#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 2022 Midterm Elections Impact on the State of Black America And the Pan African World

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

11.10.2022: Midterm Elections Impact on the State of Black America And the Pan African World moderated by Roland Martin and Dr. Julianne Malveaux Support RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ...vision is plugged in. As is Manhattan Cable, U.S. News and World Report, and of course the inimitable Roland Martin and Filtered, the Black World Media Network, and our partners at Acton Communications. Let's give them all a big round of applause for their support. Now one of the things that we thought was incredibly important was to come to the Capitol,

but to come to the Capitol we wanted to come to Howard University. Vice President Harris is from here. There's so many great people who have graduated from this great institution, and one of our panelists, an alumnus here, Maurice Mitchell, is from this college. He said he hasn't been here for a long time, but he's out there doing serious work. But we also wanted to be sure to engage students, And there are some incredible students, as always, here at Howard University. And we're delighted to bring greetings and welcome on behalf of the Student Government Association, Vice President Erica Annabel Clark. Would you please welcome her? Greetings, everyone. How are you? Amazing. I am. My name is Erica Annabelle Clark, and I am humbled and honored to serve as the 62 the vast student body of Howard University,

I just want to welcome the IBW team to Howard University and commend our panelists, some of you alumni of this same university and faculty, for coming out here and engaging in such a pivotal discussion. We are so lucky to have a conglomerate of expertise on this stage today to provide insight into something that is impacting all of us. When Dr. Daniels first reached out to HUSA to get us involved, we were honored. Because not only is it monumental to be hosting such a pivotal discussion here at the Mecca, but to give our students the ability to join that conversation and invite us to the table is something that doesn't happen very often in general, but also here at Howard University

and at the Mecca. And for that, we are so thankful. And so we are so glad to be able to engage in this discussion, to talk about the impact of the midterms on Pan-Africanism, on the entire diaspora, and see where we can go from there. And so for that, I want to thank the IBW team. I want to thank these amazing panelists for coming out here today and our amazing respondents for agreeing to be a part of this conversation.

Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. In fact, Howard University students, just wave your hands. All right. They're here. They're in the house. All right. We also wanted to hear the Black National Anthem. And what better way to do that than to hear it from the Howard University Choir that will now sing the Black National Anthem. Would you all rise for the singing of the Black National Anthem? With every voice and sing To earth and heaven ring Let's sing. Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing those songs full of the faith that the dark past has taught us. Sing those songs full of the hope that the present has brought

us facing the rising sun of our new day begun let us march on till victory is won

victory is won Victory is won All right. And now I would call your attention to the event banner, which you see here. It is remembering our ancestors. And when I thought about the greater D.C. area, I wanted to do something special. And so what you see on the screen at the very top is the legendary Dr. Ronald Walters. Now, Ron and I don't look alike. I've been called Dr. Walters at least three times a night.

I mean, we were like this. We worked extremely close together. But we don't look alike. But that's just the way that worked. But we were, we were very, he's the scholar activist and I'm the activist scholar. And we worked incredibly close together. Next is someone that we admire so much. One of the great leaders of the healing community. Nana, Dr. Patricia Newton, who was the chief executive officer for the Black Psychiatrists of America. Dr. Patricia Newton. I can't think of anybody who taught us more about the insidious nature of racism. I mean, you know, she just told us white folks may not be able to help themselves.

I'm just saying. But none other than Dr. Francis Quest Wilson. And one of the baddest organizers on the planet. Dearly beloved friend. When I come to D.C., I'd often stay at his home, one of the greatest organizers I've ever met. He loved DC, he was Mr. DC, one of the greatest environmental justice activists of our time, none other than Damu Smith. Let us all say, Ashe. All right. So now to move forward, we decided to do this forum, the Institute of the Black World 21st

Century, which is not new for us. We have made it a habit of after presidential elections, having an assessment of what the impact of the elections are on the state of black America and the pan-African world. Well, this is not a presidential election. But when we looked at the consequential nature of this election, we felt that it was important that we, in fact, convene this meeting. And that is why tonight you are gathered here for this discussion with this incredible panel that we have for you. Dr. John Henry Clark once said that white nationalism, he said the enemy of black nationalism, the enemy of black nationalists, the enemy of black people, essentially. And what we have,

and what we are faced with, is a white nationalist, MAGA-infected Republican Party, which is antagonistic to the interests of women and LGBTQ folk and labor and black people and people of color led by the orange man, aka Asian Orange. 50 years after the historic National Black Political Convention, and I was one of the key organizers of that convention, a half century after the historic Gary Black Political Convention, which was focused on the whole urgent need for a black agenda. I.B.W. has assembled this incredible panel in order to address the question of the state of black America and the pan-African world after the November 8th elections. Black America and the pan-African world are in a precarious situation.

It may have been Vernon Jordan, forgive me if it were not, who once said that when white America gets a cold, black America gets pneumonia. And so we are inevitably affected by what happens in these United States of America. We are here and we're affected by what happens here. And that's again why we gather and we will be discussing the way forward, not only the analysis and assessment, but we'll also analyze the way forward. To begin that conversation, before I introduce our moderators and panels, I just want to bring in virtually Mr. State of Black America, the National Urban League does it every year, a report for years and years and years. The leader I have great respect for, he is a tremendous

supporter of the Institute of the Black World, 21st century. He never says no, he just had to be out of the city on this occasion, but he agreed to offer some perspectives and reflections from the position of the Urban League in terms of the state of black America. So we now want to hear from none other than our esteemed President Mark Morial, President of the National Urban League. Hey, good morning. I'm Mark Morial. I'm president of the National Urban League. I'm coming to you after a quick workout from down the midterm elections, and I'll share some observations on that, but I want to lift up and say thank you and congratulations to Dr. Ron Daniels for his stewardship, leadership, and continued energy for and with the Institute for the Black World and his steadfast determination to continue to push a progressive black agenda, a progressive black policy agenda.

So that work is so difficult and many times unappreciated. But Ron, you are a nervous system and a piece of glue that connects so many of us from the community of academics and scholars to activists to elected officials to other civil rights leaders like myself and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your work. As we stand this morning, and as things stand this morning, control of both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate remain up for grabs. It appears that even if the Republican Party can take control of the House, it'll be by the narrowest of margins, three to five votes. But even that is not guaranteed.

Control of the Senate remains up for grabs and all eyes are on the great state of Georgia, where Raphael Warnock holds a slim lead over Herschel Walker. And I'm not going to get started on that commentary on that gentleman, but want everyone to know that if there is a runoff election in Georgia, a runoff election in Georgia, we're going to have to engage and mobilize to ensure that people turn out once again. That runoff election will be in early December. What's the takeaway for the black agenda with respect to this election? I mean, it is so important to reflect on the last two years. And I know that there are mixed opinions about whether the last two years have yielded progress. I think it is important when we ask,

has it yielded progress, it's in comparison to what? Is it in comparison to the previous two, previous four, previous six, previous eight, previous 10 years? Is it progress vis-a-vis an agenda we've laid out? One thing is absolutely certain, that one important issue that's always central to the black agenda and the civil rights agenda, which is the enforcement of civil rights laws, has changed dramatically under the leadership of Mayor Garland

because of two powerful sisters, two powerful women, who now serve in leadership positions at the Department of Justice. Those are Vanita Gupta, who is the Associate Attorney General, and Kristen Clark, who is the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. A lot of their work in pushing, particularly Kristen's work in pushing enforcement of civil rights laws, whether it's voting or policing and the like, may not have gotten the shine or the credit I believe it deserves, but it has been significant, and it's been a change from what we had in the previous administration with President 45, where there was no emphasis, in fact, contempt for the enforcement of civil rights laws. Secondarily, it is important that those enforcement measures have

led to the conviction of Derek Chauvin on hate crimes in Minneapolis, the three now convicted killers of Ahmaud Arbery, also on federal hate crimes due to the work of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Commission. And this is important because accountability on police misconduct and unconstitutional policing is always central to the African-American agenda or to the civil rights agenda or the black agenda in our nation and for our community. I think in addition to that, it should be well understood that two years ago, there were 25 million people out of work. And while inflation is raging and black people still remain with double the unemployment of white Americans,

the fact of the matter is that the black unemployment rate has declined substantially over the last two years. And directionally, even with difficult and tough times, it's a better situation than two years ago, but still a challenging situation when it comes indeed to the economy. We know that we were not successful in these two years in getting a reparations bill, a federal law to set up a reparations commission through the Congress of the United States. And that's going to remain difficult as long as there is this Senate filibuster, the same filibuster that blocked the Voting Rights Advancement Act, the same filibuster that blocked the George Floyd Justice in Policing Bill.

These filibusters, the use of the filibuster in the Senate George Floyd Justice in Policing Bill. These filibusters, the use of the filibuster in the Senate is always going to be a challenge for the agenda that we have on so many important and crucial issues. But there is also now, I think, some substantial economic opportunity out there that comes with this infrastructure bill, comes with the manufacturing bill, comes with the climate bill, where the government's going to be pushing, pumping, investing literally trillions of dollars into particular industries. We have to make sure that are central to our agenda is how we benefit from both the jobs and an economic, if you will, development

point of view, from a business development point of view. The implementation and the execution of these bills and how they are implemented and executed through an equity lens has to be central to our agenda going forward. When I look carefully at these bills and I look carefully at the amount of money that's going to be invested, there's money to take all the lead out of mostly all of the water systems in America or redo those pipes. Will black workers have a chance? Will black businesses have a chance? Will those funds be deployed so that cities where we have a concentration of this problem, cities where our communities

are significant and have been suffering with this problem are going to be prioritized and first is one component of this. So there's a tremendous amount. I encourage all who are serious about economic policy to take a close look at these three big blueprint bills that were passed in the last two years, proposed by the president, passed by the Congress, to ensure that there's an equitable implementation of these bills. They can be dramatic, but if it's business as usual, it will be business as usual. If it's business from a transformative point of view, it will further the agenda of equity and make sure Black Americans

and other Americans who've been locked out and left out have a chance to participate in those economic investments. There are many other things, but it will be difficult if the Republicans control one or more houses. It is even difficult even when Democrats control the majority because majorities are so narrow. In the Senate, it's been 50-50. In the House, it's been a narrow. To get many of the things we've walked past without compromises and setbacks, it's challenging.

It's difficult. The most important thing we have to remember is that one of the things I think we're going to see when all the votes are counted, when all of the postmortems are done, the analysis done, is that black people turned out in the midterms. And we fulfilled our obligation, our responsibility to participate in democracy and make sure our voices are heard. We need to lift that up. And we need to recognize that when we vote, we have power. The naysayers who recommend, or the pencil pushers, I call them, who suggested, you know, landslides and tsunamis going in the red direction. It certainly does not seem to have materialized, but they may be changing control. It is still, without question, on the line. So our issues, poverty, economic opportunity, democracy and voting rights,

the issue of continuing to push for reparations, those issues remain on our agenda. We have to continue to push and educate. And many of these are long-term things. We are in a difficult environment because there's a rise of extremism, hatred, and nationalism. And what that does is it creates hostility towards inclusive public policies. But this is our fight. It's the work we do. It's the work of the Institute of the Black World. It's the work of the National Urban League. It's central to the state of Black America.

We focus on this. We will continue to focus on this because it is so central. So Ron Daniels, thank you so much. Appreciate the chance to be with everyone. I look forward to continued conversations. And everyone, keep the faith. Carpe diem.

Let's seize the moment and seize the day. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We gotta set ourselves up.

See, retirement is the long game. We gotta make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan

at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need

to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early

and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Thank you. President Mark Morial. Working out and he's ready to get ready for the next round. So he's in the gym down there in New Orleans, as they say. Now to introduce this powerful panel, representing some of the brightest and best leadership in black America

from the civil rights, human rights, advocacy organizations, an extremely powerful assembly of leaders if I have to say so myself and I'm proud of them and that they would take time to stand the church that they would not see it as robbery to join us this evening. To my right and your left is a person who represents the NAACP. And NAACP, particularly its Washington office, which is not necessarily what its title is anymore, but that office has been extremely influential over the years. to have with us the person who is responsible, the national advisor for policy and advocacy, Hillary Shelton.

I gave them a shout out on the radio the other day because I'm so proud of them because of the work that has been done over the years. This sister, we knew what she was doing. And that's Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation. Next the man with the message who knows how to talk about gun violence and how to prevent it as it as best as anybody I know. I uplift him. He and I, we clash a little bit because he gets a, I'm sure he's going to smoke tonight and I'm a little bit more pragmatic, but I love the brother. He's with the Live Free Campaign and he has been pushing for money. In fact,

who knows, in this next administration, see how it turns out billions of dollars to put in the community to deal with not refunding the police or arming the police but arming us as black people to be able to do what we need to do Pastor Michael McBride applause

applause next person needs no introduction cause she be taking care of serious business, too. We have to watch her every night. If she gets out there, we have to grab her and hold on to her because she will take no prisoners. And we're delighted to have her, and she has come up through the movement as one of our, again, one of our brightest and best. And that is Tamika Mallory, Movement strategy and co-founder of Intel Freedom. So honored, and I promised her, because we need to uphold our traditional organizations as well as our new organizations.

The National Council of Negro Women is an important organization. And Janice Mathis is the president and CEO of the National Council of Negro Women. Janice Mathis. And if you can catch up with this brother, good luck, because he's — I had to chase him down the other day and go up on campus, and then he drafted me to teach the class while I was up there. I had to come find him. I said, brother, you got to be — you got to be on this panel.

