#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Biden's massive clemency/pardon list, Nasdaq diversity rules rejected, Caitlin Clark backlash

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

12.12.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Biden's massive clemency/pardon list, Nasdaq diversity rules rejected, Caitlin Clark backlash  President Biden, nearing the end of his administration, commutes and pardons individuals convicted of nonviolent crimes.  The DOJ cracks down on abusive force in Massachusetts and Kentucky. We'll break it all down.  Caitlin Clark's recent comments spark backlash and open a conversation on what Jemele Hill calls an "obvious issue."  And later, we pay tribute to the late, great Nikki Giovanni. #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. 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. 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. Here's the deal. We gotta set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We gotta make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a set game. We gotta make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save

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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Brought to you by AARP and the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Folks, Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punch! A real old revolutionary right now.

I support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roland. I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. This video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared.

It's time to be smart bring your eyeballs home you dig Today is December 12, 2024. Coming up on Roller Martin on Focus, streaming live on the Black Star Network. White MAGA is upset because their great white hoe, Caitlin Clark, showed appreciation for black ballplayers. And she admitted she has white privilege. I'm going to talk to Jamel Hill about how these folks are losing they ever loving mind. President Biden issues the most pardons ever in one day. We'll tell you about that.

But that's not the only pardons he's going to be issuing. Also, the doj nailed another police department plus we shall remember the great nikki giovanni talk hear from those who knew her but also i'll play you the interview that i did with her uh four years ago actually six years ago when we launched this show it is time to bring the funk i I'm Roland Martin on the filter on the Black Star Network. Let's go. What's the news to politics? With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling With Uncle Roro, y'all It's rolling, Martin Rolling with Roland now

He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's funky, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know He's Rollin' Martel Martel Well, y'all, Time Magazine named Caitlin Clark the Athlete of the Year and she made some comments in her interview that Lord has driven white MAGA out of their minds. This is what she had to say at the event where they revealed the covers. And even today, earlier today, Megyn Kelly, she was saying that you were apologizing for your white privilege and the fact that you wanted to uplift black female athletes and make sure that they were getting the shine, kind of like your pioneers were getting the shine that they deserved. And I just want to know how you feel or how you

respond to some of those criticisms when you have to deal with something that it's really not your problem. Like, I feel like it's them looking in a mirror a little bit, but it still comes down on your shoulders. I feel like I always have had really good perspective on everything that's kind of happened in my life, whether that's been good, whether that's been bad. And then obviously coming to the WNBA, like I've said, I feel like I've earned every single thing that's happened to me over the course of my career. But also I grew up a fan of this league from a very young age. Like my favorite player was Maya Moore. Like I know what this league was about. And like I said, like it's only been around 25 plus years. So I know there's been so many amazing black women that have been in this league and continuing to uplift them, I think is very important. And, um, that's something I'm

very aware of. Um, and like I said, like I try to just be real and authentic and, you know, share my truth. And I think that's very easy for me. Like I'm very comfortable in my own skin. Um, and that's kind of been how it is my entire life. Yes. And you'll never be able to make everyone happy. And someone that knows that at the age of 22, like let's go. I mean, I think I have good perspective on that. And like I said in the article, um, which turned out amazing, I thought it was great. Um, I said, I feel like one of my best skills is just blocking things out. Like I don't, I don't really, the only opinions I really care about are the people that I love, my teammates,

my coaches, the people inside of our locker room, the people that I see every, every single day. And I know had the, you know, my best interest at heart too. So I think my best skill is just blocking out the noise and hopefully it continues to be because with the way things are going and where the WNBA is going you want that attention and you embrace it and that's what makes this so fun yeah I'm just so thankful that you are the leader like you are the chosen one in the future of the sport because of the allyship the truth and the willingness to stand and say things if you have to but I also think the nuance that you use in that article, and I hope everyone gets a chance to read it. Well, y'all, the white folk that lost a mind.

Charlie Kirk, you know, that white racist who leads Turnip Point USA. This was a tweet that he posted. Y'all go ahead and show it. Caitlin Clark is getting very bad advice. The whole country is rejecting wokeism and anti-white ideology. She has a chance to stay neutral and failed miserably. Her handlers saw this as a chance to, quote, keep woke alive, unquote. Too bad. She's an amazing athlete who totally missed on this one.

Then, of course, you got this white woman. What's her name? Riley Gaines. Now, she didn't make a name for herself because she swam she swam she she was in some swimming competition she lost to a transgender athlete but she came in fifth place so it ain't like she's a winner at anything but she's got like 1.4 million followers and so they made her this superhero on the right uh and so she's been commenting on everything left and right uh and so again i don't understand i mean i don't know what she's actually done what she's actually accomplished ever so this is what this fool tweeted y'all go ahead and pull it up uh no one was asking for caitlyn clark to position herself as a right wing hero. All she needed to do was remain neutral.

She's a she's a phenom who inspires countless young girls to play and achieve. So I still have great admiration for her. But she missed the mark on this one. Columnist, author, podcast host Jamel Hill joins me right now. And Lord, Jamel, these white folks are beside themselves. Let's just call it. They desperately wanted Caitlin Clark to be the great white. First of all, let me pull all together. They want her to be the great white

Christian, perfect anti-black woman loves a man superhero. That's what they wanted. They are losing their mind because she dared showed respect to the black basketball player before because they hate the WNBA. They they hate the black lesbians. They hate the black people. They they they hate them because they take the stands. That's all this is about. And they are showing their real racist position. Yeah, I mean, Roland, I'm so glad that you broke it down that way because we knew, most of us that follow women's college basketball

and follow Kaitlyn Clark's career in particular, we saw some of the people forming behind Kaitlyn Clark and formation. People she didn't ask to form behind her. So they essentially weaponized Kaitlyn Clark's success. They weaponized her popularity. And they made her their avatar for everything they can't stand about black women. Let's just call it what it is. And when she didn't deliver that to them, they got mad.

Just like they got mad when she liked the Taylor Swift post social media posts of Taylor Swift endorsing Kamala Harris they lost their mind in so we see the common theme here Roland whenever Kayla Clark shows any level of appreciation or respect for black women they hate her guts and so their position could not be more clear and obvious because I'm just laughing like you know y'all did all this talk when you thought she was your personal superhero and now she's disappointed you because she said something that was so freaking obvious anybody could see it it's like yes this league was built on the backs of black women who contributed need I remind people who started the wmba the core group they started it around it was cheryl swoops it was lisa leslie and it was rebecca lobo two of those three are

black women and the history of the game is littered with black women who have made contributions she said a long time ago caitlyn clark did that her favorite player ever was maya moore so this is just so laughable and it's so predictable and now riley gaines who honestly she need to thank trans athletes because if what if it wasn't for the trans swimmer she lost to we wouldn't even know who she was at all and at all like and megan kelly uh who i also heard has something to say about this. You know, hey, I'm sorry that she's not. She doesn't hate black people the way that you wish that she did. I mean, look at this. So many people were hitting her. Y'all got a buy pad. Wow. So disappointing. You came into the made up fantasy world with delusional left.

I was such a big fan of you. Not because you're white, because you're amazingly talented. Fool, it's a whole bunch of black. It's a whole bunch of other white women in the WNBA who can ball. And then goes, unfortunately, your ego and attitude is starting to stink more than your skills shine. You had a huge platform to bring people together. Instead, you are choosing to push people apart. There's some other dumb ass. Cece, have you not learned? 76 million people just voted no on woke. And yes, for Trump, you caved. You blew it. Somebody else.

