#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Barack Obama's Message To Black Male Voters, No Parole for Botham Jean's Killer, School Choice

Episode Date: October 12, 2024

10.11.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Barack Obama's Message To Black Male Voters, No Parole for Botham Jean's Killer, School Choice  President Barack Obama was on the campaign trail and sparked a huge debate about Black men supporting Vice President Kamala Harris' bid for the White House. We'll dissect what he said, and actor Wendell Pierce will explain why Obama's message was way off target.  A federal judge in Georgia denies request to extend voter registration for those impacted by Hurricane Helene. The Justice Department is suing the City of South Bend for discrimination against Black and female entry-level police department applicants. The parole request for the white Texas cop who killed Botham Jean gets denied.  And we'll take a look at the importance of school choice.  Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 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 taylorpapersilling.org brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. 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 starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. 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 podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I know a lot of cops and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players

all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. 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 podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple 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. Today is Friday, October 11, 2024. Coming up on Roller, Mark Dunn Footwear, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Donald Trump insults Detroit and the Kamala Harris Tim Walz campaign claps

back with the ferocious ad will have that for you present Barack Obama calls out black men who refused to vote for Kamala Harris. Black man called him out. Will talk with a number of them, including actor Wendell Pierce. Also, the Department of Justice

is going after Virginia when it comes to issues dealing with voting. Also, a federal judge in Georgia denies a request to extend voter registration for those impacted by Hurricane Helene. Also, the DOJ is suing the city of South Bend, Indiana for discriminating against black and female police department employees. Plus, the parole request for the white cop who killed Botham Jean has been denied. Folks, it's a lot we're going to be talking about,

including folks who want school choice to be a part of this education conversation in this presidential campaign. A lot to get to. Plus, we'll have a simulcast on News Nation. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered, on the Black Star Network. Let's go.

He's got whatever the piss he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin'

Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, 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 rolling, Martel.

Martel. Yesterday, Donald Trump spoke at the Detroit Economic Club and insulted the city of Detroit. This is what he actually said. I don't think anything that we're talking about today is high on our list. The whole country is going to be like, you want to know the truth? It'll be like Detroit. Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she's your president. You're going to have a mess on your hands. She just. It's off a lot of folks in Detroit and the campaign, the vice president, Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz.

They clap back. So the videos apparently stuck. All right, let's go. Play it. Troy waving the white flag. The city filing for bankruptcy. That our best days were behind us. That living here is like living in hell.

But you know what we said? We said, f*** that. We rebuilt ourselves. We looked out for each other, got our hands dirty, and put in the hard work. And this guy, he don't know anything about that. We are a city of winners, of up-and-comers, of builders. The Motor City. Bigger and better.

Here, we believe in freedom. We don't bow down to nobody. And we never will. And so what Donald Trump doesn't understand or care to learn is that when he said... Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she's your president. That he should be so goddamn lucky. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Now that's a damn ad!

That's how you clap back. In fact, run that shit back. They said we were dead. Detroit waving the white flag. The city filing for bankruptcy. That our best days were behind us. That living here is like living in hell. But you know what we said?

We said, f*** that. We rebuilt ourselves. We looked out for each other. Got our hands dirty and put in the hard work. And this guy, he don't know anything about that. We are a city of winners, of up-and-comers, of builders, the Motor City. Bigger and better.

Here, we believe in freedom. We don't bow down to nobody, and we never will. And so what Donald Trump doesn't understand or care to learn is that when he said... Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she's your president. That he should be so goddamn lucky. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Man, that's what I'm saying. Michael Imhotep, host, African History Network show, our Detroit Matt Manning, civil rights activist, civil rights attorney out of Corpus Christi.

Joining us in studio, Mondale Robinson, principal of the Black Male Voter Project and also mayor of Enfield, North Carolina. That's what I'm saying, Michael. That's how you fire back when somebody comes to your city, insults your city, and you come right back saying, hashtag team, whip that ass, it's ready for you, Trump and Vance. Absolutely. Come out and vote to make sure that the traitor in chief never becomes president again. Okay? People in Detroit were furious when this happened, Roland. I posted about this on social media yesterday.

I said, Detroit, come out and vote and make sure this convicted felon, con man, traitor, never becomes president again. What Donald Trump is trying to do is to galvanize white suburbanites around Detroit to come out and vote. And he's saying that America is going to be like Detroit in the past, okay, that was disinvested, where you had high poverty rates, things like this. Detroit is one of the greatest comeback stories in this country. Detroit is not perfect. I'll be the first one to admit it.

But homicides are down. A lot of major crimes are down. Investment is up. The population has just increased by 1,800 for the first time in decades. Mayor Mike Duggan has responded back to this. And I'm not a fan of Mike Duggan. I didn't vote for him any of the three times that he ran. But he responded on Instagram. He put out a video refuting this nonsense of Donald Trump. Donald Trump is sick. And he's scared of losing. He's scared of going to prison. This should be a clarion call to not just African Americans across the country,

but anybody who's going to be negatively impacted by his policies like Project 2025 and Agenda 47 to vote to stop him and vote to put somebody in the office who's competent and whose policies will benefit you, which is Kamala Harris. Matt, if those largely white business leaders who were sitting in the office competent whose policies will be right which is common to have matt if uh those largely white business leaders who were sitting in the audience somebody should have stood up and said oh hell no you're not going to sell our city and they should have that should have been a mass walkout for what that man had to say about detroit yeah they absolutely should have and i think michael's right i think that's what he's probably trying to do is not only

galvanize people in the suburbs but play whiteness and the fears. I mean, that's what it comes down to facts for this administration or rather this, this campaign don't matter. Fear is what matters. That's why they're out trumpeting stories that have been debunked regarding people eating pets and all kinds of stuff in Ohio that we know is not true. That's because they're leveraging people's fears. And I think what's especially interesting about this is that this is in Michigan, which is a battleground state. So it seems like the last place you want to go is to a state you absolutely have to win to win the presidency and insult the people in the biggest city in the state. It makes no sense. But that speaks to just the idiocy of this campaign and

how they're playing this. But it's about whiteness is what it is. And they're trying to leverage, you know, white fears, essentially. Let's let's let's let's remind people here that it was Donald Trump in 2020 who attacked black voters in Detroit, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Milwaukee. In addition, according to Jack Smith's recent filing, go to my iPad. One of the officials with Donald Trump literally said, let's make them riot. A Trump campaign operative said, let's make them riot. Come out and come back to me. I lost the page here. Let's make them riot in Detroit. Let's make them riot in Detroit. Let's make them riot after he lost the election. And so right there, that says all you need to know about how they feel about Detroit and black folks.

Yeah, I mean, listen, Roland, if we're being honest, it's not just Detroit. It's not just Wisconsin. It's not just the battleground states. Donald Trump don't care about black people anywhere in the world. And he told us that when he said we were descendant of people from asshole countries. Plus Donald Trump has a long history, even before I was born in 73, when he first came onto the scene of hating black people. We couldn't rent from him.

You couldn't lease an apartment from him. You couldn't work from him. He didn't want you counting his money. The track record is already written about Donald Trump. Anybody believing that Donald Trump give a damn about black people or that is he's not using a method that was created by Lee Atwater for Nixon talking about the Southern strategy. That's all Donald Trump is doing. He's deploying the Southern strategy to remind or wake up the racist nature of those white people that will follow him down any path. We know it's not about patriotism.

Hell, they try to take over the Capitol. We know it's not about backing police officers. They want to defund the police. We know it's not about democracy because they actually want to do away with the Constitution. And Donald Trump himself said he'll be a dictator on day one. So it's not about any of that. All it's about is whiteness and people fear. The problem with Donald Trump is numbers just ain't on his side.

Since 2016, nearly 40 million new voters have come online and 20 million baby boomers have left. That means majority more white people have left the voting roll than ever. So this old tactic of trying to scare white people is not enough. And we just need people to understand that in this moment. This is what the Detroit Free Press had. Go to my iPad. A new court filing in the Justice Department's criminal case against former President Donald Trump and what it argues were his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election said Wednesday that a campaign worker urged a riot to break out at what was then the TFC Center in Detroit as votes believed to be

unfavorable to Trump were being counted. If you keep reading this, it said the claim was made as part of 165 page filing by special counsel Jack Smith. Not only that, keep in mind, Michael, in 2020, you had a top Republican in Michigan who said, let's continue to count all the votes in Michigan except Detroit. Absolutely, and I live four or five minutes away from the TCF Center. I saw it as it unfolded, as you had the pickup truck emblazoned with Trump paraphernalia riding out in front, galvanizing people, and as the crowd grew,

the police had to block off the street in downtown Detroit. I saw it as it happened. So this, and Mondale hit on what I've talked about here on the show before Donald Trump strategically targets and raises animosity against Detroit, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Atlanta, Georgia. Okay. And those in 2020, those cities went for Biden Harris and he's trying to, uh, prey on white fears. And this goes back to 2016 and an analysis from TheAtlantic.com, which talked about how it was not economic issues that drove a lot of uneducated, college, non-educated white males to Trump. It was cultural.

I know a lot of cops and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. 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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple 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 things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org, brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. It was cultural issues and the browning of America, the fear of the browning of America.

So when we communicate with African-Americans especially, and especially young brothers, these are things we have to talk about and talk about policy and how policy impacts every aspect of your lives. And see, Matt, if you expand this, we also have to be explaining to people that this is an individual who will deny resources to such cities. When Puerto Rico, when the hurricane hit there,

he denied resources for two years. His own folk have been on record as saying he was denying resources to an area of California until they had to show him voter data that was his voters who would be impacted. This man, and this is what Project 2025 was all about, this man is going to starve black cities. Donald Trump won't give a damn about Houston, New Orleans.

He won't care about Charlotte. He won't care about Atlanta, Detroit. He will trash any city where you got significant black voters, where you have Democratic mayors, because that's who this man is. And so black folks need to understand, you could be talking about all your pocketbook, but when you start looking at the resources that are becoming to where black folks are, he is going to starve them because he is appealing to his white MAGA base. Yes, full stop. I'm so glad you said that because that's a really astute observation.

But that's not only Donald Trump. Let's be honest. That's what Republicans do around the country. They starve the black part of town. They don't give it resources. And then when that part of town has issues or becomes economically advantageous, they now do what? Go in and steal the land, gentrify and call all the people there mongrels. I mean, that's the strategy we've seen across the United States. And the problem with this, especially to your point, not only is Trump going to deny those resources, and not only is he not going to be truthful about the denial of those resources, that denial of resources is going to be exacerbated in states like Texas, where Greg Abbott, who wants to be booty buddy with Trump, is going to say,

I'm not accepting Medicaid dollars. I'm not accepting federal monies for all the people who need it in the state. All that does is make those kinds of denials that much worse in states like this, where your governor is going to do everything that he can to politically be top of mind to try to succeed Mr. Trump and to try to be a part of his closer entourage. We've seen that. Greg Abbott has done that. We know that. So not only is Trump going to deny it, but it's going to be exacerbated in places where DeSantis, Abbott, and others want to be a part of his same milk.

Mondale, this is what a tweet from one of your fellow mayors, the mayor of Detroit, Mike Dugan, he put out, Detroit just hosted the largest NFL draft in history. The Tigers are back in the playoffs. The Lions are ahead of the Super Bowl.

Crime is down and our population is growing. Lots of cities should be like Detroit. And we did it all without Trump's help. Yeah, listen, I mean, Roland, if we're being honest, this doesn't matter to anybody on that side. Trump followers aren't following him for truth. I mean, this guy told more than 30,000 lies. That's 20-some lies per day when he was in the White House. That is not the nature of what's going on here.

These people are not following Trump because he is Jesus. They're following him because he's the new Jesus. He's a white Jesus that will push white supremacy above all issues and at any cost, regardless of what Americans were talking about, but for white people. And you have to be a white person that loves white people. And I don't I don't care if people are upset about that thought.

But that's what we're seeing here. When you see someone willing to go to this length. I will say this, though. We don't need to talk or explain to black people what's happening with Trump. We see it. Black people know it. I think the world is missing what black people are saying, especially the young brothers. Young brothers aren't saying that they don't, they discount progressive ideas. They're just saying that the tactics that we use are not beneficial to their life or how they are reached. We see this because every election cycle since Donald Trump's come on the scene, black men have shown to be more progressive. 2020, Trump got less of the black male vote than he did in 2016. 2022, we saw more black men have shown to be more progressive. 2020, Trump got less of the black male vote than he did in 2016. 2022, we saw more black men voting progressive. In 2023, we saw something

that we never thought we would see. In Ohio, black men outperformed everybody on women's right to choose. The closest demographic to us were black women, and they were eight percentage points behind us. We even voted more for women's right to choose than we did for the legalization of marijuana. So what I think I'm hearing is people are afraid because of Donald Trump tactic. That means they're working even on some of us, because I know to believe that black men don't understand what's happening right now with Donald Trump is to say that we're living in silos and black men just ain't. We're at the bottom of all social markers, man. Well, bottom line is this here. What I need black folks to understand

is when Donald Trump is sitting here lying and when he rolls out certain black people and he says that, oh, this rapper or this rapper, you know, when you got a Kodak black who's of Haitian descent saying, I'm still going to vote for Trump after what that man said about Haitians, that tells you right there the kind of person that you're

dealing with. And so what our folks also have to understand, this ain't a moment where you sit on the fence. This is not a moment where it's like, well, you know what, and I hear this all the time, well, both parties, they really are the time. Well, both parties, they really are the same. Actually, they're not. And in a moment, we're going to play my interview

with Wendell Pierce. I need people to understand, even when we're having this conversation about both parties, the issue is not party. The issue is your interest. And see, and that's where people keep getting caught up. When I hear a lot of these brothers and sisters, man, the Democratic Party ain't this, they ain't that, ain't nothing happened in 60 years. But first of all, we know that's a lie. But you do have to step back and begin to say, wait a minute, what are the issues that I actually care about? And then when I start looking at the data, how does that actually line up?

