealing with five facts reveal the current crisis in black home ownership. Go to my iPad, please, Henry. Number one, the current 30 percentage point gap between black and white home ownership is larger than it was in 1968 when housing discrimination was legal. If black home ownership rates were the same today as it was in 2000, America would have 770,000 additional black homeowners. Home ownership is lower for black college graduates

than for white high school dropouts. Number four, black borrowers are less likely to meet the traditional credit standards necessary to qualify for a mortgage. Number five, 17% of the black white home ownership gap can't be explained by identifiable factors. But I thought stuff was just so great for black people. Well, they aren't. The labor market, so let's be clear about the labor market,

again, because he's made this claim repeatedly. If I just did a straight line for the eight years before he became president and said, what is black unemployment going to be? It's going to be about the same as it is right now. It would be a little lower. So this is the rooster claiming I made the sun come up. It was going to happen without him. His claim is I didn't mess it up.

That's his claim. Now, in terms of the share of black people who have a job, we haven't gotten that back. We have got the share of people who had a job back to 2008, but the record was in 2001. So we're not there. And his claim about black teenage unemployment is kind of misleading

because black teenage labor force participation is very low anyway. It's the way that we compensate as a people because we don't have the income, we don't have the resources to help our kids, and so they withdraw in order to make up so they can study. See, the key to the whole black student debt crisis is because poor black people go to college.

White poor people don't. My God. They don't have to. Well, they don't have to because you saw this stat. If you're a white high school dropout, you're more likely to own a home than a black college graduate. If you are a white high school dropout, your unemployment rate, if you looked at it right it's like

5.1 something like that that's the black that's the black unemployment rate that's wow the black unemployment rate so if you're a white high school dropout your chances of getting their job that's what it is for a black person period wow so so yes they don't have to we do we got the memo it's not like black people didn't get the memo we got the memo that's why we went into debt because poor black kids go to school 65% of black kids enter college the maximum maximum expected contribution from their parents is zero. Zero. Their parents don't have enough.

You gave the examples that you went through. Their parents don't have enough for us to expect them to come up with anything because there's no there there. I mean, right. As I think back, my parents may have sent some money, but when I'm talking about some, I ain't talking about a thousand.

I ain't talking about 500. Maybe? Maybe $50? Maybe. That's just reality. That's reality. And you worked while you were in school. Oh, hell yeah, I worked.

We all did. Absolutely worked. Absolutely worked. But see, here's... All four years. Yes, sir. But here's the difference. We changed policy in 2000. This generation, the reason why it's a trillion dollars and everybody's talking about it is because if you look back in history, this is unique.

This 10-year period, 20-year period, it stands out. It's not any other period in American history. Why? Because our previous deal before 2000 was America invested in public higher education so it was affordable. Right. So you didn't go into debt. When I was in college in the 70s, if you took a minimum wage job, any job, if you worked at McDonald's in the summer,

that was tuition for the University of California, Berkeley. Mm-hmm. If you took a McDonald's job for the summer, that was tuition at the University of California, Berkeley. I worked at crystals Wow night and paid for Tennessee State because my parents like you said three in college at the same time so are you I mean so

how do we fix it brother is it a policy issue it it is a policy issue but that's why people are talking about forgiveness because if I were to correct it right if I said you know what every American up until 2000 got the deal. This generation got cheated. I want to go back to the original deal. I want to go back to if you just go and work for three months at McDonald's, that's your tuition. Right. If I go back to that, then I'm going to have a bunch of people saying, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, time out.

That wasn't my deal. My deal was you borrow $60,000. And then we're talking about the cuts. It wasn't just federal cuts. You also saw state cuts and public education. Then you had, because of state cuts, dramatic increase in tuition. And so as a result, haves and have-nots. And so the thing for me, again, I want, because Reverend Barber sent me this, because again, when Trump was touting how wonderful things are for black people,

this is what he tweeted the other day. He said, Mr. President, this is not, Trump was tweeting about, Trump had sent out a tweet where he said, let me go ahead and plug it in so y'all can see this. Henry, let me know if you got, you should be able to see,

do you see it now? Let me know. Trump tweeted about on MLK Day, it was exactly three years ago today, January 20, 2017, do y'all see it? That I was sworn into office, so appropriate that today is also MLK Junior Day. African-American unemployment is the lowest

in the history of our country, by far also best poverty, youth, and employment numbers ever great. Irvin Barber says, Mr. President, this is not true, and the prophetic tradition of MLK contradicts your lie. Median income for black households is $2,000 lower in your administration than in Obama's when black unemployment fell nine points. You sound like the slave master

who boasted that his slaves were happy. Wow. Well, that's about it. Remember, though, when he took office, he took office with the lowest black unemployment rate that any president inherited. So all the other presidents, and people used to pick on President Obama, what the black

unemployment rate was. They forgot he inherited a high black unemployment rate that was rising. This man inherited the lowest unemployment rate black people ever had for a new president. Oh, slavery. 100% unemployment. And, and, oh yeah. This is why, this is why. Right.

Exactly. This is why I always get on people by the job guarantee. 100%. You know, we had a job guarantee. We had a job, right. We decided that didn't sound so sweet. No question. So, he already, if the score is 99 to nothing,

I hand over the ball to you with 30 seconds left and you're on the two-yard line. Come on. And then you want to act like, oh, I did something. Right. And if you look at that one at its highest point, I think unemployment rate was what? Because of the housing crisis, everything,

we're losing half a million jobs a month. It was what, 16%, 18% for African-Americans. He leaves, it's down to... It's slashed in half. Eight or eight and a half, something like that. It's only been lowered 2.2 points or so since Trump came in.

So, like, he slashed it, but also what he won't talk about, the black male unemployment rate has gone up in the last several months. Well, last month it went up. And he had us all frightened because The black male unemployment rate has gone up in the last several months. Well, last month it went up. And-and he-he had us all frightened because, uh, there was a period earlier in the year

when the black female and male unemployment rate were going up. That had to do with the Fed getting it wrong on the interest rates. Fortunately, they changed course. But he's not had a smooth decline. It's not been every month right doing better and so the reason i wanted to break this down and not just because the deal is and i saw robert smith on squawk box and he put this on his instagram page where he was asked that question and he said he

said first of all guys he said you can't just look at look at the unemployment rate, he said, because the question is, are you making money to be able to build wealth, or are you making money just to be able to survive? And he said, you got to deal with that. And then he brought up also the whole issue in terms of home ownership. And so when you start talking about,

so when all these people like Candace Owens and these crazy-ass people, who Christian Lamar and the rest of these fools, oh, how great things are for African Americans. And I love how they talk about that fool Charlie Kirk. He'll tweet, oh, black business startups up 400%. Yes, there are 2.6 million black owned businesses in America, 2.5 million have one employee.

