#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 8.17 DCN kicks off; Trump blames Dems for USPS chaos; Did Trump steal 2020? NFL hires 1st Black prez

Episode Date: August 18, 2020

8.17.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: DCN Convention kicks off; Trump blames Dems for USPS chaos; Poor Peoples Campaign had their Moral Monday Digital Direct Action keeps the pressure on Mitch McConnell; NFL has hired it's first black President; Meet Melba Pearson, she's running to be the first African-American State Attorney in Miami; Man sentenced to life after stealing hedge clippers gets a possible shot at freedom; Journalist Greg Palast talks 'How Trump Stole 2020' + Fitness trainer Mocha Lee joins us for this week's installment of Fit Live Win Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner: 2020 Census In America, everyone counts. And the 2020 Census is how that great promise is kept. Respond today online, by phone or by mail and help inform hundreds of billions in funding for education, health programs, and more. Shape your future. Start here at www.2020census.gov. #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting site covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you. Martin! Today is Monday, August 17, 2020, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered. The Democratic National Convention kicks off tonight. We'll tell you what to expect. And is it white female Republican night at the DNC? Donald Trump is blaming Democrats for the postal service chaos. Congressman Kwaizm Fumey, a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform,

will be here to talk about the postmaster appearing before Congress a week from today. Speaking of today, the Poor People's Campaign had their More Monday digital direct action targeting U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Reverend William Barber will break it down for us. And the NFL has hired its first black team president. ESPN sports journalist Howard Bryant will talk about that. And while he says, sure, it's a historic achievement, but one we should not be that excited about. We'll also hear from Melba Pearson, who's running to be the state's attorney in Miami.

Plus, the man sentenced to life after stealing a hedge clippers may get a shot at freedom. A parole hearing has been scheduled in Louisiana. And a Colorado Springs police chief defended not firing a white officer who regularly commented about killing Black Lives Matter protesters on social media. Plus, Greg Palast will join us to talk about his new book, How Trump Stole

the 2020 Election. Folks, you do not want to miss this conversation. Plus, fitness trainer Mo Khalid will be here for our Fit Live Win segment. It is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it.

Whatever the biz, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's Roland. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics, with entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling.

Yeah. It's Uncle Roro, yo. Yeah. Yeah. It's rolling Martin. Yeah. Yeah. Rolling with rolling now.

Yeah. He's funky, he's fresh Pelosi has called for the House to return session this week. She wants them to vote on Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney's Delivering for America Act. This act would prevent changes the Trump administration has made to the U.S. Postal Service. Now, Senate Majority Leader, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to reconvene the Republican-controlled Senate to act on Maloney's bill. Now, here's the problem. McConnell has already made it clear that the senators are not coming back until September 9th. So even if the House reconvenes and passes this bill, the Senate may do what they've done on so many other bills, and that is completely ignored. That's why they call him Graveyard Mitch McConnell. What we have seen over the past couple of weeks has been shocking and stunning as we've seen postal boxes shut down, removed the disassembly of mail sorting machines in post

offices all across the country. Now, the new postmaster claims they're trying to achieve efficiency, but that makes no sense when we are about to ramp up and are going to have massive mail in voting. Now, Donald Trump, he, he of course has been a huge critic of that, criticizing so many aspects of mail-in voting except absentee voting when it's really the same. Joining us right now is Maryland Congressman Kwaezi Nfume. He's a member of a House Committee on Oversight and Reform. Remember, of course, he took the place of the late Congressman Elijah Cummings, who was the chair of that particular committee when he was alive. Congressman Mfume, this is, it really makes no sense because

you have Republicans who are saying that this is all about the Postal Service trying to get a bailout. But what I don't understand is when I hear people say that this is also because there's been low volume of mail due to coronavirus, we are about to see a dramatic expansion of mail as a result of mail-in voting. So why would they, what's the sense in removing mailboxes, shutting down and disassembling mail sorting machines in August, knowing full well next month it's about to ramp up because of voting? Well, Roland, first of all, thanks for having me on, and thanks for always keeping it real. This is a two-punch fight from Donald Trump. The first is to get the Postmaster General, who is his crony and his donor, to slow down

mail delivery so that people will lose confidence in the mail system. Every year for the last 50 years, the American public has shown a 90 percent confidence level in our post office. So this is to get rid of that by slowing things down. And so you're right. He took out sorting machines and disabled them. He found a way to refuse overtime. They're collecting mailboxes around the country left and right, throwing them on the back of pickup trucks.

And they have a reduction in staffing that he himself has implemented. Meanwhile, the president, in every other speech he gives, talks about why you can't have confidence in the post office, and therefore you shouldn't have mail-in balloting because it will never get delivered. They were in cahoots. Mr. DeJoy needs to step down. I call for his resignation today. He's going to be before our committee in a week or so. There's nothing that he can say to justify the fact that seniors and veterans can't get their prescription drugs on time in the mail, that small businesses are hurting because they can't get invoices in and out, that average citizens trying to pay bills have to worry now about their bill not being received on time, so they have to pay a late fee just because of this foolishness. DeJoy, meanwhile, has said he wants the post office to turn a

profit. Well, the post office is not a business. It's a service, which is why it's called the American Postal Service. And since 1792, it's been an independent agency. No Democratic or Republican president until this one has played these kind of games and made it into a political football. The thing that really jumps out, the thing that really jumps out at me on this whole deal is that when I began to, again, listen to this whole breakdown here, you have Donald Trump who literally is even now saying that he's now complaining about drop boxes. Drop boxes. By saying, he sent a tweet out saying, some states use drop boxes for the collection of universal mail-in ballots.

So who is going to collect the ballots? And what might be done to them prior to tabulation? A rigged election? So bad for our country, only absentee ballots acceptable. Now what's strange about this is that Ohio, they actually have it in the law where each County has, has a drop box. This is a Republican secretary of state who has said they have not had voter fraud. So he is alleging something where even Republicans are feuding the lie. Yeah, this is what the thing that happens when you tell a lie over and over again, it's going to start looking like the truth to somebody unless it's attacked. And that's why this has to be attacked over and over again. You raised a very good point earlier when you said in the middle of a COVID, as we are moving toward a major election and things have slowed down anyway because of the virus, why would you slow down the Postal Service?

It's like trying to get across a drawbridge that's opening up. Instead of going faster, you slow down. It makes no sense whatsoever. And that's why DeJoy needs to go. People need to consider this and act against the United States and to rise up in communities as they are doing all across this country. This is a blatant power grab. I mean, you can't get much more blatant than this and then lie over and over and over again. So it's important that people see through it and understand that

we've got to protect our post office because it is ours. It's served us well over the years. It's not the best, but it's the best that we've got right now. And the $25 billion in funding that we have put into the HEROES Act to fund the post office, to take care of the uptick in ballots and everything else, as you said before, continues to be in the graveyard of Mitch McConnell, who refuses to bring it before the Senate for a vote. Uh, not only are we seeing just the lock boxes, we have heard from a variety of people, uh, people who worked at post offices who have said mail is stacking up.

I mean, it is as if, I mean, what we're hearing from people who actually work in these post offices is that it is a deliberate attempt that they are, that they have been told not to count, to slow things down. That to me also is, is what is very strange here, that here you would have a situation where you would think that folks would be wanting a mail delivered. I saw one tweet from a person who said they sent a letter three weeks ago, a letter that normally takes three days, and it still had not arrived? Well, the postal workers and the letter carriers have been the one source of information that we have depended on. And thank God they work hard to do what they have to do. They take their jobs very seriously. And they had to start blowing

the whistle on what was going on because it was so offensive to them and everyone else. And, you know, one of the things that this bill on Saturday that will be voted on does is to roll all the way back all the measures that were in place on January 1st of this year, which means no more removing, but rather replacement of sorting machines, no more denying overtime, no more reduction in staff or any of that. But this horse has been out of the barn too long, unfortunately, and it's important, so very important, that people not let it depress their vote in November by thinking that the post office can't be trusted, Donald Trump can't be trusted, and DeJoy,

the postmaster general, is just like him. So fortunately, shows like yours and others where people are able to talk about this, hear about it, and then spread the word within their own communities and families helps. But we need everybody on board and to recognize that this is not just about slowing the mail down. This is slowing the mail down and depressing the vote also. We're showing some photos right now that various people have placed on Twitter of these locks being put on boxes. And again, I don't know about you. I don't recall seeing this happen. Now, conservatives are already saying that in eight years,

14,000 mailboxes were removed under President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. The difference here is that all of this is happening literally while Donald Trump is complaining about mail-in voting. Two, he has actually said out of his own mouth on Fox that, yes, I am going to withhold the money because of mail-in voting. And three, we are 79 days away from an election. But that's election day. We are 20 days away from voting starting in North Carolina. Exactly. And 30 days, perhaps, at the latest, away from people who haven't registered,

who have to register by then to be able to vote. It's draconian. It is unfair. registered, who have to register by then, to be able to vote. It's draconian. It is unfair. It's the sort of thing that I don't care what Republicans say, they know in their heart of hearts is wrong. Some of them will be joining us on Saturday to pass this bill to roll these measures back. Others will not.

But Donald Trump has to bear the blame here. And trust me, when I said it's a two-part punch, the first thing is to get people to think that they can't have confidence in the postal system. And then the second thing is to use that reduced confidence to reduce the turnout across America where people are voting by absentee and voting by regular ballots.

And by the way, Donald Trump has voted in the last seven elections by mail-in ballot. And he won't tell that, but that's the truth. All right, Congressman. Kweisi and Fu, man, we truly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Yeah, thank you, Roland. I'm going to bring my panel right now, Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeaver.

