#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 2nd chance for Kaepernick? S.C. Hate Crime Bill, FDA's Menthol Ban, Endemic v.Pandemic, Sen.Kaine

Episode Date: April 29, 2022

4.28.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: 2nd chance for Kaepernick? S.C. Hate Crime Bill, FDA's Menthol Ban, Endemic v.Pandemic, Sen. Tim Kaine Raiders owner Mark Davis says he's open to signing Colin Kaepernick. There are just a few days remaining for South Carolina's hate crime bill to pass. The bill is named after State Senator Clementa Pinckney, who was gunned down with eight other black church members during a Bible study session by a white supremacist in 2015.  A South Carolina State representative will tell us why some republicans are opposing the bill. Dr. Anothy Fauci says we are out of the pandemic phase, but Covid is still not over.  We'll talk to a geneticist who will explain what it means to be in an endemic versus a pandemic phase of Covid. The FDA is cracking down on the use of menthol flavoring in tobacco products to help decrease youth experimentation and addiction.  We have the Association of Black Cardiologists spokesperson who will explain why the FDA's proposal will help prevent tobacco companies from targeting our black youths. In today's Where's Our Money segment, I spoke to Sen. Tim Kaine about his joint effort with Senators Cory Booker and Joyce Beatty to keep more money in our pockets by increasing asset management diversity in retirement accounts. After spending decades in prison, a black man in Florida is free.  His only crime?  Having the same name as the actual perpetrator. 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. The boys of Black America rollin'. I love y'all. All the momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scape. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Thank you. Să ne urmăm. Să ne urmăm în următoarea mea rețetă. សូវបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា� Thank you. Today is Thursday, April 28, 2022. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered,

broadcasting live from Los Angeles, right here on the Black Star Network. Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis says he will welcome Colin Kaepernick with open arms if his general manager and coaches want him on the team. We'll talk about a glimmer of hope of Colin Kaepernick returning to the National Football League. Also, there are just a few days remaining in South Carolina's

hate crimes bill to pass. The bill is named after the state senator Clementa Pickney, one of the folks who was killed during the massacre at Mother Emanuel. We'll talk with the South Carolina representative about why is it taking so long to pass it in that particular state. Also, Dr. Anthony Fauci says that we are out of the emergency pandemic phase,

but COVID is still not over. We'll talk to a geneticist who will explain what it means to be in an endemic versus a pandemic phase of COVID. Also on today's show, the FDA is cracking down on menthol cigarettes and cigars. We'll tell you what is coming up. And in today's Where's Our Money segment,

we'll talk with Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia about how they are trying to get these asset management companies to be more transparent when it comes to who these asset management companies to be more transparent when it comes to who is controlling these companies. After spending decades in prison, a black man in Florida is free. His only crime?

Having the same last name as the actual perpetrator. Folks, it's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin on Pilchard, live from Los Angeles. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's Roland.

Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. Yeah. Yeah. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. to news to politics with entertainment just for kicks he's rolling it's uncle ro-royal it's rolling martin yeah rolling with rolling now he's broke he's fresh he's real The best you know, he's rolling Martin Martin Why are Republicans

in the South Carolina legislature holding up a state hate crimes law? That's the question many constituents and black lawmakers are in the South Carolina legislature holding up a state hate crimes law. That's the question many constituents and black lawmakers are asking. They say it is time for South Carolina to move on this particular bill. Now, backers of the bill have turned to one of the survivors of one of the most heinous racist shooting attacks in American history. You might recall the number of people who were killed at Mother Emanuel and Dylann Roof, a white supremacist, shot and killed them during a Bible study session. On Wednesday, Senators

heard and watched a two-minute video of Polly Shepard pleading for them to pass the Clementa C. Pinckney Hate Crimes Act. Hello, my name is Polly Shepherd, and I am a survivor of the Mother Emanuel Massacre. On June 17, 2015, I look into the eyes of hate, and Dylann Roof told me to my face that he would let me live so I could tell the story. So I'm telling you the story now, that Haight killed your colleague

and my former pastor, Reverend Clemente Pinkney. So I'm telling you now that Haight murdered nine members of my church. Haight intentionally selected Mother Emanuel because it is a black church. Haight shocked the nation, and now eight members of South Carolina Senate are given a safe haven to hate.

Every time you look at Senator Pinkney's photograph, you should be reminded that hate killed him. He was one of your colleagues, and hate murdered him. If we had hate crimes in all of South Carolina in 2015, our state should have charged Jalen Roof for killing the Emmanuel Nine. We should be able to prosecute hate crimes without relying on the federal government. So today, I sadly ask my Senators Brian Adams and Larry Grooms, who represent me in Berkeley County, and Senators Cash, Clymer, Garrett, and Loftus, and Rice. Why are you holding up this bill? What is wrong with protecting us from hate crimes?

Please remove your ejections so this bill can pass today. As a survivor of an infamous crime, I ask the South Carolina Senate to pass a hate crimes bill today. The time has come to do right because it is right. Thank you. All right, folks, joining us right now on Roller Martin Unfiltered is South Carolina State Representative John Moore and State Senator Margie Bright-Matthews, who took the place of Senator Pinckney. Glad to have both of you here. Representative Moore, I don't understand.

Here's one of their own who was gunned down. It's clear. And let's remember, you got Nikki Haley running around claiming credit for bringing down the Confederate flag. That was even difficult in the face of nine folks being gunned down. What the hell is up with Republicans in your state? Roland, thank you for having me. It's actually J.A. Moore. I'm sorry.

My bad. That's all good, brother. But I don't know what's wrong with him. I spoke with my senator, Brian Adams, on today and yesterday, pleading with him to do the right thing for righteousness in the state. And unfortunately, we're a state for too long that have been at the back end of a lot of important issues. My sister was murdered in Mother Emanuel. She was teaching Bible study that night. They know that. They don't care. So it's just important that we hold them accountable.

Brian came to me and said, why did you call me out in a press conference the other day? I said, because you're wrong on this issue. You do the right thing, and I'll praise you on the issue, but right now, you're wrong on an issue, and he has to do better. Look, I mean, it makes no sense to me, again, that we're sitting here, you know, dealing with this particular issue. It makes no sense at all. Senator Bright-Matthews, you know, what is it going to take? First of all, what's the holdup? Why are they standing in the way? Hate. Simply hate. They're standing in the way because there's a, to me, a mandate to do everything to not pass hate crimes. I brought it to the Senate floor.

By the way, thank you for having me here. I am the senator that replaced my dear friend, Senator Clemente Pinckney. And this should be a no-brainer as I see it. The reason why they're standing in the way is I think there's a new atmosphere, political atmosphere in this country today. It seems that ever since the Donald Trump era, they have decided that they're going to pursue his mandate and his mission, and they're standing in the way of it. Need I remind you that several years ago, one of their own colleagues who used to be a solicitor filed the same exact bill and it didn't go through the House. But yet now they're standing in the way of the two-crime bill. Keep going. Keep going.

So you believe, Senator Brett Matthews, that the problem here is that you have Republicans who, frankly, they don't necessarily believe in hate crimes laws. Well, we have the new, far-crazy, right-wing Republicans that are more like the Marjorie Taylor Greene's. And those are the ones that have filed

to stop this hate crimes bill from even being discussed on the Senate floor. They've objected to it. And until the leadership says we're going to even though you've objected, we're going to bring it to the floor. We don't have a chance. Senator Shane Massey is the leader of the Republican Party. And he vehemently says they don't have an appetite, was what we were told. They don't have an appetite to bring this bill to the floor to be argued. Wow. So walk us through this.

Has it passed the House? Is Biggie Hill up in the Senate? Has it not moved into either chamber Has it passed the House? Has it been held in the Senate? Has it not moved into either chamber? It passed the House. It came over to the Senate. And then the Senate overwhelmingly passed it out of judiciary. And as soon as it hit the Senate floor, those same radical right Republicans,

they immediately objected to the bill. And it has been held up for months since then. Wow. So, Representative Moore, what more are y'all doing? Are you organizing folks to come to the state capitol? Are there white constituents in these folks' districts who believe this bill should become law? Definitely. I mean, we're doing all of the above. We're, you know, there's going to be a lot of phone calls made over the weekend to those eight senators. I will be definitely

making personal phone calls to both Bryan Adams and Larry Grooms. And again, Bryan is my state senator. It's appalling to me. And one of the reasons that Bryan gave me for not passing this legislation, he feels that, or the reason he gave, is that it's going to negatively affect African Americans and minorities and poor folks if this bill passes, which is just not true. It's just another way to not do the right thing. But we're going to hold them accountable. You know, they're trying to tire us out and do all of these crazy tactics, but we're in no way tired. You know, Roland, and Senator Brett Matthews knows as well that we're strong fighting people in the state of South Carolina across this country. So we're asking all of our constituencies,

not just here in South Carolina, but across this country to make their voices heard. We have to do it. We can't be the last state in this union after my sister and eight other souls were murdered because of hate. It's just ridiculous for me. I just cannot believe it disgusts me. But we're going to fight like hell to make sure we change it. Well, look, please keep us abreast of what happens there. So much certainly needs to be done. And, yeah, you're absolutely right, Senator Bright, Senator Brett Matthews. We're seeing this all across

the country, how Republicans are leading, how they are choosing to, frankly, not give a damn about civil rights and things along those lines. This is what this party is all about today. That's right. All right.

I want to thank both of you. Keep up the good fight. Thank you very much. Thanks, Roland. Bye-bye. Thank you very much. I want to bring in my panel right now, of course, to join us for today's conversation. First and foremost, Dr. Larry Walker, Assistant Professor, University of Central Florida,

Racy Colbert, Black Women Views. Dr. Greg Carr, Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. Glad to have all three of you here. Look, Larry, you're dealing with this in Florida, where you have these Republicans who do what they do. And you are seeing an emboldened white supremacist vision in the Republican Party that was there as a result of Donald Trump being president. And so that's what we're seeing right now. We're seeing how they lead.

And I keep telling people what these people want to do if they are in power has nothing to do with respecting the rights of African-Americans. No, it doesn't, Roland. And, you know, it is just what we're seeing since the beginning of the Trump administration in terms of issues related to race. It's a full-on attack in terms of issues that, you know, impact African-Americans. And, you know, it's great to hear that, you know, state leaders in the state are pushing back on this issue. But, you know, we're in this for the long haul. I mean, South Carolina's going to, they may end up being the

last to pass a, you know, a hate crime bill at the state level, the way things are going. And those eight, you know, senators that are opposing the bill, it sounds like from the state rep that the rationale makes no absolute sense. And it doesn't make any sense, whatever the rationale may be, you know, whatever they believe. The bottom line is that this should pass. Earlier, this is one of their colleagues. So it is unconscionable to think that they would not want to pass this bill. But once again, this is consistent with what we've seen, and particularly the last, you know, year and a half, two years, in terms of the major pushback on anything that relates to race issues.

