#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 7.9.19 RMU: Sen Booker talks 2020; CA bans hair discrimination; Kevin Marshall's mom demands justice

Episode Date: July 11, 2019

7.9.19 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Sen. Cory Booker talks 2020; Florida Congresswoman Val Demings explains why media diversity is necessary. California is the first state to ban discrimination based on natural hair; Kevin Marshall's mom demands justice; Kevin Marshall's mother want justice for her son who was deliberately run down by a white man; Roland shares his views on the last edition of the Chicago Defender. - #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.

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This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad listen to absolute season one taser incorporated on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Thank you. ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത� Thank you. Thank you. ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത� Thank you. ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത്ത� Hey, folks, today is Tuesday, July 9th, 2019. I'm broadcasting live from New Orleans. Of course, I've been attending the Essence Festival, the 25th anniversary, but also I'll be speaking tomorrow to Delta Sigma Theta. They're having their national convention here in New Orleans, and so that's why I am still here. Coming up on

today's show, we'll hear from Senator Cory Booker, who I talked to at Essence, about why he wants your vote as he is running for the Democratic nomination for president. We'll also talk with Congresswoman Val Demings about media and diversity and why our voices matter. In California, the governor has signed a new law banning hair discrimination. We'll talk to the woman, of course, who led that effort in California. Also, a shocking story, folks out of Georgia.

A young man run over, and for some reason reason they're saying that the guy who did it was mentally disabled. Why is that a hate crime? We'll talk to Kevin Marshall's mother also on today's show. Tomorrow is the last print edition of the Chicago Defender founded in 1906. I will, sorry, 1905. I will explain to you my thoughts about why this is a painful deal for black media and what has to happen in the future for black media to survive in this new landscape. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. We'll be right back. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling.

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It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. It's rolling. All right, folks, welcome to Roland Martin Unfiltered. I'm broadcasting live from New Orleans, where we have been attending the Essence Festival, the 25th annual Essence Festival, and also what's happening today. Delta Sigma Theta members are arriving. Some 20,000 are expected to be in New Orleans this week. I'll be keynoting their college division luncheon tomorrow, so looking forward to that. And hopefully the Wi-Fi is going to be pretty good in the convention center, and we'll try to livestream that speech tomorrow.

I want to get right to the census. Breaking news here. A federal judge has rejected the Trump administration's plan to switch legal teams involved in the census case. Remember, the Supreme Court kicked it back, saying they wanted more answers as to why the Trump team wants to put a citizenship question on the census. The, of course, Commerce Department announced they were moving forward with printing the census. The Department of, the, of course, Commerce Department announced they were moving forward with printing the census until Donald Trump sent a tweet out saying, no, he was going to issue an executive order to put a question of citizenship on the census, which is kind of hard because he really can't do that. So I want to go to my panel right now. Joining me there in

Washington, D.C., Kelly Bethea, communications strategist, Dr. Jason Nichols, University of Maryland, Department of African American Studies, Malik Abdul, vice president, Black Conservative Federation. And so it's quite interesting, folks, to see the Trump administration sitting here desperately trying to put the citizenship question on the sentence. Malik, the Supreme Court pretty much gave them an out, but then they decided to act a fool. They listened to the Supreme Court. Now Donald Trump wants to be so adamant about this.

Can this man take no for an answer? Yeah, I'm not really sure what's going on here. Initially, when I heard about this, I got it all wrong because I assumed that the conservative justices on the court ruled the same way as the liberal justices. But I don't think that happened. I think that John Justice, oh, gee, I can't remember, Roberts was actually the tiebreaker there. I'm, you know, from, you know, much as you said, you know, they were told to, the Trump administration was asked to explain what it is that they were doing, you know, the intent behind it. So I assumed initially that that's something that they were going to do, but then it seemed as if they decided not to do it. So I really, I don't know what's going on. It should be easier to explain that. The fact that the federal judge rejected the notion with their intent to change lawyers, I don't even know the rationale behind that.

I don't know if just finding a better lawyer would help the situation at all. It seems like what the justices were looking for was just a better answer, not necessarily a better lawyer. So it seems a little confusing at this point, but this is where we are, unfortunately. Yeah, but Kelly, look, I mean, the Trump administration, they're constantly confusing when it comes to any of these issues. And let's just be honest. I mean, look, take your butt whooping like a man and go away. But to keep trying to, first of all, the Commerce Department heard what the Supreme Court said. Then Trump sends a tweet out, I'm going to try to issue an executive order. You

can't just, you can't issue an executive order as if the Supreme Court doesn't matter. There's a lot of things that this president can't do that he's going to try to do anyway, because he is a narcissist at heart. A lot of people are saying, like my panelists here saying, you know, they don't know what's going on. It's confusing. It's not all that confusing. They're just stalling because they were told if you don't have a reason for this, it's basically going to be dismissed. So they have every stalling tactic available to them to try and stall and try and basically find a reason that's not racist, but you can't find a reason because it is racist. So, yeah, they need to let it go. But you know how Trump is. He's not going to. So we basically have him doing circus stuff in court. And it's

crazy. Well, the census is a critical issue. We, of course, we live streamed the summit a few weeks ago. Black leaders got together talking about the importance of it. And the reality is a lot of people on Malik have absolutely no confidence that Donald Trump's administration really wants to count everyone. This is important. I've talked to people in the Commerce Department. It is, frankly, a mess over there. You don't have a real plan. How do you reach out to African-Americans, Latinos and others, people who historically historically have been undercounted? And so it's a little hard to even trust this administration with going forward and having an accurate census count. Yeah, and the idea that Trump doesn't have a lot of goodwill out there really isn't surprising. I don't think that asking the question itself is racist. I don't know what the motivations are.