Nope. No longer supporting you. You caved. What's wrong with your teammates threatening you? How sad. I was about to buy a jersey for my daughter. Hell no. I'm back to the shadows for the WNBA.

She really betrayed her whole fan base. WTF. At least we know she's in it for the money now. Nice Time magazine, though, I guess. All the people who defended you for how bad you were treated have now been betrayed by you. Such a disappointment. Just go ahead and say we are some racist crackers? I mean, they literally told on themselves, Rola, because if, okay, the comment that you just read a moment ago, the person who tweeted that or whatever post, social media post they put that in. 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. 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 man. 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. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. They said that we thought you brought people together. Again, all those people who are complaining and who are now anti-Kaitlyn Clark,

why are you so mad that she actually showed respect for the women that were before her who happened to be black? Don't you think you need to be asking yourself, what is it about black women that's so bothersome to me that the idea of someone else being respectful of their contributions is so off-putting that I would sit up here and be upset and mad about it to the point where I won't buy my little girl a jersey. Like your little girl can't idolize someone who respects other races and other cultures. I thought that's what y'all wanted. Y'all said that y'all want unifying. You know, y'all want a unifier. Y'all want somebody that brings people together. Well, part of being brought together is being able to appreciate, respect and understand other cultures.

And, you know, I thought the Time magazine piece, I think what they also hated, Roland, on top of her showing respect to black women, is the fact that she debunked a lot of the narratives that they let run around in their head for the last year about this woman. You know, this idea, they were the ones that ran with this idea that Caitlin Clark was being targeted by these big, bad black lesbians and black female basketball players. And she said very plainly in this piece she never felt targeted and all of those kind of silly ideas they had running around in their mind that she was somehow being bullied and discriminated against by these black women and that wasn't the case at all in fact it's a it's black women quoted in the piece talking about what a great teammate she was and and, you know, how they, you know, tried to help her transition into the WNBA and all these things. So it's just not even the fact that she is showing some kind of respect for these other players in the league and the players that came before. It's also the fact that they have nothing that they can use to hate on the league

that most of them weren't even a fan of or players they weren't a fan of. They just like the idea of being able to rub Caitlyn Clark's success and her popularity in the faces of black women that they couldn't stand to begin with. Here was a tweet from a super white woman, Megyn Kelly. You know the one who actually said that Santa was white and blackface was cool. Look at this. She's on the knee, all but apologizing for being white and getting attention. The self-flagellation, the oh, please pay attention to the black players who are really the ones you want to celebrate. Condescending, fake, transparent, sad. No, no, no. You're fake, Megan, because you failed at NBC

because the public saw you as nothing but being a lousy right-wing hack. That's why you couldn't cut it at NBC and it was stupid to pay you all that money and they gave you $69 million to leave and so you suck, Megan Kelly. And so you're showing us exactly who you are. You're showing us that your white cape matches your white hood.

That's all this is. And so, I mean, they are so angry because she's talking about the history of the game. You cannot talk about the history of women's basketball and not talk about the great black ballplayers. She's just stating a fact. Yeah, I mean, that was it. It was just all facts and you know the other thing too roland and caitlyn clark actually said this in the time piece is how insulted she felt by a lot of the narratives that people created about her and now all of a sudden you have people on the right like megan kelly like riley gaines like i saw ben shapiro he of course had stupid things to say because that's what he does uh

now they're all trying to act like she was somehow bullied and pressured into making these comments. So not only are they upset that she has showed a level of respect and knowledge of the game of women's basketball, they have played Kaitlyn Clark like she's some mindless puppet that can't think for herself. If you know even a little bit about the game, as you said, there are so many black shoulders the game has been built upon. And that's not to say that there hasn't been some tremendous iconic white players in the league. Diana Taurasi is one, for example. Breonna Stewart. I mean, there's, know uh uh Ann Myers I mean there's a ton of white

players that have contributed to the game of women's basketball but a great many of them have also been black and that's all she was saying and so as a lot of us in uh sports called out especially a lot of us black journalists we called this out a long time ago. You know, we said that basically we see what you all are doing. You're using Caitlin Clark to get your racist takes off. And now that she does, you find out that she doesn't support that nonsense. Now you upset and you mad at her and you want to call her weak minded. And you want to say that she's being pressured and bullied and she's going woke and all these other euphemisms for the fact that you just a racist and she just exposed you even more. Simple as that. Jamel, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Anytime.

Let me go to my panel, y'all. Of course, LaVertoria Burke joins us right now. We got Joy Chaney. We got Dr. Greg Carr. Let's get right into it. Lauren, this tweet here pretty much sums up what Jamelle was just saying. The person says, I hate Kate Lindquart now because it turns out she's not a racist piece of shit like me, as I assumed she was. That is so disappointing. She's canceled. 80 to 90 percent of conservative America right now. Cry more, you cons. That's all they are. Yeah, the entire thing is kind of a racial rorschach test in terms of uh people applying the thoughts that are that are in their head onto some someone else i mean every time uh any of this has come up with caitlin clark it's because some journalist

has asked her about it or somehow it's brought up by some sort of outside force. But what it all really boils down to is that there's a lot of people out there that want this discussion because of the commerce of content. I think the media wants this discussion. I don't know that Caitlin Clark really wanted this discussion. But now they have it and now they're not getting the answer that they want um and uh it is really sort of built on this idea that she was supposed to be the you know certainly the the idea that she was you know the best player they wanted her to be the best player in women's basketball and superior to all others and all of that and then that didn't happen she loses the national championship but then she

comes back into the professional women's basketball league and does really well. But the thing that's so funny about it is that it sort of reminds me of so many things. Anytime you have a white person who champions or platforms black people in this way, they often are sort of called crazy. So she must be confused or her handlers. I mean, the Charlie Kirk thing is particularly revealing, although he's an idiot, so you can't really read too deeply into anything that he says. But the idea that somehow there's something wrong with her or her handlers, like they sat down that night before and made this decision to make these statements. Of course, Charlie Kirk, being a racist who is completely obsessed on the subject matter, thinks that everybody else is obsessed with the subject matter, and they're not. She's just speaking as another human being. So it is fascinating to see the sort of Rorschach test quality of this moment.

And it is quite satisfying, I have to say. It really is. I mean, these people, here's the deal, Joy. We always knew who they were. We always do. And all they're doing is, as Jamel said, they're just telling on themselves. Right. That's right.

I mean, this is what we always know. And, you know, I talk gender. And part of this is about wanting women to fight, wanting women to be angry with each other, wanting to pick heterosexual women against lesbian women, trans women against cis women, black women against white women, anything. And if it was two white women, they'd come up with something for them to fight about. You know, this is race. This is gender. This is everything we saw in the election. It's better if they keep us at each other's throat. And what Caitlyn said was, no mas, I'm not doing this. I'm not fighting with Taylor Swift. I'm not fighting against Kamala Harris. I'm not fighting against other black women in the league. She still also owned her own greatness too, right?

She said, I earned everything I got, but I can still acknowledge and celebrate the success of other women because I do it on their shoulders. Good for her. I have always liked her. I like her even more now. And it's a reminder for us to never to fall privy and pray to their efforts to divide us. That's what it's about. And the people that are posting their trolls, they're trolls and they're just angry because Caitlin showed them up. I'm just laughing at him, Greg. And I always say this here. I always appreciate when a racist shows me exactly who they are. I agree I'd laugh at them if it wasn't so boring there's never been a time when we, whoever the hell that is were united

so the idea of attempts to dividing us that's just ahistorical and let's be very clear she is an avatar she is a representative and there's nothing she can do about that she's made some statements that are important to make She is a representative and there's nothing she can do about that. She's made some statements that are important to make because it's like saying, oh, the sun is in the sky.

