#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 5.23 RMU: Sen. Sanders on Black voter outreach; Is College Right for Everyone? Candace vs. Cornel

Episode Date: May 30, 2019

5.23.19 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Sen. Bernie Sanders talks #2020 and Black voter outreach; Family conversation: Is College Right for Everyone? Tennessee House Speaker Glen Casada to step down; Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Thursday, May 23rd, 2019, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, my one-on-one with Senator Bernie Sanders. We talk about a variety of issues, including what he is going to do for African Americans. We get into charter schools, and also we talk about health care, and what will he tell white, poor folks about who they should vote for. Don't want to miss that conversation. Plus, the question is, is college worth paying back hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loans?

But the conversation that we're gonna have today is not about Robert Smith spending $40 million paying back the loans of the class of 2019 in Morehouse. The question is, are students making bad choices as to where they go to college? And are they not considering better alternatives when it comes to where they go to college and are they not considering better alternatives when it comes to where they go to school and what their majors are, what their careers are going to be.

We're going to have a conversation that every single person with a child needs to hear about college. Plus, in Tennessee, House Speaker Glenn Cassata is stepping down from his position after racist and sexist text messages between him and his former chief of staff were leaked to the media. Plus, that nutcase Candace Owens was actually in a debate against Dr. Cornel West, my frat brother, on Fox News. Really? Talking about Trump? Race in the economy?

Grown people should not do children like that. I'll deconstruct it. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin on the filter. Let's go. He's knowing, putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling, yeah, with Uncle Roro, yo Yeah, yeah, it's rolling, Martin Yeah, yeah, rolling with rolling now

Yeah, he's broke, he's fresh, he's real the best, you know he's rolling, Martin. Martin. Recent polls have shown that in a matchup against Donald Trump in 2020, Joe Biden is the most likely to win. But Bernie Sanders is not far behind. Polls also show that African-American vote is crucial to anybody winning on the Democratic side. So the question is, what is Senator Bernie Sanders offering for African-Americans? Well, earlier today, this morning, I had a Skype conversation with him. We talked about a number of issues, including health care, economics, education for black folks. And what is he going to say to these broke ass poor white people who keep voting Republican?

Here's my conversation with Senator Bernie Sanders. All right, Senator Bernie Sanders, glad to have you on Roland Martin Unfiltered. So let's go right ahead and get started. First and foremost, when you what is your we look at the state of the race right now. Obviously, a ton of candidates are in the race specifically for our audience, for African-Americans. What do you need to do to convince African-Americans in those critical states that you are the best shot to beat Donald Trump? Well, let me just tell you, we just returned from a trip to South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. We had great responses from the African-American community and people in general.

And I think the reason for that, Roland, is we have an agenda that speaks to the needs of workers, to the needs of the African-American community. And that is an agenda that says that in a nation, we have an economy and a government that works for the 1%. What about an economy and a government that works for all of us? And in the midst of massive levels of economic disparity in the nation, it is even worse within the African American community. So I think if you look at my agenda, which says every American is entitled to healthcare

as a human right, and we've got to join the rest of the industrialized world, and we have to deal with the disparities in healthcare in the African-American community. You have an issue with mortality rate of 2 and 1 half times in the black community compared to the white community. You have black mothers dying at a much higher rate

than in the white community. You have black families unable to access health care at all at a much higher rate than white communities. So we need an economy and a government that works for all. We need to pay special attention to the minority communities. We're getting a very raw deal right now. So how, though, do we deal with what is structural? Because the reality is, look, this is the year of return, 400 years,

when 20-odd Africans arrived in Virginia in August of 1619. When we look at all the sectors in our economy, even though unemployment is at its lowest rate for African-Americans, it is still twice that of the rate. A white high school graduate can make more money than a black college graduate. When you look at housing, when you look at, I mean, all of the indicators, African-Americans lag far behind. So what can you do as president to specifically deal with what is structural that has been in place for centuries that has negatively impacted African-Americans? Well, in terms of health care of course, there is enormous disparity. Number one, you guarantee healthcare to all people through Medicare 4, but that's not

enough. You have to deal with the disparities within the healthcare system. That means we need more black doctors, we need more black nurses, we need more black psychologists and social workers. We need to pay attention to those communities that are oppressed the most. In terms of housing, we need to pay attention to those communities in this country which are distressed, where gentrification is wrecking communities. People are being driven out of the homes that they grew up in, that their families grew

up in. And that means that we pass legislation to protect working people in the homes that they have lived in forever also that we build affordable housing terms of education it means not only do we make public colleges and universities to which increase we significantly increase funding for the HBC use to make sure that they thrive and young black people can get the education that they need. It means that we target federal resources. Jim Clyburn has a good bill, it's called 1023rd.

And we've got long-time distressed communities. Not only, but most often minority communities, we're going to put 10% of federal funding into those communities. That means making sure that kids that have teachers who are well-paid, we're not leaving every year. It means that the school buildings that kids go to are not falling apart. So we're going to pay attention to education. We pay attention to childcare. I was out in Milwaukee a while back and I talked to a black businessman. He runs a small, successful small business. He's done it

for a long time. He cannot get a loan in that community. That means we tell the financial services institutions to stop redlining. Make sure that businesses, black, white, Latino, get the loans that they need. The question is how we pay for it. Yesterday, I interviewed Senator Elizabeth Warren on the Times Journal Morning Show, where she outlined specifically the question is how we pay for it yesterday i uh interviewed senator elizabeth warren on the times journal morning show where she outlined specifically how she would pay for it especially when she talked about the increase in funding to hbcus and so where do those resources come from do you have your specific plan uh in terms of where those dollars would come from especially and like i said as relates to increasing the level of funding to our historically black colleges and universities absolutely yes yesterday as a matter of fact we

uh held the press conference with representative barbara lee of california uh and what we talked about is putting a speculation tax on wall street a transaction tax And like that program would be in $2.4 trillion over a 10-year period. Right now, Wall Street is doing phenomenally well while the middle class continues to shrug. So if you want to make sure that all of our kids have the opportunity to go to college, if you want to make sure that we reduce student debt, which is particularly impressive for African-American and Latino kids, then what we need to do is get the revenue in one very progressive way, is putting a tax on Wall Street speculation, $2.4 trillion over a 10-year period. I believe

that every kid in this country has the right to a higher education regardless of the income of his or her family family and we have the money to do that so we repeal trump's tax breaks for the rich we pass this uh tax on wall street we will have more than enough money to make sure that our kids get the education we talk about education there was a tweet that you sent out this week that uh that people i saw other people talked about it where you spoke about charter schools. I asked you, as a matter of fact, this question in 2016 in the town hall that I did with TV1 and CNN. And what jumps out at me is this interesting, is that 90% of all kids are in traditional public

schools, 10% are in public charter schools. Yet there's this perception that somehow charter schools have created the problem for the 90 percent. We did a poll at a for of African-Americans at TV one where 70 plus percent of black parents said they absolutely would enroll their kids in charter schools and support vouchers. Black parent. We saw what happened to Andrew Gillum in Florida. The percentage of black women who voted against him for the Republican candidate. And many attribute that to charters as well. And so how do we deal with that where black parents say, look, I'm tired of my kids being in the failing schools. I want an option. But you say you don't support charters.