We can assume what their motivations are, but I don't think that asking the question is racist. But it seems like the process and how we actually get there, that does seem to be a mess. I'll agree with you with that. And, you know, that does seem to be a mess. But I can't understand why is it that they can't get this right. This is one of those instances where, again, the justices said, well, explain yourself. Obviously, the answer that the federal government gave initially was not sufficient. And so that's why they said that you need to explain yourself. And so now we're here with the Trump administration. It is hard to figure out. I mean, that the idea that we even

got here. I don't know. I don't think I don't know if it will be difficult, especially for African-Americans. I don't know if it will be difficult to really do an accurate count. I don't know if it will be difficult, especially for African-Americans. I don't know if it will be difficult to really do an accurate count. I don't know if that's something that's, you know. Yeah, actually, actually, Malik, it has been. It has been. One of the greatest concerns has been the idea of undercounting. That has constantly been an issue because of folks not necessarily trusting and also the government not really having an understanding of how to reach people.

Kelly, that is an issue. And And look, this administration, they lied. They lied, first of all, by saying they wanted the citizenship question to protect the Voting Rights Act, something they don't give a damn about. And they lied consistently about why. We now know because we got the hard drive of the white guy who died in Florida, that it was all about undercounting people of color. And so, frankly, people cannot trust this administration, this Commerce Department, to do the right thing when it comes to counter the census. No, absolutely. And while the question itself, are you a citizen, is not on its face racist,

again, the court is asking for the intent behind the question, which is racist. And if they can provide a rationale that is not racist, then we have something to talk about here. But the fact of the matter is they don't have rationale outside of bigotry and racism to put this question on the census, which is why the question is not going on the census. And like I said, again, the issue, I'm beyond the question. What I'm saying is they can't be trusted to even do an accurate count. So I want to go to my next story, actually. And I want to pull them and ask Congresswoman Val Demings about this. She's from Florida as well. And so so before I talk to her about what I want to talk to her about, we pull her in here. Congresswoman Val Demings, you're there out of Florida. Are you concerned this administration is not going to do all it can to properly count all Americans?

Well, you know, it's a shame that we're having this conversation. The census, as we all know from its inception, has been about counting persons so that governments could provide the proper level of service. The Supreme Court has even weighed in on this, and it's not surprising to me, Roland, and it's pretty sad. But now the president is defying the Supreme Court and wants to do a workaround to include a question about citizenship on the census. So to answer your question, no, I have no faith in confidence that this president, this administration, and his enablers will do the right thing, and let's count people, and not ask questions about citizenship. All right, now let's talk about the issue that you are here for. Coming up is going to be the Multicultural Media Correspondents Association Dinner and Summit. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend because I'm here in New Orleans and talking to the Deltas tomorrow. Then I'm headed to the Bahamas

to cover Bishop Neil Ellis's gathering conference. But this is an issue that when you look at the White House Correspondents Dinner, guess what? It's pretty damn white. And, you know, serious diversity questions in media across this country, especially when it comes to folks who cover the White House and Capitol Hill. And but not only that comes from the Demings, you know, I'm the vice president digital for the National Association of Black Journalists. The Congressional Black Caucus joined with us in taking a CNN to task. Specifically, it's CEO Jeff Zucker for having no black direct reports. He finally got the message and appointed a couple of folks, a senior vice president for diversity and inclusion,

Janita Dew, as well as upgrading Marcus Mabry to vice president. But it is stunning to me that here we are in 2019, we're having to have the yell, kick and scream to get folks like Jeff Zucker to say, how is it you have no black direct reports, no black executive vice presidents, no black senior vice presidents, no until now, it's being kicked off with the dinner tonight. The summit tomorrow is all about increasing media diversity and making sure that America, the industry, and everybody who's not listening will listen and increase diversity. You all know there was a report that came out 50 years ago that said we needed to increase media diversity. Sadly, if you look at the numbers, they have not changed at all. Matter of fact, newspapers and other media sources, outlets, are struggling to either stay in business or have gone out of business. As you well know in the business that you've been in for

so many years, how we tell the story matters. But more importantly, I think, who tells the story? And so we are introducing legislation. We're introducing a resolution that will increase awareness, educate communities and the nation that, look, this is still a problem. We need to do better and we're not going away. Congressman, I think the only way I think to get their attention, I think just like when, of course, there were some issues with CBS and black embeds. Congresswoman Maxine Waters called them to Capitol Hill to meet with her, and CBS executives did that. I think, frankly, the CBC and others need to call Jeff Zucker, CNN CEO to Capitol Hill and say, explain yourself. Explain how you've been CEO of this

network for six years, and your hand was only forced in order to promote African-Americans' scene-level positions. I just think that shining a light in darkness is the only thing here. Because here's the piece, Congresswoman. You're right. I've been involved in media since I was 14 years old. And the thing is, nobody reports on media. And because of media will quickly, CNN will do stories talking about the lack of diversity in dollars being spent by the Democratic Party or lack of diversity among the Republican National Committee, the lack of diversity among Democratic staffers, but they won't turn the lens on themselves. And I think external forces like NABJ and Congress must hold them to task, and not just Jeff Zucker at CNN, but every single other network and media outlet, because Ashley does an annual media survey about diversity, and not even 20 percent of the nation's newspapers bother to fill out the diversity survey? Well, and you're absolutely right. I mean, look, Congress, lawmakers from the local up to the federal level, I think we all have

a responsibility to make sure that we keep this topic open, but not only just talk about it, right? We want to see the numbers increase. We want to see action. Remembering the fact that media is responsible for 20% of the economy. And so it's not only about who tells the story, which is so very critical that stories will be balanced and accurate, but it's also about economic development. And so our responsibility is to increase opportunities in this area. You're right. Congresswoman Waters was right on, spot on by going directly to the source. There's more that we need to do, and we will do it. And I'll tell you this here, the other issue is now also in the digital space, because essentially what happened was the lack of diversity that we saw in television, in newspapers, in magazines, and in radio, then

when digital blew up, guess what? They hired the same people who were not hiring us at those outlets, now on the digital side. And I just believe calling them the Capitol Hill and forcing them to reveal their numbers, and these are publicly traded companies. I know Congressman Gregory Meeks has a bill that will call for publicly traded companies to reveal their sort of top level executives. We've called for a civil rights audit of CNN. There are other companies we're looking at as well. And you're right. They must show their numbers and not just, oh, here are our total black numbers. No. Who are the executives? Who are the people next in line? Who are the people next in line? Because if we