She is political analyst, Teresa Lundy, principal founder of TML Communications, Mustafa Santiago Ali, former senior advisor for environmental justice at the EPA. Mustafa, I'll start with you. You work in the federal government. The USPS is part of the federal government, but it's sort of weird, you know, in terms of how they work and how they govern. And one of the things that also that we have to deal with, and that is this here, that the board of governors governs the postal service. And the reality is that Senator Bernie Sanders stopped President Barack Obama from appointing several members of the board of governors, which allowed Donald Trump to be able to appoint them. They

actually are the boss of the postmaster. And had those Obama appointees been in place, they actually could have put controls and stopped a lot of this from happening. Sometimes folks end up shooting their own self in the foot. You know, for folks who say that they're progressives, for folks who say that they want to make sure that things are fair and that there's access for folks to be able to fully participate in the, you know, in participating in the system, you know, you got to think long term beyond your own personal needs and gains. And when you don't do that, we have these situations that we find ourselves in. We have a situation where we have voter suppression. This is, you know, no different than the poll taxes of the past, you know, trying to limit people's opportunity to fully participate in our democratic

process. We all remember the stories being told to us about how many jelly beans in a jar, how many pieces, how many bubbles in a bar of soap. All of that was used. And ever since this administration has come in, voter suppression has been one of their hallmark pieces that they tried to move forward on. You remember they put these commissions together early on. Many of us were out there protesting against them. I believe it was Chris Kobach and the rest of them who were trying to prove that there was this, you know, all these folks who are voting across the country who weren't allowed to vote and weren't supposed to vote. And then, you know, everybody has proved that that was false. So this is just another way of 45 trying to rig the game so that he can at least stand a chance. And, you know, folks are hip to what's going on and people are going to push back. Folks will try and utilize the courts, but we got a short time frame that we have in front of us. But, you know, folks need to get educated on how we

can actually navigate this and make sure that people can vote and that, you know, that we are supporting our postal workers who have always been there, even in this COVID-19 moment. You know, they still deliver the mail where other folks were able to stay home. They were still out there doing their jobs. This is the thing here. The Jason Johnson first tweeted this on August 14th. Avis go to my iPad, Henry. He said, we know Trump is trying to destroy USPS by having DeJoy remove sorting machines, cut back hours and increase the cost of stamps for mail in ballots.

We also know DeJoy can be removed by the USPS BOG. But how do we get here? You may not like the answer. And he said the BOG is supposed to have nine members, but they operated with an emergency committee and without a quorum for years because several Obama appointees to the committee were blocked. Who were they blocked by? Senator Bernie Sanders. This is a blog post on Daily Kos. What happened was one of the folks who worked for Senator Sanders tweeted, the postal nominees Bernie blocked five years ago were white Republican men picked by Mitch McConnell who wanted to gut the postal service, privatize it, and slash jobs, pensions, and healthcare benefits. The only one who benefits

from these slanderous and baseless attacks is Donald Trump. Yet, when they looked into it, President Barack Obama nominated five people, three Democrats and two Republicans. And the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Postal Service, has approved all five. But the full Senate has not taken up the matter because a senator, believed to be Bernie Sanders, has placed a hole on their nominations. They indeed were five white men, but the reality is they still were, it was a hole there. This is, no, no, I'm not blaming Senator Bernie Sanders for this. What I am saying is that this is a part of this story becomes to the oversight, which allowed Donald Trump to come in and then begin to just dominate this whole process? Something stinks, Roland.

Something stinks. I mean, it makes me wonder why, for example, Bernie Sanders has voted against all Russian sanctions. I mean, there's a lot of things that are happening here that we don't know, that's not in plain view. And what's happening right now with the post office, let's just be clear, now that we are here, is an orchestrated coup. That's exactly what's happening right now. Because if you look at the surveys around how people had planned to vote, around 75 percent of Democrats had planned to

vote by mail. Only about 23 percent of Republicans had planned to vote by mail. And so what you have is you have somebody in the White House that has put his cronies in office, his crony in office, his cronies in office, who now are unchecked because of what had happened previously. And now we're here at a point where, you know, you can't trust. I mean, even if tomorrow the money came flowing to the post office, can you even trust that his cronies wouldn't do everything they can to continue to gum up the works? Of course they would. I mean, that's what they've been doing since the minute that they've been in there.

You know, and so it is it is a coup that we are experiencing right now. for, it would behoove also activists and voting rights activists all across the nation to help to educate people about alternative ways that they can have their votes heard. I know for me, I plan to vote in person early because I personally do not trust that whatever I mail will actually get to where it's supposed to be on time. There are some people who are thinking of just taking their, you know, hopefully getting their ballot and turning it directly into the board of elections. But, you know, this thing is so complicated right now because at the same time that they have specifically sabotaged the post office, they have also, when I say they, I'm referring to the Republicans now, they have let loose a series of lawsuits across the nation in various states in order to challenge various ways that people can have their votes counted preemptively, you know, even before this election.

So you have to be careful if you're going to do that. For example, just take your ballot. Don't take, you know, your whole neighborhood, for example. So, you know, there are, this is a very nefarious situation that's going on here. And I hope that one day there will be someone who will lodge a criminal investigation to what's happening because quite frankly, people need to go to jail behind it. Teresa, here's what was going on here. Donald Trump is consistently trying to sow seeds of discontent and doubt. He attacked this whole idea of mail-in voting.

Republicans said, dude, what are you doing? We normally lead when it comes to this. You had the Republican in Georgia who said, if we allow mail-in voting, Republicans will not win any statewide races. So you have individuals on record as saying, uh-oh, if we allow mail-in voting, we will not win any statewide races. So you have individuals on record as saying, oh, if we allow mail-in voting, we are screwed. And so, so you, so you have that. What he's trying to do is he, he basically wants to stop people from even thinking about voting. He wants to say, hey, guess what? It's too much. It's dangerous if you vote in person. Now, all of a sudden,

he's saying now it's voter fraud. It's this constant sow seed, sow seed. Oh, it's broken, it's rigged, whatever, because what he's doing is he is trying to set up a way to fight the results because he knows he's losing. Absolutely. And you know what? That is probably the most detrimental part about what's going on right here, right now, in our American democracy, is our right to vote. I am looking for

progressives, those people who follow Bernie Sanders, because I also follow the tweet that went out saying that Bernie had something to do with it, but not all the way. But we have to be honest. If the dialogue right now coming from Donald Trump is about voter suppression, and that's essentially what it is, then I am really looking towards the state governments and local government commissioner's office

to really step up their infrastructure in order to ensure that the voting, either in mail or in person, is solidified. So it gives voters the opportunity because, listen, right now we are all masked up we are um you know sanitized we we are putting on our gloves and we are going out there to the grocery store and we're going out there you know to the shopping malls because they're open and now the movie theaters have now opened up um you know with caution but as much as we're social distancing, those plans are in place. So there is, you know, we are, I believe once we get to the November election, there will be the opportunity where I believe there will be standards that have been met in order for people to come in and vote responsibly. I think essentially when the primary vote happened, I know here in Pennsylvania, there was social distancing guidelines. There was bring your own pen. There was, you. It was more so high and by. But I think those

are the type of in-person interactions that will bring, because of the conspiracy theories that are coming out of the White House, are to, you know, stop the voting process in general. And yes, make the case for post the election. But you can't make the case if people are going inside to vote. So if you can go to the supermarket, you can go to vote. And I think that's part of the message that the Democratic Party is missing. Well, check this out. So Jim Jordan of Ohio, Republican, he tweeted this.

Here we go to my iPad. If you can protest in person, you can vote in person. This is, again, what they want to do, Mustafa. We saw this in Wisconsin, how they fought the Democratic governor at every turn to force people to be able to vote in person. They did not want massive mail-in bally. I remember the video of the idiot, one of those idiot statewide officials standing there with a hazmat suit on, goggles and a mask saying, and gloves, hey, it's safe to vote. Dude, you look like you're about to walk into a hut with or a building that's filled with people with Ebola.

I mean, that's just how idiotic it is, because they want voter suppression is about how can I keep people from voting? How can I put barriers in the way to stop them from voting? That's what we're seeing right here. It's been about chaos. This administration has focused on chaos. And by doing that, they figure they can separate folks. They can better control folks. They can minimize people's participation in our democratic process. And this is just another example of trying to create chaos and fear. This administration feeds off of fear. That's why they dehumanize and they demonize people continually. And now they're trying to do the same thing with the

opportunity to vote. So it's real clear, but folks, here's the deal. What our responsibility is when we talk about this election, this election, it means that you are going to have to do your part. You are going to have to be fully engaged. And look, black people, historically, we have had to deal with this nonsense our entire lives. Even after one of the reconstruction amendments were passed and then we were still not allowed to vote, we've dealt with this. Understand, it is 77 days until election day, 77 days. And I want y'all to

do this here. Here, go to my iPad. This is vote.org. Now, let me help y'all out. Some of you might say, hey, look, I'm good. Why should I check my registration? Well, here's why. I got an email today from a woman who watches this show. And she said that, and I'm trying to find the email. And so just give me a second. Here's what it is. Her email said urgencyofusingvote.org. She says, this is Deirdre Barnes. She said, I'm a member and listen to your show daily. I watched the segment on the importance of using the Vote.org app to check your voting status. I've been sharing this information to everyone I know. This weekend, one of my friends entered her information into the website and received a message, no voter record found. This is a woman who has lived in the same community in Brooklyn, New York,

same address for over 25 years and votes in every election. She immediately used the app to register again to vote. I want you to go back to vote.org. Please share with your audience this voter suppression thing is real. Every registered voter should check their status even if they recently voted in this year's primary. They are desperate and will stop at nothing to suppress the vote. Now, folks, if you go to vote.org, as you see here, 77 days until the election.

Remember, early voting was going to be happening real soon. You can you can first check your registration right here on the site. You can also if you're not you can register to vote right here on the site. You can get election reminders, pledge to register. Now, when it says vote by mail, you can, depending upon how your state is set up, some states are set up where you can request, you can register online or others. You can actually fill a form out. It will send you the absentee ballot. If you click that, what happens is it takes you here. And again, you put your,

you put your information in, you put your name, where are you registered to vote and put that information, the email address, and then you click continue. It will take you to that particular part of your state and what it says. This is what we have to do. Not only that, also while you're on here, you can pledge to register, find your polling place locator, and you can also fill out the 2020 census. That's also critically important because the census is how it's determining how many seats your state gets in the House of Representatives. It determines the billions of dollars that actually comes to various communities for a variety of reasons. These are the things that we have to do, Avis, to get people to understand that we must be diligent. They are purging. They've been purging

folks from the rolls. The Supreme Court in the Ohio case allowed them to purge people who have not voted in previous elections. Now, those of you listening to me, you might say, well, look, man, I voted a few months ago, but we know from what happened in Florida when you had Governor Scott there, they purged people who were actually on the ballot, who were all legal in Georgia. Brian Kemp, Secretary of State, they did the exact same thing in Georgia. People who were eligible. We're going to have Greg Palast on in a second, talk about his new book. He details what happened in Georgia. And so I need our people to be as vigilant as possible and say, double check your registration, Avis. That's where everything starts.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I think oftentimes people feel like I'm registered, so I don't have to worry about it. Those things are only for people that need to register. No, you need to double check and make sure that your registration is there, that it's counted. Because let me tell you, this is a criminal enterprise. Let's just be real about it. This is a criminal enterprise. Let's just be real about it. This is a criminal enterprise. They are going to do everything possible to steal this election, including stealing your vote. And so you have to fight back proactively. And an important part of that is,

first of all, just going to that resource, making sure that your voter registration is still valid. If you need to register to vote, definitely make sure that you do that and to be vigilant. And ultimately, you know, if you want to vote in person, let me just suggest, as I mentioned, that is something that I'm going to do. Obviously, do it as safely as you can. Make sure that you, you know, you can wear double masks, you know, mask up, gloves up, everything up that you can. The thing that I'm concerned about, Roland, also, this is going to be the time when the weather is going to be turning. So it's going to be, you know, they're going to be, they're going to throw everything at us that we possibly can. So the point is definitely double check your registration and please encourage everybody in your circle to do the same thing.

