#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 6.6 RMU 75th D-Day anniv missing Black troops; Beto's Black voter plan; Black youth suicide spikes

Episode Date: June 8, 2019

6.6 .19 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: On the 75th anniversary of D-Day mainstream media has forgotten about the Black troops; Beto Rourke says he has a plan to turnout Black voters in 2020; Why has Black youth suicide spiked? An editor for the Atlantic says writers who can write long features are almost exclusively white males; Central Park Five prosecutor, Linda Fairstein lost her Woman of the Year Award. #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: 420 Real Estate, LLC To invest in 420 Real Estate’s legal Hemp-CBD Crowdfunding Campaign go to http://marijuanastock.org Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Martin! Thank you. Thank you. Today's Thursday, June 6, 2019. Coming up on Roller Martin Unfiltered, today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day. You probably wouldn't know that because you haven't seen any black soldiers. And so that's why we have a black show. We'll be talking with retired General Kip Ward, also the author of a book on black soldiers and D-Day. See, that's what we do here. We talk about black people. All right, also, Beto O'Rourke will be joining me.

I had an interview with him earlier today. We were talking about a variety of issues, including what he is going to do for education, HBCUs, his thoughts on charter schools, and what will he say to white folks about white fear. Yep, I don't want to miss that conversation. Black youth suicide between the ages of 5 and 12 has surpassed that of white children.

What is going on? We'll talk to an expert. Plus, the editor of The Atlantic says writers who can write really, really long features are almost exclusively white males. I have something to say about that. And Central Park 5 prosecutor Linda Farristein loses her Woman of the Year award from Glamour. It's

about damn time. And guess what? More crazy ass white women. Yes, we have video. It's time to bring the funk. A roll of Mark unfilter. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the mess, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. Yeah. Yeah. With Funko Royale. Yeah. Politics with entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling with Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling, Martin.

Rolling with rolling now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's rolling, Martin. Now. Martin. All right, folks, there are more people running for president on the Democratic side than there are Wayans. Yeah, say it ain't so. One of the folks is Beto O'Rourke, of course. He ran for United States

Senate lost to Senator Ted Cruz, got within two and a half points of upsetting him that has caused a lot of his supporters to say he can make a real run for the presidency. Well, earlier this morning he and I had a conversation. We talked about a variety of things,

including his plan to register more than 50 million voters and make sure that initial 35 million folks can vote in 2024. Here's our conversation. Well, first off, welcome to Rolling Mark, non-filtered. Congressman Beto O'Rourke, how are things in your world? Things are great. I'm in Atlanta.

We just had a voting rights forum last night. I'm going to get a chance to meet Stacey Abrams today, a little bit later today. I'm really looking forward to that on this same subject, and then have a chance to speak to a group later this evening before moving on to Iowa tomorrow. So grateful to be in Georgia. Let's talk about that particular issue. You've unveiled your voting rights platform, your issue that you have laid out. This is something that I have been obviously focused on for a number of years. The reality is that on the Republican side, there's this constant focus to suppress the vote all across the country, whether we're talking about Georgia,

whether we're talking about Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, especially North Carolina. And I say that this is, without a doubt, the plan and strategy of the National Republican Party, because they do not want to see black folks, young folks vote. They want to be able to shrink the population in order to maintain power. That's absolutely right. And I would add my home state of Texas to that list. First of all, I'm also a native of Texas. So you're right. Texas is as well. Yeah, we ranked 50th in voter turnout before 2018. And that was because of the tactics that you just described. The state legislature literally drew people out of congressional districts based on their race or ethnicity.

The courts found that to be the case in 2017. In Texas, you can use your license to carry a firearm to prove who you are at the ballot box, but you cannot use your student ID at Prairie View A&M or the El Paso Community College to prove who you are at the ballot box. But we saw a lot of people in 2018 transcend those barriers. And in fact, young voter turnout in early voting was up 500 percent. You had one of the greatest levels of turnouts in a midterm election year in the history of the state of Texas. So there's a way to overcome this through people's organization and willingness to volunteer and get after it. But you've got to institutionalize that. And so our plan calls for bringing in 50 million new voters over the next four years, bringing

35 million new people to the polls who not just registered but are actually voting over that same time period, and then removing the barriers to voting. So stopping the purges of voter rolls that we've seen in those states that you've just described, perhaps most notably here in Georgia, making sure that there are no more discriminatory voter ID laws or racial gerrymandering, and then guaranteeing the sanctity of the ballot box, having paper ballots and or paper receipts, having full audits of all the elections that take place, and then making sure that we get big money out of our politics and have people just respond to other people,

not PACs, not corporations, not special interests. If we do all of that within the frame of a new Voting Rights Act, then this democracy is going to fully function and we're going to be able to meet those big challenges, whether it's immigration or economic inclusion, health care or confronting climate before it's too late. But how do you speak to this? This is the space where I think it is the missing link. How do you speak to white voters to get them to understand that? And let me unpack that. A couple of years ago, I was at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation annual legislative conference. And of all the civil rights leaders, it was Secretary of State of the state of California.

And I said, look, I said in 2016, that was a clerk in Wisconsin who specifically said she moved a voting location off of a college campus because too many young folks were voting and she moved it to a far out place with a small parking lot. What took place in North Carolina, removing those voting locations off of those campuses. Wisconsin, some 200,000 people were affected by that voter ID law. Even though the Obama administration, they approved it, their voter ID law in terms of the DOJ, federal judge had to pull in Governor Scott Walker and say, why y'all foot dragging these voter IDs? And I think every time we talk about voting, in many ways, we're talking about African Americans, Voting Rights Act, and preclearance. But young white voters, older voters as well, are being targeted. And

I said to civil rights groups, you've got to tell white Americans, look, this ain't a black thing. Your voting rights are also being impacted. And I think that's also a disconnect there. Absolutely. I think you just made the case. And I think we could continue by saying, it's not just the elections that are compromised. It is the policies that follow. So if Stacey Abrams were the governor of Georgia, you would have no new anti-choice legislation being signed that restricts a woman's ability to make her own decisions about her own body. Now, that affects women of color, but it also affects white women in this state. You might find some common cause in the policies that follow fraudulent elections like the one that was held in Georgia. Or you mentioned North Carolina, where I think fraud is the right word to use in a congressional district where the will of the voters was subverted.

And thankfully, they're going to redo that election. I think the Democrats are going to win if there is a level playing field. So I think you're absolutely right to say that we've got to find the common cause that makes this not just an issue important to communities of color, but an issue to everyone in America. Because anything that any one of us wants to be able to achieve will only be possible if everyone is brought in to this democracy. And we're beginning to see some good changes in Georgia. As you probably know, there's the New Georgia Project, which is going to ensure that we get those registrations and folks actually out to the polls

in Texas, the Texas Organizing Project. So really from the grassroots, even before you have a new Voting Rights Act, people are taking matters into their own hands and making sure that everyone gets out to the polls. Let's talk about another critical issue, and that is, again, for you, the state of your campaign. You've been in it for a couple of months now. The pundits say you're lagging in the polls. With so many people in this race, how do you get traction? How do you build that where people then are saying, hey, he has a legitimate shot at this? Or because you hear people say, you know what, he should have ran for U.S. Senate.

He should have stayed in Texas, built folks there, targeted John Cornyn. What do you have to do to gain traction in a field with 23, 24 candidates? You know, at its best, this race is going to be a competition of ideas. And so this bold proposal that we released yesterday on voting rights and making sure that more people are brought into our democracy, I hope helps to distinguish us. We've also released bold plans on climate change, bold plans on immigration reform.

We've talked very passionately about a criminal justice system where we need to reform it by making sure that not only do we end the war on drugs, not only do we do away with for-profit prisons, not only do we end cash bail and expunge the arrest records of those arrested for possession of a substance that's legal in more than half the states in the country right now, but that we go well beyond that and confront the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and segregation and suppression that is alive and well in every part of American life today.