Yeah. And people say, yes, everybody calm down. Let me be very clear. Sports is a proxy for war. OK, and there's one team in a war of white supremacy. It's whiteness. You put the versus there, and it's everybody. Not Detroit versus everybody, but I would respect our sister Jamel Hill, but whiteness versus everybody. Let's be very clear. I've been following the women's game since my girl was a forward for Tennessee State's Tiger Gems. Oh, by the way, parenthetically, HBCUs have a history, women's teams, of not being lady anything else. Tiger Gems, Tiger Bells, Tiger Sharps. They have their own identity. You won't find that in white teams in college. But

my point is this. I'm old enough to remember the American Basketball League. That's the league that was partially owned by the players that David Stern and his friends put out of business by creating the WNBA at a loss for years because they didn't want any type of formation that would put them out of business.

This is a race war. Caitlyn Clark is an avatar. And this has always been the case. This is Texas Western versus University of Kentucky. This is Bird and Magic that revived the NBA. This is Tiger Woods versus everybody. At the end of the day, you got to make a choice. OK, and my question is very simple.

When are we going to be more sophisticated about this and make these people stop playing in our faces? Bill Belichick then signed for the University of North Carolina because he's taken the NFL to the college ranks where it already is, and he's not even trying to pretend about it. These aren't student athletes. They're employees. Kayla Clark is an employee. And guess who's not going to stand against her? Sports Illustrated, the WNBA. I'm sorry. Who's not going to stand against those white nationalists? All those people who are looking to profit from those white nationalists who will say, OK, that was great. She said that. But let's be clear. We've never been on the side of black women. And that includes black queer women. We've never been on the side of black people and will never be on the side of black people. And once they figure out what this what she said will test against their market value, they may ask her to go in a car. Yeah, we all agree, but could you be a little quiet? Cause we want those racists coming to our games at some point. Can we just. 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 Glott.

And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. 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. 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. Retail 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. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.

Stop playing like we don't understand what this is. Well, we know exactly what it is. And Megyn Kelly can just go to hell. She really can. She really can. She shows on a daily basis how trash she really, really is. But then again, we've always known that. All right. Got to go to a break.

We come back, folks. We're going to talk about the great Nikki Giovanni. She passed away at the age of 81. That's next right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Hi, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. Fanbase is a free-to-download, free-to-use, next-generation social media platform that allows anyone to have followers and subscribers on the same page. Fanbase was built through investment dollars from equity crowdfunding from the JOBS Act. People just like you help build Fanbase.

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And then use Fanbase to connect with friends, grow your audience, and be you without limits. Now streaming on the Blackstar Network. I had been trying to get a record deal for a long time. You know, when I finally got signed to the Motown record label in 2003. I was 34, 35 years old. And up until that time, I had been trying to get record deals the traditional way. You know, you record your demo, you record your music, and you send it to the record labels. Or maybe somebody, a friend of a friend, knows somebody that works for, you know, the record label. And really, chemistry was, that was my last ditch effort at being in the music business.

How long have you been trying? I've been trying since I was a teenager. Wow. And, you know, and I'm grateful that it didn't, I'm grateful that it happened when it happened. Because I wasn't prepared, you know, as a teenager to embrace all that comes with a career in the music industry. This is Tamela Mann. And this is David Mann. And you're watching Roland Martin.

On Twitter. Oh, the last couple of days, tributes have been pouring in all around the world for Nikki Giovanni. She passed away at the age of 81 due to lung cancer. She was a fierce writer, poet, activist, you name it. She talked about race. She talked about gender. She talked about all sorts of things.

And it was always a delight to hear her, to read her work. And so many people have been talking about what she has meant to them as individuals. But one of the places where she really touched folks was at Virginia Tech. She taught there for more than 30 years. Joining us right now, Dr. Laura Belmont, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Professor of History there as well. Glad to have you here. It's always, it has to be just so interesting if you're a student and you get to sit in a class with a true legend and icon and you get to see him up close. You get to talk to him, walk the same halls with him. She was truly beloved by the Virginia Tech family. She absolutely was.

She was unforgettable. And the impact she made on the Hokie Nation, both in the classroom and beyond, I don't know if it will ever be matched. First of all, what did she teach there? She came to us in 1987 as a creative writing professor. She and her partner, Ginny Fowler, were instrumental in making our creative writing program a real force to be reckoned with.

We have a significant percentage of underrepresented students in that program. And Nikki certainly was a huge draw for that. They were iconic figures in the English department and the college and the university itself. But a lot of what Nikki did that affected people's lives didn't happen necessarily in the classroom. Although if you were lucky enough to get into her class, that was certainly an unforgettable experience. She spent a lot of time, for example, mentoring student athletes. She did a lot of outreach with children in the Blacksburg area. Just last summer, the college hosted a summer camp for rural middle schoolers. And she came in with these sixth, seventh, and

eighth graders and read her poetry and interacted with them. And as you might imagine, they were pretty awest on her, she was always very warm and gracious and happy to interact. And she will be deeply missed. I take it there were also those moments in faculty meetings where she was never called shy. Well, anybody who thinks that freedom of speech on campus is in danger never interacted with Nikki Giovanni. She said what she thought and never failed to speak truth to power, whatever the issue, whatever the context. There were a lot of people. 2007, when all eyes were on the memorial service that took place there, and Nikki Giovanni delivered these words at that ceremony that really shook folk up to their core. Guys, go ahead and play it.

Ladies and gentlemen, Virginia Tech University Distinguished Professor of English and celebrated author, Nikki Giovanni, will deliver closing remarks. We are Virginia Tech. We are sad today and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on. We are embracing our mourning. We are Virginia Tech. We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly. We are brave enough to bend a cry and sad enough to know we must laugh again. We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS. Neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by a rogue army. Neither does the baby elephant watching his community be devastated for ivory. Neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water. Neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands, being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy. We are Virginia Tech. The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid.

We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imagination and the possibility. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this sadness. We are the Hokies. We will prevail. We will prevail. We will prevail. We are Virginia Tech. We'll call it a drop the mic moment. Absolutely. A really non-periel ability to eloquently speak to a community that was reeling and in deep pain. And every April 16th, Nikki's voice becomes the voice of commemorating that singular, awful moment in our university's history. And she provided tremendous comfort and gave incredible expression to a community devastated by loss.

When you think about Y'all Meaning Interactions, what is a cherished memory? What stands out the most for you? To know Nikki was to forever be changed by her. One never knew what she would say. And you could go from laughing so hard you were crying one moment to the next moment her posing a question or saying something that you found yourself haunted by months later because it profoundly challenged your view of the world. We were so fortunate to have this global legend among us, and she will never be forgotten. All right, Dr. Belmont, we appreciate it. Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the legend, Dr. Nikki Giovanni.

Thanks so much, Roland. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Folks, a little bit earlier, I caught up with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson. He sent us, give me one second, let me get it ready. 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. 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 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.

We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more.

Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. This video, he's actually in flight. And so I said, hey, go ahead and drop us a video. And he did. And so here it is. All right, let me see what's going on with this video here. Okay, here it is now. Let's come back to it. Here we go. Y'all forgive the dirty camera and the noise in the background and my scruffy outfit, but I'm in the airport. Just wanted to send these few words to Brother Roland celebrating the great Nikki Giovanni. I went to Knoxville in 1979, and Nikki Giovanni, of course, was intimately associated with Knoxville. And so that was one of my proudest moments to recognize

that I was going to college in the very home base of one of the greatest poets of the black arts movement. The black arts movement, as you know, was a rhetorical fusillade against the white supremacist discourse of the 1960s and 70s and a recuperation of the ethic and aesthetic of black culture as the armor against the forcible implosion of white supremacy in the brains of so many black people. She wanted to help occupy the black mind with thoughts, ideas, sensibilities, and realities that drew from our experience. Think about all those albums she made long before it was popular to do so. I mean, think about the poem to Aretha and so many others that she recorded that were spiritual nourishment to those of us who were young and coming up in the 70s.

And of course, I got a chance to meet her and become a friend. And I talked to her on several occasions. I even went to Virginia Tech and gave lectures there. And we hung out and had a great time. And I remember her love and commitment to young people, right? I mean, with that Tupac tattoo, she said, because somebody's got to call an MF an MF. You're talking about keeping it real. Before there was hip-hop, before there was gangster rap, before there was hardcore lyricism,

Nikki Giovanni was doing that. She could do that in the streets. She could do that in the studio. She could carry her poetry and then she could sit down with James Baldwin and have a conversation on television that got transcribed into a book that is a remarkable testament to an older and younger artist of our African-American descent telling the truth about what they felt not always agreeing in fact she schooled him on some stuff as well and he was receptive to that because they were

beautiful in their intent to edify black people recently I got her to go to a tech company and deliver a black history month speech they had plenty of dough they were willing to pay her. She refused to take the money. I said, Ms. Giovanni, I said, they got plenty of dough. So please don't hold back. She said, Eric, because that's what she called me, Eric. She said, Eric, it's not about them.

It's about me. And I don't want to take money to represent for my people and to tell the truth To these folk who need to hear it and I don't want any barrier to come in the way of me delivering my message That's the kind of woman she was that's the kind of tall spirit She remains even in death the length of her, the depth of her power and presence continues to inspire us. I love you, Nikki Giovanni, like cotton candy on a rainy day. You spoke about that, but you remain a beautiful, ineffable, essential contribution to our humanity as black people and to our willingness to use rhetoric, literature, and literacy to fight back against white supremacy and black bourgeois capitulation

to the premises and practices of a dominant colonial culture. She decolonized the black mind long before that became a thing. Rest in peace, you great poet, you great soul, you great songstress, you great lyricist, you great sister. We love you now, our great ancestor. Continue to lead and guide us home. I first met Nikki when I was in Chicago. There was a party and she had a book signing at the home of Ronaldo Glover. He was a star basketball player at Fisk. He was an accomplished attorney. He was one of the investors in the Chicago Defender and got an opportunity to to chat with her. And my God, she had a huge laugh, a huge smile.

And she was not always serious. She loved to have fun. When y'all when y'all see the interview that I did with her six years ago, you'll realize that the quote, the quote Michael Dyson was talking about. I'm trying to get it. I'm trying to get that on video. So I had sent Tavis Smiley a DM and an email, hit him on Twitter. I thought I had to have this number. I don't. And so it was in 2000, Greg, Joy and Lauren at USC. And Tavis had one of these state of the black union or state of black America discussions at USC. And I believe it was Stanley Crouch, Nikki Giovanni. There may have been one other person. And the moderator was the late, great Dr. Charles Ogletree. And and Dr. Ogletree asked Nikki Giovanni. And I think Noel Jones may have been on that panel, too.

He asked Nikki Giovanni. He said, Nikki, why do you like Tupac Shakur so much? And without missing the beat and we all see the interview, I told her this. She said again. So for everybody out there who keep telling me, Rose, stop cussing. Go ahead and turn the radio. Turn it down. You want your kids to hear what I'm about to say? I'm about to quote Nikki Giovanni and what she said in this forum. So I'm going to give you five, four, three, two, one. So he asked that. And she said, Charles, somebody got to call a motherfucker, a motherfucker. Great. So when I told one of my top three all time great quotes.

You can take Dr. King, Reverend Jackson, everybody. She made the cut in the top three because it cut man and the room erupted. Just erupted when she said that. Yeah, man, that is Nikki Giovanni. That is Nikki Giovanni since she burst on the scene in the 70s, as you said, at a Brother Winter Fisk. She's a Fisk graduate. And of course, like Mike Dyson out of East Tennessee,

Knoxville. That has been her since she was a teenager, man. Since they turned Gwendolyn Brooks, who was, and one of the people surprised, black woman poet in 1950 at that conference at Fisk when they had the Black Writers Conference back in, I guess it was 67 or 68. And Gwendolyn Brooks was already black, but she got blacker after hanging out with Nikki Giovanni. And people are talking about this

Baldwin conversation with her. And it's a very important conversation, but it's more important to place it in the context. Nikki Giovanni was still in her 20s when Ellis Hazlitt from here from D.C. had a show called Soul in New York. And Nikki Giovanni was like the correspondent. She talked to Muhammad Ali. She talked to James Baldwin. She was in conversation across the board with so many people. And she consistently pushed them. Mike is right. She was going to be who she was going to be. My favorite Nikki Giovanni is from the Black Arts Movement period. She, Mary Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, who still walks the earth just had her 90th birthday.

Nikki Giovanni, Nikki Rosa, who can forget ego tripping? If she did nothing else to the culture but contribute ego tripping, she was like 29 years old when she wrote that. And her albums, Truth Is On The Way. So yeah, I mean, anytime you're around her like 29 years old when she wrote that and her albums uh truth is on the way so yeah i mean anytime you're around her and i'll end with this you you have that sense that she was going to be who she was going to be she got a thug life tattoo she came to howard one time we all sitting there and these young people said why you get that she said tupac tells it like it is we don't have to agree on everything but what i love about him is his spirit.

And so she was going to play it straight down the line. And it's just, you know, a great loss. But, you know, she lived an incredible life. She beat cancer twice. It came back again. She continued to write. She got another book coming out next year called The Last Book. She fought to the end, brother. A life well lived. So when y'all see the interview, we barely talked about her book that came out then. I just want to let y'all know. We talked about food.

She said, y'all go enjoy. She's like, yeah. She said, yeah, Maya Angelou. She thought she can cook. She really can cook. So it was hilarious. And it was just, I mean mean we laughed so much in that interview and again I think

that that's the reason that's important Joy is because I think a lot of times when you look at figures like Nikki Giovanni people assume that they're always serious and tough and all of that no she loved to

laugh and play and joke. 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 One, 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 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-studugs 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 2 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. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. In crack jokes, when we were at Ronaldo Glover's house, she was telling the story about how she was at Fisk and then she left Fisk because some of the professors did not particularly like her because of her because of her sexuality. She was like, yeah, I clear in terms of how she just didn't abide by also the respectability politics at Fisk at that time in terms of dress code and the other. So she bounced. And then when they softened up a bit, then she came back, got her degree there.