We have to be vigilant. And that means, Teresa, if you're in a state that requires a voter ID, you don't have one. Get it. Figure out what's the process. Get it done. Double check your registration. If you're going to mail, do so. Find out if your state, if your county is going to have drop boxes if you do decide to mail in and vote. Then decide, find out when early voting starts in your state. Don't wait to the last day. Go the first day. Plan ahead. Bring your food. Bring your snacks. Do all you need to do because the bottom line is, let me be clear, folks, Donald Trump will try to steal this election and Republicans are going to let it happen because they are consumed by power. Absolutely. And so literally from A to Z, you just listed exactly what people need to do and

what we have to do in order to get the results as necessary in November. So part of it is, you know, every state has a party system, either Democrat or Republican, but each of them have their own responsibility on how they get out the vote efforts. And so I know, you know, in a few states, Pennsylvania included the city commissioner's office to make sure or something that, you know, where social distancing is happening, they are making sure that people are registering to vote safely. And so I think that is also an important factor to mention to those who have small businesses. It doesn't hurt to tell people or ask your staff, are you registered to vote and when was the last time you checked? It takes five minutes less to do this effort. And if we can do it safely, that is the first step in order to making sure that you are prepared within, you know, 77 days for the election. All right, folks,

tonight, the Democratic National Convention kicks off with a two-hour virtual event built on a theme of unity. Speakers will deliver their speeches from locations across the country and without the large in-person crowds are traditionally seen at these events. It was supposed to be in Milwaukee, but due to COVID-19, that was scrapped and they decided to go all virtual. Tonight's speakers include former First Lady Michelle Obama, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and a group of Republicans, including Ohio Governor John Kasich. Now, here are the speakers here. Again, you see there, you see Senator Amy Klobuchar, Governor Andrew Cuomo, of course, former Republican Governor of

New Jersey, Gretchen Whitmer, Congressman Jim Clyburn. You also have Gwen Moore, Doug Jones. Also speaking is also going to be Susan Molinari, former Republican congresswoman, and Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay. Now, I got to ask, I'm trying to, I'm just curious. Now, granted, Senator Bernie Sanders and Michelle Obama also speaking. But Avis is tonight Republican white women night. And the reason I'm saying that, I'm just saying because here's here's why. Here's why. I know in 2012 that turncoat joke of a congressman, Archer Davis out of Alabama, spoke at the convention in support of Mitt Romney. But the reality is Republicans don't go overboard putting on Democrats. Now, they might have former Democrats who are now Republicans.

But what's the sense of Democrats putting on Governor John Kasich, Susan Molinari, Meg Whitman, and I'm just trying to understand it. You know, the Democratic Party is enamored with the great white vote that they have not gotten since 1964. I don't understand it either. You know, what they're trying to appeal to, as you mentioned, obviously, are Republicans,

maybe Republican-leaning independents, white women. So these are the demographics, I guess, that they're going after with having a lineup that's so heavily skewed towards a party that is not the Democratic Party in the Democratic Convention. I personally believe that that is overboard. To me, the key to victory in November is not this elusive white vote that the Democrats have been trying to get now for 50 years. OK, the key to a victory in November is to maximize your base and your base is over the base of your base is overwhelmingly black people. Right. So if you know that you will get 90 percent roughly of a certain demographic to vote your way, the best strategy is to maximize that vote. Why the party seems to have had such difficulty

getting that, you know, I don't know. Certainly the selection of this VP candidate made me think that maybe they were beginning to understand our power in a different way. But then when I looked at the lineup for tonight, you know, I began to wonder, you know, really, really? I really have no explanation for it. The thing here, there's been a lot of criticism, Teresa, that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has only gotten 60 seconds to speak at the Democratic National Convention this week. What is also baffling to me, I saw some poll data earlier, someone was complaining about how Joe Biden is only getting 36 percent among white men in Michigan and Pennsylvania. And I said, the Republican Party is the party of white men. I'm like, the future of the Democrats winning anything does not hinge on what white men do. I mean, the reality is if Joe Biden was doing 36 percent among white women, then he would be DOA.

But again, what happens is Democrats often are they throw money. Corleone Belcher has talked about this a whole lot. They throw all this money hoping to flip suburban white conservative women when that's not who you throw your money at. You throw your money at, frankly, progressive white women, younger white women. You throw your money at black women. You throw your money at Latino women. And so, I mean, you already got John Kasich speaking. I just you know, and then John Kasich was a big old deal. Oh, a former Republican is a former Republican from Congress is going to endorse Joe Biden tomorrow. It was Susan Molinar. It was like, who even remembers she was in Congress?

I mean, hell, we barely we barely remember. She left Congress to become a morning anchor on CBS this morning weekend show. Really, Susan Molinari? That might get you extra votes in her house. And you really have to start thinking of the planning committee that's a part of the DNC, right? Because part of it is, okay, I would have loved to hear what AOC had to say, you know, because the millennials are a part of this new generation of appeal when it comes to elected officials, right? All four of the cast of, what do you call it?

The squad. The squad, thank you, the cast of the squad. All of them have, you know, are reelected. They've done what they needed to do in their constituents, and now they're in. So I would say this would have been an opportunity for the DNC to really bring apart, you know, bring up, you know, outside of the tradition

is bringing some sort of today, 2020 type of energy, right? Because we know the type of energy the squad brings. We know the type of energy it will bring if they brought, you know, people that actually have an influence, people where other progressives are actually listening to, people where, you know, when we talk about engagement, when we talk about where we put our dollars in as it relates to supporting other candidates in the party, those are the people we would love to hear on opening night.

But it's interesting, you know, I'm just not really sure where the planning commission went on when they get excited, you know, where older people who are established Republicans, you know, who are now like, you know, it's like almost like they're breaking free or, you know, they're changed. And now like, okay, I've had a, you know, realization, but really, they honestly just played the game until you couldn't play it anymore. So I think, you know, hopefully, you know, I'm looking at Monday, but I'm also looking at,

you know, Wednesday and Thursday, what really happens here. Because at the end of the day, I think it'll really be up to the leaders that they are putting in these time slots, since we're all doing a virtual, but the leaders that they're putting in these time slots, that what message they really have to say and how long, you know, is it going to take to media for to kind of keep that uplift going or tear it down? Of course, folks, we've got to be sure to put a year on that. People are going to start freaking out. This was, of course, in 2000. That video is not this year. That was from a previous Democratic National Convention. You know, the thing here,

the thing here, Mustafa, as we talk about again this week, first of all, and I'll just be honest with you, are people going to watch? Yes. But you won't even remotely have the same sort of impact with a virtual convention that you have with the real thing. You're just not. I mean, the reality is when you have the real thing, you've got thousands of members of the press there pumping out stories, pumping out all kinds of different stuff. Uh, you know,

somebody hit me up and they said, Hey, are y'all going to be doing any special programming? No, I'm like, I'm already doing two. I do a two hour nightly show. I'm like, look, it's basically it's a zoom. No, it is. It is. That's just what it is. And so most of the speeches are going to be recorded. Mustafa, the real thing, the real question is coming out of this. What is the Democrats digital strategy to reach voters. I'm just, look, it's, it's, today is August 17th. There are not going to be massive rallies. They're not. It's not that you're not going to have your traditional campaign. You're not going to see Joe Biden going on college campuses.

Just today, Mustafa, the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill announced they started classes last week. Bunch of students have gotten COVID-19 as a result of folks congregating. They announced today all online classes. And so really, really, it's the focus has to be how do you get people, how do you reach people in a digital way as opposed to having these outdoor events and hoping they show up at rallies and having people canvassing and going door to door, things like that? Well, you know, I mean, I think Teresa hit it. You know, it is about energy. But, you know, if you look at the lineup and, you know, there are great folks who are part

of the lineup, but it's very safe. And I'm just not sure if it is going to electrify and motivate folks to want to be a part of the process. And the reason I say that is because I talk to progressives all across the country and, you know, people are going to vote, but there's still a large section that is not enthusiastic about voting. Yes, they know that Trump has to go. But this is an opportunity to actually create real electricity for both Vice President Biden and Senator Harris, and I think folks may have missed the mark. And the reason I say that is because, you know, it's almost like a party, right? Or it's like a great conference in the sense that how you start and how you finish is what people remember. And

if this is the best that you have in the beginning, then I think you need to maybe take another look at the planning that went on in this space. So it will do the job, but the question is, will it excite people and will they be able to take that momentum to keep folks engaged, to keep people being active and pulling other folks in and making sure that people get to the polls? Yeah, well, trust me, I'm not too excited about that. All right, folks, got to go to a break. We come back.

We're going to talk to a sister who is running for state's attorney in Florida. Also, the Washington football team names its first, not its first, but the NFL's first black team president in history. Is that really something we should be celebrating? We'll break it down with ESPN's Howard Bryan. All that next. 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. People are looking for change, for answers. One answer is at your fingertips, the 2020 census. Census takers will be visiting households to make sure we are counted.

Because an undercounted community could miss out on billions of funding for schools, health care, and job assistance each year for the next 10 years. Too much is at stake. Respond online today. Shape your future. Start here at 2020census.gov. All right, folks, it is critically important, of course, for us to focus on the United States census, okay? Billions of dollars are at stake when you think about what's happening in your community, when you think about, of course, police stations and fire stations, when we think about health care.