When there were 1.9 million black owned businesses under Obama, 1.8 million have one employee. When there were 1.9 million black-owned businesses under Obama, 1.8 million had one employee. Oh, but when there were 1.9 million black-owned businesses, they had an average annual revenue of $110,000. Today, we have 700,000 more black-owned businesses. Average revenue is 54,000. So you can't get excited saying, oh, 700,000 new black-owned businesses

doing half the revenue of the previous number, and you're still stuck with largely one employee. It's called the hustle. Make it plain. And so that gets counted as employed. So when I do my hustle, so I'm a business, and as you just said, I'm the only employee, if there are no jobs for me as a tailor,

and I decide my hustle is going to be I'm going to open up a tailor shop, there are no jobs for you as a tailor, right? But I'm going to start a tailor shop. Wait, time out. Right. Like this can't be tailor shop. Right. Wait, time out. Right. Like, this can't be in demand. Right. So this is the crisis.

But as you point out, and you asked me about his getting cornered on Medicare and on Social Security, he had promised everybody, and you talked about trillion-dollar debt and people forgiving the trillion-dollar debt. He increased the deficit with his tax cut by over a trillion and a half, giving it to the richest corporations, the richest people on the planet, and we were told as American workers, oh, look, the reason y'all can't get a wage increase is because your bosses who have record profits still can't afford to pay you because they're paying so much in taxes. Right. So we're

going to give them a permanent tax cut and with that tax cut y'all going to get a wage increase. And before it even passed, two-thirds of the CEOs said no we're not. We're doing shareholder buyback. And that's exactly what they did and real wages last year

flat. Yep. Flat. No one got any more anywhere. Real wages stayed flat. There you go. So we didn't see it. Now, because of that deficit, he has a reckoning.

He has to figure out what is he going to do about the deficit, which he promised us was going to shrink. So he's going after the old Republican target. Because their target has always been Medicare and Social Security. Now, those

should never have been targets. If you hadn't spent a trillion and a half giving it to the richest people on the planet, we wouldn't have this discussion. But that's also the setup that also when you see a senator, Amy Klobuchar, fall for the trap in the last debate where she talked about,

oh, we got to do something about, you know, Social Security and Medicaid and the debt. Right. Republicans are like, uh, we don't really give a damn what y'all think. So they talk all this stuff, debt, debt, debt. When Obama was there, Trump comes in, jacked up the debt. Oh, I don't hear jack from Congressman Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan and the Freedom Caucus about debt.

Nothing. Because what their whole deal is, they're thinking, you know what? It's a good bet Trump's going to lose. Y'all Democrats, y'all got to deal with the debt. And all of a sudden, it's gonna become a big issue. This is why, again, I said it yesterday, I'll say it again today. Democrats win in November. Whoever is the president

and Democrats take back the Senate, they should give the finger to every Republican who opens their mouth. Absolutely. If they say anything about the debt, about judges, or anything else. Like, all right, y'all done said a damn thing for four years. You get the hand, go to hell.

I don't want to hear nothing. I wouldn't let them talk in a hearing or nothing because they said nothing. And what Trump is doing, and the problem is there are some clueless, ignorant black people out there, the people walking around with these red MAGA hats falling for it. I got these fools in my Twitter timeline

talking about, oh, how great and wonderful their life is. The reality is this here. If you have a business where you do have multiple employees, and I can say that. I'm like, oh, my God, tax cut was great for us. But the bottom line is this here. Is it helping a wide variety of people? The Trump economy

is not a boon to black people. It simply isn't. It isn't a boon to business. The reason the... All business. All business. The reason the numbers of employment

were slowing is because new firm formation was falling. New business creation was falling. Why does it fall? It falls because how do I get a business, grow a business? I need customers. I need more customers. And then I need more customers. So if 187 million American households are getting a raise,

that's 187 million people who didn't have the money before who suddenly wake up and say, I have more money. What should I do with it? And that's when you as a business person say, I got an idea of what you can do with it. But if you wake up and it's 1%, not 187 million households, it's 1 million households

who wake up and say, I got more money. That's a different world. First off, the 1 million that we're talking about are Ivana Trump. So it's not... They're not coming to your tailor shop. At all. Exactly. They're going to the sweatshop in China. Exactly.

Come on. And so, this doesn't help me if I'm trying to start a business. Yeah. And so, how do I start or how do I grow my business if I can't get new customers? If new people aren't coming around, that means I have to take your customer.

My God. And in order for me to take your customer, I got to cut my prices to beat your price. So now how do I do that? One, I can discount, and we have seen thousands of retailers close because I can discount once. I might discount twice. If I discount five times, I might discount twice. If I discount five times, I'm out of business. And these retailers are closing because there's a limit to being able to do that.

Well, look, we're at the lowest number in a very long time of black McDonald's operators. What did I hear from the past decade from many of those brothers and sisters? They kept saying when McDonald's corporate would issue this eating in terms of the dollar menus, they were like, yo, we can't make money. And me at the store owner said, we're responsible for also

having to refurbish our stores. And so they're saying, and then very few black McDonald's operators owned 50 or 100 different stores. Yeah, white McDonald operators who did. And so you get this whole issue that they're saying, look, you're forcing us to have this dollar menu. Do you understand? If it goes from a buck 69 to a dollar, that's 69 cents times a thousand customers. That money is coming out of my pocket. And so when you talk

about price cuts, and I've been saying this of my pocket. And so when you talk about price cuts, and I've been saying this for decades, I love it when people talk about, you know, Walmart's slogan is low, low prices, and people run around and tell me, oh, Walmart should be paying their workers more. This is unfair. But guess what?

If you as a consumer keep demanding, I want low, low prices prices and I want it cheaper, the money is going to come from somewhere. And so, why did Levi's leave, stop making jeans in San Francisco and went overseas? Because American

buyers didn't want to pay 45 bucks for a pair of jeans. They wanted to pay $19.99. And guess what? A company, if you want to pay $ bucks for a pair of jeans. They want to pay $19.99. And guess what? A company, if you want to pay $19.99, I'm going to go to a place where I'm paying somebody 35 cents or a buck a

day to make it. Yeah, but see, all of that is driven because if for a long time you freeze the customer base, you force the companies to that. And it isn't so much that Americans don't want American made jeans if I don't keep getting a raise how do I pay for my stuff? Precisely. And and so here's the thing when we were

doing the minimum wage bill in the house which the house passed. Yes. The house has passed the $15 minimum wage for the whole country. We have business owners who said, look, I got eight workers. I have 40,000 customers. Do I want my 40,000 customers to have more money? 40,000 customers to have more money. Or do I worry about these eight people I got to pay more money to? Right. I want my customers to have more money

because that's more money for me to get. But they start making the argument that, oh, no, I got to pay more to my eight employees, and they brought the customers up, Greg. No, I was just going to ask, Bill, I mean, because, you know, one of the very important roles you play with the AFL-CIO is helping us understand how this translates into policy changes.

How do we attack this from a policy level, man? Because this thing is going, this extreme inequality is going to tear this country apart. It will tear the country apart because it's going to freeze the economy. Yes. It slows the growth. That's why, look, you got unemployment at 3%. How come you don't see automobile manufacturing through the roof? How come home sales aren't through the roof?