And so they still laud her as one of their great graduates. But she held firm when it came to her point of view and her standards. Well, let me tell you what, when I heard that she had passed, I wrote that heaven was vibing tonight. Thinking about that conversation with James Baldwin and then you bringing up a conversation with my mentor, Charles Ogletree, who we lost last year. I mean, heaven is vibing right now and they are having deep conversations. You know, it also is a reminder of what happened to me, how lucky we were to have her with us for as long as we did. So many of our luminaries, so many of our great thinkers don't survive. They don't make it. The pressures of who they are or just, you know, the fact that people target them means that they are impactful, but they have a short life. She had a long life

and really gave us an opportunity to see what happens when you have the fullness of life and you can reflect at different stages of your life upon history and contribute to so many different groups that you wouldn't have if you were only stuck in time at a young age. We got to see what a 70-something Nikki Giovanni would say upon reflecting in her sunset years. So, you know, what a privilege. And also just a reminder of queer black people and the contributions that they make, not only to art, but to the intellectual fabric of our nation. I mean, what a great honor it was. And black women, just the deepness. She was a humanist. And when you talk about her, the fact that she had a good time and that she laughed, of course.

No one who really understands, no one who's really a poet, no one who can really break down the human experience as she does and really pick it apart and reflect on it can do that if you don't love people. You know, you have to be deep and you have to love people.

And she did that. And so, you know, I'm so glad that we get a chance to celebrate her life. And there are people who didn't know her before who are going to know her now through our lauding of her of her legacy. You know what, Lauren, when I think about, again, just a whole slew of generation of greats who are becoming ancestors. But what just out at me is how they were, how they were coming of age and they were all moving and interacting with one another. I mean, when Greg talked about that show, so I was I'm in a group chat and Michael Herriot was telling us that there are about 40 or 50 episodes of that on Peacock. They're streaming it. It's on Peacock. And people have an opportunity to watch those shows. And a lot of black people today was when you think about that show was out and there were other shows that were coming out of New York City and Boston and other places.

I mean, really. What black people today have to understand is that King gets killed in 68. Saturday in the 68th, the Kerner Commission report comes out in 68 saying there were two americans one black one white one black when you go to the early to mid 70s and when you look at these public affairs shows when you look at the fact that a julian bond was a host on saturday night live when you think about, when you think about being on those public affairs shows, when you think about just the energy that was happening, when you think about the dialogues and the conferences, when you go back and look at All in the Family and a Jefferson's. And the dialogue that was happening on those shows, I mean, that was an unbelievable period. And I think what was also important is that figures like Nicky Giovanni

and with the Baldwins of the world and so many others, I mean, they were with the bald ones of the world and so many others I mean they were basically they were they I don't want to use the phrase they were challenging each other but I think for lack of a better phrase they were operating in a time where you had what I call literary versus where where the work of this person was causing this person to say I got to raise my game and iron was sharpening iron and things along those lines and they were having real intellectual conversations

in public spaces what's happening today I dare say doesn't even remotely compare doesn't even remotely compare. Doesn't even come close. What's happening today is you see, we live in a society with a level of distraction that is just off the chain. And you know, when you find out from whistleblowers

from Facebook, Francis Haugen, who testified in front of Congress that Instagram was built to effectively keep you on the platform for as long as possible, so all of this is a game of distraction. And you take that and, of course, YouTube and everything else, it's really hard to get back to a point where you are in a face-to-face dialogue with somebody in a way that yields what you were just talking about, when you have a group of people who have something in common artistically or they're all writers.

I think, you know, that phenomenon happened in the 60s as well. It happened in the civil rights movement. You have the face-to-face conversation, you have the in-person conversation, and that yields a different result about, you know, what comes from that. And what comes from the digital world that we live in is something quite different. And I'm not sure it's better sometimes. I mean, there's certainly some elements of it that are beneficial, but there's something going on with the sort of lack of connection and communication that we used to have in society in the 70s and the 60s, some of which I was not, you know, here for, but you can certainly sense it from the art that

resulted. So somebody like Nikki Giovanni, as Greg was saying, somebody in her 20s that can yield something so brilliant at such a young age, that requires a level of concentration. I mean, you have to be thinking about the world and putting it on paper. And that is becoming increasingly difficult to do in the digital age because of the level of distraction. So yeah, to your point, Roland, there is definitely a difference. I think we're going to see it on the back end. We're probably already seeing it because a lot of these distractions with... 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. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. 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 Cor 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.

We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. With regard to our cell phones and our iPads and everything else, started about 15, 20 years ago. So you see the result of those distractions 20 and 30 years later. So that is definitely the case. No doubt about it i mean i i i i guess from the the reason um the reason um

that is so important to me greg is because you know last night um bishop horace sheffield had me in detroit uh and at a library that was actually named after his sister. And the thing that was interesting about that is that we were having a it's a lecture series. It's a free lecture series that they have for the public. And Cornel West will be there in a couple of weeks. Michael Dyson next month. Eddie LaV Cornel West will be there in a couple of weeks. Michael Eric Dyson next month. Eddie LaVert's going to be there in March. And this is just a short video I took last night of the audience there.

And the thing about it, it was, I mean, the conversation that was a one-on-one. And, you know, young brother was asking me questions there. And and when I think about the Giovanni's of the world, I think about I think about that scene in Reggie Hutland's movie Thurgood. I'm sorry, Marshall. And it was a it was it was a club scene uh zora neil hurston um langston hughes third good marshall uh there may have been one other figure i can't remember um and i sit there and go, what were those conversations like? When I think about Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis and Dick Gregory and Hair Belafonte, Dr. King and Diane Carroll, Sidney Poitier, what were those conversations like? James Baldwin. And and when I so when I bring it present day and Greg, I start thinking about.

Folks who I know that are in the entertainment space, folks who in the media space, folks who are in the art space. I'll be honest with you. Those things don't happen and and the challenging and the pushing uh and the i mean having these high intellectual conversations that got that that would get loud that would get noisy but it's not like you would hate each other but the whole point of it was uh you were challenged on every aspect of your point of view and like i said iron sharpened iron that's why i believe that's why a nikki giovanni could write what she wrote what she wrote at 29 yeah yeah absolutely uh Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, it's quite ironic that you were in Detroit, which fights with Chicago, which is the blackest city. They have an argument to make in terms of the black arts movement, the institutions. Sister Nikki's good friend, Haki Mahabuti, who's coming up on his 80th birthday there in Chicago with Third World Press. The great Deadly Randall and Broadside Press out of Detroit, where Nikki Giovanni published some of her earliest poetry.

You know, those institutions really created, as you say, these kind of hothouses where women and men could get together, where people could get together in community and push each other to this greatness. There's a reason why the Black Arts Movement, people talk about the Harlem Renaissance, and it's an important movement. But if I had to pick one, one moment in time, it's really the 1960s and 70s and the Black Arts Movement in terms of our cultural meaning making. Lauren, what you said, I wrote that down. You always had these quotables. I love it.

Thinking about the world and putting it on paper. That is what they did. And I don't think we have any less ability now. But the reason why this is a forgettable age, and will be forgotten if the species survives, is because of these institutions that Francis Hogan is talking about and others are talking about. It has decimated our capacity to be still, to observe, and to be in conversation with observe, and to be in conversation with each other and to make meaning.