And either you don't support for profit charters or you don't support all charters. I don't support for profit charters. No, I don't support for-profit charter. I don't want Wall Street executives to make money off of education when that money is coming from the taxpayers. That's wrong. So you support non-profit charter schools, not for-profit charters? Exactly. All right. I think when they have transparency and so forth, of course, we want experimentation. We have in my city two good kind of experimental schools that are working pretty well. But we don't want to drain money from public schools to make Wall Street executives even richer. You know, Betsy DeVos is the worst secretary of education in the history of this country. She was very active in Michigan, her home state, in pushing these private charter schools.

So what we want to do is to make sure, by the way, that every teacher in this country, we are having an exodus of teachers from public schools. They're not making enough. The working conditions are terrible. You know, this is the United States of America. We are the wealthiest country in the history of the world. Don't tell me that we cannot adequately fund public education, that we cannot tell young people that one of the most important jobs that they can do

is becoming a teacher to help the younger generation. We can do that, but we need a revolution in education, and I've outlined some of the things that we have to do. But number one, you've got to make sure that teachers are well paid and respected. When we talk about education as well, we know what's happening with colleges. One of the issues that jumps out is also the discipline issue in schools, the school to prison pipeline as well. What would you do when it comes to the federal standards to those states that are receiving funds to deal with that? We've seen how the federal power has been used to change what happens locally. You, of course, you had what took place with Ronald Reagan when they said,

fine, if you don't raise the drinking age, you don't qualify for federal highway funds. What would you do to states to say you must address the school of prison pipeline? Absolutely. And I think your point is well taken. And that is the federal government has enormous leverage to be used in urging and demanding that the states do the right thing for people who are hurting. And that is exactly what we will do. So look, in terms of the pipeline, you've got failing schools, you have kids who are dropping out, you have kids who are standing out on street corners, and then we're shocked when they do destructive things to themselves or to

others. And what I have said over and over again is that at a time when we are spending, Roland, $80 billion a year at the federal, state, and local level to lock people up, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to me that we invest in our young people in jobs so the kids learning the skills that they need to go out and make a middle class wage that we invest in education if we have the teachers and we have the mentors kids should not be dropping out of school if we make public colleges and universities tuition free we open a open a pipeline up, not down. So instead of best investing tens of billions of dollars in jail, and we're working really hard in criminal justice to cut back on the number of people who are arrested

and who are put in jail, let's invest in kids, in education, and in jobs. But all of these things are tied together. It also means ending the so-called war on drugs, which has disrupted and hurt millions of people over a period of time. You're looking at a guy, when I ran last time, I said, a little bit insane that we have federal laws that equate heroin with marijuana. And we're making progress in decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana and, in fact, in some cases, expunging the record. Speaking of marijuana, states are obviously passing various laws legalizing marijuana. One of the things that we're seeing from black state legislators is they want they want exceptions to be made specifically for African-Americans,

saying it was black folks who were most impacted by these marijuana laws, and they want to ensure that it comes to dispensaries and other ways that African-Americans are taking advantage of the economic side of the marijuana industry. Do you believe states like New Jersey and New York and Maryland and others should ensure that African-Americans are getting their fair share when they were disproportionately impacted by being thrown in jail by those same marijuana laws. Now you have largely whites making millions and billions off the industry where black folks were thrown in jail.

Yeah, and not only is I agree with you, absolutely. And not only that, you have very large, profitable corporations now, not small businesses, big money interest moving in to the marijuana area. Your point is well taken. It turns out, based on the studies that I have seen, that the African-American community and the white community do marijuana about equally. But if you're an African-American, you are six times more likely to have been arrested for possession. The African-American community has been severely hurt by those actions. And that's one of the reasons why, disproportionately, the people in jail today are African-American

or Latino or Native American. So your point is well taken. And I think given the fact that the African-American community has suffered the brunt of this war on drugs. Now that marijuana is being legalized, they have a right to start making some money from that. Absolutely. Let's talk about something that I raised with you in the last year, and that is, and I fundamentally, I believe in this.

In 2009, I talked about this notion of white fear. We're living in white minority resistance. And I believe that when you look at what's happening with the attacks on immigration and other areas, you have this fear of a changing America, the look of America, the demographics of America. And what are you going to say? You talked about being in South Carolina and talking, you know, African-Americans and others. But are you going to go specifically to those places and look white folks in the eye, look at these red states where they're broken, where they're sick and say you you are sitting here voting against your own economic interests.

You're voting against folks of people of color when you're in the same situation. I believe that white Democrats have to look white Americans in the eye and be truthful with them and say enough of this nonsense. What's going on in this country. You should stop being fearful of this changing America and embracing what's going on. And so can you speak to that, looking those white voters in the eye and being honest with them and saying enough is enough? Roland, if you check out my schedule, where I have trouble, I work very hard against the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. And if you check out where I went, I went into Trump land.

That's exactly where I went. And I went with Senator Nina Turner. I think you know Nina. Yep. And Nina and I have traveled all over this country, and not just the black community, but the white community. Because here is the point you are making, as I understand. It is not just Trump. Trump was not smart enough to think of this himself.

This is what demagogues have always done. What have they done? They always pick on a minority. Maybe it's black. Maybe it's Latino. Maybe it's gay people. Maybe it's Jews. You name the minority.

And then you rally the American people. You say, you know what? Or people all over the world. You say, you know what your problems are? It's because of gypsies or Jews or blacks or Latinos or gay people. That's what demagogues always do. And what our campaign is trying to do, kind of in an unprecedented way, I think with some success, We've got a million people who have volunteered in our campaign, and they are black and white and Latino, Native American and Asian American.

They're gay. They're straight. They're native-born. They are immigrants. So get back to your point. It is unbelievable to me that we have communities all over this country where white families cannot afford health care. They cannot afford to send their kids to college, they cannot afford decent housing, and they're voting for right-wing Republicans who stand in opposition to everything that they need. So to answer your question, if there's any motif in our campaign, it is to end this insane division that Trump is trying to sow,

bring our people together around a progressive agenda and an economy and a government that works for all of us and not just for 1%. I want to ask you, I did an interview a couple of months ago with Representative Kia Morris, former Vermont Representative Kia Morris. And during the interview, this is what she said. She said that she was very disappointed that the Sanders

Institute would not engage the very communities of color that are homes back. Vermont got its progressive reputation and have been on the front lines. She said that folks at the Sanders Institute, they came with this very large open letter of many leaders of color saying, we'd like to meet with you because again, as you were trying to set the agenda for the rest of the world and this nation, we feel that we need to have a conversation first about what's happening in Vermont, which is absolutely reflective of what's happening in the rest of the country. And so can you speak to that, represent, again, for Representative Morris saying that people of color in Vermont were trying to get the Vermont Institute to speak to these issues and they were not having any success?

It was the Sanders Institute and the I think the confusion lied that this was a national and international event. I know Kia. I spoke to Kia. And by the way, Kia lives in Bennington, Vermont. She's had a very rough time. So Kia is somebody that I have worked with and will continue to work with.

