#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 8.4 Census ends count early; Trump rips mail-in voting; Harris for VP? Traveling doc teaches COVID

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

8.4.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Census to end count early; Trump rips mail-in voting in an attempt to suppress the vote; New poll shows that Sen. Kamala Harris is the public's choice for VP; Trump is still pissed about Rep. John Lewis not attending his inauguration; Former NFL Wide Receiver Trent Shelton will joins us to talk about his new book, 'Straight Up'; Meet the founder of a tech company that teaches young girls to code; Doctor travels to barber shops to educate black folks about COVID-19 + Eddie Levert is in the house.Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner:Ceek Be the first to own the world's first 4D, 360 Audio Headphones and mobile VR Headset. Check it out on www.ceek.com and use the promo code RMVIP2020-#RolandMartinUnfiltered channel 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. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position.

Pre-game to greater them. Let's put ourselves in the right position, pregame to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org, brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Să ne vedem la următoarea mea rețetă! Thank you. Să ne vedem la următoarea mea rețetă! so Folks, today is Tuesday, August 4th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the Census Bureau announced that they will stop collecting data in the field a month earlier than originally planned. That could very well undercount black folks, other minorities. And why is the ad agency that's responsible for communicating not spending more money with black media? We'll talk with Nevada Congressman Stephen Horsford about that.

We'll also talk with the civil rights organization about why this is so important to the black community. The latest vote, attempted voter suppression by Donald Trump. He's trying to stop mail in voting, but now he's flipped when it comes to mail in voting in Florida. And then now he's trying to say that, oh, it's going to be legal voting in Nevada. Folks, they're lying, and we're going to expose their lies. Speaking of Donald Trump, he gives an interview with Axios

where he throws more shade on Congressman John Lewis, his life, his career. And this idiot actually said he has done more for African Americans than any other president. Oh, I'm about to have a little fun with that line. A new post shows that Senator Kamala Harris is the public's choice to be Joe Biden's vice president. And, and former NFL wide receiver Trent Shelton joins us to talk about his new book, Straight Up, and you'll meet the founder of a tech company that teaches young girls to code. Plus, we'll talk about COVID-19. The governor of Mississippi all of a sudden says, yeah, we should wear masks. Plus, my man Eddie LaVert is in the house. Folks, it's a jam-packed show. It's time to

bring the funk on Rolling Mark on the Field Trip he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the spook, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. It's on go, go, go, y'all.

It's rolling,oro, y'all. Yeah, yeah. It's Rollin' Martin. Yeah, yeah. Rollin' with Rollin' now. Yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know. He's Rollin' Martin now. Martin. The Trump administration would no longer extend the window for the 2020 census. Trump said earlier that they needed more time because of the coronavirus pandemic. OK, that's weird. Now, to be counted, households must complete the survey by September 30th rather than October 31st.

The Census Bureau will also in its efforts to knock on the doors of households that have not filled out the survey online by paper form or by phone. OK, so this this is where this is all confusing. So they say they need more time to count, but you're going to cut it a month short. Doesn't it make sense to actually extend it and then count? All right. This makes no sense at all. Joining me is Congressman Stephen Horsford of Nevada. He is the chair of the Congressional Black Caucuses 2020 Census Task Force. He's going to join me in just a moment. But I'm going to talk to him about this, but I'm also deal with him on another issue. And that is the advertising agency Young and Rubicam, the Young Rubicam Group. They got the overall contract to handle communications, the ad dollars for the United States census.

But how much they really spend on black media? Now, I was told point blank that they pretty much pushed out Carol H. Williams Advertising Agency, the multicultural agency black owned, saying they didn't have the capacity to handle ad buying, but they do. Now what's crazy is this here. Um, they did give some money to different black groups in some black media, but we here at Roland Martin unfiltered, we actually filled out. I was reached. I was contacted by somebody who works for the census who said, Hey man, we need some help. Our numbers are down. Hey, we should be advertising your platform. I'm also I was also told that Carol H. Williams had us in their digital platform, but they ignored it.

They chose to put a lot more of their money in black events. Well, because of covid, no black events. So check this out. So we we filled out the form. We filled out all the paperwork. We went to the online portal. Nobody called. Nobody responded. Now, his was crazy.

We did 25 million views of this show in the month of June. 30 million in the month of July. There's no other black digital platform that can compare with our numbers. Not one. So what in the world is going on here? See, this is how these ad agencies freeze black people out. And this is how we are unable to access ad dollars, which means we can't grow our companies. We can't grow our staffs. We can't build capacity. They choke the dollars off and keep us from being able to access them. And then they choke the

dollars off of ad agencies like Carol H. Williams, which keeps them from being able to grow. See, the whole issue of the ad agencies out there is not this young Rubicam group. It's all of them. They control the dollars of these major corporations. They get these big government contracts, but then they come up with their metrics that freezes black media, black owned media out of the dollars. Congressman Stephen Horst was joining us right now. Congressman, how you doing? All right. I can't hear the congressman, folks, so let me know what's going on. Hear me now. I got you now. I got you there. I am. How are you doing? I'm doing good. So let's

first start with this decision to cut it a month short. Here's what I don't understand. The Trump administration says we need more time to count. But if you cut it a month short, you're actually, you may undercount people. So doesn't it make sense to actually keep the deadline where it is and then you count after that? Absolutely. This is the most outrageous, politically motivated move to not have a fair, accurate, and complete count. The Congress has been working since last year, and really before that, to try to hold the Trump administration accountable. They actually requested an extension of the self-reporting process until October 30th of this year, once the COVID pandemic started. So for them now to come in and say, we want to cut that an entire month short is going

to disproportionately impact the hardest to count communities which include black latinx and indigenous communities the most that means less money coming to our communities at a time when we need it the most and so again i know for us in texas they're like yeah we're not gonna assign any dollars to this whole deal i mean their whole it is as if, it is not as if, their strategy is very simple. We are not going, we don't want to count black people. We don't want to count Latino people. We just want to count white people and then let that be the numbers. And also explain to folks watching how the census impacts everything in this country? Well, the Congressional Black Caucus, and I'm proud to chair the task force on the 2020 census,

we actually had a meeting last week with Stacey Abrams. Her organization, Fair Count, has been, again, working on the ground, not just in Georgia, but across the country to have a complete, fair and accurate count, particularly in Black communities. The same forces that do not want Black communities to vote are the same forces that are now trying to change the rules in the middle of the census to not have us to be counted. You asked, why does the census matter?

So every 10 years since 1790, as required under the Constitution, we are to count every single person who resides in the United States by April of that year of the census. And so that is the process that we are currently undertaking. My congressional district here in Nevada's 4th District was created in 2010 based on our count. I am the first black person to serve in Nevada's federal delegation, the first person of color, in fact, to serve from Nevada's 4th. And so representation is a big part of this. But the other side is nearly a billion dollars, billion with a B, of federal money

gets allocated every single year based on information that comes from the census. That's money that goes to fund our schools, to fund healthcare, to fund grants for small businesses, students that want to get loans to go to college. And so if we're not counted, that's money that's not going to come to our communities. And instead, it's going to go to other communities. And I said a billion with the B actually meant trillion, one trillion dollars of funding every single year. And not only that, not only that, we're talking about voting.

We're talking about power in congressional districts. We're talking about reapportionment. And the reality is the growth in this country is coming in minority communities. In Texas, they have increasing representatives. The Midwest, okay, Rock keeps talking about these white voters in the Midwest. They're losing population. White people are dying. And so Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, they stand to lose seats in Congress over the next decade because of the growth in the South and the Southwest. That's also what they're trying to hold on to. It really is outrageous. And for them to do it so blatantly.

Just a month ago, the census director appointed a political appointee inside the census. There's two positions that they've recently appointed. Never before have we had political appointees now making decisions about how the census is supposed to be run. And so what is being done about this is Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, the chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, has brought forward a bill. It was a bill that we had introduced actually earlier in the year because we were concerned with the Trump administration trying to not have a fair and complete count. So that bill is now being brought up for a vote. It would ensure that we complete the census and allow that time through October 30th of this year. And under federal law, there's actually a provision that says until you reach 90 percent response rate, you've got to keep the census going. Right. And the fact that they are not even meeting their own standards that they themselves created

in their plan is just outrageous. And Congress is not going to allow it to happen. I got to ask you this because this is a part of this deal. So the U.S. Census, the federal government awarded the national advertising contract to Young Rubicam Group. They control the entire deal. They frankly have been freezing out black ad agencies, freezing. They froze out Carol H. Williams advertising, one of the most iconic advertising agencies in the country, black owned. I can tell you, Congressman, for a fact. Now, I do know that some money was given to Stacey's group. I do know some other black media companies like Blavity got some dollars as well. But I was told that most of the money to try to get black people to sign up for the census was put into

events, events and churches and things along those lines. Well, COVID hits in January, February, no events. So for January, February, for February, March, April, May, June as well. So forget trying to sign up folks at Essence and all the rest of these places. We applied, according to Young and Rubicam, it was go to their online portal. We put together our proposal, applied, have not heard from anybody from Young and Rubicam. And I'm wondering in terms of are they putting the money in black media? We did 25 million views in June, 30 million in July. Our numbers are what they are. And I know for a fact that Carol H. Williams agency was telling these people, you got to do black digital to reach African-Americans and pushing them on the census.

But you have this white ad agency doing what they do, not sending dollars to black media outlets. This is also part of the problem. So it's not just the Trump folks cutting it short. It's Young and Rubicam not respecting black consumers and black media companies. And that's how we get frozen out. So we can't grow and build capacity. Carol H. Williams can't grow and build capacity because of what folks like Young and Rubicam Group do. Well, I really can't disagree with anything that you said, Roland. You're absolutely right. And the Congressional Black Caucus actually met with the director of the Census Bureau

and a ranking official executive from YNR to discuss this very issue earlier this year before all of the spending was finalized and to put pressure on the YNR to make sure that they were inclusive to not just Black-owned media outlets such as yours, but also black media publications. And literally, one of the responses that we were told was, well, unless they have a circulation of more than 50,000 people, then we're not going to put our advertisements in those publications. But yet, those are the very publications that reach our community. There you go. So here's what they do.