You all know him. He is the chairman of the African American Studies Department, but again, one of the most brilliant minds we have in black America and the pan-African world, Dr. Greg Carr. I'm a longtime proponent of independent politics and third world, third force politics. I ran as an independent candidate for president in 1992. I've not really surrendered my view on the need for a third force or an independent party. The person I think who represents that best and the formation I want people to pay attention to is the Working Families Party. He is an alumnus of Howard University, the secretary of the Working Families Party

out of New York, but across the country, Maurice Mitchell. The brother who protects our interests. I mean, he is like laser focused. I ain't got to worry about it. I get these pictures from Melfort, the new ambassador from this and the new ambassador from that, the World Bank and all this. Melfort with the constituency for Africa for longer than I, he raised me, so I, you know, tell them. So I've been following him, but, you know, like I said, he raised me up. But this is the man with the constituency for Africa who protects our interests as we release to Africa. Give it up for Malefoot. Falling in the footsteps of Shirley Chisholm and Dr. C. LaDorce Tucker and others,

stepping forward to again organize the National Congress of Black Women, when maybe there was some concern about whether it might not survive, she stepped in to make sure it survived. She is the chairman and president, national president, emeritus of the National Congress of Women. And she is always woke and keeps us woke on WPFW and got a new book out. And she's with Dick Gregory's devotee, Dr. E. Fay Williams. And, of course, we had to have Reverend Jesse Jackson. Let's keep praying for Reverend Jesse Jackson.

He's still fighting. He's hanging in there. I was up there with him for his 80th birthday and all that. So he said, I'd rather burn out than rust out. So he's still throwing blows. You see the broad scope of organizations. The former vice president of the National Rainbow Coalition, Reverend Sheridan Tardieri. That is our panel. And now we just couldn't have a panel. And by the way, we have a remarkable group of people. I want to introduce all of them. These are our respondents. You'll hear from them later. And they'll introduce themselves or be introduced or say whatever. We have a whole nother layer here for this conversation. But we wanted to have moderators who could like draw out the best and who raised the challenging questions. And I couldn't think of anybody better than my longtime friend. She's a little sassy sometimes and and sometimes she gets a little uppity. I have to check her a little bit, but she's a bad sister.

And that is our—so she agreed readily. She has now created a whole new department, a whole new department. College. College. I keep down—see, I'm down at the University of California, Los Angeles, in ethnic studies. President Emeritus of Bennett College. Black America's leading political economist. Dr. Julianne Malvo.

And I didn't know whether he would do it. I was praying and doing all kinds of stuff. I remember this brother many, many years ago, Don Rojas, who couldn't be with us. We connected with him. He's done so much. But what he's also shown is tremendous tenacity. You ain't going to disrespect me because I can do my own thing. And does he do his own thing? He does it unfiltered.

And I gotta say on this issue of this election, he kept teaching and teaching and teaching the power of the black vote. So we are honored to have him with us tonight to guide this conversation. Let's give it up for Roland Martin. Roland Martin. Roland Martin. So, Brother Roland, we were up until two o'clock in the morning chopping up this election, chopping it up. And I have got to give you props. I've been a regular on your program and you just do it. You ain't crazy about the other people. You crazy about the truth.

And we appreciate that. We truly appreciate that. Yeah, give it up for him. Come on now. So before we get to the panelists, what you got to say? I know you got something to say. Yes, I got something to say.

Let's start. Okay, so let's start off. I'm going to say. Let's start. Okay, so let's start off. I'm going to start with Tamika. I think she must be the youngin' on our panel, which is a good thing. This young lady has brought energy, tenacity, focus. She stands up for us. For us. And that's important. So we're not going to reintroduce people. I'm going to start with Tamika, and you and I go back and forth on who we're going to introduce. But y'all got two minutes or less to say what you got to say about the impact of this midterm election on black America.

I got the clock. Or less. Or less. I already know Roland will text me and say, shut up. First of all, thank you all so much for having me here. I feel so good to be among this group of individuals. Many of you, whether it was directly or not, have helped to raise me and to birth in me who I am today. And I am just so, so grateful to finally have a seat among the greats, because there was a time when I was not necessarily sitting, but really organizing. What I'll say is that, you know, I sit in a very, very unique position, being a baby of the movement and having access to and having watched and admired so many of those who are here,

so many of our elders and leaders who have gone on, passed away. And then, of course, being accepted in many ways by the culture, hip-hop culture, and some of the younger folks who are thought leaders and activists today. And so I sit sort of right in that intersection. And what I would say in this moment is that it is time for us to reimagine what the black experience in America looks like. I think about Dr. King and SNCC and others who did reimagine. And that is how we have been able to get to where we are today. And it is time that there be a reimagining and space for people to think about what can be renewed and what can we do to address some of the ongoing and persistent challenges that we continue to face.

And many people are involved in that work, and I think it unfortunately comes out sometimes as people saying they don't want to vote anymore, which I don't agree with at all. But what they're really saying is that we need something different. And I think we have a responsibility, and certainly I take on the role of sitting at the intersection of explaining why there is power in our vote, but also understanding that a vote alone is not the only tool. And we've always known this. I'm not saying anything new,

but that there must be something in this moment that speaks to where we are as a people today. And we're all trying to figure that out together. And so, again, that's why I appreciate being here to learn, to listen, and to share. Sheridan. Well, good evening to all of you. Good to be with you, to soak up the energy in the room, to see all of the faces, and to appreciate just how important this moment is, not only for the black community, but for the nation. As I was listening to my sister Tamika talk and thinking about some of the results that you won't see or hear about as an outcome from this election, because we seem to be so singularly focused on the big shiny thing in Washington that we tend to miss that the carbon monoxide that is polluting the house is leaking in at the local and state

government level. And because we are not positioned to cover those fronts, because we're overwhelmed by the media presentation that has us actually having what some folks think is an argument about who they should vote for in the Senate election in Georgia, that somehow or other trying to create this emotional conflict about folks who have our same skin but don't necessarily have our same frame is a problem that we've got to work through. And so I would say that part of our conversation has to be about theopolitics, a theology of race that is lifted up for us as the supremacy of white imagery, white expectation, white

normalization at the expense of everything else. And so when we talk about reparations, we're going to talk about reparations in an environment where denial is taking form and taking frame, with critical race theory being held up as the boogeyman so we can keep talking about manifest destiny being the anchor of the nation as opposed to the genocide of the indigenous people that started this process and this is but a continuation of it and so if we're going to bow down at the altar we at least need i know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up.

See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing

now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content,

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. To know who's going to be the sacrifice. So I'm looking forward to the conversation. Melanie Campbell. Hi, this is, hi everybody, hi Roland, everyone. Good to be here. The thing that I really just shortly wanted to, and thank you, Dr. Daniels, always, for putting us together. It's just great to be here tonight.

The thing that I want to focus on, everybody heard there wasn't a tsunami, there wasn't a hurricane, it didn't shift, and that the women took care of things. Which if you go back, and Dr. Malvo, you like to look at look at numbers so I made sure I studied my numbers before I came here. You gotta go look and see what women showed up and saved the democracy and who went with what they were hoping to have was a

red tsunami. And when you look at what happened in 18 white women evenly went with Democrats and Republicans. But yet two days ago, they went plus eight Republican. Plus eight red. So we have to peel that under to see who. And so black women, again, black men, right?

Stop that tsunami and so then the question becomes who benefits from that because I sat on one of I almost called the name of the group I had no sleep much listen to that conversation I had no sleep much. Listen to that conversation. Never broke down those numbers.

And so who gets to go over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and have that conversation? And depending on what happens in the House and Senate, which is still up for grabs. Who gets to do that? And so we talk about that. We've struggled the way we had. We don't need to have to go outside and get arrested. D'Amica. Yeah. When we save this country one more time, we need to be sitting at the table talking about what our agenda is and where we go to continue.

I'll stop there. Rowan cuts me off. Got to keep talking? Nope. Time is up. Ife. Testing one, two. Thank you. Testing 1-2. I want to say hello to all of my WPFW friends.

I know they're listening, all our WBAI friends, and all of the Pacific stations out there across the country. I'm not overly optimistic that very much is going to change. We've had a predominant class of people and group of people that we thought were going to do a lot of things for our people that didn't get done yet. But you know why it didn't get done? Because we don't have the same unity that we used to have and we're not willing to go out there and to put ourselves on the line for it to say what must be said. I look at what's going on with our brother Tyree Irving right now and how many of us have said anything about freedom of speech. We hear so much from others when they talk about us

and they put us down, but then we're afraid to say something when somebody else is talking about our people. Until we do that, until we're too afraid to talk, then we won't get anything done. So I need to see us return to that unity that we once had. And I remember the strong women that we have to lean on, my sisters who are here this evening, and also my brothers are very aware of them, I'm sure Dr. Carr is because he's got more books than I've got in my house, and I have rooms of them over there. But, you know, we have people to lean on so we can get over that fear that we sometimes have. Dick Gregory would remind us that God and fear do not occupy the same space. But some of us are still to speak out on the things that we ought to be speaking out about.

We have Ida B. Wells. We have a Frances Cress Welsing. We have Fannie Lou Hamer, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth. We have Tamika Mowry, and we have a lot of young people. We've got to stop saying, these young people, they ain't doing this. Let me tell you, the young people showed up this time for this election, and we need to stop saying that. We need to be with them. We need to be joining hands with them.

It's not just about women power, but I had to say to my white women friends a long time ago, yeah, I'm glad to be working on the Equal Rights Amendment, but I've got some rights that I want you to help me work on, and if you don't help me work on my rights, I don't have a whole lot of time just to spend on the fact that I am a woman, because black women are already strong. You know, we don't have to be taught to be strong and how to vote. But I tell you, the most important thing we can do now is to not be afraid to form coalitions and work with each other and not think just because you go

all the time to the powerful people that the rest of us can be forgotten. We've got to learn to get together and plan our agenda. That's why a lot of our people don't follow it because we don't go to them anymore. Justice means something different for a lot of our people and we have to talk

with them to understand that. I love you, thank God, and bless you all. My sister, thank you so much. We didn't hear much about Africa during this presidential, this midterm election, but I want to hear from Mel Foote about this. Great, thank you. Am I on? You up.

First thing, I want to thank Ron Daniels for inviting me. On the Africa side, I've been working on Africa for more than 40 years, been to many countries in Africa. First thing I will say about this election, it wasn't just about black America, the 40 million of us here. It was about the 2 billion African people worldwide, and they're all watching this. I will say in terms of U.S. policy toward Africa, historically it's been bipartisan. When I look back at the most effective American president working on Africa, George W. Bush. You don't want to hear that. $20 billion for pet power, $5 billion for millennium challenge.

Great on trade. You know, so don't think that this is a Democrat or Republican party. We did very good up until Donald Trump. Donald Trump stood to the mic and said, shithole countries. That's how he described Africa. And ever since then, we've been backpedaling. Biden is doing a great job trying to turn this around. We're going to have a U.S.-Africa summit December the 13th to 15th here in Washington. Forty African heads of state are going to be here to talk about U.S.-Africa

relations. If you don't know about it now, you're going to know about it because you won't be able to breathe or get around town during that time. I want to say that the real challenge going forward is to scale up. The commitment from the U.S. to Africa is miniscule. And when we're dealing with issues of climate change, health challenges, trade, and all these other kind of things, we need to scale up what the U.S. government is doing for Africa. But I think we're on the right track. We're on the right train. I'm not convinced that no matter what happens in the Congress, we're going to see a dramatic change in U.S. policy toward Africa. Thank you very much. I yield back. I got 15 seconds. I want to recognize the ambassador of Mali who is here. Stand up, Ambassador. My good friend, Ambassador Berthia Mali. Thank you very

much. Thank you. Hillary Shelton. Well, good evening. I'm excited about being here first because I get to take notes from all my heroes that are sitting in this line. Many of you, I have your books, I have your speeches, I have other things that you've done for me, and I'm just delighted to be here for that reason. But also I understand and see who's on the second row. Who's on the second row tonight are those that are going to keep us honest. They're going to ask the hard questions as they should, and we're glad all of you are here as well. So as I think about our discussion for where we're sitting here tonight,

as we're thinking about the vote count that's going on throughout the country, I'm very thoughtful of what we did to get to that point. I'm very thoughtful about those that serve in the U.S. Congress, and quite frankly, even the guy who's president of the United States right now, that he had to make some deals, and they had to make some deals with the African-American community. It was an extraordinary thing to have a man, a white man, stand up in South Carolina and say, I will make sure a sister sits on the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as I become president. That's a big deal.

And he followed through on that U.S. Supreme Court as soon as I become president. That's a big deal. And he followed through on that promise. As we talk about issues of who's going to actually set the policy, we have a 435-member House of Representatives, a 100-member U.S. Senate, and we think about the bills that were introduced and actually passed, the things that we were able to get done with the first year of that new configuration is an extraordinary thing even today. Because one of the things we did is that now it is finally time for you to pay up. The damage is done to the

African-American community as a result of slavery and all those other things that were tied to the transatlantic slave trade need to be paid up. The assessment that needs to be done is one in which we need to have hearings all over the country. We need to assess those damages and decide just how those damages should be paid out. Let me put it in these terms for just a hot second. My car is parked out on the street in a place I'm very nervous about right now. And quite frankly, I don't know what's going to happen to it between now and then, but I'm very thoughtful that if my car gets hit, the insurance that I have will pay for it

regardless of who messed it up. Let me say we know who messed things up in terms of our opportunities for full U.S. citizenship. We know. We actually went against the very Constitution of America and very well made sure that we, those who were clearly identified as those of, at one point, former servitude, always tied to our slave trade position, are very well going to be addressed as well. So let me say this. Here's the difference with what happens now. We don't know which party is going to be the majority, but we do know this. As things are right now, we can take a walk over to the House side,

and I can show you that the person that's heading the delegation to come to the side, what happens with our criminal justice laws, happens to be a sister from Texas by the name of Sheila Jackson Lee. I know that today. I know that we really want to talk about money, not just about banking, but about financial services. That the system that runs the financial services committee of the U.S. House of Representatives happens to be a system in California by the name of, what is her name?