But the function of that particular meeting which was significantly minority represented as it happened was to deal with national and international issues so uh and so uh so her concerns well those are the people of color in vermont they've been addressed no they haven't been addressed but that was not necessarily the forum to do it but that was a different forum. But we will and will continue to meet with the representatives, and I do that fairly frequently, new Americans and the African-American community. We've got a couple of minutes left. One of the things that I also want to talk about is you mentioned earlier black businesses.

Of course, it was in 2014 when the numbers showed $23 billion in small business loans were handed out in the previous year. Only about $385 million went to African Americans. I pressed the White House, then President Barack Obama and his administration, very hard when it came to that. And one of the issues there was that African Americans were impacted by the home foreclosure crisis. No home, no loan, no business. We talk about access to capital, venture capital in Silicon Valley. We see the exact same thing. How are you going to challenge the venture capitalist community who are who consistently ignore black entrepreneurs, ignore those ideas? We see it in

Silicon Valley. We see it on Wall Street. And that simply furthers this black-white wealth gap in this country as well. What will you do to say this cannot continue, that if we're going to be a nation majority of people of color by 2043, America can't look like South Africa, where you have people of color with numerical numbers, but whites holding the economic power? Well, I think it gets back. The answer to your question is, I think, a couple, twofold. Number one, you use the bully pulpit and you embarrass people.

Just before this program, I was on a national program with McDonald's workers, people who are struggling to make $15 an hour and form a union. That's an effort I've helped lead in the United States Senate. We're using the bully puppet there. We've had some success in that direction with Amazon and Disney, getting them to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. So the bully puppet can work to some degree. You bring these people into the office, and you embarrass them. You talk about the need to invest in communities that need investment. And the reason that I feel so strongly about this, if we're going to deal with criminal justice,

we need to make sure that our young people get decent jobs. And the way that they're going to get decent jobs is through black-owned and Latino-owned businesses who are likely to hire young people. Second of all, getting back to this legislation that Clyburn has been pushing, and that means we invest significantly in distressed communities. And if some of these big companies,

these white-owned companies, think that they're going to line up at the federal trough and get federal grants without doing the right thing for the distressed communities, they're wrong. It gets back to the point you made early on, using the power of the federal government to demand that we have policies that work for working people and for people of color. The only thing I will say this, and I know we're out of time, is that the Clyburn Amendment, I know it well, the 10, 20, 30, 10 percent of federal resources are going into those counties where 20 percent or more of the people have lived below the poverty line for 30 years.

It's about 400 plus counties that qualify for that. And I've been pushing that for about actually about nine years now with Congressman Clyburn. Two thirds of those counties are in Republican congressional districts. So you're dealing with a lot of white people in those districts who are also poor. So and so that's also, I think, one of those interesting things that, again, so that amendment would also be really be helping, frankly, more poor white counties than people of color. But hopefully that Congress will see the need for that, because, yes, the need should go. The money should go where the need is as opposed to where it is now. Yep.

Instead of giving tax breaks to billionaires, let's pay attention to the distressed communities. Let's help those businesses that are creating jobs, small businesses, minority-owned businesses. Let's make sure that every kid in this country gets a good education and the opportunity to go to college. So I think the Clyburn Amendment is a good framework for that. All right. Senator Bernie Sanders, always a pleasure. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roland.

All right, folks, let's talk to our panel. I'm Dr. Greg Carr, chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University, Eugene Craig, CEO, Eugene Craig Organization. So, gentlemen, your thoughts on what Bernie had to say. Greg? Eugene Craig organization. So gentlemen, your thoughts on what Bernie had to say, Greg. Well, Roland, that was the most focused interview with Bernie Sanders has given that I've seen with a person of African descent about our issues.

I thought the charter school point that you raised is very good. He was very clear. It's not about nonprofit charter schools, public charter schools. It's about that for-profit piece, de-linking corporate wealth. And on a day when Donald Trump just handed out $16 billion of our tax money to farmers in his

trade war with China, I thought it was very important that you continue to push him on this theme of how we use federal government to improve the lives of everyone, not just education, but as you dovetailed there at the end, the question of raising people out of abject poverty that is as a consequence of this extreme wealth inequality. It was a good solid way to have Sanders address the racial elements of wealth inequality and income inequality. I thought it was very powerful. This is a great, hard-hitting interview. It's the first time Bernie's not able to duck and dodge black issues, issues that affect black people, and get answers from him on issues that affect black people.

I mean, he did try there towards the end to fall back on his, you know, we want to deal with wealth inequality for everybody or poverty for everybody. But, you know, here he's talking to a black audience. And when he's talking to a black audience, he needs to address things that deal with black people. He needs to address the situation with Rep. Nakia and Vermont. He needs to address the situation of capital going into black businesses. I know it kind of runs in antithesis to his platform and some of his core beliefs.

But if we're going to have a serious conversation about black economics and raising the black community's economic status, a lot of that's going to come from the development of black economic development and black business. And, you know, there has to be a firm discussion about capital going into the black community. I'm looking on Instagram, and so somebody on my Real Brother Radio Network said,

Roland is wrong about South Africa and Obama's $27 trillion deposited into the Fed, Bank, and Treasury, not helping blacks. Of course it did. First of all, you know what the hell you're talking about. The reality is South Africa right now has an extremely high black unemployment rate. I interviewed Wendy Mandela a few years before she died. She talked about the issues with the young African Americans who were in college, excuse me, who were in school fighting apartheid. One of the reasons why you have high unemployment rate is because of the literacy rate now, because they were fighting apartheid. You also have the problem in the

country where whites still dominate the wealth in South Africa. The reality is that if you look at the wealth gap in America right now, the average white family has about $150,000 to $160,000 in wealth. Average African American family has $5,000. In 24 years, America is going to be a nation majority of people of color. The reality is those trends are likely not to change. So what is going to happen by 2043? You will have a nation, 53% people of color, 47% white, and white folks will still hold the majority of wealth in the country.

So you don't know what the hell you're talking about. The second thing, what you don't understand is go read the Wall Street Journal article from March of 2014. It ran on a Saturday. It said twenty three point zero nine billion dollars of small business loans were handed out to Africa, handed out all across the country. One point eight percent, three hundred eighty five million went to African-Americans. Yes, it was a story across the fold of the Wall Street Journal. It ran on the front page. The reason I know that, because I was flying to Raleigh, North Carolina for the Radio 1 Women's Empowerment Conference, read it, went to my hotel, immediately emailed the White House saying, I want somebody from the SBA on the Tom of joining the morning show on Monday to discuss this.

They couldn't find anybody, and the SBA avoided me for 90 days until June when I sat in the White House and in an off-the-record conversation challenged President Barack Obama on the very issue. So you don't know what the hell you're talking about. This is why I'm where I am, and you're commenting on YouTube. I mean, I don't understand these people who don't quite understand that the fundamental issue that you have here is for African Americans, largely our wealth is a result of homes. You get a home foreclosure crisis in America, guess what? No home, no loan, no business.