That to me is how we must be thinking about this. And I think too many people, when they are talking about these issues, talking about what's going on, you know, out here, they're caught up in a lot of this chatter you're hearing from a bunch of mealy-mouthed individuals who don't know nothing about public policy. And y'all know they are, all those so-called YouTube, TikTok, Instagram political scientists who are telling you that your vote, you get nothing for your vote, none of that stuff matters, well guess what? All of them are lying.

And see, I'm not even gonna give them any shine by mentioning their names, but a bunch of them look like us. And a whole bunch of folk follow them, and I see y'all tweets, oh, you need to debate so and so, doctor so and so, and debate so and so. I don't debate and waste brain cells with fools. And so we need to understand what's going on here.

There are chaos agents who look like us, and there are individuals who y'all, some of y'all watch, listen to, who don't give a damn about black people. I love this billboard that's up in Miami right now. It started on social media. It says, Haitians who respect themselves don't vote for Trump.

Respect Haiti. Go to bit.ly forward slash Haitian votes to make your plan to vote. I love that because that's saying you don't vote for somebody who disrespects your people. And black folks, that includes us. Going to go to break. We come back. We're going to talk about black men, the truth about black men and voting.

We're going to first start with actor Wendell Pierce. And they're going to have a roundtable conversation with nothing but brothers. Because I don't understand when you have conversations about black men and voting, you got sisters in the conversation. You don't have brothers talking about sisters voting, so we're going to have that conversation right here

on Rolling Mark Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. He told us who he was. Should abortion be punished? There has to be some form of punishment. Then he showed us. For 54 years, they were trying to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I did it. And I'm proud to have done it. Now Donald Trump wants to go further with plans to restrict birth control, ban abortion nationwide, even monitor women's pregnancies.

We know who Donald Trump is. He'll take control. We'll pay the price. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House. Now those people have a warning for America. Trump is not fit to be president again. Here's his vice president.

Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States. It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year. His defense secretary. Do you think Trump can be trusted with the nation's secrets ever again? No. I mean, it's just irresponsible action that places our service members at risk, places our nation's security at risk. His national security advisor. Donald Trump will cause a lot of damage. The only thing he cares about is Donald Trump. And the nation's highest ranking military officer.

We don't take an oath to a king or a queen or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. Take it from the people who knew him best. Donald Trump is a danger to our troops and our democracy. We can't let him lead our country again. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. I get it. The cost of rent, groceries, and utilities is too high. So here's what we're going to do about it. We will lower housing costs by building more homes and crack down on landlords who are charging too

much. We will lower your food and grocery bills by going after price gougers who are keeping the cost of everyday goods too high. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message because you work hard for your paycheck. You should get to keep more of it. As president, I'll make that my top priority. Hey, what's up? It's Tammy Roman. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherri Shepherd Talk Show. It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you're watching, Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. Yesterday, former President Barack Obama was in Pittsburgh speaking on behalf of the Harris campaign, a big rally last night.

Before that, he visited a campaign office and said some things about black men voting for Vice President Kamala Harris. I'm going to play some of what he had to say. Watch this. I'm going to go ahead and just say some, speak some truths, if you don't mind. that we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running. Now, I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced with the brothers. So if you don't mind, just for a second, I'm going to speak to y'all directly. And say that when you have a choice that is this clear. When on the one hand you have somebody

who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain

and joy that comes from those experiences. He was there to work harder and do more and overcome and achieves the second highest office in the land and is putting forward concrete proposals to directly address the things that are vital in our neighborhoods and our communities, from housing to making sure that our mothers and our fathers and our grandparents can afford medicine, and making sure that we are dealing with prices that are too high and rents that are too high, and are committed to making sure that we maintain the Affordable Care Act.

So everybody's got to help him. All right. So, boy, that caused a big reaction. Actor Wendell Pierce actually tweeted this. He said, awful message. The party has to stop scapegoating black men. Black men aren't the problem. White men and white women are. No other group votes at 87, 90 percent for Dems, but black folks, men and women, that is a false flag. Black men voting for Trump is insignificant. This accusatorial tone will make some black men stay home, which is worse. Black men are questioning our party to find out what their loyalty for decades earns them. That's good.

That's healthy. Democrats have the record to stand on and should embrace the challenge, but after touring this country specifically engaging black men, I will not let my party leaders speak condescending towards them. I talked to Wendell Pierce this morning, and this is our conversation. All right, Wendell, let's jump right into it. I was traveling yesterday. I was in Pennsylvania. I saw the back and forth, the people out there commenting. And then what President Obama had to say last night in Pittsburgh. Then I saw your comment. I've been covering the story a lot. Just explain why you made it clear that's not the right message you want to be articulating right now to the brothers. I know a lot of cops and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. 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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple 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 things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org Brought to you by AARP And the Ad Council On the fence

Well I've been out there ever since Ever since the convention In Chicago I've made it a point To lean into The messaging to Black men. I've been going around the country.

I just got back from Arkansas. I made it a point to go to Milwaukee, to go on a barbershop tour, literally a barbershop tour. It was a part of the campaigning going all the way back to the 2012 campaign. And I thought it was a great idea if that's where we could go, go into Black communities, assemble Black men around my support for Kamala Harris and why I'm supporting this campaign. And to answer those questions of the men who say, why are you voting Democratic? Why have you been a part of the Democratic plantation for so long? Because I felt as though we had receipts. We had reason

to support the Democratic Party. Everything we love about the United States government came from the Democratic Party going all the way back. So I feel as though the campaign should lean into those questions. But the way to answer those questions is to say, vote for your best interests. Don't even consider the candidates first. First, consider what you want out of the candidacies and the campaigns. And that is the best way to approach Black men,

especially, and what I found going around the country on this barbershop tour was, man, I appreciate the fact that you came here first. And then I just wanted someone to hear my grievance and hear what I want. And then I always said, consider what you want, vote for what you want, and I am confident that Kamala Harris will be your choice. That's the way to approach it. I find it condescending in a party that has had the support of Black men, upwards of 85% of our population voting for the party, to say to them that in some way they uh uh they or should be spoken down to

or haven't been supportive when we all know that it's white women who haven't supported this party to the to the point that we should be winning all of these elections and i thought that the message that the president uh um spoke about last night is a distraction. And it's condescending to black men, especially when we have supported the Democratic message and the Democratic Party in huge amounts, in an inordinate amount of support. And that's the last group that you should be condescending to.

Well, you said something that is key when you said you got a messaging problem. You're not explaining what you've done. Let me. So here's the deal. I've been showing this chart for several days. My man, Chris Toler at Black Voter Project, sent it to me. And here's what the chart shows. The chart shows, and President Obama might want to look at this chart, that first of all, it shows black men's voting patterns from 1972 up to present day. If you go

back, 72, it was 23% for Republicans. It was 19% for Republicans, 76. Then it goes to 14, 12, 15, 13, 15, 12, 13. But then it gets to 2008, 5% voted for Republicans. But here's the key, 2012, it goes back up to 11. There was a nine-point gap between Black men and Black women with Obama rounding in 2012. Black men were saying in 2012 that they were not satisfied with the job that Obama was doing. That was 2012. And I remember talking, I remember vividly talking to Democratic officials saying, y'all had better have craft a messaging strategy that micro targets black men this is going to be a

problem then we go to 16 and i remember then the number went up in 16 it was a 13 and i remember telling tom perez tom y'all got to have something specific jamie harris came, said the same thing to Jamie. And so what they don't understand is this is not just young black men. Black people, you now have to micro-target them. You have to speak to them. You've got to spend more resources communicating with them in off years because we no longer self-identify as Democrats the way we used to. And here's the thing, here's the thing, Roland, we have, we have the goods, right? It's about messaging. The reason I went to barbershops, I was screening a film. I'm a part of the Academy. And there was a film nominated for an Oscar last year called The Barber of little rock about this young man arlo oh yeah i saw it yep i saw it it's a brilliant film that actually explains to you what the community development legislation from the democratic party has been about since 19 the 1990s came about in the clinton administration where banks get billions of dollars from the federal government

every year, free money that they get every year if they put it out into the underserved communities, development of economic development and community development financial institutions. It's what I used to rebuild my neighborhood of Puncher Train Park in New Orleans post-Katrina. I did not even know about it until that crisis came about when I discovered that and realized that banks then get money from the federal government the next year if they score high points of putting the money out. It has been one of the most successful programs to rebuild our communities, to have community development happen in our communities. And cities are using them because we now have come to understand it as being community development block grants,

right? Cities use them all the time. But Arlo Washington used it to create a bank in his community, underserved, hadn't been there for years. I used it to rebuild Puncher Train Park. It is a part of what people are asking for. When I go on the tour in the barbershops and I explain to them what I did, what Arlo did, show the film, they're like amazed. I never heard about this. Community banking. Banks have retail, commercial, and then community banking now. They get more money from the federal government so they can put their interest on top of it if it rolls out into the community. So they are incentivized to make sure that economic development happens in our communities. And to take advantage of that is what black men are looking for.

They're looking for that economic engine. They're looking for that economic opportunity. What happens at the end of most of my meetings are these barbershop talks are saying, how can I create a community financial institution? How can I create a community development corporation like you did in Punch Train Park? We have to look for someone to come and bring the information to them. We have the information. We have the programs. We have all of that.

Even President Obama has My Brother's Keeper, which is a program that I support and I love and I think it's important. But if you don't get the message to them, you lose them. And if you condescend, the mainstream media jumps on it like, you know, chum for a shark. That's all you hear about today. President Obama gave a great speech yesterday, but all you're hearing about is, oh, you see how he chastised those black men? You see how he put them in place?

I had to tell the Lincoln Project. I did a thing for them last... Yeah, I know. I read it on the show. I read it on the show. Right. There was a line in there that I had to check them. I said, hey, here's the deal. They said, hey, man, you know,

you haven't been around black men. You know, black women have been the ones holding down the community, you know? And I said, no, that's a racist trope. We're going to take that out. And you shouldn't believe that. And people, it reinforces that racist trope that Black men are abandoning their community, right?

That they don't want to be there. That they're going to abandon their sister, right? When we all know from day one, when she came into this race, Black men have been supportive of her. The ones who are not supportive are the ones who are on the fence, are the ones who are saying, come and talk to me. Come and bring me the message and show me the goods. We have the goods, we have the receipts. We have the campaign. But most of those brothers don't know about it. And like you said, Roland, it's a messaging problem. So I was was a lot that you said there that I go back to the Doug Jones special election in Alabama. And I remember when it was over, all the stories were Doug Jones won because of black women, because 96% of black women voted for Doug Jones.

But guess what? 92% of black men voted for Doug Jones. So I was like, you can't, I'm like, you can't leave that out of the story. But when I look at data, and I was supplied this data by my man, Cornell Belcher. When you look at where black men and black women are,

stopping Project 2025, 20% men, 23% women, okay? When you talk about protecting our democracy, 22% men, this is black folks, 22% men, 19% black women. And then preserving rights and freedoms 21 percent men 17 percent women and there are multitude of issues here so if you are democrats isaac hayes talks about this year he says he's able to do crowdfunding and raise the amount of money he has for fan base because the law was changed under president obama if you're

if you're vice president kamala harris and you're out talking to about black men you say i care about your entire being your mental health your physical health your economic health so the affordable care act made a huge difference in black health right Talk about the resources for mental health. When you talk about, look, Democrats, this administration gets criticized because they did not pass the George Floyd Justice Act. Who wrote that? Senator Harris did.

But it got through the Democratic House. It stopped in the Senate. But also what they did is this has been the most aggressive civil rights division. Just the other day, I got a press release where they put a cop in prison for beating a black man. But what you're saying is, and I would say the same thing is,

you have to tell your story. You can't assume people know about all of these things. And also, what has been so effective in my encounters is when you say, what do you want? Don't even think about the candidates right now. What do you want for your family? Then look at the choice. Look at the choice. I'm confident you pick our side. Whenever I encounter people, when they say, man, I don't know, I go, what are the three things you care about?

Because, one, I need them to articulate that. And then when they say one, two, three, I then say, this is where she stands on this. This is where most Democrats stand on this. This is where Trump stands on this. This is where most Democrats stand on this. This is where Trump stands on this. Republicans stand on this. And now here's your choice. So you tell me I want to combat white supremacy. I'm going to say Republicans voted against the bill after 10 black people were killed in Buffalo to root out white supremacy in the military and police department.

Absolutely. That was a bill by Jamal Bowman. It's a fact. It's right there. It's on the record. And Donald Trump is going on a tour saying we're going to rename our bases after these Confederate generals. We're going to go back to the name. He was at Fort Liberty the other day saying,

this will be Fort Bragg again. And the crowd erupted. And they erupted. So it's really important. Also, they're looking for, they're those who do not have our best interests at heart. And that's in the mainstream media too. As much as they claim, oh, the mainstream media is liberal, this liberal bastion of manipulation, President Obama was so brilliant yesterday, but I was at work. The only thing I heard about was that he chastised Black men. Black you go. He told black men in their place. It was all over the news. And it reminded me of the speech he gave at Morehouse. At Morehouse, yep.