But I think there are some personal things that might also distinguish me as well. Coming from the U.S.-Mexico border, a community that doesn't just tolerate our differences but embraces them, one of the safest places in the United States of America today in El Paso is safe, not despite, but because we are a city of immigrants. And in this race that we ran last year in Texas, one of the reddest states in America,

we went to every single county and brought people in. It didn't matter how rural, how small, how red, we were going to show up with the courage of our convictions, talking about the most important issues, but then bringing you in to this process. And we also didn't take the big blue places for granted either. We showed up there as well and included people in the outcomes of that election. And though I didn't win at the end of the day, we got close. We won more votes than any Democrat had in the history of the state of Texas. Won independence for the first time in the history of the state of Texas. Won independence for the first time in decades, brought Republicans along as well. And as you know, we now have two new members of Congress in part as a result, both Democrats replacing Republicans, 17 African-American women elected to judicial positions in Harris County. So we were

able to help fix our democracy in Texas and bring more people in. I think that's the only way that you beat Trump in 2020. It's the only way that you bring this country back together again in 2021. One of the areas that is also critically important, but I talk about a lot, deals with economics. And that is you've got 2.6 million Black-owned businesses in America. 2.5 million of those only have one employee. When we had 1.9 million black owned businesses several years ago, they were doing an average revenue of about $110,000 a year. Today, here we have 700,000 more black owned businesses and they're only doing an average revenue of $54,000 a year. And so what will you do to deal with that? Because having black businesses not being able to grow,

not being able to have capital, not being able to build capacity has a direct impact on the economic future of African-Americans, especially when you talk about wealth creation. Want to double the amount of money that we have in community finance institutions to get capital into the community. So the businesses that you just described can expand and grow, hire, invest in new equipment and technologies, and expand their customer base. I want to make sure that the federal government, through the billions of dollars in procurement decisions that it makes, favors true small businesses and helps specifically

minority-owned businesses to expand. One of the legacies that I just described, that I alluded to in terms of slavery and segregation and redlining is the fact that you've got 10 times the wealth in white America than you do in black America. And this is going to exist and persist and be exacerbated unless you have structural changes in how the government purchases and how capital gets out into communities. So those two structural changes in terms of community lending, doubling the amount that we get out there and procurement decisions from the federal government. And if you match that with a new deduction for small business owners in the tax code, especially these small businesses

that you're talking about, I think you begin to get closer to parity, or at least you get people on the path to be able to pursue something closer to parity going forward. Those are three concrete steps that we can take. Let's also stay on that, because when we talk about, again, fostering job growth and job development, when you talk about those dollars, one of the biggest complaints that I've heard from mayors for years is that you've had plans in the past where they said, fine, we'll minute, we've had better outcomes when it comes to DBA participation, when it comes to African-American businesses. And so I think also a big issue is whoever is president saying, hey, let's bypass these governors and let's say, how do we target money directly to states, excuse me, to cities, city programs where African Americans have done a lot better than statewide programs? Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think

the real innovation is happening at the city level right now. I was just in Columbia, South Carolina, visiting with Mayor Benjamin. He was telling me about the power of these community development block grants. He was able to use that small federal investment and match it, I think, nine to one and build affordable housing in the city center of Columbia, housing that University of South Carolina students can afford, housing that others who might have otherwise been pushed out of their neighborhoods could afford, because he made developer investment and the zoning that was necessary conditional on affordability. So here you have a mayor who's tackling the crisis in housing affordability in the United States, and that's happening not at the state or the federal level,

that's happening at the local level. So let's find those most innovative mayors and city councils and let's invest in them. Couldn't agree more. Education is obviously another critically important issue. What is your specific plan for the nation's historically black colleges and universities? Obviously, in Texas, you have institutions that are private. You have Houston Tillerson in Austin. You also have Wiley College and you have Paul Quinn there in the Dallas area. And then, of course, your larger ones, TSU in Houston, as well as Prairie View, but also across the country. What is your plan for HBCUs? I was just fortunate enough to be able to give the commencement at Paul Quinn College last month.

And one of the things that I learned from my visits to Paul Quinn is it is the first urban work college in the United States of America. They've been able to reduce the cost of tuition through this program. They've been able to guarantee more of their students jobs right after graduation. And the level of indebtedness is much lower than it was, say, 10 years ago at Paul Quinn College. But we know that HBCUs, because of smaller endowment sizes, have a much larger challenge in being able to make college affordable and prevent students from graduating with $30,000, $40,000, $60,000 in student loan debt. So a greater investment from the federal government in these HBCUs is absolutely critical. Any plan to make sure that we have free community college, that we do a better

job of elevating unions and access to apprenticeships must be combined with an investment in HBCUs and then the ability to pay down debt affordably. So let's lower the interest rates and let's absolutely expand the public service loan forgiveness program. If you're willing to work at the VA, teach school, invest part of your life in public service, I want to wipe clean the student loan debt that you carry so that you can focus on your career, your life, and serving others. Let's talk about, we talk about primary and secondary education. I am, I went to Magnus Schools in Houston, Jack Gates High School, Magnus School of Communications. I am a huge supporter of charter schools because for me, my my belief, I believe in every form of education if it works for the children. And so when it comes to charter schools, which is also an opportunity for African-Americans to control schools, run the schools, control the curriculum, control the economics.

What is your stance on public charter schools? to control schools, run the schools, control the curriculum, control the economics. What is your stance on public charter schools? So I think there's a role for charter schools for some of the reasons that you just described. But I think that there's not going to be an opportunity to charter our way through all the challenges or opportunities that we have. There's also some really extraordinary public schools in the city in which you were educated. We were visiting Cashmere Gardens after Harvey. And one of the things that the president of the Neighborhood Association told me is that we were hit by a storm long before Harvey. And he talked about just lack of social educational

services, the ability to get a healthy meal, kind of a food desert in that area. We were passing Kashmir Elementary, and I said, well, this has got to be a poor-performing school. And he said, actually, this is really the bright spot in our community. It's a complete school, so not only do you have free and reduced breakfast and lunch, but you have primary and mental health care services at that school, which many kids are unable for whatever reason, perhaps because Texas failed to expand Medicaid, unable to access, but they're able to access them there at that school, world-class public school educators, instructors, and teachers. So I think investing in them, making sure that pre-K is universal

across this country, that teachers can focus on just one job because they don't have to work two or three as they do throughout Texas and too many states in this country right now. That's going to necessitate greater federal investment in programs like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Title I funding, make sure that those are laboratories for innovation as well. So I think that public education can be foundational to our larger economic success, but we've got to make it a primary focus. And right now it is not. Well, I got a couple of minutes left. And so when we talk about also how we move forward, I said this to Senator Bernie Sanders and I said this to every other every other white Democrat. I believe that what we're seeing with Donald Trump is we're operating in this age of white fear that we have individuals who understand the demographic changes in this country. How do you directly, how do you directly talk to white voters to get them to understand that this whole, we keep hearing economic anxiety.

I think white Democrats have to look white voters in the eye and say, you are being played on racial politics and the fear of the changes in the country. And I think it has to be explicit. It has to be clear. And also, I think white Democrats have to also go to the reddest places in the country and look at white voters in the eye and say, your health care sucks, your economics suck. And guess what? You're being played because you're being played on racial fears. Are you willing to do that, to look white voters in the eye and say, look, stop blaming another ethnicity for what's going on here? The America is changing. You have to you have to accept the reality of what's going on. Yes, the answer is yes. And that's what I did across Texas in 2017 and 2018. in his presidential campaign, going to southwest Iowa, for example, and listening to and talking

with farmers who are really bearing the brunt of this president's trade policies. I mean, the soybeans, the corn that they're growing can no longer find markets in Asia. If he imposes these tariffs on Mexico, they'll no longer be able to sell there. They're already underwater in debt. They're already underwater from the floods from the Missouri River. This president is absolutely punishing them and distracting them, or at least trying to at the same time, by trying to make them scared of Mexicans who he calls rapists and criminals, or Muslims who he wants to ban from this country, or calling Klansmen or white supremacists or

neo-Nazis very fine people. And I remind folks that this doesn't just offend our sensibilities. This leads to change practices in our country. Hate crimes in America up three years and counting in a row. You had the mosque in Victoria, Texas, burned to the ground on the day that he signed his Muslim travel ban. You don't put kids in cages until you first describe them as animals or an infestation. So, yes, we talk about that in the places you might expect us to, but we talk about those things in the places you'd least expect us to in front of all white audiences in rural parts of America. It's the only way that we're going to confront this challenge

together and be able to overcome it. And it's going to take all of us. And so, yeah, I want to make sure that we take that message everywhere in this country. All right, Beto O'Rourke, I appreciate you joining us, joining me in Roland Martin Unfiltered. Thanks so much. Thank you. Very grateful. All right, folks, let's have a conversation about Beto O'Rourke with our panel. Joining me right now is, of course, from left to right, Abisha Cross, political commentator, Sinclair Group, Dr. Greg Carr, chair, Department of Afro-American Studies Howard University and Dr. Julian Malveaux economist

president emeritus Bennett College and so I may shall start with you the he's he's qualified for the debate there were a number of things that Democrats said to qualify but the reality is with all of the hype, all of the attention, I remember in 2018, I was at different places, and there was some young black kids. They were like, oh, he must run for president. He's the only one who can win.