don't have power in terms of controlling the narrative, then all we're simply doing is asking somebody else for permission to tell our story. It's absolutely correct. And, you know, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm said, if you don't have a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. Right. And so that's what we're going to do. We're going to demand. And you're absolutely right. It's about decision makers. Look, we you know, it's about people in key positions and those executive positions that can be involved in the decision making process. And so, you know, I'll start in where I kind of begun is that we have an obligation working with people like you and people who are interested in this particular subject. Like I said, the dinner will kick off

tonight, and then we'll do a summit tomorrow where we're looking at how to increase opportunities looking through and analyzing those numbers and how we can better hold people accountable because this issue is not going away and neither are we. Well, again, whatever help that I can offer, I'm certainly am there. Again, I would love just like that was that reparations hearing, that discussion. I would love for one of these congressional committees to call network presidents, to call top newspapers, to call the magazine industry, which is woeful, to call those leaders. And not only that, and the last one here, Congresswoman, I know you have to go, the advertising industry. Let me tell you something right now, Congresswoman. What we're now now seeing black ad agencies are dying on the vine because what used to be multicultural marketing has now been taken over. Now it now is the mainstream. And when you look in these ad agencies, you have

very few African-Americans in leadership positions. And I can tell you personally, black media is having a very difficult time being able to get those dollars because there are people who have no clue because there are people who have no clue who we are, who don't know what we do, and they're the ones who are determining where those dollars are spent. And so we're talking about billions upon billions of dollars that are available, that are being spent, that we're getting frozen out of. And I just think that putting that lens, shining that light on them is critically important because, look, we're 24 years away becoming a nation, majority people of color. And if minority media outlets, black, Latino and others are getting left out in the cold, which we are, then it's going to be hard for us to be able to pay staff to tell our own story if we can't afford to do it.

One of the panels that we're going to have tomorrow at the summit deals strictly with advertisement. And as I said, the media industry makes up 20 percent of the economy. And so you're absolutely correct. There are not only opportunities that are being missed, but millions of dollars that are being missed by persons who are very talented in this field, but they have missed opportunities. So we're excited about tomorrow, but tomorrow is really about developing best practices and coming out of that summit tomorrow with an action plan that we will put in place.

Well, again, I wish I could be there, but certainly count me in in terms of working with this. Like I said last week, I'm running unopposed with Vice President Digital. And so to CNN's Jeff Zucker and the rest of these media companies, I ain't going anywhere on the board of NABJ. And we're going to make sure we're going to keep pushing and holding these folks accountable to ensure we don't get left out. Congresswoman, thanks a lot. Thank you so much. All right, folks. Going to go to a break right now. When we come back, we're going to have for you my interview

with Cory Booker, which took place at the 25th Annual Essence Festival. That's coming up next, Roland Martin Unfiltered. 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. That's Roland Martin Unfiltered.

See that name right there? Roland Martin Unfiltered. Like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's YouTube dot com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. All right, folks, welcome back. Essence Festival just concluded. Thousands upon thousands of folks, hundreds of thousands of folks were in New Orleans for the annual event. And one of the folks who spoke to the folks here was Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. Of course, he is running for the Democratic nomination for president. Had an opportunity to sit down with him.

Here's our conversation hey folks roller martin here the 25th essence festival join us right now senator cory booker of new jersey democratic presidential candidate uh center how you doing first of all you know i can't start off without talking about your pocket game today we have this thing every time i see him it better. This is some wild stuff right here. I don't know if that's a pocket square or a feather. It's a feather. I debuted this in essence about six, seven years ago. Steve Harvey and I were going at it with pocket squares, and I said, I got something for you this year.

I'm impressed. And I hit him with the feathers. You are. So my sister, who is an artist, so she actually makes custom-made. After I did this, people have been makes custom-made, after I did this, people have been ordering custom-made feather pocket swings. I just want you all to know, first of all, this man is setting standards in fashion as well, as in radio and TV.

I'm honored to be on with you always. All right, glad to be here. First of all, is this your first Essence? You've been here before? No, I've been here before, man. What kind of brother doesn't want to come to Essence Fest? I've met several first-timers. Really?

Yes. Yes. Well, this is where I like to just walk the floor like I did today. Right. Because you just see this incredible gathering of black excellence, incredible women. I feel like in many ways this is kind of like a family reunion. Oh, it is. Absolutely.

I've skipped many family reunions to be here at Essence. Yes. To my family. Don't put on July 4th weekend. I don't be that. Yes. When you talk about that, this idea of black excellence, obviously, uh, there are serious issues that are on the table for this audience here. Uh, when you talk about, uh, obviously economics, when you talk about entrepreneurship, uh, when you talk about education, health, all of those different issues. What do you think it was going to take for you to connect with this demographic to get them to support your candidacy for president? Well, first of all, I can only be who I am. My entire professional life has been spent in black and brown communities working on the issues you're just talking about. I came out of L.A. law school, moved right into inner city Newark, lived in the projects for almost a decade, and I still live in

that very neighborhood right now. And we've done things. You walk around my block, I can show you Vonda, who we helped get access to capital, open up a business that's thriving now, parking, double parking, triple parking, just to get into her soul food restaurant. I can show you the school that now is ranked one of the best schools in America. So these are issues that this is not me just talking about what I'm going to do as a presidential candidate. This is stuff that I've been doing as a mayor to turn around a black and brown city with a coalition of folks. You know this as a United States senator, the issues that I have picked, whether it's opportunity zones to move capital into underinvested areas, or the criminal justice bill, the only major bipartisan bill that passed this

president was the one that I led from the Senate side that liberated people from mass incarceration, to even on health issues, fighting for sickle cell anemia because it was undervalued and underinvested in, fighting for things that people don't think about, like making sure dental care access, which in our communities is important. So there's a whole lot of people running. The 2020 elections doesn't stand for the year, stands for the number of people running, 2020. But there's one person in this race who has, for their entire career, dealt with the issues of communities that have been left out, looked down upon, left aside, fought and won battle after battle after battle by pulling people together to solve these problems. And I'm going to be the kind of president that puts this kind of agenda