And then also, Roland, it seems like everyone's, every issue is being tied together, right? So, you know, I wouldn't be surprised to see that some of these, some of the one of any of the eight are suggesting this is somehow connected to CRT, because this is kind of how the craziness we're hearing, like you said, not only in South Carolina, but the state of Florida in terms of issues relating to race. But the bottom line is, they have a reason. It is part of this, once again, this kind of right-wing pushback on any progressive move they've seen over the last year and a half, two years, specifically as relates to police reform, et cetera. But I'm hopeful that this is because of the political pressure they pass, the pass of

legislation. But I don't believe these senators will step aside. I think they're going to make sure it doesn't pass. Folks, here is Senator Matthews speaking on the floor of the South Carolina Senate, holding her colleagues to task, saying, what the hell are y'all doing? It's literally named, the bill is named after one of our slain colleagues. Watch this. I was trying to find the appropriate time. On Monday, I had an interesting conversation with one of my constituents in Charleston.

And a lot of you know her. Her name is Anita Zucker. She is a proud South Carolinian, and she was telling me a lot of things, even that her parents had their home still in Ukraine, and how concerned she was for her state that she tries to give so much to and where we have come. And we talked about what had gone on in Charleston years ago with one of your own, the person who I succeeded, Clementa Pinckney. When I came to the Senate, I came behind him and I had big shoes to fill. And I wasn't sure what I was going to say this morning because I've tried following what the creed of the Senate is. We have a hate crimes bill. And I know a lot of you don't want to hear about this, but I came to the Senate with the understanding that we were a deliberative body.

That means we're to talk out our differences and try to find common ground. So it was interesting to me that even though one of your senators left this body after making comments on the floor about gun rights, and he ended up being murdered in his church along with his parishioners. That is one of the nation's most atrocious hate crimes that have been committed. But the irony is this body refuses to even deliberate. The leadership has made a statement that this is not important, that Clemente Pinckney's death is in vain, and that the rest of us, when we stand up, we can be persecuted for representing our constituents. So the leadership in my caucus said, well, let's take all of the people listed in your book, let's take all of the

people that have objected to this hate crimes bill, and you go around and talk to them. What's interesting is the hate crimes bill in our book is the most contested bill before us. Recy, I have made clear that these racist folk in South Carolina

don't give a damn if Clementa Pinckney was killed. They are going to advance their white supremacist agenda. They do not believe in civil rights. They don't care about hate crimes. They do not care about Black people. At all. I mean, we're using words like colleague, peers. You're none of those things to white supremacists.

You're not even a human being. So, we're already starting off wrong by not acknowledging the fact that to these white supremacists, you're not even a person. So no, your death means nothing. Yes, your death is in vain if your expectation is that white supremacists

are going to stop being racist as fuck. They're demonic, degenerate pieces of shit. This is par for the course. And Black folks, as much as I respect the advocacy, as much as I expect the work that's being done to push this hate crimes bill past, the way that you stop hate crimes

is not going to be through legislation. It's going to be through consequences. That's how you're going to stop it. So we cannot appeal to white supremacists to see the humanity, to see the dignity in black people in our existence and our right to actually live freely without being terrorized by racists. We cannot shame them. They don't give a damn. They're happy. You have white supremacists on chat boards bragging about the fact that South Carolina is one of the states that does not have hate crimes bills.

So this is an invitation to their brethren and their sistren to go about business as usual. So the question is, black folks, what are we going to do in response when we are met with the kind of violence that the Emanuel Nine were met with. And I'm not even talking about violence per se. I'm just saying what we cannot do is think that they're going to look at us any differently, regardless of how brutal, regardless of how unnecessary these attacks are, because it's part of their agenda and fulfilling their agenda to keep us underneath their thumbs.

You know, and Greg, again, I have been making this point when I've been talking about white fear. I'm like, guys, look what you are seeing. It was the Donald Trump had emboldened these biggest. They were already making these moves. But with him, oh, absolutely, there was a viewpoint that we can keep doing whatever the hell that we are doing and does not matter what any of y'all think.

And these people in South Carolina, they are doing, and let me say this right now, to all you white Republicans who love saying it was the Democrats who created the KKK, it was the say this right now, to all you white Republicans who love saying it was the Democrats who created the KKK, it was the Democrats who were against slavery, the Republican Party of

2022 ain't close to the radical Republicans of 1822 or 1862. The Republican Party of 2022 is the same as the Southern racist Dixiecrats in 1862. Yes, sir. And I can only echo what Dr. Walker has said and what Recy has said. We have to understand our enemy. One of the most, in fact, the by far most

moving debate I've ever seen in a legislature in the United States was the debate in 2015 over taking down a Confederate flag. I would encourage folks, if you want to see some candid conversation, candid debate, look at the California, I'm sorry, look at the South Carolina House of Representatives in 2015. Nikki Haley, of course, deserves no credit, and she will get no credit. But the one thing I love about the South Carolina legislature, and you're right, Reese, it was very polite in that clip we saw, is that you often see black people saying the whole thing with their chest. And in the words of our frat brother, Roland Freddie Haynes, who preached Jeremiah Wright's retirement sermon at Howard last Sunday, he got up and said, you know, you should say things with your chest.

And these bird-chested punks in the white Nationalist Party of South Carolina, Shane Massey, the leader of the floor there, and Josh Kimbrell, a real loud little punk. And by the way, the South Carolina legislature is up for election every two years. This former Christian talk show host, one of the concerns they have with the bill is they say it may suppress free speech. The First Amendment is how these white nationalists are really attacking now. And of course, they mean the Christianity of the Klan. They're also against LBGTQ rights. That's their stated reasons. But most of them have fallen silent. They won't say it with their bird chests. And when we see that it passed the House in South Carolina, 71 to 28, we have to remember that the South Carolina House of Representatives, it has an 81 to 43 advantage for the white

nationalists. That means everybody didn't vote. On the House side, they knew that their white nationalist colleagues would stop it. There's only 46 members of the South Carolina State Senate. Thirty of them are white nationalist party. Eight of them have decided they're going to stand against it. So what does that tell us? That means that two-thirds of the white nationalists in the state Senate are voting for it.

And guess who else is for it? I read somewhere the sheriff of Richland County in South Carolina said, I wish I had this enhancement, because we were chasing these white boys who were texting each other and said, let's go kill some Mexicans. And they set up 17 robberies over the better part of a month. The Chamber of Commerce in South Carolina supports it. They said, this is going to be bad for business. But these white nastas know

we can vote for it because we know we have a fail safe in the Senate. What happens in South Carolina is a microcosm for what happens in this country. These people cannot be negotiated with. You're speaking a language they don't understand. Speak like Clementa Pinckney spoke

on the floor of the legislature when he was alive. Speak like some of those South Carolina legislators speak when they get ready to really say it with their chest. Roll over these white nationalists. And if you're not going to vote for us, fine. Break their backs politically. They're up for election every two years. Which is

why, for me, those Republicans, if you say you support it, go on that floor and call out your colleagues. That's right. See, that's the whole deal. See, I don't want to, yeah, damn polite.

My deal is, stand on that floor and look your Republican colleagues in the eye. And when you have your Republican conference, you challenge them in the Republican conference as well and. Look, at least Mitt Romney and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski had the guts to say they were going to vote for Judge Katonji Brown Jackson and calling her a qualified. At least you actually had that. But this is what happens when you have people who are unwilling to challenge their own. And that's what I've always said about black Republicans as well. And I'll say it here to all of these black Republicans all across the country. When are you going to have the guts to challenge these eight Republicans? Where are you Senator Tim Scott? Where are you Senator

Lindsey Graham? Are you going to chastise these eight Republicans and say you, you, you are an abomination for not standing and voting for this particular bill. Oh, yeah, and Senator Tim Scott, it's the reelection year for you as well. Show some guts and stand with the black people in your state and call these Republicans out. But I don't think they are willing to have that level of guts, Larry, Reese, and Greg. No, they won't. Hell no.

And why shouldn't they? Yeah, but listen, black folks are catching hell. And we have been, see, 401 years. But you're right, it is uncomfortable that Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott won't speak up on this issue. But they will speak up on any other issue relating to CRT in a moment, right? But we

gotta start holding folks' feet to the fire on this issue. And I was, like I said, I was glad when the two guests you had on, I'm glad that they were talking about calling and rallying folks. And then, Roland, maybe they can invite you down when they have some of these rallies so we can get more Black folks in South Carolina focused on this issue and hold these folks' feet to the fire and get this bill passed. I mean, who going to check them mean, who gonna check them? Who gonna check them? They keep getting reelected,

being racist and shit. They're doing what they need to do to keep their voters. And on the other side, even though Black folks have the numbers, now they've gerrymandered the hell out of all these things. And so there is that element of it. But we have to play, you know, 10-dimensional chess. Instead of only just focusing

on the one issue and the one race, we got to be thinking about how you get a governor in there that will veto these gerrymandered racist maps. You got to think about voting in every two years. You have to think about exercising some pressure on that. If you're in a Republican district and you can't ever get a Democrat elected, go ahead and influence the Republican primary and maybe try to get some of these Republicans in there that are going to actually stand up against that. That's a fraud. That's a bad chance in hell. But what I'm saying is we don't make them pay any political consequences and we allow Republicans in particular, and this isn't just in South Carolina, it's also at the federal level, to hide behind procedure and block debate and not take the

votes. And then we all move on to the next story. There has to start being some political consequences instead of these intra-party fights that we're fighting against the people that aren't even against us even being human beings. That's right. That's right. And Risi, to echo your point, the legislatures have been severely gerrymandered. As we know, South Carolina, which has a plurality, and if they counted everybody, I suspect maybe close to a majority of Black people in the state of South Carolina, the white nationalists hold a 30 to 16 advantage in the state Senate. That of course is gerrymandering. But there is a governor in South Carolina, as are in the rest of the states. That's why these gubernatorial elections are so important. You can block some

of these fools just at the governor's level. South Carolina is one of only two states that hasn't passed the hate crime enhancement bill. The other is Wyoming. Of course, Wyoming is where Matthew Shepard was attacked, the LBGTQ guy who got killed, and they won't pass one either. South Carolina, you know, it was the first state to secede from the union. It is often a bellwether for national politics in this country. And what we see here is the white nationalist attack line now involves bringing LBGTQIA issues in, hoping to peel away some folks who are not white nationalists, as if there is some consensus or some solidarity. Black folk don't go for the banana in the tailpipe. These white nationalists are worried

about elections and control. And if we don't understand that, as you just said, Recy, we won't understand anything else about how to wield political power in this country. They are not going to change their votes. Their lives depend on it, or so they think. Even when other white folks, chamber of commerce, law enforcement, are saying, what are you doing? They're saying, we're protecting whiteness

from everyone. And that is at the root of the Ku Klux Klan. When they say Christianity, they mean the Klan. These are Klansmen. Klansmen in suits. Well, it is always interesting as I think back to the election when all of these people, Reesey, were throwing out all this BS.