And the issue is still there. You have African Americans with strong business plans. You cannot grow capacity if you don't have wealth. Also, radio, whatever the hell your name is, there are 2.6 million black-owned businesses in America. 2.5 million of them have one employee. The black-owned businesses in America right now are doing, on average, $54,000 in annual revenue a year. So we've had a 700,000 increase in black-owned businesses, yet we had 1.9 million black owned businesses. The average revenue was $110,000. So here we have an increase of 700,000

black owned businesses, and we still have only 100,000 of them with more than one employee. And they're averaging 54 grand in revenue. That's not how you change economics in America. No. It's funny you mention that South Africa. One of my good young brothers who was a sophomore, junior at Temple, and I just came back from South Africa the other day, we were talking about it. He talked to a lot of those young people over there, the so-called born frees, the kids who were born after the elections of 94. Many of them didn't vote in this previous election.

You know, South Africa just had an election last week, a couple weeks ago. And the reason they said it is because we don't see how this politics is going to change when the wealth has stayed in the hands of that poor, that group of poor people. And unfortunately also in South Africa, the ANC has not dealt with the corruption. That's right. The theft of resources. That's right. And so here you're saying, believe us, trust us.

No. And they're saying, y'all stealing the money and the white folks got the rest of the money. Well, it's crazy because what they, in fact, what they told his young brother was, we're not voting out of respect for the ANC because we know it was the Liberation Party, but they haven't delivered for us, so therefore the best we can do is just be quiet. But the point you're raising, and what you're raising with Bernie Sanders, it's very important. What is the function of government in a capitalist society? When you look at the fact that Donald Trump floated the idea of a $2 trillion infrastructure package

before he stomped out of this meeting yesterday, which, of course, he never intended. When you go back to Roosevelt and the New Deal, you go back to the Great Society, it is that infusion of public dollars that allows people to begin to fight their way out. Can you get a loan? Can you get a living wage to buy a house, to do something like that? But what happens in a capitalist society when government isn't doing its job? You have this extreme wealth transfer. You have the huge tax cut that can't be paid for. And so when you ask Sanders how you're going to put a floor under people, his answer, which, you know, socialists will

give that answer, but what he doesn't understand, well, what he's begun to understand now is that there's a racial element involved. Yes. Without that, without dealing with that, this capitalism is racial capitalism. And you're drinking for the white folks who are in South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, who are running around talking about lower government, when more than half of their damn state budget is reliant on federal government, shut the hell up.

I follow quite a few of the reps in the state center in South Carolina. One of them was recently ranting about how about $9 billion of their state budget comes from the federal government um i'm just like hey if you grew your economy you know you may not have that you may not have that issue but you make a very valid point here um you know when it comes to bernie sanders

he's five years into this game at this point um you know he should have a firm grip after running in 2016 serving united states senate with the transition in the political climate that we've gone under last 10 years you know things that affect black black black people when it comes to the society that we live in there has to be access to capital there has to be rules in place by government on how that capital works how that count how it works but but right parity fair you know fair playing playing. When you have what we have going on now today, where you have Donald Trump, you know, essentially giving a

$16 billion bailout to a bunch of white farmers that, you know, he's slapping them and then giving them... No, no, no, no. $16 billion plus the previous $12. Now that's $28 billion. So almost $38 billion in corporate welfare. That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. It's corporate welfare, you know, that literally is just going to end up in the hands of China

anyway. And he's lying when he says China is paying for it. Of course. They're not. They're not. American taxpayer is. Of course. Just like American taxpayer is paying for that damn wall.

Yep. Or that fence, whatever the hell it is. It's the wall, it's the fence. Real quick. Yeah, but long story, not so long. In order for, you know, black America to rise up, to move forward, it has to be a good injection of compassionate capitalism with actual capital backing it. All right, folks, going to break right now. We come back. We're going to talk about college education, making real decisions when it comes to college education. And also in Tennessee, the Speaker of the House is going to resign. Why? Because of racist and sexist text messages.

He said, I'm not going to quit. Yeah, it's about to go. This is Roland Martin Unfiltered. Like, share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. All right, folks, they are back. The team at MarijuanaStock.org is another great investment opportunity. If you were lucky enough to invest in the last crowdfunding campaign they had, you know, they raised over a million bucks in just a few months investing in legal marijuana farms with those initial investors now own shares of a publicly traded company they are certainly moving in a big way now last time of course

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crowdfunding campaign for as little as $500 and as much as $10,000. Now, like I said, I'm not going to miss out. You should not miss out as well. To invest, go to marijuana stock.org, marijuana stock.org to get in the game and you can do it now. All right, folks, let's now talk about a crucial issue, and that is one of money. And a lot of people are talking about what took place in Morehouse College on Sunday when Robert Smith, the richest African-American in the country, said he was going to pay off all the debt for the Morehouse class of 2019. They're estimating that could be around $40 million. It was really interesting to me to see these people write these columns saying, oh, is that right? Is it fair? Or it's really not

that major of a deal? Or I saw one piece by Splinter saying, well, this is not really a heartwarming story. All y'all can go to hell with that BS. Here's a deal. There's $1.5 trillion in student loan debt in America. That's more than we owe for cars, credit cards, and second only to mortgage debt. Now, April 2019, the Wall Street Journal showed that the median HBCU alumni had roughly $29,000 in student debt by the time they graduated, a 32% higher than the median for students from other four-year schools. Now, you might say, well, we're about to talk about college debt. Actually, we are not, because I want to actually have a different conversation. And this conversation I want to have deals with the issue of,

are we making right choices for where students go? Two, are these students making the right choices when it comes to majors? Let me unpack this. One of the reasons why I want to talk about this here, because when I was reading one of the stories about the Morehouse students one of them said that he was before graduation he was looking at only two hundred thousand dollars and he was a sociology major so I what job does he plan on getting when he graduates? And what is the earning potential of that job?

Over the course of 10, 20, 30 years, and if you factor that in, why would you go to Morehouse? Because it's private. Now, a few years ago, New York Times had a story about this young lady. She went to Ohio Wesleyan. She incurred about $150,000 in student loan debt. Her parents could not qualify. First of all, they made too much money to qualify for federal financial aid, so her parents took out private loans. The story talked about her working a couple of jobs and trying to make ends meet. And she was just angry and upset because she majored in English. Her plan was to be an English teacher.

So I'm reading the story and I'm going, why the hell did she go to a private school to be an English teacher? You get 150 grand in debt. So I got one more story so you can understand this. And that is, I was hosting a panel at the Howard Theater in 2016. And we're on the panel. So Brother jumps in. No, I'm sorry, it was in 2012.

Brother stands up and he says, I'm not going to vote for Obama because of student loan debt. And we're like, what the hell they got to do with voting for Obama? The brother says, I've got almost $200,000 in student loan debt and I'm never going to be able to pay it back. I said, okay.