All of that is determined. Dollars, how they're spent, determined based upon that. I can tell you growing up in Houston, Texas, in the Clinton Park neighborhood, my parents were members of the founders of our Clinton Park Civic Club. And when we wanted a new streets and new sewer systems, a senior citizen center, a five state fire station converted. I mean, when they begin to look at dollars, a portion to the state of Texas, a portion to the city of Houston, that was all based upon really census. They studied census tracts for data for all sorts of different things. And so it is important, it is important that you please, that you absolutely go to 2020census.gov and actually fill it out. It doesn't take you long. And here's the other piece. We're talking about politics. Your House delegation, the number of the members of the House of Representatives is determined by the census. When those state legislatures begin to get together and draw district lines,

census plays a role in that as well. And so we must understand it's critically important. And so folks, it doesn't take long. There are people who are going to be calling you, people who are going to be going door to door, but you don't have to wait. You can actually do it online right now by going to 2020census.gov. Folks, if you put the lower third up, that'd be great. Again, it's 2020census.gov. We have to make sure that we are counted because historically black men and black children have been undercounted historically. Let's not make that happen. 2020, 2020 census dot GOV. All right, folks, Melba Pearson is running for a state's attorney in Florida.

Of course, she is a she is an attorney and criminal justice reform advocate, and she wants to be the state's attorney for Miami-Dade County. In 2017, after leaving the state's attorney's office, she joined the ACLU of Florida as deputy director. She was among the senior leadership team that passed the historic voting restoration amendment so Floridians will pass felonies could vote. She's a first-generation American, born in New Rochelle, New York. She was raised by her Jamaican father

and mother from Trinidad and has lived in Miami-Dade for 22 years, serving in a variety of capacities. She joins us right now. How you doing? I'm doing great, Roland. How are you doing? I'm doing good. Election day is there tomorrow in Florida. It is huge there as well. So let's talk about this race. We've seen the impact of black district attorneys all across this country, the late Kim Thompson in Brooklyn, of course, Marilyn Mosby there in Baltimore, with Kim Gardner in St. Louis, Kim Fox,

she's there in Chicago. You have Kim Worthy, who's in Detroit. We can go on, Aramis Ayala, there in Florida, who opted not to seek another term. And so talk about why it matters to have individuals who believe in criminal justice reform serving as DAs. It is absolutely critical to have people that really reflect the values of our community and center the experiences of everyone, not just the wealthy, not just, you know, people of a certain complexion, but make sure that all the community, including communities of color, are being able to have equal access and true justice out of the criminal justice system. And the way to do that is to change who's at the top. Ninety-five percent of elected prosecutors are white. Seventy-nine percent of them are white men. So as we look at some of the structures that we are trying to dismantle, especially in

the wake of the death of George Floyd and of Breonna Taylor and just the experience that many of us have lived as people of color in this country, we also have to look at who is holding those seats and who is in charge of creating the policies that are often very oppressive to our communities. So that's why it's so critical that we change who sits in that seat so that we can get the change we have been fighting for for so many years. And again, I think people now in the last several years really now understand why this is vitally important, because you've always had people for the longest focus on Washington, D.C.

when it comes to criminal justice reform. But the reality is the work of D.A.'s, you know, look, First Step Act got it. But but only 10 percent of all people in prison on the federal level, the real criminal justice reform, how you end mass incarceration impacts on the local level. That district attorney can decide whether prosecute to the fullest extent or deferred adjudication. Do we use some other form of sentencing? That's why that position is important. Really even more so than the judge,

because that DA's recommendation happens, takes that, that even negotiation takes place before it goes to the judge. Absolutely. And when it comes to the types of charges filed, so the charging decisions, some charges carry a minimum mandatory. If there is a minimum mandatory, much like we saw the Holder memo back under President Obama's administration when he was giving the directive to his prosecutors at the Department of Justice, listen, you don't always have to file the highest charge that the facts could support, you can look for a more equitable solution. So when you have that type of situation on the state level and you have prosecutors that are making equitable decisions who are looking at restorative justice, who are looking at connecting people with resources so that they don't reoffend in the future, then now we're starting to see the values that we have been fighting for be embodied in this system. So that's why, you know, it's so, so important to pay attention to what your local

elected prosecutor is doing. And if you need a refresher, look no further than the Ahmaud Arbery case, Breonna Taylor or George Floyd. When one of the things that we also talk about the the role of DAs, it also speaks to relationships with police departments. Historically, you've had police police unions that have made a huge role. DAs sought their particular endorsement. What has been the case in your race? So in my race, I made a decision not to seek out police endorsements. I didn't think that that would align with the values of the campaign.

And I don't wanna have a situation where people later on down the line say, oh, you made this decision because you're beholden to a special interest. And so I made it a very clear decision to approach and look for endorsements of organizations that are working on the ground, grassroots organizations, labor organizations, you know, people, organizations that reflect the people and the voice of the people. So that's why I made that decision. However, my opponent and her 27 years that she's been in office has never once, not once, filed charges against a police officer for an on-duty killing. That was one of the reasons why I chose to run.

So for me, day one is about creating a civil rights unit to make sure that we are addressing these cases, doing so in an equitable manner, not letting them linger open for five years and then quietly on a Friday afternoon at 4 p.m. release a memo and say there's nothing to see here. I want to make sure that these cases are handled in a transparent manner and that the community gets to see that we are taking these cases seriously. If there's evidence to move forward, we will. If the officer's actions were justified, of course, we will make sure to make that clear. But if the actions were not justified, we're not going to just let it slide. We're going to prosecute and move forward to make sure the community knows that we want to make sure that this justice system is equitable and real. All right, then. Miller Pearson, we really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roland. Take good care.

All right. I want to go back to my panel here. Teresa, you see right there in Philadelphia, Larry Crash to become the district attorney. Why that position matters? Absolutely. It matters so much. I mean, we've been seeing progressive form and change that's been happening with our current DA. He's been actively inside of communities. He's been actually communicating, you know, even with the issues that they're having with the current FOP. They've been making sure that their integrity department and the racial disparities as it relates to overturning some convictions and actually taking a second look into many situations that has to do with mass incarceration. So it's been a different type of DA. I know before we had Lynn Abraham,

who was known for incarceration and made sure that that record was upheld at the highest extent of the level. So it is, I know firsthand that having someone who is progressive that also knows that, you know, in order for the people to prosper inside of a community, that it takes the power of the pen, but it also takes a DA that is willing to listen to the stories of families and also implement policies and procedures

and also change the landscape internally in order to bring out true criminal justice reform. So, you know, Ms. Pearson that's running in Miami, you know, whatever I can do personally to support, I absolutely will because she is the change that we need for today and forever. The thing there, you also have another sister who is running to replace Aramis Ayala, Monique Worrell. And, Avis, again, what you see is you see people who do not want to see they're attacking these black female progressive DAs because they don't like their leadership. Yeah, because black women DAs are there to actually be on the side of justice and not just sort of carry the line of a, you know, of a system that oftentimes will, as was just mentioned, let police officers get away with murder.

That will put people up on charges that are disproportionate to the offense. You have now several. Not enough. Would love to have more, right? But we have several black women prosecutors across the nation that are taking these tough stances. And it's not easy. They're being targeted because they are bucking the system in that way and trying to actually live up to the whole title of justice, which they have sworn to uphold. You know, what's really sad is that if you look at the number of prosecutors around the nation, really only 5 percent of them are Black, period. So we need more people in that specific role because they are the ones who are making these very important

decisions, life and death decisions, decisions about whether or not justice will be done. And we have to have better representation in that space in order for us to really be able to have the power within the system that will really mean that when put to the test, black lives will be shown to matter in very controversial circumstances. And that really is the issue here at Moose Top of Power. That's what it boils down to. And again, that district attorney matters in a huge, huge way. We need district attorneys that are of, by, and for the community. That means that they come from, you know, our neighborhoods, our barrios, our trailer parks. So they understand the dynamics that are going on and they take into consideration some of the things that folks who don't come from our communities refuse to do. We've seen what bad DAs can do in Central Park Five and many other cases when you have those who just have this desire to go after our people, not even necessarily even look at the evidence and make some decisions in an unjust way. So we need DAs who come from where

they need to come from. All right, folks, let's talk about the NFL. For the first time in league history, an NFL team has a black president. Yeah, think about that. The Washington football team, which of course earlier dropped the name Redskins, announced that Jason Wright will be their new president. He's a 38-year-old former NFL running back, spent seven years in the backfield for four different teams, the San Francisco 49ers, Atlanta Falcons, Cleveland Browns, and Arizona Cardinals. After he retired as a player, he earned his MBA from the University of Chicago, going

to work for the McKenzie Consulting Group. Well, they were brought in to assess issues there for the Washington football team. They've had some major issues. There was a big report in the Washington Post that detailed a culture there rife with sexual harassment and other issues. The Washington Redskins, of course,

excuse me, the Washington football team, they have a long history of racism. Their owner, George Allen, remember, he refused. He refused to even hire a black player until he was threatened by the federal government to do so. Even over the weekend, I watched the movie The Express, where he had the number one draft pick and the Heisman Trophy winner. Brother, he refused to even draft him, traded the pick to the Cleveland Browns because he made clear Ernie Davis was not going to play,

being black, for his football team. Howard Brown of ESPN joins us right now. Howard, I was glad to have you here. You tweeted something earlier where you said, here's a league where a majority of the players are black. Been that way for a long time. Now in 2020, all of a sudden, they get their first black president. That means that we've had black CEOs of American Express, of different companies, black Fortune 500 companies black black black presidents black ceos

but the nfl this is the first time in history somebody black has ascended to become president of a team you said that's a damn shame yeah i think i think number one, it's a story. You've had a black president of the United States before you've had a black president in the National Football League, and it's not a black president for the first time in the history of the Washington franchise. It's every franchise in the league over 100 years. So it's every team multiplied by 100. So to me, I'm sorry. I think that at this stage in the game, just for me personally, I don't consider this some gigantic victory. I'm

not that impressed with any of it. I think that it's more just another indictment. I'm happy for Jason, right? But when I look at this as a story, I'm like, I'm not one of the people who's jumping for joy about this. And I'm also not jumping for joy as well, simply because look at the pattern. You've got a horrible, horrible year for the Washington football team, whether you're talking about their franchise name finally having to go. You're also talking about a massive sexual harassment, sexual misconduct culture. And so under those circumstances, you bring an African-American in there. No pressure, no pressure at all. Right. The thing I say, this is when we talk about first first in 2020, it's important.