Right? I knew you were going there. Every opportunity they're going to look for to put that wedge in there, to disrupt, to destroy, to promote this idea of black men aren't going to look for to put that wedge in there, to disrupt, to destroy, to promote this idea of Black men aren't going to college, aren't having their own business. I literally went to bed last night, Roland,

and I said, hold on. Let me see if there is some validity there. I can't think of the brothers. And I'm on, and I am on a stream with a whole bunch of black Republican men, right? Young and old. And actually, right now, more than any other time, they're voting for Kamala Harris. They're like, hey, man, no, this now it has gone too far.

You know, they used to hold their nose and take those tax cuts. Right. That's what it was all about. And now even the eldest black Republican on that thread I'm on is saying, I'm done with this. I'm done with him. We'll be able to do it. I'll take that corporate tax cut because it's close to the grand bargain that a corporate tax rate of 25 percent. Right. Trump has 21 percent, just 4 percent more. And they got rid of Boehner. Right. They got rid of Cantor because he did. They they did the grand bargain. She has said, put it out there. Twenty eight percent. Corporate of 28 percent, then lower the rate of taxes on the middle class. And that's how we'll be able to fund everything. And I was talking to a brother.

I was talking to a brother who's a business owner in Houston and we discussed that. And he was and he said, hey, man, you know, that loan tax rate put a $500,000 more in my pocket. And I said, OK, well, then what you should then be lobbying for, you should be saying, OK, Vice President of Common Lawyers, if you do that, put a dollar amount on that corporate tax rate. Say any business that below $50 million, staggering you should say if you are a small business and you do 50 million or less in revenue you should pay the lower tax rate anybody over 50 should pay the higher because 95 percent of all black-owned businesses are uh have five million dollars in revenue or less right now i said i said that's one way for you to do it he was like you know what uh that's an absolutely good point and then just briefly and just briefly, you look at the other side, and his whole thing is tariffs, tariffs, tariffs.

I cannot believe how many people don't understand that tariffs is a tax on the American company that's bringing the Chinese goods in. Right? Most people don't understand that. They hear, man, I'm going to give the tariff, put the tariff on this Chinese goods coming into America. And it sounds like, boy, Donald Trump is going to stick it to the Chinese.

Right, right. Actually, the transaction has already happened. Right? Whoever the importer is in America, the transaction, Chinese have made the product. They got paid. They're sending it over. And the importer is the one who plays the tariffs. So you're sticking it to the American company that is paying for the goods.

And that's a messaging thing, too, right? That's... Right? And that's the thing, as awful as he is, that Donald Trump is good at, because most people think, well, because they... I guess they just haven't, you know, taken civics, you know, or we went to high school. No, they haven't.

Right? And you say, man, he's sticking it to the Chinese with the tariffs. And I'm like, no, man, you're sticking it to me. I'm the one bringing it to China chinese with the tariffs and i'm like no man you're sticking it to me i'm the one bringing it right the import the american company bringing it so that's just a tax on you and that's how the republicans have always used taxes messaging and come to florida come to tax come to texas no. No taxes. Right? You can come, make your money, your business, your income, and we won't tax you.

But then you buy that house and your property taxes up here. They make it. Oh, oh, oh, trust me. I know because I just got my property tax bill the other day for my house. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So, you know, Black Star Network. For my house in Texas.

I literally just got it three days ago. So trust me, I know that network Blackstar Network, you come down to Texas. You won't have to pay any any state tax. Where's your where's your office? Let me pay. You go pay some property tax there, though. So, you know, that's the messaging thing. You know, that's the message. Well, I said the other day, I said this the other day, that if I'm Vice President of Kamala Harris, or even

if I'm Democrat, I'm going to launch, we did that. So last night, when Obama was talking about, he was my economy. My deal, and I jokingly used the example of Wesley Snipes in Jungle Fever when he was quitting, when he was going through the office and was pointing out all his products.

He was like, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. My deal is, and Plyus talked about it when he said, Joe, you got to brag on some stuff. My deal is, you said, we did that. We did this. We did that. We did that. We did that. We did that.

We did that. And they voted against it. And so this is about data. It's about information. This is exactly what we did. You're right. You speak to that. You say that to brothers and sisters. You say that to white folks, Latinos, and others. Then your message resonates. And you lay out what I'm actually going to do as well. And so if I'm Vice President Kamala Harris, who, no, people don't realize this, when the First Step Act passed, the democratically controlled House, it went to the Senate, it was Senator Harris, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Dick Durbin, Republican Chuck Grassley said, this bill ain't good enough. and they made changes to it again.

So when Trump is taking credit, he's taking credit for stuff where they say we did that. And so I would love for her to say, oh, there will be a second step act. There's a first step, there's a second step. But again, you have to you have to meet people where they are and tell them what you have done. And if they go, dang, I didn't know that. Here's how you can get more information, exactly what you've been talking about. But if you do not talk to Black men, if you're not targeting them, you're not messaging to them, then you're going to have all this craziness out here. I know a lot of cops, and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

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And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple 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 taylorpapersilling.org, brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Oh my goodness, how they're just running away. So I just think it's totally overblown. And guess what? Out of all of the groups, more white men and more Latino men are supporting Trump than black

men. And those are facts. Absolutely. And the fact is that we've lost these elections, right? We've lost these elections. Hillary and I considered when Biden was asked to step away, a point where we lost, is because white women weren't supported. When you look at all the political science, we are still fighting for the white female vote. Educated, suburban white women are the women who did not put Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.

And I just saw the Pew study. I just saw it yesterday. White women, still, it's at 50-45 Trump over Harris. Yes. Yes. Right? That's the data. That's the political science. And here's the thing. But, you know, when something like this happens, it's an opportunity. The same day, Trump says to the people in Detroit in their face, God, boom, you you you elect her. This country will look like Detroit, just insulting them, calling them a shithole city. Right. So I'm glad to hear that the campaign is going to Detroit to have a town hall. And I hope they also take that opportunity to say, all right, let me say something to you, Black men. We're going to speak to you in a proper way. First of all, thank you for all the support you've given us for decades.

And then we're going to show you what we've done. We did that. I'm going to start that with you, Roland. We did that. That's what we're going to call it. That's it? That's it. Well, you're right.

Again, you don't talk down to them. You talk to them. You talk with them. And then, as you said, you listen to them. And then you say, this is what I'm going to do when I actually get in. And this is what I have done. Right. Absolutely. Well, man, I know you're working. You're out there working. You're working, working. Plus, you're also working out there with this election. I certainly appreciate, man, you out there.

We are in the middle. And I just want to say we are in the middle of the election right now. The election is happening now, November 5th. Yes, sir. End of it. We are vote 20 states are right now voting. Go and vote now. Vote early. The returns in Pennsylvania have been wonderful when it comes to early voting. You know, hundreds of thousands of Democrats have already voted early and only tens of thousands of Republicans have voted. And that's a sign. That's a real good sign. So I'm from Louisiana. I'm letting everybody know next Friday, October 18th, we start voting. The election starts October 18th. So let's get out there and vote, Black folks. Get registered and then vote. And that's why I decided to wear today.

My black job is voting. Absolutely. Wendell, I appreciate it, my brother. Thanks a lot. I appreciate you. Thank you, Roland. All right, folks, quick break. Come back.

I'm going to be live on News Nation and Roland Martin on the filter. Then we have our black male conversation right here on the Black Star Network. Bob and I both voted for Donald Trump. I voted for him twice. I won't vote for him again. January 6th was a wake-up call for me. Donald Trump divides people. We've already seen what he has to bring.

He didn't do anything to help us. Kamala Harris, she cares about the American people. I think she's got the wherewithal to make a difference. I've never voted for a Democrat. Yes, we're both lifelong Republicans. The choice is very simple. I'm voting for Kamala. I am voting for Kamala Harris. IVF is a miracle for us because it allowed us to have our family. After having my daughter, I wanted more children, but my embryo transfer was canceled eight days before the procedure. Donald Trump overturning Roe v. Wade stopped us from growing the family that we wanted.

I don't want politicians telling me how or when I can have a baby. We need a president that will protect our rights, and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris, and I approve this message. Of 100 Republicans who worked in national security for Presidents Reagan, both Bushes, and for President Trump, now endorsing Harris for president. She came up as a prosecutor, an attorney general,

into the Senate. She has the kind of character that's going to be necessary in the presidency. Vice President Harris is standing in the breach at a critical moment in our nation's history. We have a shared commitment as Americans to do what's right for this country. This year, I am proudly casting my vote for Vice President Kamala Harris. Former generals, secretaries of defense, secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, CIA directors, and National Security Council leaders, under Democratic and Republican presidents, Republican

members of Congress, and even former Trump administration officials agree, there's only one candidate fit to lead our nation and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Hello I'm Paula J. Parker. Judy Proud on the Proud Family. I am Tommy Davidson. I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. Hi I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney Plus and I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin on Unfiltered. So here's what's happening.

I'm going to be live on News Nation in about five minutes here on the show. We still have Michael M. Hotel, Matt Manning. We also have Mondale Robinson. Joining us is Khalil Thompson, Executive Director of Win With Black Men. Glad to have everybody here. So the conversation I'm gonna be having there is also dealing with black men.

One of the things, Khalil, I'm gonna start with you, that's just cracking me up. Like all of these folks out here keep talking about, oh my God, this record, this record number he's getting. Chris told him the Black Voter Project has been breaking down. That doesn't exist. And so what you have here, this reminds me what happened when Stacey Abrams was running for governor. And all of these people, they don't know what the hell they're talking about. And then they also are looking at polling that vastly underreports African-Americans.

And they're making these assumptions that, oh, yeah, he's going to get 25, 26 percent of the black vote. In every black poll we've analyzed, it doesn't exist. Exactly. The two biggest voting blocs for the progressive and Democratic Party, number one, black women. Right behind them, it's single digits in percentage in between black men. So what are we talking about? Why are we not talking about other demographic groups or socioeconomic groups that are not showing up for the Democratic Party or progressives at a larger degree? I think it's a red herring. It's a false flag.

It's an incorrect narrative to keep pushing out that there's a division between black men and black women, especially as they're voting. It just does not exist. Well, again, again, again, Mondale, what's so crazy listening to all these people? They ain't talking to black people. They ain't talking to black men. I've had every black specific poll on this show, and they totally look different than these other mainstream polls. Yeah, I mean, listen, I don't even really care about polls simply because I have too much data on black men at Black Male Voter Project. We have more than most, if not all, organizations

doing this work. And what I mean by that is there's never been a time ever that black men didn't vote more for black women than anybody else. Anytime a black woman name is on the ballot, that's not going to change in this election cycle. And in recent history, Republicans have never got more than eight to 12 percent of black men vote. That's not going to change in this election cycle. And in recent history, Republicans have never got more than 8 to 12 percent of black men vote. That's not going to change in this election cycle. I've said it earlier. I'll say it again. Black men have become more progressive since Donald Trump has come on the scene. If you remember before Donald Trump in 2016, 2015 came on that golden escalator, there was always a rap song or a rapper bragging about Donald Trump. The only rap song that's from real rappers, not the ones that he fabricated, the real rappers about Donald Trump has been F Donald Trump by Nipsey Hussle. That's the last rap song you heard about Donald Trump. People don't know or have

intimate relationship with black men. That's why they're talking about this. Even Barack Obama made this misstep. If you heard what he said, it was absolutely ridiculous. He said two things that are absolutely untrue. He said, I don't see the energies and turnout for Kamala Harris that I've seen for me. There's not been a chance to have turnout. There was no primary for Kamala Harris. Second of all, he's discounting what happened in 2012, where majority of black men that were registered to vote sat out his election. They did not turn out and go vote for him. That same number didn't vote for Stacey Abrams in Georgia, and here's what happened. People started saying black men were sexist. I'm not discounting that one second, Roland, because I'm going to... I've got to go live to them. Go ahead. Go ahead. We'll come back.

Let's do this here, folks. I'm going to come back to this here. So let's take their programming and then get ready to have this conversation. Barack Obama is now treating working class men the exact same way he's treating or has treated white working class men. It's not a race thing. Politics in America have become realigned, not along racial lines, black, white, Latino. Hey, I lost IFB. I lost IFB. And that's something that is terrifying for the Democratic Party. Hey, Roland, can you hear program okay?

Yeah, I can hear program. I had IFB in my ear, but I got it in my speaker, in my control, in my studios. I'm just going to hang up on the IFB, okay? For disaster. Democrats either don't know, don't care, or realize, and this may be the most important point, that they don't have a choice right now. Because Kamala Harris is in trouble. Big trouble.

The polling shows that. The internal polling shows that. Our reporting shows that. And Obama right now is their only chance. Roland Martin joins us now, host of Roland Martin Unfiltered on the simulcast. Roland, welcome to the show. Glad to be here. Thank you very much.

I'm glad to be here. What do you make of— I know a lot of cops, and 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. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute season one, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice

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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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game.

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brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. This attack by Team Obama of lecturing black men insane, it's unacceptable if you do not support Kamala Harris. First of all, Leland, everything you just laid out in the last five and a half minutes is absolutely wrong. I mean, it's right there in the data, okay? So it's just totally wrong, okay?