I said, what is it that you're going to college for? I want to be a university professor. That's what he says. I go, okay. He then, I said, well, where'd you go to school? He says he went to Xavier in Louisiana, New Orleans for his undergrad. He went to Xavier for his master's and then he was at Tulane in New Orleans for his PhD. And the panel's going to ask, I said, no, I got this one. I said, who told your dumb ass to go to three private schools? The brother was angry about student loan debt. Yet he made the decision to go to three private colleges and i said did anybody in your family sit down and go hmm this is what this is going to cost

if you go get your undergrad and your masters and your phd He goes, no. I said, well, then that's your problem. Sit your ass down. And the reason I was saying that, folks, is because we don't have real, honest family conversations about these things. What we've done in America is we've created this whole scenario where, baby, you can go to any school you want to go to. No, you can't. You going to any school my money could send you to. I was going to wear something else today, and I purposely wore my Texas A&M jersey. Do you know why I'm wearing the Texas A&M jersey? Because that's where I graduated from. Do you know why I graduated from Texas A&M University? It's because my brother was at Texas A&M the year before I was. Why did I go to Texas A&M?

Because I, being a smart damn high school senior, said my brother is in front of me. My sister is behind me. which means that my parents, who never have made more than 50 grand combined in their entire lives, are going to have three kids in college at the exact same time. Now, coming out of Jack Yates High School, Madeline School of Communications, I was voted the best student there. When it came to journalism, if I want to use sports, I was a five-star player. I could have gone to Northwestern, to Syracuse, to Missouri, all these top schools. In fact, I could have stayed in Texas and gone to the University of Texas, which had the top journalism program in the state. I could have gone to North Texas, and they had the second best program.

But I said, no. Why? Because my mom and dad had finite money. And if I'm going to the same school as my brother, that means that they could visit both of us at the same time. When it was time to go home, we could travel home together. If I needed something, I could get it from him, he could get it from me.

Because, see, I was thinking about not just me. I was thinking about my parents. But also, you ask, well, you could have gone to a private school in Texas. It was the same reason. We didn't have a damn money. Yes, I could have gone to Houston Tillerson Private HBCU in Austin. But it was private. I could have gone to Houston-Tillerson private HBCU in Austin, but it was private. I could have gone other places, but I was thinking and I said, first, I'm going to get a job anyway.

It doesn't matter the particular university. I had no allegiance to a university because my parents never went to college. So I was, my brother was first time college person in our family. Hell, I was number two. So it wasn't like mom and daddy went to this school, so I'm going. No. It was because I had to make a financial decision as to how it was going to impact my parents and later impact me. So by going to a state school, what I owed was far less than my friends who went to private universities.

That's the conversation I want to have right now. I'm going to bring in Brittany Broadwater. She is a co-founder of Tenacity, a tech company that deals with helping to find money for folks who are trying to go to school and these issues. And Deborah Owens was also America's Wealth Coach. Deborah, I want to start with you on this and i'm glad greg is here as well because being a university professor because deborah this is the thing that drives me absolutely crazy when i hear these whining ass students and i totally get and i agree i agree that college education has the tuition has exploded it costs way too much money.

It is turned into a game of the haves and the have nots. But it was much cheaper, obviously, when I graduated with the college in 87, finishing 91. But the fact of the matter is this, Deborah. We have people who are making idiotic decisions as to where they're going to school, and they're not sitting down and running the numbers and saying what is going to be the impact, not just on me paying it back, but the hardship on my family when it comes to, because they largely co-sign on these loans.

Your thoughts. Well, you know, we've talked about this often on your show, and the reality is that college is a financial decision. And what we've created really is, to your point, is this middle class nirvana, my child can go anywhere. No, your child can't go anywhere and your child shouldn't go anywhere. And so the first thing that parents need to do is to have a conversation with their children about what the family's financial situation is and really determine, as you did, Roland, where can they get the best return and value on that college education for their specific child? And I would almost submit to you that not all children should attend college right out of high school because in many cases, they're not mature and they really don't know what they want to do. And if that is the case, then probably looking at a community college

or something that is not going to cost as much for them to find what they can eventually excel at may be a better route. And because the reality of it is, is I'm sitting down at Wealthy U with too many parents and grandparents who have co-signed on these loans and the children have defaulted. And now when they can lease it, afford it, they're still paying back those school loans, because as you know, the school loans uh a federal debt federal student loan debt is one of the few debts that you cannot charge charge off in bankruptcy uh britney i want to bring you in here and again i'm not trying to throw water on people who want

to go to ivy league school or private school but my problem is that people are not thinking about the economic impact on them and their family. If you want to be a teacher, you have to say, this is what a teacher earns. And if I'm going to a private school versus a state school to be a teacher, the reality is whether I go to the state school or the private school, it's really not going to make that much of a difference when it comes to the classroom. But I got to factor in the difference between owing 50 or 60 grand and 150 grand. Yeah, absolutely. But I think I'm not, I think we have to really think about where all of this starts. And it really starts at what we in the

academic space call the college knowledge gap, which is just like any other information gap. It's where in sixth grade, when if you are coming from a community that is very familiar with college and how college and financial aid works, then you are starting to be groomed to think in that way in sixth grade. But if you are a community that is disproportionately affected by the college knowledge gap, which would be low-income students, first-generation students, Native students, Native American, Native Hawaiian, then you don't have access to that same information. You don't have somebody in your household who has necessarily gone to college and is familiar with this financial process and you're also affected by the system where you are probably going to a school that has 498

students for every one counselor versus somebody in a different community that may have 250 students for every counselor, right? So all of these factors are leading to this college knowledge gap. And it affects not just the students, but also the parent, right? Because if I'm a student who's in a low income area in the first place, it's likely that's where my parents came from and they don't have the knowledge themselves. And so really, as a country, that is where we should be focusing our resources and closing this college knowledge gap. Greg, when I mentioned the majors, that's what drives me crazy. When I meet, when I talk to my nieces or I meet people and they say, I'm going to major

this. I go, no, no, no. What are you planning to do? Then they say, well, no, I'm going to major. I say, no, no, no. What are you planning to do? Like, what job does that major lead to? Because for me, and I said when I was speaking at Stanford, one person got mad. I didn't give a damn. They got mad. I said, let me be real clear.

College is here is about getting a sheet of paper. Now, I said, this is no disrespect on anybody who's a professor or all the other sort of stuff I said, I don't want to hear none of that stuff about what you learn your I said no This is to get a sheet of paper to be able to say when you go get a job. Have you graduated? Yes, I Have I have had numerous jobs I have hired numerous people I have never asked for somebody's proof of graduation and I never asked for transcript hmm so the deal is it's a sheet of paper it's true well rolling you know a college degree in some ways like a driver's license it's no proof of whether you can drive and that's proof whether

you pass the test. First time I got a chance to hear Sonia Sotomayor up close, some students at Howard Law asked her, what would it take to be a Supreme Court clerk? She said, you need to read and write beautifully. You know, I'm of this opinion. As somebody who was first in my family to go to college, went to Tennessee State University, and no TSU, no me.