right in the center of the presidential work that I'm going to do during my two terms. I saw one report that said you have not qualified yet for the next debate. That's in less than 30 days. The debate in September is going to be in Houston on the campus of Texas Southern University right there in Third Ward. I went to high school literally right across the street. Many of those issues right there in the community. Here's what I would, it's not my advice, but here's what I want to see. I saw the last debate. I frankly felt that the moderators did not ask the type of questions that we're interested in. And to me, that's where I think where Canada has to not go rogue, but literally say, wait a minute,

let's talk about what's literally happening outside the doors here. I get it was in downtown Miami. But when you go to Michigan, OK, Flint is still an issue, infrastructure and water. To me, that has to be front and center at these debates, because unfortunately, the people who ask these questions, they're not from these communities. So you saw, in fact, people mentioned this to me, that just about every answer, I brought it back to neighborhoods like mine. I talked about the shootings around my block, because we have mass shootings every day in the aggregate in our country. I talked about the struggles in my neighborhood of people having access to things that people in other communities take for granted. Look, this election, I agree with you. For us, the best thing that ever

happened to me was that last debate, because people saw me on the stage next to candidates, 20 million Americans. We had our best fundraising seven days after that, got us thousands and thousands of new dollars, $1 donors. And please, go to CoryBooker.com if you want my voice to stay in this. So we're closing in really quick on making sure we hit that 130,000 donor mark. We've passed 110,000 donors already, and we're just gaining momentum. And you can know that no matter where I go, I stand and represent. If you walk into the Senate office right now in the Capitol, you will see a massive map. The biggest thing on the wall is a map of the first people to take a chance on me,

a map of the Central Ward of Newark that got me into elections. And the tenant president of the projects I alluded to just asked me one thing. She helped me get elected. I wouldn't have gotten elected without her. She said, don't forget where you came from or the people that took a chance on you to put you in office. And that's why these issues, I'm with you. I'm frustrated when people don't talk about the issues that we see going on in too many communities around America.

And when I'm on that Detroit debate stage as a boy who was born to a mama, born in Detroit, as my grandfather in the black northern migration got a job, a union job on the assembly line that took my family out of poverty, I know the issues of our community, and I will continue to stand up and fight for it. What do you make of Democratic candidates who are ardently opposed to charter schools? You know what happened there in Newark. There have been a number of more than 200 leaders of color of charter schools who have sent letters to Senator Bernie Sanders and others saying,

look, your position is wrong on this. The thing that I say in Michigan, as in the support of charter schools, Betsy DeVos and her people screwed it up there. But you also have a screwed public school system. At the end of the day, black parents want something that's going to succeed, and they don't care what it is, as long as he's helping their children. And I just think that Democrats are wrong for that position. To me, you can do both. You can support traditional public schools and charter schools. I support success. I care about what works. Well, don't lump me into Democrats, that broad brush, because you know what happened in Newark. We were under state takeover. We had schools that were not serving the genius of our kids. And I stepped up and said, I just want great schools.

And we fought and leveraged so much, though. We have charters. I actually closed bad charters because I'm like, if you can't perform, get out. I made one enrollment system that literally now we're the number one school system in America for beat the odds schools, high poverty, high performance. If you're going to come after schools that are working for my black and brown low-income kids in Newark, you're going to have to come through me. Now, look, charters, you and I know, only 3% of the public schools in America. Why create these false divides? That's why I keep saying, how can 3% of the schools be the problem for 97%?

We need to get back to focusing on public schools, public education. That's why my teachers' union in New Jersey endorsed me twice for the United States Senate. My vision as a president is to getting localities the resources they need, raising teachers' salary, making sure we fully fund special education, doing the things that we know that local leaders, if they're given the power and the strength and the resources, they can make sure every kid succeeds. That's why I support public schools. That's why I support, that's why I will fight against these Republican schemes, as you said, like Betsy DeVos, that often messed up our school

systems or tried to privatize school systems in a way that would hurt kids. Last question, it is education. All this back and forth between Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris over busing. I think what they have missed and keep folks don't want to talk about, busing was the word that replaced desegregation. And I think we got to keep the focus on we have segregated schools and we have white parents who are sending their kids to schools. They're in better shape than black parents, and they don't want us in their schools. And so I think there's a whole back and forth over busing was good, was bad.

Look, Robert Smith gave a speech at Morehouse. He said busing is what gave me an opportunity. That's why he's now the richest black man in America. And so I think the game that's being played is wrong. This is about segregated schools in this country. I'm so happy you said it that way. Segregation hurts all of us. And one of the biggest forces of segregated schools is segregated housing.

Right. Policies that don't let African Americans afford to live in neighborhoods. And segregated housing is tied to blocking us from getting opportunities when it comes to jobs. You want to know something? I don't know if you know this story. You know why I had the opportunities I did? My parents were denied the house I grew up in because of the color of their skin. They had to get a white couple that poses them to buy the house that we grew up in that had incredible public schools.

And my brother and I were the first blacks to integrate this neighborhood, have a tremendous, tremendous set of opportunities. So this idea that we can exist as a nation divided against each other, we need leaders that can heal, bring people together, and affirm that in America, everyone should have equal opportunity. And by the way, when we're together, we do better. Senator Cory Booker, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, brother. All right, folks, we'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.

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All you got to do is go to marijuana stock.org. That's marijuana stock.org. If you want to get in the game, and if you do so, do it now. Welcome to my panel. Now to pick up on that Cory Booker interview. First off, Kelly, I'll start with you. Cory Booker is way down in the polls. What do you think he needs to do to make a move to increase his visibility and, frankly, get in this race?

That's a hard question for me to answer, mainly because I want him to not—he comes off almost as if he's pandering. And I know that his intentions are great. His record reflects that he's being truthful in his initiatives and whatnot. But it almost feels like he tries too hard sometimes. I don't know how else to explain that. But something that he could do to change that, I guess, is to just keep the course. Make sure that his record is out there. He needs more exposure.