I'm literally sitting on my set with the head of the Black Male Voter Project and the executive director of Win With Black Men, folks who know the data better than anybody else. So first and foremost, OK, in 2008, President Barack Obama got 95 percent of the black male vote and then the GOP got 5 percent. 2012, it goes up to 11 points. When you study the data from 1972 to present day, 72-76, it was 23% of the black male vote. It was 19% in 1976, and then it dropped anywhere from 9 to 13. The reality is this here, and that is when you look at black men,

they are the second largest voting bloc in the Democratic Party behind black women. That's an absolute fact. What you also see is that black men are the most progressive group of men in this country. When they had the ballot initiative in Ohio, black men voted at a higher rate to protect reproductive rights than even black women, than white women, than white men. And so you need to understand that if you actually talk to black men, what you're seeing is that the black voter has changed. The further you get away from the civil rights movement, African-Americans less self-identify as Democrats because as they, as they, of course, as you're getting younger. So when you saw Biden's poll numbers, it was weak

poll numbers because he was in the low fifties among African-Americans.Americans. I've had on this show, literally, the polls that have actually— I hear you, and I appreciate all the statistics. I'm still trying to figure out where I'm wrong. Well, first of all— Then why is Barack Obama coming out insane? And we'll play Barack Obama's clip here where he was talking. We have not seen the same kind of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods. Take a look. Because. OK. Hold on. Just take.

We have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running. That seems to be more pronounced with the brothers. Okay, New York Times, Siena College poll, Trump 53, Harris 42, male voters to Trump, black male voters, New York Times, Siena College poll, Harris 79, Trump 15. And here's the deal. And Leland, this is what you're actually doing, the mistake that you're making. You're quoting the New York Times, Sienienna poll, and you're not going to the cross tab to look at who they're actually measuring. You should call Chris Toler with the Black Voter Project, who breaks down every single mainstream poll. I just want to be clear.

You don't think Kamala Harris has a problem with losing black male support? No. So then why is Barack Obama out there talking about it? If you play the clip again, what did you hear him say? He compared it to his first election. You just heard me tell you it was 95-5. She got into the race 100 days ago. If you look at right now, the voting in Pennsylvania, young black women are up 248 percent

because what you had on the Democratic side are young African-Americans who were not feeling President Joe Biden. Vice President Kamala Harris has closed that gap in a massive way. And so now what you're seeing is she is building, building, building. It's actually in black data, you will actually see that. If you look at many of these mainstream polls, they are under-reporting African, under-polling black people. Okay, well, we can take that up with the New York Times, number one. Number two, you just gave our bookers an entire list of folks. I sure did. No, you did, and we'll be out to them, but I'm interested in talking to you first. Do you think or do you see a desire by the Democratic

Party and by Kamala Harris's campaign and by extension Barack Obama to understand why, and you are right, that black male voters were moving away from Joe Biden. And yes, Kamala Harris has gotten some back. She's not gotten all of them back. Is it time, and you told me I was wrong, so I'm going to just ask you the question again, but is it time to start looking at the electorate not as black, white, and Latino, but based on education? No, because here's the deal, Leland. If you understand politics, politics is totally about identity politics. What is a soccer mom? It's a white suburban woman. What is a NASCAR dad? It's a white suburban man.

Politics is totally about looking at race, looking at class, looking at income. You parse the data. In fact, I talked to a black Republican yesterday who said how Republicans are trying to target African-American men who were formerly incarcerated because of the First Step Act. So if Republicans are talking African-Americans and they're talking black men and black women, don't you think Democrats are as well? That's the nature of politics. What you're seeing is, and trust me, you're going to see a rollout over the next several days of an intensive focus from Vice President Kamala Harris on many of these issues.

And so listen, I'm going to be in North Carolina sitting down with her, interviewing her on Sunday. And so you have to understand what's going on here. And I'm telling you, as somebody who has a show that targets African-Americans, 65 percent of my more than a million and a half folks who are subscribed to my YouTube channel, they're black men. So trust me, I know what I'm talking about here. You're not. I can put I will put money down right now. You're not going to see not even close. Trump get 20 percent of black voters. Not even close. Not even close to 20%. Nope. What number would you see in a poll? And then I got to run, but I want a number from

you. What number would you see in a poll of African-American support for Donald Trump in the swing states that would scare you? First of all, there's no number that scares me because not one poll have I seen it that poll black folks in significant numbers that exceeds 14 percent, not one. OK. And I've had I've had 10 of them on my show. All right. There you go.

We're out to all your friends. And obviously, that interview on Sunday with Thelma Harris is going to be a must see. We're looking forward to seeing that. We'll have you back to talk about it next week. All right. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

We appreciate you being with us. All of the above, notwithstanding. All right, folks, let's get back to let's get let's get back to our show. And Matt, right there, what you saw again, when mainstream media, when mainstream media is fixated on a New York Times Sienna poll. I'm going to say this again for everybody who's watching. For everybody who's actually watching. When Black Pack dropped both of their polls, only one mainstream show invited Adrian Shropshire on. When Higher Heights dropped their poll, only one mainstream show, and it was Joanne Reed's show. We had a reproductive rights organization drop their poll. Nobody invited them.

The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights just dropped their poll. How many mainstream folks called them? Zero. I can keep going. The fact of the matter is, Matt, when black people poll black people and the entire poll is black people, black feature labs released a survey. And if I'm correct, they surveyed 211,000 black people. And MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, News Nation, all of these folks, One America News, Newsmax, not one of them invited them on. And so that's the real issue. white mainstream media, they do not understand black people, and they're trying to get mainstream white media organizations

to feed them polling data that underpolls black people. Well, let me first say, brother, you ice cold to be on your own show, go on another show, and come right back to your show and take no breaks, man. You cold, and I got to give you some love for that um it was impressive what you did but i think you're right and i think on top of that not only do they not reach out to these groups they don't give those groups the credence of having the i guess the statistical ability to give them results that are bona fide and that's that's really the issue i mean if you look at leland's response you delineated four or five names immediately. And what was his response? Oh, you've given us names we need to look into. Well, if you have anybody on your staff that's doing basic work,

they should be able to find that there are groups that are polling and have this data in a bona fide way and have it in a way that it can be trusted. Because as Mondale said earlier, I thought he said it brilliantly. He said, I don't trust the polls because I have the actual data. I know what people are really saying because we truly have the data, but that data is not being reported because some of it is perfunctory, right? Some of it is they just want to make the point, like you said, this is about race and they want to reference whomever they think gets the credibility in the public square as to their polls. But we know there are far more polls than Quinnipiac and all these others where they're actually getting the data that gives it a better light. It cast it in a true light. So I think this is a matter of media elitism, number one.

And I think this is a matter, number two, of them not doing the investigation to find who really has that data and whether that data that they're reporting from the New York Times or elsewhere is really the true, credible, bona fide data. You know, I can't, in fact, I'm gonna pull this up right here, Michael. This was on, let's see here. This was on, so October 2nd, go to my iPad. October 2nd, latest results from wave two of the Black Voter Project Survey offering insight into what's changed since Harris took over.

This was an analysis of 2,400 black people. 2,400. Look at this right here. First of all, the second wave filled it July 27th through August 19th, included 1,621 respondents, 1,146 of which were recontacted and for participating in wave one. The second wave also included an oversample of 475 respondents from seven swing states, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada,

North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. Why is this important? These are all black. And so if you want to have a conversation, News Nation, NBC, CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, OWN, Newsmax, and all y'all, about what black people think, how about you talk to the folks who only surveyed black people?

Whereas the other polls, they got 150, 200, maybe 322 black people. Come on, man. Hold on, Michael, I'm coming back. Well, Roland, when he was teeing up that segment before he brought you on, I knew which direction he was coming from. I've been in the media 14 years. I could tell he hadn't talked to any African-American posters, number one.

Number two, what a lot of these mainstream media outlets are doing—and when you cite The Siena Times, they're usually an outlier. So if that's who you're citing, I already know which direction you're going in. But what you have is a lot of mainstream media who are trying to drive ratings and capitalize on this story. And they're not bringing on African-American posters. You blew them away. If they knew—I think if they knew how much you knew before they brought you on, they wouldn't have brought you on. Because you totally blew up their whole spot, OK? So what happens is, is a lot of these mainstream media outlets don't want to listen to African-Americans when it comes to talking about our own community.

What's happening here—I disagree with President Obama's approach. I kind of understand what he was trying to do. The main thing that really needs to happen is we have to talk policy and talk issues to African American men and listen to them, so we can explain to them how these policies impact their lives and tell them to compare these policies to Donald Trump, OK? Because it's binary. And people, they should definitely look at Donald Trump's policies or his lack of policies and lack of specificity

for his policies. So, excellent interview, Roland. I just think here, Mondale, again, that what we're dealing with, we're literally dealing with lack of cultural competence.

Listen, not just in that interview I just watched, and I don't know how you do that and not lose your stuff, because ain't no way in hell I could have sat through that. Leland is out of his mind with all of this he's talking about. But what I want to do is I want to go back to that Obama interview, and this is what happened. He gave them a football in a time where we don't need to give them any. Precisely.

At all. What he did was he gave an opening. An alley-oop. So now all these people are talking about it. Exactly. As opposed to what the data shows. Right. No. And let's be real clear. Obama should be challenging white men. Yes. Obama should be challenging white women.

He should be challenging Latino men. Right. But, because the reality is this here. When you look at a lot of these polls, even the NAACP survey that came out, those were brothers who hadn't voted in two or three elections. So there's a difference between a likely voter, a registered voter, and a non-voter. Right. So let me break that down. That's an important fact.

And that's what I was going to say about that poll. Here's why the Black Voter Project is so important as well. Yes, it's all black, but guess what? It's 2,400 people. Most of these national polls for 300 million voters is about that same size. Black people are 20 percent of the population, so they are absolutely catching what black people are feeling in that Black Voter Project poll. But what I want to say, though, also is there are 9.6 million black men

that are registered to vote in this country. 9.6 million. Right. Of that 9.6 million, 52 percent have not voted in the last four federal elections or only one, with the majority of them being non-voters, non-voters. That is not a critique of black men. It's a critique of these tactics that we see that the brother is deploying, Barack Obama, in his point. What I meant by him giving him a football was he actually have people online right now, black women saying things to black men that are pushing back on the way he was talking to brothers. You have sisters saying, go call your mom and get a hug. Y'all are wet.

Hit dolls will holler. It's not hit dolls will holler. We just say black men are the biggest supporter of this candidacy out of everybody in this nation, and now you're turning them down. If you look at how you form new habits based on the studies from MIT, the habit loop, you

can't be using negative actions. You can't be. That's black vernacular for you. You can't be using negative actions thinking you're going to motivate people who don't normally participate to bring on new behaviors. I am so ticked off that Barack made this kind of a stumble when he's the type of president that he was and also black person he is. He did this with the beer garden, with Skip Gates.

He did this at Morehouse. You and I met, Khalil, in 2007 on the Obama campaign in North Carolina. These type of missteps weren't happening this late in the game then. We can't afford to make them right now at all. And Khalil, here's something that, and again, let me be real clear. I don't want to make this all about Obama. Right. Because this is also about how do we reach those brothers.

But go to my iPad. I'm going to need Obama to own up to something himself. In 2008, 5% of black men voted for GOP. 95% voted for Senator Barack Obama. My God. Four years later, the number was 87% voting for Obama and 11% voting for Romney. Why? Because black men said in 2012, we don't think he did enough for us.

So Obama lost six points among black men. And in 2012, I said, I said, Democrats, y'all better be paying attention. I said, because, I said, that's a warning sign because not only with that number, there was a nine-point gap

between black men and black women, Obama-Romney. That's why when the 16 came, I kept telling sisters, stop saying this is misogyny. Stop saying this is sexism. Right. Because you got to go back to what happened in 2012. Right. And what you're saying is black men are saying, just like young black women, they're saying, if you want my vote, you've got to court me. You've got to talk to me.

You've got to message to me. You've got to communicate to me. When you look at anybody who is really 55 plus, and the reason I notice in my bones, I'm 55. I started watching this with my generation. I remember the conversations that were happening among my peers at Texas A&M. And I was sitting there saying, okay, this is a different conversation that black folks are having from their mamas and daddies. And so then when you start seeing black folks get more education, make more money, we start operating in tax brackets our parents were never in.

The reality is this. My mom and dad combined never made more than $50,000. My third job in the business, I was at $45,000. I've been over, I've made more money than my parents annually over the last 20 plus years. Then when you start talking about, when you start pushing entrepreneurship, what does that mean? Black folks start talking about corporate taxes. Hey, when you didn't own nothing,

you didn't even think about corporate taxes. And so what folk don't understand is, is that this generation is saying, Democrats, white Democrat consultants, y'all got to stop doing the same thing to attract black people. That's what the numbers are bearing out. And so what these white campaign managers got to stop doing the same thing to attract black people. That's what the numbers are bearing out. And so what these white campaign managers

got to do, and these white strategists got to realize, and what people like Future Forward, the PAC, that got I'm going to show in a minute what Greg Sargent how Democrats are putting them on blast with their strategy. They keep running the 1984, 1994, and I dare say

Obama plan from 2008 that don't work in 2024. McCaslin. We don't need you to show up in our churches and our community at this time in October. We are persuasion voters. We always have been. We've just been taken for granted to believe we're only mobilization voters. Forty-one percent up voter registration in Georgia. A hundred and ten percent up voter registration in Pennsylvania since 2020 in both of those states.