Trump platinum plan. He promised Black America $500 billion. I'm like, do you dumbasses even know that was the total number of contracts the federal government give? And that's why they were all sitting here. And I still got these people, you sitting here, rolling you dog ice cube. First of all, I didn't dog ice cube. I was actually trying to just let them know that, bruh, that plan was not real. And then don't come to me with the so-called platinum plan

thinking that you were going to somehow appeal to black people. Now, again, the Republican Party today, and I'm going to say this over and over and over again, whether we talk in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, Arizona, Idaho, Nebraska. We could go on and on and on. These folks are advancing a white nationalist agenda, period. They don't mind a few token black people standing with them saying, oh, I have conservative values.

This Republican Party ain't even the Republican Party of Senator Senator Edward Brooke. This ain't the Republican Party of Clifford Alexander. It's not the Republican Party of Coleman. This ain't even close to that Republican Party. So don't get it twisted. That does not mean that black folks don't challenge and press Democrats. See, I love these people who say, man, you don't sit here and press Democrats. Really? Ask Pelosi. Ask Biden. Ask him when it comes to contracts. Ask the DNC. Ask the DGA. Ask the DSCC. Ask the DCCC.

Ask Emily's List. Ask American Priorities PAC. That's about the most silly shit. But what I do know, I do know if there's somebody who don't care if my children get educated. I do know if there's somebody who don't give a damn if we get contracts. I do know if there's somebody who don't give a damn if we get contracts. I do know if there's somebody who don't give a damn if we get beat by cops. I'm sure as hell not going to be falling in line for them and want to see them in power. Not going to happen.

And can I just say that? Yeah, and here's the thing, too. You know, it goes back to what Dr. Carr was saying, the banana in the tailpipe. What you have to hand it to Republicans at is they're good at messaging, and their messaging is often misdirection. Because we're not talking about hypothetical assaults on Black people from the Republican Party. This is actually enshrined into law with Ron DeSantis, for instance, going after Black people with laser precision and wiping away to Black districts. And he dares anybody to do a damn thing about it. If you want to talk about Trump, he paraded Black people, the two or three Black people that he granted clemency to. And they were at every convention, everything, front row, center,

look, Blackies, this is what I've given you. And yet you have Biden, who just commuted 75 sentences and pardoned three people. I couldn't even, I wrote an article about it, couldn't find a picture of anybody to even include in the article. And so you got to tip your hat to Republicans because they win the messaging war. And when we're in a society that's chasing memes, chasing clickbait, chasing instant information, whether it's accurate or not, that wins. And so the message to the Democrats is you got to tout your wins and not in a way that's a 15-page fact sheet. You got to get out there and be visual and be vocal and be disciplined and be relentless. Otherwise, we're heading for a beating to the white nationalist party, and that's curtains for all of us. Indeed, indeed, indeed. All right, folks.

Some of you are sending me tweets saying that the app is not showing today's show. I'm on it. We're going to be looking into that to figure out what's going on with the app, why it's not showing in the top of the screen. And so we'll do that. figure out what's going on with the app, why it's not showing in the top of the screen. And so we'll do that. Folks, if you're on Facebook and YouTube, be sure to hit that like button, that share button. We should easily be hitting a thousand likes in the first 30 to 45 minutes of the show, first hour of the show. So let's get it going. Going to a break. We come back more on today's show. Also, if you want to support us in what we do, download the Blackstar Network app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV,

Android TV, Samsung TV, Xbox, Amazon Fire, also Roku. If you want to join the Bring the Funk fan club, every dollar you give goes to support this show. Please do so. Cash App, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal is RMartin Unfiltered, Venmo is RM Unfiltered,

Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. Roland at rolandmartinunfiltered.com. P.O. Box. Send check and money orders to P.O. Box 57196. Washington, D.C. 20037 dash 0196. I'll be right back. When I first went to L.A., me and Joe lived together, right?

And that was a big blessing because I didn't have to worry about paying rent. I was just struggling, doing my thing, and that was a big, big help. And I think when I moved out, I think that's when I saw the division because I think Joe felt like I didn't need him anymore. And it wasn't that. It was like, I'm a grown-ass man. Two grown-ass men. But actually, that is true. You don't need me anymore. When you grow up, first of all, when you grow up, it's like, I'm a grown-ass man. Two grown-ass men. But actually, that is true. You don't need me.

Right. When you grow up, first of all, when you grow up, it's like, hey, you help. And this time, you get your ass out of the house and go do your own thing. Right. He didn't want me to move out. But I'm like, you know what? At the time when I moved out. I mean, what?

Were you paying the light bill? I wasn't paying anything. And I said, you know what? I need this responsibility. It's going to make me work harder in my career if I know I got rent to pay, I got bills to pay. I was paying a cell phone bill. That was it.

But Joe was treating me like a little butler. So I'm telling you, I was like Benson. I'm telling you, man. Please fetch me some water. He was using Jedi mind tricks. Yo, man, you still make them good grilled cheese sandwiches you made when you was little? No, you don't.

Next thing you know, I'm at the stove. Flippin'. And then the donut makes. Yeah, it is tripping. Trick me again. Got me again. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, financial literacy. Without it, wealth is just a pipe dream. And yet, half of our schools in this country don't even teach it to our kids.

You're going to hear from a woman who's determined to change all that, not only here, but around the world. World of Money is the leading provider of immersive financial education for children ages 7 to 18. We provide 120 online and classroom hours of financial education. That's right here on Get Wealthy on Blackstar Network. This week on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. Reparations. Is it finally time? Two of the country's foremost authorities on the subject

will join me to try to answer that very question. A powerful installment of The Black Table with me, Greg Carr, right here, only on The Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Israel Houghton with Israel and New Breed. What's up, what's up? I'm Dr. Ricky Dillard, the choir master. Hey, yo, peace world. What's going on?

It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devon, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, fam, could Colin Kaepernick be getting a second chance in the NFL? Mark Davis, the owner of the Los Angeles Raiders, actually spoke on this issue. And let's show what he actually said, folks. Let me pull the graphic up. Let's pull that out.

He had – I'm sorry, I just wrote the video? Fine. Let's go ahead and roll the video. Colin Kaepernick, you have been on record saying that you would be open to him becoming a Raider if the coaching staff felt that he was able to contribute to this team. Where do you stand that Colin is going around basically trying

to show people that he can still play football? Listen, I believe in Colin Kaepernick and he deserves every chance in the world to become a quarterback in the national football league. I still stand by it.

If our coaches and general managers want to bring him in or want him to be the quarterback on this team, I would welcome him with open arms. I think colin is a very misunderstood human being. I've gotten a chance to talk to him. I never really knew colin. I didn't understand him and

understand the kneeling, what that meant initially. Over time I have learned a little bit more about it. I understand where he was coming from. He's got a message in his heart that he's going to be a great thing. I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing.

I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing. I think it's a great thing.

I think it's a great thing., but there's a lot of problems left back in America that we got to fix. And I think in the same vein, Colin Kaepernick has sacrificed a lot of the things that he could have been doing in his life and to get a message across about police violence and equity and inclusion in America. And I stand by that. I have two minutes to go on this show, and I have to ask you this one more question. And I ask it because, again, I know what the Raiders stand for. I know what you stand for. But what can the NFL do as a league to operate more, to add more diversity and be more inclusive? What can they do to be more like, I guess, the Raiders and the Aces? Well, let me say this. I don't know what the league can do as a whole.

I really don't because it's a bunch of individuals. There's 32 individuals that own the teams. And then there's a number of people that are in front offices in the teams. But what the Raiders are doing, what I'm doing right now is we're building a 80,000 square foot warehouse next door to us right now, next door to the Raiders. We're turning that into a basketball offices and practice facility for the Aces so that they'll have a world-class facility to work out of. But we're also building the Al. We're building the aces so they will have a world-class facility

to work out of. But we're also building the al davis Eddie Robinson leadership academy. And that is a thing that grew out of the national football league's diversity program where they wanted each team to spend

$5 million over the next 10 years on diversity and inclusion. And what we decided to do was instead of just giving money to some type of organization or whatever, that we would build a grassroots academy that will be able to teach, bring in coaches that are on the verge of getting head coaching jobs and teach them the things that they need to know to get over the last hump. Somebody like Eric Biennemi, somebody like some of the other guys that have been interviewing for a number of years

but haven't gotten the jobs. This, we believe, will be able to get them over the hump. Question here, Greg Carr. Do you believe that this is the door opening? Now, you heard David say, if our general manager and our head coaches agree, this is a team that re-signed Derek Carr as their starting quarterback. Their backup quarterback

actually Mariotta with another team as well. Could this also lead to other owners coming out? This is the first time we've actually had an NFL owner speak on the record to the issue

of possibly signing Colin Kaepernick. Absolutely. Of course, it's Mark Davis as in the Davis family. So some of that could just be making noise and it's startling when you think about the pay-to-spirit. If he was more like his daddy,

his daddy would have signed Colin five years ago. Well, see, and there's the... Man, Roland, brother, there's the complicated legacy of the Davis family. Because when I see... Anytime I see the name Raiders, I want to try to see states. So the name I think of is the man they call the Lord's Prayer,

who could throw equally well with the right or left hand. And that is the great Eldridge Dickey, who, when Mark Davis was 13 years old, his daddy drafted him as a quarterback for the Oakland Raiders. But here's the problem. He knew Hank Stram and them boys out of Kansas City wanted Dickey, and they were going to make him the starter. Al Davis shitted on Eldridge Dickey. Eventually, it drove Dickey. He didn't give Dickey a legitimate chance to play. Dickie was the best quarterback by far. Ironically now, his son going to name a

facility with Eddie Robinson's name because we know Shaq Harris. Shaq Harris was drafted by the Chargers. But Davis never gave Dickie a fair shot. And in many ways that led to a life of addiction and so forth. So when I see the son say this, I'm saying that's good business for sure. You're a WNBA owner, so you should also be speaking up,

you know, though she didn't play for your team. One of the reasons she was overseas in the first place because the WNBA didn't pay its players, and that would be Brittney Griner. You need to say something about Brittney Griner. So when I see Davis, I automatically have a grain of salt because he's an astute businessman. How do you know what not, the kneeling wasn't about

when your daddy drafted one of the first black quarterbacks in the history of the AFL or the NFL? Finally, this. Colin Kaepernick, brother, I know you wanna play. But I swear, if these white boys were smart, they would have put you back in the league years ago and set you on the bench. You should just retire, man,

and continue this social justice campaign. Because Davis is now sniffing around the answer to how you might be able to mute some of this black movement that you have become the face of. Sign you and put you on the bench. It's not that difficult to understand. But it's been interesting, though, because it's been interesting, Larry, because in the last few months, Colin Kaepernick has done more talking in the past three months than he's done in the past five years. We saw him participate in the University of Michigan Spring game. His former coach, Jim Harbaugh, oversaw that, where college scouts were present. In addition, Spike Lee is shooting a documentary on Colin Kaepernick,

and his cameras were there as well. Colin Kaepernick went on a podcast of former athletes and did an interview talking about how he wanted a shot. He did interviews after this. I'll tell y'all, this was a question that Spike Lee asked me and one of my criticisms, and it is legitimate, and I did specifically suggest this to Colin as well as his girlfriend Nessa. I said, you can't go silent. You got to talk. You got to share. And so all of a sudden, he's gone on an offensive to try to get back in the NFL, where I felt he should. And again,

you know, I was told that, look, that's not Colin. He's a quiet guy, whatever. I said, yeah, but when it's your issue, you can't expect everybody else out there fighting it if you're not also speaking and leading. Now, all of a sudden, it seems that he has changed his posture and it's a lot more open. In fact, I'm going to send him a text message in a minute and say, hey, when are you going to come and talk to us in black media? Come, let's talk about what you are trying to do to get back into the NFL, Larry.