Really, seriously, very low tuition. I worked my way through until I got a scholarship. State institution. Absolutely. Those guidance counselors, the white ones told me, oh, why don't you go? I wanted to go to the black school because I was in the marching band. It was the black guidance counselor at Hillsborough High School

that said you can go there. My point is this. You could have been a history major at Texas Southern or Prairie View, and you'd still be standing there. Why? Because your skills, you brought that desire with you to Texas A&M. I tell students all the time, unless you're in the hard sciences or some of the things, you know, what you major in is secondary to what you do with your acquisition, skill acquisition. Stop trying to hustle and get through these classes. Get that reading and

writing out. Get that work. And what I see at Howard, what I've seen at Morehouse and Spelman, what I've seen all over the country in the HBCUs, the students who take advantage of internships, the students who work in the summertime at what they want to do, if they're an English major, if they're a history major, if they're a sociology major, but they spent their summers at the Museum of African American History and Culture, they get that job because you're absolutely right. That's what you do. But I do agree, finally. Cost is important. Do your first two years at a community college

and transfer into that public HBCU. Or get that high GPA and flip it. But if you don't have advice, you're absolutely right. You're going in with blind. Eugene, go ahead. So I'm actually a product of this. When I was a senior of high school, I was dead set on going to the University of Delaware.

Dr. Craig and Mrs. Craig said, listen, you have... Where were you living? I live in Baltimore. You were in Baltimore? You planned on going to the University of Delaware? For what? I loved it. I just loved the campus.

Okay, got it, got it. Okay, got it. But the conversation that we had is this. You can go to Penn State, where they met. We'll pay for it. You can go somewhere in state. We'll pay for it. But if you go to the University of Delaware, you're pay for it you can go somewhere in state we'll pay for it but you're going to university of delaware uh you're paying for it and i looked at that and i said well at the time it's about 35k

before housing room board or whatnot um and i said well you guys should go ahead and pay for this penn state no no no no no no no no no but i'll ask again but you want to go university of delaware why well i liked it i liked the political science program science program. And I was going to minor in econ. At the time, they were building a mock stock, a mock NYSE floor. Okay. That I thought was absolutely gorgeous. But, you know, I was a young, dumb, you know, high school senior, you know, saluted to Oregon. You know, thought I knew everything.

And so that was the conversation that we had. But I did have, you know, that parental guidance to steer me to a state school where, you know, costs are probably dramatically lower. Is he different? The other thing is this. I do think at some point in the country we have to have a conversation about what's driving these high college tuitions. I mean, college tuitions rise. No, no, no.

We're going to have that conversation. But I ain't having that right now. I'm trying to stay on here for a reason. Because what happens is any time we have this conversation, we want to flip to that one. I don't want to flip to that yet. I want to come back to Brittany and Deborah on this one, because what I'm trying to get us to do is to begin to sit down with people and have real discussions. Deborah have real discussions about. Look, I know for whatever reason.

OK, you're a young black woman and you want to go to Spelman. But the reality is this. We may be able to get you through two years at Spelman. What's going to happen is your third year is going to be economic hardship. And what we know, well, the case at Morehouse, the retention rate drops every year for black kids. It's funny. Not because of education. That's right.

Because of finance. That's right. It's a bunch of black kids, Deborah. Oh, Howard, D'America, H.U. But if your ass can't afford to graduate from there, then you might need to go to, if you, another university, if you in Baltimore, you want to go to HU, but you ain't got HU money because it's private, you might need to go to Morgan State. Yes, sir.

You might need to go to Bowie State. And so that's what I mean. But what I would say, Roland, I think it's two things. I think, you know, as a community, speaking specifically to the black community, is that planning comes even before the sixth grade. It comes when you have children, right? And so what we must do is start saving when we have children and start putting money into accounts, now 529 accounts, so that we're planning and we're opening up the opportunity for our children. The other point I would make is that if you have an academically gifted child,

and I'm sure Brittany will talk about this, there are a number of scholarships out there. In fact, I have a great friend. They literally, if you go into the United Negro College Fund's database, they have all of the scholarships that you can apply for. And they basically made it a job for them and their kids. And when their kids went to college, they ended up with an additional $50,000 that they did not even have to use. And so, yeah, that, you know, cost is one thing, but we also have to be strategic and really look at our children and what their strengths and gifts are and begin to position them and take advantage of opportunities that can mitigate and in some cases almost eliminate that cost. So I'd really like for Brittany to talk a little bit about what parents can do and how her tool perhaps helps parents identify those opportunities. But why are you doing that? Why

are you doing that? I want you to do that. But also I want to do with the reality of the kid who's not gifted. I want to deal with the reality of having an honest conversation with your child who is a sophomore in high school or a junior or senior saying, what do you want to do? Because here's what Roland's not going to do. I'm not, I'm straight up. I got six, I got nine nieces and four nephews. Uncle Roro has no plans to send Yola ass to college. And you're unclear about what you're trying to do and I'm spending money while your ass trying to figure it out. Because what I'm

not going to do is pay for a fifth and a sixth year. I'm paying for four or four and a half. But we ain't getting the five and six because you switching majors and you going here because the decision to switch majors has an economic impact on the family.

And so what I'm trying to get us to do is to understand there's a dollar attached to every decision. Brittany, go ahead. Sure. And I think what it is, it's a matrix. We have to figure out what is the best fit college for you. And certainly finances are a part of that. About 95%. It's a large part of that.

But a lot of the issues that we end up with are because we don't actually understand the financial aid process. So the professor here shared, you know, you really should consider perhaps starting off at a community college because it tends to be more affordable. I would say... Oh, don't run over that because the problem is I don't care if y'all are trying to get away from home. I don't care if your high school classmates are going somewhere. That decision is still an economic and an academic one. And you got to walk somebody through.

No, absolutely. But you also have to understand that for some people, going to Stanford University could be more affordable than going to a community college. Right. Absolutely. Right. So you have to understand how financial aid works. If your household income is less than $65,000, I'm using Stanford as an example because that's my alma mater, then you will go to college for free. If you have a certain

academic and you get admitted. If you have a certain, if you're admitted, right? If your income is under $125,000, they are going to send you there and be a generous scholarship fund for you so that you don't have to take out private loans. And they're gonna ask very little from your parental contribution. So it's really important to understand the financial aid process. For our students that aren't in that top tier

and have the opportunity or meet the standards for going to some of our more selective colleges. It's really, yes, about having the appropriate conversations and having a financial conversation is not even easy for adults to do, right? So let alone children. Our app definitely goes through and actually has a script that you can literally sit down in front of your parents

and say, I'm just going to follow this script right now to have this conversation with you. But again, we have students coming from all different backgrounds and we hear stories even about students culturally that are coming from different countries that want to engage in this process. And their parents say, well, I come from a country where we don't give the government any information about our finances, any of our personal information. There's no way I'm about to give the United States government some of this basic tax or Social Security information.

They don't understand that. So we're really having to really address a lot of different barriers when it comes to this knowledge gap. And I'm pushing so hard uh on this uh i'm pushing on this because again sure you have all these candidates who are talking about college should be free but it ain't happening next week no and it's not going to happen in the fall and it's not going to happen by the fall of 2021 it's not going to happen by the fall of 2021. So we have to be real about this. We have to be real with these expectations.