But this is a little bit different here because it's not like you haven't had talent. It's not like you haven't had folks who can do the job. And what I keep telling people, the NFL has nothing to do with the commissioner. This is about 32 individuals, 32 people who run the show. Over the course of a century. And so that's the other part of this. You're talking about a dynasty. You're talking since 1920.

Paul Robeson was in the NFL when the NFL got started, 1920-21, or 21-22. And so I think that, to me, given where we are right now, it's not enough for me. It's just, it's never going to be enough for me to celebrate first when you are dealing with an organization, especially over the past several years, where you're essentially being shouted down every time you talk about systemic racism. People say, why do we even have a Rooney rule? Why do you have these alliances, the Fritz Pollack alliance? Why do you have this stuff? And this is the reason.

Right. And this is precisely the reason. So if anything, if I were the NFL, I might have low-keyed this a little bit instead of making such a huge deal of it, because all it does is make you in some ways look worse. Once again, happy for Jason Wright right happy he's got an opportunity but i i don't view this as some great milestone i view this as an incredibly embarrassing milestone uh one of the things that um for me when when sort of these things happen is that it it should pull the cover back but But there's something else here

that I want our audience to also consider. And you've broken this thing down a whole lot. And a lot of people don't realize this here. And that is, I remember you were tweeting a few months ago and I forgot, somebody was bitching and moaning and complaining. And you were breaking down the fact that if you're black, the only way you're going to get a shot as a head coach is if you were a former player.

And then you juxtapose all of these non-black people in the NBA, in the NFL, and others that have gotten managerial jobs and baseball who didn't, who never played the game. And the moment I saw this announcement, the first thing I went was, wow. Then I went, a former player. Again, not dissing him at all, but the fact that if you are an African-American who didn't play in the league, you're not, you look at the guys, what, Leonard Hamilton was the, what, the only brother who has been an NBA head coach who didn't actually play? Yeah, there's only been about a dozen in the history of the sport. And one of them just got fired, Alvin Gentry from the Pelicans yesterday. And you know what else? The other thing is that it's important to me too. Do we consider these milestones? We don't, excuse me, know what he's about. I mean, what is his culture? Are you bringing in the culture? What culture are you planning on bringing into the washington football team when i look at this i think number one he comes from mckinsey and as we know mckinsey has its own scandal its

own culture in terms of the last one one of the last mckinsey guys in sports was jeff luna who was the head of the houston astros yeah and he got their sexual harassment in their, their corporate culture that he was, that he had with the Astros and that he was bringing in from there. So I'm interested in seeing what Jason Wright is all about. I don't, like I said, I want to know who he's going to be. What is the purpose of celebrating these so-called milestones? If the culture doesn't change, if all you're doing is mimicking the culture that you're replacing. So it's going to be really interesting to see what he does. And once again, I really do feel like other people are saying, well, okay, well, one is better than

none. Well, sure, if that's your bar, that's not my bar. That's not my measure. My measure, are you bringing something to the culture and are you bringing something and that the culture owes you something a little bit more than saying one out of 100 years is something to celebrate? to this that Jason Wright is an alpha. I appreciate that history making. Fritz Pollard, of course, also an alpha. He was really the first NFL head coach and Art Schell as well. And so I appreciate that fact. But here's the point here, the point that I need our audience to understand. And this is where black consumers have to make a decision. And this is where I think this, and this is where really, I think when you look at what happened with Colin Kaepernick and other things, this is where black consumers, when you say it's not enough, I use for me, I use that scene from Malcolm X when he said, I'm not satisfied. And that's really what it is. When black people have to make conscientious

decisions saying I'm not satisfied. When black players have to actually say, oh, hell no. There's no way in the world we can sit back and look at the paucity of black head coaches and black general managers and black heads of personnel and black team presidents and somehow think that it's okay. You have the people who criticize Bill Roden by wrote the book, $40 million slaves by saying, Oh, these guys, they're not slaves because you're making millions of dollars.

But the reality is if you do not have the opportunities to be able to work in football after you hang them up, or if you are an African American who wants to work in sports and you never went the route of being a player, but when you see these white agents who become the team leader of the New York Knicks or these other agents leading the Arizona, Arizona based Diamondbacks as well, that speaks to the inequity. And let's speak to the issue of wealth as well, because when you're paying these execs $2 and $3 and $4 and $5, $10 million, what Phil Jackson got for the New York Knicks, we don't get those shots.

Yeah, exactly. And it determines who gets to build wealth. It determines who gets to move on to their next job or who gets to actually, depending on over time, depending on how you play the role and what opportunities you get, maybe some of these guys are able to parlay that $3, $4 million a year over 5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 20 years. You parlay that into an ownership state. So when you're getting paid that kind of money, it opens up opportunities for you. And when you're getting paid that kind of money, it opens up opportunities for you. And when you're not involved in these opportunities, then every time people say,

well, what we need is more black owners. Well, where are those owners going to come from when you never get a chance to build? Right, right. I mean, first of all, let's just be real clear. If Dan Snyder tomorrow sold the Washington football team based upon the Forbes value, that team is going to sell for $4 billion. Yeah, that's right. And also, there's one African-American who's worth more than $4 billion, and that African-American is Robert Smith. Michael Jordan, Oprah, Bob Johnson, if you want to include Jay-Z, none of them, none of them. None of those guys are worth that. Say that again?

I said they're not worth that combined. Michael Jordan's worth $2 billion, and Oprah, I think, is 2.2 or maybe 3, so just slightly over that. So when you start looking at real, real wealth, I tell people this all the time. two billion dollars and oprah i think is 2.2 or maybe three so just slightly over that so when you start looking at real real wealth i tell people this all the time when you talk about black ownership people say well yeah well what's michael jordan doing look at what the players are doing jeff bezos is 60 times richer than michael jordan just for perspective sake uh that does put it uh in perspective well uh again, I certainly congratulate Jason on this first. I certainly hope that he is not going to be the only for very long.

I would also hope that fans decide to challenge these teams when it comes to leadership. And this extends beyond sports as well. We, this is the last point, Howard, I want you to speak on. We as African-Americans have to be in the frame of mind of really understanding what I call vertical and horizontal power. And that is, and I'll tell you, as a vice president for digital for the National Association of Black Journalists, when we went after CNN, when we met with ABC, when we met with CBS,

hey, Kim Godwin, number two at CBS. Great. I want to know who the other senior execs and then who the black executive producers and then who the black senior producers and then who the black field producers and line producers. Because if you have one or two spring on the top and then you have nothing here you have no bench you have no development chain so when that person goes out who then rises up and who then gets hired from another company then

another company another company because i see white execs in media get hired and you see in sports as well they get hired three and four and five and six times. You like they fail the other time, but they keep getting big jobs and they keep getting multimillion dollar jobs. And if we get it, maybe we get it one time. Rarely comes around a second time. Yeah. And I think the thing that I concentrate on on this as well is the idea of I think individual successes are fine. I'm more interested in collective values. So once again, is it a victory to me that Jason Wright gets a job if he brings the McKinsey work culture into or whatever that culture is that creates problems? No, it's not. I think the real issue is, are you going to use the position that you receive when you get hired. Are you creating a collective

culture that allows different values to thrive and those values create more opportunities? Otherwise, if if if you're going to bring in African-American, sure, it's great that we're going to have jobs and we get more jobs. But if the value systems don't change, then then then the hiring is not going to change because nothing has changed except the fact that you individual got a good job. So I concentrate more on the values of the collective more than the individual achievement. All right, then. Howard Bryan, ESPN, man, I certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, folks. We just talked to, of course, one sister, Melba Pearson, who's running for state's attorney there in Miami-Dade. Let's go to

another sister who is running to replace Aramis Ayala, who was the first African-American state's attorney in the history of Florida. Her name is Monique World. If you go to my iPad here, she wants to be, of course, she's running for Orange Osceola state attorney there in Florida. She has been endorsed by Aramis Ayala. She joins us right now. Monique, how you doing? Hello. How are you? I'm doing great. Big election day for you tomorrow. There are a number of candidates in this race. You've been, of course, you've been endorsed by Aramis Ayala. What do you want to bring to this job? Well, I think it's time for us to change the culture of prosecution. And I stand on Aramis Ayala's shoulders.

As you mentioned, she is the first African-American, not African-American woman, Roland, but African-American elected state attorney in the entire state of Florida in 2016. So that kind of speaks to you as to where we are here in the state and what we're dealing with. And for her, getting elected was a step for us to get in the door. Now it's time for us to institute the changes that are necessary in our legal system here in Central Florida. I want to bring in my panel as well. A couple of our panelists who are still with us, Mustafa Santiago Ali had to go. And so in a moment, Avis, as well as Teresa, I'm going to

go to you for questions. Obviously, Erma Sayala got criticized by lots of folks, especially Republicans, when she said she was not going to prosecute death penalty cases. She has been, just folks have been really been targeting her. But black female prosecutors across the country, we see how the governor of Missouri is trying to pass a law that would actually strip powers from Kim Gartner. The governor has interceded in cases under Marilyn Mosby. You know, this is not, and then we've seen how the state attorney general is basically trying to undercut Larry Krasner, even though he's not a black female, he's a white male there as well.