We are seeing that there is an appetite in our communities that black voters want to turn out and they want to vote. They want to participate in this election. While I disagree with what my president, 44, said, I appreciate that he's called us to task in this moment, because now the news cycle has only been about black men for the last 24 hours. If that can be a continued conversation, I am happy that we're talking about Terrence Woodbury, that we're talking about Black Male Voter Project, that we're talking about Win With Black Men,

that we're talking about Black Men Vote, that we're talking about Black Men Bill down in Georgia and John Taylor and the others that are meeting in YMCA community halls, church basements that are continuing to do this work. So, yes, do I wish it? This was his moment that he stepped out the wrong way and how he spoke to us. I still think it was important that in the comment he said, yet. I think that's a very important word that was missed by a lot of reporters this morning. He just hasn't seen it yet, which leads open the door that, brothers, you have the opportunity to show up in this election in a very important way. And you still can. So this is, as I'm fond of saying, this is a performance review that we

can do right now. If I am having my amazing seven-year-old CEO, if she applies for a job later on in her life, and she has the resume of... I know a lot of cops, and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about

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And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player,

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is.

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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 things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Br brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Vice President of the United States, former U.S. Senator, the Attorney General of the state, a district attorney, a partner, and other amazing things on our resume, and you compare it to somebody else that is a 34 convicted felon, I hope she gets that job over someone else. I am hoping that's what President 44 was trying to say, that brothers should

not find an excuse to sit out this election and sit on their couch, that they should look at both resumes and make the best decision and the most informed decision that they think is going to be. Let me say something real quick. Do you remember during the interview, Michael, when I said we did that? Yeah. Okay. Yes.

I need it. Anybody black, and you can be non-black and watch it, but I want y'all to understand we did that. So I sent an email earlier, and I said to the White House, I know what y'all are doing with the DOJ. Matter of fact, we got a couple of stories. All these people who keep talking about, you know, matter of fact, we got a couple of stories. For all the people, all these people who keep talking about, you know, again, well, we didn't get the George Floyd Justice Act. Those things didn't happen.

And they're absolutely correct. Don't think for a second that this Department of Justice still has not been doing the work. And see, and unfortunately what the White House has not done, the White House has not been amplifying this from the podium. And I personally told, I have personally told Kareem Jean-Pierre, why are y'all not sitting here talking about the amazing work of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice? If y'all were doing that, folk would know what y'all talking about. So, for instance, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against an Indiana city alleging discrimination in the hiring process for entry-level police

officers at the South Bend, Indiana Police Department. The lawsuit explicitly, explicitly accuses the city of South Bend of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. I'm going to go ahead and stand up. By using a written exam, it discriminates against black applicants, and a physical fitness written exam and discriminates against black applicants and a physical fitness test and

discriminates against female applicants the DOJ's investigation found the department's written exam and physical fitness test Had nothing to do that did not meanfully distinguish between applicants who can and cannot perform the position of entry-level police officer Again, do y'all remember any of this happening when Donald Trump was president? How about this? In Georgia, a federal judge talked about he's not going to reopen the voter registration November's election despite disruptions. But guess what? The DOJ is suing Virginia for removing folks from the voting rolls.

Yeah, that's actually happening. Let me also just remind y'all what's going on. So when I hit the White House, remember I said we did that? Go to my iPad. This is what I asked them. The lowest black unemployment rate on record. Lower than under Donald Trump, created 2.4

million jobs for black workers as of August 2024. Biden-Harris can say we did that. 400,000 black children lifted out of poverty by increased SNAP benefits through updating the Thrifty Food Plan and continuing to call on Congress to restore the full expanded child tax credit. Guess what? Which benefited and helped 600,000 black kids come out of poverty. Hashtag

we did that. They grew black business ownership at the fastest rate in over three decades. We did that. When Vice President Kamala Harris went to Detroit, I was there. She talked about how of the black owned businesses that went out of business during COVID, they have brought 45% of them back. That's called We Did That. Go back to my iPad. Under Bob Harris, they tripled the number of SBA-backed loans to black-owned businesses. We Did That. Awarded a record $10 billion in federal contracts to black-owned small businesses in 2023.

Hashtag, we did that. Invested a record $16 billion in HBCUs. We did that. Secured a $900 increase to the maximum Pell Grant award, the largest increase in the past 10 years, and anybody knows if you are a HBCU student or a black student at PWI, you likely got a Pell Grant. Approved the cancellation of almost $170 billion in student loan debt for nearly 5 million borrowers, and we know black people have a higher rate of student loan debt than anybody else. Hashtag we did that. Then I ain't done. Home appraisals. Rooted out racial bias in home appraisals and closed the black-white home

valuation disparity gap by 40 percent. Why is that? Because you have black people who are owning homes and you had white appraisals going in saying, oh, no, your house is worth $300,000, but it was worth $500,000. And then the black folks tested them by taking all of the photos off the wall, the black art off the wall, removing the black DVDs, removing the black books and everything, and stripping all the blackness out. New appraisal comes in and appraises at $500,000. Why is that important? Because when you sell your house, you can sell it for $500,000 compared to $300,000,

and now you can have a profit on that and now invest that. That did not exist. Y'all remember when I went on Patrick Bette David's podcast, that right winger out of Florida, he told me, oh, yeah, I don't necessarily, that's anecdotal. No, that actually happened. Go back to my iPad. Under Secretary Marshall Fudge, reduced mortgage insurance premiums for FHA loans,

saving 76,000 black households $900 a year. We did that. Cut costs for high-speed internet to 5.5 million black households with the Affordable Connectivity Program. We did that. Distributed $2.2 billion in financial assistance for high-speed internet to 5.5 million black households with the Affordable Connectivity Program. We did that. Distributed $2.2 billion in financial assistance to over 43,000 farmers who experienced discrimination. Black folk, guess what?

Biden-Harris, we did that. Led a historical equity economic recovery. Black wealth, even after adjusting for inflation, is up 60% relative to pre-pandemic levels, the largest increase on record. We did that. Go into health care. Talk about black enrollment. Affordable Care Act covered by 95% over 1.7 million people since 2020.

Lowered monthly premiums for health insurance. Capped insulin at $35 out of pocket. Made sickle cell disease the first focus of the new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services model, expanded Medicaid postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months, secured an additional $1.5 billion for Head Start, delivered $1 billion to more than 40 states to increase the number of school-based mental health professionals, signed two executive orders directed the federal government to address inequality. Protected black history as an American

history. Signed Juneteenth as a national holiday, and you damn right being from Texas, that matters. Designated Springfield 1908 race riot and Emmett Till and Mamie Till Mobley national monuments. Signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act to classify lynching for the first time

as a federal hate crime. And for all y'all silly-ass, simple-simon son-of-a-bitches who kept saying we ain't had no black hate crime bill, that's exactly what the hell that is. Including the bill that dealt before with the burning of black churches.

Including the bill that dealt before with Matthew Shepard and the James Byrd Hate Crime Act. So all y'all folk who kept talking about what Asians got a bill. It's amazing how y'all forget that because now the Department of Justice can use the Emmett Till anti-lynching bill in certain cases when black folks have been harmed. I could keep going on and on and on. So what is required here is for the vice president and for Democrats to stop with all this other nonsense and say we did that. And so part of the problem here, and I'm going to go around my panel for a final comment here, and I'm going to start with you, Michael.

The problem here is that a whole lot has been done. They ain't talked about it. They haven't said it. They haven't discussed it from the podium. So, folks, in Tanswood, there is research. It shows. When they are told all of this, they go, damn, they did all that? Yes, they did. And in the focus groups, they shift because they actually hear what got done, which goes right with what they wanted to get done.

Absolutely. This is what I've been talking about, Roland. Now, you're reading from the September 13, 2024 fact sheet from whitehouse.gov. I got it right here. President Biden and Vice President Harris are delivering for black Americans. It continues. There's even more than what you covered. This is documented evidence of how we're getting a return on our investment, a tangible, measurable return on our investment

for voting for Biden-Harris. Now, you compare that to what Donald Trump is talking about. Compare that to what Donald Trump did during his four years in office. A punk-ass platinum plan that he dropped two weeks before the election and forgot even existed. Go ahead. But hold on. Look at his three government shutdowns that happened in the first two years of the Trump

administration. That third government shutdown was devastating for America, but especially for African-Americans. Look at the fact that Donald Trump inherited a healthy economy from President Biden, which was really good yesterday, when Biden took credit for it and said, we have 75 consecutive months of private sector job growth, OK, that Donald Trump inherited, 4.7 percent unemployment rate. Donald Trump squandered a healthy economy, and he left office with a negative creation rate of jobs. He lost 2.5 million jobs.

The first president, Herbert Hoover, to do that in 1929 during the Great Depression. So we have the evidence. They need to break this down into videos, TikTok, Instagram, things like this. And also African-American social media influencers need to do the same thing. Compare, talk about policy, how this impacts you and your communities, and compare that to Donald Trump. Hey, Matt, I'm going to go right here. Go to my iPad, Matt.

House Republicans refused to join Democrats in denouncing white supremacy. Yes. After 10 black people were killed in Buffalo, you had Republicans who refused to vote for the Jamal Bowens bill, also dealing with calling out extremism.

Let me be real clear, y'all. That's Democrats and Republicans in the House. Those are facts, Matt. Sometimes we realize, and I think we kind of can get a little echo chamber-y sometimes when we talk about issues. So I think they need to make them as digestible as possible and as quick, you know, in succession as possible. Like that ad he ran a couple weeks ago where they put together all of Donald Trump's sound bites about, I think it was race, and just all the horrible things he said into a one-minute ad where you just see, you know, sound bite after sound bite after sound bite.

I think as good as all of these things are, sometimes they fall on deaf ears if they don't, one, give context, and two, put it into digestible form. So what I think they should do is like they do for the State of the Union, where they get one person who's been a beneficiary of that program or one person who's laudable in some respect and just have this person got $900 more on their Pell Grant. This person got this. This person got this. Put a face to it. And then it shows people that there are measurable effects to these policies and they're not just out in the ether. But the more that they do that, the more that they combat what we've talked about on the show, you know,

that Atlantic article I've mentioned a few times where the economy is far better than people actually think it is. So part of it is suturing that gap between the rhetoric and the reality that I don't think they're always able to do effectively. But I think that turns into votes and it turns into a win. Khalil, this right here, go to my iPad. Senate Republicans blocked a bill that dealt with domestic terrorism. This was after the people were killed in Buffalo, 10 black people. Okay, it failed in the Senate 47 of 47. But check this out.

I need everybody to understand, because this ain't about, again, caping for Democrats. It's stating facts. It passed the House 222 to 203. One Republican, Adam Kinzinger, voted for the deal. Every single Republican voted against the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act,

which would have required federal law enforcement agencies to regularly evaluate and take steps to address the threats posed by white supremacists and other violent domestic extremists. And here's what we know from FBI Director Christopher Wray. What did he say? The greatest domestic threat in America today is white domestic terrorism. So I do want to stay on that point, but I don't want to forget that this is not about Democrats and Republicans of who you decide to vote for. It's about policy. It's about policy.

FEMA, right now in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, how many Republicans didn't vote for FEMA relief to go out? The Speaker of the House is delaying that vote until after the election. This is having disastrous real-time effects on people when we have this level of partisanship and we can't get behind it. I also want to make sure brothers don't get hoodwinked or bamboozled by this conversation and don't believe that just because he—President Trump pardoned or commuted some sentences in his day, whether it was—it had Kanye or whomever sitting next to his side. Don't believe that that was policy that was a benefit for our community.

I'm happy that those who got a chance to get back to their families are great. But underneath the Obama administration, we saw close to, what, 1,200 to 1,700 pardons that happened. I think it was 143. I may be off on those numbers so I can get fat checked underneath the Trump administration. These are, again, it's not about party. It's about facts. It's about facts. It's about you taking back to your community trusted information that you can be a trusted resource.

So as people leave this conversation tonight, that we leave the Black Star Network, go back to your communities. Don't be misogynistic. Not that you were in the beginning. So again, not taking on President Obama's mantle. You sound like him. Don't let that be an excuse. And I hope that's what he was meaning when he was trying to say, I mean, I'm a big fan of the West Wing.

So hopefully this was his red light moment. If those remember the show back in the day, he knew what he was saying to spark a conversation in our community. I'm happy we got brothers on here tonight. We're going to continue this into the weekend, into next week. But here's the thing that I need our people to get, Mondale. Again, this is not about, oh, you riding for a party. It's about there were policies that black people said we want. There were policies that were promised. And for all the tangible crowd, I want them to deny these things actually happened. No, these things actually

happened. Now, there are brothers and sisters out there who say, well, I didn't see it. I didn't feel it. I heard people say, well, I ain't getting no student loan that was decreased. But guess what? Every time I put this on my social media page, somebody go, I did, I did, I did, I did. So you may not have gotten a relief, but be happy that somebody got relief and it's 170 billion. And they tried to get rid of all student loan debt relief, but it was a conservative Supreme Court that said no. So if your ass did not vote in 2016 for Hillary Clinton, or you sat on the couch and you didn't vote for nobody, you also got to own this because Trump got three Supreme Court justices.