And I kept saying, but he lost. And it was this, and again, and so he comes out, bandy fair cover. All of this coverage, and then Peters he comes out bandy fair cover all this coverage and then peter's out there are 24 candidates um and the reality is he's not in the top five top seven top eight um chuck sumer's sitting there going why aren't you running for the united states senate do you believe that he should be running for president or he should have stayed in Texas and run against Senator John Cornyn for that seat next year?

He definitely shouldn't be running for president. I think that he was oversaturated during his Senate run last go-round, but he definitely came into this with a lot more esteem in himself than he probably should have had. Anyone who says I was born for this should raise our level of sensibilities. But also I think that there was an air in himself than he probably should have had. Anyone who says I was born for this is it should

raise our level of sensibilities. But also, I think that there was an air of white male privilege in a lot of his conversation. And I think that that's coming back to bite him, not only in terms of losing American news, losing American support, but also not really being able to separate himself and his ideology from some of the other candidates right now. And a lot of his policy proposals, they look exactly like the other, or at least the top 15 candidates in the race. Joseph Pignon, Republican strategist, joins us via Skype.

Joseph, it was really interesting because I have been sparring with Beto supporters all day long. They've been arguing with me about Texas, saying I have no clue about Texas politics. I even had one dude from Albany, New York, who was trying to tell me about Texas politics. And I said, out of the two of us,

which one of us actually took seventh grade Texas history? I did, because I'm from there. And they kept talking about how he came close. And they got really mad at me, because I said, let me be clear, coming close isn't winning. Winning is winning. Winning is winning. Losing is losing. And they kept talking about how Beto is the only person who can put Texas in play.

And I had to remind them that, no, 2000, Al Gore ran for president, was the former U.S. Senator from Tennessee, lost his home state. Had Al Gore won his home state, he didn't need Florida. If Al Gore had just won Tennessee, he would have been president. And so it's really interesting just listening to them go back and forth. And I kept saying, yes, you're right. The enthusiasm, all the folks who are out there. But he was also running against the one Republican

who y'all hate, Ted Cruz. Yeah, I mean, I think you're listening to me. If you look at, you know, what is transpired here with Beto, you have to talk about two different things. You have to talk about the fact that, number one, he's running for his own political future. I think the reality is, I think he's smart enough to know that Texas is probably not going to go blue in a 2020 presidential election. And so from that standpoint, I think that from a personal

standpoint, it was probably a fool's errand for him to try to run statewide. I think long term, I think that how did he maintain his aura? How did he make sure that he has a future? I think that he made a determination that the best thing for him to do was to go out there, run for president, put himself in this kind of air of superiority where he could potentially be an attractive vice presidential choice, or it might be the dog that catches the car in such a field and possibly find a way to win the nomination. Hold tight one second, Joseph. Hold on.

I'm getting a lot of feedback. I'm getting a lot of feedback. If my folks, can y'all find out if there are other people who are talking in the room or is that our feedback coming through? And so let me know. Y'all can fix that. I appreciate it. One great car. Again, this is a extremely crowded field and you have to stand out. And if you look at where we are right now, Vice President Joe Biden comes out. He's a front runner. Bernie Sanders, he's lagging behind. Look at all the media fawning coverage of Pete Buttigieg. He's there. But you look at the policy proposals being thrown out by Senator Elizabeth Warren. She's gaining traction.

The two largest viewership of town halls on CNN and MSNBC this year have been Senator Kamala Harris, second to only the Bernie Sanders town hall on Fox News. And so when you look at that, people are very surprised and shocked that Beto O'Rourke is so far down compared to the amount of tension and coverage and enthusiasm that he got. Well, yeah, I'd have to disagree with Joseph when he said that, you know, he was a fool's errand for O'Rourke to run against statewide. I would have to agree with what you've articulated

as your sensibility in terms of if he had stayed in Texas and run against Cornyn, we see Cornyn now coming out against Trump on this question of these tariffs against Mexico. Why? Because Cornyn is scared now. Texas isn't the Texas that when John Cornyn entered the federal legislature. And, you know, and I understand O'Rourke is young, he has some

talent, but his namesake, not Beto, but Robert Francis O'Rourke, as in Robert Francis Kennedy, by that age, he had been Attorney General of the United States, he had been in the United States Senate, he had run a presidential campaign, his brother John Kennedy's campaign. Beto O'Rourke is a great example, and Pete Buttigieg, as far as I'm concerned, of real affirmative action.

You're a white man who decides you're just going to run for president. Do. But if you wanted to really advance that agenda, which a lot of that came from H.R. 1, the voting rights bill that the federal legislature passed, the Congress actually, you know, advanced, then you would stay at home in Texas and help the Democratic Party flip Texas. That's your job, unless it's all about ego. But, you know, this was just a minute. Hold on, hold on. I'll come to you in a second.

Go ahead. This is simmering in white privilege. This is what he and Buttigieg are simmering in white privilege. They are failed candidates. Buttigieg, what, 120,000? Well, first of all, he's not a fail. He actually was elected. He was mayor of South Bend. Oh, 120,000 people wrote. 150,000? Well, first of all, he's not a fail. He actually was elected. He was the mayor of South Bend.

120,000 people wrote him. I know. In the case of Beto O'Rourke, he was a member of Congress. True. But he didn't do anything when he was a member of Congress. What legislation can we put his hat on? What can we say he stood for? I got you.

You know, and so this, I mean, you had a great interview with him, but he is not worth two dead flies in my mind. If he was serious about doing anything, he would stay his behind in Texas and run for Senate, which he could win after the previous enthusiasm for him. But to run for president is like the hubris of these people, hubris, who think that they can be president of the United States because they white. I mean, sure. Go ahead. In this conversation about him running for Senate in Texas, I think that there's a missing piece here.

Castro is actually set up to run against Cornyn. I think that Castro, to be honest, is a better candidate. I don't think that Beto would have been able to best Castro in any way. Yeah, but here's the problem. He's also running for president. So, again, you you have you have. No, no, no, no. But's also running for president. So again, you have... The other cast. No, you're talking about... No, no, no.

But you have... Like, lotty-dotty, everybody's running for president. Yeah, but what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is, you have arguably the two top Democratic candidates to run in Texas who are running for president who are not in the upper echelon. That's just the reality. Joseph, I THINK WE FIXED THE AUDIO THERE. I KEEP HEARING THIS LINE FROM BETO SUPPORTERS, AND TRUST ME, THEY BE COMING AT HIM SAYING THAT HE SCARES REPUBLICANS. THE REALITY IS HIS RUN AGAINST

TED CRUZ DID GET THE ATTENTION OF REPUBLICANS. BUT I ALSO KEEP REMINDING PEOPLE, HE WAS ALSO RUNNING AGAINST THE MOST HATED REPUBLICAN. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH DID I also keep reminding people he was also running against the most hated Republican. President George W. Bush did fundraisers for Republicans all across the country. He refused to do one for Ted Cruz. And so to me, I think, and I totally understand, and yes, I can look at the numbers, the surge of independence, young voters across the board, But there were Republicans who hated Ted Cruz.

I think if he ran against Cornyn, you would, I think, have a much better view of whether or not Texas is transitioning away from being a solid red state. And that's why I believe, had he taken the time, not run for president, built the infrastructure, kept his team in place, focused on voter mobilization in 2019 and geared up for 2020, Democrats could also, Republicans have to defend a lot of seats, and so it would be a much better position.

