#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 1.7: Cops falsely portray Blacks as gang members; HUD rolls back fair housing; Deval Patrick speaks

Episode Date: January 16, 2020

1.7.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: LAPD Cops falsely portray Blacks as gang members; HUD looks to rollback Obama-era fair housing rules; Hiring of relatively unknown Pats' assistant coach Joe Judge by the NY Giants has started a new conversation about the Rooney Rule; The possibility of war between Iran and the United States continues escalate; Former Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick sits down with Roland Martin. - #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: 420 Real Estate, LLC To invest in 420 Real Estate’s legal Hemp-CBD Crowdfunding Campaign go to http://marijuanastock.org Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We'll give you those details. Also, it's been a year since Democratic donor Ed Buck was convicted of, actually, I'm sorry, he was indicted for drugging and killing Timothy Dean. We'll talk about how his case is moving forward in the federal system. Department of Housing and Urban Development, under Donald Trump, wants to redefine fair housing standards.

More emphasis on choice, less on discrimination. No shock. The recent hiring of Joe Judge by the New York Giants has started another conversation about how the Rooney Rule is a joke in the NFL. One black GM, three black head coaches. That's it. That's it.

And none of the coaches this year, who should get jobs, are being hired. Hmm. What in the world is going on? Plus, my interview with presidential candidate and former governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. Folks, we've got a jam-packed show for you. It's time to bring the funk and roll the mark down the filter.

Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the miss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, 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.

Yeah, yeah. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. Yeah, yeah. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling, Martin. Rolling with rolling now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's rolling, Martin. Now. More than a dozen Los Angeles police officers with the Metro Division are being investigated

on suspicion of falsifying information they gathered during stops and wrongly portraying people as gang members or associates. Nearly half of the drivers stopped by Metro Division are black. Hmm. Why is this not surprising? Joining me right now is a social critic and political commentator, Jasmine Koenig. Jasmine, glad to have you back on Rollerball Unfiltered.

Happy New Year, Roland. Thanks for having me. So if you're black and brown in L.A., you're getting pulled over and they assume you're a gang member. You know, it's the confirmation, right, of our worst fears. Just regular people, me or you, riding in our cars, we get pulled over. We don't even know that what they're filling out

is labeling us as being from a gang. They then go back and get to use that to get promotions. Like, hey, yo, yo you know we're you know we're great at our job we're identifying gang members it's the irony and the hypocrisy is so crazy right so you they get promotions off of this because everyone knows when you join the department the name of the game is to promote this is the motivation for why they're doing this. And then they get those promotions, right? And they're paid by taxpayer money, the same people, me and you, that they're pulling over falsifying this information on. And on top of that, that information is then being

used by our city attorney and our district attorney's office. And so the question that I have is, who's going on the Brady list, right? Who's going on the list of officers who are known to have falsified information that are lying and cannot be used in court? You know, we, you know, so there's the fallout from this is just beginning, but it's just a confirmation of what groups have been saying, like, you know, Black Lives Matter and the ACLU and other groups in Los Angeles have been screaming about for a really long time. And I think that it's going to get much bigger before it gets smaller. So right now, we're talking about a handful of officers, but from what I'm hearing inside the department,

it's a lot more. Well, plus we're also talking about the LAPD. You had the Rampart scandal as well. And so this is not a police department that is a stranger to racial discrimination. You're exactly right. And, you know, I am a driver. I drive in Los Angeles all of the time. And now this is an added worry that us as black drivers here in L.A. have to worry about, which is, you know, how do we get to go back and check and make sure that we're not labeled as being from some blood gang or for some crip gang in, in South LA. This is absolutely ridiculous,

but it goes hand in hand with the stories that came out years ago, right? I think you remember this Roland about how toddlers and babies were all in the California years ago, right? I think you remember this, Roland, about how toddlers and babies were in the California gang database, right? And it was like, well, how is a three-year-old in a gang database? It's because they're just using names. They just want names. But at the end of the day, that's false intel, right? So how are you allegedly winning the war on gangs with false information? Because I know my name is on any list saying that I'm a gang member. That's false intel.

So how are they using... I don't understand how you then use that information to go into the streets to quell gang violence and all of that. And a lot of the information you have is false. Well, we certainly will be watching to see what happens with this investigation.

And again, it's the reality of being black and brown in America, even in 2020. I do want to ask you about this other story. Of course, Ed Buckers was indicted on federal charges for the deaths of Jamel Moore and Timothy Dean. You're having a vigil today in Los Angeles, remembering Timothy Dean. Share your thoughts on that. Well, I'll tell you something. I'll tell you and your viewers, you're the first to know, we're actually also filing the lawsuit, the civil lawsuit against Ed Buck on behalf of Timothy Dean's family today as well, because it's the one year anniversary of his death. For folks who are following the story,

thanks to you, Roland. You know, Timothy Dean died January 7th, 2019, which is about six months after we warned Jackie Lacey after Jamel Moore's death in 2017. we warned her in 2018, if you don't stop this man and take him off the street, that another person was going to die. And that next person, unfortunately, was 55-year-old Timothy Dean. And so this evening, we're going to gather in West Hollywood with his friends, and we're going to put his family on by phone,

and we're going to remember him. And I'm looking forward to 2020 in terms of Ed Buck. You know, the hashtag used to be arrest Ed Buck. Now the hashtag is convict Ed Buck. He will start stand trial. Trial is scheduled right now for August 4th here in Los Angeles. And we're just going to move forward. I mean, I am all about getting Ed Butt convicted. He's in jail right now. And people should know from jail, you can go to prison or you can go home. We want Ed Butt going to prison for the rest of his miserable life. Well, it's quite interesting that Jackie Lacey would all of a sudden decide to wake up. Of course,

yesterday she announced these rape charges against Harvey Weinstein. She is running, of course, again for re-election. She also, I mean, and for folks who don't realize, Jackie Lacey is black, but she clearly didn't find any time to meet with the black community before the end of 2019. You've been certainly putting pressure on her. And this is an example of a black district attorney who I

know other black DAs across the country have no problems seeing her go down in defeat. They've told me that she frankly is not a progressive prosecutor and is not somebody who is really looking out for the interests of black people. I agree. I was so sick to my stomach yesterday watching

the press conference around Harvey Weinstein because it was like, you know, here you have the, and I'm not taking away from the victims. But again, when I compare and contrast it to how that office handled and treated the victims of Ed Buck, you know, was it because they were black? Was it because they were black men or they were black gay men? There were sex work. So, like, what was it that, you know, she couldn't find the empathy, the compassion, or the interest in that case, allowed that buck to be on the streets for all that time victimizing people. Then yesterday

I see her on the news, I watch the press conference, and I was like, that was the Jackie Lacey we needed in 2017. That was the Jackie Lacey we needed in 2018 and in 2019. And you're exactly right, Rowan. She made a promise in October of 2019 to meet with the Black community before the end of the calendar year. She did not hold that promise.

She was not under duress when she agreed to do it. She knew that she had agreed to do it. And I think it sends a very strong message, particularly to Black voters in Los Angeles County, how important we are to her that you could say out of your mouth that you promised to meet with them and then not do it. All right, Jasmine Koenig, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot and keep staying on the case. Thank you. All right, folks, I want to also now deal with this next story, which is, of course, critically important to what we cover on this show, and that is what is happening in the NFL. Some of you might be saying,

really, really, the NFL raises the issue? But no, what this really speaks to in terms of what's happening in the NFL, at the end of the season, what always happens is coaches are fired. And that means that their coaches get replaced. Well, they got a serious problem in the NFL when Ron Rivera, who was Latino,

was fired by the Carolina Panthers, was then hired as the head coach of the Washington Redskins. You've got numerous African Americans who are there, who are ready, but can't get a job. There are only three black can't get a job. There are only three black head coaches in the NFL.

Three. People have been highly critical of that. Eric Benhamy, who was the top offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs. No head coaching shot. Byron Lefkowitz, Camp Bay Buccaneers, offensive coordinator. No shot whatsoever. Yet today, the New York Giants actually hired Joe Judge Tampa Bay Buccaneers, offensive coordinator. No shot whatsoever.