Maxine Waters. Thank you so much. Maxine Waters. I know as we talk about the issues that affect our communities, our chosen, and other things along those lines, when I think about issues of education and I think about issues of labor, it just so happens that the brother that chairs the Education and Labor Committee of the House is a good brother from Virginia, former NAACP branch president, and I thank God that he's in the position that he's in. Y'all know who that is? Thank you so much. Congressman Bobby Scott. Let me put it in these terms. If you want to take a look at the difference in how the decisions are going to be made, take a look at who's making those decisions. Look at who's making them now if we're able to keep this movement going forward, and who

will be making them if the tide shifts and to keep this movement going forward? And who will be making them if the tide shifts and those people are no longer in the majority? In other words, ain't going to be no colored people chairing no congressional committees. Do you see what I'm saying? Thank you, Hillary. Thank you, Hillary. You made the case. Thank you. We appreciate it. And I'm going to go to my fearless leader, Janice Mathis. You did go by four minutes and 27. Oh, let me apologize. We will follow up with the rest later. There's more to come.

Testing. Well, thank you, Dr. Malvo and Roland. It is such a pleasure to be in this company because I know this is like family reunion. We've all worked together over the years. I'm burdened a little bit by history tonight. They talked about NCNW being an old organization, and certainly we are, not just old people, but been in business a long time. 1935, Mary McLeod Bethune founded the National Council of Negro Women to be a political voice for black women. And last summer, her statute was installed in the United States Capitol, replacing, as only God could arrange it, a Confederate general who was one of the last to surrender his army and help to propel the No.

Juneteenth down in Galveston, Texas. And so there is a kind of a zeitgeist. And I think about, Tamika, when you say that we have a responsibility to reimagine. Bethune couldn't imagine that we would sit in a place like this that gives out all kinds of degrees to people who come from all over the world to be educated, recognizes one of the finest learning institutions in the universe, and that we would be in charge of our own destinies in the way that we are now. We've got to reimagine.

What I took away from the election was, now we own the environment. For good or bad, whether we get this Congress, Hillary, or the next one, this is ours to run now. This is our time. And like Jesse Jackson would say, they don't know how good government could be until everybody can play. We have never met this country anything but good.

And we're going to rule it and run it in a way that is sound and fiscally responsible and live up to all of those creeds. I don't want to hear any women telling me about reproductive freedom if they voted for the GOP, though. And we've been dealing with that for quite a while now, where people, you couldn't get a Democrat to appoint the Supreme Court that we have now. When Clarence Thomas went on the Supreme Court, it was to replace Thurgood Marshall. Sometimes it's good to know a little bit of history. And so the next time a white man from the GOP recommends a southerner from Georgia to you for high political office, you have to think about whether you're using your power wisely or not. I happen to be a graduate of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, and was there when

Herschel Walker was playing football. They used him like a mule then. And I won't comment on what they're doing to him now. But there are no issues that are beyond us is our point. We celebrated Black Women's Equal Pay Day. It wasn't really a celebration because it wasn't until September of 2022 that black women earned what white men earned last year. And we're not moving in the right direction because last year, Black Women's Equal Pay Day was in August. It took eight months. This year, it took nine months. We've got work to do. Janice?

I'm done. It was good, though, wasn't it? It was good. It was three minutes and nine seconds. I told you. We know each other too well. We're playing. Let's see here.

Pastor, you ready? Go. All right. That if we know the truth, the truth will set us free. And it is important, I think, for all of us to appreciate that certainly well over the last five years, we are living through an information war where our communities, regardless of your economic status, are being overwhelmed with disinformation and disinformation. And we should have a focus on the federal level, but I think we cannot be so preoccupied with wanting to save the country that we lose the streets and we lose our neighborhoods. slingshot back to a 1994 narrative around how we discuss, understand, and address violence

in our communities. And so I think, you know, as Brother Hillary said, we may be concerned about where we park our car, and that's a valid concern. But we also must appreciate the root causes of why violence in the last two years, after a historic reduction in violence has literally shot up. It is not because black folk all of a sudden got more morally malignant or out of control in the pandemic. It is because of a global pandemic, a once in a hundred year global pandemic that hollowed out elders in our communities who were taking care of many of our young people, who hollowed out the programs and the resources that were beginning to come to scale, that invested historic amounts of funding in police through the CARES Act and

the ARP Act and did not replenish our communities so we could have food programs, housing programs, and opportunity programs. If we don't know the truth about violence in our communities, even our own elected officials, whether they are congressional representatives or mayors or supervisors, will think that the solution is to continue to fund policing, policing that we know now is more racist and more authoritarian than they were 20 years ago I hope that we do not consume the lies of propaganda and give our children back over to a system that just three years ago there was consensus saying the system was not prepared or equipped to heal our communities we must know know the truth. And in knowing the truth, the truth will set us free. Thank you, Brother Pastor.

I'm going to go to Maurice Mitchell. This has been a bipartisan conversation, which makes the third parties all the more relevant, I think. Maurice. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Malveaux and Roland. And I've watched your commentary on television for many years and appreciate you. And Dr. Daniels, we appreciate you.

You've been so consistent. You're the hardest-working man I've ever met in my entire life. Thank you so much for all of your work. That is the truth. And I have to take this moment of personal privilege. How many bison out there? Eight. Eight, too? All right. Sasa. I have to take this moment of personal privilege. How many bison out there? Eight shoe?

All right. Sasa. Anybody from Hampton? Oh, no, you best. I'm sorry. You said eight shoe. You said you're bipartisan. So I'm going to use my two minutes wisely and say this, that my, indeed, it's important that we consider the role of independence.

So, I run an independent political organization, independent of the structural challenges that limits our power as black folks and as working people in general, which is why I'm so interested in independent politics. And we could create coalitions. I do believe that this is a time for united fronts. So the Working Families Party, we joined the united fronts with the Democrats against the fascist Republicans. It was strategic, but we're clear that we also have quarrels with the Democrats. It's a both-and. So we could do both. On one hand we could fight back fascism, and another hand we could challenge neoliberalism, which is not an economic strategy that's good for working-class black folks, right?

And we can't join the elites, the elite white folks, and then disconnect ourselves from working class black folks. So, you know, Pastor, you were talking about the need to not lose the streets. So in our analysis, we have to have a race, class, and gender analysis. We have to have analysis of the structures of the system. And we have to have an international analysis. I'm so happy you're here. We're facing global fascism, global ethno-nationalism. We have billionaires that are colonizing Mars. That's the plan. This is real talk. Because they're aware of climate change, which is going to hit us the hardest, right? So we need to absolutely, as black folks, develop an independent black agenda, not so that we could sort of cordon ourselves off, but so that we could join coalitions from a standpoint of power and strength.

So I'm really interested in how we figure out strategies that we could do that. Thank you. All right, then. Just in case you don't know, good things can actually come out of arguments. We were here in D.C. and I was moderating a panel at 12 Years a Slave. And Dr. Greg Carr was there with a group of his students. And then they had the audacity to try to challenge me and didn't think I was going to hit them back. When it was over on social media, it was like, you don't know who you're messing with. tried to challenge me and didn't think I was going to hit them back. When it was over on social media, it was like, you don't know who you're messing with. You don't want to debate Dr. Greg Carr.

I said, I don't give a damn about no Dr. Greg Carr. Bring his ass on my show. And they thought I was joking. I said, you want to debate me? Come on the show. Let's go. And he came on the show. Then he realized I was an alpha. He's an alpha.

Let's not go there. Julianne, don't start. Remember, alpha's your daddy. Don't start. No, Paul Balvo was my daddy. You know that. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you

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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded Podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Then Dr. Carr realized realized I'm crazy too. And so he'd be on my show ever since. So get up for Dr. Greg Carr. That's a true story. First of all, thanks everybody for, you know, including me in this conversation.

And it is wonderful to be here. Like you said, with all these freedom fighters. This brother right here. You're right, man. It's independent politics. And the international context is so important. And Dr. Daniels, thank you, man, for the invitation. Let me keep this very short. John Clark used to say, John Clark, in critical moments, blood calls blood.

And somehow blood always answers. Shout out to those white women and men in Georgia. It wasn't the black men that didn't vote for Stacey Abrams. It was blood calls blood. And somehow blood always answers. Shout out to those white women and men in Georgia. It wasn't the black men that didn't vote for Stacey Abrams. It was blood calling blood. And somehow blood always answers. Now, if Kevin McCarthy is Speaker of the House, he's going to have a hard time because he's going to have to put his white

nationalist coalition together with the ultra-right coalition, the hard white Christian nationalists like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan, he will have a harder time than probably Bibi Netanyahu, who has been resurrected from the dead with his fascist wing against the Palestinians in Israel. Unlike Brazil, where they've got an independent enough judiciary to stop Bona Zaro, and unlike Israel, where they're going to try to wipe out the courts, this court is in lockstep with the white nationalists.

If y'all heard the oral arguments yesterday in Holland v. Bracken, where you've got white Christian nationalists trying to take Native American babies, and they're getting ready to blow up the Indian child welfare act because they've been scheming for 100 years to take Indian sovereignty, you heard a real racist named Sam Alito start saying, when the Europeans came, the Indians was fighting each other anyway. And Kataji Brown Jackson, by the way, is a beast.

You need to go listen to her bench arguments over the last couple of weeks. She's clearly laying a foundation for if there's a court that's going to be reversed. But for the short term, let me end with this. We live in a country that I'm sure is maybe not going to be here in the next 50, 100 years. Because federalism was always a weak proposition. And the only thing that holds this thing together is white nationalism, as Ron Walters would say. As a result, those elections yesterday give us the opportunity that,

Tamika, that you've been talking about a lot all the time. I listen to you and Linda Sarsour talk about when we vote, when we exercise our vote, sometimes it's harm reduction, sometimes it's self-defense. And it's important to use that tool. But as we're doing that at that local level, what did we see yesterday? Now Maryland's got full control. They put the ability for a woman to terminate a pregnancy in the Constitution of Vermont, California. They rejected making, making it a ban on abortion in Kentucky,

even as blood called blood, and they wouldn't vote for Charles Booker. And Roland, you said it. Which went, I think, to 2.30 a.m. if I remember Dr. Malpole. But that's what happens when you own your own shit, by the way. As you say. You named Gary Chambers. you named Mandela Barnes, can now use that apparatus to organize at the state level and build an apparatus, not for the Democrats, but for us.

Because finally, as Ron Walters and Ron Rundles and Ron Downs would remind us, on the 50th anniversary of Gary convention and the 122nd anniversary today of the Wilmington Poll Room where they had a coup d'etat in Wilmington, North Carolina because they wouldn't let black people rule them. If you move in your own interest you might be able to pull some human beings along with you but at the end of the day the only thing we can stand on is our square of truth because this country probably won't be here much longer. The federalist system is going to fracture and these white nationalists will take their whiteness over their lives. Our obligation not only is to each other but to take us all out and at that

point we'll have to reset the whole thing. Right on. I want to direct this question to both Tamika and Maurice. Did black youth get a bad rap in this election? You heard a lot of stuff, people saying the black youth are not coming out. Mellon, you can jump in here too because I know you've been working with you. But did black youth get a bad rap? Talk about if black youth stayed home, how come, and when they came out, how come? Maurice, you start, then Tamika. Yeah, your name Maurice. Okay. came out how come Maurice you start that Tamika so I was on the ground in Georgia in Wisconsin in Pennsylvania in New York and I didn't see this phenomenon of a

black youth or black community apathy I didn't see this phenomenon of black youth or black community apathy. I didn't see that, actually. And I think sometimes what we do is we, there is a cultural DNA in this country of pathologizing black people, just in general. We showed up. And youth in general and black youth specifically showed up. In fact, the Wisconsin youth vote was up 360 percent. Yes, absolutely. So this is just like a received sort of wisdom that is like it carries and it has some sort of resonance. But when you look at the data, it actually is not true. And you know, if you look at Georgia, the black also this whole thing about

Pitting black women and black men against each other and suggesting that black men like in Georgia black men and women the black community showed up In fact, in fact black men and black women for Warnock and Stacy were about the same. Yes, absolutely The real question is we have a white supremacy problem in this country we have a white supremacy problem in this country. We have a white supremacy problem in this country. And this is the central problem that we have to face, right? If black people showed up at a hundred percent in Georgia, unfortunately, Stacey would have lost because white people, white women, white men chose fascism. We have to ask ourselves why are these folks choosing fascism when it could not be any more stark, right? The Republicans and the

right-wing they are offering nothing but a contraction of our rights whether it's abortion or whether it's LGBT rights, they're actually, they have lists of books that they're attempting to ban. This is textbook fascism. And millions of Americans, millions of working class and other Americans, and this is racialized,

are seeing this, are seeing that stark difference and are choosing fascism. And we have to ask ourselves, what is happening there? So we need to place, I think, the emphasis and concern on those communities. Black people are showing up. Historically, we've always showed up. What we might need to do is figure out how we don't get lost in the sauce, which is I always come back to our political independence and ensure that when we win the victories

for Democrats, that we demand more in exchange, right? So we're strategic. Of course, we're going to show up against fascism. But then there's the second piece, which is the demand that comes after the harm mitigation. What exactly? And we can't just be happy with surface things like a Juneteenth you know I didn't ask for that and also I don't know how many people asked for it okay hold tight some of us are born and raised in Texas so we have a different perspective on Juneteenth so I'm just saying okay I'm just I'm just saying I'm saying look I'm saying that's fine however

we need to deal with material changes in working people's lives. Right. I will give up any holiday to transform our economy. My brother, we appreciate you. And Tamika is going to speak to this. No, I mean, well, you were on it. So I thank you. But, you know, I think the way our society is set up, black people get blamed for everything.

And it's a scapegoat to say that we didn't do something. And in fact, what troubles me is even within our own community, when we want to challenge the system, especially when it gets close to elections, we are told to be quiet because we will be blamed because someone didn't win. Even as we were dealing recently with the legislation to bring to put more police in our community, which we know we don't need because the police that are being placed in our communities are coming through a system that has not been changed. There still are not the types of accountability measures necessary to ensure that the police departments across this nation respect black people, and that if they don't, they will face consequences for such behavior.

And so we don't want more police. We need more services. We need to ensure that the mental health of our communities is strong. And I mean, all that has been said in terms of food security and health issues, that's what we want to see. And we know because we have the data to prove, especially in a place like New York City, where we have something called the crisis management system that I helped to start some years ago, we know for sure from the data that whenever services are provided, holistic services are provided to communities, that the issue of violence as it is today is reduced significantly. We have communities where there was shootings every day, sometimes in the summer, every hour there would be shootings throughout the day.