You have these people, they are deathly afraid of progressive DAs, especially black ones, especially black female ones. They certainly are. Hold on one second, Monique, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. That's what we're seeing across the country. And people have said to me, well, why would you do that if you understand the climate? And I've even had people come on to my social media platforms and tell me, if you get elected, we're getting the governor will have to reassign cases because you're not going to follow the law. So they are very concerned about the state of criminal justice reform and how the voters are taking this on as a cause that is worthy of fighting for. So if the voters are willing to fight for it, then I don't know why we shouldn't be. Teresa, you have a question for Monique Worrell. Yeah, I have a question and a

comment. So I actually know Monique and I hope you can see me, girl. This is Teresa from Reform Alliance. So she was the lead attorney on that case. So I just want to say I'm proud. I actually didn't know you were running. But, you know, as it relates to criminal justice reform, I know that obviously there is a lot of mass incarceration. And what's going on right now in that attorney's office. I want to know, is there some sort of plan that you plan on putting in on day one if you happen to be selected by the people in order to lower the crime rate and also do a lot more community relations. So, yes. And hi, Teresa, how are you? Yes, I am in this new lane right now. But to your question with regard to lowering the crime rate,

I believe that the reason we have not seen the crime rate go down is because we are not focused on the right thing. Mass incarceration is a thing here in Florida. Since the 1970s, we've increased our prison population by 300 percent. We are spending $2.4 billion a year on prison industry. I believe that if we get to the root cause analysis of why people offend, which in a lot of cases that has to do with resources, we will see that we're spending our resources in the wrong way. You cannot solve addiction by incarceration. You

cannot solve mental health by incarceration. You cannot criminalize childhood and treat it with incarceration. So if we begin to lower our incarceration rates, get to the root cause of why individuals are offending and address those root causes, then I believe we will begin to see a significant reduction in crime because people will be less likely to reoffend and we will thereby lower our recidivism rate. Avis, your question for Monique Worrell. So, you know, as Roland just laid out a few minutes ago, it seems as if black women prosecutors in particular have been under attack across the country. And to my just huge disappointment, there doesn't seem to have been very much movement or support around these women prosecutors from the community in terms of standing up for them and looking to protect them and looking to push back on the unfair actions that have occurred across the country. Do you think that there needs to be some more information, education,

just a greater effort to explain to the black community why it's important to have black prosecutors, progressive prosecutors, to really understand that that is a role that's necessary instead of, you know, people sort of reducing the prosecutorial role and mischaracterizing it as, quote unquote, merely being a cop? Yeah, so my answer on that is twofold. One, yes, I have faced a lot of backlash as I go into the community and try to encourage people to vote for the state attorney's office, because historically speaking, that's not a role that our community typically comes out and votes for because the black community is typically subject of the large majority of prosecution. So they don't see that as an asset to the community.

So education is necessary for the community to understand why this is an important role and why you should participate in the election of this particular official. But the other side of this is Black prosecutors, Black women prosecutors, progressive movement is something new. When Aramis Ayala ran in 2016, she didn't run on a progressive platform. She couldn't because that wasn't a thing. So I think that now that we're seeing it more and it's beginning to spread throughout the country, we have to begin to mobilize our efforts to protect the progressive movement for all of these individuals who are going in and trying to change the criminal legal system. All right, then, Monique Worrell, we certainly appreciate it. Good luck tomorrow in your race. The folks there in Orange, Osceola County, look, do what you got to do. If you don't vote,

shut the hell up. Monique, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Hey, thanks for having me, Roland. All right, then. Folks, at the top of the show, we talked about the power of voting. It matters in these DA races there, these two sisters we had there, Monique Warrall as well as Melba Pearson. But it also matters in every single election. Greg Pallis has been one of the folks who has been really, really focused on this for any number of years. Here's a new book out. It is called How Trump Stole 2020 with comics by Ted Roll by Greg Pallis.

Greg, welcome back to the show, man. Glad to be with you, Roland. First, I got to get your thoughts about just this absolute madness from this crazy, deranged fool in the White House when it comes to the Postal Service. is that before Agent Orange became president, Roland, 22% of mail-in ballots weren't counted. We already had a disaster with mail-in ballots, and it's been particularly harsh on communities of color. So, for example, you saw those lines in Georgia. Do you think that African Americans like standing in the humid rain for four hours in Georgia, risking a virus? No. What happened in Georgia was that hundreds of thousands of people who wanted mail-in ballots didn't get them. So they had no choice but to

stand in those lines. And you saw the lines. It was voters of color. So what happened in places like Georgia, what happens in several states is that they slow walk those ballots to you. One in 10 voters who ask for that ballot just don't get them. And again, this hits heavily in communities of color and also among young voters. Now, when you say slow walk, when you say slow walk, same thing happened in 2016 in Wisconsin. Even after the Department of Justice under Obama approved their voter ID law, a federal judge had to call the governor, Scott Walker, in and say, what the hell? What's taking y'all so long issuing voter IDs? Well, that's what happened. And in fact,

you take a place like Wisconsin, that's the other problem is getting your ballot counted. Did you know that if you are in Wisconsin, you've got to have a witness signature? About eight states require that. Alabama requires that you have either two witness signatures are ready for this. You got to have someone notarize your ballot. That used to be called a poll tax, 15 bucks for that. Wait, wait, wait, hold, hold, hold. So would you, in Alabama, you have to have two witnesses. Then you have to have a notary notarize your ballot. One or the other, either two witnesses, which is dangerous in this environment, or the other is to have your ballot notarized. Which means you have to pay a notary for them to notarize.

Yes. And so what happens is, now remember, you say, oh, Alabama, who cares? See, I'll tell you about why you care. Doug Jones is fighting for his life for U.S. Senate seat. And they're going to do everything they can to prevent the repeat of eight of of the your ballot. What's happening is that the GOP has a habit of successfully challenging about one in nine ballots, which are mailed in. So once you mail in your ballot, they're going to say, oh, where's the witness signature? And you talked about Wisconsin ID. You have to have a photocopy of your ID the first time you vote by mail in Wisconsin, a photocopy. And it's got to be the right ID. By the way, if you're a student, your regular student ID doesn't work. It doesn't work in Texas.

Your carried concealed gun permit ID, that you can use, not your student ID. Find out what the right ID is. So it's a big process, but we can overcome it. But it requires some real work on your part. That is, everyone's watching. And the number one thing that we have to worry about, by the way, is that they're not mailing ballots to people who aren't registered. You say, well, I'm registered. Excuse me. They've removed 16.7 million people from the voter rolls. I've told you in prior discussion that that included Martin

Luther King's 92-year-old cousin. I was there with her when she was trying to vote for her 50th year at the same schoolhouse. They threw her out saying, you're not registered here anymore. Check your registration online. And our president is basically trying to prevent democracy by gumming it up further in the post office. But that's only a small part of the mail-in vote issue. So there's ways for us to deal with it, but we got to be prepared. So here's the question. So, and this is what people are asking. People are responding on the YouTube channel, on the Facebook page, on Periscope. People are emailing me and folks

keep saying, okay, Roland, what do we do? They're saying, do I prepare to go stand in line? Do I do I mail in my ballot? Do I vote doing early voting? What do I do? What do you say? If you're young enough and healthy enough, vote, but vote early. Don't wait for Election day. We don't have election days anymore. Most states, it's election month. Go in midweek when no one's there. It's safe. It's empty. It's quick. Go in and vote, but vote early. But even before you do that, check your registration because you may be one of the 17 million people. Don't wait till it's too late and you don't get your ballot. Well, first, first, hold up. What you have to do is first is understand the state that you're in. Just because your cousin is in Maryland and just because your friend is in Alabama does not mean you're in North Carolina and the same rules apply. Understand what your state requires.

Yes. So at Greg Palace dot com, we're going to have as many state rules we have, plus links to the state rules. And some of them are pretty crazy, but you're going to have to follow them, including make sure that you sign your ballot on the inside and the inside form and on the outside. Sign them exactly the same. If you leave off the middle initial on one signature, but have it on the other, there goes your vote. Thousands of ballots were lost in the New York primary, in the New York Democratic primary, because hundreds of people had taped their ballots shut. Now, there's the ballot came. It was already sealed. So people ripped open the envelope or they use their own envelope.

Use your own envelope. Tape an envelope together that was ripped. Sorry, you just lost your vote. So what you might have to do is go in to your county elections board and pick up a new ballot or get it in the first place if it didn't arrive. By the way, ask for your ballot at least two months in advance. At least two months in advance. The head of the ACLU of Georgia, Andrea Young, she asked for her ballot 45 days in advance. She got one, but her husband's came on June 10th for June 9 primary. Wow. So don't be a victim. Don't be a victim of their system. Learn the rules. And then also, if you want to avoid the post office, every state allows

you to take your ballot into the county board of elections. You can always take it right in. That also saves another problem. You take it in, you get your ballot validated. What does that mean? It means that they said your signature is good. You've got like a quarter million people who lost their vote because some GOP functionary said, I don't like that signature. And remember, this time we're going to have 50,000 Boogaloo boys in those voting stations who, when they start opening up those mail-in ballots, are going to say, I don't like that signature. It's postage due. 100,000 people lost their ballots to postage due. So don't, you know, follow all the rules. And by the way, if you're healthy enough and you're

young enough, I want you to volunteer to be in those polling stations, not only during the day, but most important, in the evening and the next day and the next day and the next day when they're counting the ballots. So that when you get some some proud boy with not with swastikas on his face challenging your your mail-in ballot you say no you may not challenge that ballot so we need people to challenge the challengers let's get prepared for this precisely and that's why look my parents are 73 uh dad 73 mom be 73 in november they they worked the poll they did just in the runoff they are committed but here's what i'll keep telling young folks if you don't have a job, hey, these are paid positions. And so, look, we shouldn't sit here and say, oh, my goodness, all of these elderly citizens, we're having to shut down locations because they're afraid to work.

We can replace them, have the gear, the mask, the face coverings and everything. But this is a part of the deal here. I want to go to our panel with questions. I'm going to start first with you, Avis. Your question for Greg Pallast. Yeah. You know, I love that you are just ringing the alarm on this. You know, what would you say is the best thing that communities across the country need need to do in order to make sure that they are able to get past the subterfuge that's been put in front of their faces to eliminate their voting rights. Organizations should be helping people register. The other thing that we're doing is that we're in, like, for example, the key state of Wisconsin. We're getting the email addresses and phone numbers of the voters who've been removed from the voter rolls so that organizations

which are active can contact people saying, you know, you've been removed from the voter rolls. You should re-register right now. But you know, why wait for someone to call you? Check yours and check all the people that you love and care about and want to vote. Check their registrations too and say, tell your cousin, you know, you've been removed from the voter rolls. Maybe they were never there, but that's your job as well as theirs. In addition, make sure that when you fill out that ballot, don't use your own envelope. Don't make any mistakes. Don't use a red pen. Don't use lipstick or crayon or chocolate to mark the ballot.