And I'm so adamant about it when it comes to career, but also when it comes to college. Because look, I look at my sister. My sister and her husband, they got four kids. She's a Texas A&M graduate. He got his master's from there. I'm an A&M graduate.'s a&m graduate my wife's sister's a&m graduate i've got several cousins so they're probably at least 10 black aggies which is this is rare uh in our family they're they live in college station okay their four kids were raised in the te A&M ecosystem. The first one, does she want to go to A&M? Yes.

Baylor University, private, offered a hell of a lot more. Oh, yeah, I said Baylor. Right. The second one, wants to major in business. Applied to the Mays Business School. A&M accepted him. Not much money. Seton Hall threw a crazy package at him.

He in New Jersey. The third one wanted to get her undergrad and master's at the same time in architecture. Texas A&M only offered one degree. Again, it was I want to do this, not undergrad and get my master's. A&M

went off the list. It was down to Howard, Virginia State, Penn State. She went to Howard first, fell in love. I'm going to Howard. Now, me personally, I would, she made a mistake. Why? Because I would have said, no, you're going to go visit the other two schools as well. Then what?

Now, what's the financial numbers? Now, granted, my brother, my sister and her husband are going, hey, we got to figure this thing out. But I'm still looking at dollars and cents. Now, fine, you fell in love with it, but I still look at economically, how does it impact? Now, if a parent says we're going to bear the brunt of the cost, I'm cool with that. I'm speaking of a lot of our folks who don't, first of all, have two parents with two incomes, who have to make those decisions, Greg. And I want us to learn, like your parents did, who could have sent you anywhere, to be honest, but they said, look here, Eugene, we cutting the check.

So how you feel is one thing, but we also cutting the check. Greg, go ahead. Very, very interesting. Brittany, the point in what you raised, that word has been important. It's a matrix. So let's say that she picked Howard for this architectural duel. The network Howard has means that if she goes through that architecture program at Howard, she gets in the front of the line of architectural jobs in Jamaica, Nigeria, Brazil. I've seen it

with my own eyes. Same thing for a lot of HBCUs. Engineering, North Carolina A&T. Business, maybe you go to Clark Atlanta or Tennessee State or Jackson State. But as somebody who's, I'm the first in my family to go to college, as I said, every degree I have, my law degree, my master's degree, my Ph.D., were paid for by the universities, by Ohio State, by Temple University. But that's because when I got to college at that very low tuition, it's state state HBCU I think Norfolk State Virginia State all space I had a faculty who saw my potential and says son you're going to bust these grades out and we're going to put you in this network to get those

scholarships it is indeed a matrix right which means that you're thinking beyond just I like the university Deborah and Eugene you're saying no it the network, it's what's available to me when I graduate, all of that factors into one's decision as to where they're going. Eugene, then Debra. Eugene? I agree 100% with you. I think, you know, that this is a very broad conversation, but I think, you know, when it comes to college seniors, college juniors, you know, when you're, you know, prepping for the PSAT, when you're prepping for the SAT, part of the conversation leading up to college needs to be that cost. And

I'm looking forward to playing around with tenacity to see how we can, you know, help have that conversation. And see, Debra, I got some fool on YouTube called Clad saying, your panel is full of elitists. See, this is the problem when you got arrogant-ass people who don't know what you're talking about. No, he's right. I am a

super elite. I didn't have two pennies to rub together. My elite is intellectual. Son, you better get at me another day on that. Right. And my HBCU professor, which means I don't make the money my colleagues at Stanford. Yeah, give me his act. We can deal, brother, right after this. See, my deal is, I already said

it. I had two parents who didn't go to college, who never made more than 50 grand combined, had five kids. So you can go to hell trying to say who's an elite and say you want to criticize. But the bottom line is what we're trying to do with this here is to impart knowledge and wisdom that we also learned and went through, as opposed to a bunch of our people making financial mistakes, Deborah, going to a university for one or two years, coming home, and guess what happens? You come home because you don't have the money to stay, and now you got to pay student loan back. You can't get a job because you don't have a degree, and now speaking of a matrix, now you're really in a matrix because I'm sitting at home,

and the letter's going to come six months later. And if I can't pay it back, I'm then if I went to HBCU, especially I'm going to hurt the default loan rate because I can't pay my loan back. And I'm going to hurt the next black student who's coming to school. Deborah. Yeah. And to your point, I think what we've all discussed here and the points that we're making, it really is the difference between playing checkers and chess, right? You know, that checkers thing is, oh, I just want to go there because that's how I feel. Whereas we're really talking about putting a strategy behind it. Your point is, who do I want to be? What do I want to do? And then what are the tactical strategies that I can get there with the least investment with the highest return. And I really want to kind of double click on something that the professor said, and that is

that social capital that you do gain by attending somewhere like a Howard or a Hampton, it's very important that you leverage those networks. So even then, not all of our kids have that social capacity, right, to really leverage that. So that's one of the other things that you want to look at. You know, what are you majoring in? How does that higher education, that university really have a track record of helping students move beyond college and into opportunity? So it all fits together. But to the point that we're making is you cannot just make a decision from emotion or allow your children to do it. They have to understand what the limit, what resources you're working with, and then what their responsibility is in achieving once they do attend, you decide on something, what their responsibility is in holding up to that bargain and valuing what it

is you've all decided to do. And again, and again, for me, Brittany, the issue that I have here is what I'm looking at. I'm looking at the reality that a lot of African-Americans are not graduating from college, not because they don't have the ability or because they flunked out. It is because of finances. And that decision as to where you go to school is directly impacted by those previous years of conversations. Not just your academic study, not a scholarship that you may have received, but it's a question of, again, things you have to think about. For me, I understood if I chose to go to school out of state, how am I getting home? Where's the money going to come from for me to fly home and to fly back? Where's the money going to come from if I want my parents to come for parents weekend?

Where the dollars are going to come from? See, those are things that people think, okay, I want to go there. But it's like it's some other stuff that's involved here that goes beyond just that, that we have to walk folks through to understand. Yeah, and it's an entire list of things, right? But this is part of that financial conversation that we have scripted out for you, right? So it's not just about tuition and room and board, but also food in some cases. It's also about entertainment. I think a big part of the college experience is all of the people that you meet and all of the new

experiences that you have. Are you able to afford that? Are you able to still participate on a campus that perhaps most people are coming from a different socioeconomic background. These are all conversations that need to be had, again, starting at a very, very young age, because to have the conversation three months before you actually need to select your college is not the time to have it. This is an ongoing conversation that really starts very early. I'd also like to add for our parents listening that you should never be afraid to ask for more. So once you receive your financial aid package from all of these other schools, you can certainly go back and say this is still not enough, what can we do? Right. And

you'll be surprised how many colleges want to have that conversation with you. And so it's really important to yes fulfill the matrix, fill it out and look at all of those things. I'm going to throw a bone to your nieces and nephews and say that it is also important to identify what it is that you love and to really go after that. As long as you have a plan, if you are going to want to be a teacher, if you want to be a photographer, you need to understand what your income is going to look like. And then you need to plan appropriately. But it's I see a lot of students who also are just making decisions based on money and the type of salary they're going to get once they're out of college. And that's also not a good plan. Again, it's a career issue. I mean, again, look, my hours, probably about a month or two before I was going to graduate.