So, you know, Roland, I'm a big sports fan, being from Philadelphia. So, listen, I see it when I believe it. So, yeah, Al Davis gave, you know, our forever art shell, made him, you know, give him the opportunity to be the first black coach in the NFL. I mean, I remember vividly, but I'm not I'm not I'm not buying what Davis is selling. I'm not because he had an he had an opportunity to make it clear to his GM. And they've had a shift in changing and leadership over the last year in terms of GM and coach. He could have made that explicitly clear that you need to create a black black coach pipeline organization.

You don't have to. He doesn't have to do anything separate. You own the team. Just create the initiative there. So when he's saying he's creating an additional program, it doesn't smell right to me. It just doesn't make any sense. And he's right.

Look, the 32 owners, and we know Goodell's talked about in the last several years in terms about diversity, and we know now they're being sued. So he's also playing politics in the NFL drafts tonight. So he has to say there has to be some kind of counter-narrative in terms of what they're doing diversity-wise. And I'm quite sure there's a press release, I mean a release, some kind of memo went around the last couple weeks to say to focus on some initiative, diversity-related initiatives that you have going. But the bottom line is he can create a pipeline right at the Raiders. They just had a GM and coach transition. Who did they bring in terms of who they brought in?

So he doesn't have to talk about doing something outside of, you know, just creating this new initiative. And like I say, he should name the program the Art Shell. But he needs to do more in some of the rhetoric. And like I said, you know, his dad is, you know, on the team for years and had been known to be a little bit more progressive on some issues. But once again, if Davis is really serious about this, then he'll hire a black coaching GM for the Raiders. You don't have to do anything extra. But like I said, I'm not buying it.

We'll see what happens. But overall, like I said, I think this is due more with the lawsuit that's pending right now than has anything to do with the diversity and equity and inclusion efforts of the NFL or any teams. Well, his lawsuit, that was settled with the NFL

recently. Colin Kaepernick will be 35 years old in November. Really, the prime of his career the last five, six years has been gone. We see that he can still play. And let's also be honest, it's a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL who suck. So it's not like this is a talent issue. This is literally white owners saying, no, we ain't hiring his ass.

That's right. Period. You know, don't talk about it, be about it. So what this is is they're getting on script. There's no different to me than taser, taser, taser. You see how they get on script? You see how they know how to say the words to set the pretext for the defense? And it's another case of hiding behind procedure.

Well, we got to evaluate this and look at this and have this pipeline and whatever else situation may be. You have the power. But see, they play dumb like they don't have the power. They play dumb like somebody else is calling the shots. Well, if everybody else is calling the shots, why doesn't he have a shot by now? The time for Colin Kaepernick to get that shot probably was at the height of the racial reckoning. So I don't see it happening for him, but I'm going to always root for him. This seems to be

what he wants and what he's going to be adamant about. So I definitely don't have no hate to that. But if they wanted to make it happen, they could. They ain't got to just talk about it. And Roland, can I ask something? Yeah, go ahead. I was going to say, listen, let's be clear. There are a lot

of journeyman quarterbacks, second, third string guys. I mean, Reese is right. I mean, there was an opportunity when they could have brought Kaepernick in a few years ago. The bottom line is they're never going to give him a shot, in my opinion. And so, like I said, they could have brought him in at any point. I mean, every year there are major injuries to teams, and sometimes teams lose two quarterbacks. So there's been plenty of opportunities the last couple of years to bring him in and give an opportunity. But then for me, I just the plain word is a word play. They're

playing games and unfortunately, I don't think happening because whenever get an opportunity, but he deserved it. Roland can I ask you a quick question brother? Just this is just for you because you used to you know how these things work. Let's say the Raiders sang happening. Let's say like you say doc. Let's say Larry. Let's say the Raiders sign Kaepernick. Let's say, like you say, Doc, let's say Larry, let's say they sign him this week. What does that do for the Vegas Raiders brand and franchise in your mind? If they were to do that. Oh, oh, first of all, it is going to rekindle the view that of all NFL franchises,

forget Jerry Jones and the Cowboys, that's a lie, there's only one true renegade NFL team. In the history of the NFL, there's only been one franchise that literally has had a all-y'all-can-kiss-my-ass attitude. Because that was Al Davis. But remember, Al Davis was one of the original owners of the AFL. Then he had the merger. So Al Davis loved to tweak the NFL.

He loved to tweak the other owners. He loved to sue them. This is sort of some of that. You're absolutely right, Greg. The history of Al Davis, it is very difficult. I actually got a chance to meet Al Davis twice, but one time, the first time was when in Los Angeles restaurant, he asked me what high school I went to. I told him, he immediately began to name the black football players that he recruited out of Houston,

out of Worthing, out of Yates, out of the schools in Beaumont. Cliff Branch, of course, was one of those players that was a product of the Houston public schools. He also was the one who benched Marcus Allen, told the coaches don't play him, damned him for five years. But then he also hired Art Shell as the first black head football coach

in modern NFL history. And so it is a complicated history. Here's what will happen. If you think the Raiders merchandise is hot right now. Wow. Folks, listen to me. Already, Colin Kaepernick was number one in merchandising when it came to his jerseys in the NFL. Trust me, the Raiders would be the talk of the NFL.

The Raiders would sell more number seven jerseys. Not quite sure what Derek Carr's number is, if Colin Kaepernick would have the number seven. But they would sell more jerseys. They would be the number one franchise. And here's the deal. You would see Las Vegas Raiders Colin Kaepernick gear all over the country. From a branding standpoint, it would be one smart move for those coaches to say,

look, and I said this at the recent point, but I could have said it a long time ago. This is all about the owners. They could have signed him as a practice squad player. All of these people who said, oh, he was demanding to be a starter, that's a lie. He wasn't. But the owners were like, no, hell no, it's not happening.

So it is, and again, I'm not, unless something happens, I'll be asking one thing. It's sort of like what I told General Motors. Putting what you want to do in a press release is one thing. I will judge you on the direct deposits that you make. I told Deborah Wall, the chief marketing officer, directly. I will judge you on the direct deposits you make, not what you put in a press release when it comes to black-owned media.

So the same thing will happen with the Raiders, but it is a chink in the armor to have an NFL owner come out and publicly say what they did. Now, now what's going to happen is this year, we now as fans get to see who plays quarterback for the Raiders. Who's the number two? Who's the number three? Do they suck? If they do, why y'all not bringing Kaepernick in?

So the fact that Davis is saying this on the eve of the NFL draft says a whole lot. And so it's something that we definitely will pay attention to. And if you're the Seattle Seahawks, where Pete Carroll was talking about, where they were close, y'all suck anyway. First of all, if they had any sense, if they literally had any sense, they would actually sign Colin Kaepernick to be one of their quarterbacks. And so we'll see what happens there as well. And, yeah, I did send Colin that text message,

and hopefully he'll hit me back as to whether or not. So, yeah, I literally just invited him to sit down for an interview here on Roller Mark and Unfiltered to talk about his desire to keep playing in the NFL. Last thing, I got to Las Vegas on Sunday for the National Association of Broadcasters. The day before, Colin Kaepernick had his Know Your Rights camp in Las Vegas. Some of y'all didn't know that. Now y'all do. All right, gotta go to a break. We come back. We're going to talk about COVID. What's endemic? What's the pandemic? Is it still a problem? What's going on? Another Anthony Fauci says we're moving out of the serious phase,

but he still ain't going to the White House Correspondents Dinner. I call it the White White White House Correspondents Dinner taking place on Saturday. He's like, that could be a super spread event. I don't know, about 3,000 people. He's like, yeah, I'm staying at the crib. Well, I'm staying at the crib

because it ain't no event for black folks. But anyway, we'll discuss that next with a cardiologist. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Again, Facebook, Facebook as well as YouTube. Hit the like button. We should get 1,000 likes by now. Please support us in what we do. By May 1st, y'all, a few days left, a few days.

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Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back. I'm Dr. Jackie, and on a next A Balanced Life, it takes a village to raise a child, and truer words have never been spoken. If you're raising a child, you know that it's a blessed challenge like no other, even more so if your child has a disability.

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We appreciate Patrol Grooming being a partner with us here at Roland Martin Unfiltered and the Black Star Network. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on the culture with me for rajin muhammad only on the black star network what's going on this is tobias trevillian hey i'm amber stevens west yo what up y'all this is jay ellis and you're watching roland martin unfiltered All right, folks, the Food and Drug Administration, they are about to make a major decision

when it comes to menthol cigarettes as well as cigars. That's right. The FDA is proposing a rule that will ban menthol in the production of cigarettes. Officials say this is necessary to help protect public health. Nearly 19 million people smoke menthol cigarettes. According to the FDA, most of them are minorities. Folks, in the black community, nearly 85% of all non-Hispanic black smokers use smoke menthol cigarettes compared to 30% of non-Hispanic white smokers. From 2011 to 2018, declines in menthol cigarette use were observed among non-Hispanic white youth,

but not among non-Hispanic black or Hispanic youth. Studies estimate that 324,000 to 654,000 smoking attributed deaths overall, and that that number would be avoided over the course of 40 years of that number. 92,000 to 238,000 would affect the black community. The CDC says overall smoking rates hit an all time low in 2018. However, smoking is still the top cause of preventable death. Dr. Carissa Baker-Smith, the spokesperson for the Association of Black Cardiologists, joins me now from Ellicott City, Maryland.

Glad to have you here, Dr. Smith. First and foremost, one of the things that is happening right now, there is an effort underway where you have some black civil rights organizations who disagree saying the FDA should be targeting things that white people smoke. Why are they targeting menthol for African-Americans? You have some people say also this could actually impact African-Americans when it comes to policing if people are selling menthol, cigarettes, things along those lines. And so it's been very interesting. I've even had folks reaching out to me trying to get on African-American lawyers and civil rights people arguing against the FDA ban.

