#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 6.7.19 RMU: Publisher drops Linda Fairstein; Cleveland PD tries to rehire cop that killed #TamirRice

Episode Date: June 8, 2019

6.7.19 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Publisher drops Linda Fairstein; Cleveland tries to rehire cop that killed #TamirRice; Rev. William Barber is convicted of trespassing at the 2017 General Assembly protest; Taraji P. Henson testifies on Capitol Hill about black youth suicide; We're honoring Pete Brown, the first African American to win a PGA-sanctioned tournament. #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. All right, folks, today is Friday. It is June 7, 2019. Coming up on Roller Martin Unfiltered, that trifling no good for nothing Linda Fairstein. The woman who was behind the Central Park Five going to jail. Guess what? Dropped today by her publisher. Damn good

reason. Also, the Women Grow Leadership Summit started in D.C. today. We'll talk to the President and CEO about black women in the cannabis industry. Also, Congressman Mark Vesey has a plan to honor the 320th Battalion, the black troop that helped defeat Hitler on D-Day. Also, we'll talk with the mother of Tamir Rice.

As Cleveland, they are trying to rehire the cop who murdered her son, Tamir Rice. She'll join us. She says it is time to put a stop to this nonsense. Also, speaking of nonsense in north carolina brother william barbara convicted of trespassing at the 2017 general assembly protest right how can a man be caught trespassing but it was the first amendment wait till you hear what his response is plus drosha p henson she's was in dc today on capitol hill talking about black youth suicide we have some of that and also

honoring the first African American to win a PGA sanctioned tournament, Pete Brown. It's taking place in Oklahoma. All right, folks, it's time to bring the funk and roll the Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. 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

With Uncle Roro, y'all It's rolling, Martin Rolling with rolling now Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Martin! Oh, the hits keep on coming for Linda Ferenstein. She's the woman who was behind the conviction of the Central Park Five. Remember, she resigned from two boards, including Vassar College. Well, today her publisher dropped her. All of this after the Netflix drama series When They See Us debuted last Friday.

And so here we are a week later. Public pressure has been building against her. Of course, Raymond Santana, as well as Yusef Salaam, they've been leading a petition to get her dropped. They also want Amazon not to sell her books. More than 50,000 folks have signed that petition on change.org. And so now she loses her publishing deal. The hashtag cancel Linda Fairstein. This movement has been spreading on social media. Remember also by Monday, after she got lit up by many of us over the weekend, she canceled her, all of her social media accounts. Now, and also the mystery writers

of America withdrew their lifetime achievement honor for her as well as glamour magazine and other authors protested and so none of this could happen to a nastier person so glad to see it so linda we hope your ass go broke for what you did to the central park five all right folks let's talk about our next story today's the beginning of the 2019 women Grow Leadership Summit taking place here in Washington, D.C. This is the sixth year in a row they've held this. It's the largest professional network that connects, educates, and empowers female leaders in the cannabis industry. Here to talk about why this is so critically important, Gia Moran, president of the Women Grow Leadership Summit and CEO Dr. Shonda is it Masias Macias Macias all right here we go let's get right to it first of all how

did this start how did y'all get involved in the cannabis industry and were y'all users or you entrepreneurs? Entrepreneur-ers. Yep definitely I'll start it off so I did my research at Howard University I studied prostate cancer metastasis to bone. So when I was actually researching it, we found that cannabis had some medicinal benefits. But because I went to an HBCU, they were like, oh, if you study this, you're going to go to prison. And I was like, I said that. Oh, yeah. We already know how the impact on the war on drugs impacted the black community.

So it's not like it's hidden to create a pipeline to prison. And therefore, our community still not embracing that narrative. But there is people making billions in this industry. Why people? Now, we're specific on this show. Yes. Okay. And we're not a part of that. So us creating the platform at Women Grow is to actually show that there are black women that are now bringing awareness that you can engage in this industry. So for me, I'm coming from a financial services background. And so I had practices. Everybody at home, I mean, get paid. mean get paid go I'm sorry I worked on Wall Street that's right but for that matter I you know worked over the years

watching channels like CNBC and Bloomberg watching the financial markets and so when I began to see cannabis coverage happening on CNBC and Bloomberg and not seeing any reflections of my community, that was a call to action for me. So I recognized early on, especially having worked in financial services, to look at the trends and outlooks. And I've often seen what trends and outlooks do to our community. They move ahead while we stay behind. And so one of my goals was to make sure that not only did I become a part of this, but that we brought other people from our communities into this industry to show what the opportunities were. So I see, I think the mistake that often happens, and so this always happens I think for a lot

of us, and that is we deal with the social justice part first and we deal with money last so so i'll unpack that um i had a conversation with another company um and they're actually one of our um one of our uh sponsors and we were having a discussion about uh some uh different events and they want to talk about expungement i was like let the folks who do explain and talk about expungement i said somebody has to specifically talk about the money part because i think what happens all too often for african americans we want to deal with the criminal justice part the social justice part which i totally understand as opposed to say okay the folks who do that,

let them do that. But somebody has to explicitly talk about what this means financially for us and what we must be focusing on financially. And that to me, I think, is what we always have to be thinking about. Not just always how we were impacted by folks who were arrested, who are still in jail. There are people who do that. But somebody has to say, no, this is about us getting paid off of an industry where others are making billions when we actually have already paid the price in another way. So you're just preaching to the choir. There's less than 4% ownership of African Americans

in the cannabis industry today when there's thousands of plant-touching touching businesses and so this is what we're trying to address is that the cannabis industry is moving so fast that if we pause and stop we'll be left behind instead we need to work simultaneously with what you know social justice social justice reform but also think about businesses and cannabis. There's no reason why that we can't work together as a collective, working towards the same thing, but we're all on assignment. We use the skill sets and the talents that we have,

and we apply it to those areas of which we are most passionate about. So Dr. Shonda is passionate about the medicine and the plant and her patients. She's also very passionate about business, but it's very important that we divide. I don't want to say and conquer, but we divide and become more successful in this space versus bridging together just in one space. We need to play the field in this industry. And we talk about, again, what's happening we know was obviously California was happening in Colorado but then of course here in DC but also I think black state legislators are now also getting smart about it the reason they have uphold

they are holding it up in New Jersey New York because the black folks in no no we are not supporting this unless we guarantee black folks are getting their fair share. That was the issue in Maryland, where they moved ahead but did not ensure that we were a part of that. And so you only had one or two African Americans with dispensaries in Maryland. And so the last thing we can have is again,

us greatly impacted on the criminal justice side and then again left out on the economic side. Well, I agree with you on that and I can attest that having, I'm a New Yorker myself and very much a part of the coalition in New York that's working towards adult legalization and making sure that our communities that have been most impacted are very much included in this bill and that we're not left behind and that equity starts from day one Well, and I'm gonna chime in there because the true issues is that you know in our New York platform

We went to a mountain Baptist Church and we were able to stand in the pulpit and talk about the medicinal benefits of cannabis But you know truthfully the church has been our pushback as well. Very conservative. We've been able to make it through certain of those platforms. But when we go back into our community, since we've been plagued so much and our community has been in prison, that they don't want to have this conversation. They don't want to have to discuss the implications, whether it's about money or if it's about health care. So these are the

challenges we face just in our communities, period. But again, I think it all goes back to education. At the end of the day, when you don't know, you don't know. And so if you, I mean, look, I don't care who you are, if you've grown up multi-generations and when you hear marijuana, when you hear weed, you think of folks who are getting high, won't have the munchies. You think of people who are breaking the law. I mean, you have all of those stereotypes that go along with it. And so now all of a sudden you're shifting from what is illegal to now what is legal and then now what is commerce. And, yes, it's a different conversation, which is why I think you have to have various platforms that are talking about this here.