At 3% unemployment, there should be child's play to sell a car. Everybody has a job. Why don't they just flood around saying, I want a car? They can't afford it. Do you know, I cannot even explain to you, in the past year, how many text messages I get, and they... Not only that, they text my sister, they text my mama, they call the daddy,

trying to buy my house. Oh, man. I mean, it's crazy. No question. I'm like, no, I ain't settling. Take me off your damn list. Right. And I was sitting, and I'm going, like, all. I mean, it's crazy. No question. I'm like, no, I ain't settling. Take me off your damn list. And I was sitting and I'm going like, all of a sudden, it really started about a year ago. I'm going like, how in the hell all of a sudden?

I mean, I'm talking about like, it was like every day. I'm like, first behind the head, y'all got my phone number. But what's happening is housing starts. You do not have enough housing stock. Yeah. And so what these investor groups are doing is they're buying, knowing full well that if you want to sit here and buy my house for $190,000, $200,000, you're going to turn that bad boy around and sell that sucker for $232,000, $242,000, $250,000. So they're trying to accumulate housing stock.

I mean, I get text messages and calls every single day, and I'm going, what is causing this? And that's what's happening. But the extreme inequality is what I'm saying. I mean, we heard, Eric, when you were talking about homelessness, I mean, but the people are still having babies

and people got to live somewhere. That's why I ask, in terms of a policy fix, is this about reinstating the tax cuts that were given? Is this about redistributing the federal tax revenue? You cannot exacerbate the inequality. Right, that's what I'm hearing. So those tax cuts have to be repealed. Okay.

Right. So people forget markets are markets. If you're going to drive everything by market, nothing, nothing in the market equation guarantees that everybody can afford it. In fact, precisely the opposite, right? The market clears

for diamonds, everybody can't afford a diamond. A house is no different. A house is no different. Just because it's a market doesn't mean when the market price comes in, everybody can afford it any more than everybody can afford a diamond. So you need government.

That guy yelling Elizabeth Warren doesn't understand. The state has to play a role. It has to play a role, but before we were diluted because we were a middle-income country in the sense that 60% of the income was in the middle three quintiles. So what does that mean? That means that the bulk of the money to buy a house, it's in the middle. So if I'm building a house, I build for the money.

Houses for the middle. Not four and five and $600,000 houses. Exactly. Condos. Right. Condos, four, five, $600,000 condos, not even four houses. Yeah, so now over half the income

is in the top 10%. My God. That means that's where the money is and they are the market. And the top 10% ain't buying houses because they already bought it. Exactly. And the only home% ain't buying houses because they already bought it. Exactly. And the only home they want, right,

is the home that me and the top 10% want. And if I'm building homes, that's who I'm building it for. And then what happened because of the home foreclosure crisis when the federal government bailed out those banks, the banks, remember, toxic assets. Then they went, oh, hell, we can do whatever we want with the money. Shore up our bottom line.

We gonna hold onto these homes. And then what did they do? They sold lots of 25 and 30,000 homes to hedge funds and private equity. And those folks ain't selling the homes. They're making folks become renters. So people are actually paying more to rent those homes And those folks ain't selling the homes. They're making folks become renters. So people are actually paying more to rent those homes than what they will be paying to actually pay a mortgage.

And they sitting here making off like a fat rat because you ain't got a choice because you can't buy a home elsewhere because you can't afford that expensive house. And so we bailed their trifling asses out. They turned around, did nothing with those assets, and now are making money off people being renters. And so what is happening is,

that's why you have this weird thing happening now where folks are, they're complaining about the Ubers of the world, but people are saying, I can't afford to buy a car. Okay, I can't afford to park anywhere. I can't afford to buy a car, okay? I can't afford to park anywhere. I can't afford to park in downtown because it's too much. And so we are essentially a country that if you are not 100,000 or more,

you are absolutely screwed. And to your point, you have to look at the pure numbers. If that represents only 10, 15% of the population, what you gonna do with the other 80-85? This is the question. And 90. That's... And Trump and his tax policies don't give a damn

about those people. And that's why all these red states, people running around, I'm like, y'all, 10% of Wisconsin dairy farmers have declared bankruptcy. I'm like, y'all, 10% of Wisconsin dairy farmers have declared bankruptcy. I'm like, so your life is better under Trump than it was Obama? We handed out $30 billion in welfare to farmers. And Trump says he might do another $50 billion because he's basically buying their votes.

Well, this is the problem. Last point, go ahead. It's the problem when you collapse the middle income. So, yeah, it's hard to be a dairy farmer because those are the people who buy the milk, and you've already squeezed them. So, yeah, they're going to have problems. You cannot have this level of inequality,

and you can't sustain it. Right. Also, real quick, you talk going to have problems. You cannot have this level of inequality and you can't sustain it. Also, real quick, you talk about the milk thing. I know some of you may be thinking, bro, it makes no sense. The cereal companies are now in trouble. Why? Because you can't afford milk. Ain't nobody eating no damn cornflakes and water.

Michael Irvin and them, you can do it in South Florida. But it's one of those things that people don't understand. corn flakes in water. Michael Irvin and them, you can do it in South Florida. No, but it's one of those things that people don't understand. If you can't afford milk and you stop buying milk, you're not going to buy cereal. No. And those cereal

companies are complaining about, guess what? They're losing dollars because folks ain't buying cereal. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. And so we can't, as a country, do it. This student debt is key to understanding the whole inequality thing.

Because when you say the colleges are going to be driven by tuition, that means who has money. That's right. So I'm going to run my university for the people who have money. There you go. And what will the tuition be? What the people who have money can afford. So, there's no surprise that at the University of Michigan, more students are from the top 1%.

This is a huge university, the University of Michigan. Right. More students from the top 1% than the bottom 40%. Jesus. There's a reason for that. And that, if it continues, More students from the top 1% than the bottom 40%. Jesus. There's a reason for that. And that, if it continues, further exacerbates income inequality because you're not giving folks in the middle

and lower classes an opportunity to be able to get those degrees, to be able to put themselves in a different tax bracket in the next generation. And you already played the debt trick. You can't get people to do a trillion dollars in debt again. You can't. It's not possible. Nope.

It's not possible. Dr. Bill Spriggs, we appreciate it. Thanks for breaking it down for us. This is why we have this show, because trust me, you are not going to hear this conversation on CNBC or Bloomberg or Fox Business because that's just the real deal there. We appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.

Got to go to break. We're going to come back. We'll talk to a woman who dealt with cyberbullying and how she won. Also, a brother started his own black apparel company. Remember the sneakers I showed you last week? Well, he's here, And they do more than sneakers. We'll talk to him as well.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered support the Roland Martin Unfiltered Daily Digital Show by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. 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. Want to check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Imagine going online one morning and finding personal photos posted that you didn't even know existed. That's what happened to my next guest. She's here to tell her story in an award-winning documentary. It's called 50 Shades of Silence. Here is a snippet. My life was completely changed in a swipe. I never felt anything more humiliating.