In fact, I believe Reverend Al Sharpton even sent a letter to the Biden administration opposing this FDA action. OK, well, can you hear me okay? Yep, we're good. Perfect. So let me just first begin by saying thank you for allowing me to be on your show today. You know, smoking is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. So any argument about allowing its use in any form really has to be approached with some caution. You know, cigarette smoke is one of, and use of tobacco products is one of the most preventable causes of heart disease. And we know that, one, we're inappropriately targeting African Americans, I think, you know, we have to look at who's being affected and how do we

most or best reduce risk for use. So if a particular portion of the population is using menthol-containing products, and we know that tobacco use is associated with increased cardiovascular disease, for health equity purposes, it would make sense to reduce the availability of menthol-containing products. That's my first point. The second point is, you know, this proposal that's coming down from the FDA is not meant to, you know, in some way punish or go after members of the Black community. It does target producers and manufacturers and wholesale, those who are selling these products, but not the individual. What this is really meant to do is, look, we've all been teenagers. You don't know what you don't know. Being able to restrict those things that are harmful,

that could have a long-lasting impact on one's heart health, it makes sense. So, so just let's walk people through this so we can understand why are menthol cigarettes more addictive or dangerous than other types of tobacco products? So one of the arguments that's made about menthol-containing products is that the flavor is enticing. It's sort of refreshing. Or other flavors that are added to tobacco products.

And so that sort of entices children to use them more palatable. There have actually been studies to show that if you actually limited access to these flavored or menthol-containing tobacco products, you could actually reduce the number of individuals who go on to start smoking. So the flavor is enticing, and that tends to draw more children and adolescents into using these products. Is there any reason why African-Americans and Latinos prefer menthol cigarettes over others? You know, it's a good question, and I'm not exactly sure why. And I don't know that there are studies that really look at that. It's probably preference.

Overall, when you look at the percentage of the U.S. population who smokes, the majority are self-classified as non-Hispanic white. However, again, as you highlighted, those who use menthol-containing products tend to be non-Hispanic black. It just may be a taste preference. I'm not exactly sure, but there definitely is a difference. And I just want to bring to light, sort of if I could, just the bigger picture here. Cardiovascular disease, which is disease that affects your coronary arteries, it's what leads to heart attack, stroke, heart failure. These are largely preventable causes of death. So the heart healthy lifestyle of eating right, exercising, keeping your blood pressure, cholesterol, glucose, your blood sugars under control. But a part of that also is not using

tobacco products and not smoking. So if we can do those things, beginning in our adolescent population and our teenagers, we actually can reduce heart disease burden. And we know that African-Americans are disproportionately affected by cardiovascular disease burden. You know, think about family members, relatives, neighborhood members who have died of heart failure or heart attack. Some of that was preventable. And one of the causes of this preventable problem is smoking. Well, this is certainly going to be quite the contentious decision. We're going to keep covering this thing as well. And so we certainly appreciate you joining us, sharing your thoughts and perspective on this, Dr. Smith. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right. I'm going to go back to our panel here. I'm going to start with you, Recy. It's a very interesting argument. So I was texting Marc Morial, the CEO of the

National Urban League, and he said, you know, they support this FDA decision. But again, you have Reverend Alice Sharpton, who's written this letter to the Biden administration, disagreeing with this. There are other civil rights groups and others who are doing it. I've had people hit me up saying that the tobacco companies are spreading lots of money in the black community to get black folks to support this. Because if you ban menthol, you're affecting sales. Look,

I'm all pro-Black racial justice and think about how things disproportionately impact our community, but y'all need to get a fucking grip, because this is not discriminatory in a way that harms our community. It's actually not making it illegal to possess this. So if you happen upon some menthols and you really like your menthols, I guess you could

find some place to get them. You can go to Dominican Republic. They got all the doggone labels about how it can't smoke and kills and all that kind of stuff that folks ignore. But this whole notion that this is predatory on the Black community when the Black community is the one being preyed upon by these tobacco distributors is just, it's as backwards to me. I don't understand it. I don't support it. You know, you look at the data, the data doesn't lie in terms of how we have too high of use. And, you know, people have free choice. But then we look at all of the, as the doctor just laid out, the health outcomes. You know, you look at cases where they

talk about how Black people are marketed and then folks want to get paid for the fact that they marketed to Black folks, but then you turn around and say don't ban the products marketed to Black folks. My head is spinning. This ain't the hill to die on. It's a lot of things that definitely target Black folks.

Gerrymandering, for one. Uh, Rhonda Sanchez is down there getting rid of two Black districts. There are a lot of initiatives that shit rolls downhill to Black people first. But this... this ain't it, y'all. I'm not with y'all on that. I'm sorry. Not sorry.

But, Greg, one of the things that people... Greg, one of the things that people may not be aware of, especially if you are, um... if're a millennial or Gen Z, is that tobacco money stood up black-owned media for a very long time. and others remember the ads that were being run when you did not have Mercedes or car companies advertising in Ebony, in Jet, in black newspapers, sponsoring concerts, sponsoring tours, sponsoring various events. It was tobacco companies. I remember seeing a pack of cools, seeing those advertising. And so it's no surprise you have this allegiance to it because that's all you saw in the advertising and a lot of black-owned media outlets. That's right, Roland.

You read my mind, brother. Risa, you understand. I was hoping you were going to deconstruct it a little for us, Roland. It's three simple words. Follow the money. I will not resist the urge to ask whether our brother, Reverend Sharpton, smokes Newport's or Kool's, because

I know he doesn't, but follow the money. Who are his sponsors for the National Action Network conferences he has? We've all heard of the Newport Jazz Festival. In other words, this is my doctor. Newport Jazz Festival Baker... Newport's jazz festival of cigarettes?

Newport is the same Newport. No question. They've been doing this since the 50s. This is the thing. And one of the reasons I think Dr. Baker Smith probably couldn't answer the question as to why we favor menthol is because she wasn't thinking about

what you just walked us through, which is advertising. I will never forget after my first year of law school, I came home to Nashville for the summer, and I bought books I was reading. And one of the first books I read was Manning Marable's How Capitalism Underdeveloped Black America. And when my eventually I got to know Manning Marable a little bit. When that brother walked us through how Pepsi became the drink for black people, Coke was the white middle class drink, but then the appearance of flavored sodas,

how Sprite dumped millions into their campaign around athletes, ball players, how red soda, which we've been drinking since your homies down there in Texas been bringing Juneteenth, became the favorite choice. Red Kool-Aid, which came out of Nebraska, became the flavor of choice. It was all marketing.

We smoked menthols because they marketed us to smoke menthols. And in 2009, when the Tobacco Control Act banned all flavored cigarettes, there was one exception, menthols. So this right here, this is all marketing. And it's addictive because menthol lets you draw that smoke down in your chest and hold it a little longer. And that little longer leads to that cancer and that heart disease. And the thing I'm looking to is the cigars. Because, see, having lived in Philly for almost 20 years, Dr. Walker, you know how you get on the corner

and get them flavored Dutchies, bro. It's all marketing, man. But, Roland, you did what I hoped you were going to do, which is point us away from the medicine and toward the marketing. That's the call. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so that Larry is what we're looking at here. And so it's like I say, I was very interesting when I was being most reaching out to me and I was kind of like, hmm? Because, see, I remember a few years ago, the National Black Chamber of Commerce got a lot of money. I remember because I had, I forgot the guy's name, Harry. It's going to come to me in a second.

I had him on time during the morning show. But they were opposing, I think there were some cities that were looking at banning the sale of menthol cigarettes in convenience stores. And they were saying how all this was going to hurt black people because it was going to drive their costs of having to drive to other neighborhoods to buy them or something along those lines. And I was like, uh, did we skip over the Black deaths? Yeah. I'm just saying. Larry, go ahead.

Listen, you know, Recy and Brother Dr. Carr hit on it. Racialized marketing, right? So, listen, growing up, right, Ebony Jet Brother Dr. Carr hit on it, racialized marketing, right? So, listen, growing up, Ebony Jet or Billboards in the Black Community, you saw a cool brother with a cigarette in his hand, you know, with a sister by his side or something. So you look, when you saw ads like that, you're like, yeah, I want to be that brother, right? And we saw them everywhere, right? You talked about the impact, you know, in terms of funding money that Black media got. That's where you saw it, right? In some of the publications I just described. And we talked about, you know, Brother Carr talked

about the Jazz Fest and some of these other events. You saw cigarettes marketing all over the Black community. And I guess I grew up, you know, grew up in Philadelphia, and I can remember seeing it vividly, right? And I have family members that died as a result of smoking, right? And so many of us have, you know, if you've been around long enough. And so that's why this is so important with the FDA's proposing. And, like, listen, you've got to follow the money. I go, Dr. Carr, on this, you've got to follow the money. We hear Black folks saying that cigarettes, which kill Black folks annually and disproportionately, when you hear people say, I'm opposed to these changes, I will certainly give that person and their group the side eye.

And like I said, we need to take a look at who's funding them, conferences, et cetera, as Brother Dr. Carr highlighted. But listen, this kills Black folks. And if it kills fewer Black folks, we talk about Black Lives Matter, this is Black Lives Matter. We're from a public health perspective, Roland, and this is really important.

Mm-hmm. And for those who don't understand the history, where you just saw Larissa go, what? Newport? Newport Jays? Okay. So, I'm just going to read to you... Well, it was named Newport City, but... Well, no, no, but

follow me here. So, this is a piece in the Greensboro News and Record on June 12, 2015. With Laura Lard no more, Newport carries on the company legacy. Years before the Laura Lard Corporation created a cigarette called Newport, a woman named Laura Lard sparked a powerhouse jazz festival that still looms as the foundation of a cultural movement. The lower-large corporate name disappears today as Reynolds American completes its $27.4 billion acquisition

of the Greensboro-based company, listen to this, and its prized Newport menthol cigarettes. The company name may be forgotten as Reynolds applies its marketing muscle to the already dominant Newport brand, but for jazz fans, Elaine Loralard might always be remembered as the founder of the

Newport Jazz Festival, the musical event that launched a summer tradition for thousands of music lovers, and yes, a cigarette brand. Held in the breezy Rhode Island resort where New England's elite spend summers in mansions they call cottages, the event gave Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie,

and scores of legends a new kind of audience in the summer air. Now, of course, Laurel Art was founded in 1760. It is the oldest continually operating U.S. tobacco company. And it was, again, when people don't realize at that time you had significant advertising where you had shows where people were smoking on the air, the kind of money they were actually spending. And so not only that, the women's tennis tour was sponsored by a tobacco product.

Yes. So when you had the lawsuits against Big Tobacco. What was that cigarette, bro? What was that cigarette, brother, that they had for women? They worked at TAM, women. I can't think of the name. It wasn't Slim's, brother. Virginia Slim's, that's right.

That's right, Virginia Slim's. It's bad that I remember Steve's market. Yeah, it was called the Virginia Slim's Tennis Circuit. Damn. It was called the Virginia Slims tennis circuit. Not only that, cigarettes, they also sponsored NASCAR. So for all the people who

don't have the history, they got to understand that it was a new law. It was a new law that took place in 2010 that outlawed tobacco companies from actually sponsoring events that were on television and in media. Why is that? Because those of you who are NASCAR fans, it was called the Winston Cup Series.