People in Newark just push for his campaign and see what happens from there. Jason, you're there now again. If you look at the polling where we stand right now, Booker is 1.52 percent or so. And look, you just saw Congressman Eric Swalwell drop out of the race. I think after this next debate, if there's a movement by some of these candidates, I think three to four, three to five should drop out. What do you think Senator Booker needs to do to catch on fire? Honestly, what I would say is that he needs to have some images of him on that block that he comes from. People need to see him interacting with the community. They need to see him because when I see Cory Booker, to be honest, I see a suit and tie Washington guy. So he goes up on stage and, you know, sometimes I would agree with Kelly that

he's so intent on looking sincere that it looks insincere. So I would say, honestly, he needs to be seen on his block, to be seen with that community. So when you see those people in that community in Newark saying, this guy fights for us, this guy is one of us, I think that that would make a real difference for a lot of people in the Democratic primary. We know that the crux of the Democratic Party is African-American people and particularly African-American women. So I think he was, you know, among the right audience. But he needs to show people that his people are behind him and have them do some of the talking.

And for him to be seen in that community and to be seen as part of that community. Malik? Unfortunately for Senator Spartacus, I don't think that he has a chance at this point. You know, maybe if he has some sort of viral moment, I mean, we're talking about Kamala Harris, Senator Harris, simply because she called a white man a racist. That's what made her go up in the polls,

because she... No, that's not what she did. That is a lie. She did not call him a'm sorry i'm sorry she actually started with you're right you're not a racist you're right she insinuated that he was a racist but she didn't but she didn't acknowledge no no no malik malik you're not gonna lie no i'm not lying you just don't like what i said but i'm not lying i don't think you're lying. I think you're missing something. The guy who actually palled around with segregationists was a racist. We understand that.

That's fine. I think that's not what she wants to say. He was racist. Excuse me, folks. Excuse me. Sorry. You cannot say that she said that when she began the sentence by saying, I do not believe that you are a racist.

Right. But she then criticized his comments about segregation of senators. And he also this weekend apologized for making those comments. But she did not call him a racist. Right. Which is why I corrected myself and said that she insinuated such, which is what she did. But the reason that we're talking about her now is because she insinuated that he was a racist. In Cory Booker's case, I don't know what he can do unless he has some type of viral moment. You know, we know who Cory Booker is. I mean, this is not, you know, when he was mayor, whether he was saving people from fires or, you know, staying in. I think he was in the projects or something for a week and he lived off of food stamps or something.

A week? Yeah, I think it was a week. I think it was a little longer than a week. Well, either way, I mean, it was a stunt. So we've seen him before and we kind of know who, you know, Senator Booker is. No one stunts on food stamps. Well, again, Bob, again, bottom line of this here, Booker has to do, I think, a lot. He must do something to make a move because what's happening right now,

Biden, Sanders, Harris, Warren, Buttigieg, they really are, I think, in that top five or so. And so he's really going to have to do something to make a move in order. And look, first of all, he has to qualify for this next debate. And so the question is, will that also actually happen? I do want to ask Kelly this. CNN has announced who their debate folks are going to be. It's going to be Jake Tapper, Dana Bash, Don Lemon. And of course, we had the first debate, and you had Lester Holt, Rachel Maddow. You also had Chuck Todd. And then, of course, why is the name escaping me? My man from Telemundo is escaping me right now, and it's going to come to me in just a second.

But how in the hell are we going to go through two debates in the most important constituency for Democrats and black women and it's not being a black woman moderator as of yet. The thing is, do they even have black outside of Joy Reid and a couple others on the MSNBC side? I can't think of anybody off the top of my head on the CNN side. Frederica. Well, Frederica would work. No, let me tell you something right now. Jeff Zucker has had Frederica Wilson stuck on weekends since he's been there.

They moved all kinds of other people to weekday, and so I can tell you right now, they won't be giving her a shot at doing anything. And that's my point. We have Nia Malika Henderson. Of course, she also covered politics. But hell, you get a black woman who's a white house correspondent in abby phillips you have abby phill you have uh april ryan as a correspondent for cnn as well i don't know why they wouldn't no no april ryan is a contributor for cnn she works white house uh course correspondent

american urban radio network but she's a contributor. And so you just kind of proved my point in that there really is no one on the CNN side to represent black women in these debates. And it's unfortunate because, like we've been saying pretty much all of this segment, black women is what are what's going to get the Democratic vote. And for a news station, a news network, to not take us into consideration when the Democratic Party is, frankly, desperate for our votes, the disconnect is pretty astounding. Jose Diaz-Ballard, of course, who was with Telemundo, was one of the moderators. Jason, again, going to you. We were just talking about diversity with Congresswoman Val Demings. The fact that the first two, you do not have a black woman in the position to be able to ask these questions.

Look, you have Samantha Guthrie, of course, with NBC. But, look, you've got a black woman there who is also in the mornings on the Today Show. Again, this shows the dearth of folks who are in the positions. The fact that you do not have any of them. There's no black woman who is hosting a an hour show on the daily show mornings, mid or even primetime, I believe, is Harris Faulkner on Fox News. Right. Right. I don't believe there's a there's a black woman. There's no black woman hosting a daily show, an hour block on CNN. I'm trying to go through right now. There's no black woman on, I'm going through MSNBC,

and there's no, no, no black woman at MSNBC. So the only black woman, the only black woman who hosts an hour. Yeah, it's on Fox. It's Fox News. Right, absolutely. And I think that says a lot. The only black woman who will host an hour. Yeah, it's on Fox. Right. Absolutely. And I think that says a lot. And still there's there's a dearth. I think what you said was so important, Roland, and that is that literally they ghettoize black women in all these networks on weekends. So you get Frederica, you get Arthel Neville, you get a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch of black women, including Joy Reid. They get ghettoized on weekends when we know the viewership is down, particularly on Saturdays.

Very few people are watching news on Saturdays. And you have, for example, not any black women. Why are there no black women on the opinion shows in primetime? There are literally none. I mean, you know, you have some black people like Don Lemon, but that's it. So I really think news media is missing out on an incredible audience, an audience that can be very loyal. And they're completely missing out on that and ghettoizing black women into weekends, which I think is a terrible thing. Well, again, all I'm simply saying is, and of course, ABC has a debate in September.