My naked body exposed for the world to see. I'm so afraid. It's so unsure. It's so vulnerable. My ex-boyfriend began texting me nude photos that he had taken of me while I was asleep, and then he loaded them onto a website, exposing my private parts, inviting my family and business colleagues to view them, violating me. I was cyber raped. Revenge porn, cyber stalking, and cyber harassment has become the new normal in a society

obsessed with social media. Too often, people have found that there's very little they can do about it. Dareth Chisholm joins us now to tell us how she fought back and won and how anyone can do the same. Dareth, glad to have you here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Look, people are in relationships. People are men and women.

I don't hear any audio. Can you hear me? There it is. Can you hear me? All right. So please fix her audio. So let's do this here. So let me know when her audio is fixed.

What I'm going to do is right now I'm going to bring in my next guest. Let's go ahead and seat him, please. I told you last week, folks, I showed you these shoes I had on. Greg Carr, of course, he tried to steal them from me. He tried to steal me. And he tried to take them from me. So I want to put up. So this here is a,

this is a photo. This is a photo of the three pair of shoes I was sent. And again, so I want to go ahead and talk to my guest here. And I'm going to go back to Dareth in just one moment. So before you tell me, we have Dareth. Okay. So just hold on. So Dareth, are you there? I'm here, Roland. Hi. Okay, now we got you. Now we got you. So, I'll talk about the footwear company after the interview with you. So, first and foremost, a lot of people are in relationships. They date people. They sex. They send photos.

Things along those lines. And they never think that when the relationship is over, that person will break that trust and break that circle and post their stuff online. Is that what happened to you? Were you hacked? How did these personal images of you then get placed out in the world? Yeah, so they were taken without my knowledge and my consent. I lived with an ex-boyfriend in Jamaica for several months and he had been secretly taking

photos and videos of me while I was asleep. So unlike people who are posing for the photos, you had no idea? No idea. And in addition to that, he also took other photos and videos and he created harassing memes and

additional content. And he did this all with the intent to do what he called silence and destroy me when I decided to leave the relationship. Wow. How did you first discover that these images of you were out there in the public space? Yeah, so he called me on New Year's morning. This has been now three years ago and said that he would shoot me in my head and stab me in my heart if I didn't return to the relationship. And when I wouldn't return his phone calls and I continued to ask him to please leave me alone, two and a half weeks later, I pick up my cell phone and I look at a text

message over WhatsApp that had a video that was strung together with all of these photos and videos that he had been taking of me. And he said, this is going out on social media if you don't call me back and if you don't move back and come back to this relationship. That went on for several months. And then in March of that year, he put up a website with all the photos and videos that he'd been taking. He called many of my coaching clients, previous friends and family members, and walked them all to this website that had all of this very damaging and explicit videos of me. How did you fight back against him?

Obviously, you were shocked and stunned. So how did you respond? Well, I mean, obviously, anyone dealing with this is emotionally distraught. And because it was going on for several months with the continued threats, you know, I was constantly asking him to remove it, and he wouldn't. And obviously, it escalated on his part to putting up the website. I could not get GoDaddy and Google to shut the website down.

They, in fact, told me to go get a court order, so I pursued those legal means. It took me 11 months, 13 trips to the courthouse, just to get the judge to create the language that I needed to force GoDaddy and Google to shut the website down. In the interim, I got what's called a DMCA takedown notice, Digital Millennial Copyright Act, which we were able to use to have the website shut down, even though his threats continued. While that was going on in the U.S., I began working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security investigators in the U.S. Embassy in Jamaica to bring charges against him.

And it took us about two years, but I was able to successfully win the first case under their Cyber Crimes Act, Malicious Communications Act, and he pled guilty to three of the six counts he faced and was sentenced to two years hard labor in prison and $1 million JA. So you decided to do a documentary on this. And what led to that? Well, I mean, part of it was I couldn't figure out what to do with this. And, you know, while I knew that when this first happened, I didn't even know it was called revenge porn or that there was anyone else going through this. And as I began to pick myself back up and realize what can I do about it, I decided to use my voice and my story and my platform. I mean, I do have a 30 year career in television as a news anchor, but I've never filmed a documentary. So I just decided that I would start documenting my own story. And then I went out and began interviewing other victims, advocates, educators. And two years later, I was able to put together a documentary that is now

being screened in film festivals worldwide. And I'm happy to say picking up a couple of awards, but I didn't do it with the intent to do that. I really wanted to create something that would be educational, that would bring awareness to this issue, and hopefully help people to understand the need for some federal legislation so that we can toughen the state laws and go after these criminals.

That's right. Can I ask you, first of all, thank you so much. I mean, just the exhibition of courage, I would be, I can't even imagine. The fact that you were able to pursue and get this conviction in Jamaica, you know, what do we face here domestically in the United States? Is there anything even comparable to that type of lawsuit or action that could happen here in the U.S.? I mean, you had the option, obviously, because there was a relationship that involved Jamaica, but what can happen to people here in the United States if it's just domestic here in the U.S.? I mean, you had the option, obviously, because there was a relationship that involved Jamaica. But what can happen to people here in the United States if it's just domestic here in the States? That's a great question. And I think part of what the challenge

is, is that first off, this crime is called so many different things. Revenge porn, cyber sexual assault, nonconsensual pornography, image abuse. It's very misunderstood. And some states have no laws. Some states see this as a misdemeanor with like a $500 slap on the hand. And in many cases, people who have suffered through this level of embarrassment and shame have their careers ruined. Some people contemplate suicide and commit suicide. So, you know, the perpetrators can continue to do this. And once this stuff is out there, we know it's really hard to get back. And victims really, they spiral into depression and spiral into shame, which is part of the reason why I really wanted to make sure that people understand that ending this silence is really a first step for

victims, but then giving them voice and dignity is important. What we've been fighting for is a federal bill. And currently there are two federal pieces of legislation that right now are being considered. One is called the Enough Act by Senator Kamala Harris. And then the other one is from Congresswoman Jackie Speier called the ShieldIELD Act. If either one of those were to pass, we would at least have a federal law in place that hopefully would put some teeth in what the states have,

which, as I said, they're flimsy at best in terms of real persecution. So just want to first start off by saying definitely want to applaud you for your courage and for your bravery. And just reading your story really did evoke a lot of emotion. And so you noted that you had coaching clients. Have you been able to utilize your experience? You mentioned your documentary in a way to coach and teach people who may be unfortunately experiencing revenge porn, cyberbullying as well? Yeah, you know, I was first off able to utilize some of my own coaching skills to get through this. I mean, I've never faced anything as challenging, as humiliating, as

embarrassing as this. And, you know, what I was trying to protect was my public persona, my years in television and my career. But on a personal side, it obviously was stripping me away of all of my sense of dignity. In the documentary, I really wanted to not only showcase my own story and struggle and how I was able to overcome it, but the other brave and strong women who I interviewed. I also had the opportunity to speak with other people who work in this space, those people who've actually crafted the bills that we're right now considering in the House and the Senate, as well as the educators and even a psychologist to talk about the mindset of both the victim and the person who's committing these crimes. So I wanted very much to bring all of that into place,

but I also wanted it to be a piece of empowerment and not something that was, you know, my sense of retaliation to what happened to me. You know, I filmed the documentary two and a half years ago. I hadn't even won my case. I just won the case. But the documentary was really done with the intent to give voice and dignity to victims and help people understand what they're going through, but also to encourage them to be strong and to get through it. Do you have any recommendations of resources or tools that

people could seek or use if they're going through this? Absolutely. At my website, 50shadesofsilence.com, we've put together a comprehensive list of resources and support, both for victims who are going through it, especially if there are any children. We've got a seven steps that you can follow if it happens to you, some immediate things that you want to do.