And also I think it's important to walk folks through to get them to understand that the barriers to entry have also been lowered. And that is what are the available opportunities? We had a couple of years ago, we interviewed Montel Williams, and we talked about he has a couple of publicly traded companies. And we talked about that. And so his whole deal was like, look, this is not where, okay, you need $25,000 to be able to get into this. He's like, look, here's a publicly traded stock where you can be able to access.

And again, it's just it's just to me it's it's this constant state of education because so many so many of us simply don't know because that's just not what we do and that's the platform we have at women grow we educate the how many folks you have there so today we had over 600 participants and we're really excited about that but with the challenges of even educating the population We can't advertise for the event Facebook will shut us down. Oh, I'm sorry. Why because it's a legal substance We cannot advertise even the educational Still yeah, what do you can advertise you can't say facebook has a ban against

um even if you're licensed or not even touching the um plant we cannot advertise on facebook okay you you couldn't even advertise that you have in a summit no and and and going a step further and explaining that this is a women's conference and that we promote entrepreneurship and women in business and that we promote entrepreneurship and women in business and that our goal is to get more women into the cannabis industry and our advertisements and promotions were continuously shut down really only on Facebook no Instagram will delete your page well Facebook on Instagram well yeah so that's our challenges. So how do you get around that?

Grassroots campaign, talking to you, bringing awareness in any way we can. And so that's where the movement is, and that's why the education hasn't gotten out. We're stunted by the federal government. That's real interesting there in terms of in terms of those platforms and so if that's the case um have you had the same issues on radio we don't get all the opportunities that we could get because this is still very conservative and a muted point it's not what I'm saying is but can you do, I mean... Oh, radio ads? No radio ads, but we can go on...

Radio interviews. Yes, we can do radio interviews. Yes, absolutely. Got it, got it, got it. So what Sean is explaining is that in terms of advertisement, so beyond social media, even print advertisement, we can advertise in our industry trades, but when you look at mainstream media, even print advertisement. We can advertise in our industry trades, but when you look at mainstream media,

very rarely do you see cannabis advertisement. Now, in terms of large conferences, I have seen billboards, but those are more regional versus national exposure. So it continues to be grassroots, and you really do need to be within the industry to know what's happening, which, pivoting to your point earlier, in order for our communities to know, they have to be in the know, right?

And so if they're not connected to our industry, how are they going to know about conferences like Women Grow or any of the other industry events. So these opportunities are important for us to get the message out. So your conference is the same time each year, and so how could folks get more information about your organization? So you can go to our website, womengrow.com. We post, we have a Facebook page. We can't boost it, we can we have gentle post about being in business and you have a new you have gentle post gentle post yeah I've never heard that one y'all know I don't do gentle post I don't do those but yeah so

you can find us about women grow on our website, our social media handles. And then there are cannabis magazines that will support us. And, you know, to Dr. Shonda's point is that what's interesting about that is that our reach on social media is over 2.5 million, right? And so people are really- You're saying our reach media organization. Yes. Our organization. That's correct. And what's interesting saying our reach being the organization. Yeah. Organization. That's correct. And what's interesting is even looking at our conference today, the number of newcomers, people who are interested whether to starting a business or transitioning their careers and just becoming, you know, applying their skill sets to jobs within the industry.

So the fact that we have a reach of over two million, the fact that more than half of of over 2 million, the fact that more than half of our attendees are brand new to the cannabis industry speaks volumes to us. Cool. Cool. Are you live streaming in your events this weekend? Some of them we are. So tomorrow we'll have a series of panels. On what platform? On womengrow.com. Okay. I'll write to the rep but but oh so actually we're not

able to boost but if you follow us on social media at women grow you will see that we're doing Facebook lives right so Facebook hasn't shut that down so I'm saying so you're gonna be so part of the conference you're streaming on Facebook live yes segments of it yes okay got it all right cool all right well groovy we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you. And good luck for the rest of the conference. Thank you.

We hope you'll come one day. Huh? Will you come and visit us one day? No, no big deal. All right? No. Unfortunately, I got to go tomorrow. I have to go to North Carolina.

Reverend William Barber's mom is retiring in 53 years, and so he leaned on the alpha shield to get me to come to the woods in North Carolina. So I will be there tomorrow leaving at 8 o'clock in the morning. So otherwise, I definitely will drive by. All right, thank you. All right, gonna go to a break. When we come back, we're gonna talk about Tamir Rice. His mom does not want the cop who killed her son

hired by the Cleveland Police Department. Why do they want him back on the force? Next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. You want to check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there? Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Like, share, 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. Hey, folks, 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 in just a few months investing in legal marijuana farms. Those initial investors now own shares of a publicly traded company. They're on fire and certainly a lot of you missed it. Now you have an opportunity. Now they have a new

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and creating one of the largest commodities worldwide. They need land to grow all of the plants, and this makes for an incredible investment opportunity, and that's where our good friends at 420 Real Estate come in. Their business model is simple. They buy land that supports hemp CBD grow operations and lease it to licensed, high-paying tenants. That's right, they are hemp CBD landlords. You can get in on the action. You can invest in this crowdfunding campaign for as little as 200 bucks up to $10,000. Like I said, you don't want to miss out. To invest, go to marijuana stock.org. That's marijuana stock.org. Get in the game and do it now. All right, folks, Texas Congressman Mark Veazey wants to make sure America doesn't forget the 320th Battalion on Memorial Day.