Yet today, the New York Giants actually hired Joe Judge. Do you know what his title is? Wide receiver and special teams coach. Here's what black coaches are always told, that you need to be able to get to one of the top coordinator positions as offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator. Then that was this period in the NFL where these owners were picking the offensive line coach as the head coach.

Mike Tice with the Vikings was one of those folks. I forgot the guy who was hired as the Oakland Raiders. Again, offensive line coach. He became the head coach. And so all of a sudden, that became the hot deal. Folks, here's the reality in the NFL. This boils down to whiteness. Whiteness.

This boils down to 32 owners. Only one of the NFL owners isn't white. That's the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars. What you're dealing with here is a league that is majority African American, yet the owners are picking folks who they're comfortable with. Now, years

ago, Johnny Cochran and others threatened to sue the NFL. That led to what is now called the Rooney Rule. The Rooney Rule stipulates that NFL teams will at least interview a minority candidate for top positions, such as head coach, team president, general manager. What the NFL teams have done, though, is make a mockery of the Rooney Rule. They've given these sham interviews

no intent whatsoever to hire black coaches. And if you talk to these black coaches in the NFL, they will tell you these are sham interviews. They know these interviews will not lead to a job.

Take the Dallas Cowboys. Interview, of course, interview Marvin Lewis. They hire Mike McCarthy. You look at Carolina Panthers, zero in on Matt Rule. Coach Ed Baylor, give him a seven-year, $60 million contract. He could earn within the sentence up to $70 million. And then, of course, you have Joe Judge with the New York Giants.

Only team left is the Cleveland Browns. The question is, who are they going to hire? The fact of the matter is this here. What people need to understand, okay, is that when people say the NFL, you have to understand how the NFL is set up. Roger Goodell is the commissioner of the NFL. Roger Goodell works for the owners.

The 32 owners of the NFL, they control the NFL. They are the power brokers. Roger Goodell is an employee of them. He's there to represent their interest. Even when he takes action against an owner, it's pretty much the owners deciding amongst themselves how they're going to do this. Now, some of you might be watching, you might be saying, well, I don't understand, Roland, why

this, why you think this is a big deal. Because the issue with the NFL and the hiring of black coaches is no different than what we see happening in the front office. There's one black general manager in all of the NFL. There are no black team presidents in the NFL. The same thing applies to what is happening on the collegiate level. Largely white athletic directors and white presidents and white boosters pretty much don't hire black head coaches.

There are only a handful. You cannot use two hands to count the number of black coaches of major Division I programs in college. But I can extend this beyond the NFL and extend this beyond college. You take Major League Baseball. Take the NBA. Oh, some of y'all are looking at me right now saying,

really? The NBA? All the black players. But here's the deal. Show me how many head coaches in the NBA who are black didn't play. Take your time. It'll be a while. So there are numerous white coaches in the end of in the nba who never

played the game so essentially what they're saying is that in order for you to become a head coach in the nba and you're black you had to be a former player that's pretty much what what they're saying but let me take this thing even further because what you're seeing with this notion of whiteness in the NFL can be applied to corporate America. It's applied to the folks who are on boards of directors. Do you realize that there are fewer black CEOs of Fortune 500 companies today in 2020 than there were 10 years ago? I've talked to African American lawyers who have said there are fewer black law partners at major law firms in this country.

I could go down the line. Why did we, National Association of Black Journalists, why were we so critical in going after CNN? Because to sit there and say you had no black executive producers, no black vice presidents, no black executive vice presidents, no black senior vice presidents, and no black direct reports, that is the exact same thing we're talking about in the NFL. What we have to understand is that even

though this is 2020, and even though there are people who somehow believe that we have this big kumbaya with a black president, the reality is that whiteness is still a major issue in this country. Now, I'm sure there are people who are sitting here saying,

oh, no! It's all about hiring the best person! Really? Really? Really? New England Patriots, their wide receivers this year were trash. But the guy who was a wide receivers coach gets one of the plum NFL jobs,

head coach of the New York Giants? Really? Really? What we have to understand is what Frederick Douglass said. Frederick Douglass said, power concedes nothing without a demand. Never has, never will. He also said, agitate, agitate, agitate.

Now, I love the people who say, oh, my goodness, you're a race baiter. The proof is in the pudding. How can Eric Biennemi be the offensive coordinator of one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL and supposedly owners want offensive-minded coaches? Sean McVay was the head coach of Los Angeles Rams.

Last year, led them to the Super Bowl. All of a sudden, the wonder kid. What about Ben and me? What about Lefwich? Leslie Frazier, defensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills. I could go down the line. What we have to understand is that this and this is still

a deterrent to success. We're often told that wait your turn, go through the process, do the right things and do this job and work your way up. So explain to me, how is it that when we work our way up, we somehow don't get to the top floor. We're stuck on the middle or the lower floors. The reason we have to continue to call this thing out, you heard i said about matt rule he signed a seven year 60 million dollar contract he could make 70 million that's folks that's 10 million dollars a year how many black coaches will get that opportunity to be able to build that kind of generational wealth that means that the family of Matt Rule,

the family is set. Think about it. You could take 70 million bucks, fine, you could say taxes, your age and everything like that. Let's say, okay, he clears half of that. That's $35 million over seven years. $5 million a year. His children's children will see the benefits of him getting that particular job.

See, that's why I focus on this because I think too often when we talk about these issues, we only look at just this singular job without realizing the economics behind that job, without realizing that what then happens if you're able to make $7 million a year? What are you able to fund? What are you able to give to?

What are you able to contribute to? Whether it's the National Urban League or the NAACP or HBCUs or the Thurgood Marshall Fund or the college that you went to or the Boys and Girls Club or your church or whatever. The reason there is a wealth gap in America is not because of anything other than inheritance, which means land, which means property, which means stocks, which means options, which means all of those things.

The bottom line is this here. What the NFL is doing is simply what America has always done, and that is give black people, in this case specifically black men, short shrift. The question is, will you have white voices in sports speak up? Will they challenge these owners? Or will the owners simply go

hide and Roger Goodell is going to go cut another deal with a rapper to talk about the great things that they're doing? See, it's meaningless to me to go out and recruit Jay-Z for your social impact initiative, Inspire, whatever it's called, when over here, black folks are being denied opportunities. Not just head coaches will be denied opportunities for the uppertier jobs as well. Oh, we can be the running backs coach.

We can be the defensive backs coach. The wide receiver coach. But see, once you start talking about offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, and then head coach, now you're in rarefied air. We have to think about this, and that's why we need external groups. That's why we need external groups. That's why we need organizations

externally. That's why we need civil rights organizations that actually are being led by folks who have troops, who have members, as opposed to singular personalities. What we need is,

we need our organizations calling these folks out. And I dare say this, in the spirit of Johnny Cochran, I would hope that our prominent black lawyers will pick up where they left off and say, NFL, the Rooney Rule isn't working, so therefore, we're gonna take you to court. We wanna have depositions.

We wanna have discovery to understand what's going on. If you think the NFL is settled with Colin Kaepernick, imagine what could be uncovered if you started asking questions about whether or not black folks are getting true opportunities as head coaches, as general managers, and as team presidents.

That, folks, is what is needed. And that's why we've gotta stop running around wearing NFL jerseys and caps and gloves and hats and jackets and talking about our favorite team and realize that essentially what these owners are saying is I have no problem with y'all entertaining me, but if you think I'm going to hire you,

you got another thing coming. I'm bringing my panel right now, joining me on set here is Malik Abdul, of course, a Republican strategist, Dr. Julianne Malveaux, economist, president of the Emera Bennett College, joins me. First off, I think via Skype, we'll hold on for her. Dr. Wilma Leon is the host of Inside the Issues,

Sirius XM, Skype as well. I'll start with you, Malveaux. Again, people, you have to connect the economic dots to this lack of opportunity because that's what this speaks to. And when you have African-Americans who've done the right thing, gone, all appropriate steps, and they can't get shots, this goes beyond the NFL.