So Congressman Horsford, here's what they do. Here's what young and Rubicam and all these other ad agencies do. They establish metrics that purposely lock us out. So they establish these metrics that, Oh, here's the cutoff as opposed to knowing black people. I can tell you that a Carol H. Williams or a Burrell or when Don Coleman was in business and when Eugene Morris was in business and when R.J. Dale was in business, I just named you three black ad agencies and no longer in business. Those black ad agencies know black people. They know what black people read, what they listen to and what they watch. But these white ad agencies don't care about any of us. And that's also part of the problem. And that's also why there's an undercount, because if you're not investing in black media and what they want us to

do and take this out, I sent some tweets out last night, all of a sudden, Young and Rubicam calls a black ad agency and they want us to run stuff for free. It is totally unacceptable. And look, I know what the process was at the beginning. We actually requested to see the entire marketing plan. I did a stint in media, so I understand the role that media plays in reaching our communities, particularly black communities, as you said. And there has to be an account for every single dollar. Congress actually increased the budget for the census. The Trump administration had only asked for $2.5 billion. We were able to get more money added to that budget. But we told them that we wanted to

see more investment in black communities and other marginalized communities so that we would see an improvement in the undercount. But look, going back to my original point, that issue with YNR, they're going to have to be held accountable. Meanwhile, that's right. We need every single person in our community to know how important it is, despite the fact that our community wasn't given those dollars, that we still have to be counted. Why? Because if we're not, then it's our children. It's our community for the next 10 years that will not get the funding over the next 10 years, not one year, but over the next 10 years. And it's a loss of a nearly a nearly trillion dollars. Well, here's the deal. I would love for the congressional black caucus to demand from young and Rubicam to provide an itemized listing. And it needs to say, no, no, no, no,

no, no. We want to know specifically the black media outlets. And we want to know by name and dollar amount so we can see what's black owned and what isn't. So, for instance, if they gave money to BET, that's Viacom. They're not black owned. But it needs to be an itemized listing and then a bottom number to say, OK, here was your total budget. This is how much you spent on black media. And then everybody else, I guarantee you, there's going to be a wide discrepancy there. And that is one of the deal, one of the problems that we have. And so you're absolutely right.

We should be signing up. It is our money. But this is how systemic racism works when these agencies, these white agencies, freeze us out. So they freeze out the black ad agency like Carol H. Williams. They freeze out the black media companies like this show. And then they go, well, what are y'all talking about when it comes to wealth, wealth building and wealth creation and inequality? Well, that's how the CNNs of the world become multibillion dollar companies and black media is withering on the vine. Final comment, Congressman. Well, my final comment is I will absolutely follow through with your ask and to get that

breakdown. These are public dollars. These are taxpayer investments into a process that's required every 10 years. This is not about making YNR or any of their friends wealthy. It's about making sure every single individual who resides in the United States is counted under the law. It is another example of systemic racism, where the investments that are provided by Congress as the representatives of the people are not put into the very communities or with the very outlets or publications that we know work. And this is a problem that we've seen time and time again

in previous census, but we're not gonna just sit and let it happen. We're gonna hold them accountable. Meanwhile, I am asking people to get out and be counted. Complete the census. It takes less than 10 minutes. Make sure every single person in your household is counted. It doesn't matter your previous status, if you were a formerly incarcerated citizen, if you were homeless.

I especially want people to make sure that every child in their household is counted. We have seen children under five, for whatever reason, they don't get included in the response. And that means those children aren't getting the dollars that they need for the next 10 years. And we just can't let that happen. So thank you for bringing attention to this, Roland. You're always staying on the issue. And this is a very big issue. Congressman Stephen Horsfield of Nevada, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All right, folks, we're going to bring our next guest in a moment. I want to bring in my panel right now. Kelly Bethea, communications strategist, Malik Abdul, Republican strategist, Joseph Pinon, Republican strategist and political commentator. Joseph, I want to start with you. The reason I'm going hard on Young and Rubicam, because I know for a fact we filled it out.

I mean, I got a call from a from an African-American who worked for the Census Bureau saying, we need help. We need help. Man, your show would be a great outlet for us to be able to advertise on, to push the census every single day. We filled it out on the Young and Rubicam portal, have not received a phone call or an email. And I'm sitting here going, please, by all means, show me another black media company that's having that reach that we're having on the digital side. We're live five days a week and we're streaming seven days a week. This is how black companies get frozen out, not just in advertising, but in so many areas, Joseph, because they create these metrics that purposely keep us out. So the money keeps flowing to the larger, largely white companies.

Well, look, I think you're right to bring up the fact that this is bigger than a media issue, even though obviously when it comes to black and brown communities, the media issue is where it impacts us the most. You're talking about the fact that when you have people bidding on contracts for providing services for states, providing services for cities and municipalities, black companies inevitably face some of those same barriers. And so I think that we need to start exploring things such as blind bids that can actually provide greater latitude for the work to speak for itself. Because if perhaps someone wasn't looking at the fact that, oh, those 25 million views came from Roland Martin unfiltered and was just simply looking for a place to find 25 million eyeballs, then it might be a larger capacity there for you to be able to get those bids, for more black businesses to be able to get their foot in the doors that have inevitably been shut in our faces because of the fact that the dirtiest

secret in all of this is that there are people who sit in rooms that we don't talk about who don't want to see black people participate in the census and certainly don't want to see black businesses get ahead. But here's what happens, Kelly, at these ad agencies, ain't no black people there. And we're working on something right now with Color of Change, picking up that Madison Avenue project that they were focused on more than a decade ago. And that's part of the problem. You have white folks in these places, very few black people. They're not. And see, here's the piece.

The ad agencies, they control the ad dollars of the corporations. So here we're talking about the federal government. We're taxpayers. And so they still are freezing us out. Now let's start talking about all these corporations where they're sitting here and we've been on phone calls. And this is what happens, Kelly. They go, what are your metrics? Not what's your engagement, not how do your, how do your followers comment and share whatever is okay.

What are your metrics? They immediately go to that because that's how they penalize and get rid of black media companies that are smaller than a lot of these other companies. They purposely create a scale that we can't meet. Why can't we meet it? Well, because you're freezing us out. When we launched this show, we did 9.3 million views our first month, September 2018. Last month, we did 30 million views.

So what if they say, well, no, no, the bottom line metric is 50 million. Well, guess what? If you if I actually be able to get more ad dollars, I can actually build I can build my staff. Then we can be able to do more things, stream more things. We can actually grow. That's the game that they play. You really hit the nail on the head with this one. But it also goes back to what Joseph was saying about this is truly systemic racism.

You mentioned how there's no people in the room when these discussions are happening who are people of color and black people specifically. That part is systemic. The fact that the bar keeps getting raised and lowered and switched up in terms of you getting ad dollars, that is systemic. Everything that you're talking about right now is a systemic racial issue. And I guarantee you that if a smaller white company came to the table the same way that you did, the first question out of these ad agencies would not be, show me your metrics.

It would be, show me your engagement. Because that's what they are looking for. They are looking for people who look like them to buy into things that they buy into. And they don't really care about the diversity because there's no diversity in the room. If you are in an echo chamber, all you want to do is hear your own voice. So that's why diversity is important. That's why this issue needs to be at the very top of everybody's list, especially when it comes to the election, when it comes to anything concerning us as a people, especially in this country, because every for everything that is a roadblock to our progress, systemic racism is behind it. So we definitely need to be more vigilant about this. I need to be real quick, bringing this guest, Beth Link. She's the director of the Census Counts Campaign for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

Beth, what we're talking about here is if we start breaking down why there's an undercount. I was told in February that they were behind. Then I was told in March they were behind. And then in April, they said they're behind. In May, they're behind. Then I was told in March they were behind. And then in April they said they're behind. In May they're behind. And so then I started asking, well, where are you putting your black dollars? They said with the black dollars, they, again, they froze out Carol H. Williams agency and said, oh, we're going to put it in events. What? No damn events because of COVID. Yeah. So, I mean, we came into this 2020 census knowing that in 2010, um, that

we saw, uh, millions, um, of, uh, black people missed in the census. So we knew we needed innovation. We knew we needed to partner, uh, with black media to get out, uh, the message about how important the count is and to overcome the very real and justified fear that exists in communities about census participation. And so it is disappointing. And at the Leadership Conference and the Census Counts campaign, which I lead at the Leadership Conference Education Fund, has been kind of raising the alarm that partnerships with trusted media sources like your show, partnerships on the ground, both online and off, were going to be incredibly critical to get out the count

and to educate people about why the census is so critical. And here's the deal. Somebody might be watching saying, Roland, all you saying is you need some money. You damn right. I want black magazines. I want damn right. I want black magazines. I want black radio. I want black websites.

I want black podcasts. I want black media to get dollars. And this is how they freeze us out. And again, if you aren't so you freeze out the ad dollars, which means that we can't sit here and talk it up, but they want us to do it for free. Then we get hurt as black people because we're undercounted, which means billions of dollars that are supposed to go to black communities don't come to black community because the census determines roads, bridges, airports, public transportation, again, congressional delegations, health care. It determines how

funding is spent from the federal government for the next decade, which means a black kid that is 12 today that and their family gets undercounted, they won't be able to fully participate until that child is 22 years old. Right. I mean, so you're spot on. I mean, the census at its core is about money and power. It is about the distribution of one point five trillion dollars every single year in health care, education, infrastructure that go to communities. It's about the distribution of political power, the number of seats in Congress every state receives. And it's also, as a civil rights advocate and as working with civil rights advocates day in and day out, census data is a critical tool that we use for change to defend civil rights legislation and also to advocate for future legislation that protect and help build our communities. The other thing that I think is really important for folks to know is that we're living within a pandemic and a pandemic

and a pandemic. We're seeing the black community being under assault by COVID-19 and our health and our bodies being attacked. We're seeing our bodies and our safety under assault by attacks by the police and police brutality. And then we're seeing our democracy under attack by having efforts by the Trump administration to try and strip our right to participate in the 2020 census and our right and our ability and access to the vote. So it is incredibly critical that anyone who's listening certainly ensures that individually we all participate in the census, but also that we are using all of our platforms to educate and let everyone know how easy it is all participate in the census, but also that we are using all of our platforms to educate and let everyone know how easy it is to participate in the census

and that when folks are trying this hard to deprive us of our right to participate in the census and get that money and power to our communities, we have a duty and a real opportunity to fight back by participating and encouraging everyone to do the same. All right, Beth, we certainly appreciate it. Again, Beth Link, director of the Census Counts Campaign for the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Thank you so very much.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Melik, I'll go to you. First of all, does it make sense to say we need more time and you cut the count a month short? That just makes no sense at all. You should want to count more people. And unfortunately, what we have seen is like I know for a fact in Texas, you have Republicans who have not really been helping with this. It's like there is this design to undercount Americans. Well, I can't agree that it's the design to undercount because we do know that they did extend the deadline initially, as you said, until the end of October. But now they pushed it back, well, they pushed it forward by month.