So folks need to step up and deal with reality of what's going on, and now ask yourself the question, what is Donald Trump promising to deliver? What is Vice President Kamala Harris promising to deliver? And what are the Republicans in the House and the Senate promising to deliver? And what we do know, I don't care what Trump says or how often he lies. Project 2025 is absolutely the full-scale agenda of the right if Trump wins the White House and they control the House and or the Senate. Listen, I mean, anybody that don't believe that the Heritage Foundation will be in charge

of policy for Trump did not. The Federalist Society was in charge of the federal judges. Absolutely. And every judge you appointed came from the Federalist Society. So if you don't know what that is, these are the most conservative folk in law. And they are absolutists when it comes to being anti-black. Let me just say a couple things because a couple things can be true and are true in this space, right? It is absolutely fact that this election is probably the most consequential election of our life. And unfortunately, we can't use that and have legs because we've used it so many times in

the past that it sounds like boy who cried wolf. But let's also mention a couple of things. Black men aren't sitting out elections because they're lazy or because there's a pathology that exists in us, right? We have to remember that at 40, 50 years after the passage of the 15th Amendment, 1910, only about 20 percent of black men were exercising their franchise. Right now in 2024, only 26% of black men in this country are super voters. So in that time, I want people to be reminded that it would be illogical to say that black

men were lazy or apathetic in 1910. No, there were reasons that black men didn't vote. Those reasons were poll tax literacy tests and also the threat of death from the Klan and lynching. I would argue right now, I will posit right now, from the data that I have, black men still face those same three threats. The poll tax is the underemployment and unemployment of black men. Black men are, in some spaces in rural America, 18.5% unemployment rate. The literacy test comes in the form of them underfunded or not funding public schools, taking out books, rejecting DEI, and also the over-expelling and suspending of black boys from school and putting them at special needs when that's not the case. Then the death

of threat might not be clan without their uniform, but it's damn sure political actors in the form of police officers. So when you consider this and you also consider that, couple that with the fact that we know election cycle after election cycle, the way you increase someone's likelihood of participating in an election is spending resources on what they feel like culturally competent program. That's not transactional. We don't see that. And that was my pushback on us being in the media. We've been in the media is creating stories like Leland.

Enough of us aren't watching Black Star. The fact that we can only get this story here and everybody else is hearing what Leland is saying is the problem. The media has never been a friend of black men, an ally of black men. But this trope, this idea that Obama threw them is gonna take less, not just with white media,

with the likes of FBA and then idiots like Charlemagne Tha God that play with important issues. Well, I'm going to tell you right now, I am on Lawrence O'Donnell at 1020 tonight. I'm on Good Morning America tomorrow, and so we're going to hit this as hard as possible. And so, gentlemen, I really appreciate it.

Thanks a bunch. Folks, you know what? I was going to go to a break. I'm not. A Stanford University professor says she can... Actually, y'all stay right here. A Stanford University professor says she can tell within the first 27 seconds of a routine traffic stop whether the encounter is going to escalate. In the groundbreaking study, Professor Jennifer Eberhardt found that the first 45 words spoken by police officers during traffic stops can predict with over 70 percent accuracy. Well, I know a lot of cops and 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. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution, but not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice

to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. 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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple 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 taylorpapersilling.org brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. The encounter will escalate. She joins us now from Stanford, California. Doc, glad to have you here. Talk about this, what you call this linguistic signature. So, yes, that linguistic signature has two elements to it. One is that the officer begins to stop with an order. And the second is that the officer does not provide the reason for the stop. And when you have both of those together, it's highly predictive of an escalated outcome. And that means that the driver is going

to end up handcuffed, searched, or arrested. I can tell you, I've had to report and cover so many of these stories. And when we play the video, we can tell by the tone, we can tell by how they walk up, hand already on the gun, what's going to go down. And that's why so many routine traffic stops end up leading to somebody being shot or killed. It's right. We've also done studies looking at tone of voice of officer. And we also have found that the tone of voice when it's directed at black drivers is seen as significantly less respectful than the tone directed at white drivers. seen as significantly less respectful than the tone directed at white drivers. And we find that this is the case with, you know, regardless of the

listeners race, right? So both black and white listeners, you know, they hear the tone as less respectful when it's directed at a black driver. And it affects not only how they see that officer, it affects how they see the entire department where that officer is drawn from. And we're not talking just white cops. We're talking the same thing with black cops. So what the blue teaches, it teaches, oh, when you see black, gird yourself. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that that's something that's directly taught. Oh, doc, I know you that that's something that's directly taught. Oh, Doc, I know you're being nice. It's directly taught, trust me.

When I go to Matt Manning, civil rights attorney, I'm sure he's got a whole bunch of stories. But we just see it way too often across police departments, north, south, east, west, rural, city, predominantly black, predominantly white doesn't matter? Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, this is a problem that's a broad problem. It does exist, you know, all over the country. There are racial disparities and who stopped definitely. And what we're trying to do is to take routine stops and look at those stops and trying to use systematic data analysis of those stops so that we can understand not only which stops escalate, but also which stops are less respectful or more respectful. We're trying to also understand how we can not only better evaluate the interactions themselves, but to change those interactions, to intervene on those interactions. Our latest paper is actually looking at the value of training in this.

And for that, we have—you know, I don't know if most people know this, but the vast majority of the police trainings out there on how to interact with the public, they're not rigorously evaluated. If they're evaluated at all, it's did you like the training? So that's where we are there. And so what we're trying to do is to leverage body-worn camera footage so that we can evaluate training, so we can evaluate how officers are speaking to people before that training, how those interactions go, and we compare that to how the interactions go after the training. And we have a paper that just came out weeks ago showing that post-training officers are significantly more likely to explicitly state the reason for the stop to black drivers.

They're more likely to offer reassurance to black drivers, and they're more likely to express concern for the safety of black drivers. So we've seen evidence that some trainings at least can work. Questions from the panel here. Matt Manning, you're first. Yeah, well, first, I want to commend you, Dr. Everhart. This is really important information. And the question I had specifically was about study two. So I read part of, I guess, what would be the abstract. And I thought it was genius that y'all played these to black males to see what kind of emotion they evoked, this evoked. And what I thought was really interesting, especially having watched thousands of such videos, is that it seems to be it evoked the exact emotion it's intended to evoke, which is to be And how were you able to, I guess, measure what that came to in terms of whether those stops became escalated or not?

Right. So what we did is we played the first 45 words for Black men. And these are the first 45 words that large language models can, we can use those models to predict with 70% accuracy whether that stop is going to escalate with someone being searched, handcuffed, or arrested. And so we played those 45 words. We had Black men listen to them and tell us, you know, what their impression of the officer is. We had them listen and tell us to make predictions about what was going to happen by the end of the stop, you know, again, whether it was going to end up with this escalated outcome. And we also asked them to, you know, tell us whether they were concerned at all that force was going to be used in the stop. And using all those predictors, we found that stops that

were directed at Black men, where there was an order and no reason given for the stop in the first 45 words. These Black men, they had a more negative impression of the police officer. They were more likely to predict that the person, the driver, was going to be handcuffed, searched, or arrested. And they were more fearful. They were more concerned that that stop was going to involve some kind of use of force from the officer. Can I have a supplement of question, real quick? So how granular did you get with the results? Did you have the black men identify whether they thought the officer, him or herself, was black? Did you have the percentage of those officers and their race in terms of whether their respective interaction escalated?

Yeah, so we know from previous studies that the race of the officer doesn't really matter. So we're seeing this with both Black officers and white officers, for example. We asked Black men, so it was basically, how do you perceive the officer? What are you predicting about what is going to happen with the stop? And then are you worried that the stop is going to end with the use of force? And so those were the three categories of, you know, of measures that we used for that. Khalil? Dr. Everhart, again, thank you for your study. I was just actually watching last night with John Oliver, where he actually brought this exact topic up and was really excited to hear you

bring this study up. I was curious, did you also cross-reference any variables about the timing of when this happened? So did the officer follow someone for more than five minutes, 10 minutes? The time of year, was it at the end of a fiscal quarter that they were doing this to just stack their sheet and get more stops in there? And then what were the other variables you thought that could cross-reference this? And I'm sorry, the last one was how often were they trailing a particular

individual to see and they started using this language? We're just curious about the other variables you saw. Yeah, so we didn't have, you know, information about what the officer was doing before the stop. We do know why the officer stopped the person. We do know, you know, what the outcome of the stop was. We do know what area the stop was in, like what neighborhood, whether it was in a high crime area or not, whether it was in the area, you know, where there were more black people or not. And we found, so looking across all these different variables, we control for all of those variables

and we still got the results that we got where we could use these large language models or even black men themselves to tell us whether that stop was gonna escalate or not. And that was the two variables there were whether the officer, you know, whether they, sorry, whether the officer, you know, issued an order or, and didn't say the reason for the stop. So those were the two things. We had other studies that we've conducted where we've looked at this issue of respect,

and we found that officers, you know, they generally, even when they're behaving professionally, they speak to black drivers with less respect than white drivers. And this is—we've looked at this over almost nearly 1,000 stops, and we're finding systematic differences just in, you know, how people are treated. And these are stops, again, that don't, you know, involve force. They don't end in force. They don't, you know, many of them, they're, you know, they don't end in complaints either. So it's something that I feel like we're missing in all of this. As we look at these cases where,

you know, there are critical incidents where someone is shot and killed, we want to look at those, certainly. But we also want to broaden the spectrum. So we're looking at cases where, you know, there is no use of force, even no one's killed even. And those routine traffic stops, what we're looking at, you can see evidence, you know, for racial disparities and how people are treated. Michael, I got I got about two and a half minutes. So, Michael and Mondale, quick questions, quick answers. Go. Professor Eberhard, have you looked at the role that negative depictions of African-Americans, especially African-American men in the media, has on how they are perceived by police officers. There was a study that came out a few years ago,

thinkprogress.org, has an article on it, how news outlets convince you that most criminals are black, and it deals with how African-Americans are disproportionately make up the perpetrators of violence in local news stories. Yeah, I have not myself looked at local news stories, but I've been, you know, conducting research on this issue for decades now. And so I have a lot of studies showing that there's a strong connection or a strong association between blackness and crime. And we can see that, you know, across many, many different studies and across time. So there's a lot of evidence that black people, black men in particular are associated with crime and those associations can matter for how they're treated.

Mondale. Yeah, doc, thank you so much for seeing black men in this study, tell us that you do. It means a whole lot for people like me that are concerned with black men. I wanna ask you a question about epigenetic triggers. So we know that trauma out through our RNA, the envelope that keeps the DNA,

our trauma that's passed on to us from people that lived in our families before we were even born can tell us certain things. So I wanna know if you take this linguistic signatures and have they seen it or have you all looked at it or used it as a key to see how it triggers black men and what effect it has or long-term effect it has on our on our psyche and well-being yeah i have a colleague right now at the university of michigan nick camp he was looking at um physiological uh responses um you know to to, you know, by Black men to being in these situations. So he'll, you know,

play, you know, a stop for someone with the officer speaking to the driver. And we're trying to get physiological measures on how Black men in particular are responding to this. So we don't, we don't, there's not, there's not a lot of research on that issue right now, but we're moving in that direction. Excellent. Dr. Ibrahat, where can people go to read all about your research? So I am a director of a center at Stanford University called Stanford Spark. So that would be a place to go.

Go to our website to, you know, see all. We produced a number of papers across over a decade on this now. So all of those papers would be up there. And last question. Has any of these mainstream news organizations booked you to do their shows yet? They have in the past. They haven't for this escalation paper.

We were on PBS All Things Considered. And I think one of my colleagues, Eugenia Rowe, was on CNN, I believe, last spring when it came out. But yeah, that paper got a lot less attention than other papers that we put out. And I thought it would be the opposite. I mean, escalation is such, police escalation is such a huge thing in our country right now and has been for a long time. But it didn't get a lot of pickup, actually. That is no shock to me. Doc, we appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. Okay, thank you. All right, folks, time for Education Matters. I know a lot of cops, and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. 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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple 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 things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. All right, folks. Actually, this is it. Let's go to break.

We'll come back with education matters back in a moment. Kamala Harris has never backed down from a challenge. She put cartel members and drug traffickers behind bars, and she will secure our border. Here's her plan. Hire thousands more border agents, enforce the law and step up technology, and stop fentanyl smuggling and human trafficking. We need a leader with a real plan to fix the border and that's Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. The

overturning of Roe almost killed me. I had a blood clot in my uterus that caused my labor to have to be induced because of the overturn of Roe v. Wade. I wasn't able to get life-saving treatment sooner. I almost died. And that's because of the decision that Donald Trump made. I was able to get Roe v. Wade terminated, and I'm proud to have done it. The doctors and nurses were afraid that if they treated me in the incorrect way,

that they would be prosecuted for that. And that's appalling. Donald Trump says that women should be punished. Do you believe in punishment for abortion? There has to be some form of punishment. For the woman? Yeah. I believe that women should have reproductive freedom to make the choices about their own bodies. Four more years of Donald Trump means that women's rights will continue to be taken away one by one by one by one. This has to stop because women are dying.

I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. Here's a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems. Oh, she had a big crowd. Oh, the crowd. This weird obsession with crowd sizes. It just goes on and on and on. America's ready for a new chapter. We are ready for a President Kamala Harris. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message. There's nothing socialist about Kamala Harris.

Trump says Harris is a radical. I don't buy it. Conservatives have a super majority on the Supreme Court. With a likely Republican Senate, those checks and balances will keep our country sane. If Trump wins, he could end up with total control. I'm a conservative. I don't agree with Harris on everything, but she was a tough prosecutor and she put bad guys in prison.

I voted for Donald Trump three times. I'm voting for Kamala Harris in November. I'm voting for Kamala Harris this fall. How you doing? Khalil's about to leave, so this is his daughter Olivia. How you doing? Hello. You good? Yes.