And then after the crisis management system was created and resources, real money, was put into the hands of people who are formerly incarcerated, people who have been shooters in the past, families, and also looking at healing services. Once that was done, violence reduced to the point where there was no shooting for months in some of these communities. And so it is very disingenuous of folks to do what they've been doing. And let's talk about disinformation and youth youth because that's a big part of why our young people are not showing up, some of them, because many did. I got several text messages from folks that said that last dirty look you gave me made me go to the polls and so I voted in my first midterm election. But what they are hearing and reading online,

now we have a Twitter that is out of control, where there are people who are spreading information, including the new owner of the platform that is dangerous to the minds of our young people who pick up a phone more than anything else for information. Recently, an article came out, and if I could get a few extra minutes, because I leave at 8.30, I have a flight at 10 o'clock. So if it's okay, thank you, Roland. That face. And then I won't, I don't need to say anything else. Speaking of looks. Okay. But there was an article that was released about three weeks ago that talked about the

Russian bots and their role in the Women's March and how they targeted Linda Sarsour, number one, and, of course, all of us, and had all of this negative messaging out there about the march itself and us personally and the way in which they tore apart the fabric of our, what we were working on, and the campaign to get women from diverse backgrounds to care about marginalized communities. When they saw that happen in somebody somewhere, don't you think for one minute that we believe that the Russians from all the way across the world just happened to decide that the Women's March was important? No, there were people here working in America that had relationships to issue an attack against us.

And so our young people are reading and watching this misinformation and this disinformation every day, which is feeding, unfortunately, a hopelessness, right? Because ultimately, I think most of our young people, when they look at this stuff, they know that there isn't, that we have an importance to care about our communities and that we should be doing better, if you will. But then when they read all of this back and forth, it just becomes like inauthentic. And why should I care? Why do I need to continue to be engaged in a system that feels like it will never, ever right itself to take care of the concerns networks that we watch every day and that some of us go and speak on, where we have people who will not tell the truth about the numbers, and they won't tell the but why should they be involved? Where is the sense of hope that we are providing them that makes them think that it's not just about

holding the line for Democrats, but actually getting something done that will make their lives better and that will help Big Mama and Mama with their needs so that their communities don't continue to look the way that they look today. So I will add this. I will add this. You talked about those mainstream media outlets, but this is also why we have to be very conscious of black-targeted and black-owned media that actually parrots white media. So what happened was, the Washington Post did an article that essentially said that Tamika, Bob Bland and Carmen and Linda had been run out of the women's march.

Black owned media outlets aggregated that story, rewrote it and placed it on their websites. I personally called two of them and said, take that down. That's a damn lie. How can you be black-owned and you can't pick the phone up and call the black people involved? What they didn't say in the article was that there were term limits and their terms were up. But black media outlets too often are aggregating white media stories, putting their bylines on it. And y'all have seen me call out the root black enterprise and others in the past year for doing that. And so we have to be very careful.

You're oftentimes reading black websites that are rewriting stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post, putting their byline on it, throwing a quote in it, and people go, oh, I saw it in there, such as when Newsweek did an article saying that Biden gutted the funding for HBCUs, and the story was a lie, but people ran with that, posted that article, and it spread like wildfire, and I literally spent three weeks saying, y'all, this is the actual truth, but they saw it in white media and believed it. So we have to be very mindful of that as well. I will say this here. We're talking about elections. Since the work that Untold Freedom did on the case of Breonna Taylor, if you want to understand why voting matters, the white judge, Mary Shaw, who signed the search warrant, led to Breonna Taylor's death, was beaten by a black attorney, Tracy Davis, in Louisville. Roland, Tracy Davis is not just an attorney.

She was an activist and also the attorney who helped to get us out of jail every time that Melanie was up all night worrying about us getting locked up. So the people understood the assignment and they went and did their business in this election to get rid of that. So I raised that point, which leads actually to into my next question, because we often spend lots of time talking about who's going to control Congress, who's going to control the House, the Senate, who wins governor's mansions. But this is a perfect example of what happens when we also mobilize when it comes to those local elections. Melanie, what we're now seeing, we're now seeing folks now understand the judicial races, the district attorney races, those lower level races.

Talk about when we talk about this, the idea of a, those lower level races, talk about when we talk about this, the idea of a black agenda, our focus cannot be just on Washington, D.C. Our focus will be thinking about what is the black agenda for the city, for the county, for the school district, for whatever elected offices where they live. It can't just be focused on D.C. Thank you, Roland. And the other addition I would like to add to that is because there is this effort still. I don't care what happened Tuesday. It's still an effort to go to states' rights.

And so I think what happened in Michigan with them taking – that there was a shift in power. I have to be careful with my tax status. But just facts, right? We could talk about all the other things. Great, you got the governor and all that. But taking over these state legislatures is going to be what allows for us to have the ability for what we do locally to stand. And so it's kind of this sandwich situation where you have the ability to, let's say you pass, whether from the Workers' Families Party, right, you know, being able to pass some of the kinds of local legislation,

economic justice legislation, whether it be increasing of wages or if it's paid leave or anything like that, then you have a state that can reverse that. And the reality is that part of what I have a major concern about, that we have to get in a room without any microphones and cameras, is really get down to looking at this long-term role. You talk about this all the time.

The power that we dynamically look at is 30 years back, you know, 30 years forward to now, because what the Republicans were able to do, they never stopped a core agenda of going back to states' rights. And so, although things didn't all go the way that some folks wanted, when I look at those ex-oppos, Dr. Carr, and I see how white women voted, I see how white men voted,

I see how even Latinas voted, right? Because they're being targeted to think a little differently. We have to figure out how our strategy around long-term thinking about building and maintaining black political power in this country, we've got to really get together in a real way very, very soon. Melody, that's a great response in terms of Roland's question.

You raised something in the context of your response that I want to flip over to Janice Mathis. There has been a tension around this election. Do people care about abortion or do they care about inflation? First of all, I would posit that black women can care about both things at the same time.

I mean, as I plowed and planted, if not a man could head me, and ain't I a woman, says Sojourner Truth. And so don't go there. But Janice, you lead the National Council of Negro Women. This inflation issue is a pocketbook issue. Sisters are paying 10% more for food than they were this time a year ago. How important was that in our turnout, in our electoral participation? Pocketbook issues always matter, Dr. Malvo. It always matters whether you can keep food on the table, milk in the cupboard, gas in the car. We do have

to acknowledge, though, that there is a global component to this. There is a global capitalist greed that goes with natural resources and how we constrain them, how we take them from one part of the globe and assume that other places on the globe are more entitled to use those resources than others. If you want to get on the United States nerves, you get between them and a barrel of oil, and you've got a problem. If you're trying to start a war, nerves, you get between them and a barrel of oil, and you got a problem. If you're trying to start a war, that's a good way to do it. So you have to have, and I want to thank Ron Walters because Ron Walters. Ron Daniels, I'm so sorry.

I'm having a flashback. But when I reached out to Ron about a global movement for equality for women, the Red Card campaign. Take a term from soccer and say no woman, no girl anywhere should be discriminated against or marginalized. You stepped up to the plate to join us in that. Of course, NCNW's roots are global. We were there the first day the United Nations was started. And so we have to get beyond our borders and think about some of these issues, particularly as it relates to gender, beyond what we can see in this prism of the United States, because it's bigger than that.

Women across the globe suffer. And so if we're going to be authentic about that, then we have to acknowledge that it is a global struggle. Agenda, as we're talking about whether it was the decision, whether we're talking about inflation, as we're pulling out a pencil, she was number one, inflation

was two, crime was three. And the focus was on crime, and then other media outlets picked up on it and made it the dominant issue. I still fundamentally believe, to the point that Julian asked about young voters, but also older voters,

what is greatly missing today is basic civics. So the question I have, with 2,000 chapters, what is the NAACP doing specifically to deal with that? I believe utilizing that infrastructure, we have to return to that because I deal with people every single day who literally have no understanding about connecting the dots, public policy, none of those things. I mean, I'm still dealing with ignorant people who run around saying the Asians got a hate crime bill. They've never actually read the bill.

And then when I read the bill on the air and showed the actual bill, they said it was a lie. So I think we're dealing with part of this issue with the misinformation and disinformation is that we probably need schoolhouse rock 2.0. So I'm curious, from the NAACP's perspective, is that something how you can utilize your chapters and your infrastructure to bring that back so we're able to teach folk and they now understand the difference between, again, city council, county government, school board, what happens on the state level, congressional level. No, thank you, thank you.

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It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Here's the deal. free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man.

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It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. As a matter of fact, we talked a little bit about states' rights, and it's important we talk about states' rights, federalism,

if you want to call it those terms as well. Maybe because I'm part of an organization that's been around so long, not just my white hair, but the fact that we go back to even people like W.B. Du Bois that recognize that it ain't just about what happens in the country. It's not just what happens in the city of municipality and how that interconnects with the state. When we talk about states' rights, it's because the deal was cut a long time ago. The way the deal was cut, it would say that if you want us to be part, this is coming from the state governors, if you want us to be part of this vision you have of this so-called United States of America,

then you're going to have to give us some things that we want, too. And that is you can't have control over the time, place, and manner in which we carry out our elections. Very well, so we're thinking about what's happening in our neighborhoods. You can't have control at the federal level to how and what we're going to educate our children. You can't have any control at the federal level of what we're going to do and how we're handling things in the neighborhood, who gets to live in what neighborhood, what area. So here's what we do to answer your question. We have conventions every year.

We've been meeting together since 1909 to talk about just that set of issues. As a matter of fact, we train our people to understand not just what's happening in the federal government, but we're going to need your help there because you're going to be electing some members of the House and a couple members of the Senate to spend some time up here. And we need somebody that can have some control over them. If you want to stay in the Senate and get all that grandiose attention and everything else, you're going to have to deliver on some things for us. It's not a surprise when we think about those issues that the woman who happens to be the

Vice President of the United States was a co-sponsor of the Senate bill to support HR 40. She and a good brother from New Jersey, thank you so much, Cory Bookerer were actually the two people in the Senate that moved that bill through. We understood how important it was for them to do that at the state level, at the federal level, excuse me. But we've moved to have a number of states actually pass legislation supporting the same thing. Let's take a step beyond that. At the local level, we've been doing the same thing. We actually have a delegation to show you we don't limit this to the borders of the United States. We have a delegation

in Egypt right now. This meeting over something called TKOP 27, which is an initiative to address all the poisons that keep being dumped in our communities. Now, people want to say that's just a local thing. It's not. Folks are making a ton of cash, even moving all these contaminants from other countries in through various components of the US and getting paid along the way. Bottom line, if you only talk about one issue,

you've missed the point. If you don't think about how each of them interconnect with the others again, you've lost sight of what needs to happen. Let me say this, Du Bois was right when he talked about it in 1904, the importance of addressing these issues both internationally as well as nationally. Du Bois was one of the people that actually worked on something called the League of Nations that you know today as the United Nations. Because he said you can't solve the problem in the U.S. if you're not looking at what's happening in Nigeria. And you can't solve the problem in Nigeria if you're not thinking about what's happening in South America.

Let me say, I've yet to go to a country that does not have a group of black folks that came to those countries in much the same way we came here. So it's not surprising, and it's actually crucial, that we have those discussions on a regular basis and talk about what it means. The last point I want to make is this. I'm convinced that as old as I'm getting, I was surprised and I was surprised when our young people turned out the way that they turned out. When they came out, when we've been teaching them and preaching at them and whatnot, hoping that they got it, and they sometimes look at us and just look away. But when it was all over and done, they're the ones that registered their friends. They're the ones that took them all to

the polls to vote. They're the ones that made sure that Joe Biden, they will continue to hold Joe Biden accountable to make sure he gives everything he promised to be able to live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It's national, it's international, it's a local, and if you don't keep attaching the dots, you will miss the point. You know, we got two pastors. Thank you, Hillary. Wonderful. We got two pastors on this platform, and I want to ask them a question. What's faith got to do with it? You have these people bumping on their Bibles, talking about what the Lord wants. They don't know the Lord, but that's another story. I want Pastor Yearwood, Yuri rather, forgive me, and Pastor McBride both deal with this faith issue and the hypocrisy of the ignorant leaning on a Bible they believe in life but not in living.

Help me out. Well, it has been the case that there have been at least two parallel expressions of Christianity in this country since its inception. There's been the white slaveholding church and there's been the always emerging black liberation expression of Christian faith. And it is important to appreciate that even in the time of slavery and in the time of Jim Crow, what were white pastors teaching their congregations where they could worship Jesus in the morning and lynch their fellow black Christian across the street in the afternoon? That same Jesus being taught by the Jim Crow white pastors is the Jesus being taught to the white evangelicals who can vote at 88% for a buffoon like Hershel Walker.

I want to challenge black people who attend white evangelical churches. Who has bewitched you that you find yourself comfortable worshiping with white supremacists in a moment when white Christian nationalism is being fueled by your ties and offerings to a white supremacist pastor. Their music is not that good. Their stage presence is not the essence of the gospel. We ought to be a people who should walk out of white churches when white churches continue to indoctrinate the people that sing on the worship team with you, play in the band with you, teach your children in Sunday school to be lawyers, to be judges, to be police officers who will shoot your children dead when you are not around if they come and ask you for some sugar in the nighttime and they don't

know who you are. We as a people, particularly who follow Jesus, must always remember there have always been multiple expressions of Christian faith in this country. And dare I say, liberative impulses in all religious traditions that come out of the black experience. We are not perfect. We still must deal with our misogyny, our homophobia, our classism that is within our ranks, but we ought not make a false equivalency between black liberation theology and our churches and that of white nationalist Christians who literally have been peddling a false gospel since they opened up that Bible on these lands. Sheridan. I, uh, I started with a com- with a point about theopolitics.