From what I've actually learned about this is that there are a lot of this is actually tied to redistricting. And when those deadlines are, so there are certain states that require deadlines to that data collection to be received by the census year. There's others that require it by the actual publication of the census itself. Next year, Virginia and New Jersey have general elections. So there are deadlines as far as their redistricting that they have to go through in New Jersey and Virginia. Neither one of those are red states. I would, the rationale behind it seems to be

that this is in reference to data collection, but I would also add to that, that this is not something that's limited to red states. California, if this is actually pushed back as far as that data collection, California will be coming up against. I think there will be Delaware. There are several states that will be affected by this. And from the administration's perspective, what they're looking at is saying that we're trying to get the data collection. So as you said, and when you initially introduced this, this is in reference to the field operation,

but not the digital operation. But I did want to also comment on the story, what you were talking about with the media dollars, black media dollars. Well, we know, Roland, that we've talked about, this is an extension of a conversation we've had on your show many times before when it comes to black political capital, black people being able to get seat at the table. One of the things that I've been talking about just over the past months, even in the midst of these protests and what we're doing with Black Lives Matter, everyone wants to come to D.C. and take nice selfies at Black Lives Matter Plaza. But then these same people go into these boardrooms. They go into these HR offices.

They go to these same spaces. And when it comes to giving people like Roland Martin money, when it comes to giving all of our advertising dollars, making sure that black people have a seat at the table, the same people who hold up these Black Lives Matter signs are also the ones who are making those decisions. Well, actually, actually, let me just correct, let me help you right there. What we have seen is the very people you're talking about, they have been doing that in

the ad agencies since the George Floyd death. And we actually had the brother who was on the show, Bennett, Dee Bennett, they created this campaign where they talked about the inequities in advertising agencies and what has been happening. And I've talked to African Americans and multiple ad agencies there. You, you have, uh, uh, white partners and black folks in these firms have been giving them hell about this very issue. And so what you're talking about people who have been out there on the streets, they have been doing that. And so I subscribe to Ad Age. And all of a sudden, Omnicom had to release their numbers because they got pressure internally from their white and black employees to release their numbers. I think it was another

group, ICM, I think, pulled it up. Well, they had to release their numbers as well. And so this thing has been happening. And that's why I'm working with Bennett and the others on this particular group. And I actually get the name of it or the second, because we are specifically going after these ad agencies. We're talking about the companies that control all of the spending capital of these corporations. And they deliberately are ignoring and shorting black media companies to the tune of billions. And now it's time for that reckoning. I agree with that. I don't think we're saying dissimilar things at all. My point is, is that this is something that we've talked about. You're talking about opportunity. Black people have an opportunity in any arena. This is something that we've talked about on your show

many times before. Yes, there have been there has been a movement post George Floyd of trying to get some of, you know, raising this awareness. And you're having people make pushes for these boardrooms, for these decisions to be made in favor where actually black people are benefiting. But my point is, is that we've had this discussion many times before, even during the protests with Colin Kaepernick. Well, we saw that we had a similar conversation about, well, what's happening in the front offices of these places. The same thing that we had after, I think they're going to start with the Black National Anthem before the National Anthem. Those type of things are great symbolically, but if you don't have people in the boardrooms making those decisions,

it really doesn't matter. So we need to continue to push these companies, continue to push our white allies to join us in this effort and not just glasslight us talking about Black Lives Matter. Robert. When behind the scenes, they're not doing any things to ensure that black lives matter. Robert, this is one of the groups called 600 and Rising. Here we go to my iPad. And so what they've been doing is they have been specifically targeting folks who work in the ad agencies. They've gotten lots of pickup there. That's what they do. And Robert, on this point, again, and I need people to, I'm sorry, Joseph, I'm Joseph, my apologies. I need people to

understand what's going on here. I need them to understand that the reason black media companies are so small, because you depend on advertising. And when they starve you of those dollars, then you can't get it. One of the things that we, so I'm just going to give you an example, Joseph, something that happened. So we talked to a major corporation and they said, we know Roland, we love Roland. we know his audience, we know he connects with his audience. We want to do a deal with Roland. So then they said, we need to talk to their agency. Now we said, Hey, we ain't trying to deal with no agency bullshit. That's what we said. Cause we know what we're going to get. We've been this in our first rodeo.

We call the agency, the multicultural person, black, even goes, what are your metrics? We like, no, no, no, no. We ain't having that conversation. We've already talked to the client. The client said we want to do the deal. So we said, no, no. Why don't you call a client? Then y'all call us back.

And then it's a chance to toss out other stuff out there. That's the game that they play, Joseph. That's how they freeze us out. And that's why I bet this is my 13th black media experience. I have seen this in black newspapers and black radio, black websites, in every form of black media, black magazines, you name it. This is how they do us. And this is where we got to say no. And I have people tell me, you're only you shouldn't call out Young and Rubicam because you ain't gonna get no business. Ain't getting no damn business right now. So you might as well call them out. Joseph, go ahead. Look, I think there's a time for truth and reconciliation. The fact remains that, again, if you talk about even the pay scale at some of these media companies,

it is the worst open secret in the world that oftentimes what people of color are paid when it comes to being on air is much different than their non-black counterparts are being paid to do the same ask, even if they have a less robust following. So I think at the end of the day, what we're really talking about, and I think even to Malik's point, is that you have to have an actual plan to make sure that there are people that look like us in the room. Even we're talking about, I mean, what was it? The, one of the founders of Refinery 29 had to resign over the fact that what they were saying on Instagram was not consistent with what was happening in their boardroom. But you know what, Joseph, here's the deal. When these ad agencies, here's my whole deal. Other folks can say, I need somebody in the room. What I'm

saying is, damn it, give the money to the Carol H. Williams. Give the money to Burrell. Give the money to Uniworld. There are black ad agencies that are there who do this. I'm saying they know how to do it. But see, what they're doing is they're shoving them aside. See, a Carol H. Williams, a Monique Nelson at Uniworld, a Ossie McGee Williams at Burrell and others, they know us. They know how we do this,

but they even freeze them out. That's what makes it worse. They freeze the black ad agency and the black media out. Yeah, but that would require them to give up control of the dollars because there you go. It's how you actually

control the industry. And so, again, you end up with this with basically two paths. You end up with an agency that tries to say, hey, tell us how you do this. And then they try to do it themselves. And inevitably, they end up doing it poorly. Or the alternative is what you've been describing, which is, again, they set up these metrics, knowing full well that the metrics that they as they they have been prescribed, cannot be met by the most robust portion of black businesses who are specifically sped up to target our communities.

And so, again, the money goes to a BET, even though a BET is no longer a black-owned business, but it is a business that serves black people, right? The money that gets spent on an advertisement budget for an organization like McDonald's goes to organizations that are not black owned. But obviously, a robust portion of the audience for McDonald's is African-American, which is why the people in the commercials are African-American. So which is why for me, I want to see the list. I want to see who's who black targeted got money and who black owned got money, Because I want to see that breakdown. I want to see that breakdown. Let's go to our next story, folks. That is Donald Trump continues to his just stupidity when it comes to this issue of mail in voting, saying, oh, my God. But voting is dangerous and it could take two months to see the results of the November presidential elections.

Now, y'all, did y'all see the tweet he sent out today? Now, all of a sudden, oh, no, in Florida, they did a great job. And so now he's, no, absentee in Maryland. All is OK. I'll pull a tweet up in just a second. But listen to Mercedes Schlapp, who has just completely lost all of her credibility working for Donald Trump. Listen to this nonsense Mercedes said today with Breonna Keillor on CNN. If everyone's, no, you just said, you just said, Mercedes, Mercedes, if you just,

Mercedes, you just said that everybody, you were just stating that a priority should be for people to practice their rights as Americans and vote. And look, if they're registered voters, that is their right. So then why are you talking? So then why are you talking down? Why are you villainizing mail in voting, which would give people the ability to practice their right as an American and vote? I'm going to ask you again. Do you think it's OK after November 3rd to be able to cast a ballot three days after or seven days after Mercedes the election? November 3rd is vote. You're saying you're saying that voter fraud is a thing. And I'm telling you that it's not. And you're muddying the waters.

And I also wonder, isn't that don't you worry that that's going to actually hurt you? I mean, isn't that to the point why the president has said when it comes. OK, they have left Mercedes. I'm asking. I'm just Mercedes. Mercedes, this is like this is just pointless. OK, this is pointless. I get it.

You're just saying a bunch of crap. OK, you're saying a bunch of crap. Can I tell you what? No, let me tell you. No, no. We're talking about voting in a pandemic. You're saying a bunch of crap. Can I tell you what? No, let me tell you. No, no. We're talking about voting in a pandemic. We're talking to, okay. You don't let them have a conversation with them. We're talking about voting in a pandemic. Okay. We're talking about people trying to, can you listen? Mercedes, Mercedes, I need you to listen to me. OK, let's focus and have a serious conversation here. We're talking about voting in a pandemic and giving people the ability to vote if they are a registered voter.

And you seem to be talking about putting obstacles in their way to that. Absolutely not. I am asking you a question that do you believe that a person should be able to vote after the election day? Meaning, can you pass a ballot three days following the election? We'll have to continue. That's what they're doing in Nevada. And that is unacceptable. We'll be checking that, Mercedes. It was very nice to have you. Mercedes Schlapp, thank you so much. OK, here's why, y'all. That's an absolute lie, because in Nevada, what they say is your ballot needs to be postmarked

by November 3rd and what they then do is if it comes in seven days after the election it will not be counted Mercedes sat there and said oh they're gonna be voting after November 3rd no it will be postmarked by November 3rd now again Donald Trump has been oh my goodness Maryland Maryland fraud, fraud. Well then today he tweeted this, go to my iPad, Henry, whether you call it vote by mail or absentee voting in Florida, the election system is safe and secure. Tried and true. Florida's voting system has been cleaned up. We defeated Democrats attempts at change. So in Florida, I encourage all to request a ballot and vote by mail. Why all of a sudden is he saying that? Because the

governor of Florida and Republicans in Florida have said, hey, idiot, your own people are now not requesting ballots because you said it was unsafe. Republicans have long maintained an advantage in absentee voting by mail. Today at the White House, NBC's Jeff Bennett asked Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany this. The president about 10 minutes ago tweeted about vote by mail absentee voting. He says in Florida, the election system is safe and secure, tried and true. What in his view changed? Was he advised by Republicans that he was potentially suppressing his own vote by stoking unfounded fears about mail-in voting?