This cuts across numerous industries in what it means to be black in America. I'm glad you actually took that beyond just sports, because we know that that's the obvious. But as you said, if we look at corporate America, you know, I remember years ago, you know, it was good to talk about Franklin Raines or can't think of the other guy. Yeah, Ken Chenault. Yeah, yeah. American Express.

Ursula Burns, who was at Xerox. You had, of course, you had Thompson, who was the chair of the board at Microsoft. Dick Parsons at Time Warner. At one point, you had five black CEOs. Yeah, and so this is something that, you know, we see a lot, and it's not even just at your upper echelons, of course. This is in just across any management position. You look at your federal government, for instance.

You look at the people who fill those SES positions, which are the senior executive service positions. The number of black people in those positions in comparison to not just whites, but if you have Asians or others, you know, those numbers are pretty low. But the question is, and I think you alluded to that, you know, so what is it that we can do?

So we're looking at specifically the sports industry. We're looking at the NFL. What is the mechanism for the at the NFL for us to push them to adhere to adhere to the rule? If we're looking, you know, and I support, you know, what Nike is doing as far as working with Colin Kaepernick. But I don't know how many black people are in those top positions at Nike. You know, that's one of those instances. You know, are we going to push Nike? Are we going to push the NFL? I agree with you on Jay-Z. I said that at the time that he came out. You know, he can focus on that social inspiring aspect of the NFL, but who are going to be the people? Who are the power brokers that are going to go to the NFL?

And that may be the lawyers. You suggested it. Maybe it is a group of black lawyers. But clearly there is a problem here, and it needs to be addressed, and it's not something that we should just, you know, there are a lot of people who just say, well, you know, I just like football. You know, I just watch the sport. Well, it's a bit more than a sport, and if we look at the landscape of the, you know, and not just the coaches, but the owners themselves, you know, black people are not represented in an industry where we're overwhelming overrepresented, if you

will. And so I agree with what you said, you know, but the question again, what is it that we're going to do? What is the strategy for moving forward? Will Merrill, all we hear from the NFL are excuses. In fact, these owners don't even really even talk about it. And the bottom line is this here. The only way to get their attention is to do what Frederick Douglass said. And that has to happen. It has to be loud. It has to be consistent. It has to be continuous

because what these owners are essentially saying is look, I'm going to hire somebody. They are hiring people who say, I like you. You think like me. You look like me. I'm more comfortable with you. When you listen to all the reasons they give why, I like you. You think like me. You look like me. I'm more comfortable with you. When you listen to all the reasons they give why. I mean, again, you can't, no owner can explain to me.

I don't want to hear this crap about, oh, the success of the Kansas City Chiefs hurts Eric being in me because it makes it hard for him to interview. Get the hell out of here. Well, asking what can we do you first i think have to put it in the context of are we fans or are we consumers and if we start approaching the nfl as consumers and as you said in in your intro take off your hats take off your uh your jerseys stop walking around talking about this as though it's your team, because it's not, really start putting or taking your money away from where you're behind is, as in sitting in those seats. That's when you really start to see dramatic impact and consideration. It reminds me of the late 70s, early 80s in the NBA when the perception in the NBA was that it was becoming too black. And the NBA logo, the whole

NBA image, they were losing the fan base. They were losing their white fan base because the league was too black, and the perception was. And the NBA started to make, David Stern started to make changes appealing to those marketers and those advertisers so that the NBA's perception would change. Also, when you're talking about the mindset of the owners, that's the same mindset, Roland,

that has LAPD officers falsely classifying African Americans as gang members. That's the same mindset that has a prosecutor in L.A. failing to prosecute Ed Buck in a timely manner. That's the same mindset that has a story that you're going to be talking about later, HUD rolling back fair housing standards. That mindset does not just apply to corporate America, does not just apply to the NFL or sports. That is the prevalent mindset within America. And that is the prevalent mindset that has made America what America is, because that's what America has always been. One of the things, first of all, I want to go to, Henry, go to my iPad, please. This is a piece here.

So these are the current Fortune 500 chairman and CEOs. John Thompson, of course, I say it with Microsoft, he is the chair of the board. Ken Frazier is the CEO of Merck. Roger Ferguson is the president and CEO of TIAA. I also believe that JCPenney has an African-American who is CEO. Now, but let me go through this list here. Former Fortune 500 chairmen and CEOs.

Elvin Lewis, of course, with Potbelly. Clarence Otis Jr. with Darden Restaurants. Clifton Wharton with TIA, TIAA, CREF, Don Thompson, who was the president and CEO of McDonald's for about 18 months, Franklin Raines, of course, with Fannie Mae, then Ken Chenault, American Express, Lloyd Ward. He, of course, was with industry, first of all, waste management service, a company with clean tech solutions worldwide, I'm sorry. Marvin Ellison, again, right there, chairman, president, CEO, JCPenney.

Dick Parsons, of course, Tom Warner. Rodney O'Neill was with Delphi Corporation. Ron Williams, of course, again, a healthcare company. Stanley O'Neill, of course, was with Merrill Lynch. But in the history of Fortune 500 companies, only one black woman has ascended to the top, and that's Ursula Burns, who was the CEO of Xerox. And, Malik, what people, and again,

what we have to understand is that, first of all, in corporate America, blacks make up 8%. So when you talk about these high-paying jobs, just like the NFL, when we're frozen out of those positions, the reality is we know. We know that when we ascend to those levels, we are more than likely to open those doors up. Tony Dungy's coaching tree is that he's been able to, when he became head coach, he had, uh, uh, Leslie, he had black coaches who were office of coordinators, defensive coordinators who became head coaches. Jim Caldwell, uh, later became head coach of the Indianapolis coast, also Detroit lions. Uh, we can go down the line of that tree. And so when you don't get the opportunity, whether you're NFL head coach,

whether you're NBA head coach, whether you're a college coach or athletic director, or even a Fortune 500 CEO, or even a top executive, then, again, we're asking the same people to open the door up, and this has a direct relationship to what happens economically with African Americans because when we're frozen out of the top jobs, we're frozen out of the top jobs, we're frozen out of the EVP level, SVP level, VP level, and below. Yeah, because you are more likely to, and whether it's black, whether it's a woman, or anything,

any underrepresented or minority group, you are more likely to be open to your business being more diverse. You know, we have, I think, and Shirley Jackson probably, I think Shirley Jackson still is the president of Rensselaer. Clinton appointed her. Now, Shirley Jackson makes a whole lot of money, science, you know, math, science, technology school. But, you know, she's one person. And she has been one person at least since the 90s in her position there.

And a lot of times when we have these conversations, race is a real thorny issue and people are afraid to touch it. But the reality is that when you look at our academia, our corporate America, and you see the disparities that are there, a lot of people will look at that and say, well, you know, you're trying to give someone preferential treatment or anything like that. Well, no. Affirmative action is not about that. Because the damn sure preferential treatment

on the white side. Right, yeah. So affirmative action, when they think of affirmative action, their heads explode and say, oh, well, you're trying to give black people or any minority something that they don't deserve. But you have to be qualified to get these positions. You know, the young Ursula, I can't remember the last time you just mentioned her, the only black female billionaire, she had to be qualified to get to where she was.

You can take someone like Condoleezza Rice. Condoleezza Rice had to be qualified to get where she was. But the problem is that they have very short coattails, and so you don't have the infrastructure behind them to support them in some of those efforts because people recoil at this notion of diversity. You know, I support diversity. I know friends who...