In an age where we are worried about global warming, changing the dynamics of how we survive on the planet, it will also have an effect on the biological responses of the body to increasing heat. One of the images up there is our ancestor, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing. She told us that the battle would be about an irrational fear of white genetic annihilation driving what's going on in the politics,

and all politics is economic. Any politics that is not economic ain't politics. So let's go there. So Christianity has become an economic engine advancing an ideology that reinforces the behavior and the expectations of the structure to maintain the economic priority of people on the basis of an appearance that is inconsistent with the Palestinian Jew who grew up in tropical parts of the world

and his skin color looked nothing like the dude that was hanging on my grandmama's wall because she could not get a calendar that had woolly hair, blazing eyes and brown skin. So if we start with this, we've got to change the icons that inspire us. You asked about faith. The biblical definition of faith is faith is the substance of things hoped for. I've got to have a creative enough imagination to understand that I see myself and my people liberated in a condition that is not confined to the constraints of the current environmental realities. That means then that whatever I see that is not aligned with that vision, I've got to change. And if I'm not going to be about the change,

then I will quote the Reverend Jesse Lewis Jackson, who has said on more than one occasion, and my big sister will know this, Janice Mathis, that the only thing worse than slavery is adapting to it. And so unless you're going to have a spirit and a mindset of resistance driven by the creative courage to see your place in history differently than what's been told to you. When I went to Ghana the first time and Dr. Newman was was one of the first ones that orchestrated that first trip on a yam yam in the late 1990s. When you go to Elmina and Cape Coast, the church, the church is on top of the male dungeon. And the door, the sign over the door in Dutch

is a recitation of the scripture that says Zion is the dwelling place of the most high God. That when you go through that door, they were saying they were taking you to the place where they were going to introduce you to God. Here's the thing that we need to remember. About 30 seconds.

I can sum it up. Give me A-flat and I'll take you there in 15. The truth of the matter is, is that we've got to remember that what anchors us is not the Christianity that was imposed on us, but the Christianity that we've liberated because at the root, we are an African people. And as long as we stay connected to the place where the now flows from south to north and the orientation of the world is set the way that it should be, we will never lose sight of the fact and get trapped in the place where we got to look at the dude that was posing for Michelangelo when he was trying to paint an icon for us. My question, my next question is going to go to Marilyn E. Fay, but before I do that,

leave Tamika, I want you to speak to this, Tamika, before you leave, and that is if we're talking about a black agenda, we keep speaking about that in terms of political, yet what I keep saying is we have to recognize how do we support the boots on the ground who literally are in the community who are mobilizing, organizing people. We're talking, people talking about Georgia right now, and I've said publicly, don't send your money to the Warnock campaign

because the white media strategy is going to put it on television. Send that money to Black Voters Matter, Georgia Stand Up, New Georgia Voter Project, because they're actually in the communities. And now we're not hoping they spend money. We know those groups are going to spend money. So just speak to how, if we're going to talk about moving forward, we have to fully support financially and with our

feet the groups that are actually doing the work. And help to spread the message, the truth about the work that we do. You know, we don't have enough time to dissect the issue around Black Lives Matter and the funding and the donations and where it went and who bought the house and all of the things that we've heard.

I have actually looked into it and have studied, and I know that a lot of it is misinformation, disinformation, and it's happening on purpose. And a big part of this intentional warfare against our organizations that has always happened, which makes me just crazy as to how I see people who are supposed to understand history sharing and participating in a conversation that we know was designed to stop people from donating to and helping to sustain organizations like Mines and Until Freedom. We do real work.

It's very clear what happened in Kentucky, not just Mary Shaw being dethroned, if you will, as a judge who signed a faulty warrant, a lie that got Breonna Taylor killed and has traumatized her boyfriend, Kenny Walker, and, of course, her mother and family forever. But if you think about when we started, I remember the conference call that was pulled together by Cora Mastersberry, my mentor, also Melanie's. Melanie was on the call where women got together and helped to pull, just to send us to Kentucky with plates and paper towels and toilet paper so that we could live there for what we thought

was going to be one month, and it ended up being four. And of course, throughout the course of our time in Kentucky, while we were there protesting, organizing, we found out that it wasn't just a matter of policing and police issues and police corruption and the death of Breonna Taylor, but people were hungry. And so we fed 4,000 people. People were stressed. And you got criticized for feeding people. We got criticized for having a conference.

And by the way, it was our own people, many of them, who led the charge on lines, and we know them. This is not bots. We're sitting at home online because we named the conference something that people didn't like. They attacked us. And when you think about going back,

Roland, to this issue of the Russian bots, they don't just make up things, the trolls. It's a sentiment that exists that they pick up from the back and forth that's happening between real people. And then amplify it. And they amplify it. And so they picked up this, you know, our conference was called BriannaCon, which came up.

It was the young people that decided on this title. And I have to give Tiffany Lofton her credit, who, by the way, sent me a text message since we've been sitting here to say that a judge has ruled against the student debt relief. A judge in Texas. The judge in Texas. And so that is a fight that we must get in. But anyway, she told us she didn't like the name. So I have to say that for Tiffany. But there were many other people, young people, who got together with Breonna Taylor's's family and they decided Breonna Khan was the name that they wanted to put forward.

Now, during this conference, while we may have named it, you know, some folks say we could have named it something different. I'm not above criticism. Fine. We could have named it something different. But the conference covered legislative issues. It brought people, activists and organizers together who had never in Kentucky, there were activists, organizers and elected officials who never sat down together until

Breonna Taylor happened and until freedom moved in to help bring folks into the same room. There was so much infighting, which we know exists everywhere. And these people came together to build a movement that took us from nothing to something because we eventually got an indictment for the death of Breonna Taylor. And that happened because people worked. And by the way, there were days. Got a federal indictment. Got a federal indictment.

Which was a result of the election because the trump doj would have never never done it never done it and so when people and so when people say that you know why are you going out to vote this is why i push back on some of my very uh you know intellectual woke folks that are my friends online who are telling us that voting doesn't matter if we didn't have kristin clark sitting in the seat that she's in today we would never have been able to get this indictment. And we did a lot of work, and it took a lot of resources. Where the hell do people think we eat? How do you think we get?

We were living in Kentucky. We had four homes where we bought activists, organizers, and just regular folks from around the country. In the middle of COVID. To live there in the middle of COVID while my mama had a stroke and lost, you know, mobility to her left side. But we were still there. And we continued to organize when money got low, when money was good. We continued to organize. All I want to say, though, and to your point, Roland, is that your resources, what you give us, $10, $20,

purchasing our merch off the internet. We have a new campaign, our Boycott Black Murder campaign, where we're talking about the violence that's happening in our communities because we do do that work. We do it every day, and we care about that. So that's the other piece of disinformation that goes out there where people say, well, what about fighting crime in the community? We do do that every single day. that goes out there where people say, well, what about fighting crime in the community?

We do do that every single day. And when you buy a sweatshirt from Until Freedom, you give us the ability not just to put money in our pockets, which we deserve, by the way. We deserve that. But you give us the opportunity to put food in the mouths of other individuals. And rather than us tearing folks down over names, over disagreements, and things that are not ideological issues, it's not ideological. What did I say? Say it. Ideological. There you go.

It's okay. That's all right, too. But instead of it being real issues, the problems come down to us not liking one another. And as a result of that and jealousy, how much money does so-and-so have? Why does Tamika wear certain types of clothes? Or, you know, I'm a speaker and I get paid a hell of a lot of money to go around this country and provide my intellectual property from my lived experience for over 25 years of my life how dare someone assume that i should do that for free but what we do at until freedom and roland knows when we couldn't get coverage from anyone else we were

able to go to this brother and be on tv every night telling the stories. And so you know what we do? We send money to Roland Martin unfiltered as well. Whenever he puts up cash app, we send money there. We take the resources that come to us and shift it around. And the people in Kentucky, some of them don't even like us. Some of them talk about us like hell on Twitter. But guess what? We gave them $25,000 grants whenever money came into us. So that's the truth of what goes on. When you support us, we support other people and we are able to actually win. Keep supporting your grassroots organizations. If you don't know them, find them, find them and invest in them because they sometimes are the only thing between the finger and the trigger of a young person who just needs

a little bit of help and maybe just a little bit of food i love y'all god bless you thank you so much for having me here this evening to make a matter of co-founder of until freedom go get your flight mail and eat um the issue of immigration is a potent potent potent issue. It's one folks keep talking about. And it's a vow to one even in our community. Take care. And if a people love talking about Shirley Chisholm, but she called herself a Barbadian American. Mayo, the work that you do in Africa for all the vitriol that we hear with immigration. And a lot of black folks talking about the border. We're losing jobs and opportunities, 10% of the black population in the United

States are immigrants. If both of you could speak to how do we deal with this issue in the black community, where we have a number of people who, frankly, are anti-immigrant, not realizing they're also speaking against white people actually helping us when it comes to the census and in other areas because they're 10 percent of our population i think i think that um we have a lot of teaching to do and i agree with you. There's so many people who think immigration means them and not us. We have not taught enough about who we are so that

we know who we are. We cannot listen to this craziness that people are talking about that we're teaching in our schools. We need to become teachers too and we need to have those Saturday classes and those Sunday classes and teach our people what they need to become teachers too, and we need to have those Saturday classes and those Sunday classes and teach our people what they need to know.

You know, we always say, for instance, and it may be a kind of a divisive thing, when we say that it is, there's an African proverb even that says, it is the women who hold the sky up. We as women must understand that if there were no men, there would be no women. If there were no women, there would be no men. And all of us must take that attitude so that we treat each other like human beings. We got a lot of snakes in the grass out there. All of you heard about the snakes in the grass.

And we used to not know them until they wiggled and bit us. We got to stop waiting on them to bite us before we're ready to move on people who are working against our community. I look at people up there in Congress now, and we don't know all of who won. But one thing is very clear. The Republicans are not going to be any different tomorrow or the next day than they were before this election. So let us not look to them to save us or to work as Joe Biden thinks that they're going to work with him or they should work with were before this election. So let us not look to them to save us or to work as Joe Biden thinks that they're going to work with him

or they should work with him as he has worked with them. Let us not be fooled. Even some that we think were on our side are snakes in the grass. And we need to know who they are and we need to treat them as such and we have to stop dealing with them as we unite and do the things that we know we have to stop dealing with them as we unite

and do the things that we know we must do and not be afraid to do it. Immigration is one of our issues, but we've never been taught that. We as black leaders, if that's what we call ourselves, have a responsibility to teach not only our children, because our children can find the information easily. We need to teach some of us about immigration and some of the other issues that we think they have nothing to do with us. We have a lot that we can do if we're willing to do the work in order to get it done. We can't say, well, I'm too busy. I don't know who is any busier than people who work for nonprofits, people who work for justice. The state of Washington is now allowing its people who have nonprofits to take a sabbatical and pay them.

We need to do that same kind of thing in our communities. Even if the government doesn't do it, we need to do it for each other. And Tamika, I'm so proud of what you just said there when you were talking about the things you were, because that is so true. Sometimes we can be cruel to one another without really knowing why we are. We've got to stop the jealousy. We've got to unite. We are stronger when we are one. They can knock us down when we're one by one by one saying something. But when we do it together,

we can be as strong as we need to be to do the things for our people and to get justice for our people. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback.

Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

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subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Thank you. First thing I want to say, I want to thank Brian Daniels again. Mel? Thank you. First thing I want to say, I want to thank Brian Daniels again. This has been an awesome, awesome conversation, historical in many respects. My comment is, my mother always told me growing up, she said, son, if you're mad about something, don't agonize. Hold that microphone. Look close to your mouth. Don't agonize.

Organize. You know? And I always kept that close to the vest. One of the realities of the world is that black Americans, African Americans are the wealthiest blacks in the entire world. We're dropping out of school, throwing away food. You know, obesity is our biggest problem. Too much calorie, you know, and we don't want to face that, you know. If you don't have food in America, the bottom line is, you can go to a store, you start eating, they'll take you to jail, three meals a day, you know.

And so some of this is responsibility. I will say that, you know, the fact that we were fighting immigration in a lot of places, the reality is, if we don't figure out a way to make this planet work for all of us, none of us are going to be here. We're all going to be refugees. And so a lot of this has to do with common sense.

Now, the reality also is that we've got 2 billion black people in this country. Now, here in the United States, the game that white people play on us now is divide and conquer. They've always played it, you know. And so the African immigrants who they bring over here, where do they send them to go to school? Minnesota, Kansas, you know, Nebraska. And you'll find PhDs, all kinds of Africans out there. They had me lecture out of Kansas State a couple years ago. And I was shocked at all these PhDs.

But they got them in a corner out there. They tell them who their friends are, in some cases they give them their spouses, and then they go to work for these companies and so forth. But you know who their enemy is? Us. They've been told, oh, stay away from that Washington, D.C. and Chicago crowd and Detroit crowd. And so one of the things I deal with all the time... So hold on, actually, Mel, I don't want you to fast forward that because what you just said there,

so I'm looking at comments already and people are talking about, well, how they feel about us, what people, what folk needed to understand, how other folk feel about us is because what has been exported. And so black immigrants are no different than other non-black immigrants around the world. Their perception of African-Americans is actually based upon movies and television that's been exported. And so we have to understand if that's all you've seen and you come here, your perception of who black African-Americans are is not based upon your experience, based upon what white media has told you. So, you know, Roland, I'm not... No, no, no, no, I want to know... I want to know, let's do this, though.

We're sitting here... That's a critical point. Now, when I came to Washington, I'm one of these old heads now. When I came to Washington, Jet Magazine was the most important publication you could find. You could go to the barber shop anywhere else,

you could find out where Jesse Jackson's going, find out where the Urban League is. But Jet, gone. Emerge magazine, come on. If you want to get a critical discussion about African-Americans and African people, you go to Emerge magazine, gone. Don't think this is all accident. The last message is Roland Martin.

The last message is Roland Martin who is telling the truth. So I'm looking at, we don't know where we are. We don't know what you either think. We're confused. And don't think that's by accident. And so how do we change it? I don't know. Social media is not the answer because there's so many people throwing stuff at you.