And there's even some support if people are contemplating suicide or definitely need some professional help. So we've included that and a way for people to share their stories and get additional support. All right, family. We certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much for sharing your story. And hopefully it will help someone based upon what I'm seeing from folks who are commenting as we're live on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope. They certainly are. So thanks a lot. Thank you for having're live on YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope. They certainly are. So thanks a lot.

Thank you for having me. All right, folks, got to go to a break. We come back. We'll talk to a black apparel owner. That's next, Roland Martin Unfiltered. You want to check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there? Roland Martin Unfiltered. Like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications

so when we go live, you'll know it. All right, folks, the Congressional Black Caucus, they are calling for a national emergency meeting of black leadership. It is called the Future of Black America, a call to action. It's a two day conference taking place February 3rd and February 4th. Now, February 3rd will be taking place at the Hyatt Regency, Washington, Capitol Hill. On February 4th will be taking place in the auditorium in the Visitor Center on Capitol Hill. Their goal, of course, is to have a variety of plenary sessions and workshops covering key issues impacting African Americans.

Those will include discussing issue strategies and the work needed in various communities dealing with the census, but also the 2020 election. And for more information on this, you can go to cbc.house.gov forward slash 2020 summit, cbc.house.gov forward slash 2020 summit. I'm going to be moderating one of the sessions on February 3rd. Also, Roller Martin Unfiltered is going to be live streaming both days, February 3rd and February 4th. That's one of the reasons why we created this platform. So we certainly thank Chairwoman Karen Bass for reaching out to us to assist in this. And so it is a two-day national emergency meeting call to action

for national African-American leadership, that summit taking place February 3rd and February 4th. So please, folks, for more information, go to cbc.house.gov forward slash 2020 Summit. All right, folks, I got to do this here before I go to my next guest. Santor Thomas of Detroit is filing a second lawsuit. First of all, before I even go there, please, by all means. No, no, no.

Those rules are allowed. I'm white. I got you, Carl. Illegally selling water without a permit. On my property. Whoa! Hey! Give me your address.

You don't live here. I'm uncomfortable. All right, Sansaree Thomas of Detroit, okay? He's filed his lawsuit. Here's what happened, okay? The brother had filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against his former employer, okay, he gets a settlement. He then goes to TCF Bank in Livonia to cash the check.

They refuse to cash or deposit the check. What do these white folks do? They call the cops to initiate a fraud investigation. Guess what Tom was doing? Suing a trifling ass for race discrimination, saying the bank mistreated and humiliated

him by calling four police officers when all he was doing was depositing a legitimate check. Now, according to the police, the bank's computer system read the checks as fraudulent. Y'all, he done walking out with a publisher's clearinghouse check. Right.

Bank spokesman Tom Winterberg said that TCF abhors racism and it was not a factor in how the bank handled Thomas' request. He said the checks Thomas presented displayed a watermark that read void when they were scanned in a web viewer. That must be something, Greg, to have a racial discrimination settlement. Bro.

And now you about to have a second racial discrimination settlement? A second discrimination. Come on, bro. This brother hit the lottery twice. I mean, what blew my mind was when he sat down and then the sister was like, well, I will go back. Let me go back and check.

And she didn't even go back to check. She went directly to call the police. She did. He gave her the number of his lawyer, said call. He did everything. And what he said was I'm just going to remain calm because I know if I go off in here, I'm going to jail. Erica, I don't understand. how hard is it to say,

sir, this is the issue that we have. Yes! This is the check. This watermark that's on the check is prohibiting us. It is telling us that blah, blah, blah, blah. How is it that your first reaction, and this always happens with black people. Always. The first reaction

is to call a popo oh and if that was the true account this brother had three checks the two larger checks he asked for those checks to be deposited into his account the smaller check is the one that he wanted cash and so this is what I have an issue with in Tom's statement when he talks about this man he goes on to talk about this abhorring racism and discrimination which I think that that ought to be a statement that ought to be struck from any pre-r firm anyone that goes on the defense to talk about why they did something but Tom then goes on to say in

his statement how much money this man had in that account. That has nothing to do. If he put two of the larger checks into his account, that means that they're there for clearance. That means that all of the proper channels have to be checked in order for that money to be deposited into his account. A $13,000 check is the one that he actually wanted cash. And so I'm having a hard time with a black man walking into a banking establishment having four police officers

to then interrogate him when it was none of their damn business in the first place. Wanting legal documents, that's none of their damn business anyway. Something that had nothing to do with them. And he's saying that this is happening to me. I am a veteran.

I have stood for a country that has not stood for me. I am black. Had I been white, this would not have even been happening. He was not arrested. No charges were filed. But he knew that the intimidation tactics that were employed on him, had he not kept his cool, like you said, Dr. Carr, it could have been a whole different scenario. So this kind of rigmarole,

and brother is going to get paid again, it really just makes no sense. This is the blackest thing. We knew it was with no black people in the bank. Let me tell you something. Tom really going up for racism after that next technical cut. He really going up for racism. All I'm saying is, white people in Michigan, y'all better put his picture up,

because he going to be collected. Let me tell you, if Homeboy is going to cash a $13,000 check, he about to be probably going to cash a $130,000 check from this bank guy that's open dollar. But didn't he take the checks and go to the other bank? I mean, he went to another bank and just put the checks to Erica's place.

The thing is, the thing is this. It was that branch. it was that branch. It was that branch. But the thing is this. There are safeguards in place when it comes to sex fraud. But the most important thing is this. You got him on camera. You got a copy of his ID.

You have every piece of information on him. He gave you his lawyer's phone number. He gave you the lawyer's phone number. A brother don't. It's the same as a brother who got 12 years in prison with a cell phone in Mississippi. Ain't nobody who trying to do wrong going to give your ass the phone to charge you if they thought it was illegal. That's right. That's just how crazy it is.

But I keep telling you, I appreciate all you crazy-ass white people for what y'all do. First of all, I want y'all to keep messing with black people or y'all gonna get fired. That means that we can apply for your jobs. And so y'all keep doing this. We're gonna keep suing and gonna keep getting paid. So I'm just trying to say, y'all want to keep doing it. And so some of y'all out there keep asking me, especially these crazy...

What do them foolish black Republicans like? What if that was a segment called Crazy-Ass Black People? That's called mainstream media. Come on, sir. Come on. Uh-oh. Come on. This is unfiltered-Ass Black People? That's called mainstream media. Come on, sir. Come on. Uh-oh. Come on. This is unfiltered time.