And will he admit now what is the fact that voting across the country by mail is safe and secure and tried and true? Well, the president has always said that absentee voting for a reason is different than mass mail-out voting like what Nevada is seeking to do, which leads to mass fraud. And also, I'd refer you to the campaign on this, but there was a victory in Florida with regards to ballots. So I believe that's what he was referencing. I would refer you to the campaign for details on that. But he's been unmistakably clear that when you have this mass mail-out

voting like what Nevada wants to do, the consequences are real. When the Las Vegas Journal-Review was reporting, did extensive and very good reporting on Nevada's first all-mail primary election, they note that there were photos of ballots tossed in trash cans, littering apartment mailbox areas, dozens pinned on the complex's bulletin boards in various apartment complexes. And you have a postal worker who said that when she went to go deliver some of these ballots, in several cases, people had moved or died. She kept 65 ballots on her first delivery, 100 on her second. It is with fraud and with

delay. And that is what the president stands firmly against. It's a free and fair election. Extensive research shows that there is fraud in vote-by-mail systems. It's extraordinarily rare. The president votes by mail, you vote by mail, and a dozen other top Trump administration officials vote by mail. So with regards to the absentee system, that's right. And there is ample evidence of fraud. I would point to the best example of this, and very recent, was May 12th, New Jersey's special election in Patterson, New Jersey, where one in five mail-in ballots were found to be fraudulent in the election.

New Jersey officials were charged in that. One in five mail-in ballots were found to be fraudulent in the election. New Jersey officials were charged in that case. And resident Ramona Javier said this, this is corruption, this is fraud. There are eight relatives and immediate neighbors she knows of listed as having voted, but who insist they never even received a ballot. There are ample examples of fraud, and we can get those to you more than just Patterson, New Jersey. Malik, I bet she didn't want to bring up what happened in North Carolina when Republicans were harvesting ballots in North Carolina,

when there were more ballots that were sent out, absentee ballots sent out to Democrats, but then they were returned for Republicans. But this was interesting. This is what Nevada wants to do. They simply want to mail ballots to all active voters. There's also a security process. And that is when a ballot comes in, then they also cross-reference that with existing data.

There is extremely rare instances of voter fraud. The Brennan Center, numerous groups have broken this down. Every time Republicans yell voter fraud, they literally, they literally cannot provide any substantial evidence. But now all of a sudden, Donald Trump, who you support, now says, oh, it's good in Florida, but it's not good in Nevada. It's good in Florida, but it's not good in Pennsylvania. What the hell? Well, I think that from Donald Trump's tweet, I think that's exactly where we want him to be in support of this idea of mail-in voting, absentee voting. But he hasn't been. As we've discussed on your show before, there are difficulties and the bipartisan policy center actually came out with a report talking

about the sheer difficulty in moving to that vote-by-mail system during the time of pandemic. That's a bipartisan center. They came out with that support. So we do know that. But Malik, one second. Hold on. Malik, one second. Malik, one second. Hold on. Malik, one second. Hold up. We're not moving to a completely mail-in process. There is still going to be in-person voting. One second. So this is not like Washington state where they actually have a complete mail-in process. So this is simply mailing it out. If a person determines that they don't want to vote in person to protect themselves, they can avail themselves to do so.

And so, but this is not moving to a complete mail-in voting process. Well, you didn't let me finish what I was getting ready to say, which was that very thing, pointing out the distinction between this vote-by-mail system, which is what we had here in D.C.,

and they also had it in Georgia, they also had it in Kentucky. What we had to do, we had to request the ballots. Now, that's that's different than what's happening in Nevada, where they want to send out the ballots to every registered voter. So what's wrong with that? Well, here in D.C., I don't see that that's a problem there at all. No, no, no, no. So you think it's OK that Nevada and other states are just simply going to send it out and do a self-addressed stamp because Donald Trump and Republicans are fighting that. They don't want that at all.

Well, I don't speak for the administration, so I'm giving my point of view on what I think is something that will be effective. If Nevada if there is a way to ensure that the voter rolls have actually been cleaned, then absolutely. I don't have a problem with that system where a state decides to send out ballots to their to active voters. So it's a way to ensure that those rolls are clean. I don't have a problem with that at all. So, Joseph, why do you think Republicans are and Trump is fighting so hard because he every turn. Oh, fraud, fraud, fraud, fraud. Now all of a sudden, oh, not in Florida. Please vote for me. Vote for me. This is a form of voter suppression.

Look, I think all of the above is true. I also think that both parties have arrived at an incorrect conclusion based on an inaccurate set of circumstances. The reality is that there is not much voter fraud in America. That is just a fact. It is an infrequent occurrence. Having said that, the reason why it is infrequent is because we have parameters in place that make it very difficult to game the system. I agree with Malik. I think that at the end of the day, people should have the right to be able to vote freely. I think that, again, we have absentee ballot systems in place all across this country that provide people with an opportunity

to be able to request a ballot and then to turn around and return that ballot to the board of elections or to wherever they return their ballot. The problem becomes when you start sending out ballots indiscriminately to all active voters. I've been on a ballot. I've worked on campaigns in New Hampshire, in Texas, in New Jersey, in California. I can tell you that no matter what state you're in, you routinely knock on doors looking for 85-year-old Republicans and find 24-year-olds wearing Bernie Sanders t-shirts and vice versa. The notion that we have accurate voter rolls is simply not honest. It is dishonest to say that we can have overnight transformed an electoral system to just send

out ballots indiscriminately. Now, does that mean that millions of people are going to be voting illegally? It does not. That is a fantasy. I wish the president would stop saying it because that undermines the real true threat that we're trying to describe, which is the fact that an election that was decided by less than 78,000 people just four years ago could find itself thrown into turmoil by the fact that we cannot verify if votes were actually accurately cast in swing states. So I think that should be the focus.

How do we actually put together in the remaining time here, less than 100 days, a set of processes, particularly in those swing states, to ensure that people have the opportunity to vote, but also at the same time making sure that we're not having ballots sent out to ensure that people have the opportunity to vote, but also at the same time making sure that we're not having ballots sent out to apartments that people don't live in, homes that people have been evicted from, and have the type of harvesting that you so accurately brought up. Kelly, what we're dealing with here is Donald Trump literally has said, if you do mail, Republicans have said, the Speaker of the House in Georgia said, oh, no, if we do mass mail in voting, Republicans will never win. Well, I'm sorry. Why don't you learn to make the case then, as opposed to say, let's keep the current system where we can try to suppress votes because you shut down more than a thousand voting, polling locations all across the South. You make it difficult for people. And so that's what they're afraid of.

They're afraid of losing as opposed to making the argument our folks should vote for them. They are afraid that more people, they're actually afraid, Kelly, that more people will actually vote. Wow. I mean, but that's always been the case, especially in the past, you know, 10, 15 years of Republicans being afraid because of the browning of this country. The browning of this country gives way to more progressive voices in this country just by way of how conservative and binary the Republican Party has become. So, yeah, they're afraid that they're going to lose. But specifically the narrative that, you know, oh, we're just going to have all these ballots and, you know, people are just sent to the wrong people or no people at all, they're not going to be counted. If you send something, anything, to a vacant building, anything,

piece of paper, sales paper, anything, it's not going to be taken by anybody. It's addressed to somebody. And if they're not there, they're not there. No one's going to vote on behalf of that person. That is extremely rare to the point where it almost never happens. So for people to be, or Republicans specifically, to be afraid that all these ballots are going to be out in the wind and they're going to be counted and they're not going to be representing of anybody, that doesn't make any sense because who's going to be out in the wind and they're going to be counted and they're not going to be representing anybody.

That doesn't make any sense because who's going to sign it? It's not only that, they still are going to do a cross check when it comes in to verify. Exactly. That was really the issue in New Jersey. The fact that they needed to cross reference things and it didn't match. It's the same reason when they went with the Acorn, they were like they got busted. Right. They got busted. That's because they had security. That's why they do it. All right. Let's go to our next story.

A recent poll sponsored by a fair vote shows that Senator Kamala Harris of California is Democratic voters top choice for Joe Biden's vice president. The survey poll, 1,296 Democratic and independent voters on July 30th and 31st. Included in the poll were Harris, Senator Elizabeth Warren, former White House National Security Advisor Susan Rice, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, Senator Tammy Duckworth, Congresswoman Val Demings, and Congresswoman Cameron Bass. Kelly, do you think Joe Biden says he's going to make a decision soon? Could be this week. Do you believe that Senator Kamala Harris

is going to be his choice? I don't know because every four years we come across this issue of who's going to be the new VP and I feel like every election cycle we get surprised by who the pick is going to be so I don't want to say prematurely

that it's going to be Senator Harris when it very well could not be. I believe a couple months ago now we were having this same discussion. I personally wanted Val Demings for a multitude of reasons. And if that happens, great. If it doesn't, hopefully he made a better choice, although I feel like Val Demings would be the better choice. But to answer your question directly, I'm not sure. Okay, Kelly, who do you want? I want Val Demings.

Got it. Mellick, do you think it's going to be Senator Kamala Harris? It's really hard to say. If you had asked me this probably about a couple of weeks ago, I would have said yes. I'm asking you now. But considering the comments from Jim Clyburn just recently about that for black people not mandating that there be a black female VP, that's what's giving me this uncertainty. And what we do know is that

we can pretty much assume that Clyburn had the same conversation with Joe Biden. I think just from a practical point of view, he should actually choose Kamala Harris. I don't think that she adds in, she may add just a tad bit of excitement to the ticket, but not enough to really sway an election. Typically, vice presidents add certain elements to the ticket that the person at the top of the ticket do not have. So you had Joe Biden with Barack Obama, you have Mike Pence now with Donald Trump. I'm not sure what element Kamala Harris adds to a Joe Biden ticket outside of filling the black female role. You can say that for Susan Rice, she's had the positions, she's had these executive positions within the federal government. And so if you're looking for someone to step in on day one, if something happened and

she ended up being the president of the United States, I could definitely see Susan Rice makes more sense from that perspective. But she doesn't add foreign policy, domestic policy. She doesn't add that to Joe Biden's ticket. So I kind of agree with Kelly. It's really a hard call. I don't see how he could not choose the former attorney general of the largest state. Sure, he's gonna get California anyway, but I don't see how he does not choose Kamala Harris as the former attorney general of the nation's largest state, the only black female US senator, and also a former presidential candidate. I don't see how he doesn't choose her, but...