But I just think it's going to be very difficult to get the traction with all of these candidates. And I think if you get down to like September and October, and if he is not around 10%, 15%, it's going to be a problem. No, I think realistically, realistically again i would tend to agree with the notion that vader world was probably not the best choice to be running for president having said that i would say if you look at texas i would agree that it's no longer a solid you're looking at a situation where you have paris county which is literally a county which is larger than Iowa.

It would be the 25th largest state in the nation. So Texas is very much trending towards blue. But I think somebody like Julian Castro would have been a much better choice to run statewide in Texas. I think if you look at it realistically, you're looking at a situation where the Texas situation right now is four years from now, right?

So if I was given data or political advice, I would tend to believe and tend to lend myself to the notion that he had no business running statewide because I think he would have ended up being a two-time loser with no political future. So I think if you're looking at it from just a raw political standpoint, yes, maybe it would have been better for the Democratic Party had he run statewide, had he continued to register voters. But I think it would have been unrealistic to think that he was actually going to be able to win

statewide in this environment. I'll say this here. I'll say this here when you look at what's happening in Texas. First of all, Texas is true. Texas is not trendy blue. So let me

just unpack that. And again, this is going to hurt all the feelings. And again, we're going to sort out the audio issues with Joseph so he's going to go away for a bit. We'll try to get him back once we sort it all out. So again, and this is really for a lot of the Beto people who

are into hero worship. They're like, you're bashing Beto people, okay, who are into hero worship. They're like, you're bashing Beto. I'm like, no, I'm not. I'm trying to explain to you what is reality. I am born and raised in Texas, born and raised in Houston. I've worked in Dallas, still own a home there. That was a, first of all, Texas used to be a state that was all blue. Democrats controlled the entire state.

Senator John Tower was the first Republican elected statewide in Texas in 1984 since Reconstruction. 1994 was the last time Democrats actually won statewide. That year, George W. Bush beat Ann Richards. But if you actually look at the results from that year, the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the comptroller, the land commissioner, they were all Democrats. Those are the top four out of the top five out of the top six positions. Now, it reached a point where Dallas County flipped all red. John Cruz, the brother who's now the district attorney in Dallas County, had to run as a Republican to get re-elected as a judge

because no Democrat could win. Fast forward about five or six years. It flips. Lupe Valdez, Latino, lesbian, Latina, lesbian, she becomes the sheriff in Dallas County. Cruzzo runs as a Democrat. The DA, Democrat. Judicial positions, Democrat. The county flipped.

Harris County flipped. Why? Because the Dems focused on what have a straight ticket balloting. Republicans used to dominate straight ticketing. Democrats figured it out. Why do you think? They saw results. So what happened in 2017 republicans in the legislature got rid of straight ticket voting in texas because the democrats figured it out and they took control in dallas and harris county bear county which is santonio travis county which is austin they saw what was going on the problem in texas is, even with their gains in Dallas County and Harris County, Republicans still control every statewide elected position. And so all the Beto folks keep tweeting me and I keep telling y'all, wake the hell up. Oh, it's going to turn blue. When you haven't won a single statewide position in 25 years, there's no such thing as we're about to turn blue.

In order for you to turn blue, you got to win one, then two, then three, four, five, six, seven. What does that require? It requires strong candidates with infrastructure, with ability to motivate, the ability to raise money, which is why you got to have your strong folks also running on the statewide level for U.S. Senate. But see, to the point of our panelists, and this may not be the case with Beto, and you think it is, it's fine, but you look at the guy who's from Montana. His wife said,

we're only going to D.C. if he becomes president. They gave no consideration to the United States Senate. Right. But you know why? Because they don't want to be backbenchers. They want the power of the presidency. I'M NOT GOING TO BE A PRESIDENT. I'M GOING TO BE A PRESIDENT. THEY GAVE NO CONSIDERATION OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE. YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT TO BE BACK BENCHERS.

THEY WANT THE POWER OF THE PRESIDENCY. DONALD TRUMP HAS CHANGED THIS WHOLE EQUATION. THEY CAN BE PRESIDENT. THE REALITY IS, YOU LOOK AT A SENATOR, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, ATTORNEY GENERAL, UNITED ST watching this whole thing, just understand that's the case.

I'm going to put a prediction down right now. The first debate is in a couple of weeks. The second debate is going to be in July. I'm telling you all right now, it's at least eight of these people ain't going to be around come November. Because you can't get to November and you're polling one, three, four percent. It just ain't gonna be around come November because you can't get to November and you're polling one three four percent just ain't gonna happen and so what so what is required though they have candidates who and guess what the people who also are running for president could drop out and

still run for you down as they Senate watch some of these things transpire and I'm the saying you check it to check it out. So we'll see what happens. But I appreciate Bill O'Rourke joining us. And of course there were other candidates who we're going to be talking to as well. Look forward to having those conversations. And I keep telling y'all, so stop asking me who's going to win? Nobody knows.

Joe Biden, of course, yesterday came out and said he supports the Hyde Amendment, which all the Democrats, candidates have been nailing him. Guess what? He could screw up in one of these debates. Let me also give y'all history, those of you who somehow refuse to understand the past. 2008,

no, 2007, Senator Barack Obama was down 25 points to Hillary Clinton in August of 2007. In October, there was a debate in Iowa. She was asked a question about driver's licenses for undocumented workers.

She blew the question. That was the door that cracked open that Obama walked through. That's how he was able to gain traction, and then he beat her in Iowa. So please, don't send me any crap right now about a poll showing this, showing who's beating who in Texas,

who's leading right now. Folks, it's a whole lot that's gonna go down between now and the first state that votes and now and the second state. And even when Iowa votes, guess what? Early voting would have already started in California. So this is an entire different election. And so let folks debate in June.

Let them debate in July. And then we'll have a different conversation in August. But right now, I ain't getting excited about nobody. Because hell, at the rate we're going, everybody ain't declared. Somebody else may run. Wow. So can we just say bye, Beto? No, no, no, no. I'm not i'm not gonna say by bed though because guess

what things could change but the bottom line is by november we'll see actually who has sea legs who's in this thing all right going to break right now we come back we're gonna talk about suicide among young african americans we'll also talk about white privilege in media and y'all know i gotta show y'all some crazy-ass white woman. Oh, yeah, we got a little bit more stuff. Right here, Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there? 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. Martin! We're so excited! All right, y'all, for the first time in the history, the rate of suicide by young black children between the ages of five and 12 has surpassed that of white children.

In addition, according to the Journal of American Medical Association of Pediatrics, black boys are at even greater risk due to factors like racism, depression, and exposure to violence. What is going on when it comes to suicide in black kids? Joining me now is Jan Desperate Peters, Executive Director, The Black Mental Health Alliance. Jan, glad to have you here. So what's going on? Thank you. Even the publication that was put out by the American Medical Association

realistically states that they don't know. They don't know why. The why is the million dollar question. Is it because mostly white folks looking at it and they have that talked to black people? Yeah, well, that... See, the show's called Unfiltered, Jan. We just cut right to the chase. Right, this ain't MSNBC.

We don't consider the feelings of white folks. Don't worry about it. Feelings of white folks? What the... Right, right, right. I mean, and who's also doing the research? Who's doing the research to look at these young black children between the ages of 5 and 12? The first time in 10 years in them looking at this research and seeing that the rates are double that of white children between the ages of 5 and 12, which is, you know, kind of unprecedented. But the Congressional Black Caucus also has declared this a state of emergency, and Representative Bonnie Coleman has formed a task force with other members of Congress

and then subsequently formed a work group that is going to be chaired by Dr. Michael Lindsey, who's doing a lot of research around black children and suicide out of the New York University. Now, is it also, I mean, is it, do you believe also that there's more reporting? Is there more reporting of, because previously they didn't care what happened to black kids. Right. I think that that definitely plays a part in it, that there's more reporting, that there's more of a magnifying glass on what's going on, not just with suicide, but with homicide. And so the numbers are so staggering with regard to black young people in general, but especially black males, that there is a lot of just people looking to see what's going on with our young children. I want to push back a little bit when you talk about young males because there is significant evidence that young black women

are also committing suicide at higher rates, that they're being bullied more, that all of the things that visit women, body image, etc., affect young black women, in addition to the fact that young black girls are not seen as girls, as children. Right. They're seen as women when they're as young as five, six, seven years old. So what is the research showing about our girls, and what can we do about our girls? You're right with regard to the bullying piece and the whole mean girl analogy is

very real still and that when we look at the children the research does show that the young black males have a higher rate of incident than the young black females. And to what extent are we looking at adverse childhood experiences? So the ACEs scores for African-American kids are typically a lot higher than they are for any other demographic of young people, largely because of growing up in poverty, but in all the societal ills that come along with that. Having a parent who's incarcerated,

having lost friends and loved ones to gun and gang violence and all of those things help to push that ticker point up. This is a very personal issue for me because I lost my brother at 12, he committed suicide. So when I think about what's going on with young people, particularly African-American boys, and how they are handling a lot of what's going on around them. My brother committed suicide four months after my mom died of cancer. It is a very real and very evident thing in my family,

but also something that I see kids having to cope with across the country. Being someone who worked in education for a long time, when we think about suicide, when we think about mental health, it is not necessarily regarded in the same way in our community as it is in others in terms of seeking counseling, seeking help. It is seen as a weakness for black people because we have that, you're supposed to be that strong black woman, you're supposed to be that strong black man, irrespective to so much of society tearing you down every day.