And if it says, fill in the bubble, that's no joke. My sister, a lawyer, lost her vote because she didn't properly fill in a bubble. Don't put an X where it says fill in the bubble or don't put a checkmark. And don't fold it except the way that they tell you to fold. I know it sounds crazy that your vote for president shouldn't be based on this, but it is. Right. But these are the tactics that are used to disqualify your ballot. Yeah. And not just anyone. I want to tell you, according to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, which checked in

Florida, where they still have the race of the voter marked on the voter rolls, that the chance of your vote being challenged and rejected is 900 percent higher if you're black than if you're white. That's just the cold truth. And so you better be prepared. And part of it is to make sure that you have volunteers in those polling stations, because it's not going to be just a few hours during the day. Again, in the evening, in the next day, in the next day,

when they're opening up those ballots, it's going to be several days of opening and reviewing each mail-in ballot, probably about 120 million of them. Teresa. Yeah, thank you so much for all of that. I was sitting here taking notes. All of that information is definitely worthwhile. I plan on bringing it back home to our city commissioner's office to see exactly what are they doing, you know, in order to prepare people. So Pennsylvania actually just unveiled their plan where they are going to pay for postage for every mail-in ballot

so people could go and vote. Do you believe other states should be on the same trend as in paying for the postage? And what else could we do in order to make sure, you know, that our elections are protected? Well, one big danger of paying for the postage, I think it should be, because as I said, over 100,000 people lost their vote for postage due. And like in Ohio, it has a space for one stamp, but you better put on two because it's, you know, you need two stamps in a lot of states. I would like to see postage paid because a lot of young people don't even know where you buy a stamp. They may not even know what a stamp is if you're under 24. But and here's one of the dangers that we have to fix. If you're going to have prepaid envelopes, you have to make a special request to the post

office. And I know that's pretty scary given who's running the post office. But in New York, the postmaster there, half of the ballots that were mailed in were not postmarked. So those ballots were challenged. Twelve thousand ballots were thrown out because there was no postmark because pre-sorted, prepaid, pre-stamped letters are not postmarked. So you have states that say it has to be postmarked. But if it's a prepaid stamp, it's a prepaid envelope, it's not postmarked unless officials or even independent people go to your local postmaster and say, please, can you commit to run all these ballots through the sorting machines to get them postmarked? Because usually they aren't if it's prepaid. It's a big problem in states that require the postmark. It's crazy. So so I got to ask you this here. So how does

that work then with drop boxes? Drop boxes are fantastic, better than mailboxes. Absolutely. So so so so so if I get a mail, if I get if I get a mail in ballot, OK, and there's a drop box, I fill it out, do everything, and I drop it in the drop box, no issue, no postmark needed? That's correct. If you put it in the official drop box, so the states that have drop boxes absolutely use them. You can also bring your ballot, almost every state allows you to bring in your so-called mail-in ballot into the early precinct station and just drop it off. And a lot of places, organizations which are registered, like League of Women Voters in some cases and church groups, actually may pick up your ballots, like from older people, and take

them in to the county clerk's office. Again, if you go to your county elections board and drop off your ballot there, that's absolutely the safest. And hopefully you can get your signature verified so someone can't say, no, I don't like that guy's signatures. Wow. Any other questions, Avis or Teresa? I do. Just one quick one. You mentioned about in terms of the postmarking, postmarks, that you had to, in essence, rally your specific locality to run these ballots through the machines. Although we've been hearing lately that those machines have not only, many of them across the country are not only being turned off, they're literally being disassembled. blatant ways in which an administration could specifically try to sabotage the main system by which its citizenry is supposed to be able to vote during a pandemic?

Well, a couple of things. I'm very, by the way, I'm very concerned. I hate to bring this up, but we kind of have to. I'm concerned about violence. We saw in 2000 in Florida, and remember, I investigated that theft of the election, and it was by knocking black voters off the rolls, calling them felons. Not one was. But in addition, you had Roger Stone, remember, Trump's trickster, who he just got him out of prison, right? So Roger Stone led a what they called the Gucci riot with consultants going into the Miami-Dade county offices and stopping the vote count. Now, if they didn't stop that count, there were uncounted ballots in Miami-Dade, you know, Bush would not be president. I'm worried that it's going to be even more violent with more Boogaloo boys and Proud Boys going into those voting offices where they're

counting the ballots and raising hell because roger stone or even our own president says there's a million ballots from bolivia in that office and you're going to have crazy people uh try to use violence to shut down the count so be prepared for that don't meet violence with violence but be prepared stand your ground in the right way, which is I don't care what you're doing. We're counting these ballots because in Miami-Dade, they stopped the count because they're afraid of these guys. We can't be afraid. We can't be afraid even when they're armed. You got to count the ballots. All right. Teresa, any question?

No, thank you. All right. Greg Palace, where can people get more information and where to get your book okay two things go to gregpalace.com for more information both the book uh how trump stole 2020 get it the usual suspects or go to gregpalace.com um and at the back of the book and on the website i have something called the ballot condom to protect your vote no you don't wrap it around the ballot but you follow the seven steps to make sure your vote counts because they don't want it to. All right, then, folks. It is a pocketbook-sized book, quite easy to read.

It is not a problem. And, yes, Ted Rall has these great illustrations in here as well. And so we certainly appreciate it. Greg, thanks for all the work that you do. I'm sure we're going to be seeing you again because we've got 77 days and we've got to keep pushing, folks. Thank you very much, Roland, for the work you do.

Thank you, sir. Thanks a lot. Folks, go into a break. When we come back, we're going to tell you about the story of a black man, life in prison for trying to steal some clippers. It's going to be a parole hearing. That's next on Roland Martin Unf the field. 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. As our community comes together to support the fight against racial injustice, I want to take a second to talk about one thing we can do to ensure our voices are heard. Not tomorrow, but now. Have your voices heard in terms of what kind of future we want by taking the 2020 Census today at 2020census.gov?

Now, folks, let me help you out. The Census is a count of everyone living in the country. It happens once every 10 years. It is mandated by the U.S. Constitution. The thing that's important is that the census informs funding, billions of dollars, how they are spent in our communities every single year. I grew up in Clinton Park in Houston, Texas, and we wanted new parks and roads and a senior citizen center. Well, the census helps inform all of that and where funding goes. It also determines how many seats your state will get

in the U.S. House of Representatives. Young black men and young children of color are historically undercounted, which means a potential loss of funding of services that helps our community. Folks, we have the power to change that. We have the power to help determine where hundreds of billions in federal funding go each year for the next 10 years. Funding that can impact our community, our neighborhoods, and our families and friends. Folks, responses are 100% confidential and can't be shared with your landlord, law enforcement, or any government agency. So please take the 2020 census today to shape our community's future. Start here at 2020census.gov. That's 2020census.gov. You want to support Roller Mark Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club.

Every dollar that you give to us supports our daily digital show. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As Roland Martin Unfiltered, support the Roland Martin Unfiltered daily digital show by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Folks, October parole hearing has been set for a black man sentenced to life in prison for stealing hedge clippers in Louisiana in 1997. Initially, the Louisiana Supreme Court voted

five to one to let the ruling stand. Five white male justices voted in favor, but it was Chief Justice Burnett Johnson, the court's only black member, a sister, who voted against it. She wrote a scathing opinion. Now, the court issued the decision without comment, but her two-page dissent, ooh, she laid it out. She argued that the sentence was so out of proportion

to the crime and clearly unconstitutional. Her response drew widespread attention to the case. And there are four factors that will go into the seven member parole committee's decision on whether to free fair Wayne Bryant. It will include his criminal record, his behavior in prison, whether he has a place to live and any comments from victims. Bryant had applied for parole on July 21st. A three-member administrative committee of the parole committee agreed to schedule him for a hearing on October 15th. This is an important case because, Teresa,

this goes back to Jim Crow laws. That's when this law was created, this habitual offender law. Even though they supposedly had habitual offender law, even though they supposedly supposedly had habitual offender reform. The fact that 80 percent of the 2000 individuals affected are black. It's real clear. And in fact, one of the counties I'm trying to think between Orleans and Baton Rouge is I got to pull it up. Just showed you the disparity. I mean, this is crazy. I mean, life in prison. The chief justice wrote that Louisiana is going to spend more than a

million dollars over the life of this guy being in prison over a attempted stealing of shears. It's a disgrace. It's part of, you know, this bad narrative that, you know, apparently, you know, this is why some people just feel like the justice system is just not reading the cases, right? So it's like, you did a crime, and then when it goes up through the judicial system, and it's time to render a decision, and you wonder why the same decision is still there, is because when it comes to those officers who are supposed to protect the fairness of each individual and each case law, and you come to find out that the law is like they're not even reading it,

and then it takes others to read the case and go through it, it makes you really want to take a hard analysis about the criminal justice system, but more so the process of which the determination of every case is being had. And so, you know, I'm always an advocate for who's investigating the investigators, right? We need the public defenders. We need the public defenders, we need the nonprofit organization, we need the community advocates, and we need the interns in college to read this case and really come up with a clear understanding that obviously this man did not deserve life in

prison for attempted stealing of some shares. I don't know if these shares would go but regardless of what these shares were they were not due to the the full sentencing of the law but again this is uh if it if if this if we did not have that woman we did not have that official in office right this man's life would have been stolen even the more. So I'm actually thrilled that victory should be coming soon. But again, it's a telling moment that we really have to take a critical analysis at every process and every investigation for every person. Avis. this? Yeah, I mean, a sentence like that, really what we have to realize is that when you lay out the number, the numbers in terms of how much money they are spending to incarcerate this man versus what he was accused of trying to steal, here's the reality. That was not about justice, as we were

talking about a few minutes ago. This was about sending a message. This was about oppression. This was about being able to show that there are no rights that Black people have that white people are bound to respect. That is what a sentence like that is about. It's about instilling fear into a community. It's about telling that we can do anything we want you to do, and there is nothing you can do about it.

That's really what sentences like that are meant to do. And this, once again, is why it is so important that we have positions of power that can work to undo those injustices, because as horrible as that case is, I can tell you it's not the only form of injustice that we've seen across this nation. Unfortunately, there are far too many people in jail right now because they have found themselves under similar oppressive circumstances. I've got to reach out. This story here is pretty crazy. The Colorado Springs, Colorado police chief, Vince Niskey, decides not to fire an officer who commented, killed them all on social media posts of Black Lives Matter protesters. The officer was instead penalized with a 40-hour suspension

and loss of more than $2,000 in wages. He was also removed from his specialized unit and reassigned to a different position in the department. Now, Chief Niske defends his decision not to fire the officer despite calls from the public to do so. He wrote this in his latest letter, quote, while his statements were harmful and reprehensible, I cannot deprive the community of a good police officer and his services because of an isolated incident of an error in judgment. Tracy said kill them all. This man does not deserve to be on the streets,

especially with that type of mindset. And what do you mean by all? It's just so many questions that comes into perspective where you really have to look at the type of leadership that's in the department. You can't defend one of your employees for a kill them all statement. But what I, so here's another version of it, right? So if you wanted the officer to stay employed,

I think part of it is to make it an administrative position where you're not on the street, where you pretty much, you know, maybe are doing a mail order job internally. But he absolutely did not deserve just another slap on the wrist. But again, it also really tells you about the leadership that's inside of that office and the culture that they have and the union that is protecting him and these statements. Avis, this is crazy. I'm like, well, don't deprive them. He said kill them all. That is a terroristic threat.