Come on. That's right. So if you don't have Malik and Deontay tweeting your way, sir. Right, right, yeah. Bring your ass, Deontay. Bring your ass. That's right. So if you don't like Crazy-Ass White People segment,

tell white people, stop being crazy. All right, y'all. So again, I talked about this last week. My next guest, I showed you. I was on social media, and I was talking about a variety of issues, and I know somebody in Atlanta who knows my next guest. He was telling me about this shoe company. So they sent me three pairs of shoes, and Tariq Edmondson,

he founded Nagazz Footwear and the new line is designed to empower customers with the purpose of teaching self-love, self-respect and self-confidence. So glad to have you here on the show. So when did you start this apparel company? In 2015, took me a year to find the shoes. The idea was a year before, you know, we would get beat.

We would send out the money for the shoes, and, you know, it was a fictitious company. Wow. So I had to finally learn how to just go to China. And like I say, the people, the young kids, I franked Lucas that part of the game. We went straight to the Kinect. So why did you go to China to have your shoes made?

Because China, a lot of times people ask me about Africa, but what we got to remember about Africa, they got their foot up behind Africa, just like they do here in America. So it's not a lot of places. Now, I found now Ethiopia, but China is the go-to place for, like, Nike, Reeboks, Fila. So when I went in there, Everlasting, I saw all of those out there.

Because I visited a few. I went on a little tour. I got a travel visa, business visa to come into the country. They picked me up, took me to the hotel, and they took me around. Any consideration of having them here in the United States? Yes, that's a possibility. But at the moment, it's not what we could do. But we're definitely looking towards that. We're looking to go public.

I want to talk to you about that. We're going to do what Obama with the Main Street, Wall Street, the Main Street, equity crowdfunding, bring our people in on the Marcus Garvey side of the game. You understand what I'm saying? We can have shares and dividends allocated out to our people in that way. Same thing with the colleges. We want to be able to step to the colleges, make shoes for them, give

two-thirds of the proceeds back to the schools, you know, because this is a labor of love for our people more than it is anything else. Because, you know, when I was thinking what the historians are going to say 200 years in the future about what did we do 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, 50 years after the Voters' Rights Act, what did we do? So when you look at Nike, you see that's the name of a goddess, a Greek goddess, you know, that was edified.

And then we stand in line for it. And you look at Reebok, and you see that that's our oppressor. So everywhere you look, we wearing our oppressor's gear. Not going to beat us up about it, because we so fresh, but we do have to start to wear our own attire again. You know, it's like I said with the young kids, it's like going to jail, a man getting knocked out.

And then when you wake up, you got lipstick on, and they tell you you're a girl, and you go for that. And then not only do you go for it, you wear the gear that they tell you to wear when you now have choices. You know, the rappers don't call out names. They call everybody else's name. But we here to change that, another thing. And see, that's the thing that I have consistently said

to people, because first of all, let's just be clear. You mentioned a lot of these rappers. First of all, a lot of them have done shout-outs to companies and weren't even getting paid. Right. Pastor Kavazi-ated. That's one. That's one.

And Louis Vuitton Don. And again, to me, it's real basic how you talk about how do you use your existing resources, and then how do you in terms of building capacity. And that's just really what it boils down to. Master P, when him and his sons announced the sneaker company, they were launching, and their whole deal, they were talking about trying to sign Zion to a deal. I think they signed with Nike. It's sort of the same thing and when you think back and a lot of people don't realize this

but Tim Brown Play for the Oakland Raiders Hall of Famer. People don't realize Tim had his own Sneaker company right now the NFL would not allow him to wear his own sneakers because it was not one of the official Comments of the NFL but Tim had his own sneaker line all the years he played in the NFL. That's all right I didn't know that that's one to grow on Because I mean I get as well as I get the China initially because that's where the market is and Ultimately with division of coming back here or connecting with a black, whether it be Africa, Caribbean, or black-owned here. So I know that's building toward that. But how do we break, and how are you imagining breaking the mentality of our people? Because I think about Stephon Marbury, who of course had a whole new career in China, but who tried to market a very inexpensive

athletic shoe. 15 bucks and got trashed. And in fact, I never forget. I think it was 2020 I think it was 2020. I remember seeing this segment and they went to a Professor at a university Who was an expert on? Textiles and the shoes right and they did a deconstruction and so they basically took apart a pair of Nikes they took apart a pair of Nikes, and they took apart a pair of Starberries. And he went through, and he literally took the shoes apart and showed the seal, arch support, showed the thickness, the sole, all that sort of stuff.

And he said the only difference between this Nike and the Starberry, he said, is literally that box and the logo. He said, so y'all are paying an extra $100 for the box. There it is. And he broke it down. But there were people who laughed Stephon Marbury out. No question. And so how have folks responded to you?

Have they said, man, why you got to have this red, black, and green? Why can't you do this in other colors? Yeah, we hear that. Why you got to do that? And the first thing I'll tell them is that we had a chance to do like the other guys that came before us, like across colors, no roots to it, you know, as far in terms of name, historically speaking.

Fubu. Sean, Jean. It's like as if we don't have no background. So I know I didn't have no name. I'm not no rapper, none of this. So I said the thing that come to the people where they come from, where our ancestors, you know,

had a fight with Marcus Garvey. You know, that's what he represented where we had the Black Star Line and we put our nickels and dimes together to make this thing happen. Because when we started, you know, I just lost everything in the real estate bubble at the time. So when I was, I bounced back.

My daughter had told me how big social media was. So I was like, Tossie, it's the time now that you can do your thing, girl. Get out here and make it. You know, she was like, oh, yeah. I said, yeah. She said, well, why don't you do something then? And then I said, hmm. I said, okay.

So what does the name mean? Nagas is an ancient Amharic. Yeah. For kings. Ethiopian. Yeah, Ethiopian. I've read the book Captain Nagas, which is the story of Solomon and how he came to the planet.

So it's like the red pill in the movie The Matrix. You understand? If you swallow that blue pill and you look up this name, you're going to find a lot about yourself, and you'll fall in love with not only the heritage that belonged to us, but also the people who bought it to you. So that's what that's about. So can you tell us a little bit about your price point? Okay, well, the shoes that he just showed, we call those the Marcus Garvey UNIAs for United Negro Improvement Association.

Yes, sir. And then we have the red, black, and I, for, you know, United Negro Improvement Association. Yes, sir. And then we have the red, black, and green that represent, of course, and it's $99. Some of them, we go with Nike, the ones that they sell in the air vapors. We remixed it because a lot of times people don't realize the law, and we so caught up. Like when we have a suit, now I have on a suit. It might be a P.A. Ellis. You might have one, a Vera Wang, so on and so forth. It's still a jacket and a pair of pants. Come on, man. You know, it's cotton come from a P.A. Alice. You might have one, a Vera Wang, so on and so forth.