So I'm wondering, within the research itself, how does that play out for youth? Well, a couple things that you said. One thing is that there is still a lot of stigma around mental health and mental illness in the African-American community. There is a lot of not talking about it. There are a lot of cultural norms where we as people tend to want to keep things in our home. You don't take this outside of your home. And because of that, because we haven't talked about it, we haven't learned to talk about it,

right? And so when now, I don't know who's at the age where they're having children go to a pediatrician, but the pediatricians are now making assessments and screenings, and they're asking these young children, have you ever thought of harming yourself? Do you feel safe in your home? Are you being bullied? So it's a whole list of screening that goes on now that wasn't going on, let's say, 10 years ago. Greg, final comment.

Jan, first of all, thank you for the work, because this is so important. Our communities have never been safe outside of our communities. Wilma King's work on childhood during slavery. I mean, black child death is nothing new in America. But what can our communities do to perhaps put a floor under these children? Because five to 12,

and I'm sorry to hear about your brother, I mean, this is absurd. I mean, what are some of the things that you see on the ground as you're working in the community, Baltimore area or wherever in the country, where we can kind of stand between this society and our children and help them at this point? One of the things that we do a lot of work, like you say, in Baltimore, and we do a lot

of work with parents, and we're trying to have them have the real conversations. So more than just the talk around what your child does if they encounter law enforcement, but also the talk around what your child is doing when they're feeling a certain way and being able to identify and name those feelings. And not just from, you know, the traditional sheet where they show the smiley, the different faces, but be able to have words that connect to their actual feelings and then have adults pay attention to the children we are gone on the days where you know children are seen and not heard we really need to step back and and and create a new

paradigm around that where should folks go to get more information if they are concerned about their child niece nephew cousin so the black mental health alliances website is blackmentalhealth.com or they can call our office at 410-338-2642. All right Jan Peters we appreciate it thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you all. Today marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day of course that was in the Allied invasion of Normandy. More than 9,000 allied soldiers were killed or wounded, but their sacrifice allowed more than 100,000 soldiers to defeat Adolf Hitler and Germany. Now, of course,

mainstream media, they've been covering this story all week. Donald Trump is overseas, along with many other American leaders, but you have not seen lots of attention focused on the role that black soldiers played in that battle. Joining me right now is retired Army General Kip Ward and also the author of the book The Forgotten, Linda Hervew. That particular book is about, of course, black soldiers and World War and D-Day. And before we go to them, hear the words of some of the soldiers who actually served. My name is William Garfield Abney. I was with the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion. My name is Arthur Guest, 3451-9688.

One reason I had no reason to go fighting because the Americans, wasn't that good a place to fight for, not for a black man. We were all trained to handle these balloons. You would send those balloons up on the cable and that lit it up and bring it in. It was something like a canister bomb, and it would pull the bomb right down into the wing of the plane, and boom, the plane would blow up. Thank you. We certainly thank all soldiers who served in the United States military for their sacrifice in all of our wars, including World War II. But we specifically wanted to focus on these black soldiers.

Kip Ward, you're one of the very few African Americans to ever attain the rank of four-star general in the United States Army. And when you think about what these brothers went through, and these were brothers who went through this at that particular time, they were fighting on two battlefields. They were fighting for America against Hitler and were fighting against America because of racism at the same time. You know, Roland, absolutely.

First of all, good to be with you again. And those men and in some cases women who served during all of our nation's wars, as you've indicated, had many reasons for serving. Clearly, one of those predominant reasons was maybe by doing what they did to show America that they, too, were men, women worthy of everything that this country had to offer by going into battle. They achieved those freedoms here at home. Certainly, as we know, wasn't always the case. And Kip, and when I was, again, I love people on social media because we operated in real time. So when I said the men, there were no women who were on the beach in Normandy that particular day.

So I was specific to that because that's what we're dealing with. We talk about what black folks went through. We talk about, again, here you are wearing a patch representing the United States, saying, pledging allegiance to fight for your country, knowing full well that when you go back home, you are going to have to encounter a different conversation. And over history, the role that these black soldiers played on D-Day often not talked about? They certainly understood that.

Going back, coming back home, knowing that what they fought for abroad wasn't going to be available to them at home. But just as today, the hope for a better tomorrow was a motivation for many of them. But by serving, maybe things would change for not necessarily them, but for those who would come behind them. And so their courage demonstrated in so many ways, valiantly, because they fought selflessly, fully knowing that what may be available for them wouldn't be there, but maybe by doing what they did,

it would be something that those who would come behind them, other black Americans could in fact have for themselves. The President Can you share with us us in your time in the army that you cross paths with any of those soldiers who fought on D-Day, those black soldiers? As you pointed out, no women to be sure, and only about 2000. Unfortunately, many of them have gone on. I did meet one who has now passed on uh who was in the anti-aircraft uh balloon barrage battery now that was a group of men who were on that initial assault there that it was the 320th anti-aircraft uh barrage battalion and as i met one of those gentlemen uh

in fact during the 60th anniversary of d-Day, when I was the Deputy Commander General of the United States Army in Europe, and I was over there in charge of the European part of the commemoration, and he was in fact present then that time. I believe there's only one of those men still living today. When we think about, again, this history, when we think about black soldiers, I remember when Bill O'Reilly had the audacity to question Colin Kaepernick saying he needed to read his book about

World War II to understand patriotism, and I chose to actually read off a litany of books that Bill needed to read to understand black patriotism. To me, there is no greater patriotism to fight for a country that didn't love you. Absolutely. I mean, as I said, this was the height of selflessness

and doing something for a country that didn't return it with the hopes that over time, other black Americans would be able to take advantage of the rights, privileges that this country profiles as its ideal. Last question for you, Kip. What would you say to somebody right now? Why they should join the U.S. Army? Why should they should join the U.S. military? There are multiple reasons. There is no single reason why anyone would serve.

And as I talked to young today who are currently serving, they're serving for a multiplicity of reasons. For better gain, something for educational benefits, for love of country. These men and women serve today for reasons that are personal, that are societal, wanting to give back in some cases, wanting to better themselves in other cases for the love of country and some of those same cases. So there is no single reason why young black men and women serve for a multitude of reasons. And thankfully, they do continue to serve because it is in fact that service that over time, I think is important that this nation will ultimately come to understand, acknowledge, and have huge respect for. It's there in some degree, clearly more to go.

All right, then. General Kip Ward, always good talking to your man. Say hello to the wife. I shall. We'll do that for sure. Thanks very much. I appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.

And folks, just some history. Kip Ward, he was the first commander of AFRICOM. That was the fifth command that was created under President George W. Bush. He was the first commander of AFRICOM and, again, had achieved the rank of four-star general. Also, we're scheduled to have Linda, her view on the show. Guys, put the cover of her book up so I can let folks know. And that if you don't have it, just go to my iPad. The book is called The Book is Called Forgotten.