You don't know what's the truth and what's not the truth. So the challenges they miss. I think this conversation is great. Ron, I would recommend we do some kind of a summit or a regular meeting of black leadership. They used to have a thing called the Black Leadership Font War Iran back in the day. But the reality is we have been segmented, fragmented, put in little boxes, and it's very easy to deal with us. And that's why Trump said, let's make America great again. We can take care of these black folks. Don't underestimate what we're up against.

Thank you. I want to flip the script just a little bit. We've got some students here. We're up in their house. We have Howard University students, everything that we've spoken about, and especially this place. I think about some of the stories that our leaders have told about their time at Howard and how they got an international perspective because of the students who came here from

the African continent and they were able to learn from them. So I said three students. I want each of you to introduce yourself, what's your classification, and then also jump into the conversation however you see fit. You start, young man. Test one, test two. Okay.

All right, my name is Desmond Rozier. I am a sophomore political science major from Charles County, Maryland, and this year I have the honor of serving as the vice president of the NAACP here at Howard University. Thank you. Something that I found very interesting while sitting here listening is that I realized that for years and generations we have been calling for a change, and change has been happening, but change has not been happening for us. And that is the issue.

And it's not that we are the ones to blame, but we are the ones who need to listen. Something that we have as a black community is we have unity. And something that was just mentioned was social media is not our friend. And it's not. Something that I noticed this year, and I got to talk to some of my elected officials back home is that I did not like how this year the Democrats were pushing social media and trying to do that to get their votes. I believe heavily that when you rely on social media that's when you've lost the touch with your community and that's what we need to do as African Americans, to get back in touch with our community.

Something that we see is that change, again, has not come. And in order to see that change, we must be that change. Every one of these panels have paved the way for us, the new generation, to take lead. And that is what we must do now. Something that we see every day is that young people are making the effort to see the change and connecting with their elders and stuff like that, but there's a saying, what is it? You can talk the talk but not walk the walk, and it's at the point where we need to walk that walk.

We can sit in here today and listen to what I'm saying, what everybody on the stage is saying and say that, yes, we agree. But what is it that you're going to do to make that change? And it really starts with you. It starts with having a conversation. That's the bare minimum of what we can do. So I do encourage I know voting is over, but it's not over. So I encourage your peers, encourage your family to continue to have that

conversation about these elections. Georgia, I'm not from Georgia, I'm from Maryland, and Maryland just got their first black governor, the third black governor in the United States. Change is coming to the state of Maryland, and change is coming quick, but change needs to happen all over our nation. The state of Georgia is going into a runoff and I'm not going to talk long about it because I'm going to get a little irritated speaking about that runoff. But it takes a nation to move and it's going to take all of us together. Don't leave it there.

Maryland has its first black governor, black attorney general, and so the top four officials in the state of Maryland are all African American. And the bottom line, y'all, is voting is not the most you can do, it's the least you can do. Young lady, would you stand up and tell us

who you are, what your classification is, and how you'd like to contribute to the dialogue. Hi, everyone. My name is Kamora Oliver. I am a junior biology major, chemistry minor from California. And I actually do want to say that yes, the young people definitely showed out when it comes to voting, but a few of my peers, actually, who to say that, yes, the young people definitely showed out, you know, when it comes to voting. But, you know, a few of my peers actually who come from predominantly red states like Alabama and Indiana and stuff like that,

I just learned recently that they didn't vote just because they felt like their decision on, you know, who's going to be elected has already been made, that their voice didn't matter, their vote didn't matter. And I really want to make sure that they know that there's a lot of people like them that are thinking like that, which is why the numbers aren't super big right now in different states. And I'm wondering, like, how we can change this. Maybe we can streamline some of the information about the different candidates because I do know when looking at the ballot, if you're not tapped into politics and you see names that you haven't heard of that you don't know, you're like, okay, I've got to do research about that. Oh, you know, stuff like that. So how can we work to kind of get general information about candidates and propositions out just so that it's just kind of more

at the forefront of everybody's mind. Thank you. Your colleague. Hi, everyone. My name is Aaron Johnson. I'm a junior honors biology and mathematics double major from the best city in the world, Atlanta, Georgia. And this year I serve as the student safety liaison for the campus.

And one of the things that really brought to mind is my freshman year, I was blessed enough to be in Dr. Car's freshman seminar class, and one of the books that we read was The Miseducation of the Negro. And one of the things that him and his counterpart, Dean Williams, the current dean of the Graduate Arts and Sciences, talked about was the great white fear. And in that speech, if I could paraphrase it quickly, it said, watch and put their rights in the background, emphasize their duties and say little of ambition or aspiration, and above all, watch and ward against the first appearance of great consciousness or power.

If they are young men that dream dreams, take the eyes of these millions and fasten them in the soil. And if these young men dream dreams, let them be of cornbread and molasses. And one of the things that I think we've done as a black community is we forgot that white people fear. And one thing that we forgot is unity. One of the things, as Kimora reached out, I was talking to a few buddies of mine before I came about voting in Georgia. That's where I'm from. And one of the things that we saw as we were on social media were this perpetuance that black people didn't vote.

And we talked about it earlier, but I just wanted to mention that black men, 83% voted. 83% voted and 94% of black women. So we're there. And I think one thing that we don't do is have these conversations enough. And I think that one thing young people don't do is reach back to their elders. One thing that promoted me to vote was listening to my grandmother, Verna Johnson, who's been a nurse for the past 43 years. She was in Albany, Georgia, and she got arrested after they were doing a sit-in. That enough for me was enough but it's not enough conversations being had about putting black people

back in the polls, putting black people back on the streets. And one thing that I see especially in Georgia is that people or that there are laws against giving water or food to people while they're standing in line. And one of the things that I don't think we talk about enough is what are the deterrents about getting us to the polls or when we're at the polls, what's keeping us from casting our vote. And so I think having conversations like these, I'm so grateful and thankful for it is another way to keep it going. Give the students a round of applause. Greg, one of the, probably the two favorite words I have is, what's next? And when we look at, I posted something on social media

today about election is over. We're still figuring out what's happening on the on the federal level but operating in terms of laying out what is the black agenda I had a couple of people who then said oh well you're starting too late that should happen before the election and I said no um you get promised things before the election. After the election, you now know how things shake out. So for instance, if Republicans control the House, you have to make demands based upon who's in leadership. If Democrats are control of the Senate, you're not going to have the same conversation that you had before. Same thing on the state level. Democrats now control the state house in Pennsylvania. A black woman in Pennsylvania is now the Speaker of the House in Pennsylvania. As a result of that, y'all can give it up. So now, if you're in Pennsylvania, how you determine

whatever that black agenda is based upon Democrats controlling the House, Republicans controlling the Senate. Now you're in Minnesota, Michigan, and Maryland. Democrats control both House, Republicans control the Senate. Now in Minnesota, Michigan, and Maryland, Democrats control both houses and the governor's mansions. So walk us through trying to get folks to understand that now you have to craft an agenda based upon who's in power, which means you may not get what you want based upon who's in power, which means you may not get what you want based upon who's in power, but you still have to craft an agenda for people to

achieve because we're still constituents. Rolling in, you know this. I mean, this is what we talk about all the time. We, you know, and Mo, you said this, thinking the big picture, thinking about how systems operate. Okay, thank you. Parenthetically, I appreciate that, Aaron, because they took that freshman seminar class from us.

This is a neoliberal university, and its leadership is neoliberal. And I want to talk about that in the context of politics in a minute. That was Du Bois being spoken right there. W.B. Du Bois said that in 1906 at Hampton University, the Hampton idea, if they dream dreams, make them dream dreams of cornbread and molasses. You quoted that without notes. That's what an HBCU should be, not the neoliberal university that this one and all HBCUs are. OK, I appreciate that, brother.

That having been said, there's a crisis in academia that's parallel in politics. Because, as you know, Hillary, they put Du Bois at the end of the LCP not once, but twice. Second time, he was 70-something years old, so I ain't got a job and no retirement plan. The crisis politics we practice is not the politics you're talking about, Roland. It wasn't the politics of Gary in 72. When a black political party, and Mo, when Dr. Daniels came to track me down while I was teaching my class at the law school,

I said, oh no, you're here, brother, so now you're going to teach the class. So he taught him about Gary in 72. Electoral politics is only one dimension of party politics, as Mo knows and will explain in a minute, and everybody on this stage knows, including all these folks who I can't wait to hear from, because, you know, I'm looking at James Early back there and Elsie Scott and Justin Hansford, and I'm like, oh, there's some people who have some experience with this.

None of the narratives we read in white commercial media reflect what happened on Tuesday. What happened on Tuesday is we bought some time. And if we can seize the momentum, there's an opportunity here, Tamika said before she left, to reimagine our relationship with this state polity we call the United States of America, which is not a nation. The only thing national about the United States of America in terms of shared identity is whiteness. Everybody else is negotiating for a little bit of power to operate. And so when you said, and Melanie, you said it, these state house victories are crucial because that's the firewall that will protect the Democrats in 24. We've got now 24 months, not even, to do what? To not make demands, but to consolidate our strength so that we don't have to make demands, so that when we make the declarations of what we will and won't accept, they must be yielded to. Let me be very specific about that, because I'm sitting here taking notes as everybody's talking. Crisis politics responds as if this is a TV show.

We've got to get together and do this. We've got to get together. Just like crisis academics, people majoring in stuff because they think they can get a job and this or that. And Du Bois, that same text that we read together, Aaron, filling up this auditorium every week. Du Bois is saying, if you're going to get an education, it has to be grounded in what is your vision of being human in the world. And at a black school, that means that that vision must

be grounded in your memory, your unbroken memory of Africana. If we understood that, we would not have an immigration problem, because our challenge, I mean very clearly, our challenge, Brother Foote, as you say, with the United States of America, foreign policy is bipartisan. Democrats and Republicans are anti-African. AFRICOM raping Africa of its resources and collusion and doing it with an international black bourgeoisie, some of which will be trained at this university

to make common cause with their friends in Nigeria, in Ghana, and say they're doing it for black people. This is not. This is crisis academics. Crisis politics creates a similar bourgeoisie to say they're representing black people when what they're really doing is lining their pockets, whether it's a kleptocracy in Africa or the Caribbean or the Congressional Black Caucus. Let's talk about the challenge we have. But here's where what happened Tuesday can change all of that. The young brother in Miami that's taking the Aldemans seat, the Afro-Cuban brother who stands for

expanded Supreme Court and all this kind of thing. The sister that you mentioned, uh, uh, a rolling in Western Pennsylvania on Tuesday night that they, that AIPAC tried to take out by the millions of that was her name? Summer Lee. Summer Lee? Summer Lee. Yeah, what is appearing now is we don't make demands. We don't beg nobody for nothing. We organize. And what scared the hell, Ron Daniels knows this story better because he was there, what scared the hell out of the Democratic Party of Gary in 1972 was that these Negroes was going to create a black independent party.

And, Rev, I hope you talk about the rainbow in a minute. Because Jesse Jackson, and I know y'all had that internal conversation, the tactical errors Ron Daniels has walked us through in 84 and 88, when that whole apparatus was turned over to the Democratic Party instead of keeping it going. And then Ron Brown comes in place, and that's how you get slick-ass Bill Clinton. And the neoliberal wing of the Democratic Party ascendant, one of which is, unfortunately, the 44th president of the United States. A conversation for another day. Because we got caught up in identity politics, and I sat here right here at Charter Day when that man was

a senator from Illinois and stood right here on the stage, and we were all like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama. Drones pulling back, destabilized North Africa. You want to talk about what's going on in Mali now, what's going on in Nigeria now? You need to look at Obama and Hillary Clinton. But an independent black political movement, which is what we have the chance to do now because we have just pulled the Democratic Party ass out to fire. Joe Biden says he's going to run again. Mortality might want a word with that.

But what we bought is 24 months. 24 months to consolidate these conversations, to sustain them at the local level, the state level. And finally, if we can do that, we can play white nationalism against itself. Because see, if they pull that election out in Arizona and Nevada and the Senate, and as the mail-in ballots come in to be counted, maybe Nevada, they'll win. If Warnock loses to this brain-damaged man in Georgia, the Senate's still 50-50. But if he wins, Joe Manchin is irrelevant. Maybe Kyrsten Sinema.

And then we make the press, and we tell these Democrats, this is the black agenda, like the one they did in Gary. And it's not that we're going to sit at home if we don't get everything we want because we never get everything we want. But please trust and believe. This is where I get off the board. I'm a member of the National Coalition of Blacks and Reparations. I'm a member of the board. Cam, no.

We'd make the reparations demand, but this tangible stuff, this is the logic of children. You haven't studied how to get what you want. And you make this point all the time, Roland. I know I said I was going to stop. Let me get this mic from them all. Because independent black politics means coming together in coalition and being savvy. And when it is necessary, looking ourselves in the mirror and say, we love all of us. But let's be very clear. Neoliberalism is at heavy work right now.

And a lot of that call, that danger, that call comes from inside the House. Are we courageous enough to have that conversation? I'm sorry, Mo. Okay, Dr. Grant Carr. Has he read it? Has he rolled it? But now what we need to do... No, no, no. Actually, my reason... I need to do something right quick.

Hold on, hold on. I got Ron Daniels behind me giving me orders. Hold on, I'm going to give this here. I'm going to give this here. I'm going to give this information here. Well, not a few moments ago, but a couple hours ago, Brian Kemp signed a deal with Mitch McConnell to turn over his political army to help Herschel. McConnell's PAC is going to pay for it. That's 100 field operators.