Certainly, I hope Robin Roberts is one of the folks who's going to be asking questions there. You've got, of course, in the mornings, Gayle King at CBS as well. But it's a damn shame. We look at these cable networks again. The fact that when you have these major, major and I can tell you right now, I mean, when I was at CNN, I remember they ran this newspaper ad showing the whole lineup of people who are going to be leading our coverage. There were no black people. And then they rushed to add Soledad O'Brien to the mix because they needed some color in the ad. It was like, okay, so you didn't think about that beforehand. But again, that's what you're dealing with here.

And so, again, networks, go find y'all some black women. Seriously, they exist. And so, again, networks, go find y'all some black women. Seriously, they exist. Well, NBC and MSNBC had one in Tamron Hall, but they replaced her with Megyn Kelly. Of course, she's going to be launching her own daytime talk show in September. Of course, we talked to her at Essence Festival. So we look forward to having the conversation with her. All right, folks, let's go to this next story, which is really a stunning and sad story. That is a 20-year-old Kevin Marshall, who's autistic, was beaten and then run over, was killed by Joshua Anderson after a July 4th celebration on North Lake Drive in Covington, Georgia. Of course,

he was captured today in New York. Kevin's mother, Robbie Marshall, says she will not rest until justice is served. And so do we do? First of all, folks, do we do we do we do we have the mother? Do we have audio from the mother? What do we have? OK, so this is really a an unbelievable story, Jason, because one, they try to call this say this wasn't a hate crime. What the hell is it? And I'm wondering what what other motive they could come up with where you would beat someone and then run them over with your car to make sure that they were that they were dead. To me, it's it's clearly a hate crime. Certainly should be investigated that way. And, you know, I don't know if his mother will see this, but certainly, you know, for his grieving mother. I mean, my heart, my heart is hurting for her. You try to protect your children, particularly a child who has a disability, and

having them be, you know, targeted and murdered the way that he was in pain, it's just heartbreaking. So, you know, we're all with his mother, particularly on this journey that she's on to get justice for her son. What we dealt with here, Kelly, is that Anderson started this whole deal. He began fighting Marshall for talking to his girlfriend. Yeah. And when I read the story, it just had traces of Emmett Till written all over it for me, because that's more or less what happened in the case of Emmett Till. Only this time,

Kevin Marshall was intellectually disabled, which to me makes it even worse. And then the fact, like Jason said, Anderson beat him, like dragged him, beat him. And then Marshall was strong enough to actually walk away from that situation. He was going home. He turned his back to him and left the situation, not trying to retaliate, from my understanding of these reports. And Anderson followed him with a car to make sure that he was dead. So that's premeditated. It's hatred. It was a modern-day lynching. And for it to not be considered a hate crime, I don't see how it's not considered a hate crime. I definitely feel like those who indict reevaluate the charges against this man. Malik, again, when you look

at this story here, I mean, you knock the man out, you run over him because he's talking to your girlfriend. Dude, really? Yeah, it's an unfortunate thing. And I do hope that he's talking to your girlfriend dude really yeah it's it's an unfortunate thing and I do hope that the he's prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law we've heard we've had these type of discussions before especially when the victims you know one one is black or you know the perpetrator perpetrator may be white and what we found time and time again in the same discussion I'm sure that's going to come out of this, is that there is unfortunately a very, very, very high bar to meet the hate crime standard. And I think that probably is what's going on here. Doesn't seem like, you know, I can't imagine him not being prosecuted for something, but it's, I think what we're, the reason that we don't

have that charge yet is that it's just such a high bar that the government sets for something being a hate crime. And I think that's probably what's happening here. All right, then, folks, let's talk about a bill in California now signed into law banning hair discrimination. Joining us right now is the woman who pushed that bill forward, State Senator Holly Mitchell. Senator Mitchell, how you doing? I'm great. Good to see you, Roland. It was great to see you here in essence. This obviously hugely important bill. I remember a few years ago, I was debating somebody and they were talking about how EEOC serves no purpose. And I remember reading, going on the EEOC website, and there was a black woman who applied for a job at the VA in Virginia.

Impeccable credentials. Had all the right experience, degrees, and everything. Yet after her interview, she walks out of the room, and the panel, and the man on the panel goes, I just don't like her cornrows. First of all, I don't think we're using cornrows, but he was talking about her hair. And she successfully sued, won $70,000 in back pay and eventually got the job. But he was a perfect example of a black woman with all the right credentials. But some white man didn't like her hair. Right. And that's why we carried Senate Bill 188, the Crown Act, to prevent

employers and schools from continuing these policies based on our hair. We all saw the video of the young wrestler. We have heard any number of court cases, U.S. Supreme Court cases for the past 40 years of Black women going back to the 80s in the banking industry and the airline industry who were trying to go to work and wear their hair braided and wearing their hair in its natural state in what we're calling protected hairstyles, braids, twists, and locks, are violating these supposed professional workplace standards. And we said enough is enough, and so we introduced the Crown Act. So how does this work?

And so obviously you have this law now. So, let's say somebody believes that they did not get a job because of their hair. So, what happens? braids to the list of attributes or race-based traits or traits that are under the protected class under Department of Fair Employment and Housing and Education Code. So protected characteristics like gender, race, religious, religion, sexual orientation, all those things. You can't fire me because I'm Black or a woman or I'm over 40. And so we've added the trait of the race-based trait of hair texture and protected hairstyles to that category of protected characteristics. This obviously has met with a lot of praise from a number of people. Are you hoping other states will follow your lead? That's absolutely the goal. We were thrilled to be able to work collaboratively with the Crown Coalition, Dove, and other national organizations, Urban League, other national

organizations from across the country. California was first. I'm proud of that. But we're going to have to approach this on a state-by-state basis until federal legislation is introduced and passes. And so, I know that there are a couple of other states, New York and New Jersey, who have bills in the hopper, if you will. But I was thrilled when our Governor Gavin Newsom signed it into law on July 3rd. All right then, Senator Holly Mitchell. Congratulations. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. Great to be with you. All right, Kelly. This is, again, this is something that is really important because we know people who actually have been discriminated against because of their hair. I've been discriminated against because of my hair. So when I heard about this