It's still a jacket and a pair of pants. Come on, man. You know, it's a cotton come from a plant. Come on. Leather come from a cow and rubber from a tree. See. You understand what I'm saying? So I'm on your site right now, sneakerscustom.com. And so, Henry, go to my iPhone.

These are some of the... ADOS. You know, we try to keep our hand on the poles. These are some of the boots that you have here. And also there are some of the shirts. You also have socks here as well. Now you realize red, black, and green, the Adas ain't going to get with that, brother.

You know, we. They're descendants of slaves. I know, and we service everybody. That's that slavery mentality. We service it. I got you. That's our problem as a people now. Oh, wait, wait. You and I are star jumpers. I can rock with that. Yeah, that's

you and I are star jumpers. I see the onk on the side. We have to represent, and then we name, you know, we got the Nat Turners. Oh, wait, wait, wait. You got the Nat Turners? Yeah, we're Nat Turners. So you deserve to stomp me through any problem. The boosters are Nat Turners. With the gold right in the back.

You got some hair in your tummy? They coming. They coming. And then we got the running shoe that's Nat with Nat on it. Did I send you those, Rogan? Oh, wow. I probably was out of that. They don't need no running shoes.

They ain't no running shoes. The running shoes. No, but you know what I'm saying? It is because the culture, and we're talking about this today in class, I teach a hip-hop class, and the young people, we were talking about the fact that black people between athletes and hip-hop turned Nike from a running shoe company when I was a kid to a... And then turned around, turned Adidas from literally playing tennis,

which is where tennis shoes come from, to that. And so, remember Patrick Ewing had his own line. How could you... If you can capture a couple of celebrities, have you thought about reaching out to some of these people? Yeah, I've reached out to... Those kicks make it on one video and the right product placement,

the whole thing could turn. Exactly. So John Sally got in touch with us. Okay. You know, he wants to do some things for the vegan market. These are the Nat Turner boots you're talking about. Go ahead. Right.

He wanted to do that. And we've been reaching out to every rapper. You know, they act like we invisible because they, you know, they caught up too. Yeah, brother. So, you know, that's an uphill battle because they, you know, they caught up, too. Yeah, brother. So, you know, that's an uphill battle. But the thing is, we keep fighting. Yes, sir.

We plant the seed, and we keep working, you know, and it's going to change. Yes, sir. You know, as we was called to do this work, and we know that our people mind is going in a different direction. That's true. And we're not just building for us today. We're building for our people. All right. So, Lloyd Kirkendall asked this question.

Roland, please ask how long... See, hold on, before... Oh, boy. Don't do it, Roland. Wait, wait. Okay, I'm going to ask this question, but then I'm going to say something, then I'm going to let you answer.

All right, all right. Okay, so Lloyd Kirkendall, Roland, please ask how long it takes to get here. I don't want to wait 30 days. Okay, put the camera on me. All right. I'm going to need black people to stop allowing white supremacy

to dictate their thoughts when we talk about black companies. See, Lloyd, your question should have been, if I order a pair of shoes, can I get them expressed to me overnight, two-day, three-day? Why is it that your first assumption is that it might take you 30 days to get a pair of shoes?

You are literally saying, without saying, that this black company is less than another company. I've been telling y'all this for the longest on this show. I told y'all when I was on the panel in Cincinnati at Cincinnati Music Festival. And we're on the panel, and there's one brother who thought he was being supportive of me. He was on the panel.

He said, you know, we got to support Roland Martin and Roland Martin Unfiltered. And then he said it might not look as good as CNN. I said, stop. My shit look good. That's right. The fact, Lloyd, that you literally even, yeah, you damn right, I see you sorry. I asked the wrong way. No, Lloyd, that you literally even, yeah, you damn right, I see you sorry,

I asked the wrong way. No, Lloyd, you actually asked the way a whole bunch of black people ask. Right. And so we need to stop automatically assuming that with a black company, the products will come late. I'm sure he about to answer, Lloyd, that if you want to pay extra

to get these shoes the next damn day if you click shop now it probably has that option if you want to get it in two day or three day it probably has that option there are many products Lloyd that I buy from Amazon or others and it says

next day two day or even ground shipping. So I'm going to need black people to stop making assumptions about black-owned businesses, and you already are starting from a white premise that what is black is less than. Yes. Now you can answer.

Lord just want the shoes, brother. Can I get my shoes today, brother? Thanks to the people that supported us in the beginning, we can have them sneakers to you like Roland said. You know, if you want to pay the price, you know, you can have them for the next day or two-day tracking or even three-day tracking. Wow.

There it is. I have a question for you. So you have a lot of support here today, which I think is phenomenal. Is this a family-owned business? Yes, it is. And the people built it. Off of social media, the miracle of the day, we started

out, I said, if I could show the people I could make this one shoe, they'd get behind me. And the people supported us. We'd put a shoe out, we'd go viral before Facebook started playing with the algorithms, but we would go viral and people would go viral, and people would wait three, four months for their shoe

because they wanted to see us win. I said, brother, I ain't got your shoe. Brother, I don't want my money back. Just let me know you're going to give me my shoe. Let me ask you something. 2015, you were in Atlanta. You came out of Atlanta. Yes, sir.

I seen your shoes. Brother, Ankh and them boys, you came from New York. Yeah, they wear your shoes. That's the shoe. That's the shoe. I asked, Ankh, where you get them shoes, man? Okay. Yeah, they had me the best gap secret for a long time.

I'm putting it together now. Yes, sir. I'm good. I'm ready to, you know, get some shoes. Let's get some shoes. Yeah. So, and so now, last question for me. Okay. Any plans to do other shoes in non-black and green color,

black, red, and green colors. So if people want just different looks or whatever, they can actually do so. Yeah, like, we want to begin to start doing shoes. Like, we see a niche in the marketplace now, like, there's 450 NBA players, 100 of them have deals. We getting ready to start going at the rest of them because there's riches in the niches.

Talk too loud now. Talk too loud. Yeah. No, no, because also, because understand that, like, for instance, I cannot remember his name, but one of the players, there was one athlete who played for Golden State who he wasn't getting paid by Under Armour. Right.

And he was the one who convinced Steph Curry to go to Under Armour. To go to Under Armour. So they were sending him product. And so to your points, people need to understand, not all these ballplayers have deals. Right. Only the top third have actual shoe deals.

When you see, oh, Kevin Durant's getting $20, $25 million a year. Derek Rose was getting $20 million. I think it was from Adidas or Reebok. The deal that Allen Iverson hit. A lot of those cats are, I mean, they're just getting, some of them are just getting product and not a lot of product. And so that's what people, I think, assume, but don't quite understand.

Go ahead. Yeah, we're going to do a dress shoot. So we're looking to get with different individuals that have the social media presence, that could pull that, like, you know, Hashim Nzinga introduced me to Mike Roberts, the businessman out of, we talked to him about

doing a night show. Out of St. Louis, yep. Instead of Stacey Adams, you have somebody who's up, you know, name and we'd do a lizard. We can go to Zimbabwe, get the lizard, make it done. Like I said, we work with a lot of people, and people come to us, and they teach us.