Here's what he said recently on the floor of the U.S. House. And I want to take a minute today to thank those African-American soldiers during World War II that fought for valor and sacrifice in our country. You may have not heard of the 320th Battalion, but on the morning of June 6, 1944, the unit of African-American soldiers landed on the beaches of France. Their orders were to man a curtain of armed balloons meant to deter enemy troops. They flew at an altitude of about 200 feet to defend soldiers landing on the beaches against strafing by German aircraft. The battalion served 140 days in

France. One member of the 320th wounded in battle, Waverly B. Woodson, Jr., would later be nominated for the Medal of Honor, an award he would never receive. The nation's highest decorations was not given to African-American soldiers in World War II. Members of the 320th, the first African-American battalion, included hundreds of soldiers, were sent abroad to fight for liberties denied to them at home. The story of the 320th Battalion is a narrative of perseverance in the face of injustice. All right, folks. Again, we certainly hope to see them honored with that. All right, folks, Tamir Rice was shot and killed by police officer Timothy Lohman in 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio. Lohman and his partner got a call saying a black male keeps pulling a gun out of his pants and pointing it at people.

The caller also told them several times that it was a child and it was a fake gun. Tamir, of course, was playing with his sister at the Cooldale Recreation Center, a park in the city of Cleveland's public works department. Lohman had been fired and reinstated before he killed Tamir. And folks, now the police union is trying to get another job for him. Joining me on the phone to talk about what's going on is the mother of Tamir Rice, Samaria Rice. Samaria, welcome back. Welcome to Roland Martin Unfiltered. Yes.

Hi, Roland. How are you? Nice to talk to you again since we were at the Maxwell concert. Absolutely. Good to chat with you. So the union is trying, so Lohman gets fired and they're trying to get his job back? Yeah, so the president of the police union, Jeff Farmer, he has assisted Timothy Lohman with the appeal process to get his job back. The arbitration told him no, but he appealed it, and now we're just waiting to hear from a common-pleased judge.

We're just waiting to hear if he's going to say yay or nay. So what are you doing? How are you galvanizing folks to put pressure for Lohman not to get rehired? So I teamed up with MoveOn and Change.org and together we created a petition and the petition basically says that, you know, I don't want Loman to get his job back and please support this. And we galvanized over, you know, maybe almost up to like 200,000. But when I did my press conference this past Monday, I was only able to drop off 170,000 petitions to the president of the police union, the CPPA. So I did a press conference in Cleveland and I dropped off five boxes. And at that time it was 170,000, like I said, but right

now we could be well over 200,000 signatures because the petition is actually still going on move on and change.org um yes so i'm just grateful and happy that people um support this and you know want this just as bad as i do um yeah i'm just happy about it i'm overwhelmed i'm excited ecstatic that you know i have all of this support, that Tamir has all of this support, and that's what we've been doing. And on our Facebook and Instagram page, Tamir Rice Foundation, we put a picture of Jeff up there with his two phone numbers to call in to say, stop your effort in trying to get Timothy Lohman rehired. So we've been applying pressure. I'm just hoping that it's going to work for the folks that are here in Cleveland. You know, this Cleveland is very, uh, uh, the dynamics is very unique. Um, again, a lot of my support comes from the outside. So we're going to see.

Is the city officially opposing his hiring? If they are, they're not on board with me. I have some support, like a couple city councils. So we have 17 city councils. I believe only two jumped on board in support with me. Some of the Unitarity churches have jumped on board with me. Some of the local organizations have jumped on with me. As far as the mayor, the chief of police, they have not said anything to me. As far as support or anything like that, I tried to even get the support of the president of the council.

So he hasn't even jumped on board with supporting me. I tried to even get the support of the president of the council. He hasn't even jumped on board with supporting me. The commission, I asked them to support me. I believe maybe one or two supported me from the commission that was formed on behalf of the consent decree decree being here so um and it's 13 commissions jeff former he's actually a part of the commission and i asked him to resign because he cannot play both sides of the fence when it comes to um trying to be a part of a commission that's supposed to be reforming uh police officers and he's steady trying to help this officer get his job back. So I've actually asked him to resign from his position of being on the commission. Like I said, it's his 13 people, and he's one of the people, and I don't, you know, he just don't

need to be on there if he's, you know, trying to advocate for a police officer to get his job back, knowing that he's a murderer. And they're trying to give him his job back based on he lied on his application, just to give people an update. Samara, when will the judge make a decision? We're still waiting to hear. I have put a call out to some folks to see if I can get an answer. Hopefully soon. We're just waiting to hear. The comment, please, judge, you know, is in their hands now.

So I don't know. It's been going on like three or four months now since we heard about the appeal. So I don't know. All right, then. So Mary Rice, we appreciate it. We'll surely keep following this through its conclusion. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you, Roland. All right, then. So, Mary Rice, we appreciate it. We'll surely keep following this through its conclusion. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Thank you, Roland. All right, I want to introduce my panel. Dr. Rashawn Ray, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland. Dr. Dion B. Carter, Department of Political Science, Howard University. Dr. Cleo Monago, Social Political Analyst and Activist. Folks, this is no shock here. I mean, police unions, look, they are there to fight for these jobs. They don't give a damn that a 12-year-old black kid was killed. They know what

this cop did was flat out wrong, but they're going to make excuse after excuse to bring him back on the force. Yeah, I mean, you know, when I think about this particular incident, I think it becomes important to put it in a broader context. The fact that African-American teenagers are 16 times more likely to be killed by police officers than white teenagers. And just in general, African-Americans are 3.5 times more likely to be killed by whites when they're not attacking, nor when they have a weapon. And so we have to put this in context. The other thing is I think it's important, and this is what I love about what Mrs. Rice is doing, is we have to end up taking power back. We actually pay their salaries as taxpayers. So when we think about that $6

million that was paid out to the family, which isn't, I mean, it isn't even enough, but that money is coming from taxpayer money. Instead, that money should be coming actually from police department insurances. They should be coming actually maybe even from a portion from FOP dues. And part of what happens is, is what Cleveland Police Department and the FOP are doing, is they are actually continuing to play up the bad apple narrative that exists. This particular officer should not be working anywhere, and all parents should be afraid if he's working anywhere near where their children are. Absolutely.

And I think the thing that we're also missing is that Officer Lowman was deemed to be inadequate for service before he took the job when he murdered Tamir Rice. So he is known to be a problem in the field. And absolutely, we should expect other things like this to happen with this officer because he is ill-trained and he is ill-suited for this job before this murder occurred. So if the police officer actually cared about him and the safety of the public, they wouldn't have allowed him to be on the street in the first place. But they allowed it, and now they're going to continue to support him, I guess, under this false claim that he has been found not guilty of anything, right, that he is fit for duty.

But this man is absolutely unfit for the job of protecting the public, and he absolutely represents a real danger. Unfortunately, a danger that has the full endorsement of the police union and the state to do whatever to the public. So I think this is not just a matter of this guy shouldn't have a job because of this bad act. This guy shouldn't have had a job to begin with. It's really interesting also, Cleo, when you look at what happened today, the former Minneapolis cop who killed Justine Diamond got 12 and a half years in prison, a Muslim cop. Look, many of us here at the moment, we saw who this was. We're like, oh, that brother, he ain't getting no support from the union. And the reality

is he didn't. Now, there are those of us who believe that police officers who commit wrongdoing certainly should go to prison. But it's very telling how the black cop went to jail for 12 and a half years. And even the payment that was made to her family was much larger than what we normally see in any of these cases. White woman who was killed. And here we have this white cop who kills Tamir Rice and they're fighting to get his job back. Sure, of course it's very telling in terms of how black people are treated even when they're cops.