Yeah, she was actually trying to get on TV. So Khalil told her, come give me a hug. I wasn't. You kept looking at the monitor, and so you just kept looking at it like, oh, I like that there. So I was like, I'm going to go ahead and put you on TV. So this is your national TV debut. Say bye.

Say you still looking. All right, Doc. All right, man. All right, y'all. Black students in urban and poor countries continue to be in a state of educational crisis. The lack of resources, overcrowding, racial achievement gap, and policies that fail

to deliver substantive opportunities are hurting our kids. These deficits became more apparent after the COVID pandemic when substantial achievement gaps contributed, I'm sorry, continued to widen. And so joining me right now, Dr. Steve Perry, he's the founder of Capital Preparatory Schools from West Haven, Connecticut, and from Houston, Jay Artis Wright, the executive director of Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools. I mean, first, Steve, let's talk about, again, what that data showed. I mean, COVID, first of all, what COVID did was COVID absolutely exposed, exposed haves and have-nots. I remember it. I ran to her when I was in Alabama State.

It was a white woman who was on the school board. I had on the show and they had to convert school buses to be mobile Wi-Fi units. And all these folks who just assume, oh, kids can go to school on laptops and iPads. They begin to realize who didn't have Internet, who didn't have computers, who didn't have laptops, who didn't have stable learning situations at home. And so COVID really showed a lot of people. And I'm not and it was a bunch of money that was plowed into education. But the question is, was that money being spent properly? And that's really what COVID showed us. And then the end result are the numbers that we now see. So thank you, Roland, for continuing to fight on the behalf of our children. You are among the only who uses his airwaves to make sure that people understand that black

children are being badly hurt by a system that was never designed to support them. So COVID did a lot of things. But one of the things that it did was it showed that the issue was not so much about the economic poverty, but rather the poverty of expectations that are put upon Black children. It is easy for us to look at the criminal justice system. Let's start with the police officers, as you just had a great report done, and see that when we interface with police officers, it doesn't go well. When we interface with the judges, it doesn't go well. And then we can look into other parts of the public sector in making our way all the way

over to hospitals and find out that Black women don't receive as much pain medication as others. So we can see across the board, all the way to you mentioned earlier, about how black people were not receiving loans at the same rate. So we can see, generally speaking, that African-Americans, when we interface with the larger society, are treated poorly. Well, we should recognize that all those people, or the majority of those people, went to public schools who do those things. They learned those things somewhere. And what we see is African-Americans are not seen as viable academic entities. We are not poured into, our children are not poured into the same expectations as other communities' children are. It's not about money, because if it were money, the best place

to send children would be to prison. So what we know is that we have an opportunity to push the notion of school choice, creating opportunities for schools to be created for our community, by our community, in our community. For instance, it was recently reported by CNN that only 1.3 percent of all public school teachers are black men. However, the majority of the black people who have started charter schools are black men. So how is it that we're able to find a place in this space of public education, but not in the place of the traditional neighborhood? And that is because it was not designed for us. It is not designed to support our children. It's not designed to hire us as professionals. It's not designed to pull us in.

The system was designed to make sure that African-Americans in particular remain as second and third class citizens. You know, Jay, the thing that I think people need to understand is that black parents out there, they're like, listen, I just want my kid to get an education. And the thing that I keep saying to folks is that if something is working, I'm down with it. Replicate it. Let's keep going. But if it ain't working, you've got to find a solution. And let's not. And I don't want to hear a 10 year plan because of your kids in the sixth grade. They ain't going to be in school in 10 years. No, you're absolutely right. And I also want to thank you for having me on the show as well, because as Dr. Perry was also mentioning, there are people out here that have been doing

this work for over 30 years. Charter schools have been around for over 30 years. And when we look at the Black community specifically, they are increasing, that we are seeing more Black school leaders that are opening charter schools. But one of the interesting things about this is that it's not just about us opening schools. We know what works. So when we look at the learning loss that occurs when a child goes to a school, unlike the traditional public school, and I'll just name it the charter schools, they're getting 44 extra days of learning, which is actually helping with that achievement gap. They're getting 59 extra days of reading. Those are things that are actually solution-driven mechanisms that we are seeing that are actually working that no one's talking about.

And this is stuff that we knew before the pandemic. And so now after the pandemic, people are saying that we are at a 30-year gap now of learning loss that is just not being covered. And it's one of the huge issues that we've been talking about for over 50 days now with this administration, because there has been no conversations at all about education from either side. And there definitely hasn't been any uh any discussion about education in regards to our black students in this country i think that what what bothers me the most um when i look at this um presidential election here, Steve, is that normally, normally, I think back to the years past, when you sort of had these topic-driven town halls, it's troubling that, I mean,

I'm just trying to remember, I really haven't heard education other than Trump trying to get rid of the Department of Education. I have not heard substantial conversations about education in this campaign. It's frightening because when you think about it, in most communities, your public school system is the largest employer. Forget about it from the perspective of what it's supposed to do, which is to teach children to read, write, and compute. But the largest expenditure in most communities is on your public education and the fact that the people who are running for president and vice president, all of whom have sent their children to private schools, children or step whom have sent their children to private schools, children or stepchildren, and or went to private schools themselves, who've exercised school choice in one way or another, are not even giving this conversation a head fake.

And I know Jay can talk about this in a moment. But you, Roland, found, I want to say at least eight years ago, that black people in particular as voters are very, very comfortable with school choice and in many cases become single issue voters. In fact, there was a gubernatorial election in Florida where a brother was not elected. One could argue because, in fact, he did not capture the vote of the school choice. Andrew Gillum, he lost that. He lost about 30,000 votes and 18 percent of black women voted for Governor Ron DeSantis

and black women hate Republicans more than anybody else. Same thing happened in in Arizona when black mothers organized to support a Republican, making Doug Ducey a return, giving him a return to the gubernatorial ship. So if for no other reason than to just win the election, somebody might want to take a look at all of these parents who wake up every single day, put their children in uniforms, and in in most cases put their children in cars because they don't have bus transportation to most charter and choice schools. So they're driving them or putting them on trains or in buses that are public buses. Or in some cases enrolling, you know this as well as anyone, they're doing what I refer to as the underground railroad, which is they're

sending their children to their aunt's house so that they can claim that address to have what is now a legal school choice. Black parents in particular are the most likely to engage in school choice in all of its forms. And to think that not a single candidate has even mentioned it. In fact, Vice President Harris's only communication about public education is it as an employment opportunity. It's a union conversation for not about children or parents. Questions from a panel. I'll start with you, Michael. All right. Either one can answer this. So, my mother taught in Detroit public schools for 47 years and what I wanted to know is about when children

are off during that summer, that two and a half months, a lot of children lose ground in their skills, math, things like that. What are some tips you can give parents for books to read, activities for the children to do during the summer so they don't start that next school year already behind? It's a great point. In fact, African-American children can lose as much as four months over the summer. So if you think about a school year, it's only eight months. They've lost an entire year. So that means that they would start the school year and they wouldn't get started on the next year's academic experience until about December. And then right around January is when they get prepping for state tests. So

black kids are getting crushed by summer learning loss. So to answer your question, the internet is actually, believe it or not, a great place. There are a lot of tools that you can go to on the internet to provide children with opportunities there is adaptive software that's free that you can just go and do math facts and reading facts and um in econ academy is free it's a fantastic opportunity for families to get up there you know my kids we used to take them to staples and buy just little these little books and they would say grade three, and we would go through, and it was a workbook, and it was super fun to do. Both of them have done relatively well. And then our kids in the schools, we encourage them to do the same thing. The other thing we can do, brother, is to push our school districts to make summer school not something that is for children who failed, but in fact, a precursor. Um, when you look at

parents who have resources, one of the things that they do is they pay to put their kids in academic programming. Uh, Johns Hopkins, for instance, has some fantastic summer programming, but you got to have some bread to get, to get into that program. Yeah. And if I could just add to that, I was, I was going to add to that, that, um, there's so much that you could do just as a parent too. Like I saw a billboard a couple of years ago that talked about if you read to your child for 30 minutes a night, um, that has an opportunity to advance their learning. And it's real. I have three children. Two of them are still in grade school. Uh, one's in sixth grade and one is in eighth grade, but all through their learning since even at three years old, um, even at night when I got home, if I didn't read to them myself, I had a book that had an audio tape that was allowing them to read.

But there's tons of things. We use bedtime math in my house because my daughters are really into science and math. And it is a series of books that talk about math from a liberal arts perspective. Another good thing for parents to do is to post them up on Barnes & Noble in the summertime. If you don't have a summer camp, you can't put a summer camp. There's so many programs out there at your local library that do reading in the morning. And there's so many activities. And the last thing I'll say a lot for busy parents is don't, don't take, don't take for granted your phone, put a lot of apps on your phone. So my kids have Duolingo on their phone. They've got iMath.

And I make it a point to say before you look at anything else, this is what you're going to look at. But I wanted to go back one second because I thought I was going to have an opportunity to comment. Roland, you mentioned about what happened in Florida. That was a single issue. Black women got DeSantis elected because of how he felt about education. And that's something that we're still trying to say even right now about where we are with this current candidates and how we feel about the fact that they're not paying attention to education. A single-site issue like education is huge, and we should be paying attention to it.

It should be something that we're talking about and that we're hearing from people because in our communities, we know that that's an issue that we consider a top priority. So I just wanted to make sure I had that comment in there before we went on. No, not a problem. Matt, your question. Yeah. Thanks to both of you for the work you're doing and for being on the show. And I have a question that I'll probably ask inartfully, but I don't know much about education policy. One of my concerns with charter schools is it just seems like you're incentivizing basically a vacuum being created where you're pulling students out

of certain communities, putting them in the charter schools, and it only serves a small percentage of the community. And then the rest of the kids who are in public schools are still being underserved. So if you could enlighten me, one, what would be the aggregate effect for the black community if we had more charter schools as compared to public schools, number one? And number two, how do you make sure there's equity? Because I know a lot of these schools can be very selective. So even if they're providing a very good program, it seems like there's not enough of an aggregate benefit

to not put the emphasis more so on public schools. And maybe that's my naivete. So if you could enlighten me, I'd appreciate it. So before Steve and Jay answer that, I want to speak to that first because I'm going to use my experience. I'm a product of Houston public schools. I've never gone to a private school. I went to Clinton Park Elementary School, traditional public school. I then trans. I know a lot of cops and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1.

Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this

misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't

working and we need to change things. 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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content,

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple 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. Referred to Pleasantville Elementary School that had what we call regular school and they had a vanguard program. Vanguard program required you to apply, you got accepted, and then you were admitted. I then went to Holland Middle School that was open enrollment. Then I went to Jack Yates High School that had a magnet school of communications. You had to apply, you had to be selected, and then you had to be admitted. Houston has an extensive magnet school program. Booker T. Washington. Engineering, great engineering program, you actually have to take a test

to get into Booker T. Washington's School of Engineering. And so on that very point there, right now, there are schools within schools. Magnet schools are public schools. They're public schools. And guess what? They're selective. Everybody can't get in.

You have some cities, so that was school within school. In Chicago, you have whole schools that are specialized schools. And so when, and I remember being on Air Force One with President Barack Obama flying to New York, and this topic came up. And he said, well, you know, because I was opposing him when it came to the Washington, D.C. voucher program, because I felt D.C. should determine their own fate. He goes, well, I know where you stand on this. I said, yeah. I said, and I'm a product of Magnet School, because he made the same argument. He said, well, if it was equal, I said, magnet schools are not equal.

Vanguard programs are not equal. More resources are going to those programs. And so a lot of times folks don't think about that. And those programs have been around since the early 70s because in the case of Houston, they were created to deal with integration. So you've had magnet schools and traditional public schools since the early seventies. And most people have no problem with magnet schools, but they literally are more selective than most public charters. Now, Steve, you can answer. Let me jump in here. I'm sorry, Steve or Jay, one of y'all can answer. Go ahead. I just want to jump in really fast because as a parent, there's this misconception about, you mentioned, brother, pulling our kids out of schools.

I pulled my kid out of the public school. The parents are the ones making the choice of taking their kids out of school, which I think is a valid point to note. No one's pulling a child out of any type of school that they don't feel like, they're pulling them out of schools that they feel like are not serving their kids because they want something better. And so when we talk about school choice, it's not just talking about it from the sense of a voucher where you're going and somehow getting a kid or even going to a magnet school. The first thing we got to remember

is that the parents are making choices to get their children into better systems and they should have as many options at their fingertips as possible. No, there's no victim plan here. Like if you wanted to, if your child is not doing well in the school, they should have the power to be able to pull them out and take them somewhere else. But it's the parents' choice is what we should be talking about. So, brother, let me thank you for your question because it represents an area of opportunity for us within the charter school space to educate the larger community. First, what Roland talked about are selective schools. And it's easy to think that because charter schools have a lottery, that there's a selectivity to it. There is no selectivity. The reason why our children's seats are limited is because the

teachers' unions and the government officials who they literally own limit the amount of seats that we can have. We do not limit our own seats. They do. So if they were to decide that every single—they could take a different policy, excuse me. They could say instead of having the policy that says if there are two children who apply for one seat, you have to have a lottery, they could say if there are two children who apply for one seat, you have to open up another seat. That's not the charter schools making that decision. That is the government officials who want to keep union schools as the only method of free public education. There is no selectivity when it comes to charter schools. Charter schools' selection process is overstated. It's just a lottery, which means that when parents decide that the neighborhood school or the private school or whatever school they're in doesn't work for them anymore, they put their child in the lottery.