They recoil at it because what it does is it exposes their focus on whiteness. Okay? The fact of the matter is this, Wilmer. There should not be a need for a Rooney Rule if you supposedly are looking at one skill set. And if that's the case, hell, we didn't need a 13th Amendment or a 14th Amendment

or a 15th Amendment, or we didn't need a Civil Rights Act of 1860 or 1957 or 1960 or 1964 or Voter Rights Act of 1860, or 1957, or 1960, or 1964, or Voter Rights Act of 65, or Fair Housing Act of 68. You wouldn't need all of those things if white folks in America were doing the right thing, and that is abiding by the very Constitution they wrote. As I said, this is the mindset,

this is the prevalent mindset in America, and this is the prevalent mindset that has made America what America is. You mentioned affirmative action. It's important for people to understand the history of affirmative action. Came out of Philadelphia as the Philadelphia plan was presented to Richard Nixon, Richard Nixon saw affirmative action as a good way to increase African Americans in business so that he could increase the number of African Americans in the Republican Party. So understanding or revolting against affirmative action,

a lot of people don't understand the history of it. These positions that you're talking about in many, many situations are based upon relationships. So when you look at how someone ascends into a position, they ascend into those positions in many instances based upon relationships that they've been able to develop with people along the way. And those relationships in many instances are not merely formed within the confines of the office space. They are social relationships. They are social relationships that are developed on the golf course. They are social relationships that are developed on the golf course. There are social relationships that are developed on the tennis courts. There are social relationships that are developed at the country clubs. And so we as African-Americans have been locked out of so many of the spaces where these

relationships get developed that those in decision-making processes can't become comfortable with us, according to them, because they don't know us on those levels. Well, and also, let me address this here, and I'm looking for this idiotic-ass comment. Because, you know, anytime we have these conversations, you always got some stuck-on stupid fool who jumps on, who always says, why are we sitting here,

big and white people for opportunity? Why can't we build our own? Okay. See? Tosa. Right. But what happened with that? But also, when people say that,

okay, let's also be real, okay? Guess what? We should still be getting opportunities in major corporations, in sports leagues as well. So this whole notion of we should be demanding that, hell yeah, we should, okay? And also, you take AT&T. AT&T is a company with a market cap

of almost $300 billion. Okay, I think if you combine all of the 2.6 million black-owned businesses in America, you might not get to $300 billion. So it's stupid and idiotic when these people say that stupid stuff. Well, why are you doing that? You should be building your own.

Do your ads support your own? So it's real simple to throw that out there. I don't think it's just stupid we do that. The bottom line is... It's also stupid because again, that's ahistorical. The person asking that question doesn't understand

the number of times where we have built our own and angry whites have attacked us and burnt it to the ground, shot us in the back of our heads, done everything in their, or doesn't understand redlining, does not understand the hurdles that we've had to go through, the disproportionate finance rates that we have to, there are just so many obstacles that prohibit us or make it increasingly more difficult for us to build our own. So you can't ask that question

unless you understand the history behind the answer. Well, we'll see certainly what happens next when it comes to this very issue. Bottom line is here, the Rooney Rule is a joke. Roger Goodell, you better deal with it. And that means calling these owners to task. And I just simply believe, black lawyers, in the spirit of Johnnie Cochran,

the only way you're going to get their attention is if you take them to court, and then when they are threatened with depositions and discovery, and all of a sudden, then it begins to change. The bottom line is this here, okay? These NFL owners, they're nearly all white. They're going to continue to be white. And they're going to do what white folks

have always done in this country. Not all white, but the bottom line is this here. Show me where the proof, where they're truly giving folks a shot. I'm sorry. You hire a dude who's a wide receiver coach, a special teams coach. He goes from that to head coach,

and you bypass these brothers who are offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators just because he coached with the Patriots? Get the hell out of here. Got to go to a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about HUD, led by a black man, Dr. Ben Carson,

rolling back Obama-era rules that dealt with fair housing discrimination. This is Roland Martin Unfiltered. You want to check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? Go to 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 Roller Martin Unfiltered.

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All right, folks, the Donald Trump administration is moving towards rolling back another Obama-era rule intended to address racial segregation in housing. The proposed HUD rule would redefine fair housing standards to place more emphasis on improving housing choice rather than reducing discrimination. They claim that simplifying the process for cities to meet fair housing requirements would help them meet their civil rights obligations. Housing advocates say the plan would substantially weaken fair housing enforcement, leading to a resurgence of racial segregation

across the country. Wilma, I want to start with you. This, of course, has been, if you look at the Trump administration, across the board, HUD, Department of Education, Health and Human Services, I can go down the line, you have seen a consistent rollback of civil rights protections.

Donald Trump thanked black folks for not voting. He said, what the hell do you have to lose? This is a perfect example of what the hell you have to lose. Absolutely. And what they're real, first of all, when you look at Ben Carson being the secretary of HUD, that goes back to the last conversation we had about relationships, because he is one of the most incompetent people that could have been put in a

position such as this, but he got into this position because of his relationship with people in the Trump administration. All this really comes down to is they're changing the rules to weaken what? Enforcement. And at the end of the day, one of the things that African Americans have at the, when you really peel back the onion on a lot of the arguments that we've been making for civil rights, we've been looking for the government to enforce the law fairly. And this is a prime example of the Trump administration peeling back enforcement, because there's no solution when a wrong has been committed, but you really don't have the basis in law to seek compliance and enforcement. And this is what they're unraveling, and their explanation is straight gibberish.

Malik, this piece from Politico, go to my iPad, please. It says, the 2015 rule, which the Obama administration introduced as a way to beef up enforcement of the landmark Fair Housing Act 1968, required local governments to track patterns of poverty and segregation with a checklist of 92 questions in order to gain access to federal funds. HUD

now says, oh, that's too prescriptive in outcomes for jurisdictions. Basically what they're saying is that's too much work for them. They suspended it earlier. is that's too much work for them. They suspended it earlier. How in the world are we, here we are where African American home ownership is at the lowest point it's been since 1968.

HUD's rolling back efforts to deal with discrimination? So there are a couple of things here. I'm kinda on the fence on fence on pulling back the regulation itself, but because I've worked with this, I've worked with it here in D.C. and Baltimore and other places, what people have to understand that this is, and you read that in the article, we're talking about a checklist that they have to have in order to receive federal funds, which is a separate thing from what cities are doing on their own, what they have in their own charters and their legislation to address issues like affordable housing, particularly around race. Now, in each of those cities, I think black, the largest, I think the number of cities, the largest, the cities with the largest percentage and number of African-Americans,

I think all of those, maybe with the exception of one, are run by Democrats. So I'm approaching this from a political point of view, because we have in D.C. one of the largest wealth gaps here in the country. And D.C. has been run by Democrats forever. So my point in bringing this up is, is that these issues, you know, a lot of these issues are around zoning laws. So when you hear people challenging what's happening here, what's happening in New York, what's happening in California, they're really around zoning laws that are not directly tied to the federal funding that we're talking about here. Most of these issues with housing are not about zoning. Most of these issues with housing are really about development in areas and also...

And that's zoning. But that's also where money comes in, lending comes in. That's also in terms of where redlining is still there. Right. Again, this political piece. A 2010 General Accounting Office audit found that HUD's oversight of jurisdictions' fair housing plans was effectively toothless.

Oh, wow. Right here. I mean, basically, they said, what the hell are you doing? In fact, this is the GAO website. September 14th. First of all, it was published September 14th, 2010. And it still applies. They said,

HUD needs to enhance its requirements and oversight of jurisdictions fair housing plan. What Carson and Trump want to do is weaken it. But I guess what my question is is so if that's from a 2010 study or report,

we can assume that it was before Obama really got into office. You know, maybe he'd been in office. Right. No. And so what happened was this report, first of all, this was coming, this report done, it was published September 14, 2010, publicly released October 14, 2010. And so they really were looking at those years when George W. Bush was president. Obama comes in, puts the rules in place to actually strengthen this. Carson and Trump want to roll that back and go back to the way it used to be. Yeah, no, I get that part. But what I want to stress here is that what we're talking about is a supplement

to what states, cities, locales should already be doing around those issues. But the point, though, is why weaken it? Why is a black HUD secretary, why is Donald Trump, why are they weakening housing laws? Why are they weakening the efforts to target discrimination? Right. Well, they gave their explanation on that. You know, whether or not we accept that, that's a different thing. But again, that whether or not, you know, people are discriminated against in housing is not something that's limited or isolated to the federal government,

which is my point about cities having their own laws that are like D.C. has their own laws against... But the reality is you're getting billions from the federal government and the federal government has that hammer to be able to say, do these things. I'm reading from a political story again. To comply with the 2015 rule, local jurisdictions were supposed to use, go to my iPad please, a new HUD computer

assessment tool to map patterns that exacerbate segregation, including disparities in access to jobs and credit. The new proposal, the one being put forth by Carson and Trump, permanently withdraws that tool and HUD suspended that tool in May of 2018. What the hell? Here's the thing.