But what concerns me, going back to Ohio, to Cleveland, is that a lot of the people who are not coming to this sister's support are black. A lot of people who are part of the city government of Cleveland on the city council, in the police department, who are fighting for this murderer are black people. And what that raises to mind for me is the impact of whiteness on black people over the years and how we've been trained, whether it's conscious or unconscious, to accommodate them, even in the face of the murder of a child that was not even a teenager yet and i think that unconscious

internalized white supremacy short circuits arts capacity as black people to care about ourselves or to be apprehensive to care about ourselves in the presence of whites because we don't want to offend them sometimes we're more concerned about them they are about ourselves that's a problem well again it's really interesting again the, again, the case of the gentleman, the former cop in Minneapolis, as I said. In fact, he was a two-year officer on the force, Muhammad Noor. And this is what he said in a courtroom. Here, go to my iPad. An emotional, he said, I knew in an instant I was wrong.

He also apologized for taking the life of a perfect person. Remember, she was an unarmed Australian woman who was walking towards his car. And he was convicted in 2017, but the sentencing just took place today there in Minneapolis. All right, folks, let's talk about North Carolina, where civil rights leader Reverend William Barber was convicted on Thursday, forget this, trespassing, stemming from his 2017 protest at the North Carolina General Assembly. Now, the crazy thing is they had barred Reverend Barber from protesting. They were there protesting health care. And the Republicans in that state barred him and others. It was him, I THINK ABOUT 46 OTHERS, WHO HAD GOTTEN ARRESTED SAYING, OH, THEY'RE TRESPASSING

IF THEY COME BACK. WELL, THEY ACTUALLY BELIEVE IN THE FIRST AMENDMENT. AND SO THEY CAME BACK TO PROTEST AND THEN THEY HAD THEM ARRESTED. THEN HE WAS CONVICTED. THE JUDGE PRETTY MUCH WAS LIKE, WHY IN THE HELL ARE WE DOING THIS? AND SO GAVE HIM 24 HOURS OF COMMUNITY SER as well, suspended 12 months of unsupervised probation as well. But here's what Reverend Barber had to say after the conviction. I want to say this is much bigger than me.

This is literally about opening up Southern legislatures to the light of day and to the people's voice and to the people's protest. I'm deeply concerned that the jury was boxed in. They did not get a chance to really hear about our Constitution, which is a strange consideration to me, the Constitution that governs the legislature. We know that the legislature we have now is an unconstitutionally constituted body. We know that while this was going on in wasted tax dollars,

half a million people still don't have health care. People are dying. People that are living with diseases that they could be treated for. But more importantly is we're going to appeal. Took jurors 22 minutes to find Barbara guilty after four days of testimony that included video footage of his call and response, chant, protesting health care, spending outside of the office of Senator Fieldberger. First of all, Republicans in North Carolina, I keep telling people, just stuck on stupid Neon B. But again, what they're angry about, they're angry about more Mondays. in North Carolina. I keep telling people just stuck on stupid, uh, uh, Neon B and, but, but

again, what they, what they angry about, they're angry about moral Mondays. They're angry about how they were able to mobilize and organize people to have constant pressure against them. And they want to use the law to shut down protesters. And as Dr. Barber's lawyer said, he's like, Hey, we're Dr. King had a criminal record. Absolutely. And this is what he's been doing for almost a decade now, right? This Moral Monday protest has probably been the biggest thorn in the side of the North Carolina state legislature. He has not let these people off the hook, not one iota, not about poverty, jobs, environment, health care, you name it. But this was just about sending a message. And I think they picked the wrong one this day, because Reverend Barber and those who he is organizing with and who he is rounding up around the state and around this nation

are not going to be quieted. I mean, because part of the issue is, the state legislature allegedly works for the people of the state of North Carolina and in their best interest. So this is a moment where you have a state law which is in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the rights granted to citizens. And so this should not have occurred. And these people were in no danger. They just were made uncomfortable. They didn't want to have to be accountable to the citizens, and they didn't want to be confronted.

That's all this was about. He made too much noise, and he disrupted their day. How? It's hilarious, Cleo, literally to say you're mad that that citizens taxpayers were there protesting so therefore they're trespassing on property they pay for well we know how how incompetent these people are when it comes to mental health we know how irrational they are and we know how focused they are it didn't matter that the doctor was not breaking any laws,

doing anything wrong. They want to silence him, like you mentioned. I mean, he's been powerful, he's been consistent, he's been in their face, he's been articulate, he's been breaking down issues based on fact, and he has a multicultural group of people behind him, so they can't simply call it a black thing, though it's a black man heading it up.

He's brought together all kinds of people. So, of course, they want to silence him. And they thought they did for two minutes. Was it two minutes, three minutes? How long was it? 22 minutes. 22 minutes. That's how long it took them to convict.

But it just amazes me how weak Republicans are. They love calling people snowflakes. No, they're soft. Yeah, I mean, I think about who gets the right to enact the First Amendment or even the Second Amendment. I mean, and essentially what we're talking about is a lack of transparency. Once again, we see another issue where taxpayers pay the money to put these people in office to do things for them. And so part of what's happening is, first, we need the law to be changed. I think, second, it speaks to the fact that taxpayers should demand this particular type of transparency and then third we see the way that

race in particular mutes people's ability to fully enact the first amendment and it's highly highly problematic and again when you look at the actions let's talk about what happened in syracuse where a police officer chris uh booski arrested y'all this is a trip arrested shaolin moore for playing loud music now remember we've heard this before remember jordan davis was shot and killed by a white man in florida uh for playing a lot of music that white man is in prison for life uh jordan davis's mama is now congresswoman lucy mcbath but uh we're gonna play the video for y'all of this cop acting a fool because of loud music. He not resisting or nothing. Why he doing all that? Why he doing all that? Yo, why you punching my man? Yup, I'm on you.

I ain't. Look, look, they bugging for nothing. Look. Don't you move. I ain't resisting or nothing. Shut it down. What y'all doing all of? What y'all doing all the way out? Come in here.

Yeah. Now, his was crazy. So Moore was pulled out of his vehicle because the cop wanted to search the vehicle. And he said no. So then the cop pulled him out. So now we get to search vehicles because the music too loud? What are you looking for? An iPod?

But preceding that, he was so disrespectful and dehumanizing and treating him like, and beating, beating. This goes beyond these issues. There's some white people who are really, really angry in this society about the presence of black people.