The untold story of D-Day's black heroes at home and at war. By I don't know, guys, can you fix this? I don't know why you're not being able to see it fix that please cuz I'm showing it's connected right here and so and and this simple this is important I'm gonna go out pound real quick this this is important because again when I went off on Bill O'Reilly unfortunately a lot of people who have no idea about our impact in the military there was a campaign called great the, the Double V Campaign that was going on at the same time,

launched by the Pittsburgh Courier, picked up by the Chicago Defender and others, that started in World War I, victory at home and victory abroad. That's right, because of the lessons we learned in World War I. Black folks have fought in the American Revolution, as many blacks fought for the British

as fought for the Americans, because we didn't care who won, we were trying to get free. I appreciate what that elder said. He said, you know, I don't know if I had really a reason to fight. My father and three of his brothers, three of the four men in his side of the family, were drafted into World War II. My Uncle Virgil fought for the Red Ball Express. Those were the brothers they sent out to refuel the tanks. If a German sniper hit that thing, they went up in flames. Emmett Till's father was executed by the United States military. He's buried in a segregated cemetery in France, and that ring that was on his finger at the time, that's how they identified his son's body in Mississippi, because he was convicted

of the crime of sleeping with white people. Hold on, hold on, hold on. So it's all the paradox. Julian, Julian, hold on, hold on. Great finish. No, the reason I'm just saying this is that the book's like forgotten. Another book called Liberators, we talked about Sister Leah Chase, Love, and Patton. General Patton, the 761st Tank Battalion,

those were some of the first brothers who went in and broke into Auschwitz and the German concentration camp for the Jews. We are all up in this history. And finally, as you said, Double V, and you've talked about this many times, victory here, meaning what? We ain't going to go halfway world to fight white supremacists and come back here and get lynched. That triggered the civil rights movement when no soldiers came back.

Julianne, hold on one second. Go to my iPad, please. I want to show you that the book is called Patton's Panthers of the African-American 761st Tank Battalion in World War Two by Charles Sasser. So I wrote a book after September 11th called The Paradox of Loyalty. Yes. The subtitle was The African American Response to the War on Terrorism. It really looked at that paradox of us fighting for the right to fight. Black people fought for the right to fight, to be considered Americans, even as we were not considered Americans.

Black men marched down 125th Street in Harlem in 1919 saying, we are veterans, we want to be respected. And those veterans, many of them were lynched in uniform. Lynched in uniform because they dared step up and say, we have the right to our American privileges. And so while I definitely respect our elder, who was quite eloquent, I think that we also, as we heard the orange man talking on D-Day.

I didn't listen to it, but go ahead. Well, I listened to a little bit of it. None of it. Because I'm an insomniac, so whatever. I'm listening to none of it. He's talked about, can we all be united? No, Maryland farmer, we cannot be united when you basically disunite us. And the fact is that we have never looked at the contributions

of black people to this country. And I would just lift up the name of Dr. Olivia Hooker, who was in the Coast Guard, the last survivor of Tulsa, who fought to be, she wanted to be a Navy woman. They wouldn't accept her. She went to the Coast Guard. Our people, many of our people, not me, but many of our people are so patriotic that we will fight for the right to be American, and America continues to reject us. Amisha, go ahead. That was going to be something I touched on. I think that having our patriotism questioned as black people because we want to protest, because we want to exercise our constitutional rights,

because we want to be able to walk down the street and not be accosted, that's a problem. Because we've had African Americans serve in every major military advancement that this country has ever known. We have served as spies. We have served valiantly and died on the front lines and not been respected coming back. Our families have been left to perish. And to

fight for a country and to preserve that, to have the idea full-fledged, to believe in democracy, even when you don't ever see it fulfilled at home, I think that has to be something that America takes into consideration. Working in a news station today, there was nonstop coverage of D-Day. Period. Did not see one single contribution of an African American. Nor make the distinction that not all soldiers were equal during D-Day. Alright, folks.

A little bit later, at the end of the show, I'm going to actually play for y'all that commentary I did. Bill O'Reilly, more than 7 million views on Facebook, by 300,000 on YouTube. If y'all missed that commentary i did uh bill o'reilly uh more than seven million views on facebook by 300 000 on youtube and so if y'all missed that uh so let me warn you in advance okay first of all it's on youtube uh i spit a bunch of books so don't be sending me an email saying roller what are the books you night it's right there all of them the picture name author

you got it it's all there and so uh're going to go to a break right now. We'll be back with Roland Martin Unfiltered. You want to support Roland Martin Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar that you give to us supports our daily digital show. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As Roland Martin Unfiltered, support the Roland Martin Unfiltered daily digital show by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans

contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Hey guys, they're back. MarijuanaStock.org has another great investment opportunity. If you were lucky enough to invest in their last crowdfunding campaign, you know they raised a lot of money

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You can go to WG Summit that or W, wgsummit.com, wgsummit.com. It is called the 2019 Women Grow Leadership Summit. And it's black women who are disrupting the cannabis industry. And so they're meeting in D.C. tomorrow and Saturday. And so we're going to have the president and CEO on the show tomorrow to talk about that. All right, folks, let me give you some word about Linda Farristein. You know, she was the prosecutor who put away the Central Park Five. She's made a ton of money writing books. Well, guess what? She had to resign earlier this week from Vassar College, as well as another group there in New

York. Now she's been stripped of Glamour Magazine's Woman of the Year award, which she got in 1993. They now admit that they were wrong. This all comes on the heels of Ava DuVernay's drama series on Netflix called When They See Us. The petition to call for her to lose her book publishing deals and for Amazon to remove her books has now surpassed 25,000 and maybe as high as 50,000. I'm going to double check in a minute. It's on change.org. And so we certainly shall see what happens. But she should lose everything. Everything. Everything.

No speeches, no books, no wars, nothing, because she is still walking around saying that those five committed the act, and we know that's a doggone lie. All right, crazy white people. Y'all know what that means. No charcoal grills are allowed. Anonymous. gonna lie all right crazy white people y'all know what that means lord have mercy a A Texas teacher was fired after asking Donald Trump on Twitter to remove the illegals from her school. Georgia Clark of Fort Worth admitted she wrote those tweets,

but she thought she was sending a DM. Here's why her dumb ass should have gotten fired, because if you don't know the difference between a direct message and a public post, you shouldn't be teaching anybody. In fact, you should have gotten fired. Because if you don't know the difference between a direct message and a public post, you shouldn't be teaching anybody. In fact, you should have your students teaching you what's going on. The Fort Worth Independent School District voted unanimously to fire her because of her comments. She also had made some other comments before where she was criticizing Latino students there as well.

63% of the school district, y'all, in Fort Worth is Latino. My God. Girlfriend is cray-cray. I mean, I don't understand. Like you said, what do you call it, Roland? The crazy white people? Crazy-ass white people. I don't understand how somebody who is a teacher

actually targets her students publicly and then sends a message to the orange man as if, I mean, it would be hilarious if it was not so distasteful. And we should, oh, I thought I was seeing the DM. I was going to say, like, that doesn't help matters. We talk about training people against implicit bias. She is extremely explicit in her bias and thinks it's okay if she says these messages privately.

But I will also say that, you know that coming from a president who has thrown down when it comes to immigrants, who has made it very clear that he despises those of Latino descent, she thought that she was at home and on friendly ground. He sent a dog whistle, she responded to the dog whistle, but frankly it does not hold water in Fort Worth, Texas where 63% of the young people are Latino. You can't do that. I don't disagree. I am concerned a little bit about this First Amendment issue

because we can all agree when you see a white supremacist or a white nationalist. The question will become when they turn that lens on one or more of us, what happens to the black woman, for example, who says something in a classroom that is clearly provable by facts that says about World War II, and somebody doesn't like it.

Next thing you know, they want to get rid of her for something she said. Well, no, no, but you're looking at case now. Speech is a precedent. I mean, I'm with you on this Linda Fairstein thing. I mean, you know, she should lose everything, but the question becomes, what happens when Amazon removes her books

and then turns around and removes Farrakhan or Jeremiah Wright or your books right and then so I don't know where we're headed But I'm just concerned because white supremacy never does anything without a plan after the first thing they've done and that's the thing I'm the first piece Greg is really important. Dr. Carr is really important for us to understand the First Amendment piece But the other piece of it is the whole notion of what's happening to our nation and the fact that we are more diverse and that people have to be not tolerant not tolerant but accepting of the diversity that we're experienced well speaking diversity folks they're lighting up Jeffrey Goldberg he's the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine why because he made some comments that dealt with the issue of diversity in journalism.