Here's the thing. You're absolutely right. Federal funding is the hammer that the federal government uses to get states and localities to comply with federal regulation. When you remove the data tool that is designed to help cities analyze the housing patterns, you have now stripped away from the process the proof that you need to support the argument that unfair housing practices are being engaged in. So when you remove the data, you now really have no argument. And so what the federal, what Trump is really trying to do here is move this to a more voluntary, privatized compliance model, as opposed to having strict guidelines, data to determine whether or not those guidelines are being met,

and the federal hammer to ensure that states follow the law. Yeah, and I think that's a good point, but we should also understand, and Roland mentioned it there too, but if we're talking about the federal requirement, this is the requirement to get federal funds. And so we understand that, that in order to get federal funds, you have to meet certain benchmarks in order to get that funding. But again, aside from that, these cities are supposed to already have mechanisms in place to ensure, for instance, that their residents aren't being discriminated against as far as fair housing laws. The billion-dollar gentrification lawsuit that was filed here in D.C. was not about federal law. It was about what the local

government has been doing and zoning, which is why I mentioned that zoning is actually a part of that. But this issue, Malik, is not about in terms of identification. What this right here is about, pure and simple, is about whether or not

the authority of the federal government is going to be used to mandate that these local jurisdictions don't play games and say, oh, leave it up to the local. When HUD... I go back to... I'm going to close this conversation out

because I've got to play for y'all about my Deval Patrick interview. I go back to when we had the housing crisis in this country. Alfonso Jackson, who was the secretary of HUD, I had him on my radio show on WVON in Chicago. He admitted that the reason we were having

the housing crisis in America was because the federal laws were changed that took this one federal standard away and allowed states to do whatever the hell they wanted to do. So you had all of these people who were doing all kind of mortgage scams and coming up with all these different criterias that led to the housing foreclosure crisis

that wiped out 53% of black wealth. What these rules do is establish a federal standard to say, cities, you must comply. Now, by suspending it, whatever y'all want to do, do what y'all want. And that's the problem. And so, and this administration has a problem when we can go down the line department by department

the consistent rolling back of civil rights protections. Consistently. Not just in one department, but multiple departments. The Trump administration doesn't give a damn about civil rights. Well, I disagree with that.

Well, first of all, you've had... Hold on. You disagree with it? Okay. So, okay, so explain to me this. Okay, so explain to me the rollback of civil rights protections in HUD. The rollback of civil rights protections in HHS. Well, I'm not done. No, I'm not done. The rollback of civil rights protections in, uh... in, uh, you have the Department of Education.

When you have the first thing Jeff Sessions did, and Barr has followed him with it, the first thing they said, we're going to pull back consent decrees, we're going to pull back investigating police departments, because you know what? It's hurting your morale. We can go department by department.

We can pull it up. Well, the federal government has done reports, the Inspector General has done reports, showing that the Trump administration is consistently rolling back civil rights protections across the board. That tells me you don't give a damn

about civil rights. Well, I disagree with that. Just because any administration, whether it's Trump administration, Obama administration, what have you, just because they may take a position that you disagree with, whether that's around civil rights or otherwise otherwise doesn't mean that they're not... So you support their rolling back of civil rights protections?

Well, you would have to cite specific ones, and I think on this... I just did! On the particular one that you introduced with housing, I said that I'm kind of on the fence about that. I need to actually do more research on it to see what's the ultimate effect on it. I hear from the people, the activists who are saying, well, this is how it's going to harm us. But I actually would like to do some actually due diligence

and research that, then assume that, okay, well, because... Well, that was your job before you came on the show. Well, I did, and I didn't get enough to actually suggest that it was something that was going to be harmful beyond the activists saying that it was going to be harmful. So I didn't see any data in any of that. But I still don't believe that because of that instance or the what Jeff what Jeff Sessions did or anything that Barr supports, you make a general

statement when you say that they don't support civil rights, period. That's what I that's what I mean. First of all, I don't think it's easy to say. First of all, all you have to do is even go look at the U.S. Conference on Civil Rights. I'm sorry, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. Okay. A federal commission that laid out rollback of civil rights. Wilma, go ahead. This is even a bigger issue in terms of deregulation overall.

And one of the things that conservatives particularly and through the Trump administration have been very effective at doing is what? Deregulation. And what gets lost in the deregulation argument, as they talk about red tape and making it easier for industry to bring things to market and so on and so forth, on the other side of that regulation where you're looking at corporate side, on the other side of that regulation are people who are being protected by those regulations. And that's also what gets lost in this conversation is, yeah, it's going to be easier now for the states to do what they want to do in terms of making it harder for the fair housing side

while people, to your point, are losing their homes. Bomb Lines this here. Department after department after department, we have seen a rollback in civil rights protections. That's clear. Google it. Well, yeah, but that's different than not being concerned about it. That's a very broad...

Well, hell, if you're doing a consistent rollback of civil rights protections in multiple departments, Malik, that means you don't give a damn about the issue. So, typically, Republicans are pro-rolling back regulations across the board. So, that— Hold up, hold up.

But I thought Republicans are always touting how they voted for the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. So, which is it? Do Republicans support civil rights, or are they largely against them? Well, from everything that I know about the Republican Party, they are supportive of civil rights. The one today. I ain't talking about 1964. The one today. The one today. I've met with them. Really? So explain to me why one of the first things Republicans did when Donald Trump became president

was to go to the floor of the House, pass a bill, go to the Senate, sign into law, then roll back Obama-era protections that was targeting discrimination in the auto industry. Well, that's something that, that's one instance that you can... No, no, no. Hold on. I'm sorry. Hold on.

What about voting rights protections? And it's actually something that you can criticize, but again, as I'll repeat again... No, you asked for specifics. And so, and I said that that's something that can be criticized. What I'm pushing back against is this general assumption that Republicans don't care about civil rights. Now, this is this, I mean, that's something that's easy to say. It's easy to say against Republicans. If we listen to Kanye West, George Bush didn't even like black people. So the notion that somehow a Republican in office or a conservative in office is rolling

back certain regulations or you take issues with specific things that the party has done and then you assign that some type of racist or anti-civil rights, you know, motivation, that's not a surprise. Headline right here. Go to my iPad, please. Go to my... First of all,

I'm going to pull up here. You can't refute the data. Wil by the way this i'm not refuting data no i'm not refuting data let's let's look let's look at voting rights regulations and let's look at voting protections and let's look at where are people being stricken from voting rolls right now. 250,000 people in Wisconsin, 300,000 people in Georgia. And now these are Republican-led states that are doing this. And you've got Republican-appointed judges that are supporting this, right? So, and talking about the cross-check program and how many people

have been stricken from the voting rolls through the cross-check program. Hold up, hold up, hold up. You want specifics? Voting is directly tied to civil rights. You want specifics?

This is a May 29, 2017 article in the Washington Post. Headline, Trump administration plans to minimize civil rights efforts in agencies. Plural. It says right here.

Since the 1960s, the Labor Department's compliance office has ensured that contractors promote diversity. Trump administration want to disband it. They lay out here, right here, in multiple departments, EPA, Labor, they lay out education, okay, under President Trump's proposed budget. The Education Department's Office of Civil Rights, which has investigated thousands of complaints of discrimination in school districts across the country and set new standards for how colleges should respond

to allegations of sexual assault and harassment, will also see significant staffing cuts. They also, administration officials acknowledge, in budget documents, the Civil Rights Office will have to scale back the number of investigations it conducts and limit travel to school districts to carry out its work. So basically, y'all investigate yourselves.