That's right. It was literally named after the cigarette brand of R.J. Reynolds. And so for people like, look, we're living in this world now where there's no smoking all over the place. People need to understand how marketing, how advertising dollars, not just to black people, but how in every major endeavor, it was big tobacco's money that sponsored concerts, tennis tours, festivals, that sponsored all sorts of events. That is one of the reasons why smoking has been so addictive in this country

because they were immersed in American society where they were sponsoring even network television shows. We'll see what happens with this FDA ban. Alright folks, gotta go to a break. We'll come back on the show. Where's our money segment? I talked with Senator Tim Kaine about a new bill to try to get

transparency in the pension fund business. It's about damn time. You're watching Roller Mark Unfiltered, broadcasting live from Los Angeles

on the Black Star Network. When I first moved to L.A., me and Joe lived together, right? Right. And that was a big blessing because I didn't have to worry about paying rent. Right.

I was struggling with my thing, and that was a big, big help. And I think when I moved out, I think that's when I saw the division. Because I think Joe felt like I didn't need him anymore. And it wasn't that. It was like, I'm a grown-ass man.

Two grown-ass men. But actually, that is true. You don't need me anymore. When you grow up, first of all, when you grow up, it's like, hey, you helped, and this time you get your ass out of the house and go do your own thing. Right. He didn't want me anymore. Right. When you grow up, first of all, when you grow up, it's like, hey, you help. And this time you get your ass on the house. Right. And go do your own thing.

Right. He didn't want me to move out. But I'm like, you know what? At the time when I moved down. I mean, what? Were you paying the light bill? I wasn't paying anything. And I said, you know what?

I need this responsibility. It's going to make me work harder in my career if I know I got rent to pay. I got bills to pay. I was paying the cell phone bill. That was it. Right. But Joe was treating me like a little butler. Like, because, I'm telling you, I was like Benson.

I'm telling you, man. Please fetch me some water. He was using Jedi mind tricks. Yo man, you still make them good grilled cheese sandwiches you made when you were little? No you don't. Next thing you know, I'm at the stove. Flip it, and then it dawned on me.

Trick me again,icked me again. Got me again. This week on the Black Table with me, Greg Carr, reparations. Is it finally time? Two of the country's foremost authorities on the subject will join me to try to answer that very question. A powerful installment of The Black Table with me, Greg Carr,

right here, only on the Black Star Network. What's up, y'all? I'm Will Packer. Everybody, this is your man, Fred Hammond. Hi, my name is Bresha Webb, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. And, well, I like a nice filter usually, but we can be unfiltered. We've been frozen out.

Facing an extinction level event. We don't fight this fight right now. You're not going to have Black Army. A bill to increase diversity in the asset management industry is now being introduced in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. The Too Narrow to Succeed Act will direct the Department of Labor to conduct a survey of best practices in asset management for increasing diversity. It would also require federally controlled trust and retirement plans that utilize externally managed funds to release annual reports on the use of diverse-owned asset management firms. The bill was introduced by Virginia Senator Tim Kaine and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Ohio Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus earlier today. I talked with Senator Kaine about this bill.

All right, Senator Kaine, we have this segment called Where's Our Money for a Reason, and I often talk about the fact that African-Americans are only getting 1.67 percent of all federal contracts. A billion dollars being spent every year on advertising. Black-owned media is only getting 1 percent, $51 million. But this asset management issue is huge because the largest collection of Black wealth in America are folks who work in the public sector. And the reality is you have private equity people, venture capitalists who are earning billions, frankly, on the back of black and brown workers. Well, Roland, and if you look at it, we have these federal retirement programs like Thrift Savings Plan, Federal Railroad Retirement, and you mentioned advertising and contracting, but let's just focus on the investment sector.

What is the most common piece of advice that every investment advisor always says to you? Diversify your portfolio. This is the original use of the word diversify is in the investment space. And yet when you look at who is running these major investment firms, who are the decision makers making investment decisions, this is an industry that might have one of the worst track records of any. So working together with some colleagues, Senators Menendez and Booker, Senator Warren and Murray, we have filed a bill called the Too Narrow to Succeed Act. And basically, it's saying to the investment industry, and particularly those who are

investing federal pension funds, public pension funds, that they need to be completely transparent about who is making investment decisions, the firms they're using to make the decisions. And our thought is, if we make that transparent, it will put effective pressure on companies to do better. We also ask the ERISA Commission to pull together advice on what are barriers that have kept us from being better than we are and what are best practices that we can spread throughout the industry so that the industry diversifies itself. And it needs to follow the advice it gives to its investors. I'll tell you this here. When Obama was in the White House, I got called to a meeting at the Treasury Department where they told me that they were touting the next day, the ceremony,

that black and brown firms outperform white firms when it came to the management of TARP funds. Well, my next question was, great. Does that mean they're going to get more money to invest? And everybody went silent. And I was like, wait a minute, hold up. If Black firms and other minority firms are outperforming these other firms that are white-led, how are they not getting, how are they being locked out? What does this bill do?

How does this bill address that? We talked about transparency, increasing opportunities. Roland, the bill is a transparency bill, so it doesn't put a mandate on anybody. But we're going to start with the first step, which is forcing all who are in this federal pension space to be transparent about who they're using to make investment decisions and demographic information about the individuals and firms they're using. So when you say transparent, are we talking about the demographics of the board of directors? Are we talking about the senior management? Are we talking about junior management? What are we talking about?

Yeah, I would want to dig back into the precise language. The goal was to focus on the decision makers. We don't want somebody to be able to proclaim that they're diverse if they have a number of low-level staffers who are diverse. We want the decision makers and the owners. And as you know, Roland, because you've been really an important part of this, Senate offices were not very diverse. On the Democratic side, I give Leader Schumer credit of this. Senate offices were not very diverse. On the Democratic side, I give Leader Schumer credit for this. He worked with many in the civil rights community and said, look, we're going to make at least all the Democratic offices every year have to post the data about the demographics of their offices. And that's something we take very, very seriously.

And if you look at over the years, the reporting has been done. Just the mechanism of requiring transparency has led to increases everyceed Act, we require the dissemination, the public dissemination of this information. And it's going to be a strategic advantage for firms making the case to be given investment responsibility by federally connected pension funds. It'll be a strategic advantage to them to have diverse decision makers making the calls about what are the right investments to make. I have on my wall, in my studio, I have an art piece from Ida B. Wells Barnett. And her most prominent quote was, the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. And the reality is, Senator, the only way this changes is the light of the Senate and the House is on them, the only way this changes is if the light of the Senate and the House is on them, which means hearings, which means saying you are not going

to be sitting here reaping millions and billions and investing money, and you don't look like the people or the money you're getting from. And we're talking about in this sector, in this country, trillions of dollars, federal level, state level, county, city, school board, pensions are the greatest, the largest investors on Wall Street. And often, Roland, as you know, the workers who've contributed to the pensions are very, very diverse. And yet those that are managing their money are often among the least diverse industry sector professionals of any industry. And we call that the Too Narrow to Succeed Act for a reason. I just, in my own life, I think data backs this up, but certainly in my own life,

when I have been part of decision-making teams that were very diverse, people with different experiences from different regions who might have been born in different countries, different skin colors, different genders. When I was part of decision-making teams that had real diversity, we ended up making better decisions because we could look at a problem or challenge, not just from a preconceived single direction. We could look at it from multiple directions and then really get to the best outcome. And that's why every investment advisor tells you diversify your portfolio. Don't put everything in stocks. Don't put everything in bonds. Don't put everything in one kind of stock in the energy sector. No, you diversify. And by doing that, you not only mitigate

risks of bad decisions, but you also increase upsides because you make better decisions. Well, I've been talking about this very issue for years, and so I'm certainly glad to see this. And I hope that the same thing is done in every federal agency when it comes to especially with advertising, because that's why we in black owned media can't grow, can't build capacity because we're getting frozen out of the dollars. And so this is, the transparency is hugely important. Well, I look forward to doing this one and you're right. Look, we can use this as a building block for other federal expenditures. You know, sometimes federal agencies get all, you know, caught up in lawyers advice about what they can do and what they can't do. But I can tell you one thing. Anybody can be transparent, and we ought to be transparent. I mean, we saw at the beginning of the pandemic, we weren't getting good demographic data about people who were getting

COVID because we didn't have the data systems that even asked that. Who was getting a vaccine? We didn't know. We had to build those mechanisms in, and that'll help us in the next pandemic. And it helped us target vaccines to communities that had had the worst experience. But we didn't even have the data at the beginning of the pandemic. And that's just inexcusable. So we need that data so that we can make better decisions. Indeed. Senator Tim Kaine, always a pleasure. I look forward to you coming back on Roland Martin Unfiltered. I look forward. Thanks, Roland. Reese, I want to start with you.

As I said in an interview there, this is an issue that I know very well, and the bottom line is this here. We're talking about billions, billions of money that drives Wall Street, and these white firms don't give a damn about us, but when you look at the pension funds, if you are a public worker, if you are a school teacher, police officer, firefighter, work for the city, county, state, federal government, that's where the money's coming from. And so people keep saying, oh, we need to talk to the venture capitalists about diversity. Hell no. I have been saying to black people in these states, y'all go to these pension fund managers and say,

if it's all white, y'all ain't getting our money. That's how you change the money in America. Absolutely. And I just want to point out too, that there are pension funds, our funds, investment funds that are led up by minority and women that have the same return on investment. So this is not a matter of you're sacrificing your money, your returns by going with, you know, people who are have a diverse background. And the statistics are just absolutely dismal. I mean, if you're talking less than two percent for women and minority, that means a lot of white woman epidemics. So, you know, that the numbers for black people specifically are completely at the floor level. So it's important that, you know that the numbers for Black people specifically are completely at the floor level.

So it's important that, you know, these pension funds, they invest in a lot of things. They don't just invest in stocks and bonds. You know, a lot of things get greenlit from pension funds, from investment funds. And if you have diverse backgrounds of people who are managing them or people who are getting opportunities to even work at these firms, then you can start to change the decisions and the calculations that go into this. Like, for instance, I mean, now, this isn't specifically an investment fund would do this, but when we talk about diversifying the work force, it goes back to what you talk about

when it comes to marketing and Black media, how they want to show, marketing firms want to show that a certain outlet has a certain number of views or engagement levels or a number of things that shut out Black media, where if they had investments in them, then they would be able to have those same returns and compete with the white channels and things like that. And so we need representation in every facet. And our representation is not to the detriment of the quality of the output of these different firms. Larry, I mean, again, it was a true story. I remember getting called to the Department of Treasury in the Obama administration. And they were touting how diverse firms, black and other minority firms, how they were outperforming the white firms with the management of top-front money.

And that was two black guys. I literally said, they getting my money? I mean, where I come from, if I do better, I get more. No, that wasn't the case. So it was like, are you serious? What the hell is going on here? That's one of the things that, again, you have to follow the money. I keep telling people that.