I would encourage everyone, if you haven't seen it, to look at the documentary, I think it's on Netflix, Going to Mars. That one and the one on Sonia Sanchez, Bad Sonia Sanchez, gives you a glimpse into that period. In Sonia Sanchez's case, she cycles through the Nation of Islam. She comes out of that and moves into another space and keeps going and keeps going. And she's teaching each generation. I'm saying all this to say that what we have now is academics, brilliant young academics,

who know nothing about building community, who now treat that generation and treat that era like they are raiding a graveyard to present to their master super smart books that nobody reads, that completely misinterpret what that was about. Nikki Giovanni was about the people. She was about her people. And when we slice and dice it in the academic jargon of today's kind of movements. What we leave is the fact that those movements that we stand on the shoulders of were all about building black community critically, collectively. And so for you to be in Detroit at that moment, it doesn't surprise me that that

room was full because Detroit knows about building community. And in many ways, Nikki Giovanni traces one of her great lines of thought and development to exactly what you said, that steel sharpening steel that took place in the in the place that gave birth to the Nation of Islam, to gave birth to the Republic of New Africa and the Shrine of the Black Madonna. Institutions are going to say black people, not super smart Negroes who ain't that smart in 2024 these days. The conversation that people keep referencing regarding her discussion on Soul with James Baldwin,

the basis of that was Nikki Giovanni's father often beat her mother. And Giovanni later said that either I was going to kill him or I had to leave. And she actually did.

She at 15 left to go live with her grandparents. This exchange here was so powerful. It was an hour and 46 minute conversation. The full thing is on YouTube. As I said, I think it's streamed. So all the episodes are streaming on peacock uh but when i i've seen this clip first of all seen this numerous times over the years and what immediately jumps out at me and again as somebody who who's in television first of all i look at how was shot. I look at how tight it was shot.

This was a true one-on-one conversation. She's 29, he's 47. And this dialogue was just unbelievable. Listen to this. Fake it because we don't have dreams these days. How the hell can you have a dream? For what? So everybody's jiving, but let's jive on that level. If I love you, I can't lie to you. Of course you can lie to me. And you will. If you love me and you're going off with Maddie someplace, you're lying to me.

Because what the hell do I care about the truth? I care if you're there. Let Billie Holiday say hush now. Don't explain. All right. I accept that of course What is the truth matter and why you gonna be truthful with me when you lie to everybody else You lied when you smiled at that cracker down the job right lot of me smile Treat me the same way you would treat him. I can't treat you Because I've caught the i've caught the

frowns and the anger he's happy with you of course he doesn't know you're unhappy you grin at him all day long you come home and i catch out because i love you i get least of you i get i get the very minimum and i'm saying you know fake it with me is that too much for the black woman to ask of the black man? For 10 years, so that we can get a child on his feet that says, yeah, father smiled at mother. He talked to me about school today. Who cares that you can read or can't read? Most Americans can't read. Most people can't read. They look at the pictures.

A.B., A.B., I know what you're saying. I know exactly what you're saying, and I don't disagree, but I'm going to be honest and think about it really. Really, I'm not so sure that that is a human possibility. I have to smile all day. And the cat on the job, the foreman. You understand why I'm smiling? Not because I want to smile, I'm smiling because the baby needs some shoes I can't give a performance all day on the job and come home and give a performance

all night in the house so one of the performances will stop yes so that was so again I think what makes that so riveting Joy

is not just the conversation but also how it was shot. And I can tell you there's so many times when we're shooting stuff, I'm always like, yo, push in, push in, push in. Because like you literally you're inside of the box and you and you see every bit of emotion on her face and his face. And it's just captivating. The reality is you're not getting those discussions even remotely. You're not. And let me tell you, there is a moment where she says fake it with me where she gets really emotional and it's so good. And when he says I can't do it, I've watched that at least 10 times this week, but I've watched it many times. But I also I keep seeing this on social. OK, can people today.

And let me just. I want to cuss people today. And let me just. I want to cuss people out. But I keep seeing this on social media and I'm seeing this in our chat room. Can y'all stop saying, oh, she cooked him. She didn't. This wasn't. They can't stop saying it see this is the thing that that

this is the thing that pisses me off with folk today we want every intellectual conversation to be a battle yes to be a battle. Yes.

To be a fight. It's not. If you actually shut the, if you actually just shut up and watch, what you're seeing is, you're seeing Nikki Giovanni. Speaking through the pain of a woman, of a young girl who saw her mama being beaten by her father, being grossly disrespected. And when she's talking about fake it, you're seeing a James Baldwin wrestle with.

I can't do that to a black woman. Now, first of all, we're seeing two gay people having the conversation. She's talking about a man to the black woman. He's about the black man to the black. He's about a woman to the black man, right, so people need to stop with oh man, she cooked him, no they were both grappling with the very same issue, yet bringing a different set of

emotions to the conversation I'm just sick of these people who they can't watch it and not say let me listen and understand in a deeper meaning what they're talking about versus, oh, man, she cooked them. Oh, man, he had a. No. And it was so deep because some because in many ways they were both still closeted. Right.

And like, I mean, so it's just so, so, so deep. But the reason part of this is like the decline of the liberal arts education where we don't, our kids just don't sit and debate each other enough. Oh, hell no. Oh, not even. Right. They're not even. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, but like they assume if you have a disagreement with someone, if you have a conversation with someone somewhat like what you tried to develop here, right, with having three panelists plus you, sometimes with a guest, they think that you're arguing or that you disagree or that you hate one another. No, no, no. We're having a conversation. It may even get animated, but we're having a conversation and trying to go deeper. The only place where I really see that happening now is sometimes on podcasts. If you have not seen Ezra Klein with Tadahashi Coates talking about his new book, that is really deep and long format where they really unpack and they really debate with each other. But that does not often happen. It is really quick bites. People are afraid to go deep because they feel like they will be soundbited and someone will take the one thing that they said.

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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. 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

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and the Ad Council. And make that the fullness of what they said instead of saying, or will they continue the conversation? Or they actually are afraid to challenge and be challenged. I mean, the reason the reason I the reason I was sitting here laughing, the reason I was sitting here laughing and Greg know where I'm going. I'm sitting here laughing is because. So that was a screening in D for 12 Years a Slave. And I watch movies a lot different. My wife gets up, she says I get her nerves,

because I'm actually watching the content, but also the technical. And I was watching how Steve McQueen used sound and used silence, and these really long sections where you were like okay shit they gonna switch the shot that were like damn how long we gonna keep sitting here but the whole point for you to hear the crickets and things like that Ava DuVernay did the exact same thing in Queen Sugar when you actually when they would use the wind and all sort of stuff and it was just

very interesting how they use it so so when the movie was over, we had a Q&A. And so, Greg, you had some, was it your class? What was it? Yeah, some students there. One of my students who's now on faculty at Howard, Shanice Thompson, got up and was talking about the prison. She said, we're still slaves. We're still slaves because of the prison industrial complex. She laughs about that now. But we wouldn't know each other had she not gotten up. Right. So she got up, she got up and she said that we're all slaves. And I was like, oh, hell no, I ain't no slave. I'm like, I ain't a prison by damn thing.