bill that passed, I was elated because my hair has absolutely nothing to do with my intelligence. It has nothing to do with my work ethic It has nothing to do with my work ethic. It has nothing to do with the potential of great performance that I will contribute to my place of employment. My hair never did anything for me except make me look cute. It has nothing to do with anything outside of aesthetic. I've had to deal with this pretty much my entire life. And even some mentors of mine, people who had my best interests at heart, who were discriminated against because of their hair, tried to give me pointers on how to do my hair, this, that, and the third, to basically

dissuade people from, you know, just talking about my hair and not about what I'm bringing to the table. But like I said before, my hair didn't get me any of my degrees. I went to law school with this hair. I went to college with this hair. I'm at work now with this hair. And it has nothing to do with anything. And the fact that we have to go through this, it's the fact that we have to put this into law. It just shows just how inherently racist this country is and how bigoted this country is towards black women in general. But I am grateful for the protection. But Kelly, it's not just black women. Jason, I'll tell you, Steve Perry and I talked about this here. Steve Perry has really shiny, wavy hair uh and we were at cnn uh there were a couple of people at cnn who literally came to him to ask him to change his hair because it it was

too shiny and wavy and he was like hell no yeah i've never heard you know maybe i've spent too much time in the african-american community but i've never heard your hair can be too shiny and wavy. Those are usually pluses in my community. But yeah, I mean, the fact that and even actually, I was going to mention, I believe it was Hampton University that even some black institutions have discriminated against other black people for the way they wear their hair. We have to stop this. And, you know, it is a white privilege to be able to go to work and to always know that your hair, the way it grows naturally, is always acceptable. It's always acceptable for work.

But for black people, it takes all this prep. Sometimes they ask you to chemically alter yourself. So think about that. The way that you are naturally is not suitable or acceptable or professional. And I think that that is, you know, if there's a statement about white supremacy, then that's one of them.

That is one of the major ones. Malik? I think it was a good decision, you know, for California, and I think it works any other state that wants to follow that. Jason kind of stole my point that said, you know, to spread this out, that this isn't just something that white people do. This is something that, you know, unfortunately is something that a lot of people face, even in the black community, and not just particularly at Hampton University. You know, we have these people who are hiring managers. You know, we also sit at these tables where we make decisions based on how people look.

You know, I've had conversations with people, you know, extending it beyond hair, where the name, you know, and of course there's probably no such thing as name discrimination, but, you know, that's why we're in an era now. Yes. OK. Well, there is a study done, a study done a few years ago in Boston. Well, what they did was they took they took the exact same resume, applied a white sounding name, a black sounding name, and the white sounding name got a 50% more callback for jobs and apartments than the black sounding name. Yeah, well, see it. And there you go then. So it's really not

that surprising to me that this type of thing still goes on today. You know, I think that's part of the reason when I'm having conversations with people, you know, some of my friends who have kids, you know, they named their kids very vanilla sounding names, you know, they're not authentically anything, you know, so I think this is, you know, it's an unfortunate thing, but this is something that we definitely have to deal with. And, you know, my name is Malik Abdul. So I get it all the time, you know, airports, you know, Malik Abdul, Malik, Malik, Malik. Yes. N E L. It's like Mel Malik. People say, they say, you know, so, Hey, I just, I just wrote with it. Malik. Malik. Yes. Malik. Malik. Yes. Oh, I'm going to talk about you more now. All right, then. Let's go. Malik? Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to really talk about you more now. All right, y'all. Let's go to our last story here, and it's a really sad one. Tomorrow will be the last print edition of the historic Chicago Defender. Of course, Chicago Defender was founded in 1905 by robert abbott it has it became the leading newspaper for african americans across this country robert abbott used the pages of the chicago defender to lead the fight um against racism and segregation of course he was followed by john sinstack, his nephew. He took the paper over. The Bud Billigan Parade, of course, was a staple of the Chicago Defender.

Now it's a separate charity. But if it wasn't in the Defender, frankly, it did not happen. And tomorrow, now the paper is going to continue in digital form. But tomorrow is the last print edition. The paper used to be a third office, a weekly, then it became a daily newspaper, a five-day-a-week newspaper, and then, of course, it later switched back to twice a week. I actually was the executive editor of the Chicago Defender from 2004 to 2007 when it was last a daily newspaper.

The decision was then made to cut the paper from five days to two days a week. Then it went to a weekly, and now there will be no print edition. It is somewhat sad, if you will, that we are actually at this point. It is bittersweet for me as well, because if I dare say in all of my career, this probably the defender probably was one of the most frustrating moments I had in my career. So let me explain that. Took it over in 2000, part of a group that was looking at buying the newspaper in 2000. We examined the financials, the editorial, and then there was an investor out of Chicago who brought us in to look at it. And then it was four years later, then when I met

some folks who did eventually buy the paper, I was brought on as a consultant in July 2004 and took it over three months later as the executive editor. I knew about the importance of the Chicago Defender, and I believe the Defender could have become, again, a national brand in a major newspaper. We lost money our first year. We made about $100,000 in profit our second year and about $400,000 in profit our first year. We made about $100,000 in profit our second year and about $400,000 in profit our third year. So you might ask, well, what happened? And I think, guys, if y'all have the covers, some of the covers that we took it over,

you can go ahead and show that. One of the things I did was change the mask. It had not been changed in half a century, gave it a whole new look in terms of our design. And so we have those. Go ahead and show them, please. But here's the thing that why it was so frustrating. While there, I launched the first audio Black News Source podcast. This is in 2005, folks. 2005, 14 years ago. Launched the video podcast by a black news source in 2006. That was 13 years ago. And so the owners of the Chicago Defender came to me, is that the folks

who own the paper came to me and they said, well, you know what, we really just want to remain a small newspaper. And that was so frustrating to me. And that's actually why I left the defender. This decision to stop printing the paper. The reality is it should have been made five years ago. And the problem I have with this and I have no problem saying this as somebody who has been in media since I was 14 years old. And that is too many of our black media institutions are dying because they refuse to keep up with the times. Let me say that again. They're dying because the folks who own them refuse to keep up with the times. I remember, and I'll just be, look, I remember when we were negotiating my contract with Tom Joyner with Reach Media, and I was talking about, we need to podcast my segment. No, no, no, we want to put it in the play. I'm like,

what are we doing? People are going towards towards podcasting this is five plus years ago all of a sudden now podcasting has blown up guess what they're behind the curve why is there no black major entity doing podcast think about it think about it you have no there's no black news show on any of the cable networks, black on cable networks. What is black media is losing its influence because too many of the owners of black media are not keeping up with the changes. When I was in Dallas, Texas, we had like seven or eight black newspapers. Now, remember, I was working on the newspaper and James Washington, Jim Washington, who is the publisher. And he said, he said, Mr. Biden, why are you always trying to put my friends out of business? I said, because, Jim, you're charging twenty five hundred dollars for a full page ad when you should be charging twelve thousand five hundred dollars.