And black people are being killed and harassed and murdered and traumatized because these people have issues. We need to look at how people get to treat people as well, not just shoot them, which is, of course, horrible, but all this cussing and these are grown people they're talking to like this. And again, the young man did what he was supposed to do, which is no, you don't get the right to search my vehicle. That is a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights and I tell anybody do not let them. Make them get

a warrant. But in more than that, these noise ordinances are about policing black people, whether it's Reverend Barber in North Carolina saying he's making too much noise or he's playing his music too loud. Because remember, there was a woman in Garner, North Carolina, who had her family pulled out of the house because she was playing Malcolm X speeches at a tone and at a volume that her neighbors didn't appreciate.

And it's like eight officers show up at her house. So there's all of these efforts to police black people just being in the world. So let me read this statement from Syracuse Police Chief Kenton Bucker. Here we go to my iPad. Consistent with the Syracuse Police Chief Kenton Bucker. Here we go to my iPad. Consistent with the Syracuse Police Department use of force protocol, the incident that occurred on Grayson Oswego Streets on Friday night was immediately reported to the department following the incident. The case was already under review before the video was posted online.

I recognize the concerns that have been raised by the community, and I want to ensure the community that under department protocol When officers use force including this time we complete a thorough investigation The vehicle was pulled over because of a violation of the city's sound Reproduction ordinance a quality of life issue frequently reported to the department for action Importantly it occurred immediately following a coordinated police response to Skiddy Park, where individuals were involved in

the sale of illegal substances and an unlawfully possessed handgun was recovered. Officers heard the noise from the vehicle as they were concluding the drug and weapons investigation at the park. The vehicle was stopped a few blocks from the park. I want you to put a pin in that because I want you to remember that.

I'm going to come back to that. The incident is under active review, which will occur on a timely basis. The officers continue to be in service and will be interviewed as part of the review. Let me unpack that. This is the cute job cops always play. So here you have the police chief talking about where the officers came from. At no point in this does it say that Shea Olin Moore and the guy riding with him were selling drugs. But he is trying to link the two together.

For instance, go back to my iPad, where individuals were involved in the sale of illegal substances and an unlawfully possessed handgun was recovered. There's no need to link those two if Moore and his friend were actually not in the park. This is the police chief trying to connect drug sales and a legal possession of a handgun with this arrest by saying, oh, and I love this here, the car, the car officers heard the noise from the vehicle as they were concluding the vehicle was stopped a few blocks from the park. So why in the hell are we discussing the park? If the vehicle was stopped a few blocks from the park, why are we discussing the park?

That's the game they play by trying to connect black folks to drug selling as well as an illegal handgun. That's what's going on here. I mean, without a doubt, I mean, there is there is a New York City study that looked at 700000 traffic stops. So actually just people kind of being stopped in frisk. And what it found was that African-Americans were significantly more likely to be stopped relative to whites, but blacks were actually less likely to have something on them. How successful were officers in predicting whether or not someone would have something? They were only 2% successful. So this particular incident plays a role in that. The other thing I think about is being pulled over as a teenager with my windows rolled down and my music playing,

and I got pulled over by an officer. I think about my wife who was pulled over after leaving the hospital, taking care of babies, taking care of sick people. And she got pulled over for her music. The ironic thing is that her speakers were actually blown out. So, see, part of this is simply a cover in order to be able to pull people over. I think the other thing is it relates to community oversight committees. Everyone wants community oversight committees. The problem with those, though, is that we actually need a person from those community oversight committees to actually be on the actual review board in the police department. So the one thing that stood out to me, in addition to what you highlighted, Roland, was the fact that the chief said that this is under review. Yes, it's under review

internally by police officers actually aiming to police and hold other police officers accountable. What we need is for people from the community review board to not review these cases after there's already a decision made, but they actually need to weigh in on these as a voting party on the actual committee in the police department. And I think part of this is people have to continue to record these particular incidents. I mean, in this regard, we're simply in MLK's

collection of facts, right? We're just in the first step of the nonviolent campaign in this particular movement. Well, first of all, here's the other piece though. What did the passenger do? Nothing. And honestly... So, you... What? He's under arrest? Yes. Because...

Stop recording. Because he's a witness to what's happening. Honestly, what you read from that chief of police actually is very reminiscent of stories they used to tell about black men after they lynched them. This sounded like the setup to a murder to me. Because dead men tell no tales. So they were already deciding what the story was going to be, which these young men were at this park, were selling drugs,

and therefore they are criminals, and they deserve to be mistreated, mishishandled and anything else that came after that I'm just glad that these young men get to go home tonight now y'all understand why black people got mental health issues I talked about that yesterday with the head of the black mental health Alliance about the rise in suicide rates among black children starting as young as five well today on capitol hill the congressional black caucus held a discussion about that and actress taraji p henson expressed concern for the issue when she testified before this congressional emergency task force on black youth suicide and mental health it dawned on me the reason why we don't have a mini psychiatrist, not that we don't have them, that they're not easily accessible,

is because we in the African-American community, we don't deal with mental health issues. We don't even talk about it. We've been taught to pray our problems away. We've been demonized for coming out saying we have issues and we have trust issues. I need the person sitting opposite for me when I go seek help for my mental to be culturally competent. And if you're not culturally competent, how can I trust you with my deepest secrets and with my vulnerability?

We can't give up on our kids, and I think that's where it starts. I think we implement mental illness or mental health as education in school. It needs to be a subject, just like sex education was, a physical education. We need to talk about it. The more we talk about it, the more people will. We need to talk about it. The more we talk about it, the more people will feel like they can talk about it. I really don't know how to fix this problem. I just know that the suicide rate is rising.

I just know the ages of the children that are committing suicide are getting younger and younger. I just, it breaks my heart to know that five-year-old children are contemplating life and death. I just. And Tarasha P. Henson, through her foundation named after her father, held a conference today dealing with the whole issue of mental health. Folks, this is part of our continuing series focusing on the American worker, sponsored by the Union AFSCME and of course we know this week we said we dealt with the death of chef Leah Chase from New Orleans she passed away six days ago surrounded by her family she was eight ninety six years

old and so there is a woman who was a member of the AFSCME union who talked about the importance of food working for children and, and again, what you must do in the workplace in terms of gaining respect, not only people you work with, but also the respect for workers. Here is this week's American Worker segment. A lot of the times people look at them as juvenile delinquents, but everybody has a past. Nobody's perfect. My name is Tanishia Barnes. I work at New Beginnings Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services and I'm a cook there. At 3.15 I get up, get myself ready. I have to leave out by, you know, later than 4.25 to get to work.

When I get to work at 5 o'clock I cook, prepare breakfast, prepare lunch. The population is 30 males and I just try to let them know that it's okay we all make mistakes but it's where you go and what you do after your mistakes to make everything better. When I cook for the kids and they say I know you cook this because you cook this with love didn't you miss B? You put this love in that. Having children and then becoming a union member shows me that there's more that I can fight for. Better education, better paying jobs, safety.