Yeah. We're in the car driving. My daddy says, son, you really sure you want to do this journalism thing? Because he was looking at what journalists make coming out of college. I'm looking at him going, you asking me that damn question? After four years of college, after going to a school of communications for four years in high school, so I've been doing this for eight years

and you're really asking me that question right now? I went, really? Really, dude? Now, again, for me, I understood the long term deal. I got offered $20,000 coming out of college with

multiple internships, multiple jobs, radio, television, and newspaper. I said, y'all got to pay me $22,000. I'm going to take another job. A smaller paper, a vice president of a night ridder said, you should work at this small paper here. I'm like, no, y'all do small. I knew what my worth was

coming out of college. It wasn't less than $20,000. Took the job, got three promotions in a year and a half, went from $20,000 to $34,000 in 13 months. The point is I understood long term. So now my daddy and mama living in my house in Dallas, that's paid for. I'm paying the property taxes. They cars paid for. Guess what? Journalism paid off off and now he understands that but again and you have to do it but I was right yeah but the point is

the point is I love to do it I knew what I want to do yes so when I went to college I wasn't just majoring in journalism yes I understood what jobs I wanted to do in journalism. So what angers me is when I talk to college students and I say, what do you want to do? And they go, oh, I'm a history major. Okay, but have you thought about what you want to do? So when you walk across the stage, we kind of have an idea because that's one sister who I met at HBCU who, four years, she's a chemistry major. She got a chemistry degree. And I'm like, what are you, I said, what's next? Oh, am I going to go to dental school or law school?

I'm going, wait. I went, what was the last four years? If you're going to law school to be a patent lawyer, because I went to law school to cat like that, you've got a plan. But, but, but, Roland. See, I'm trying to get us to be at the planning part. No, but you're raising something that's very important. I'm glad you said that, Brittany, about doing what we love. Our people came out of enslavement virtually unable to read and write in English.

Within a short period of time, Mary McLeod Bethune talked about this before Congress in 1943. They wiped out illiteracy, winning those black colleges, for two, this is where I'm going with this. The folks who didn't go to college pawned their stuff, went into sharecropping to help finance the education of a generation

that would, and that generation had a purpose. The farther we get from that lash, the more we start looking like the education of a generation that would, and that generation had a purpose. The farther we get from that lash, the more we start looking like the rest of these Americans around here. I want to do what's in it for me. No, no, your purpose is not just informed by what you want to do. It's what's going to also help your community. And if we can just see ourselves clear, give some money to Texas A&M, black folk.

Give it to a scholarship fund for black students. Give to every HBCU. If you give a dollar, and get our young people in so that, I got to know where this app is, because I got a bunch of middle school students and elementary school students need to look at it, and high school students, drive these Saturday school programs, drive these after school programs where we inform our young people so that they don't go to college, I don't know what I want to do. No, that's not an option for you. You're part of a people. Precisely. Precisely. I think it's so important that we really, as a community, try to engage young people. A lot of times I think we really much depend on the school to do that. Can't do it. They depend on the school. Like you said,

not with one guidance counselor serving 500 kids. Exactly. Exactly. So we as a community and as we have to support these after-school organizations that do this work and it's very crucial work that they're doing. And so if you are a parent and you are going to a school that has one college counselor for every 500 students, then you need to start also looking for other opportunities for your child to get the more of that one-on-one support. And that could be at the church. That could be at an after-school program, a sports organization. And to really think of those individual coaches and leaders in that space as additional guidance counselors. Yes. Final comment, Eugene, and then Debra's going to close us out.

I agree 100% with what everybody said here. You know, if we have a system that's pretty much built around getting people from high school to college with ACT to SAT, a bunch of standardized testing, part of that college discussion has to be, you know, what is the proper fit, what is your game plan, how are you going to pay for it, and how are you going to thrive as a functional member of society afterwards? Debra, what's the app? You know, the one point that I want to make is that for parents, don't just wait till college. There are a lot of things that you can do in high school. Your student can get college credit during high school. Many community colleges, you know, starting in your junior year almost,

you can get out of high school and already have completed what would be an associate's degree. To your point, Roland, we have to be more strategic, learn more about what we can do with our kids to make sure that we're making a financial decision for our whole family, and we're not putting our family in financial jeopardy let me say it again to all the folks who are watching as a high school senior i could not be arrogant and think of myself i had the credentials to go to the top media colleges in the nation but I didn't because what I understood

is that one I was going to get a job I was going to be successful I went came out of college as the number one student there I came out of high school the number one student came out of college as a top student in journalism so that was not issue. But I had to factor in my entire family situation. And what I was not going to do is the mistake like a lot of people make, where they say, no, I'm going to go here and not think about the brother or the sister who's behind them, or even the one in front of them, and look at it for my parents as well.

I paid off all my student loans. My parents did not give me paid off all my student loans. My parents did not give me a dime for my student loans. I paid them off because of what I did in my career. And let me make this last point, and I know that I was talking to my niece earlier about this. There are a lot of people who are rightfully complaining about the cost of tuition. But let me remind people of something.

There are a lot of us and we graduate one of the first things we do is buy a new car and we go buy a new car and it costs 25 30 35 thousand dollars you know what you're doing you're taking a loan out and you got to pay it back in five six now they got seven years and now you got a high interest on it as well the way i looked at my college education was the same way i looked at buying a car i was actually taking loans out to invest in me and the payoff was what i did after college to pay those loans back now it's a different conversation if you have a student loans that amount to buying an S-level Mercedes or buying a Rolls Royce.

It's a different conversation. 30, 50, or even $75,000 in student loans. Because I looked at that as what gave me an opportunity to be able to be successful in life. All I'm saying is we have to change our thinking. And again, for those of y'all who think I'm talking crazy, mom and dad never went to college. Come on. Never did. Both high school graduates of Jack Gates High School. But I knew how to read. I knew how to talk to people. I knew how to talk to people who had already been there.

I gleaned knowledge from all those sources, which made it easy for me to be able to go through this process. And that's why we want to do this show, because we're trying to help people make better choices, because we don't want our folks to be behind again. It simply can't happen. Now, real quick, the Speaker of the House of Tennessee, he's resigning because racism text messages. That's all I need to give. I was going to talk about that at food cannons, Owens and Cornell West. I ain't wasting my damn time. This is more important. So here's the deal to folks. We got Devon Franklin. It's going to be our show with him. My interview one-on-one with him is going to air tomorrow. My staff is off. I'm giving them Friday off.

Memorial Day weekend, we're going to be off Monday as well. And so we're going to be running our one-on-one interviews on Friday and Monday as well. Hope you have a great holiday weekend. I got to go to Houston. I got two nieces who are graduating from high school. One in the morning on Saturday. Faith Gabrielle, Lizzie, she graduates Saturday night. Luckily, we get to knock all of them out at the same time.

All of those cost me one damn ticket going home. See? It's called finances. All right, y'all. You have a great Memorial Weekend. Debra, we appreciate it. Brittany, thanks a lot. Brittany and Eugene and Greg, what's the site?

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