And so and so that's that led to this just like this uproar from her. Then Greg got into it. And I was like, man, I don't give a damn what none of y'all say. And so and so then it's like so people in the room like, oh. And so then it went to social media. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I want to see. I want to see you debate Greg Carr. And again, me, I was like like who the hell is Greg Carr bring his

ass on the show right I didn't give I was like right I was like let's go and these people were like oh no no I was like I don't know who that is but hey you want to go right let's go

that's exactly right and so that's so that's actually how greg first came on the show we met right but but it was a but it was it was a thing where i i was going to explain why no i ain't no damn slave because i talked about being free and and and the thing is if if if people had not got more what they would have understood is I was literally talking about Being free financially being free in terms of mind Not being not being imprisoned by I mean put them boxes and things along those lines And so it was so it was a really fascinating again back and forth

And so so when you think about the Nikki Giovanni's of the world and you think about And if you go through YouTube and other things and you look at a lot of these speeches and you look a lot of these Conversations there's a video out there Lauren where she where she fires back at Bill Cosby and the comments that he made and and and I think and the thing is and So the reason like what I love about Giovanni is the fearlessness because I think the part of the problem that we have today and this is why I thought it was so funny with that conversation with Greg and the students

is that folk are afraid to go at prominent figures where I've always maintained, if you do good, I'll talk about you. If you do bad, I'll talk about you. In the end, I'll talk about you. You're not, ain't nobody infallible. So I remember when I hit Oprah in Chicago Defender, people were like, oh my God, you criticized Oprah.

I was like, she don't pay my damn bills. And that was just, so there's this thing. And so Giovanni to the world, others, they had no problem challenging major figures because they said you deserve to be challenged like anybody else. Yeah. Well, challenging people in these days has a real-world effect, as we found out last semester, where we had a bunch of billionaires effectively threaten the degrees and threaten the livelihoods of students who were protesting the war in the Middle East, if you remember. So we have a situation, I think, again, that goes back to social media, where the cancel culture situation means that when you criticize something, I wouldn't even just say prominent people. If you make a controversial statement, you could end up paying

for it 15 and 20 years later, even if you made that statement as a teenager. We've seen a few people get upended by things that they wrote on social media when they were 15 and 16 years old, and then were going for a job at 30-something years old, and then all of a sudden there was some controversy. And so what that has done is it has stifled debate. It's stifled criticism. It's stifled people challenging each other, either in person or in the virtual world on some digital platform.

And I think that has been a huge problem. It's been a huge problem because what it does is it prevents us from having a discussion about something that might be wrong or criticizing something or challenging something and having that other person challenge us back and say, well, this is why I feel this way, because everybody is too afraid to have the discussion in the first place. This happens all the time. And there's also a sort of a cancel. That cancel culture comes with a virtue signaling package. And the virtue signaling package is basically that, you know, outrage culture has its benefits.

And being seen online, being outraged about something gets you rewards. And we have seen this in big policy discussions with regard to serious issues that come up before Congress and everything else. But that entire package, I think, is stifling a lot of the types of things that creates someone like a Baldwin or a Giovanni. I mean, you need to have those discussions. You need to have those discussions. You need to have hard discussions. You need to look people in the eye and say things and them not run out of the room on fire because they're offended or whatever. So that is a difficult space. And generally,

what I find now is to have that type of intimate discussion, you really have to know somebody really well to have it and know that that person isn't going to flip out. But it's complicated. A lot of this, by the way, I'll give a shout out to Jonathan Haidt. Jonathan Haidt's book, The Anxious Generation, deals with a lot of these issues with regard to social media and how the generation got more anxious and more sensitive about criticism. And for academia, I know Greg can talk to this a lot better than I can. For academia, I think this has been problematic, but not just for academia. Can I hop in to say one thing? Yeah. Charles, Charles used to do this on campus with his

Saturday school. When I was there, we used to have deep conversations. We used to have controversial figures. We used to have dinners afterwards where we'd have that conversation. I don't know that it's still going on. I'm not quite sure. But I think it would be hard in this climate to the to my co-panelists what they've also said. And when people don't feel like they can have a conversation and survive afterwards and really debate and maybe even be a little wrong when they feel like they can't do that. Then you have people, parasites like Donald Trump, parasites like others who say, you know what, I'm going to let you say whatever you want to say. It can fester because people feel hindered and frustrated. So, you know, to what you said earlier tonight, if you're a bigot, if you're racist, go on, say it. So I can say what I want to say, call you the MF or if that's what it is and we can have it out and that's OK.

And we can live to fight another day about it. I'd rather you do it here than at the ballot box. Michael Vick was on Urban View with Lamont King and Greg. And he talked about being a Virginia Tech and Nikki Giovanni. Listen to this because I know one of our great legends, the great Nikki Giovanni, was on faculty at Virginia Tech for a number of years. And so as we were coming in, I asked, hey, Brother Vic, man, did you ever take a class with Nikki Giovanni? And your answer was the beauty of what you say, man.

I did. I had her, I think, my sophomore year. I had a class with Nikki, and she was so amazing that I used to, you know, I always sat in the back of the class and never wanted to sit in the front. I used to pay attention to every word that came out of Nikki's mouth because she was just so legendary. And, you know, she spoke with, you know, so much precision and value and everything was in volume.

And, you know, she used to put us in groups, and we used to have these big discussions, but so much precision and everything was in volume. She used to put us in groups, and we used to have these big discussions, and sometimes the discussions would get really crazy and heated and intense. I just remember that it was a night class, too, being just one of my favorite classes to go to. At Virginia Tech, I, one, wish I would have spent more time trying to be a better student because I know I had it in me. It was just football and it was overwhelming. It was a lot to handle, but that class was the class that I was always in. And, you know, she would allow me

to miss here and there, but she always held me accountable. Not for me, not just for me, but my teammates who, you know, tried to cut class at times. And so she made sure we was always there in attendance, man. So some of my fondest memories have been at Virginia Tech, no doubt. That's a beautiful thing. And I mean, in the sense as well that we typically think of student athletes, you know, I've been teaching for a long time. And I tell the students all the time who play football, basketball, track. So y'all end up being employees at a university.

I don't know, first of all, how y'all do it. Do all of that work and still come to class. But in that vein, you got what you needed to get at Virginia Tech, man. A relationship with Nikki Giovanni and being in class like that. Look, you don't need another thing to do, but it seems to me there's a book in that between the two of y'all should collaborate on something at some point because she just retired. Nikki gave me a lot of leeway.

You know what? I think I got to enter a class. See, that's what I'm talking about. Because I was always prepared. And like I said, I was one of the classes. I knew I couldn't. She always called me out. Virginia Tech and the football team. And, you know, you got all these responsibilities.

You got to be a leader in this. And she always and she knew I was kind of shy and laid back. attacking the football team and, you know, you got all these responsibilities. You got to be a leader in this. And she always – and she knew I was kind of shy and laid back, so she would always call on me to speak in the league conversations. And so, you know, we had a really deep class, man. Like, we had some amazing dialogue throughout those – you know, throughout that year. Thank you for sharing that with us, brother. Thank you for sharing that with us brother. Thank you for sharing That Again, Michael Vick was star quarterback at Virginia Tech

Of course, we're a Nick and Giovanni taught. Here's the thing that people don't think a lot people realize so when Ruth Simmons became President preview and him she actually created an opportunity for Dick and Giovanni to be in residence at View A&M, she actually created an opportunity for Nikki Giovanni to be in residence at Prairie View A&M. And, you know, Greg, I remember one of those conversations we were having at Renato Glover's house because she was being asked, she was being asked about returning or teaching in HBCU. And I remember Nikki was like, no, because she was saying that a lot of the same politics that she dealt with as a student continues. And she felt that, uh,

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.