You're helping develop something more meaningful in the workforce. I even got my kids involved. We do rallies, we do door knocks. I'm working for myself, I'm working for my children, and I just want them to be proud of me for going after what I believe in and follow my dreams as I try to push them to do the same thing. I love my kids and I love the kids I serve and I'm glad that I can go and make a positive

impact on their lives every day. All right, we surely appreciate AFSCME for being a huge supporter of Roland Martin Unfiltered. Now, I wasn't going to talk about this because I really don't give a damn about a lot of this silly stuff that happens on social media. I don't care about gossip. I don't care about entertainment. But I needed to deal with this okay so how many of y'all have seen people talking about uh this ridiculous image of beyonce and jay-z sitting courtside at the at the game three the other night and the wife of one of the warriors owners leans over uh and she's talking to jay-z okay this thing has gotten all crazy it's i, I mean, it's blown up. Well, today Beyonce's

publicist had to release a statement condemning the people attacking this woman. The woman got death threats because of this whole deal. Telling the beehive, yo, shut the hell up and calm down. But this is what bothers me the most about this. Okay. Cause I really don't give a damn about these stories. I really don't. I think they're stupid. I think people who engage in them are stupid. Yes, I think you're stupid. You're

sitting your ass at home. You know nothing about the conversation taking place between Jay-Z, Beyonce, the wife, and the husband. You know nothing. Yet you are sitting at home assuming you know what she's talking to Jay-Z and Beyonce about. The woman says, I was asking them, what do y'all want to drink? But let me again, unpack it.

He's the owner. She's the wife. They're guests. They're guests of them. So don't you think that if we're at a game and Rashawn or Dr. Carter or Cleo were sitting next to me and let's say i was talking to dr carter and rashaun is sitting right here and as loud as hell i'm probably gonna lean over to say something but no all of these people are losing them and that's right that's right. That's right. Give him this girl. Give her the side. I she talking to your man.

This is stupid. This woman is in tears. She has deleted her Instagram account because she's been attacked and getting death threats and people trashing her. And why? Why do I keep saying her? Because I'm not going to say her name. Because her name is not important. Her husband's name is not important. But at some point, I need people to shut the hell up and get on with their own damn lives

and stop being so fixated over dumb shit. And that's what this is. This is stupid. Absolutely stupid. In fact, there's been more conversation about the side I lean over than what happened on the other side of the court. There you go.

When one of the Warriors' owners, who's worth $2.4 billion, pushes Kyle Lowry when he fell into the crowd. That owner, suspended by the NBA for a year, can't attend any NBA games, fined $500,000, according to some reports, he's likely going to have to sell his shares in the team.

Because he shouldn't have put his hand on a ball player. When you're sitting courtside, you don't put your hands on it. But my problem is that we, as a society, are caught up in bullshit.

The people who are, the amount of time, and I know somebody's sitting here saying, well, you're spending time on this. Yes, to tell y'all, shut the hell up. Stop wasting, it's dumb. Death threats? Roller. Because she leaned the hell over to talk to Jay-Z.

Really? Really? What? Okay, I knew nothing about this incident at all. Somehow it got past my radar. But are you telling me that people in the so-called Beehive saw a woman talking to Jay-Z and got mad and made some objections on what she might have been saying to Jay-Z and started a viral conversation from the beehivers.

Dr. Carter, you want to take this one? Is that what happened? In a nutshell, I mean, I... Nut is the figure of speech. I mean, I'm like you. I didn't understand what people saw in an exchange between grown people at a basketball game. Grown people. But these are the beehivers.

That's what I want to make. These are the beehivers. These are extreme fans. Well, come on now. Beehivers are. And there are people who I know. Oh, goodness. People who are smart, educated, who got their ass caught up in this stupid ass story as well.

I'm a fan, but that's that woman's husband. Let her worry about that conversation. Like, what does this have to do with me? But here's the deal. Here's what gets me. Didn't the same Beyoncé do a song talking about Becky with the good hair? And didn't he turn around and do a song

talking about him being with Becky with the good hair? Really? And y'all caught up? They trying to figure out what was being said on the sideline by four rich people. I'm saying these people are still married, so whatever problems they've had, they've monetized those and worked it out,

and he's a billionaire, and she's wearing $10,000 worth of clothes. I can't be bothered about what's happening in their life. People are irrational about their irrational. I mean, I think that's what's key. Like, there are two things that popped out to me. First, that we paid more attention to this particular situation than we did what happened to Kyle Lowry. Oh, hold on.

Let me be real clear. I'm going to show you. First of all, this is, y'all, this the photo. This is from the NBC News website. Y'all, this the photo. I think it might be another one. This is what, now we probably going to get flagged. If we get flagged by this.

But I'm playing this from Twitter. Y'all, this is the conversation. They were like, oh, she was all leaning in her space. Why is she leaning in her space? Talking to Jay-Z. Look at the side eyes she gave her. Y'all, that looks changed. That's what caused these people to lose their damn mind.

But y'all say it looks like that all the time. I mean, like, it's not, it wasn't, I mean, that particular reaction is interesting to me. I think it speaks to relationship questions that people have. No, but it's stupid people. It's stupid people who, but see, this is the thing, because I'm taking the thing even larger. Because what happens

is, something happens, and it's the image, oh, look how he looked at her. You have no idea what was going through that person's mind, when that happened. There's no audio, nothing. But for people to go on this woman's Instagram page and literally dog her, trash her, cuss her out to the point where she had to delete the account. One person talked to say the woman was in tears because this thing has gone all over the place and what I'm

just trying to say is I just need people to grow the hell up and see the reason the reason the reason I'm saying how we value what's important right now right now on our YouTube channel 388 watching so let me go over here to the Facebook channel because I'm about to make a point right here it's 181 on the Facebook page right now and then I'm gonna go over to the periscope channel feed right now and we got a hundred and a hundred and two but I got about 60 there. I guarantee you, I guarantee you that if I put in the line, we are discussing Beyonce's sideline gate,

numbers would have exploded. Absolutely. Because people care about stupid stuff, and this is stupid. And I need people to learn to stop getting sucked into stupid stuff. That's why, just so y'all know, okay? Y'all ain't never seen on this show me talking about so-and-so just broke up. Because I don't give a damn who you dating.

So-and-so just got engaged. Okay, great. I don't give a damn who you dating. So-and-so just got engaged. Okay, great. I don't care. But are you in the beehive? I ain't talking about the beehive. I'm broadening this thing. I'm broadening this thing. Beehive people are obsessed,

and they don't want her garment to be soiled. It's the same as the Mariah. I just said about Mariah Carey one night, all her folks lost their mind. I'm like, oh, y'all can go to hell, too. I told them on Twitter. Look, here's what I'm minds. I'm like, oh, y'all can go to hell, too. I told them on Twitter. And look, here's what I'm telling you. I don't care if y'all come.