Here's the deal. She doesn't have to add foreign policy experience because that's what he's got. She does add, she does bring domestic policy experience. Not only, yes, attorney general, but also district attorney. Joseph, your thoughts. Do you think it's going to be Senator Kamala Harris? If not, who do you think it's going to be? I think Joe Biden needs to get out of the basement,

announce that he's picked Michelle Obama, and go back into the basement. First, stop. That's not going to happen. No, no, no. Hold on. Let me be real clear. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Hold on. This is real clear. Hold on. I'm going to let you finish. This is real clear. Michelle Obama hates politics, okay? So I need everybody, look, look, she hates politics. She despises politics.

Michelle Obama will never be VP. She will never be president because she hates politics. So don't even waste brain cells on that. Do you think he's going to pick Kamala Harris? If not, who do you think he picks? Well, I mean, I think the sensible thing for him to do would be to pick Governor Whitmer or to even pick Amy Klobuchar as much as people are going to, you know. How is that sensible?

Because of obviously the aftermath of George Floyd. That would be the sensible thing to do. How? Because I don't. How? Because the reality is that people are so obsessed with trying to reinvigorate the Obama coalition. Respectfully, Kamala Harris does not do that. Did you see the numbers Klobuchar got during the primaries? Yeah, that's not the point. We're not talking about people. We're talking about the Electoral College because people. Right. But what does Klobuchar bring you, though? Minnesota is a blue state.

Minnesota is barely a blue state. It was lost by President Trump by less than 2%. If you're talking about concern. When's the last time Republicans won Minnesota? It was a very long time ago. That's not the point. The point is that the RNC has spent millions of dollars. They've been pointed into Minnesota over the last four years.

If you just look at the spending for the RNC, if you're just talking strategically, you look at a place. Where I can turn around and flip Michigan and flick Pennsylvania and flip Wisconsin. This election is over. So, again, from a strategic standpoint, I think it would behoove him to pick somebody who can lock in that blue, that blue collar. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait one second, one second. But I, but I, but I thought the reason, the reason they were, they were talk touting Biden as a nominee because he could pick up those white voters. So why do you need another white woman to pick up the white voters that Biden was supposed to pick up? And in fact, Henry, Henry, go to my iPad, please. These are the poll averages in the state of Minnesota.

Public policy, 52-42 Biden. Morning Consult, 47-44. Trafalgar Group, 49-44. Fox News, 51-38. Gravis Marketing, 54-37. Mason-Dixon, 49-44. Minneapolis Star Tribune, 50-38. Gravis Marketing, 54-37. Mason Dixon, 49-44. Minneapolis Star Tribune, 50-38. Yeah. I mean, again, if you're sitting here looking at poll numbers, then again, you can fall into the trap of four years ago to say there's no way Donald Trump can win.

I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that, but I'm telling you. I don't, I mean, Amy Klobuchar polled at 1.5. Amy Klobuchar didn't even poll at 1% among black people. Not even one. And Joe Biden was barely polling anything when he ran in 2008. And yet he made a magnificent pick for vice president. So we're not talking about who needs to be at the top of the ballot. Right, I know that. What type of voters do you need to lock in when you're talking about winning this

election in November? And I think that the things that Democrats should be focused on is making sure that they do claw back as many of those people who went from Obama to Trump. That is a very big part of the reason why President Trump was able to get elected in 2016. They should have a laser-like focus on that because, again, as I said before, tongue in cheek, unless they're planning on putting Michelle on the ballot, which is not going to happen, then trying to basically put a brown face at the bottom of the ticket for the purposes of trying to raise the enthusiasm gap is not going to be the smartest way to make sure that they're victorious in November.

Joe Bouchard would be smarter? Here's a deal. Here's a deal. Here's what you're looking at right here. I also said the governor Whitmer, but the reality is, if you're first of all, first of all, first of all, Whitmer is not even on the list. He is not on the short list. No, no, no, no. I thought he should pick. No, no, no. But first, right. But first of all, if they're not even on the short list, it's a waste of conversation saying pick them because clearly they didn't make the cut. So the bottom line is here, we know who's made the cut. The thing here, we know that. We know Harris has made the cut.

Warren has made the cut. Duckworth has made the cut. Bass has made the cut. Demings has made the cut. Out of those five, who do you think he's going to pick out of those five? I mean, give me one name. When it comes to shove, he'll pick Harris because for no other reason, he's got to pick somebody that I think realistically can run in four years because I think it's quite obvious he will not be able to run in four years. All right,

folks, I got it. All right, folks, here's the deal. Axios, Jonathan Swan does an interview with Donald Trump. Oh, my God. This is really one of the dumbest interviews you've ever seen in your life. You want to know how stupid Trump is? Just watch this interview. But he asked him specifically about Congressman John Lewis. Listen to this idiot.

John Lewis is lying in state in the U.S. Capitol. How do you think history will remember John Lewis? I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know. I don't know John Lewis. He chose not to come to my inauguration. He chose... I don't... I never met John Lewis, actually. I don't believe. Do you find him impressive?

I can't say one way or the other. I find a lot of people impressive. I find many people not impressive. But no, but I didn't find his story. He didn't come to my inauguration. He didn't come to my State of the Union speeches. And that's OK. That's his right. And again, nobody has done more for black Americans than I have.

He should have come. I think he made a big mistake. Taking your relationship with him out of it, do you find his story impressive, what he's done for this country? He was a person that devoted a lot of energy and a lot of heart to civil rights, but there were many others also. There's a petition to rename the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as the John Lewis Bridge. Would you support that idea?

I would have no objection to it if they'd like to do it. Yeah, that's a good idea. Would have no objection to it whatsoever. Okay. Y'all, in the same interview, Donald Trump literally said he has done more for black Americans than any other president in history. He said possibly even including Abraham Lincoln. Jonathan Swan asked him, Joseph, about President

Lyndon Baines Johnson in the Civil Rights Act. And Trump goes, how did that turn out? It actually turned out well. It was the public accommodations. So when you hear him say he has done more for black Americans than any president in history, what do you say? I mean, I actually think it's pretty sad because quietly as it's kept, he really did have the opportunity to do a lot of good things for black America. And he simply watched the piss go by or in some cases said that there were many fine people on both sides. So, I mean, I think the hard truth is that I think most people of color know that when it comes to the administration, there is what is tangential, what has been done when it comes to the First Step Act and when it comes to opportunity zones. But words do matter. They certainly matter when they come from the leader of the free world. And I think that the things

that happen in between the legislation also have an impact on how history views you and how you're able to make an impact on society and communities of color. And so I think that when you weigh those things side by side, there are many things that have happened that make black Republicans cringe, that make black Americans terrified. And the fact that even in this interview, you can't even find three nice words to string together about John Lewis, a man who literally had his head beaten in so that people that look like us could have freedom and justice in this country. I think it speaks volumes for why, as much as you'll have certain Republicans who say that President Trump is going to get 30 percent of the African-American vote, it is more realistic

that he will probably get less than 10, because there is no emotional connectivity or trust that exists right now, no matter how many times they run ads about Alice Johnson being freed from prison. Malik, I'm trying to understand something here. Here we go to my iPad. You know, Trump loves to, the black unemployment rate reached a high in March of 2010 of 19.3 percent. This was following, of course, the worst economic calamity in America since the Great Depression that took place under Republican President George W. Bush. And all of a sudden you see see the black unemployment rate, again, peaking here. Then all of a sudden, going down, down, down, down, down, down, down, down. And then we get to February 2017.

We get to February 2017. And that really is the last, really, full month, if you will, for President Obama, you know, the last full month. Actually, if you take the January 2017 Obama, for the last full month. Actually, if you take the January 2017, it was 7.2%, 7.2%, okay? So then all of a sudden, so that's 19.3 to 7.2, that's a drop of 11.1 points. So Trump comes in at 7.2. It goes down to, under him, 5.1. We go here.

Then all of a sudden, it starts going up and going up and going up. And right now, we're at 15.4. So he claims that how he's done so many things for black people economically. But then he makes his first step at when you hear Donald Trump say he's done more for black Americans than any other president in history. Do you say, wow, he's telling the truth? Or do you say, man, stop lying? I think that's a rhetorical flourish that Donald Trump likes to use and many Republicans as well. When you look at and what we have to have this conversation, is it true or false? Well, I don't think that that's true at all, but I think that there are people have different metrics that they use to gauge what that is. So what's his metric?

Well, I can't I've never had a conversation with Donald. No, no, no, no, no, no. But no, but you just said people use different metrics. What do you think is the metric that Donald Trump and the Republicans are using to determine if they've done more for black Americans, anybody else? What do you think? What do you think he's using? Well, what I what I would imagine is that the efforts around criminal justice reform. I would also. And as you noted, but yes, the unemployment rate, if we're talking about things like the increase in black women businesses, all of the metrics that presidents themselves use to gauge how they're responding to various communities. But more than any president in

history. So, so you, do you believe that Donald Trump has done more for black people than president Johnson did by signing the civil rights act of 64, the Voting Rights Act of 65, and the Fair Housing Act of 68. And also the creation of Head Start, the poverty programs, and all those initiatives. Do you think Trump has done more for black Americans than what LBJ did? Well, I don't think that, for me, I wouldn't frame it as a conversation as any president doing more because I- But he did. But he said that, because I'm asking you, I mean, even, even when Jonathan Swan asked him about president Johnson, Trump said, yes. Do you believe that Donald Trump has done more for black Americans than what

president Lyndon Baines Johnson did? Well, I don't think that you really can compare the impact of civil, what happened during the civil rights, but he does anything that that's that's Donald Trump. But I know. So, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm asking you. I'm asking you to give me an actual answer. Do you believe. Do you believe we initially started the conversation? I said, no, that's not something that I agree with.