I said, too many black newspapers in dallas i said dallas dallas weekly the dallas examiner the dallas post tribune the elite news minority opportunity news in arlington that was levita news in fort worth as well there literally were seven or eight black newspapers in one region y'all the dallas times herald shut down leaving the city of dallas with only one daily newspaper so why is it why is that important because the trends were showing the marketplace couldn't support seven or eight now i know there's somebody out there who's saying yeah but doesn't that mean more black businesses? Yeah, it means more small black businesses. It means you don't have a black media institution that has capacity, that has scale, that has the ability to hire 20 and 30 and 50 and 60 and have reporters here, here and here because you don't have the revenue. That's really what my frustration is. Chicago, the vision that I was sort of thinking about was one where we should have been having lectures and having the same thing that you see

political in the Atlantic, these conferences, these seminars, and also generate revenue. Now, they're doing some of that non-traditional revenue, but it's not enough. I also remember when we were moving location, people were fighting me. We need to stay in the building. I'm like, y'all, we use 10% of this building. It would have cost us literally $8 to $10 million to refurbish the building the Chicago Defender was in, and the whole company wasn't worth $8 to $10 million. And I say, y'all got to make up your'all minds in Chicago. What do y'all want? The building or the paper? And so I know there are a lot of people who are sad that they're no longer printing the Chicago Defender. But guess what, folks? The New Orleans Times-Picayune made the same decision. The same company owns Condé Nast at Advanced Publications. Now,

what happened down there? Guess what? Some folks who used to work for the Times-Picayune went off and started a competing newspaper. That newspaper grew, got built in size. You know what they end up doing? They end up coming back and buying the Times-Picayune. Why am I going through all of this? Because what we have to understand is this here. Black media is not immune from what's happening in this media industry. Black media needs to stop acting as if they somehow are different from everybody else. Do y'all understand that Essence magazine makes more money off of the Essence Festival than they do the magazine. Folks, it's dropped out. The advertising business has dropped out of the magazine industry.

Black Enterprise, if it wasn't for their events, their conferences, Black Enterprise would not exist. So what am I saying? What I'm saying is, and I did this commentary a few months ago, there are too many black media silos. There are too many small black media entities in here, in here, in here, in here, in here. They're not doing things in a major way that don't have scale and don't have the capacity to be larger. That's the problem. And so the defender is five years late in making this decision. I'm telling you right now, had I still been running the paper? Yep. I probably would have made this decision in 2012 at the latest 2015 because the economics had changed i'm frustrated because i desperately wanted to build a digital database when we were there for this very reason i remember look look

bt is now launched they're announcing bt plus a live streaming service great and they're not black owned viacom owns them but it's a smart business move black media folks are going to have to wake the hell up and i've been saying this we're gonna have to see consolidation among black media if we expect black media to be able to be here. You can't have Ebony and Jet over here and Essence over here and Black Enterprise over here and The Source over here and Upscale over here and this website and that website and this website and this thing and that thing and that thing and somehow think they're all going to survive. If you're seeing consolidation among the majors, what makes you think you shouldn't have it among the minors? And so I know there are people out

there who are sad to see this defender no longer in print. But I'm going to tell you the exact same thing I said when I was in Chicago and I ran the paper. What do you want? The building or the paper? And now, what do you want? Do you want the paper, the physical manifestation, or do you want the digital property? Now the question to the folks who own the defender, how are you going to retool your staff to actually be competitive? We had the opportunity 14 years ago. I hope they figured it out how to do it today. That's it for me, folks. I want to thank Jason, Kelly, and Malik.

Malik. Malik. Let's thank Malik. Malik. Malik. Let's thank Malik. All y'all, of course, on YouTube, y'all can now call him Malik. Thank you everybody for being on the show today. We appreciate it. Tomorrow, we will have a guest host tomorrow because I will be flying to the Bahamas. Bishop Neal Ellis

has his gathering conference. I'm going to be broadcasting from there on Thursday and Friday. I got to fly, though, because I got to give a speech to the Deltas at 1 p.m. Eastern tomorrow in New Orleans. Then I take off for the Bahamas to cover that event. And, folks, this is why we are here.

This is why Black, this is why Rolling Mark Unfiltered matters, why we exist, because we are here to do what other folks are not doing. There's no Black media outlet who's doing this type of show. Not one. Not one. Because we understand where the future is. We understand where we're going.

Where we're going is what we're doing exactly where everybody else is going. NBC has launched a streaming service. Fox News has Fox Nation, a streaming service. All of these folks are announcing ABC, CBS, black media. This type of show doesn't exist. This is why we need your support. Support Roland Martin Unfiltered by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. We appreciate every single dollar, every single dollar.

And I'll say this here. I asked the people who were telling me, well, can we get T-shirts and mugs? And I'm like, we would love to do that. But guess what? That also costs money. So we would have to put the money into the show to give you this and that's what bring the funk fan club allows us to be able to do so please support us that way uh tomorrow uh we're gonna have my interview with reggie hutland discussing the black godfather his documentary on clarence avon which airs on netflix as we speak and so i got to go now folks you be sure to have a great day and thanks

to everybody who participated in our the reading of the Fourth of July speech by Frederick Douglass. So many of you saw it. Also, we want to thank Operation Hope for allowing us to live stream documentary, The Color of Money by Ambassador Andrew Young. All right, folks, y'all take care. Thank you. We'll be right back. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.

This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio

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