If you're gay and you come out, that's your business. If you have a baby, that's your business. Wasting valuable time on petty, insignificant, personal stuff. If you want to watch E! News, you want to watch the rest of those shows for it, go right ahead. But literally, the amount of stuff that exists, I can't even put all the stuff in a show

that I want to put in a show because of the amount of time. Right. And I'm just saying, if you a mama or uncle or aunt or you a daddy or you... If you got a family member covering that you say yo ass stupid for wasting all this damn time on that because somebody got

to go somebody got to just say right and also the time that they spent retweeting and tweeting about the story they could have supported samaria right right and they could have filled out a a petition even if you ain't want to do all that just shut the hell up well that's so free i literally can't imagine going to the instagram feed or somebody right some stranger some stranger and say and cussing them out and i hope you die and all this other nonsense cussing a stranger out who invited them to the people you don't know because beyonce jay-z ain't season ticket holders other warriors but they you also don't know them. They were invited by the

two people who was talking to them. Let me let y'all know something right now. Rowling got some court-sized seats and I invite Beyonce and Jay-Z. Y'all kiss my ass. I'm going to talk to them. Okay? I'm going to lean the hell over. We're going to talk to them.

I don't give a damn what y'all got to say. But it's childish and petty. Clearly, I'm going to talk to him, okay? I'm going to lean the hell over. We're going to talk to him. I don't give a damn what y'all got to say. But it's childish and petty. I'm sorry. I just, I really, I said I was not going to discuss it. But I need, no, no, no. I need to discuss that because sometimes we need to tell our own people, stop doing stupid stuff. And this to me is stupid.

Now, what's also stupid, all y'all dumb asses who get on airplanes and put your damn feet on the seat with somebody sitting right there. Keep your damn feet in your damn shoes. Anybody trying to smell your funky ass feet? This happened this week, and I had to play it. I think

it's a lady. I'm somebody got my feet behind me. I'm somebody got my feet behind me. The daddy was cracking up laughing. The boy like what why somebody got their feet behind me that's why i love kids i keep it honest i mean kids keep it honest they tell it like it is and what's important is they typically say things that as adults we should say to other people before things escalate because it was kind of simple he was like who is his foot whose foot is this behind me it's a lady so he's he's shocked that it's a grown person having the audacity to do that and people invade people's personal space all the time on planes you know like there was a debate

on twitter about who gets the armrest does the person in the middle get the two armrests and the people on the outside get the two on the outside i mean these are the black people the white person i'll be doing this with the white guy all the time. I mean, I mean. Trying to push me over. But I think the honesty of kids is what's highlighted here. And I think it's important that I think oftentimes, as we get socialized throughout life, there are certain things that we would normally have done as children that we don't do anymore.

And I think we can learn a lot from kids who choose to engage things. I want to cuss the ass out. Why did he say it's a lady? Yeah. Because he was shocked that it was an adult lady right he thought it was yeah he thought it was a kid yeah a dude put that big old foot up there probably would have been not surprising him but that was a woman seemed to stand out for him i've seen this behavior before and i'm sorry people's lack of respect for other people's personal space and what they want to experience i've seen people clip their nails on the plane I think that's disgusting I don't

want your DNA with me when I go home and he did what he ought to do what I would have done is like can you please move your foot oh no no no she did move oh doc you way you way too nice right there see right there y'all what you have said would you please Henry don't switch to them stay right here they're right here I know it let you know I'm directing the damn show stay right here this happened we on the plane Hey Foot what a move I wouldn't have to get out of my mouth right? Could you please move your foot? It would have been hey That's all that would happens right what right back they would have heard to see 32 a

Hey That's all that would have happened. Right, right, right. Matter of fact, they would have heard C-32A. Hey! That's what would have happened. I'm just letting you know. That's what would have happened. I hear you. You putting your funky-ass foot next to my chair? Yeah. And why that's okay behavior?

Yeah. Why no one on the plane, not even the flight attendant, said, ma'am, you can put your foot on. And also, the plane is dirty. I wish I would take my shoe off on the plane. Y'all snobs. I mean, it's so disrespectful. It's nasty.

It's nasty. Now, if you got socks on, it's a long flight. That becomes slightly different. Let me also help y'all out, okay? Look, I'm Premier 1K on United. I'm on all of Black. So, okay, three seat, but also a two seat. Let me help y'all out. There's a trick, okay?

You ain't gotta fight over that damn armrest, okay? When you're seated in the aisle seat, it's tight, because you fighting. I ain't sitting by the window in a three seat. That ain't gonna happen. Only way that's gonna happen, if it was the last minute, I ain't got no other choice. So, here's the deal, y'all.

Most of y'all most of y'all don't even realize this here aisle seats yeah there is a button under the armrest on the aisle seat that lifts the armrest up so all you got to do is lift that turn this shell you just turn to the aisle you can have all this free space whatever now when they come with the cart and everything you got to slide your behind back i'm just say I don't even like I was on a plane to do look at me like hell did you just him y'all seriously y'all think I'm like some of y'all at home right now going huh seriously there's a button slide your hand to the back of the armrest Cleo like them I didn't know oh

yes I'm an owl person only reason I knew that is because one day I couldn't fly first class because first class was full. And then I remember that story. I was like, hold up. I don't got that button. So there's a button. Click the button. Armrest come up.

Yo, you got freedom. You turn this way. But we ain't sitting here fighting over it. But see, this is what all side do. Just put the damn armrests up. And then when they're going to try to pull it down, the hell your arm about to sit down. It ain't coming down. So we ain't fighting over damn armrests up. And then when they're going to try to pull it out, the hell your arm is going to hit. No, it ain't coming down.

So we ain't fighting over the armrests. It's going to be free damn space. We ain't fighting over the armrests. That's one of the things I like about Southwest, because when I get on the aisle, right, and people are coming in, they just go straight past me because they typically don't want to sit by me, right? But if I'm flying on another airline, I'm definitely trying to get an aisle seat,

and I'm definitely lifting the aisle arm armrest up put your funky foot up we got a problem all right y'all last story here 1964 professional golfer pete brown became the first african-american to win a pga sanctioned tournament the waco turner open took place in tulsa oklahoma pete's golfing career began by playing in a tournament hosted by the united states golf association the united golf association an organization formed by a group of african Pete's golfing career began by playing in a tournament hosted by the United Golf Association, an organization formed by a group of African-American golfers who operated a series of professional golf tournaments for blacks during the era of racial segregation in America. One of the folks, of course, who was behind that was the great boxer, the Brown Bomber.