You literally asked me that and I answered it flat footed. No, I don't believe that I agree with. You literally asked me that, and I answered it flat-footed. No, I don't believe that. Then you asked me. Right, because he said all these metrics. He said all these metrics, and I'm not trying to understand what the metrics are, because, I mean, you look at the metrics. So what your question is. It's like two of them. Well, Malik, what do you think that Republicans or Donald Trump are talking about?

You're not asking me what I think. You're asking me to think what Republicans and Donald Trump think. No,. No, aren't you a Republican? Aren't you a Republican? Aren't you a Republican? Answer your question again. No, I don't think. Are you a Republican? More impactful than Lyndon Baines Johnson. No, I do not believe that. But you don't have anyone on the show who's pushing that. This is an argument, I guess, that you want to have. No, no, no, no. It's not an argument I want to have. No, I just said again, no, I just find it interesting. I just, I just find it interesting, Kelly, to listen to this dude throw this out. I had to smack Herschel Walker's son the other day on Twitter who said that Donald Trump has provided

more job opportunities for minorities than any other president in history. And that's just a flat out lie. And again, these are the lies they toss out. And he tosses this stuff. He's just lying. Just lying. Kelly, but he's been doing that for the past five years now. And I don't anticipate that changing anytime soon. When he talks about the things that he has done for black people and people of color, with the exception of giving HBCUs money that they already deserve and letting people out of prison that weren't supposed to be there in the first place, I struggle to find a point of agreement that he's done anything for this black person specifically, let alone the rest of my people. So I don't really take what he says seriously anymore. I used to back in 2016 when, you know, being the president actually had weight in this

country. But now it is really a president who cried wolf every single day. And then not only is he crying wolf, he's trying to prove that the wolf is there. He's not just crying about, he's like, look at this, here's a wolf. And it's like, you know, Microsoft publisher pieces of paper with big old chunks of pie graphs and bar charts that say absolutely nothing. So I don't, again, I don't take anything what, I don't take anything that our president says seriously because I don't know if he takes himself seriously, truly, because nothing out of his mouth for the past five years has made sense in any context, let alone what he's done for black people. Folks, let me just Joseph. Go ahead, Joseph. Wait, wait, wait one second. Joseph, Joseph. Yeah, wait, wait, one second, Malik. Malik, hold on.

Joseph, then Malik. Joseph. Yeah, I mean, just quickly here. I mean, I think the reality is that I think what you're talking about, Roland, is true. But I think there is a little kernel of truth buried in what the president does, says, because of the simple fact that my entire adult life and parts of my youth, I mean, we sat here begging and pleading to have black men and women released from prison for crimes they had no business being in prison for.

And so the notion that we would actually basically ignore that piece of landmark legislation, I think, is disingenuous. We wouldn't ignore it from anybody else. Well, first of all, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Flaxley, correct. We've never ignored it on this show. And what we also haven't ignored is that we haven't ignored that they that Republicans blocked the legislation under Obama. And we also have it ignored that initially, initially, Trump only wanted to do prison reform. When the bill went from the House to the Senate, Dick Durbin and also Chuck Grassley, Harris and Booker said, no, no, no, no, no.

This ain't good enough. And it actually became a criminal justice reform bill in the Senate. And that's the one that got signed. But initially, Jeff Sessions was fighting it. And look, and I had personal conversations with Jared Kushner on this. And so that's what you have. But go right ahead. Finish your point. So we haven't ignored on this show. No, no, no. I think I think the crux of the matter is that the legislation got passed the same way every other legislation gets passed. You have amendments, you have people that fight for additional things. But what ends up hurting this, and I think, again, what the real untold story him, has a certain level of clout with a robust portion of Americans that do not want to wrestle with the vestiges of our lesser angel. He could uniquely talk about the issues that have affected George Floyd and so many people of color.

He has chosen not to. He could uniquely be willing to bridge the divide in this time of COVID-19 when it comes to perhaps the death of somebody like Congressman Lewis. He has chosen not to. And so I think to me, the greater tragedy is to not necessarily say that what he is talking about is so unfounded, but the fact that there was actually a possibility that it could have been true had he only accepted the challenge. And so I think that to me, that is kind of the silver lining or the unfortunate outcome that too often gets ignored or lost in the flourishes. Well, I'll say this here before, Malik, you make your final point.

And I got to go to a break. I'm sending a text to somebody else right now. Is that actually, if you even say, has he done more than a Republican president? Richard Nixon actually did more when you look at the programs that Bob Brown put in place. Oh, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, the numbers don't lie. But, Melick, go ahead with the final point. Yeah, I just wanted to say that I think what we should all acknowledge is that there is a macro and a micro discussion when we're talking about things that impact the black community. We know as a fact that the things that directly impact us happen on the local and state level.

At the presidential level, they're more macro things. So there are things like health care, Obamacare, or Trump's criminal justice reform bill. There are things that each president comes in and they add, they maybe add new ideas for themselves, or they piggyback on things that the previous administration did. We saw that with Barack Obama and George Bush. We see that now with Donald Trump and Barack Obama. But Trump wants to drop the Affordable Care Act. I'm sorry.

Trump wants to drop the Affordable Care Act. I think the Republicans and I actually I was listening to the news. I think it was on yesterday is that this was going to be a focus. I think that the Republicans. Man, look, it was listening to the news, I think it was on yesterday, is that this was going to be a focus. I think that the Republicans should have a response. Man, look, that's a lie. Man, that's a lie. Trump, we ran an ad. Trump has been saying, Trump actually said two weeks ago he was going to sign a new health care plan by July.

Just Monday, a news conference, he says, oh, I'm going to sign it in two weeks. He lying. Mitch McConnell, Republicans came out and actually said there is no plan. We have not seen a plan. Nobody knows what the hell he's talking about. He's lying. Well, I'm thinking when I'm not I'm not just talking about Donald Trump. I'm talking about the Republican plan in general. There's no plan. The Republicans say there is no health care plan. They said it. OK, so to start back where I was before you interrupted me, what I- No, I had to give a factually correct. No, you're just cutting me off and not letting

me- No, I meant, no, but no, you mentioned the continuation, you mentioned the continuation of the Affordable Care Act. Trump wants to end the Affordable Care Act. This is something that I would like Republicans to focus on, and I believe what I've heard over the last few days is this something that the Republican caucus itself is going to start focusing on because they realize that in 2020, when Trump is reelected, that they're going to need something to get whether Obamacare is totally gone or not. The Republicans are going to need a plan. And there are conversations what to do in 2021. I doubt very seriously that there will be a plan before November, but

I do expect in the second term of Donald Trump, Republicans' hands will be forced where they would have to deal with the issue of health care. Let me help all of y'all out. Republicans took more than 50 votes to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and that entire time they kept promising they had a plan.

They have none. Trump has been saying when he ran for office and in the last three and a half years that he has replaced the Affordable Care Act. He has never presented one. There is none. And so here's the other deal, Malik. He ain't getting reelected. Got to go to a break. We'll be back.

We'll talk Black Girls Code and talk to Ed LeVert on Rolling Mark Unfiltered. You want to check out Rolling Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. It's Rolling Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there? Rolling 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. R10! All right, folks. Seek.com is a black-owned company. They make these virtual reality headsets here.

You can utilize them with their content on Seek.com. Mary Spio is a sister. She actually is the inventor of this. And so this is a great, I love the colors, black and gold, my frat colors. And also they have these great headphones, tremendous bass, 360 degree headphones, 4D as well. You can use this for gaming. You can attach a microphone to it. You can also do Bluetooth or do the power cord.

And, of course, you can use this for phone conversations as well. The other day I was out walking, a two-mile walk, and so listen to music, but then have that conversation when people call my cell phone with these headphones. All you got to do is go to SEEK.com, C-E-E-K.com. Use this promo code RMVIP2020, RMVIP2020 for a discount for these products. And when you support them, you support Roland Martin Unfiltered. all right folks black girl code has seven established institutions and is operating in seven states in the united states as well as johannesburg south africa that reached more than 3 000 students and plan to expand to eight more cities in the United States.

Joining us right now is the founder and CEO of Black Girls Code, Kimberly Bryant. Kimberly, how you doing? I'm doing great, Roland. So in terms of this expansion, I mean, you know, what has it been like to see these young sisters? Is it just young sisters who are getting into coding? Yeah, we're actually in 15 cities. I think we got a little late on that. All right, I'll tell my producers that, but go ahead, y'all in 15 cities. All right, go ahead.

We're in 15 cities, and we've reached probably about 18,000 students so far, but we start with girls as young as six years old. We go all the way up to the time they graduate from high school. But now we're even starting to work with them as college students. So we're working with alumni now and getting them into these jobs in the tech industry after they graduate from college. And so what are you actually doing with them? What are you teaching them? I mean, what is it? I mean, what kind of program, how many days, how long is it? Is it a month? Is it a whole year deal? Explain to folks exactly what the process is. Yeah, of course. So Black

Girls Code really is an afterschool program or afterschool coding program. So we do our events on weekends. We do our events in summer. Now it's like our traditional summer camp where we will run camps usually across the U.S. This year was virtual from around the middle of June to now the second week in August. That's a day-long camp. But during the year, we run programs in all of these chapters from January through December, the events rotate in the various cities and they're primarily on the weekends. Now we do some things during the school day or after school. We do field trips, but we are teaching them in these workshops, everything from virtual reality, like with the virtual goggles that you just shared, we teach virtual reality and how to build these virtual environments.

We teach artificial intelligence. We teach web design. We teach game development, robotics. We are also doing blockchain and teaching the girls about cryptocurrency. So we really try to teach everything from soup to nuts that has to do with the tech industry and really give these young women the skills they need to be the tech innovators of tomorrow um what is it i mean uh how has it been just watching their matriculation um watching them uh grow uh i i reverend jackson and rainbow push they had this uh this tech deal I videotaped it about two or three years ago. And man, it was just the noise level. And just me, all these young folks, all these young black boys and girls were just so excited because they were just really into it and learning. And people were saying, hold up, these black kids can do this? Yeah, if you give them a shot.