He says that pretty much the people who can write long-form pieces, 10,000-word pieces, exclusively white men. This is a quote. It's really, really hard to write a 10,000-word cover story. There are not a lot of journalists in America who can do it. The journalists in America who do it are almost exclusively white males. Now, some have said that he was trying to make the point that they are trying to fix that. But in fact, I want to pull something, let me pull this story up because he actually said something else that I thought was interesting, which is really going to be the focus of my commentary on this. Because, you know, I have no problem at all sitting here jacking these folks up because of what they do.

And you have to remember, y'all, I am in the business of words. I listen to what people have to say and I go through the whole deal. And so this is actually what he said. We continue to have a and actually it was a column he wrote. It was a column he wrote where he took questions from folks, their audience. He said, we continue to have a problem with the print magazine cover stories, with the gender and race issues when it comes to cover story writing. Of the 15 print issues The Atlantic

has published since January 2018, 11 had cover stories written by men. Quote, it's really, really hard to write a 10,000 word cover story. There are not a lot of journalists in America who do it. The journalists in America who do it are almost exclusively white males. What I have to do, and I haven't done this enough yet, is again about experience versus potential. You can look at people and be like, well, your experience is writing 1,200 word pieces for the web, and you're great at it, so good going. Now, let me unpack that. Here's the fun. Now, again, you're looking at somebody who is vice president digital for the National Association of Black Journalists, lifetime member, third time being on the board of directors, previously secretary, before that the national student representative.

You're talking about somebody who went to a communications high school in Houston. So essentially I've been doing journalism since I was 14 years old. That is the last 36 and a half years. What I have experienced in 36 and a half years in this industry has been white supremacy. Meaning, if you truly look at that statement, what he is saying that, hmm, the people who really can write long 10,000 word pieces, hmm, they're white men. Y'all, They're white men.

Y'all, that's white supremacy, meaning you think you're better. And let's unpack that. The reason he's saying that is because we look at the magazine industry all across the board, who do you largely see? White folks. When Spike Lee did one of his previous movies, he said, I will not do any magazine interviews unless you

send a black journalist. All white folks lost their mind, but it forced them to look in their newsrooms. They looked up and went, damn, we don't have anybody to send because they didn't even acknowledge that it was an all white newsroom. This is the equivalent of saying, you know what, it'd be great for an African-American to be the CEO of a company. But you know what? Those with the experience to run companies are simply white men. But see, what bothers me is when he talked about this whole issue of, when he said experience versus potential. See, if you are a real editor and you want to fix this problem, and then you have individuals who work at your place who are black and they've written 1,200 word articles.

Do you know what you do the next time? You assign them a 4,000 word article. And then when they do a 4,000 word article, you assign them a 7 or 8,000 word article. And then when they've done that, you assign them a 10,000 word article. Actually it's not hard. I've run three black newspapers. Every paper I've run, there were some people who were excellent, who were top of the line. But I always knew I couldn't solely depend upon them because I might need somebody else to write a cover story one day.

And so I had to look into the newsroom to say, okay, what's your skill set, your skill set, and your skill set? And what I'm going to do is I'm going to give you a shot to do this here. Let me explain to you what we do here at Roland Martin Unfiltered. My control room is right there. Henry directs the show. Stephanie is sitting next to him. She's a producer. I said, Henry, I need Stephanie cross-trained to actually direct the show.

Chelsea, who sits over here, who's also the associate producer, she's had to learn how to use the robotic cameras. Atlantis, my niece, who runs tapes, she also had to learn how to use robotic cameras. You know why that's the case? I need everybody to be cross-trained. Every person who works here is going to have to learn how to use a Canon XA25, how to use that camera,

the Canon XF405 4K camera, how to use it. Why? Because that's what leaders do, Jeffrey. They train up. They coach up. And if you're serious about this, that's exactly what you should do. And stop making excuses. There are black folks who now write for The Atlantic.

Adam Serr. Jemele Hill. And others. Adam Harris. Are you trying to say to me they don't have the ability to write 10,000-word stories? It is because white men who are in power

are comfortable assigning stories to other white men to doing the exact same coverage. It is no different than when you see these folks who are the ones leading the conversations in politics are largely white men. I have been at the table with two presidents

where they've had the television anchors in the room. And I can tell you, in one of those meetings, before Lester Holt became the NBC Nightly News anchor, who was the only black person sitting in the room? Yours truly. When Lester got the job, guess what? We were there under Trump when he invited some people. Yamiche Alcindor, who's not a television anchor, was there for PBS. It was Lester, me, and Yamiche. I brought Derek McGinty along because I had an open spot. They had two for us. Why am I saying that?

It's because what black people have always said is, yo, when the hell are we going to get a shot? It's the same thing. If you keep pursuing white supremacy by trying to use experience as the reason why we can't find anybody, that's why you'll never find anybody. Because as long as you save 11 men wrote cover stories,

you're going to have more men writing because you never actually make the effort. And here's the other piece. If you got somebody who isn't seriously experienced, but they have enough experience, that's why you have good-ass editors to edit their pieces. Y'all,

I keep telling y'all, and I need y'all to hear me, why this is the last bastion. This. Media. Why? Because media is America's greatest export. The world knows us because of our movies, because of our television shows, because of our newscasts, because of our music.

That is what is exported to the world. People learn about America through what they see and hear on the big screen, small screen, now when it comes to digital media and also when it comes to music as well. And so when Hollywood says, oh, we can't take that black film and they don't do well overseas, they do, you're actually promoting the same nonsense. Because when you say that, that means we're not going to put a black person in the film here because we can't take it overseas, so therefore we can therefore we can sell it the black person never gets to be the lead Yeah, I'm saying how this whole thing goes. Hmm. This is the game

I keep trying to explain to y'all that and see what I also keep trying to explain to y'all why it's important Why you got to have shows like this and black people running it because I can do a roll call right now Of the black people who have come through my shows, Washington Watch, News One Now, and Roland Martin Unfiltered, who when you turn on cable news, all of a sudden you see them. Paul Butler at MSNBC, Angela Rye at CNN, Shermichael Singleton. When you see, when you saw Paris Denard, when you see David Swertlich, Lauren Coates, when you saw her on Hardball, she was on a panel on Hardball. Whose show does she host?

Mine. Hosting ain't the same as a panel. You know what that's called? Opportunity. I saw Lauren said, hmm, I think she has host potential. Put her in the chair. Now she has her own show on SiriusXM.

But CNN, y'all ain't seen CNN put her in the chair. Now she has her own show on SiriusXM. But CNN, y'all ain't seen CNN put her in the host chair. But she can. And guess who says she should host Jeopardy one day after he retires? Alex Trebek. Whoa, what did Alex Trebek see in Lauren Coates that nobody else saw?

But CNN won't put her in the host chair. Do y'all see where I'm going? Jeffrey Goldberg, do you see where I'm going? If somebody who's in power doesn't decide to change the paradigm and begin to break this whole deal open, then it doesn't change. That's the only reason we support Branch Rickey.

Jackie Robinson could always play ball. That's right. Jackie Robinson played ball in the Negro Leagues. By the way, he wasn't the best in the Negro Leagues. So it was no shock he succeeded in Major League Baseball because, hell, we knew he could play. Somebody just simply had to open the damn door,

as James Brown said, just open the door and I get it myself. The reality is, Jeffrey Goldberg, don't sit here and whine and complain about, oh my goodness, these are all these men. No, have the guts. No, have the balls to actually say,

I am going to assign a woman the cover story. I am going to assign an African-American the cover story. And if anybody in the room has a problem with it, then take it up with me, because that's why it says editor in chief. Jeffrey, I've run three black newspapers and I had total control. I ran blackamericanweb.com. I had total control. I was the host and managing editor of News 1 Now. I'm the host and managing editor of this show and I'm the owner. And guess what? I run it. My suggestion to you? Learn how to be a damn leader and change

the game. Poop or get off the pot. Alright, y'all. I want to thank our panel for being here. Amisha, thanks a bunch. Greg Carr. Of course, Dr. Julianne Malveaux as well. If you want to support Roller Martin on a filter, y'all take the music out. I'm going to play the Bill O'Reilly

commentary. You want to support Roller Martin on a filter, go to Roll take the music out. I'm going to play the Bill O'Reilly commentary. If you want to support Roller Martin Unfiltered, go to RollerMartinUnfiltered.com. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. Don't forget, every dollar goes to support this show. As I said to y'all, again, today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day. And it's important for us to acknowledge African Americans and our contributions. So when I was at News 1 now on TV1, Bill O'Reilly had something to say about Colin Kaepernick and patriotism.