We get so, they want, let me be real quick. They want us focusing on mass incarceration. They want us focusing on civil rights and discrimination laws. You deal with the money, all that changes. Always follow the money in America. Yeah, listen, money, power, respect. Right?

So, listen, I mean, who's holding the keys to the castle? That's what this really is all about. And listen, I think Recy was talking about it also in terms of, you know, you mentioned Roland in terms of, you know, you talk about, and you mentioned Roland in terms of, you know, the everyday person, you know, who's paying into that pension, right? But the bottom line is, who's making the, who's the decision makers, and what do they look like? And who interests, do they have those individuals' money? Who are

they investing? They have their interests. Do they care about what's happening, what they're doing with their money? But I'm glad to see a senator has introduced this bill. I'm glad, it sounds like it was a companion bill in the House. But certainly this is an issue my former boss, Congressman, always was on the workforce committee, would have been interested in also. But listen, we've got to do more. And like you said, Roland, who's holding the money? And this is, I think, I like what the senator is saying.

This is step one, right? So this is step one. We need to make sure this passes. And then step two should be and continue to hold people accountable with more transparency to find out who's, once again, holding the keys to the castle. Because basically, Black folks in particular always locked out, and we never know who and what's going on. And, you know, or someone changes the locks, and we can't get in because we think we had a key. So, but the bottom line, transparency is key in terms of who's controlling this large sum of money that's impacting lives.

A lot of black and brown folks. Indeed, indeed. Greg, when we talk about pension funds again, a lot of times our money. This is where I mean, I've been saying for years when you mobilize and organize people to say, understand, yo, that's y'all money they're using. They're investing. In pension funds, money drives Wall Street. That's right. That's right, Roland. And, you know, you often begin in the 19th century to help us understand some of these things. I think about the Freedmen's Bank and how they really set Frederick Douglass up. They robbed the Freedmen's Bank and how they really set Frederick Douglass up. They robbed the Freedmen's Bank. These were the funds by Black veterans who had fought their way out of enslavement in the U.S. Army and looked around, and the damn bank was running to the

ground by speculators. And fast forward to today, some of the most eye-opening conversations I've ever had in this regard, and I haven't had many, was with my friend Sidney Rabot, the former president of Howard, who sat for a time on the board of TIA Cref. And I'm a teacher. So, you know, a lot of teachers, our money is in TIA Cref. I owe two, three dollars.

And of course, without violating any confidentiality or sharing any inside baseball, what he often would say is it is important for some of us to be in those boardrooms when these investment decisions are made. And not just in terms of return on our investments, but also in terms on influencing policy, because, you know, there are philanthropic arms to these pension funds often. There are other ways that they invest in communities. And I guess this leads me to a question for you, Roland, because I really don't, you know,

I don't know. What is the relationship, if any, between diversifying the asset management class, which provides advice on where to invest, and the types of things that these funds invest in? Because I agree with you recently. You say women and minorities, you know, white women. That's what drives it. That's what drives it. Help me, help us understand it, because that's the thing, because I'm saying, I'm okay with making some more rich black investors, but hedge money, but what's the relationship between what they do

and them being in the room and how that trickles into the things they invest in? Like, for example, would they take an investment in Blackstar Network, for example? Go ahead, I'm sorry. It's like you take... Hold on one second. I'm going to pull up her name.

One second. And I have some experience in this as well. Oh, okay. Good. Thank you, Reese. When you look at the numbers, when you look at the numbers out here and when you look at what they do, the the the the private equity funds for that for black or Latino are going to more than likely have more conversations with people who look like them uh because also they're looking for opportunity uh you take uh for instance uh arlen hamilton so here's a sister uh out of houston uh who folks she tweets about this all the time uh folks if you don't know her follow her on on social media um one second i'm gonna get you her her uh so his arlen was here a-r-L-A-N-W-A-S-H-E-R-E. She has a company called Backstage Cap. She tweets this all the time. There were people who told her, oh, there's no way in the world you're going to be able to even remotely fund minority firms. and she has.

She attracted money in her fund from Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. In fact, she tweeted this six hours ago. I am looking at getting up to $5 million into A, the WNBA management company itself, an expansion plan, or a team. I've tried the quiet route and and now I want to make some noise. If you're connected with the WNBA, the NBA who's owned 50% of the NBA, or Kathy Engelbert connected us privately, she talks about how folks said she was going to fail.

Now, she literally, and in fact, this is a story, right? This is a tweet, how backstage capital is creating the next generation of venture capitalists. So what she's also doing is actually creating venture capitalists who are black and Latino. And so that's that's what you see. And you're absolutely right. Don't assume that you got some black folks out there who only care about the money and the only color they care about is green. But what this is about is, is these are the people who are investing in companies, investing in startups, who are believing in the vision. And that's how this game changes. And again, I need everybody who's watching me. I need y'all to understand. I'm not joking here. The largest, and yes, Arlen is black. The largest investors on Wall Street are pension funds.

The state of New York, the state of Texas, every state, they're investing. When you look at these people in Silicon Valley, when they start raising money, they're going to pension funds because they control billions upon billions of dollars. And the last point before we go to Risi, in the state of New York, Carl McCall started this and they have continued this. When they come in there with pension funds, those private equity funds, they go, how many black partners do you have? How many black senior managers do you have? Some people might not know who Karl McCall was or is. Well, Karl McCall, alpha man who ran for governor, he was a state controller. He was over the money. And what they did was they said, y'all ain't going to just be sitting here using our billions of dollars investing. So then they did was they said, y'all ain't going to just be sitting here using our billions

of dollars investing. So then they would say, what black law firms are you using? What black accounting firms are you using? They understood what black law, the whole deal and they have been able not completely, but they've been

able to change the game to allow an influx of African Americans to be be able to own companies to be able to participate in the billions being spent every year. Rishi, go ahead. Yeah. And Dr. Carr, I understand the subtle critique there, because just because you have more rich black people doesn't necessarily advance the entire black race. However, I will say that having more rich white people doesn't advance the Black race either. And so that's why it is important for us to be in all these spaces. But I'll just go back to my experience. I worked for an investment fund, and the capitalization in that fund primarily came from pensions like CalPERS, the California big pension down there, as well as other rich, wealthy people. But the interesting thing about it is, number one, all the partners are white, of course.

And then they were taking over firms, you know, infusing capital in it, also advising in management structure, kind of something along the lines of what you see on Shark Tank and what they are proposing. And these are not big, sexy names like Google or, you know, Facebook or anything like that. They're regular companies that take over. And this is just one firm I'm giving as an example. And so when you have Black firms that have an access to capital issue, when you have venture capitalist funds, like the one that Arlen was here, that Roland just referenced, don't have the access to capital funds, then it just trickles down into the decisions and

the kinds of people that get opportunities. don't have the access to capital funds, then it just trickles down into the decisions and the kinds of people that get opportunities. And so if you can have Black companies that get infusions like a Black Star Network, now I know Roland isn't for sale like that, but as an example, then that starts to change the game economically. And then again, it's who you bring in as Roland pointed out. And so there are all of these steps and all of these areas where black people are shut out. Now, will it automatically change? We don't know what degree it will have an impact, but I would just again posit that it would have a bigger impact than having all white folks running it. Indeed.

And so y'all always follow the money. And so that's what's important. All right. Today, when we come back, we've got more World of Modern Unfiltered. Short break, short break. We come back, our Black and Missing. And we have more news of the day.

So we'll be back in a moment. I'm Dr. Jackie. And on a next A Balanced Life, it takes a village to raise a child and truer words have never been spoken. If you're raising a child, you know that it's a blessed challenge like no other, even more so if your child has a disability. We'll talk to parents and our expert panelists about the best way forward for your child to help you maintain your own sanity on a next A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie on Blackstar Network. All right, folks. Every day, of course, we make it a point of focusing on someone black and missing. John Sells is missing from Houston.

He was last seen on April 13th. The 15-year-old is 5 feet 7 inches tall tall, weighs 145 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information a federal judge rule against the mask mandate, allowing people to now go maskless on airplanes and public transportation. A lot of people think, again, that we're out of the woods, that we are beyond the pandemic. Now, Anthony Fauci talked about this, and people have misconstrued what he said when he talked about the pandemic and endemic. So we wanted to break this thing down. So here's actually what he said, the full comment. Here we are.

It's the end of April. It's the spring of 2022. How close are we to the end of this pandemic? Well, that's an unanswerable question for the following reason. And I don't want to be evasive about it, but let me tell you why I'm giving you that answer, Judy. We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase. Namely, we don't have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now. So if you're saying,

are we out of the pandemic phase in this country? We are. What we hope to do, I don't believe, and I've spoken about this widely, we're not going to eradicate this virus. If we can keep that level very low and intermittently vaccinate people, and I don't know how often that would have to be, Judy. That might be every year. That might be longer in order to keep that level low. But right now, we are not in the pandemic phase in this country. Pandemic means a widespread throughout the world infection that spreads rapidly among people.

So if you look at the global situation, there's no doubt this pandemic is still ongoing. So, folks, we understand this here. Eighty two million nine hundred and fifteen thousand seventy five confirmed COVID cases in the United States. And we've actually crossed the one million dead total. One million nineteen thousand eight hundred860 deaths due to COVID. Geneticist Eugene Copeland joins us now from San Antonio. Glad to have him here.

So please explain for the people, pandemic endemic. So break it down, as Joe Madison said, put it where the goats can get it, what Fauci was just talking about. Looks like, okay, Eugene froze there. And so let me know when we have Eugene back. Let me do this here, folks. Indiana's attorney general took to Twitter to announce his lawsuit against the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation. Tyrokeeta filed a lawsuit as part of his ongoing investigation against the organization seeking to determine whether the group violated Indiana state law by deceiving donors and misapplying its assets.

This is what the AG said. Protecting Indiana consumers from this house of cards is critical. There are concerning patterns of behavior from this organization, and we will do what it takes, including this lawsuit, to get to the bottom of it. There are many Indiana stakeholders and donors who have been impacted

by these allegations. This lawsuit will allow for a court to swiftly and efficiently resolve the state's request for information. The foundation could be barred from future fundraising in Indiana if the charity fails to comply with Rokita's demands. So that's one thing there. Also, folks, some good news out of Minnesota.

The state has been welcoming its first black bank located in Minneapolis. The Detroit-based First Independence Bank is promising to close the wealth inequities in Minnesota. The bank has received rare support from other typically competitive financial institutions. This is the first branch they have outside of Michigan, and there are plans to open a second location in Minneapolis. Speaking of doing some opening, Queen Latifah, she has returned to her hometown of Newark, New Jersey, to break ground on a new affordable housing unit. The Rise Living development will have 76 units,

including 20 townhouses. 16 of the units will be income-based. Newark residents are suffering from high rent prices and identification and redevelopment. Over half of Newark's residents are living in poverty, and Latifah wants to build houses fit for a queen. I could build something in this city that I could live in, that Queen Latifah could live in, not just Dana. Dana could live anywhere. If you know Dana, you know Dana can roll. The victim's family wants to know, first of all, this product has been in the making for more than 10 years. All right, then.