Absolutely. I think one of the things that I find the most joyous is seeing these students, some boys but mostly girls, that we have worked with really looking at issues from a Liz that is based on their life experience and then using technology as a tool to create a solution. Like we just posted an article up on our Twitter about a student who probably is only about 13, but created this social justice app based on the skills that she's learned within Black Girls Code, but reflective of the things she's seeing around her right now. And that's the kind of empowerment we're doing

with these students is giving them the skills that they're excited to use to create something that creates some real change in the world. Questions from our panel, I'll start with Kelly. I mean, I've heard of Black Girls Code for the longest. Could you just give us a little bit more about any plans on expanding the program for possibly adults? Is there like a component of your program for that? Because I would love to learn how

to code. Yeah, we thought about it in the past and I don't know that we'll actually do any direct service type of program to adults right now, but to be determined. Like we've been very lucky to get a lot of support, a lot of funding over this last couple of months, literally. But this year that allow us to really expand our vision of what we do and how we do it. But we also this over since I think about the of April, have been doing these virtual workshops. And there's a series that we do called Tech Me that anybody can join. It's a virtual one-hour, maybe two-hour workshop. And anyone, any age, any demographic can join that mini session and learn about whatever the topic is we're teaching at that moment.

This next one in a few weeks is going to be about cryptocurrency. So really prevalent right now in terms of that marketplace and anyone, an adult, a child, can tap into that and learn a little bit about it. Joseph. Hold up. Not hearing Joseph. Guys, what's up? Not hearing Joseph. Guys, what's up? Now, Joseph, go ahead, go ahead.

Yeah, so obviously, you know, we love the work that you guys have been doing. And I know a little bit about the work that, you know, Tower Read has done as far as, you know, helping people bridge that gap. People who are not proficient in coding, but helping them to develop apps. Do you guys do any work as far as, you know, helping individuals transition from going from this place where they don't know how to code, they don't necessarily even know the first thing about technology, to being able to, you know, be fully integrated coders? And then the second part of that is, you know, obviously for us at home or us on this panel, you know, what can we do to help expand the work that you guys are doing, particularly maybe in our local communities that are also deficient in STEM services for

our Black and Brown youth? Yeah, so for BGC, what we really have as our mantra is to create a full stack developer. So I think one of the things that is often a barrier for people of color in the tech industry is that we'll often have, you know, minimal basic tech skills. But those minimal basic tech skills don't get you to a lead engineer position. They don't get you to be the designer in these companies. They don't get you to those levels where you get to make the decisions unless you have a full stack engineering skills. And that is what we're trying to create with our girls. So the girls that are coming into our program are certainly coming in with minimally basic skills. But as they are taking these increasingly progressively more intensive workshops,

then they are able to get to a point where they are now going off to college, majoring in computer science, minor in computer science, and can come into these companies or create companies of their own where they're able to get into those higher level tech engineering jobs, which black people are traditionally right now about 5% or less. So that's what we're doing, which is a little bit different than creating an app using no code. We're trying to get those girls with those more than mentally basic skills so that they can become those principal engineers, if you will, or those founders of those companies. One of the things that I think is really important that we do as a community is push for school districts to embed these computer science classes into the school curriculum. It's not enough just for students to just do coding on the weekends or just do

after-school programs. This is a skill set that we need to teach along with basic math and algebra, calculus, et cetera, because it's a life skill that our students are going to need from here on out. Like tech touches everything. And we need to demand that our students get access to level the playing field, especially for students of color. So I would say for parents, that is absolutely something that you should be doing at your schools, at a middle school, even at elementary school, really pressing those school districts and principals to make sure that there's some basic coding classes embedded in the curriculum. And then, of course, supporting organizations like Black Girls Code who fill the gap that schools don't do with the after school programs. Mellot. First of all, I think it's great what you're doing.

I applaud these efforts here in Washington, D.C. There's something similar. And actually, it's in reference to Kelly's question about whether or not there's an adult component, in Washington, D.C., they actually have something pretty much like that where you can, after going through several certifications, obviously, because as we know, coding is not a simple thing. It's a very complicated discipline. And so they have in the city where you can actually get that at no cost here in D.C. So I applaud these type of efforts. I volunteer at a private school for boys here in DC where they're looking, and I think they go up to fifth grade. I think that's, I guess that would be elementary age. And they actually

are doing that themselves. So to see these young black boys involved in that effort, I think it's great. One of the things that I'm sure you know how this whole thing works, but I would encourage you to, if you're not already, to get involved in some of the things that the administration is doing around STEM because they've actually been spending a lot of time and resources on trying to bolster STEM programs in schools and places around the country. One of the – what I really wanted you to talk about. Real quick.

Yeah, we hear a lot of that. We hear a lot of about coding and what it means to engineer, but talk dollars and cents. What does a career, a salary in coding look like? What does that look like? And this would be the final question. Go ahead. Well, one of the things that I think is important

is that when we think about the number of STEM jobs that are being created now, there's a huge gap in terms of how their company is able to fill them. But if you're looking at those entry level engineer, full stack engineer salaries, students that like my daughter now, when she graduates, she'll easily be able to utilize her technology degree and master's or bachelor's in computer science to get a six-figure salary coming in the door. Because those entry-level engineer salaries are averaging about $75,000, $75,000, $85,000. That's for a graduate bachelor's program, graduate in computer science. So it's really about increasing this opportunity for our students to get access to these high-paying fields that are highly technical. Because then we're talking about creating generational wealth in black communities, which is something that there have been some certain barriers for us doing in the past.

All right. Then Kimberly Bryant, where can people get more information? Go to our website, blackgirlscode.com. Lots of information there. Reach out to us on social media at blackgirlscode. Happy to connect with everyone.

All right. Kimberly, thanks a lot. We appreciate it. Thank you, Roland. All right. I want to thank my panel, Joseph, Kimberly, thanks a lot. We appreciate it. Thank you, Roland. All right. Bye. I want to thank my panel,

Joseph, Kelly, and Millett. We appreciate it. Thank you so very much as well for joining us on today. Going to a break. When we come back, we'll chat with Rock and Roll Hall of Famer,

one of the greatest singers of all time, from the fabulous OJs, my man, Aiden LeVert. Next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. You want to support Roland Martin Unfiltered?

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All right, folks. The husband of Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey has been charged with multiple counts of misdemeanor assault with a firearm. You might remember Lacey was waving a gun at protesters on the doorstep of the couple's home a few months ago. Right now, get off. Good morning. Get off of my porch.

Are you going to shoot me? I will shoot you. Get off of my porch. Can you tell Jackie Lacey that we're here? I don't care who you are. Get off of my porch. We will get off of your porch. Right now.

We're calling the police right now. Good. Wow. He pulled a gun and pointed it at my chest. We're here for the community meeting, Jackie Lacey. Jackie Lacey loves to go. Maybe he'll shoot me in theacey. Jackie Lacey will go. Maybe you'll shoot me in the back. Jackie Lacey will go.

Jackie Lacey will go. Jackie Lacey promised to have a community meeting with Black Lives Matter. She never did. She's running for re-election. And I can tell you right now that there are other black Ds across the country. Ain't no love for Jackie Lacey. And so we certainly will see. Of course,

David Lacey was under investigation for several months after the video of him surfaced on March 2nd. An arraignment is scheduled for August 13th, 2020. Lacey is not currently in police custody. Prosecution will be carried out by the California Department of Justice to avoid any conflict of interest. All right, folks, he is my homeboy, my man, Eddie La lavert uh y'all uh we know his singing we know man just all the great things the the oj's do and y'all is so funny too because uh so so here's what happened so eddie hits me up first of all eddie hits me up and he's sitting here going man uh when am i when am i coming on the show uh when you gonna have me on the show? When are you going to have me on the show? And then, he don't want to talk music.

I'm like, what you want to talk about? I want to come on and talk shit about Trump. So, welcome to the show, Eddie LaVert. What's up? What's up, guy? What's going on, man? You know Malik is waiting outside in the house. Nah, I'm good.

I ain't worried. I ain't phased by nobody. So you want to come at me, you can try to come at me. I'm trying to find something, y'all. So I posted some videos, y'all, on my Instagram page promoting Eddie coming out. I have, of course, I've been to many uh oj's concerts i've shot all kind of video uh jeffrey osborne golf tournament all that good stuff and so eddie is always doing his thing but eddie you want to come on want to talk about politics and y'all did y'all get us

i want to talk about what's going on in my, in my black neighborhood. Go, go. You know, it's like, I don't know where we're going. I don't know to the point of why don't we want to own and have our own direction? Why is it that we're always voting for whoever they put in front of us? Why aren't we voting for our people and voting for our community? I think that one of the worst mistakes we ever made was when we went with integration. I think that that's when we lost our culture.

That's when we lost our neighborhood. That's when we lost our neighborhood. That's when we lost the neighborhood banks. That's when we lost the stores that we were, that we own. And so now we're in a position that we have nothing that we can offer in order for them to let up off our necks, as they want to say, but because systemic racism has a fallout result, which results in why these kids are shooting each other in Chicago, why these kids are killing each other in Chicago, why these kids are killing each other in New York, why these kids, because of, once they get a felony,

they're done in the system. They can't get out from under that because they can't get a job or nothing. So consequently, because of that systemic racism, they're in a position that they have to do whatever they can. Well, you're absolutely right. That's why, of course, this is a video, folks, of Eddie and the O.J.'s performing with the Tom Joyner crews. You're right, because that's why I keep telling people when they want to talk about violence in Chicago, I keep saying you can't talk about violence in Chicago if you don't talk about economics, if you don't talk about education. Absolutely. Because they all go hand in hand. Because you got to remember, if you don't have

the right schooling, you can't get nothing. And then they want to say well you know we're always playing the race card what other card do we have because you we've gone through this for 400 years we protested and protested and protested and riot and burn and and and wreck things we've done it over and over again. Then for 40 years, they'll be quiet and say, okay, you got a peaceful protest. You got to, we don't want to disrupt nothing. But as soon as we quiet down and stop protesting, nothing happens. Here we are again. John Lewis, bless his soul, here's a man that went through that Pettus Bridge with Martin Luther King

where they beat all of those black people up. Nothing changed. And all the time that he was alive from that period to now, he's still fighting the same fight. How do we stop fighting the same fight. How do we stop fighting this same fight? How do we stop getting to this same place? How do we stop?

Unless we become destructive? Because it don't seem like they listen to you unless you're being destructive. Right. He says unless there's some violence, there's going to be being destructive. Right. And Malcolm X says, he says, unless there's some violence,

there's going to be no change. So all the way through history, even the Greeks, the Romans, you name it, the Egyptians, you name it, they all came to violence.