They're going to completely fund it. So just understand, if you're talking about how to be organized, they are already moving Kemp's entire operation to get Herschel elected in the runoff, which is December 6th. And so

while some people are saying, let's take a few days off after Tuesday, they're not taking days off. Before you go, let me just say, let's take a few days off after Tuesday. They're not taking days off. Not at all. But before you go, let me just say, Roland, let me just say this right quick. We should embrace that with our whole hearts. This is a race war in Georgia. If you got a nickel, send it to those direct operators and get out the vote,

because Mitch McConnell is a white nationalist, and they're going to make, they're going to, the whole white nationalist apparatus is about to go to Georgia and damn it if we don't meet them the way those black women and men met those crackers that tried to kill those black boys and girls at the hill of Atlanta University the night of the Atlanta riot and they turn them back around with rifles, we do not deserve, we do not deserve to do anything other than die and Du Bois said that too at Fisk University. If you're not gonna fight then go on and lay down and let the rest of the world go on. Thank you, Brother Carr. Thank you, thank you. Round of applause. We have some folks

who were invited to come to be respondents and this conversation has been so rich that they haven't had an opportunity to weigh in. What I'm going to ask you all to do, because we want to continue the conversation, but just introduce yourselves. Start with Dr. Elsie Scott who leads the Ron Walters Institute. Just go down the line and introduce yourself, and then I'm going to ask Kim Howard to jump into the conversation after everyone has been introduced to talk about reparations a bit. Sister Elsie.

Good evening. I am Dr. Elsie Scott, the director of the Ron Walters Leadership and Public Policy Center here at Howard University. Good evening. My name is James Early and I'm involved in a lot of different things. I'm Cam Howard, executive director of Reparations United, former national co-air of the National Coalition of Blacks and Reparations in America in Coburn. Good evening, everyone. My name is Salim Adolfo, Chair executive director of the National Black Police Association, also Blacks in Law Enforcement of America. Good evening. My name is Nike Sane. I'm the director of policy of D.C. Justice Lab. Hello. I'm Bethany Young. I am an attorney and sociologist by training,

but currently work on public policy in the public safety arena. Good evening. I'm Justin Hansford. I of Historic Vernon Edmond Church in Tulsa, where I was involved with Black Wall Street in Tulsa, raised Massacres, Centennial Mass Grave Excavation. Now pastor of Empowerment Temple in Baltimore, Maryland. And this tomorrow,

3.30 a.m., be leading my second march from Baltimore to the White House. 40 miles for 40 acres and a mule. Reparations now. Let's give our respondents a round of applause. We've got to bring them into the conversation. I'm going to go to Cam Howard first, and then Roland's going to have some more questions.

But Cam is part of National African American Reparations Commission, on which I serve, and which Dr. Daniels is the convener of. We, because IBW convened this, we think it's important for all of you to know as much as you can about the reparations struggle, HR 40, and especially in light of the possible changes we're going to see in our legislative. Cam? Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Daniels, for allowing us to have the opportunity to speak with this illustrious panel.

Talk into the mic. My brothers will be able to hear you. We don't know, as of today, who's going to control the—what party is going to control the House or what party is going to control the Senate for the next two years. But what we do know is what party controls the executive branch and will control the executive branch for the next two years, and that's the Democratic Party. And they will control the executive branch because of the black vote.

No president, Democratic president that was elected in the last 60 years with the exception of President Johnson has won the majority of the white vote. The only way a Democrat can be elected an executive, can be elected to the presidency is with the black vote. That has to be made cogently clear going forward in these next two years. We understand that the executive branch

can do some things without the Congress. They can pass executive orders. And the first executive order that they can pass, that Biden can pass, is the executive order that would introduce the H.R. 40 Commission and establish the H.R. 40 Commission. That is something that immediately after the Georgia runoff is what we should be calling for is a passage of that executive branch of that executive order, got an executive order passed that gave $13 million to Jewish Holocaust survivors in America. So we can get a reparations push done through executive order. And I think what this midterm election has shown us with the Hispanic vote and the Asian

vote, they have pretty much counseled each other out. The Asian vote and Hispanic vote was almost 50-50, Democrat and Republican, which means that the black vote is even more powerful now going forward than it was prior to this midterm election. And if we really want to get reparations passed, this is the time to do it. We have to do it through executive order.

Thank you. Thank you, Cam. Appreciate you. I think Roland is coming back. Not yet. He'll be back. Meanwhile, I want to get Ron Hampton. Several people on the panel talked about police violence, about what we need to do, about what happens to our young people.

Ron Hampton has been on the forefront of the work to resist police murders. And that's what we call what they are, police murders. Ron Hampton. Thank you very much. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was

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Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them.

Let's put ourselves in the right position, pregame to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org, brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush.

What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to

Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Thank you very much. You're absolutely right. And starting off, let me commend Dr. Ron Daniels. It seems like I've known him all my life. And the work that he's done is just absolutely unbelievable in terms of bringing us together. I'd like to associate my comments with those of Pastor McGrath. I want to, I paid an awful lot of attention to it and studied it.

I want to bring to your memory the Rodney King beating that took place in L.A. And it's been about, it was in, I think it was in 92, Pastor McBride. There was a conversation after Rodney King, and we talked about reform. Reform is a word I don't even like to use because I realized a long time ago that really policing needed restructuring. Our criminal justice system needed restructuring. And having served as a police officer, I'm an abolitionist now because I don't believe that policing in America has served. I know it hasn't served black people. And since I'm not white, I can't

talk about what white people, how white people feel, but it hasn't served black people. And so why do we continue to do something that does not serve us, and yet we pay for it, and we don't get what we want? But the other side of it is, is that the same discussion that we've been having after Floyd was the same discussion that we had after King. And nothing has changed. I want to tell you that nothing has changed. And if anything, it has gotten worse. Pastor McGrath talked about it. He mentioned it.

It has gotten worse. Nothing has changed. I had an opportunity to talk with a reporter right after Floyd. And one of the things that I talked about was that the window of change in our society as it relates to police issues doesn't stay open very long. And believe it or not, it was closing the day after Floyd. It was closing the day after Floyd. It was closing the day after Floyd because the traditional law enforcement organizations in this country was tingling around the edges. They don't want real reform. They don't really want to change it. And we know that white folk love police.

Black folk don't love police, but white folk love police. And what was even so disappointing was the idea that we needed to put more money into policing rather than to put more money into social services, mental health, and the kind of things. So we've been working on, with Dr. Daniels' assistance, we've been working on reducing the footprint, but as an abolitionist now, I think we have to replace it with something. And you know, if you talk about replacing something in our society today, then you have to talk about what are you going to replace it with? We have to talk about what are you going to replace it with? and the services that we have in our community the types of things that we need in our community

are the social services that have been missing that we haven't properly funded in our society in our cities so we have to do that so Pastor Mike you hit the nail on the head Hillary, Ms Campbell, it just goes on and on and on. I don't know how much, I do know, but I'm getting old. I can't be, I'm not tired, but I'm tired of bumping my head up against the wall thinking that white

folk and the policing culture in our country is somehow never going to change. That isn't going to change. So the next best thing to do is to talk about what are we going to replace it with. I honestly believe that, and that's what we have to be working on. Thank you. Thank you. Roland, you have the next question, but before you ditch your question, I'd like you to talk about your book, White Fear, because that really does kind of weave into all the things we've been saying. Just give us a brief synopsis of the book before you get the next question. I think what we're seeing, what took place on Tuesday, it actually speaks to this whole issue of white fear, how the browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. And as we're surveying this, their reaction to the politics

is based upon the loss of power in economics. Al Lawson lost on Tuesday in Florida, but a sister, Amelia Sykes, won in Cleveland. Black Caucus is still at 58 members. Remember, the judges ruled that there should be a new congressional seat in Alabama and a new black seat in Louisiana, but the Supreme Court put a halt to it. Those are two guaranteed seats. We have to also understand what's happening, where literally Republican lawyers are now trying to get the courts to redefine blackness because what they want to do is they want to actually dilute black power which is why i asked the question earlier when i was talking about black immigrants so i need all of these anti-immigrant folk who hate black immigrants to shut the hell

up and not realize that they actually are assisting republicans who would love to lower the hell up and not realize that they actually are assisting Republicans who would love to lower the threshold of the black population to take away black power. So what we have to understand is white folks are fighting for their survival because they know what's coming and their great fear is that we're going to do to them what they did to us, and the reality is we know that ain't the case. So what I also argue is while we're fighting that, we have to actually be fortifying ourselves. So first of all, we must be taking education far more seriously. We cannot be, we must be taking economics seriously.

I've got people who are saying, well, why aren't you dealing with reparations every single day? I say the federal government spends $560 billion a year on contracts. We get 1.67%. I'm going after the money they're spending right now. The ad agency spends $322 billion. In Georgia, black companies got less than 1% of state contracts

and folk were saying Brian Kemp was good for black business. And so, we have to be targeting the existing billions of dollars being spent right now. Last point on that, the greatest wealth in black America is in pension funds. What drives Wall Street? Pension funds. Who controls pension funds? White men. So if you have an uprising of black public workers, they could literally change the economic face of America. So we're trying to get the venture capitalists to change up here.

No, if the pension folks down here say y'all need more black folks who are managing money, you need to have more folks on the state level. Now, all of a sudden, you're not changing the economic paradigm. And so we have to understand how the money game is being played. And as I lay in the book, if we're not having a money conversation, we're not having an American conversation. They don't mind us talking about all these topics. They don't want us discussing money. Or as Coretta Scott King said, they killed my Martin when he started talking about the money. Gotcha. So, and actually I want to, that leads into that, and I want to deal with this because as a part of this economic agenda, Maurice, I want to come to you.

Again, it's a money thing. Reverend Barber is constantly talking about the number of poor and low-wage workers in this country, and that's actually the largest group of folks who don't vote. So if we're talking about a black agenda with public policy combined with politics, what must we be demanding of political leaders to get them to want to actually say the word poor, but to have policies that reflect that? Because if you do that, if you appeal to those workers, you can forget wasting your time with white suburban women. You could clean up all across the country with poor and low income workers because nobody is talking to them so absolutely so there's a term called class de-alignment that's taking place where every election cycle cycle after cycle after cycle working people are migrating away from the Democratic Party.

And they're migrating away from the Democratic Party. Some percentage are just migrating out of politics in general. And some of them are migrating towards the right wing and the Republican Party. And when I say working people, the working class, a lot of times on TV, when they say the working class, it's code for the white working times on TV when they say the working class, it's code for the white working class. I'm talking about the multiracial working class, which includes the black working class. So this includes all working class people. And why? Well, you know, Dr. Carr, you brought up neoliberalism and the neoliberal agenda. So when Bill Clinton came into office, he engaged in the strategy called triangulation.

Let's take the economic policy from the Republicans and the social policy from the Democrats. We'll provide social rights to people. So black people will give you your social rights, but the economic rights will divvy those up with Wall Street. That's been taking place for decades and decades. And as a result, working people, including the black working class, are voting for Democrats and are getting social right concessions, but aren't getting any meaningful economic rights concessions. And so we need to form an intervention to challenge that, which is one of the reasons why I run an independent political party that focuses like a laser

on the multiracial working class, with the black working class being a core of that, and ensuring that when Democrats win, it's our job to hold them accountable, not just to the social rights concessions, but the economic rights concessions. Those are the things, if you want to talk about power and politics outside of a serious assessment around power, it's just talk. So if you want to talk about power, you have to fundamentally understand what the economics rights agenda is of all of these folks. And if all we're doing is talking about identity and representation, you're going to get the Clarence Thomases, right? And some of them are Republicans and some of them are Democrats, but people who will sell us out for $5, right? So five exactly, right? So it's our job. I think that's why we have to have a race, class and gender analysis.

And that's why we have to have an independent black political agenda outside of the proximal benefit to the Democratic Party. Right. So the other thing I want to say is that we also need to talk about this word ideology. The Republicans got it, which is why they're able to play chess, okay? They'll have wins and losses, but they're engaged in a strategic game. We mainly, and the Democrats, and in and around the Democrats, it's tactical. It's checkers, right? So we focus on the proximal win. Our job is to consider how our proximal wins aligns with our North Star, right? It's asymmetry. They are radicals. They are revolutionaries on the right wing. And their whole game is to determine how the very, very wealthy and corporations could consolidate power, consolidate

economic power, and build on that. And they believe in this idea of liberty, but it's a radical idea of liberty where they think that democracy is getting in the way of their liberty, that we should have nothing to say about where corporate money goes, right? It is an infringement on their, it's a perverse sense of liberty. And they've messaged that they are the party of the working class. Right. And folk have actually failed for it. Oh, and this is where white supremacy comes in. Right. Okay. My brother, you know what? Okay. You are fantastic. I could listen to all y'all all night, but we don't have all night. Don't worry about it. I'll have them on the show. We got it. All right. No,

no, no, no, no. I'm saying I'm gonna have it on my show. We got it. No, no, no. I'm saying I'm going to have him on my show. I got this. That's how you continue the conversation. Yeah, it is an extended conversation. Thank you. I sometimes follow orders. About 30% of the time. Well, you're going to see it this evening.

Ron Daniels has asked me and you to yield the mic so that he can close us up. And because he is the HNIC up in here, I'm going to somewhat comply. On behalf of Roland and I, although Roland will do it himself, I want to thank you all. We appreciate y'all. This has been rich. I want to apologize to anybody that we did not get to. We did our best. We could go another hour, but he ain't I really do want to hear before I close it out. And I do want to ask our tech team to put that last slide up because we're moving to the next conversation, at least in terms of the Institute of the Black World, 21st century. I want to ask Justin Hansford because he's modest.

He's here at Howard and so forth. But he, on this international question, occupies a very crucial position. So would you just stand up and just tell people what your position is in relationship to the United Nations, brother? I mean, you know, we got some bad people up in here. Justin Hansford. Yeah, so what he... Thank you, Dr. Daniels.

I just want to say that we have now created something called the United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent. This was created just this year, and the idea is we have now a voice at the United Nations for black people throughout the black diaspora. Our first meeting will be this December in Geneva, and the idea is are we going to create a global black agenda, an alliance as Maurice had described, an alliance with black communities around the world. Do we have an opportunity? Do we have a concept of trying to create change on the global platform? So I hope everybody here looks it up. The United Nations Permanent Forum for People of African Descent. We're trying to make some noise, and hopefully we can address black politics, not just in the United States, but around the world.