Absolutely, it's a terroristic threat. If I, as a citizen, said kill all of them and it was a Blue Lives Matter, I guarantee you the cops would be trying to arrest me. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, if the shoe was on the other foot, you're exactly right. That would definitely be characterized as, you know, terroristic activity. You would probably be undergoing some FBI surveillance as we speak. You know, it is

absolutely, there's no excuse. He should be fired. He shouldn't be on a desk job. He shouldn't be there at all. As I've mentioned several times, decades ago, there was a report released by the FBI that had already, that warned the public that police departments across the country had been infiltrated by white supremacists. That is a white supremacist statement. Killed them all is a white supremacist statement. And what's also disturbing is that that sort of incident is not an isolated incident.

It was only a couple of years ago that there was a specific research study that looked at several postings on social media by police officers across the country where there were a voluminous number of racist posts. And in very rare incidents, did any of them face any sort of serious punishment as a result of that. These are people who supposedly have the charge of protecting and serving not just white people, but black people whose salaries, whose taxes pay their salaries, too. And so I really it is just infuriating to me. It is infuriating to me that every excuse is made in the book to justify white terroristic behavior. When, on the other hand, as you just mentioned in your previous story, you have black people across this country who right now are rotting in jail because of minor, minor infractions.

It is just yet another example of institutionalized racism okay if you want to hear something so crazy uh i got to show you this here this is some breaking news here uh y'all this is um um state senator louise lucas has been charged again this is breaking news this is literally just happening uh she's been charged with two felonies by Portsmouth PD with for the incident at Confederate Monument in June. Police sources say conspiracy to commit a felony and injury to a monument. OK, I'm not done. According to this reporter here, Jason Marks, we've reached out to Lucas, but no answer. Spoke with Don Scott, her attorney, but he was just got my iPad, please. He was just hearing about it. I'm told several others, including members of Citi's NAACP,

have also been charged. News conference at four o'clock. Ava's injury to a monument. Last I checked, monuments were inanimate objects. So how are you going to injure an inanimate object? Once again, it is absolutely disgusting. This is an example of white power.

Injury to a monument. It's ridiculous. I've seen so many of these protests where people are literally taking ropes and literally dragging monuments down. But I'm just so confused on—so this all goes like, you know, forget my confusion. This all goes back to Trump's administration of, you know, protecting these Mayans and the whole two week dialogue that was going on in the media regarding protecting statues and protecting Mayans.

And as African-Americans and minorities should be thankful that we have moved forward and passed these situations. But then it's like you want us to move forward. But then now, apparently breaking news, we're now getting hit with a felony or misdemeanor charge of these inanimate objects. It's not balanced. It's not a balanced situation. And it's crucial as we talk about more democracy, but more so more fairness across the board. Because where were all these charges when, you know, and essentially it was we look at the footage, video footage of people without masks that were literally attacking monuments. Where was the police at, you know, when these situations were happening? Where was people getting locked up? But of course, we want

to make sure we make a point with this African-American woman senator and it's just ridiculous. It is. It makes no sense. We'll have more details on it tomorrow. Teresa Lande, Ava Jones, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, folks. Every Monday,

of course, we focus on health and with our Fit, Live, Win segment. Okay, let's go. Alright, folks. You're sitting here at home. You're trying to figure out how do you stay fit. Mocha Lee, of course, she's a certified fitness trainer. She has some ideas. All right, Mocha, what's happening?

Hi, thanks for having me. All right, so people out here, they can't buy barbells. There's no equipment anywhere. Folks have been buying up all kinds of stuff. And so, you know, what advice do you have for folks who are trying to stay fit? But but, you know, like somebody was online, they said barbells were fetching thirteen hundred dollars. They're like, what the dumbbells? I'm sorry. They were like thirteen hundred dollars for something that normally costs 50. Well, that's just where we are now because of COVID-19. Well, I'm just really here to give a little hope and give a little inspiration to anybody who has some pandemic pounds. And they're just frustrated that they cannot seem to get motivated to get started.

So I have a few tips, three tips that I just share with all of my clients all the time. You do not need equipment. You don't have to have special equipment. The first thing you have to do is morning movement. Okay, morning movement. What's morning movement? Movement. Do you know why I am suggesting the morning movement?

No, why? You're a mover and shaker. My clients are movers and shakers. They're busy. And help the parents who are about to start this virtual school year. Everybody's busy. So if you could just start the day with 10 minutes of movement. I don't care if you go outside and walk, go up and down your stairs, a few push-ups,

just something to get your blood flowing, lift your mood. I'm telling you, it makes a difference to knock it out and get it out of the way first thing in the morning. All right. So morning movement, at least 10 minutes of morning movement. Okay, gotcha. What's next? Morning movement.

And I mean, I know some people are early risers, but I'm telling you, once you wait till after the workday, you're even more tired. So it's better to get it over with. That was tip one, morning movement. Tip two, please be mindful about your meals. You guys, this is the time where we have to really emphasize having a strong immune system. So if you want a strong immune system, you have to think about what you eat. And I'm telling you, you can't go wrong with greens, leafy greens. You can't go wrong with water.

I keep my water all the time. I at least get 80 ounces in. I just try to encourage everybody to keep drinking because there's so many benefits to water. So you have to be mindful about the meals and what you're putting in your body. Right? You agree. I know you're with me on that. That's why I got this 30-ouncer that sits right here.

So I carry one with me, and I keep this one here. So that way, my man John Hope Bryant, Operation Hope, sent me this one. So I leave it here in case I forget mine. So my goal is to actually drink four of these a day. That's the goal. I don't say I do that. OK, but the goal. And so the way I try to do it is I try to figure if I can drink one between, you know, when I wake up at 1 p.m., then one between one and six and then one between six. And when I go to bed, I at least got 90 ounces of water.

That's perfect. You have to drink the water. So you know this stuff. So I'm really preaching to the choir when I'm talking to you, Roland, but you will be surprised. No, but we all need reminders because trust me, you know.

Yes, but guess what? My clients are often giving me these confession sessions about drinking the wine. They need the stress relief, so they're drinking the adult beverages at night, which I get it. This is a fairly stressful time,

so you might want to unwind, but you can't do the wine every single night. You just have to really think about moderation. All right, now I love how everybody and mama are all of a sudden the fitness people, so somebody said, add some lemon to get the bowels moving. To get the what? Bow moving oh yeah well well now there is something to be said about elimination that's

but but as if you got a problem if you if you ain't got a problem eliminating you good so all right well so i'm giving you these tips. The third tip. Number three. Believe that is the most important of all. And it also starts with the M. Make yourself accountable. Make yourself accountable because we already know this stuff. And if you're sitting there, one of your viewers might be like, man, I know I should be working out. I know it's good for my body, but I just cannot figure out how to stay consistent. So that's when those of us come in who are trainers. We love this stuff. We love to let you get on a schedule and get committed. And believe it or not, me and most of the trainers on my team are just

patient, patient. We understand that a lot of people don't love the workout, but we at least try to make it fun. And we try to make sure you show up and at least do some movements that are just going to be good for you. Good for you. And believe me, it lifts your mood. It helps with stress to work out. It truly does. Okay, but let's say you don't work out. This last one for you. I was talking to Damian Woody. I think Damian's lost like 50, 60 pounds. And we were texting back and forth and he said, you know, he's really been focused. He's like, look, I do the workout and die. He said, but it's the movement because the problem

with COVID-19, we're not actually going to work. We're not, when we go to lunch, we're not walking anywhere. And so in many cases, you know, we're just, we're more sedentary as a result of coronavirus because we're also at home. And so, okay, so let's say there's somebody out there, they didn't do morning movement, but let's say they still have to go to work and they come back. We keep hearing this whole idea of 10,000 steps. So let's say they have a treadmill. Do they, do you tell them, look, just walk at a gingerly pace for 30 minutes? That way, at least you have that. Or are you trying to hit a certain number? Are you trying to say, no, get, do, do 5,000 steps, do 10,000 steps or, or hit this

calorie number? What are you telling them? Okay, very good questions. Normally what I do with my clients is I really take a little peek at their schedule because normally it's an issue of time. So if you only have 15 minutes to get on the treadmill, then that's fine. But I do want to, you said gingerly paced. I like that because Power Walk is where it's at. The goal is you're trying to get your heart rate up. You're trying to burn some calories.

And if you only have 15 minutes, that's cool. But ultimately, 30 minutes is really more ideal. 30 minutes is ideal at least five times a week. Now, it depends on the client. Maybe we have some former athletes that I work with. For example, you play baseball. You already have a standard base of fitness. So I might just say one day, okay, Roland, get on the treadmill

and just tell me how long it takes you to do a mile. And then that can be a goal for you to keep decreasing your mile time so that you have a shooting for. And I'm the one keeping track of it so that you have that accountability. And we just keep it going it's incentives all right moca how can folks reach you thank you thanks for having me no no no how can folks reach you say it again how can they reach you just find me on instagram on social media i'm moca lee fitness and i am offering a special for the fall. It's the back-to-school

special. Three workouts for $100. 30-minute virtual session. So if you really are out there struggling, I would love to help you. It would be my honor. Alright, folks. Mocha Lee Fitness. M-O-C-H-A-L-A-E Fitness. Mocha, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Say it again.

Thanks a bunch. Thank you. Take care, Roland. All right. Thank you very much. All right, folks. Don't forget to support Roland Martin Unfiltered by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. You can do so multiple ways.

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Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 2006. And don't forget, make it money or payable to New Vision Media, NU Vision Media, which, of course, is the parent company of Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, tomorrow we'll have the day one discussion of the DNC convention. Also, Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, he has some words from Ohio Governor John Kasich who spoke tonight. You don't want to miss that tomorrow right here. I'll see you then. Don't forget, Census 2020.

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