Okay, HUD, HHS, I'm going down the line here, Department of Justice. This article lays out multiple agencies. Okay, so what you're referring to is an article that was written five months into Donald Trump's term about a proposed budget. Do you know of those that you just cited,

how many of those actually were part of the Yes, they had Robux, hold up. They had Civil Rights, Robax, and HUD. Civil Rights, Robax, and no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no. I mentioned The ones that you mentioned. No, no, no, no. I mentioned you at the multiple departments. Okay, in every single one of these federal agencies, you have had civil rights rollbacks.

Well, so you said that cutting staffing, you know, so that's what you're using as an example of not being, you know, so there are anyone who is. This is Washington, D.C. The best way in order to target something is to cut the money. Well, as someone who's worked in a federal government agency and know how it works and know how bloated government actually is. Oh, now we bloated.

Oh, boy. Well, government is. Okay. So now we're saying that the government... Okay, fine. So explain to me how... You can make the argument. Explain to me how in multiple agencies they're rolling back civil rights protections.

Multiple. Not one agency, multiple. Okay, well, this particular one that you were talking about that you introduced here about the fair housing one. Now, because they rolled back again, they may roll it back at the federal level or you may have an issue with what they're proposing there. No, no, no. That's not what they did.

Well, I'm sorry. They eliminated it. First of all, no, no. Hold on. First of all, let me correct you. Let me correct you. First of all, they tried to enact this in 2010. Okay. They got sued. So, and prior to 2010, what was the activity on that?

Listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. Carson came in, her secretary. He got sued. Okay. Okay? Got sued. They lost. Okay?

They had a settlement. Who lost? Trump administration lost. Okay. Okay? Now, what they did was then they suspended the rule. Mm-hmm. So they said, okay, we're not going to change it. suspended the rule so they said okay we're not

going to change it we're going to suspend it okay now they're trying to come back and totally get rid of it so i thought that they were sued they weren't able to do that because they were sued now that was short term the short-term fix so they weren't sued yes they were sued but it was short term so now they've come back to do the same thing again And that's what they're proposing the same thing again, but and they very well may be sued again But to your premise on whether or not Republicans care about civil rights No, I'm not gonna be on your show and say Republicans don't care about civil rights because that's something that I actually don't believe What would you like what you know? Would you like this?

I can go to see the report card. I can go you like to see the report card? I can go down. Would you like to see the report card of civil rights organizations that will show that they're against something that a Republican administration will do? No, no. I will show you facts where they will show you how they have voted against civil rights bills. We can go down the list of things, and I don't think it's something that's particularly helpful, but we can go down a list of things that Democrats support that I believe are harmful to the

black community. Let me say it again. Let me say it again. But I'm not going to posit that somehow Democrats don't care about black people because they make implicate cop policies. What I said is this here. Republican Party and the Trump administration don't care. You said they don't give a damn about civil rights. Don't give a damn about civil rights. What I said is this here. Republican Party and the Trump administration.

You said they don't give a damn about civil rights. Don't give a damn about civil rights. And I do not believe that. Well, guess what? That means that you don't believe facts. Well, that's your opinion. No, no, that's not my opinion. First of all, you ask.

You are ground zero for the resistance. So the notion that you would think the Trump administration is somehow racist or whatever, you start with it, and I hit you with specifics, and then you say, that's not enough specifics. Well, that's not what happened, Rowling. And if it's like, I give you specifics, they say, oh, well, no, that's isolated. That's not what happened, Rowling.

That's isolated. That's not what happened. Well, my final comment, go ahead. You can't argue with the data, and really, Malik, you're pursuing a bad premise and you're trying to support an unsupportable argument because the Republican Party, by the actions that Roland just articulated

and then I articulated, at every opportunity that they get, they roll back civil rights protections, and he's giving you the data, then nothing else you can say? Well, as I said, I agree with, I disagree with Roland just as I disagree with you. Why? Because you support

Trump, you're going to vote for Trump, and you don't want to own up to the rollback of civil rights protections. It's not that I don't want to roll up to it. I said that we can actually talk about those things, but I can also talk about the things that I think that have been beneficial to the black community that the administration has done.

In civil rights? You don't... In civil rights? Well, there's more than just... No, but I'm asking. There's more than just talking about civil rights. But the conversation is civil rights. Well, sure, but there's more than...

That's literally... Wait a minute, Mellick, Mellick. That's literally like us sitting here having a conversation about cooking, and all of a sudden, you bring up about changing the tide. That is an aspect of something. That ain't got jack to do with the conversation. That is an aspect of something you disagree with that the administration is doing.

No, Malik, it's actually following the conversation. But if we're talking about the overall picture of how black people have progressed under this administration, I can provide you many examples of that. When you cannot discuss the subject at hand, it's always great to try to change the subject. It's not a matter of changing the subject. Yes, that's what you want to do. Well, let's go down the list of things that I said. No, actually, hold on. First of all, we've already gone down.

I said the Trump administration can be criticized with that. Criticized with that. I said, well, let's have a conversation about that. So to sit next to me and ask him if I didn't say that, administration can be criticized with that. I said, well, let's have a conversation about that. First of all, I've laid out all the facts. Bottom line is here. The Trump administration doesn't give a damn about

civil rights. Gotta go to a break. We'll be back on Rollerball Unfiltered in a moment. Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar that you give to us supports our daily digital show. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As 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 There's a former governor of Massachusetts,

two-term governor, announced late in 2019 that he was going to seek the Democratic nomination for president. Not barely showing up in the polls, but he makes it perfectly clear he is in this thing to win it. I had a chance to talk with him earlier today. Here's our conversation.

Governor Deval Patrick, glad to have you on Roller Martin Unfiltered. Good to be with you. Thank you. Happy New Year. So when you and I talked at the NAACP convention last year, I specifically asked you whether or not you were going to run. You hedged on that very issue. Well, people are asking, oh my goodness, is he going to run? Are you thinking about it or yours or are you talking about it? Just your thoughts about potentially 2020? Well, look, I'm not running today.

I'm here because I have to catch a plane at 530. Yeah, right. I do. I do have to run soon. You know, I've got a I've got a great new business where we're we're doing impact investing and I'm focused on that. And I've got a great new business where we're doing impact investing and I'm focused on that. And I've got a great team and some investors and a team and some companies we've invested in who are depending on us and depending on me to be engaged in that. And I'm trying to be involved in the midterms because I think it's a critical cycle. And in campaigning across the

country for different folks. Yeah. And we've identified a number of, a small number of campaigns where I've been invited and where I be i can be helpful and i can do that consistent with my day job uh and that's my focus for now uh and all of a sudden what 20 plus candidates got in the race and and january and february and months ago and then all of a sudden, very late in 2019, you just have to jump in. Why? Well, we were ready to go more than a year before. And about three weeks before our announcement date, my wife, Diane, was diagnosed with cancer. And that's the sort of thing that just brings your feet back to earth, Roland. We paid attention to her and to that. I'm very, very grateful that when we celebrated 35 years of marriage in May, she's cancer-free.

We continue to watch a race, a race with a lot of talent in it and a lot of time and a lot of money, but where the leader still is somebody called undecided. And I think that folks are undecided because we're at risk of missing a moment, a moment where we can do more than get rid of the current president, but really reinvent America so that prosperity and justice is available to everybody everywhere. And that's been a lot of my life's work, as I think you know. And I believe that I have a unique range of life and leadership experience to deliver on that. What you're dealing with, though, is you're dealing with candidates who've had a significant

head start. If this was a marathon, you are probably a couple of laps down in terms of, obviously, it's a fundraising. You look at the polling, not being able to get in any of these debates. And so when it comes to your plan, I mean, what exactly are you looking at? Is Iowa and New Hampshire off the table? Are you focused on South Carolina and states after that? Exactly what is your strategy to be able to make an impact on this race? Well, let me talk first about some of your sort of prerequisite observations. You are right about a lot of it.