Let's see. Eugene, are you there? I am. Can you hear me? I'm sorry. My bad. I'm sorry. Ian, are you there?

I am. Can you hear me? Okay. Yep, we got you. There we go. Okay, so you heard what Fauci said. Break it down for us. What's the difference between a pandemic, endemic?

Where are we? What should we be doing? Right. So when we're talking about a pandemic, we're talking about that acute phase where you begin, right? When we start talking about endemic, we're starting to talk about lower levels that may be manageable. But endemic does not mean not dangerous. You have to remember that malaria is endemic to Western Africa and kills millions of people a year. Malaria is endemic to Western Africa and kills millions of people a year. So the endemic phase does not mean not dangerous.

It simply means that it's here to stay. state. So where we are right now, in terms of, again, 82 million cases, one million people dead. And we do have these people who kind of like, hey, man, it's all good. I mean, I had all these white conservatives hitting me mad because I wore a double mask on the airplane. I had these goggles on. They're like, why are you wearing goggles? COVID can't impact your eyes. It can, but also keep yourself from touching your eyes. And it's, whoa, whoa, whoa, your double mask. There are people who are saying, you've already had COVID,

so therefore, oh, you've got now herd immunity, but you have breakthrough cases. Right. I agree. So when people say things like that, I've had COVID before, therefore I'm immune, they are incorrect. And they are incorrect because 20% of people who get infected with SARS-CoV-2 don't even produce antibodies.

Vaccine-induced immunity is the best form of immunity you can have. The reason why that is is because when you get the whole virus, your B cells in your immune system have to make antibodies to everything that they see. There's dozens of proteins, right, on the surface of that virus. But when you have a vaccine, that vaccine is only giving you one target, one target. And with that one target, you can produce antibodies that will allow your antibodies to encapsulate that virus, keep it from grinding from the ACE2 receptor and keeping it from getting inside of the cell. That's protecting you from disease, hospitalization and death. It is it is quite interesting, interesting again looking at this Fauci was said was supposed to go to the

White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night sitting at the table of ABC News he pulled out citing the fact that you know gonna have almost 3,000 people in this room it's tightly packed tables extremely close together and we had the gridiron dinner a few years ago. Almost 100 people who were there got COVID. It was a super spreader event. And so there are some who are saying, you know, I'm not quite sure if I'm trying to, you know, go to that. And so still, what type of protection should we have? I mean, I get people who are like, oh, you know, you shouldn't be at a concert. You shouldn't be going to these various events. But we're seeing these massive events happening indoor and outdoors. Ian, still there?

All right, looks like Ian has froze again. So I really want him to answer that question. It is important. I'm going to my panel here. So I'm curious. Let me know when Ian's back. Recy, I saw you tweeted the other day about, what did you say? You went somewhere and you were like, all right, first time I'm chancing this. I think it was you and your newborn. Yes. I took my daughter, Ava, to a restaurant by myself.

I had to learn how to operate the stroller. My husband is the stroller operator, car seat, all that stuff. But I am trying to navigate this new space of figuring out this, quote, unquote, post-pandemic landscape. I'm doing a little bit more. I'm still staying more masked than not masked. I did go to the Babyface concert. I enjoyed myself. I was hot as hell underneath that mask, but I kept my mask on while I was singing and dancing and hooting and hollering. So, I mean, look, I was one of the last people out of the quarantine. There might be a couple of people left, but I'm just trying to figure it out because I'm tired of being at home

by myself, me and my husband and my baby. Good luck to me and to everybody else out there. I hope it is an endemic. I really hope it is for our sakes. Larry, how are you still now operating? I'm

masked up, brother. I'm at the gym with the mask on. It doesn't matter. I'm trying to play it safe. Listen, I'm at the gym with the mask on. It doesn't matter. Listen, I'm trying to play it safe. And listen, I have loved ones, like a lot of people, loved ones who would face challenges. But I became positive and I infected them. So I'm thinking about those individuals. So I guess I try to be careful.

And, you know, I have an event I'm actually going to this weekend. I'm a Cheney University alum. We have alumni weekend this weekend. So I'm going, but I'm being real cautious. And, you know, I want to make sure I protect myself. I'll be masked up. But just, you know, go for a few hours and head out. But folks still need to be careful out here because people are still getting sick and dying.

Just not at the large numbers as we had before. Greg? Yeah, Roland. I mean, I was glad to see Reese a couple of weeks ago at the museum. She's the first member of the Roland Martin Unfiltered crew that I've seen in person, including you, in quite some time. But I have my mask on. And I, too, wanted to hear Ian's question, Doc's answer to your question,

because, of course, we're now in graduation season. And, you know, I have colleagues who have contracted COVID over the last several weeks and months, a month or so with this new strain, who are now, you know, quarantining and may not be able to go to graduation. I want to see all the parents. I want to see students I haven't seen at all. I was on campus for Jeremiah Rice's retirement. As I said last Sunday, we were all masked and outside. But finally, you know, a lot of this for me, in addition to health, is social protocol. I have many friends who have contracted malaria for traveling to the continent and back because they didn't take their pills and they didn't take their medicine. They didn't get their shot. So as Doc said, it is endemic there. But when I am on public transportation in the city

of Washington, D.C., as far as I'm concerned, if you don't have a mask on, that's a social protocol. What you're saying is you don't give a damn about my health. And yes, it is majority non-Black people I see without masks, but I see a lot of young people without masks, talking, laughing. And I'm not being resentful. I'm going to keep my mask. What I'm saying is you're saying to me, at least I'm imputing this to you, that, you know, my health is not important to you.

And I think that what we're going to see going forward, and I would ask you because you've been all over the country, including in the dead of the pandemic, when you were traveling to Georgia to get the vote out and going to South Carolina, North Carolina, you know, what does it say when we see people who are not taking safety protocols when everybody else is or fewer and fewer people are? What does it say socially about what we would consider to be a community or a society?

I don't know. Indeed, indeed, indeed. All right, folks, we keep losing Ian's connection. Sorry about that. So hopefully we'll definitely get him back on to further talk about COVID. That is it for us. Now, here, folks, here's the deal tomorrow. So tomorrow, the reason I'm here in Los Angeles, tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the Rodney King riots. Remember what took place here when, you know, Black Parts L.A.

went up in smoke when they let those white cops off who beat Rodney King. 30th anniversary tomorrow. So Operation Hope led by John Hope Bryant. They're having a private tour of the area to show what has happened economically. The

mayor is going to be there. Congresswoman Karen Bass is happened economically. The mayor is going to be there. Congresswoman Karen Bass is running for mayor. She's going to be there as well. Rodney King's daughters are going to be there. And so we are given the opportunity. And this is, again, this is what I want you all to understand, why it's important for us to have black-owned media. And so John O'Brien, who's a supporter of this show,

reached out to me and said that he wanted to give Roland Martin Unfiltered and Black Star Network the exclusive opportunity to stream this tour. So what's going to happen is it's going to start around 9 a.m. Los Angeles time, 12 o'clock Eastern. We're going to meet at FAME, 1st AME. And so we will travel with them. We'll stream all of that.

There's a news conference taking place after that with the participants. We will live stream that as well. And then tomorrow we're going to broadcast our show from a community center there in Leimert Park. And so we're going to have our panel on the set. Carol, please put in the group me. Jasmine Koenig is going to be one of the panelists. And so that's one. We have former L.A. police chief Bernard Parks,

who's going to be one of our guests as well on the show. And let's see here. We have some others who we're booking right now. And so it's going to be another couple of the folks confirmed. And so hopefully Carl Douglas, who was one of the attorneys for who worked with Johnny Cochran, who was one of the O.J. Simpson's attorneys. He's still out there doing this thing. Hopefully he'll join us and possibly Judge Maybelline will be joining us as well.

So we're going to have a great panel out there looking forward to that. So that's why we are here to cover that, to be able to show what's going on. I always got to give a shout out to the late John Mack. I was going over some of my photos, and I was actually looking for a particular photo. I was looking for actually the photo when I pledged. After I pledged, the post is on my Instagram page. Y'all can see it. And actually

it was sort of sad because it was like all of these... Happy anniversary, bro. Well, I appreciate it. My 33rd Alphaversary was yesterday. Happy Alphaversary. Yes, sir. And of course, yesterday, y'all, was Greg Carr's birthday.

We share a birthday. You was born in the Alpha land, and I was born out of my mama's womb. That's beautiful. There you go. Happy birthday. So we, so I was going through all these photos and it was crazy how literally it was like back to back to back. All these photos I took in 2009, folks who are now ancestors. It was like Gwen Ifill, Colin Powell. And it was John Mack, who was the leader of the Los Angeles Area Urban League during that tumultuous time. And so we're going to be, again, covering those issues tomorrow. So that's why we are here.

And this is what I need people to understand. And y'all have heard Reese say it. You've heard Greg say it. You've heard Larry say it. Folks, this is why black media matters. White media ain't going to be focused on that area of town, what has happened, what's happened economically, looking back for 30 years. This is why we have to be telling the story.

We must control the narrative. Because you know what? Here's how this works. And this is why y'all's support is so important. I mean, I need to make this crystal clear so y'all can understand. When John O'Brien said, hey, Roland, I would love for you to cover this, I didn't have to ask nobody.

I didn't have to send an email or send a text and ask somebody, hey, can I please go cover this story? No. I don't have to ask people. Folks, that level of freedom is needed in black-owned media.

And you got a whole bunch of people who are running around calling themselves new black media. They don't cover nothing. They don't interview nobody. They don't break anything down. All they do is run their mouths. And I frankly ignore them because they mean nothing to me because they're not journalists. But we are not going to move forward as a people

as long as we are asking somebody else to tell our story. And so y'all see me post the videos and everything on social media. I'm in my hotel room. Camera, five lights, streaming unit right here. Y'all, we good This is how we roll. We keep it moving

This is about us being able to control our own destiny and telling our story and so we look forward to doing that We want you to tune in if y'all have not supported us, please first and foremost download the black star network app It is important those numbers we get asked by advertisers How many the app downloads do you have? Our goal is by May 1st is to hit 50,000 downloads. Our goal by December 31st is 100,000. So Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. And if you have not supported us in our Bring the Funk fan club, trust me, your dollars make it possible for us to be able to say yes when we get those requests so we don't have to sit here and say no. Cash, send a money check or money order to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. You can

support us via Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RMartin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Reesey, appreciate it. Enjoy all the White House correspondents, receptions and dinners and all that stuff and parties going to, if anybody asks, tell them,

no, boo, he in L.A. He with the black people in L.A. So that's where I'm at Larry thanks a bunch as well and again Greg happy birthday of course Alpha and Greg y'all know how Alphas run this

y'all know how we do you know you already know I'm going to see y'all tomorrow from Leimert Park here in L.A. Holla! This is an iHeart Podcast.