All right, give it up, Justin Hasker. I'm just going to give a quick shout-out to Reverend Dr. Turner. Just to say that, Reverend Dr. Turner is with the Empowerment Temple now in Baltimore, but he is a leading reparations advocate and his church in Tulsa, the historic Vernon AME Church, had the last remaining structure that was destroyed in terms of the Greenwood District and Black Wall Street. And I say that because we must forever uphold and remember Tulsa. It is not just a Tulsa. It is a scar in the soul of black folks. I just want to just give him a shout out and just let everybody know where he is. He's in the same neighborhood. Now, finally, I just want

to on today is the birthday of one of the three survivors. She's 108 years old today. So. And finally, James, really probably don't want to say anything, but you've got five minutes. Five minutes. Five minutes. Because there's been a major development in Brazil, major development in Colombia, in terms of the global structure, global questions of African people and African descendants, and there's no better person to talk about that than James Earl. Okay, I'm going to do less than five minutes. First of all, I'm like Ron Hampton.

I'm feeling old trying to catch up with Ron Daniels. At almost 76 years of age, when I hear this young man, Brother Mitchell, not just as an individual but as someone who is embedded horizontally, our systemality horizontally with grassroots communities, I'm uplifted. We know that the Republican Party is our enemy, but the Democratic Party's status quo is not our friend. They are our tactical ally. We are at the center of gravity, not just what can happen narrowly within the black community, but how the black community is a fulcrum for what happens in this nation, in this hemisphere, in the world. W.E. Du Bois has been raised a couple of times this evening. Remember in The Soul of Black Folks in 1903, he says, I'm bone of bone and flesh of flesh of those behind the veil, those ordinary people.

He was saying, I'm well educated. I'm Harvard. I got this Dutch background. I got this vertical profile. But I align with the ordinary people. And in that preface, remember, he says, I'm speaking of all of the people of the Asia Attic Sea. He was not just speaking to us black folk in the United States.

He was talking about colonialism and the racial and color aspects. In 1953, he came back and said, I will not rewrite this book. I still believe today as yesterday that the color line is a major problem of the 20th century, not the major problem. But I've come to understand that behind it, there is something that puts it into motion and something that obscures it at the same time. And that is that a few people are willing to live in luxury and security at the great expense of humankind living in misery. And that in order to preserve that relationship, they are willing to go to war generally against people of color. That puts us at the center of gravity of the world motion. Howard University graduate Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagan and her song, There's a New World Coming,

where you going to be standing when it comes? We can't just be standing in the black community. We have to understand our full-form relationship. Our sister from the National Council of Negro Women raises the issue of capitalism. It was cotton, it was sugar, it was rum, it was the mind of enslaved black people and their hands that raised this dominant economic system which has presented us with this misery. So we have to take that up in the context. Now in this hemisphere, we're 40 million in the United States. There are over 100 million African descendants identified individually in the national census in Brazil alone, nearly 54% of the population. Barack Obama didn't talk about that.

Our Indo-Caribbean black vice president is not talking about that. Greenfield at the United Nations is not talking about the Haitian immigrants, not talking about the daily slaughter of the most complex black community in the hemisphere, which is in Colombia. Palenqueros, a language base, they look like all of us. But when we talk about black people, we have to look at our plurality, not just our commonality and suffering, racism and poverty and disease, but the various creative ways in which we face the world. So let me conclude on this.

And this is where I think our young sister and our leader brother here raises us. We have to get away from the personalization of politics. It is not about Joe Biden, who helped to bring us a right wing black fascist Supreme Court justice. We have to remember that. And of course, we want to look characteristically as well as sectorally. And we want to acknowledge people when they do the right individual thing. But let's not confuse the occasional right individual thing with the characteristic behavior of the saving of this capitalist society in 2008, when the entire world, the elite world was bailed out. Not one white man went to jail. That was under a black president and a great individual. But I'm talking about

governance. We're not talking about personalities. So we need to tie into the grassroots community in Brazil, o Movimento Negro, Gelades, Strong Black, Yoruba Women, who are grassroots organizers because they are the majority. And the question of democracy in Brazil is not about the pro forma saving of democracy that you have the right to vote. That's very important. But that's the formal procedural aspect. What is the policy content of the improvement of life?

And then the assumption of leadership, not only for the direction of our communities, but for all communities. This is where we are the fulcrum, starting with the development of the so-called new world up until today. And Haiti, who's talking about? Is Austin, the head of the military, talking about Haiti? No, he's talking about Ukraine. Is the vice president talking about Haiti? No, she's talking about, occasionally, Latin America. Is Greenfield talking about the Haitians?

Barack Obama put more immigrants out of the country than any president until recent history. Again, a nice man, but we have to look characteristically at what is going on. So let us align with these movements. In Cuba, in socialist Cuba, there is an anti-racist movement going on in the context of their nation, not trying to become our nation. We need to align with those citizens of the José Aponte Committee, the Union of Artists and Writers, with President Díaz-Canal's commission, which he founded and which he meets with people talking about tourism and employment.

These are the people on the grassroots level, not the personalities. With Lula in Brazil, this little white man who came from the most abject poverty, who went to Davos some years ago and said to them, you white men, and they're looking at this little white guy. What is the significance of that? He understands that the crucible, the test case of where the world can go is bound up with our communities in their plurality, not just in the whiteness or the blackness of our skin. So we have to hold our enemies at bay because they are dangerous and violent and being unleashed on us. But we have to hold the Democratic Party status quo elite accountable and not just vote for these personalities and organize with these young people. Let's provide them with our articulation, our amplification of their views, with our pocketbooks, as they have been called, and get away from these

personalities. And let us begin to have them identify in our communities stewards of governance that we elect not these professional politicians who rotate in and out. So pay attention to Latin America. Pay attention to the largest oil reserve in the world, which is in Venezuela, with a significant Afro-descended population, with a former president who said, I am Indian and mestizo. I'm Indian and Spanish and mestizo. But my grandmother was black, who said to Danny Glover, why don't you set up Trans Africa Forum chapters here? Of course, he already had his own Afro-Venezuelan network.

These are connections, the grassroots connections we need to make. And I am so proud to be not only with some of these older warriors here, but I'm especially proud to be here with this young leadership that is bringing us back to grassroots community organizing. All right. All right, well, we have had a great conversation, haven't we? Have we had a great conversation? Right. Well, I got about five minutes now.

I mean, you know, I end up having five minutes to close out. But let me just quickly say that I want to acknowledge some members of the IBW board. Kevin Baker is in the audience. Amita Saunders is in the audience. Ron Hampton is actually on the IBW board.

Let's give it up for them. And our board chair would have been here, but nonetheless, he's got some challenges. Amina, I mean, Dr. Tyrone Lovelace went to see him. Another round of applause for the panel and for the moderators. This is what the Institute of the Black World 21st Century does. It's not. I didn't I didn't hear you.

I haven't changed the slide because they ain't got the slide. So, you know, I mean, this is I'm just being blunt about it. But anyway, this is what we do with the Institute of the Black World 21st Century. We specialize in collaboration and facilitation and bringing people together for these kind of conversations. I'm proud of the fact that we do it across the spectrum. I'm a Pan-African nationalist. I don't go around talking about it, but that's where I come from. But whenever we do something, it's all about bringing all of us together with different perspectives. So the next step is, it's onward to the State of the Black World Conference, April 19th to the 23rd in Baltimore. That's what's supposed to be on

the screen. The theme and all of that is supposed to be up there. Now I just got to do it from my ancient mind. It is the 50th anniversary this year of the Gary Nassar Black Political Convention. We haven't talked really enough about that. We sort of talked a little bit about it, but that was one of the most significant gatherings in the history of these United States of America. Haven't had played a little role in that process. Won't talk much about it, but I did. It's the 50th anniversary of the first African Liberation Day.

I was one of the founders of African Liberation Day. And it's the 30th anniversary of the, the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Institute of the Black World, 21st century as an organization primarily, which beats focus on what we did tonight. It's not about Ron Daniels. It's not about any of us individually. It's about our collectivity

and the whole notion that we are each other's best teachers. We have great assets. So we talk about cultivating a culture of collaboration. I use the word culture intentionally to heal and empower black families, communities, and nations. That's what we do. Foundation world couldn't quite figure that out.

I'm saying, well, it ain't about projects all the time. It's about process. We have the ability to pull ourselves together and to do what we did tonight. And I'm glad that we were able to do that. And we will continue this conversation in April. Now people are like talking about my age and how timeless and so forth. Well yeah I mean you know when you get to be 80 years old you're supposed to continue to run on. I'm 80 years old now. April 26th is my 80th birthday and a part of what this year was supposed to be about was we did have a little celebration,

was to sort of like not so much personalize it, but it was an opportunity to say there is a mission here. For me, the Institute of the Black World 21st Century is my legacy project, not in the sense that it's personal, it's about the collectivity of all the work I've done over the years in so many formations, came to the conclusion that result-oriented gatherings, facilitation, building operational unity for real, that ain't necessarily charismatic, that ain't necessarily large personalities, but that process is important. And so we go to Baltimore, right down the road of peace, and we hope we can get the mayor to help host us.

We hope that the new governor will help us as well. Our theme will be global. In fact, I have to explain it, because our theme is going to be global Africans rising. And when I said that, I said, but explain it.

Because some people, African, well, he's talking about them Africans. Yeah, we are global Africans. We are an African people. Queen Mother Moore, my mentor, taught me that many, many years ago. We are an African people. And we may say African American or whatever, but we are an African people and we are global. And we need to be talking about our theme, therefore, is global Africans rising, empowerment, reparations, and healing. That's the theme. Dr. Julius Garvey is going to be the honorary chair, not only because he's the son of the honorable

Marcus Garvey, because he epitomizes, he continues to be a global Pan-African statesperson. And at that conference, we're going to have huge sections of work, and we're going to have a huge section on reparations. A huge section that Pastor Mike is going to help deal with in terms of the discretion of violence in our community. A huge section dealing with gentrification. We're going to have huge blocks in which we talk about not just what the problems are, but what is the praxis? How do we learn from each other what has been done and how do we improve upon what's been done? That's what we do with these conferences. And it will be a magnificent conference because we're inviting President Adu Obadah to be here. We're going to invite the Prime Minister of Barbados, Maya Motley,

who is emerging as one tremendous Bajan woman, reaching out, stretching out across the globe to be here. I'm on my way to Colombia to see whether the new vice president, Afro-descendant vice president, Afro-Colombian, I'm sorry, and the name, you have a... Francia Marquez. Francia Marquez will be there. And Melanie, I got a job for you.

Because at that summit, we're going to ask you, because you are the head of organizing black women, we're going to ask you to host the vice president of Columbia. We ask you to do that. I got roles for a whole lot of y'all. We planted it out. Mark Morial, we're going to have a global summit of black leadership elected in civil rights leadership at this conference.

We're also going to be in the business of also, and we're going to honor one of the great statesmen, the long and serving Prime Minister of Jamaica, Patterson. We're also gonna bring Brother Akon up in here and honor him. We also honor Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, Congresswoman Barbara Lee for their courageous leadership, Bishop Vaston McKenzie. So we're going to have a tremendous gathering right down the road of peace in Baltimore.

And we want all of you to be a part of it in terms of the next big conversation. And we will have not only a town hall meeting on reparations, we will reassemble because it'll be about 100 days out in terms of the new changes that have been made to assess again where we stand and what it is that we can do.

So brothers and sisters and friends, we so appreciate you participating with us tonight. I ask you to go to ibw21.org. We have a special screen, a special place, because we're asking people to pre-register for the State of the Black World Conference. Not only to pre-register, we're asking you to become friends and advocates of the IBW, of the Institute of the Black World 21st Century, as we organize this process, because we want to organize at least a thousand people to be a part of the State of the Black World Conference. That's a thousand paying people because anything we ever do, our town hall meetings are always free and open to the public. We bring hundreds

of people to our town hall meetings. Free! Because we don't go up into these communities and bring all the folks in and talk about we took it to the community and people can't afford it. When we come in, we always have free activities that black people can attend to. So we need your help between now and then

in order to organize and mobilize. So we want you to pre-register at IBW21.org. They'll have the information up and therefore we'll begin to gather names in order to move the process forward. So brothers and sisters, that white nationalist, that white nationalist greed, that white nationalist orange infected tide was checked, but it was not defeated. I think I heard Dr. Carr say that. Checked but not defeated. We bought some time. We bought some time.

And we can always do better. I'm proud of how many black people we did register and how many we did turn out, but we still, as Reverend Jessica Jackson said, still left some rocks just laying on the ground. But it will take what Tamika Mallory talked about and what the Working Families Party talked about to get them motivated. And what Roland Martin talked about. We have to have a participatory culture. We have to have a culture of engagement.

Got to touch people. And it ain't always about lecture and even about politics. We get together around food and music and find creative ways to touch our people. But make no mistake about it, if we were to register 90% of black people in this country and if 90% of them turned out to vote, we would have power disproportionate to our numbers because the biggest political party in America today is not the Democrats. It's not the Republicans It is still non voters even in this election Millions of white people didn't vote millions of others did not vote if we organize and we vote We have power disproportionate to our numbers and it's not just about that

Because we also can do economic sanctions. We can also march. We can also become disruptive. We can become ungovernable if necessary. It's not just about voting. It's about all of these things taken into collectivity. And at the end of the day, the great, I guess, it's not an irony, it's great justice that's being done. Is that the rejected stones, the rejected stones will become the cornerstones not only of rescuing ourselves, but to rescue this democracy and indeed to step out as Dr. Maia Nkongunya would say on the stage of history as free, proud, productive,

liberating people. That's who we are Going all the way back to the ancient nation of Kemet and the notion of Mayan. We are righteous people. Righteous people. We march. We organize. And in so doing,be, Harambe, Aluta Continua. Good evening. All right, our photographer, our photographer, let's get a shot. Let's get the panel. Let's get everybody together. Let's get a shot. Let's get the panel. Let's get everybody together. Let's get a shot here. We'll be right back. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes.

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