Y'all might want to do Uncle Roro. Hey, look here. I want to talk to you about that. We're going to have to do that. I got a couple of followers. Yeah, we're going to talk, bro. Make sure you get a couple times on AskOz. We can do that.

That's what we do. You want some Gators, we can give you some Gators. Yeah, I get you. I'll just get you straight. Yeah, we can do that. We're looking to work with anybody who has a social media presence like yourself. We want to partner with people like yourself to build our board. I ain't got a problem making money. Yeah, we want to build our board to get better advisors.

But I know how to count money. To overtake Nike. The time is now. Same thing we're doing with the Beats. We go right, you know, off the refrigerator. We're going to do the, you know, Dre Beats. We went to Hong Kong and we filed the manufacturer. That's why Apple.

It's not hard to do. That's what they're scared of. That's why Apple bought the company. Right, they bought for a billion. They bought Beats. But no other rappers are doing that except Ray J. He got smart. That's where we at today where we can literally swing the peasant

to where we have really took over the whole game if we just get out of the thought is Nike is better, white ice is better than black ice. At the end of the day, cotton comes from a plant, silk from a worm, leather from a cow, rubber from a tree. Yes, sir. All of it comes from God. So if we look to God and keep away from our oppressors

and go towards that, we're going to be all right. Look, I'll be honest, folks. Again, I ain't getting paid by Tariq yet. You're going to make it happen. But when I put the shoe on, look, I have a pair of Nikes. I got a pair of Adidas. I got a pair of shoes I put on. And fit was the same, looked good, all that sort of stuff like that.

And so, again, that's what also happens when you're not in love with the logo on the side. And for some of y'all know, and I'll show the picture also, I have a pair. It was given to me by my man Larry Harper when he was one of the executives at Nike. And this is probably about two, I was in Chicago. This probably was about 2007. It was a special edition Black History Month pair of Nike. So again, for all y'all people out there

who are talking about, you know, shoes being black and green while we're talking, I'm going to try to find it. That was a special edition Nike they put out. And again, I'm talking about it was like 2008, 2009, something like that. Larry gave me a pair. I never wore them.

I had them on my shelf because they were special edition. But I had to go to Corberry's in December, her fundraising deal. Oh, yeah. And what happened, so, and I had to go to Cora Berry's in December, her fundraising deal. And what happened, so I wore one of my Kente outfits. And I didn't have shoes to wear with them because it was a sneakers and formal deal. And so I was like, my wife was like, you got them Nike shoes? I'd never worn them.

So I was like, damn, that's a good-ass point. I do. So I went and put those on and wore them to the event. And so somebody says, well, you know, no. Nike did an actual shoe that was red, black, and green. It was a Black History Month special edition. So don't act like this is out of the norm. They did this and gave those Black History Month special edition. So don't act like this is out of the norm. They did this and gave those Black History Month shoes out.

And it's for us. I mean, Marcus Garvey gave that to us at a time when they came out with a song that said, everybody have a flag, sepulchre. Said the British got a flag. That's exactly right. Said the Irish got a flag. Oh, yeah, you've been reading Garvey, brother. Said everybody got a flag, sepulchre.

So this our flag. Yes, sir. So if we take a break and turn back to that, we're going to take those same tenements and do the same thing like what a Jay-Z doing or any other great business person like an A.G. Gaston when there was trouble in our neighborhoods. Come on now.

Come on, Birmingham. You got us over here. You naming the giants. Right. The great A.G. Gaston. These are the people that you falling in behind. Yes, sir. You naming the giants. Right. The great A.G. Gaston. These are the people that you're falling in behind. Yes, sir. You understand what I'm saying?

Somebody out there don't know who that is. Everybody look that up. They got to look at it. The Black Titan was his book. And I tell the young kids, I get a lot of information out of the Black Enterprise magazine. And our Jet magazine is where I find out about these giants. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

And that inspired me to do the things that I'm doing at this point in time. What's the website for your shoes? www.sneakerscustoms.com. That's C-U-S-T-O-M dot com. Customs with an S? No, customs, singular. Okay.

C-U-S-T-O-M dot com. Sneakers. Sneakerscustoms.com. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay, S-C-U-S-T-O-M dot com. Sneakers custom. Sneakerscustom.com. Yes, sir. We do custom. Yeah, we do custom. And that's the thing. We have a program where what we want to do is help with these UBC, UB, what's that?

HBCU? HBCU. Uh-huh. Where we can raise money, right? You buy your shoe, you know, proceeds go back to the school, and we know we need to do service, you know. We need to be of service to our people. So those are what...

With our knowledge, these are the things that we decided to do. Check that young brother down there, Paul Quinn. They've been doing a whole lot of stuff. We over me. Michael Soros. Yeah, Michael Soros. Michael doing some great stuff down there. Yes, we have to get together.

So again, folks, you've seen us talk to a number of other black designers, the Sia Collective. If you missed that, go to our YouTube channel. You'll see that. And so one of the reasons why we do this show is to provide an outlet for folks who otherwise would not be able to tell their story. That's why we do what we do. We want you to support what we do by joining our Bring the Funk fan club.

Every dollar you give goes to support this show. And it is all about, again, what we do. Matter of fact, so let me find this. So here it is. So Henry, check this out. So if y'all think that's like, OK, what's up with this? Is there a shoe in there? Yes, sir.

OK, so do this here, Henry. Show the shoe. I want to show y'all a comparison. Just hold it up. Just hold it up. Just like that? OK, so do this here, Henry. Show the shoe. I want to show y'all a comparison. Just hold it up. Just hold it up. Just like that. OK, zoom in.

Oh, you got the Khaled Mohammed? OK, hold on, hold on. Zoom in, zoom in. Zoom in. Show the side. Do it on the side. Do it on the side, right there. All right, so y'all, so that's they shoe.

Now, Henry, go to my iPad. Go to my iPad. These are the Nike shoes, and this is the back of what they look like, those Nike shoes. You see they had that logo on there. So if y'all are wondering, like, oh, my goodness, what's going on here?

Guess what? They did red, black, and green. So did he. So we want y'all to support Roller Mart Unfiltered by going to RollerMartInFiltered.com. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. We created this show to have these type of conversations, but it only happens if you support what we do. There's some great things that we have lined up.

It's going to be a crazy February. We're going to be on the road in South Carolina. We're trying to plan right now a town hall with Senator Bernie Sanders in Memphis. We're trying to plan one with Pete Buttigieg in South Carolina. But the only way we can do that is if you support what we do. And so, again, your dollars on PayPal, Square, or Cash App are critically important to us.

So you can also get right there on YouTube as well. All right, folks, tomorrow I'll be broadcasting from Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'll be speaking this weekend in New Mexico on Saturday at their M.O.K. celebration. And so looking forward to that. And put it on your calendar that we are going to. I'll be on ABC this week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday. And so looking forward to. I'm sure we'll be talking impeachment.

Looking forward to having that conversation. And so y'all know how I do. I'm going to always bring the funk wherever I go. Thanks a bunch. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Holla! This is an iHeart Podcast.