And I'm not a component of violence. I'm not a person who, I don't want to get killed. I don't want to get shot. I don't want nobody I love to get shot. But when I say to the protesters, listen, this is a job that's not for the weak of heart. Because if you're going to make a change, then you have to have the same mentality as the people who will want to keep you under the same regime, under the same pressure. You have to have that same mentality that you want to fight and keep it that way. In other words, if you want to change it, then you got to fight the same way. You got to put yourself on the line the same way that they put themselves on the line. Well, absolutely, of course.

And one of those things, of course, you and the OJ's foundation, education, is a huge part of that. You talked about we got some issues with Eddie's signal there. So we're going to do this here. This is a video, Eddie LaVert, y'all, from the Jeffrey Osborne tournament. Y'all, excuse me. This is from when they had the singing part. So check this out. Oh, yeah. Can you bring it down a key a little low?

I want you to rock with me, rock with me, roll with me. Roll with me. It's over soon with Emily. Oh, so is me. Oh, so is you with me. Oh, never leave. Oh, so is you with me. Oh, never leave. Oh, so is you with me. What's your name? Come on.

What's your name? What's your name? Come on. Looks like we got Elivert back. All right, Eddie, I was talking about education. I think I had too much wine that night. Oh, well, y'all were doing it. Freddie and Jeffrey and John B and Johnny Gill. Well, you got to say that, you know, Jeffrey's thing is a great event where he raises a lot of money

for the people in his area. And I think it's a great event, and I'm glad that I've been a part of it. And I just can't wait until we get back there, Roland. Oh, you know that, man. You know that. We always love doing that thing. And you're right. His tournament supports

a lot of education arts initiatives there in uh rhode island y'all foundation need the exact exact same there but but see here's the thing about the education piece that what people don't understand is that a black college graduate makes on average less money than a white high school dropout see so they tell us get get an education, but you still are dealing with systemic racism when we go get an education, have more student loan debt, and then are making less than a white college dropout. I'm sitting here, look, I'm sitting here, look, I go to school, get a four-year degree, bust my butt in journalism,

Chuck Todd, host of Meet the Press, don't even have a college degree. You've got to remember this. And I just went through this. Here you go. You've got to be a relative. You've got to be a cousin. You've got to have a great resume. You can have all of those things. But if the guy's cousin or his brother wants a job, you're out. And it doesn't matter whether he's white or black. It's still racism. No matter whose cousin it is, no matter who they are, it's still racism in some kind of form. But that's what goes on through this life.

That's why I have this thing that when I do my live Instagram and I say, are you ready for a world that you don't have to compete like that? Are you ready for a world where you don't have to go through the toil and strife? That world that they talk about in the Bible, that we are all striving to get to heaven, where everybody is on the same level, where you don't have to now fight with the next guy for the next job. Are you ready for a world like that? Are you ready to live the way everybody's on the same even keel? How many people are ready to live like that and don't want to strive and don't want

to be the best of their of whatever they're trying to do? You put out a song that was specifically aimed at Donald Trump. You didn't mince any words in it. Yeah. Yeah. We're talking about above the law. Because, you know, the things that he's doing, it just seems like they think that they're above the law. The Roger Stone, all the people that have committed crimes and went to jail, and those that didn't. But he feels like he can do this.

And the people that follow him, they're okaying this. They're okaying this because they hate a certain colored people. They're okaying this because they want it to be the same way it was back in the Civil War days. They want to keep this like this. And I wonder, what did we ever do to them? What have we done to them? We're killing ourselves more than we're killing them. We're messing up our neighborhoods more than we're killing them. What have we done to them that they have to hate us so much? It only can mean that maybe there's some secret

that they're hiding, that we are greater than what they want to say that we are, and they don't want us to know it. Ownership. We've talked about that. You and I were talking. I was talking about this show. You had asked me a question last night

about me not being on a larger platform, one of these other networks. And I said, you know what? I want to own my shit. I want to own my content. Just like just like singers. I want to own my masters. And the reality is, is here for. It's great that Joanne Reed has a as a primetime show on MSNBC. She doesn't own that show. She doesn't own she doesn't own the content. Don Lemon doesn't own his show. She doesn't own she doesn't own the content. Don Lemon doesn't own his show. He doesn't own the content. And so, sure, they might give you a great check, but you don't own it. And so, therefore, they they can't just decide I'm going to put a liver on.

They have to ask somebody else's permission to put you on. I don't have to. I ask my damn self. That's right. And see, my cousin, I got a cousin that worked for NASA and the space program. Anything that he does under the name of NASA becomes their property. Right. And that's the same

thing as far as working for these, for the record companies, as far as working for these television stations, because it's a whole other thing when everybody says, well, who's being heard on radio? They're picking those people that you're hearing on radio. There's no fair way that you're getting on radio because you've got a good record.

No, you've got to be connected with the right people that can're getting on radio because you got a good record no you got to be connected with the right people that can get you on radio and they can then get you on all the right stations it's like here man this is what's so funny to me why is it that we're in the black music business. We have black radio stations, but we don't own no venues. We don't own no agencies, the booking agencies that book you in the venues. We don't have a black agency. And we're a prominent part of black music, but we don't have a black agency. We don't have a black booking agency. We don't have black promoters who are doing the major things. You see what I'm saying? But see, that's why I went after Young and Rubicam earlier

when they're freezing us out, the advertising dollars, freezing out Carol H. Williams, because it is by design to keep us limited and look i look i look at i look at boxing al hayman used to be a big time music promoter al hayman when he became a boxing advisor the reason floyd mayweather is as rich as he is because al hayman said floyd why in the hell you giving all that money to Bob Arum to promote you? You promoting yourself. Floyd Mayweather. You live there in Vegas.

Floyd Mayweather bought out. Floyd Mayweather bought out Bob Arum for $750,000 and has made more than $300 to $400 million. That's called a smart investment. Look, Al Heyman is from Cleveland. He's a Cleveland boy. We got him started in the promotion business. That's how influential the OJs have been. That's how influential. Do you know why they're getting paid the money they're getting paid? When I come in the business and we got those hit records and we told them okay we want to do this show over here but they only want to give you ten thousand dollars eddie what ten thousand dollars

no you're gonna have to pay me 25 they wasn't playing backpacks for more than 25 000 even in the 70s and they felt like if you were getting $10,000 or $15,000, you were getting too much. So we, in turn, had to start working at a rate where we say, look, we're not going to work unless we get 80% and y'all, the promoter, get 20%. Boom. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Because it has been so unfair. It's like the artist is the least paid on the record. The record could be the smash hit, but the artist is only maybe getting 30%. And then they're holding 10% of his money in reserve just in case he got some returns. But those reserves never come up. They always got you in the hole. And so you can't never get an advance

because, and they're still holding 10% of your money, but you can't get an advance because you didn't make back that other 30% that we spent on that record. And then when, and see, we started all of this from the standpoint, when you get paid, when they say you're getting $500,000 an album, the record company itself wants to hold $250,000 or that money to cut the album.

So if I use $250,000 of my $500,000, then who owns the Masters? Right. Then shouldn't I own the Masters? Because you took my money in vain for it. Right. It's that kind of fight. The white boys get those kind of deals

that they're in on everything. You know, even when they go and do concerts, we're in on the concerts, we're in on the parking, we're in on everything. So we're getting a percentage

of all of it. That's why they all end up rich as hell. And most black acts are still struggling to get to their next meal. You got people like the Temptations should be big as the Rolling Stones. Right. Be bigger than the Rolling Stones. But they don't get that million dollars a night that the Rolling Stones get. Why not?

They have had the records. It's because of, and I'm not a rebel, and I'm not trying to cause trouble or none of that. It's because of that systemic racism. It's because of this is the way they've been doing it all of our lives, and this is the way they want to keep doing it. Here's the deal, Eddie. Man, we out of time. So you know what I'm going to do? No, no, no. You just getting

started. So what we're going to do is, here's what we're going to do. We're going to come back next Tuesday with part two of our wisdom from Eddie. Because since you got that Moses white hair and beard, since you got that Moses white hair and beard.

Since you got that Moses white hair and beard, we got to, next Tuesday, we're going to do part two with Eddie LaVert because we have, and I would actually continue it, but we have a live stream coming up next with the Black Women's Roundtable which is featuring Angela Rye. So I wanted to be sure that we don't make them late.

So we're going to do part two next week. And so you tell me what you want to talk about. We'll do that. First of all, Roland, I want to say, leave you with this. Free Bill Cosby and then I want to say Farrakhan for president.

Look at you. You're really trying to start some mess. You're really trying to start some mess. But just do me a favor. Can you stop butt-dialing me? Yeah, I will. Y'all understand, y'all, every three months,

I get a butt-dial in the vert. I be like, hello? Hello? Hello? And I hang up, and I'm like, hello? I'm like, Eddie, y'all, every three months, I'm like,'m like eddie y'all every three months i'm like how you butt down me every three months the first leggy scream y'all is like man i'm doing a show you

can't be calling me right you butt dialing me i'm in the middle of a show y'all it's too funny so all right so next tuesday we're gonna have you back for part two i'll see you then all right eddie laver, I appreciate it. Take care. All right, y'all, we want y'all to support Roller Martin Unfiltered. I'm going to roll this OJ's video while I'm talking. We want y'all to support Roller Martin Unfiltered. Join our Bring the Funk fan club.

Please go to Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered, PayPal, Venmo. You can send us a check to New Vision Media, Inc., 1625 K Street, Northwest, Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 2006. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. We're almost at 11,000. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our followers to join our fan club, giving at least $50 each for the year. $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day. And so please support us in what we do. Hey, y'all, this is what we're going to do.

We don't have concerts these days, so I'm going to let the OJs take us home. I was shooting a different video on the time of Jonah Cruz. And so hope y'all enjoy. See you tomorrow. Holler! We're going to do what can't be done. You know the way it's done. We're standing So I can find

What they do They found me to say It's all the time Gonna get your place The best time Here it comes Come on and play I need

I need I need I need Slow down Slow down Slow down Slow down Come on Let me hear you What did you say? Smiling faces

Smiling faces Smiling faces Sometimes the weather Is on your way I'm on me Slow down Slow down It's all in your head Dying on me No doubt, yeah I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling.

The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.