But I had something to say to Bill O'Reilly. Y'all get to enjoy this. I'll see y'all tomorrow. Speaking of not caring about black people, Bill O'Reilly. Folks, the Fox News host the other night,

two nights ago, he tried to chastise Colin Kaepernick. He's written some book and then he decides to go on his show, actually on the Today show earlier, then he goes on his book and he said this about the San Francisco 49er quarterback who's been protesting by kneeling during the national anthem for the purpose of bringing attention to police brutality. So here's my message to Mr. Kaepernick and his sympathizers. No nation is perfect, but American police officers very rarely shoot civilians. The statistics prove it.

Also while there is social injustice and blacks have suffered in this country. Most Americans deplore bias and we have seen tremendous improvements in that area. To overhype the few police shootings that do occur and to create hostility toward your own country should be put in a basket of deplorables. Perspective is everything in life. Now, I am not going to send Kaepernick a copy of Killing the Rising Sun. I am not confident he will read it. But if he does, he might understand that millions of Americans have given their lives for the cause of freedom. Freedom for blacks in the Civil War.

Freedom for everybody in the Revolutionary War. Freedom for Asians and freedom for Europe in World War II and World War I. I do not respect Colin Kaepernick's actions. I think he is wrong in the extreme. And I think his frame of reference about his own country is scant. S-C-A-N-T. And I think that is stupid. S-T-U-P-I-D. Here's the reality.

Did Bill O'Reilly just say that millions of Americans gave their lives for the freedom of black folks in the American Revolution? Last I checked, black folks were not free during the American Revolution. Last I check, black folks were not free during the American Revolution. In fact, last I checked, many black folks who first came to this country in 1619 fought for the British in order to gain their freedom. That's a historical fact. Bill, what books are you reading? Because last I checked, 1776, America founded. Emancipation Proclamation did not come on until 1863. Almost 100 years later, Bill. So exactly what black folks were freed during the American Revolution? Oh, then Bill, of course, cited the Civil War and again somehow believing that, oh no,

they were fighting for the freedom of black people. Really? So please explain to me the great compromise of 1877 that entered the period of Reconstruction after 12 years that ushered in Jim Crow. You know that deal that was cut where Republican Reverend B. Hayes became president and Democrats said you got to pull the federal troops out of the South? See, that's the same history, Bill. So please explain to me again how black folks were freed. Because if black folks were freed with the Civil War, then that means we would not have had Jim Crow.

That means we would not have had to go through the Civil Rights Movement. But then, of course, you then have the audacity, the mitigated gall to actually say that, oh, it was also about freeing black people during World War II. But please explain to me how many black soldiers came back to America and they still had racial hatred. Explain to me the black soldiers who were forced to ride in the back of rail cars when the German POWs were allowed to ride in front of them because of racism in America. See, Bill, you want Colin Kaepernick to read your book about patriotism and real patriotism. No, Bill O'Reilly, the real patriotism is when you're black in

America and you fought for a nation even though that nation did not fight for you. That's real patriotism. So imagine those African Americans who fought in the Civil War knowing full well they were not fully free. Imagine the African Americans who fought in World War I and World War II and in the Korean War and the Vietnam War, knowing full well that America was not willing to see them as free. That's actual history. So, Bill O'Reilly, damn your book. Colin Kaepernick should not read your book because your book is a joke when it comes to patriotism.

So, Bill, I've got some books for you to read because it's clearly what you have been reading is absolutely nonsensical. So, Bill, here's the first one. Bloods, Black Veterans of the Vietnam War, an Old History by Wallace Terry. You might want to read that book to get the sense of what it was like for black soldiers facing bigotry in Vietnam, supposedly fighting against communism when they're still fighting for freedom in America. How about this book, Bill? I never had it made, an autobiography of Jackie Robinson by Jackie Robinson. If you read that book, Bill, you know what you're going to find out? You're going to find out that it was Jackie Robinson who also said in that very book why he did not salute the flag,

why he did not stand for the national anthem, because he said America has never seen me as truly an American. That's what Jackie Robinson said. By the way, Bill, he was a veteran, served in the Army, but also had to go through a court-martial in Texas when he chose not to ride at the back of the bus. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought that black folks were freed in the American Revolution and the previous wars, so why did he have to ride at the back of the bus in El Paso, Texas? Let's go to the next book,

Bill. Patton's Panthers, the African-American 761st Tank Battalion in World War II by Charles Sasser. That details those brothers who were sitting here fighting alongside Patton. Here's another book for you, Bill. American Patriots, the story of blacks in the military from the revolution to Desert Storm by Gail Lumet Buckley. Yes, right. Black folks, actual American patriots. Here's another book, Bill. Strength for the Fight, the History of Black Americans in the Military by Bernard C. Nolte. Something else you should read. But how about this one? Benjamin O. Davis Jr., American and autobiography, a black man who went to West Point and they did not speak to him for an entire year while he was at West Point. See, Bill, I thought we were all Americans. I thought we were all free. But you mentioned

World War II, which your new book is about. So why don't you read this book called The Double V Campaign, African Americans in World War II by Michael L. Cooper. See, here's what you don't realize, Bill. The Double V Campaign was about fighting for victory abroad and victory at home. It was Robert Abbott, the founder of the Chicago Defender, who also started this when he founded the paper. They picked it up when John Sinstack became publisher of the Chicago Defender. You might want to read Evan McKaylee's book on the Defender, a black paper that changed America, because it was black newspapers who challenged America by saying, hey, how can we fight against the Nazis? How can we fight against fascism? But

we somehow, we have racism in America. Bill, you might then learn with the Double B campaign, there was J. Edgar Hoover and the federal government who tried to put those black publishers in jail because they dared to write about the racism that was happening on military bases in America. Oh, I'm sorry. You ran up against a black man who can actually read. How about this book, Bill O'Reilly, The Counterrevolution of 1776, Slave Resistance and the Orders of the United States by Gerald Horne. In that particular book, you read of those Africans of descent who chose to fight for the British because the British promised them their freedom.

But Gerald Horne also makes the argument in his book, Bill O'Reilly, that the reason for the American Revolution was because the 13 colonies feared the British were going to outlaw slavery, abolish slavery, which was their only income in the United States. Because, see, Bill, it was slavery. It was picking cotton that created capitalism in America, that allowed America to become the greatest nation financially.

Not the Industrial Revolution, but it was picking cotton. But I got another book for you, Bill, on the altar of freedom, Black Soldiers, Civil War Letters from the Front by James Henry Gooding. See, that's another book. I got one more for you, Bill. Buffalo Soldiers, the Colored Regulers in the United States Army by T.G. Stewart. Also another book, Bill, The Marines of Montford Point, America's First Black Marines by Melton

McLaurin. If you can read, Bill, they got an audio book so you can actually listen to them. You actually hear the stories of black soldiers talking about what was it like to have a uniform on, to have an American flag on their shoulder, but still face racism in the military. I dare say there has been no person who has been a truer American patriot than an African American who has been willing to fight for this nation

when the nation would not fight for him and her. That bill is American history. That's the history that Colin Kaepernick is talking about. And so if you want somebody to read your book, why don't you actually read what it's like to be a real patriot? So Colin Kaepernick, if he sends you his book, throw it in the trash and then send him an Amazon gift card to go buy some other books where he can learn

what it's like to be black in can learn what it's like to be black in America, where he's learned how to fight for America, where he's learned to be when you're in Medgar Evers and you fought for America, but you had to come back in your uniform. Bill, read about those black soldiers who came back from World War II, who were lynched in their uniforms, who were shot in their uniforms. They fought for America, but America then turned around and killed them. Bill, school is now over. It's time for you to go do some damn homework. Kickstart your day at 7 and get the news you need from the perspective you want.

News 1 Now with Roland Martin, every weekday morning at 7 on TV1. Thank you. this is an iHeart podcast