But it is also true that folks have been in for a long time, spent a lot of money, and nobody's locked it down. 60, 70 percent of the people in each of the early four states are undecided. And for them, I am not late. And in fact, of the folks who say they are decided, who are reflected in that poll, in the polls that we see, about a third of them say they'd be willing to change their mind. So I've been at events in New Hampshire and in South Carolina where we have spent most of our time, and also in Iowa and Nevada where people say, you know what, I've been waiting for you. I'm ready to help.

And we're building fast. We're raising to be competitive. We'll never have as much as Bloomberg. But I hope we're not at a point where you can just buy a seat in the Oval Office. I think we've got to earn it. And I think a record of delivering results, not just plans, but results and a life experience that is about the American dream will make a difference. So we're respectful of the calendar. We have a presence in all of the early states. But specifically to your question, we're really bearing down in New Hampshire, where I'm really reintroducing myself. And here in South Carolina. That's where you'll see me

mostly over the next several weeks. Obviously, Senator Kamala Harris was in the race. She's dropped out. Senator Cory Booker is still in, but is lagging significantly in polling as well as in money. Former House Secretary Julian Castro has dropped out of the race as well. Many people have been, especially a lot of African-Americans, have been talked about the lack of diversity there when it comes at the top of this race as well. So how are you going to make the case, especially to black voters in South Carolina who are making up a significant number of the voters in that primary, that you are a better choice than Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and some of the other candidates?

Well, look, these are all good people, and many of them are friends of mine, Roland, as they are of yours. But I'm not about yesterday. I'm about tomorrow. I'm not about being angry. I'm as angry as I am. I'm about what we can do to unify the country and what is necessary to do to unify the country so that we can deliver on the transformative policy proposals that many of us have. I'm not about plans. I'm about results. And so I do agree with you that we have a problem in our field of having some of the most talented and diverse candidates dropping out. I'm in it to win it. And it happens, as I said earlier, that this diverse candidate has the range of life and

leadership experience that is uniquely suited for this moment. So I got to get out of here, right? I got to talk to people. I got to meet people. In the case of New Hampshire, I'm reintroducing myself. In the case of South Carolina, in many cases, I'm introducing myself because I haven't been as active here since the 2008 race with for Barack Obama or my civil rights work in the years before before that. And I am finding people are very open because, as I

said, you know, other candidates have been in a long time, but they haven't locked it down. Obviously, Senator Elizabeth Warren is also one of the front runners. She is from your state, Massachusetts. Yeah. United States senator. When you announced, you said you had to make a very difficult call to her. Obviously, having two folks from Massachusetts in a presidential race is difficult. We saw the same thing in Texas, Beto O'Rourke and Julian Castro. Both of them no longer in the race as well. And so what exactly is, when you look at this field, what exactly is your space?

What is your lane? What area do you occupy that you believe has not been spoken to by any of these other candidates, including Senator Warren? Well, all of us have policy proposals around reforming big systems, right? Healthcare, immigration, criminal justice. That's incredibly important. I will say, you know, we delivered healthcare to 99% of the residents of Massachusetts. Nobody else, no other state can touch that. For me, it's not an abstraction.

This is about outcomes. The same is true in criminal justice. It's not an abstraction. It's about what we've done. But no one else, as far as I can tell, is talking about the importance of growing the economy so that it reaches out to the middle and the marginalized and not just up to the well-connected. And that is critical. We can't just be about distribution. We have to also, redistribution, we have to be about how we create an economy where there is a place for people

when they are out of school and ready to go to work. And so that we have a place for folks who are being displaced by the changes in the style and strategy of our economy. That's work I've done in Massachusetts as well. 25 year employment high coming out of recession, that's no joke. And that wasn't by accident.

You talked about this, the issue of the economy. Just the other day, we did a story on Rural Unfiltered regarding artificial intelligence potentially impacting over 30 percent of black men. Four point five million jobs lost. When you talk, when you look at what is happening in terms of black businesses, we now have seven hundred thousand more. Two point six million than we did eight years ago. The problem is they don't have the revenue they were doing beforehand. That's right. But when it comes to African-Americans, how do you make the case? What will you say is your agenda that will excite a black voter to pick you over the other candidates?

So first of all, Roland, I think the innovation economy is something that America can own, not be afraid of, but own. We got to be intentional about it in terms of training and retraining, about pushing out the opportunities from the centers where it's concentrated today, like Boston or San Francisco. We can do that. I've seen models of that. We did some of this work in Massachusetts. I think specifically to black people,

black workers, black entrepreneurs, we need to make capital available for people. We need an ownership approach in many communities so that people can begin to build generational wealth. And when I say capital, I'm not talking about, you know, just access to loans. That's one thing. I get that. But I'm talking about the ownership interests that enable people to have a stake in the thing they're trying to build and some coaching and mentorship so they can understand that they're not the first ones having to deal with the problems that go with building a business.

There's some wonderful strategies out there. We can harness these. We can scale these. And we can make entrepreneurship, the whole idea of starting and building a business and employing others, a part of the ethic in our own communities that it has been in the past. I think that's enormously important. I think that the federal government can contribute to that in really important ways.

What about the housing? Look, black home ownership is at its lowest rate since the Fair Housing Act was passed and signed in 1968. We lost 53% of black wealth due to the home foreclosure crisis in 2007, 2008, in the following years. What is your plan there? Because that is where, first of all, most Americans

have been able to build wealth, been able to own property, pass it on. We're actually going backwards. What is your plan there? So we have an opportunity agenda, Roland. I should have started by framing it this way, which is about investing in education, innovation and infrastructure. And the reason I talk about it that way is that in my experience, most people don't make their decisions or live their lives in policy silos. It's at the interconnection of policy. And so making sure there's a great school from pre-K right up through public higher ed within reach of everybody, affordable at the higher ed and workforce training level,

that innovation, as I was talking about earlier, is spread out so that folks have an opportunity to participate in the innovation economy globally. By the way, absolutely dependent on other infrastructure investments like access to high-speed broadband, adequate cell service. You know, some of the things that government has to do in able to help people help themselves. And housing is a part of that as well. It's not, you know, interestingly, my kids' generation, they're much more interested, they say, in renting than in owning. I want them to be interested in owning, and I want them to think about owning in places that are on the come, if you will.

I mean, I'm thinking about, for example, what's happening in my old neighborhood on the south side of Chicago because the Obama presidential senator is going in. And you better believe all these developers are circling around thinking this neighborhood is about to pop. Well, how come folks in the community today don't have a stake in that future? And how do we build that? There's some wonderful strategies that I've looked at and worked on to help with that. That's how we create generational wealth. And when you also look at when you talk about education, we look at the issue of student loan debt. African-Americans have more student loan debt than anyone else.

Are you in alignment with other candidates who believe that the federal government should cancel that student loan debt? And also, where do you stand on the issue of free tuition for college, but also school choice, charter schools, vouchers? Those three. You're going to put all that in one question? Well, you know, you can certainly expand on it. Yeah. Three-part question. I think, Roland, first of all, the point about relieving student debt is critical because it's choking off the ability of so many young people to pursue their dreams. I think I'd accomplish it differently.

I don't favor the wealth tax, mostly because I don't think wealth is the problem. I think greed is the problem. And but I do favor raising the estate tax which is a different way of accomplishing similar things and using those kinds of one time revenues to eliminate existing student debt. By the way we can get a lot of that just by refinancing to current interest rates at or near zero and crediting what has been paid against unpaid principal. In many cases, that's going to eliminate the debt right there. I'm trying to explore whether that's something we can do without legislation. That's the start. But the go forward is a separate problem, how to make higher ed affordable for folks who are in school or about to enter school. And I think the big issue there in public colleges and universities is that we've been draining the public out of public colleges and universities. The public contribution, I think, here in South Carolina is about 10 percent. Before I was governor in Massachusetts, it was down to 25, 30 percent. Just raising that back home, back to a 50 percent level, was enough to

freeze tuition and fees. If we actually want to make it truly affordable for folks, then I think we've got to put the public right back up at 100 percent. I would make it free for those who give a year or two or three in national service, military or civilian. And I'm interested in that not just as a strategy for relieving people of higher ed costs, but because frankly it's easy to divide us today because we don't know each other, and we need a way to learn about each other more than the cartoon version we get about people who are different from us in different parts of the country. And I think service is a terrific and proven way to get at that. And where do you come down on charter schools and vouchers?