That's that. And when we have a space available, there is no lottery, meaning if there's two kids apply and there are two seats available, both children get in. There is no selectivity. So I want to make that first point. The second point is this. If we were to move in that direction, then all children would have access to those schools. If the concern is for the children who are proverbially seen as left behind, then let's just create more opportunities for those children to attend those schools now. So, for instance, I am a charter school leader. We're opening a new school in New Rochelle, New York. 1,700 teachers union employees and staff and people that they pulled together said that they were against the school, despite the fact that African-American children, only 25 percent of the African-American children in that community can read at grade level, while almost 75 percent of the white kids can't. So if we really cared about how the black kids in particular were doing, if nothing else, we would take them out of a system that is guaranteeing them failure, not because they're less intelligent, but because the system is designed to hurt them.

So to the part of the question about what do we do about those children who are left behind, let's get them all out. Let's take them all out. Let's not put another child in a situation where they have to wait for the great pumpkin to come, where they have to wait for some messianic force, and as Brother Rowland said, some 10-year program. So your question is not a sign of naivete. It's a sign of misinformation. What has happened is the teachers' union has made it their business to muck up the waters, to muck up the gears, which is to say they want people to believe that charter schools are somehow for profit, which the one majority of them are not, that they're somehow cherry picking. You can't cherry pick a kid you haven't met. The only way you could cherry pick kids is if you knew who was coming before, which is a blind lottery, so that's not the case. What we need to think about is where you ended, brother, and that is, what about the children?

If we care about the children, then we need to only look at this. If you look at the top 100 public schools in the United States of America, you will not find a single traditional neighborhood urban school in the top 100, top 200 you won't find. But the overwhelming majority of the schools that you will find in U.S. News & World Report top performing high schools are schools of choice, magnet schools, charter schools, vo-tech schools, VOAG schools. Those are the schools that are the public schools that are outperforming all the other schools in America. If we care about making sure that children are in high-end academic experiences, then what we should do is we should create more school choice. And I'll finish here. In 1968, 1% of the children who were attending New York City's elite public high schools were black.

In 2023, 1% of the children attending the elite schools in New York City are black. I don't want to leave any more kids in that system. I'm good. Y'all destroyed enough communities and destroyed enough children. I don't want them to have any more chances at that. Let's figure something else out and fast. I'll make this last point on this topic here. And the reason why I do think it's important, because Howard Fuller, who is a former superintendent at Milwaukee Public Schools, former founder of Bayo, and also an advocate of parental choice.

He makes this point all the time, that what we have is an education delivery system. The problem is we pretty much only have one delivery system. The reality is if you look at education in its whole, you have traditional schools, magnet schools, home school, online school, public charter. You've got private school. You've got parochial schools.

You've got trade schools. You've got all types of schools. The reality is we need to have multiple choices of public schools. I look at the work of XQ America, how they whole rethink or re-envision schools. There's one school, I think it's in Minneapolis, I can't remember, where the school is literally in a museum. I was like, yo, wild ass idea.

But I loved it. The reason I'm saying this is because the problem, and I'm going to find this brother's video, because, and I'm going to close it out with this, because the problem that we have now, and this is really the problem we have, is that our schools today are literally based upon an Andrew Carnegie model that is more than 100 years old.

If people really step back and study the American school system, the whole idea of the big box, kids sitting at desks, is an industrial thought process. And the hardest thing that we've been dealing with, I would say the last 30 some odd years, because you deal with how it started, and then you go through Jim Crow, and then you go through what happened with black schools and funding and all sorts of stuff like that, integration and all of that, is that the struggle with education in this country is that it is illogical to think there is a one size to fit all.

It's just illogical. It doesn't happen in any industry in this country. And unfortunately, that's what we're seeing, and what gets stifled is innovation, is different thinking, and I just simply, and the main reason why I again support school choice is the black choice, is because if I did not, if I was not able to attend a magnet school of communications, then I would have not gone to Texas A&M and would have been four years ahead of the seniors there. And then if I didn't have that,

when I got to my senior year in college, I was way ahead of all of my peers who I was graduating with because of the magnet school. So imagine if I just went to a traditional school where they just had regular courses and you took math and English and social studies and science and PE as opposed to having a magnet school. So my whole deal is my experience as a student going to a Vanguard Elementary School and a Magnus School of Communications, said to me, I absolutely am down with public charter schools because if black people can control the curriculum,

the hiring of teachers, the giving out of contracts, if we can control it from top to bottom, oh hell yes, because even though we have majority black cities, we don't control the school district in Detroit. We don't control the school district in DC. We don't control the school district Prince George's County. We don't, because we also don't control the contracts. And if you actually want to know who controls school districts, it's those with the money.

And that's where we get the short end of the stick. Final comment, Jay. Final comment, Steve. Jay, go. Well, one thing I want to note is that Dr. Howard Fuller is one of the co-founders of the Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools, which is an organization that specifically advocates for the expansion and growth of more Black and Latino schools across the country.

We are in 10 regions across this country. And the reason why we are growing and expanding is because we are taking Black and Latino students and their outcomes from what you just named. We are graduating them at higher rates. There are lower rates of suspension. And the work is being done, and it's being done well. And so we need to see that replicated quickly, because there's a sense of urgency specifically for our Black students. So that's kind of my final thought. I'll hand it over to Dr. Perry. Steve? Thank you so much. Janelle mentioned that the Freedom Coalition is co-founded by Howard Fuller. And it's important to note that we recently did some research and found that in the state of Pennsylvania, there are approximately

130,000 children participating in school choice, public school choice. That number is greater than the distance between the votes between Biden and Trump, meaning she or he who captures the minds and hearts of the parents willing to put their children in schools that sometimes are in strip malls, in auspicious places, just to get them into a better academic experience. She or he who captures that group's attention could win the swing states like Pennsylvania, like Michigan, like Ohio, all places where school choice is a very big deal among African-American, Latin, and white families. All right, then. J. Art is right. Steve Perry, I appreciate you both. You've been on the show. Thanks a lot.

Take care. Matt, Michael, I appreciate y'all being on today's panel as well. Thank you so very much. I'm going to close the show out. I saw this video a few years ago. It was Brother Day Prince Ear. They put this out. It's gotten close to 30 million views on YouTube.

I just thought it was a really fascinating video to cause us to rethink education. I just wanted to play that for you before we close the show out. Check this out. Albert Einstein once said everybody's a genius but if you judge a... I know a lot of cops and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real

from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. 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.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple 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 reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position, pregame to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org, brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Fish, by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, today on trial we have modern day schooling. Glad you could come.

Not only does he make fish climb trees, but also makes them climb down and do a 10 mile run. Tell me school, are you proud of the things you've done? Turning millions of people into robots. Do you find that fun? Do you realize how many kids relate to that fish swimming upstream in class, never finding their gifts, thinking they are stupid, believing they are useless?

Well, the time has come. No more excuses. I call school to the stand and accuse him of killing creativity, individuality, and being intellectually abusive. He's an ancient institution that has outlived his usage. So, your honor, this concludes my opening statement, and if I may present the evidence of my case, I will prove it. Proceed. Exhibit A. Here's a modern day phone. Recognize it? Here's a phone from 150 years ago. Big difference, right? Stay with me.

Here's a car from today, and here's a car from 150 years ago. Big difference, right? Stay with me. Here's a car from today, and here's a car from 150 years ago. Big difference, right? Well, get this. Here's a classroom of today, and here's a class we used 150 years ago. Now, ain't that a shame? In literally more than a century, nothing has changed, yet you claim to prepare students for the future? But with evidence like that, I must ask, do you prepare students for the future or the past? I that, I must ask, do you prepare students for the future or the past? I did a background check on you and let the record show that you were made to train people to work in factories, which explains why you put students in straight rows, nice and neat. Tell them, sit still, raise your hand if you want to speak, give them a short break

to eat, and for eight hours a day, tell them what to think. Oh, and make them compete to get an A. A letter which determines product quality. Hence, grade A of meat. I get it. Back then, times were different. We all have a past. I myself am no Gandhi. But today, we don't need to make robot zombies. The world has progressed.

And now we need people who think creatively, innovatively, critically, independently with the ability to connect. See, every scientist will tell you that no two brains are the same. And every parent with two or more children will confirm that claim. So please explain why you treat students like cookie cutter frames or snapback hats, giving them this one size fits all crap. Watch your legs.

Sorry, Your Honor. But if a doctor prescribed the exact same medicine to all of his patients, the results would be tragic. So many people would get sick, yet when it comes to school, this is exactly what happens. This educational malpractice where one teacher stands in front of 20 kids, each one having different strengths, different needs, different gifts, different dreams, and you teach the same thing the same way? That's horrific. Ladies and gentlemen, the defendant should not be acquitted. This may be one of the worst criminal offenses ever to be committed.

And let's mention the way you treat your employees. Objection. Overruled. I want to hear this. It's a shame. I mean, teachers have the most important job on the planet, yet they're underpaid? No wonder so many students are short-changed.

Let's be honest. Teachers should earn just as much as doctors because a doctor can do heart surgery and save the life of a kid, but a great teacher can reach the heart of that kid and allow him to truly live. See, teachers are heroes that often get blamed, but they're not the problem. They work in a system without many options or rights.

Curriculums are created by policymakers, most of which have never taught a day in their life. Just obsessed with standardized tests. They think bubbling in a multiple choice question will determine success. That's outlandish. In fact, these tests are too cruel to be used and should be abandoned, but don't take my word for it.

Take Frederick J. Kelly, the man who invented standardized testing, who said, and I quote, these tests are too crude to be used and should be abandoned. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, if we continue down this road, the results will be lethal. I don't have much faith in school, but I do have faith in people. And if we can customize health care, cars, and Facebook pages, then it is our duty to do the same for education, to upgrade and change and do away

with school spirit, because that's useless. Unless we're working to bring the spirit out of each and every student, that should be our task. No more common core. Instead, let's reach the core of every heart in every class. Sure, math is important, but no more than art or dance. Let's give every gift an equal chance. I know this sounds like a dream, but countries like Finland are doing impressive things. Thank you. The educational system outperforms every other country in the world. Other places like Singapore are succeeding rapidly. Schools like Montessori, programs like Khan Academy. There is no single solution, but let's get moving. Because while students may be 20% of our population, they are 100% of our future. So let's attend to their dreams, and there's no telling what we can achieve.

This is a world in which I believe. A world where fish are no longer forced to climb trees. I rest my case. Just something for you to think about. All right, folks, if y'all missed the top of the show, we talked about the ad that Vice President Kamala Harris' team dropped after Donald Trump insulted Detroit. Yo, but tell you something, you watch this ad, first thing you're going to do, put on some DMX. I'm just saying. That's what I did. I'm going to close the show. If y'all missed

it, yo, this is fire. Roll it. They said we were dead. Detroit waving the white flag. The city filing for bankruptcy. That our best days were behind us. That living here is like living in hell. But you know

what we said? We said, we rebuilt ourselves. We rebuilt ourselves. We look out for each other, got our hands dirty, and put in the hard work. And this guy, he don't know anything about that. We are a city of winners, of up-and-comers, of builders, the Motor City.

Bigger and better. Here, we believe in freedom. We don't bow down to nobody. And we never will. And to what Donald Trump doesn't understand or care to learn is that when he said... Our whole country will end up being like Detroit if she's your president. That he should be so goddamn lucky. I'm Kamala Harris and I approve this message.

Oh, that is fire. All right, folks. I am headed to North Carolina tomorrow. And, of course, I'll be there. Then I'll come back. I'll be here on Monday.

Then we turn right back around. We're going to be broadcasting live in East North Carolina on our Black Belt Tour. We'll be there Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. I'll let you know Wednesday, Monday, where we're going to be. I want y'all to come out. I want y'all to pack the joint. It's going to be fire. So a lot of things happening. Let me thank everybody in Philadelphia

and Lincoln University for the last three days. We were there Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And so we're going to be on the road. We're going to be in Wisconsin. We're going to be going, I think, to Michigan. They're trying to get me to Ohio. So we're just trying to make it happen. All right, folks, don't forget, support the work that we do. I can't tell you how critical your dollars are for the work that we do. We're still having issues with Cash App. So y'all, I wish if y'all have Cash App, that's the only thing you have. Get one of these other, please get one of these other programs. You can see you're checking money. Order the PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196.

PayPal is rmartinunfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zelle, rolling at rollinsmartin.com, rolling at rollinmartinunfiltered.com. Download the Black Star Network app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Be sure to get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds,

available at bookstores nationwide. And of course, get the audio version on Audible. Folks, don't forget, voting is happening right now. First, if you have not registered, register to vote. If the deadline has passed, early voting is happening in your location, yo, I want you to actually vote. If y'all want to also get one of these shirts, a portion comes back to the show. You can go to Dacia's Designs at d-a-c-i-a-s-designs.com. You see the promo code is rolling. The QR code is right there.

You can get one of these. My black job is voting. Folks, that's it. I will see y'all actually this weekend. We'll be live streaming from North Carolina. Vice President Kamala Harris is having a rally there, attending a church service. We will be there. And you will see all of that live on the Black Star Network.

And I'll be live with you on Monday. Y'all take care. Holler! Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. More time Thank you. Thank you. 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 taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. 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 Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports.

This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. 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. This is an iHeart Podcast.