Who was that? What you got? Joe Lewis. Joe Lewis. bomber who was that what you got y'all live in joe lewis at that time blast could not play in the pga sanction tournaments due to the caucasian only clause of the pga well fast forward today uh the pete brown golf facility will honor him by renaming a course after him of course pete died a couple of years ago and so it's certainly an honor all right y'all a last comment here uh final comment anything you want anything you

want to say anything happened this week what you got go well i just want to go back to the mental health issue if i can for a moment here because i have some concerns uh a quick moment or a quick moment let's call a rap fight 19 years ago dr alvin poussaint and i were on the panel for the national association of equal opportunity in higher education in 2001 he had a book that he put out called lay my burdenden Down, which was about African-American suicides. And it was about it being high and disproportionate back then. And then it went silent. I just hope that Taraji's activity does not do the same thing, because if we would have

done something back then, when Poussaint put his book out, we might not be looking at this issue like we're looking at it now. And we tend to get fired up for a moment around issues that affect us. Then we go back into the trends. All right. I would just say that we can actually do multiple things at the same time, right? We can actually pat our head and rub our tummy. So we can watch the gossip.

But don't forget to keep your eye on what's happening with your government and your local communities and your state because that is vital. We are looking at a president right now that is a criminal in so many ways we are looking at state governments like North Carolina like Georgia that are trying to steal your rights so while you're paying attention to Beyonce and Jay-z make sure you are also looking at what's happening in your community because that's actually going to affect your life those people will be rich tomorrow when you wake up and you still won't know them you know one of the things you one of the segments you highlighted was about work.

And the big thing that stood out to me was about rehabilitation. And part of that is that Flick Shop School of Business has been starting to do a lot of work using virtual reality to help train incarcerated people for when they get out. Because if we link the cannabis story with the work story, part of what's happening now is that cannabis is an example

where we continue to see another example of where black people have gotten screwed over, not just financially, but legally, and a lot of other people are starting to make a lot of money. So that's why I was happy to see these sisters on this show talking about that, because we need to change the laws to actually make things legal across the country, and then we need to actually do some reform with individuals who are in prison. We're developing a virtual reality program for job training, onboarding people when they get out of prison, and I think these particular things are important because we're developing a virtual reality program for job training onboarding people when they get out of prison and I think these particular things are important because we don't want to see the recidivism rate

continue to rise all right folks my final comment we have surpassed 2,000 folks who'll join our bring the funk fan club 2022 to be exact we launched this show nine months ago anniversary was a couple days ago We launched this show nine months ago. Anniversary was a couple days ago. We launched this on September 4th, 2018, of course, and now it is June 7th, 2019. We certainly appreciate every single person who's contributed. Our goal was to have 20,000 of our supporters give at least 50 bucks a year to join our Bring the Funk fan club. Those of you who have joined our fan club, you have a discount code for products that we have on RolandSMartin.com, including books.

We're going to be adding some other things as well. Why is this important? Because this week was a perfect example. We did the two-and-a-half-hour show on Wednesday, celebrating the life of Leah Chase. Of course, we passed away the great chef out of New Orleans. Next week, on Wednesday, we're going to be in Miami for the American Black Film Festival.

Shaft is premiering. We're going to be there. But also, we're going to be in Miami for the American Black Film Festival. Shaft is premiering. We're going to be there. But also we're going to be talking to a number of up-and-coming directors. Because, see, guess what? The John Singletons, the Wheelpackers, they were able to go to ABFF and actually learn their craft and get lots of connections. I'm going to be moderating a Q&A with Reggie Hutland about his new Netflix documentary, The Godfather, which is on now. Talking about Clarence Avant, of course, who was involved in the music industry. HUTLAND ABOUT HIS NEW NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY, THE GODFATHER, WHICH IS ON NOW, TALKING ABOUT CLARENCE AVONT, OF COURSE, WHO WAS INVOLVED IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY, BUT ALSO IN HOLLYWOOD

AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS INDUSTRY AS WELL, PLUS IN POLITICS. AND ALSO, WE'LL BE AT NEW ORLEANS FOR ESSENCE MUSIC FESTIVAL, BUT ALSO TRAVELING TO OTHER PARTS AROUND THE COUNTRY. YOU HAVE NAACP CONVENTION IN JULY. YOU HAVE THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAD TAKING PLACE, NATIONAL D place, National Dental Association here in D.C. In fact, June 18th, we're going to be live streaming a summit dealing with the United States census, its impact on African-Americans. Why am I saying all of that? Because the reality is there's no other show in the digital space like this. None. You can try to find it. It doesn't exist. There are people who have shows, but are they doing a full-fledged one-hour news shows every single day?

No. Are they doing live streaming of summits, of conferences, of rallies, things along those lines? They are not. Also, you take that with our one-hour interviews. And so we're doing a hell of a whole lot with not much. And I say that's also critically important because we love to talk about what we need, what we need, what we need. But somebody has to build it. Somebody actually has to build it. OK, Ebony magazine didn't just all of a sudden just happen.

No, it was built by Johnny Johnson, taking a loan from his mother, bargained against her furniture to start the magazine, start negro digest to start jet magazine you look at all these companies that's what it requires we've been going for nine months i haven't paid myself a salary because we're trying to keep the doors open and pay staff and so we can't talk about why we don't get our stuff covered when we don't have the platforms to actually do it so we want you to join our fan club to help us do that. We're talking about if you gave 50 bucks in a year, that's folks about four bucks a month, 13 cents a day. And I can tell you the conversations that we have

are a hell of a lot more vibrant than what you're paying 200 bucks a month for watching what you're on those cable networks. And so we want you to support us and we want you to do it today. And so this month my goal is to get us a thousand new fan club members in the month of June. You can sign up right now by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. You can go to, you can do so with PayPal, Square or even Cash App. If you do use Cash App, be sure to put your email down so we can send you the promo code. So we certainly would greatly appreciate that. Again, tomorrow I go to North Carolina, Reverend Dr. William Barber, his mom

retires, 53 years of service. And so we're going to be in North Carolina celebrating her. He hit me up. He was there, man, you got to come, got to come. He was leaning on an alpha shield trying to get me to come to North Carolina. Here we go to my iPad. This is the program here for his mother. It's taking place Saturday, June 8th. So 4 p.m. Plymouth High School Gymnasium Community Celebration of Music and Arts honoring Mrs. Eleanor Barber for her retirement and 53 years of service. And so we are looking forward to that.

And Greenlee, so y'all can also tell, everybody know where this is, cause he sent the fly, they ain't even put the seat, the town is in North Carolina. They ain't even put the town on here. Plymouth High School, Jim Torium. Y'all know what that means? I'm going to Plymouth, North Carolina. That's probably where I'm going.

And he told me, he said, Roland, you coming to the country. He said, you coming to the country. And so, again, I'm going to be there tomorrow. And so we'll certainly look forward to it. Folks, we hope you have a great weekend. We're going to close the show out, of course, playing for you. All the folks who've given to our fan club. And I appreciate every single one of you because your dollars makes this show possible and makes it possible for us to do what we do and so I shall

see you on Monday. Holla! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Martin! Thank you. this is an iHeart podcast