You know, vouchers I'm deeply skeptical of, I will tell you. Charter schools, I think, have a place, but I don't think they are a substitute for public education. You know, this is another area where we've been, the public's been backing away from public schools. We were number one in student achievement in Massachusetts in a heavily unionized environment. So it's not teachers unions that are the problem. But what we had was a consistent achievement gap. And the kids, Roland, who were stuck in that gap were poor kids, kids who spoke English as a second language or who had special needs. And those are our kids, too, right? So we got together all of these different interests in education, folks who frequently

wouldn't sit down at the same table together, confirming my view that the greatest power a governor or a president has is the convening power. And we put together a suite of strategies knowing from teachers that one size wasn't going to fit all, that different populations of kids and different individual kids needed different solutions. And we put some money behind that and some accountability behind that. Examples of schools that were once thought of as the worst in Boston went to the best in the state because attention was paid and it was a strategy that met those kids where they are.

I think that's how we have to think about the federal government's role and government's role generally in public schools. A few more questions. In 2012, another Massachusetts governor, a a former governor Mitt Romney ran he was tar and feathered with working at Bain Capital Democrats by progressives You spent time there you left there when you announced you run for president

How are you going to deal with that when you're when you have a Democratic? constituency to deal with that when you're when when you have a democratic uh constituency uh that is they're very progressive that is extra highly critical uh of private equity companies uh their impact uh you talk about greed that's one of the issues that Elizabeth Warner's talked about how are you going to deal with that knowing full well that that's a bullseye that's on you? Look, I'm really proud of the work we did. I started a fund at Bain Capital to invest in companies for social and environmental impact, and I wanted to demonstrate that you didn't have to trade return for responsible business behavior, which has been a bugaboo out there in our capitalism for a long time. We invested in companies, for example, that

divert green waste from landfills where it would otherwise create methane gas and instead recycled it and sold company that delivered highly effective, high quality, and highly dignified dental services to poor kids, which is a huge gap in our healthcare system, a scalable solution. We invested in another company that was creating IT hubs in hollowed out urban centers to take advantage of the outsourcing of IT, but at a lower cost point, price point, that was competitive with overseas companies and was catalyzing economic activity in cities and towns. That's exactly the kind of capitalism we want to promote. And companies like that that are meeting and addressing new trends in how people eat and how they dress themselves and how they engage in the private sector need capital to scale too. I'm really, really proud of that work because, you know, I'm a capitalist. I'm not a market fundamentalist.

I don't think markets solve every issue right on time in everybody's life. But I do think we have practiced a kind of a short-term focused, narrow, and frankly sometimes destructive kind of capitalism for the last 30 or 40 years. And it doesn't have to be that way. Do I ask you what's happening, the current events was happening in Iran and Iraq. Donald Trump made the decision to take out one of the top Iranian generals.

Many other democratic candidates have been critical of that decision making process, saying it could destabilize the Middle East. Your thoughts on the action by the Trump administration and what may very well happen next. You know, Roland, it's so interesting that you even describe it as a decision-making process. That's part of the problem. This is an impulsive president, and it appears he's made another impulsive decision. You know, I totally support and believe that America has the right to defend our interests anywhere, anytime. But I think that right has to be bound by international norms, by law and by forethought.

And there has been no indication that this president has any interest in any of those boundaries, which is why we all have so little confidence that this decision was thought out and the consequences of it were considered. So now we're dealing with a less safe military on the ground, less safe allies on the ground and elsewhere, more threats to American interests and to American people. And we're here in South Carolina, close to Fort Jackson, where some half of the army are trained. You've got to know that those servicemen and women and their families are deeply concerned about how carelessly this president has put their lives and future in in jeopardy and I can I can only say that as president expect a more sober

and thoughtful approach to to our place in the world that we've seen in the last little while frankly in the last three years two questions left at it first off you head up with the rights division under President Bill Clinton. When you look at Donald Trump He of course he touts the first step act They really are polling around 15% among black men the White House wants to get that number to 20% There are no black women. I'm not gonna support him anyway at all

Your assessment of of Donald Trump and civil rights and how do you make the appeal specifically to black men to support your candidacy? Because that is an issue. There was a nine point gap between black men and black women for Obama and Romney. There was a 13 point gap between black men and black women, Trump versus Hillary Clinton. How do you make the case to black men that they should support your candidacy? So, you know, Roland, when I talked earlier about the numbers of people I meet who feel unseen and unheard, who aren't captured in polls, you know, I think that feeling is acute among black men. You know, we've been warehousing our brothers for a long time now and kind of looking the other way. Not anymore. We've been dealing with, and I dealt in the civil rights

division with excessive force by police. Now it's captured on videotape. And by the way, it's one of those false choices, right? We've got to warehouse black men or else we can't be safe. You've got to hate the police to believe black lives matter. None of that is true. It's not true. We are more safe if we are smarter in response to crime. We are more safe and more secure and more thoughtful if we are preparing people to join a mainstream economy that actually has a place for them and acts like it has a place for them. And that's not just true of people coming out. I'm talking about, you know, kids growing up in my own neighborhood who stay out of jail and try to do the right thing, but don't get their chance. So how we make that chance available, how we make it real,

this is why I think this is critical, right? We can't keep having cycles where folks come and make these kinds of promises and then we don't deliver. There are reasons why people feel disaffected and unseen and unheard. It's because they are unseen and unheard. And I have lived my whole professional life trying to make sure that folks just like that didn't feel that way and had a reason to believe. President Barack Obama appointed Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. I was very vocal in calling, saying that he should nominate an African-American woman, a historic appointment to the Supreme Court. He didn't do so. He chose Garland. We've never had a black woman nominated to Supreme Court. If you become president and you get your first Supreme Court nominee,

nomination, would you make that an African-American woman? There's a lot to like about that, Roland. You know, I nominated and placed on our courts, on our highest court in Massachusetts, the first African-American man as chief justice and the first African-American woman on that court. And they were some of the best appointments I was able to make. So you better believe I have that very much

on my mind and heart. All right, Governor Deval Patrick, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roland. Thanks for having me. All right, folks, that's just one of the presidential candidates. We've had, of course, others on the show. Of course, we had Julian Castro as well as Kamala Harris. They've dropped out, but also Senator Elizabeth Warren, Senator Bernie Sanders. And we're talking to the Sanders camp right now, as well as the Biden

camp and others to get those candidates right here on Roller Martin Unfiltered. And that's why we do what we do, because we want to be able to give an unfiltered perspective, to hear from them directly as it relates to what they're going to do if they are president. And you need to hear directly from them. There's about a 25-minute interview there. Not quite sure in terms of the time they spend in these other networks, but I think it's important for us to have platforms that speak to our issues. You heard me say this consistently. My criticism of the eight black cable and broadcast networks,

literally none of them cover news. Black News Channel, they were supposed to launch in November. Now they pushed it to January. Now they're going to launch next month in February. But the bottom line is, this is the only place where we are covering these issues on a daily basis, giving you real perspective and real news. We want you to support what we do as well by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com, joining our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar you give goes to support this show, goes to keep the upgrading of our set. Of course, our 4K robotic cameras. We travel as well. All of that is important because we need to have folks who are speaking to our issues 24-7. That's why we do what we do.

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and you see when we go live, whether it's a live show, whether it's also we cover events, speeches, you name it. That's what we do. All right, also, this is one of the shirts. So King McNeil, King McNeil Collection. Give them a shout out. They sent me, if you can, Henry, they sent me these beads I have on.

I got one of them at the Alpha Convention. So they sent me several of these. And so I certainly appreciate that. This is also one of their hoodies. And so I want to thank the King McNeil Collection for hooking a brother up with the Alpha gear. All right, folks, thanks a bunch. I got to go. A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up.

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We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.