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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. She would not have had the level of freedom of speech at an HBCU. It was a very interesting discussion that we had because she was talking about, you know, the funding and a lot of state schools and stuff along those lines so she was like now i'm gonna get the school in trouble

yeah man this is the tragedy of black institutions this is the tragedy ruth simmons of course who went to dillard her her life you know coming out coming out of Grapeville, Texas, and then going to Louisiana to go to Dillard, it all starts at the HBCU intellectually for her in the academic sense. This is the tragedy. You're absolutely right about Nikki Giovanni's experience at Fisk. She talked about that many times. But had it not been for that black space, you wouldn't have seen Nikki Giovanni the way we see her. And as you say, sitting there with Mike Vick, and of course, he had come in for like a 10-minute conversation about his new documentary. And of course, if y'all haven't seen it, The Rise of the Black Quarterback was a remarkable

piece of work he and his wife did together, and they collaborated with some others. But I wanted to ask him about Nikki Giovanni. As you see, that was the first question. He ended up staying for like 30 40 minutes. In fact sway in the morning was supposed to be in the studio in New York and they had he had to delay his show cuz Mike wanted to sit there because This is a conversation about you as a human being and as a student as and have that relationship so it's important for Nikki Giovanni's to be at

Virginia Tech's and Mike Dyson's to be at Vanderbilt and Cornelanni's to be at Virginia Tech and Mike Dyson's to be at Vanderbilt and Cornel West's to be at Union Theological Seminary. And I fundamentally, to my DNA, to myself, reject the idea of ever teaching at any of those places. I taught at Ohio State. I taught at Temple when I was in graduate school. And I'm at Howard for a reason. I'm not there because I can't go anywhere else because God knows I could.

I am there because I want to be in a black space. And I'm saying that all to say this. Only in a black space can you work on the perfectibility of blackness. And when you showed that clip from Soul, there's so many things as we were all thinking, many things. I think about that show. You should see Mr. Soul if y'all haven't seen that. That's the documentary that was done by Ellis Hazlitt's niece, Melissa, where she shows the show. You see Ellis Hazlitt, a queer man, asking Louis Farrakhan, who is surrounded by the Fruit of Islam and the MGT, Muslim Girls in Training, in the studio about the question of homosexuality. You see, that can only be done in a black

space, you understand? Because then Farrakhan has to confront that question in community with a black man who is queer and grapple with it. You're not going to do that in a white space. I'm going to tell you why. Because the minute you raise that in a space like a Virginia Tech or Vanderbilt or Georgetown, you pick the white school. Here come everybody else wanting to talk about it. Let me be very clear about this. We have no allies. We just saw that with the Caitlin Clark piece. Whatever Caitlin Clark says, it doesn't say she's going to be white and white women in America.

There is no allyship there. There's a there's a nominal allyship, but it's not going to free us. When you saw Baldwin and Giovanni Grappling, two queer people who throughout their lives had more white partners than black ones. Let's just be very candid about this. In a black space, what they are talking about is the potential of the perfectibility of blackness. Because you see, what blackness does, it traps us. You cannot be human and be black. It was designed to not be human in response to the only thing that can be human in a racial formation which is whiteness. White means human.

Black means anti-human. So then black has to perform a superhumanity just to be able not to get knocked the F out which means I can't come home and treat you the way I treat those white people because I'm trying to simply recover from that performance. So when Nikki Giovanni asks James Baldwin about that, what she's asking is for him to be human. His response is, I can't be human.

And the courage, finally, of Nikki Giovanni is to be in a white space, a black space, in whatever space that she has as a human being. That is her towering achievement. However, this is the cost it comes at. The American Negro, the African Negro, the Caribbean Negro spends our entire existence pleading for our humanity and helping perfect the humanity of whiteness, which means we're reinforcing whiteness. She shouldn't have to say I am Virginia Tech. She can say I am Virginia State.

I am Southern University. I am Grambling or Southern. But you know why she can't? Because whiteness demands everything from us. And God damn it, I am not going to pay that price. You mentioned the HBO documentary that was done. I actually reached out to the two individuals who actually put that together. I haven't heard from them, but I would love to have them on.

This is the actual trailer. I brush my teeth. I smile. But there is always this frown I think I'll run away with the ants and live on Mars I'm fortunate because I'm a poet and poets are allowed to be hopeful I used to dream radical dreams of blowing everyone away with my perceptive powers of correct analysis. I don't remember a lot of things. But a lot of things that I don't remember, I don't choose to remember.

Childhood remembrances are always a drag if you're black. I remember what's important and I make up the rest. That's what storytelling's all about. I even used to think I'd be the one to stop the riot and negotiate the peace. Would you ever say that some of your poems were inspired by stress or hate? Were you ever bullied by your of your poems were inspired by stress or hate? Were you ever bullied by your skin color when you were younger? Have you ever had like a breakdown or you couldn't take anymore where you just can't do it?

There has to be a way to do what we do and survive. Our ancestors taught us how to do that. The one thing that I did know is whatever life would be, I knew I had to do that. The one thing that I didn't know is whatever life would be, I knew I had to create myself. To successfully go to Mars, in fact, you will need a song. And maybe a six-pack so if there is life on Mars, you

can share. Popcorn for the celebration when you land, while you wait on your land legs to kick in. And as you climb down the ladder from your spaceship to the Martian surface, look to your left, again, being able to have these real, authentic conversation in black spaces. While that was playing, and man, this has nothing to do with the people who actually produced the documentary, but one of the things that always bothers me

is that those type of documentaries, so well done, polished, telling the stories of our people rarely, if ever, are funded and aired

in black spaces. That's right. So if I think about documentary on Sonia Sanchez, the documentary on Dickie Giovanni, the documentary on Harry Belafonte, they aired on HBO.

And now the Quincy Jones documentary, Netflix. I think about John Coltrane. I think about John Coltrane. I think about, I mean, I can go on and on and on. And

one of the things that I think about a lot of the documentaries on our musicians, Sam Cooke. When I think about Niles Rogers. When I think about Niles Rodgers. When I think about, you know, the Teddy Pendergrass documentary.

Teddy Pendergrass documentary was done by the BBC. Right. When I think, so I may go on and on and on. one of the things that for me like i just i just saw this story where where uh where this pod buzzfeed sold this um youtube studio different shows for 87 million dollars to a consortium of And it pains me that the stories of our legends and our icons are often being told and produced by folk who don't look like us. That's right. by us and so the cycle then repeats itself where they get rich off of our music and our craft and then still get rich off of talking about how we produced our craft they get rich off of talking about how we had to overcome them. That's right. That's right. You know, it's funny. I went to the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.

They had an event last night. Kathy Hughes talked about this, talked about it in an electoral context. We live streamed it. In the spirit of democracy, we live streamed it on the Black Star Network. Yes. And we talked about how, you know, many of our platforms, you did, which is great. But some black platforms did not get access to many of the campaigns and whatnot, as as some of the others did. That's the next stage. Right. We've got to not only demand that, you know, white people acknowledge us and report on us and tell our stories. I mean, there seemed to be that we used to crave that, right? We wanted some kind of validation. We have to move to another stage where we say, and we want to make the money off of it.

We want to enrich our own lives and our own ownership. This is what's so great about what you do here. Roland, I have been on BBC and I've had the sound tech grab me afterwards and say, you know, I'll watch you on Roland. I mean, like that, like we're watching, we are watching us. That's right. And so people, I mean, when, when they're looking for places to platform the material, when they're looking for people to produce the material, to direct the material, they need to be looking at black people. And hell, we can we can produce stuff on them. You know, why can't a Mick Jagger documentary be done by a black person and aired on on our networks? Yeah, but but but but but to Greg's point, I don't want to do Mick Jagger.

Right. Of course, I don't. I mean, I I literally I don't. And the reason and the reason I don't is because there are so many amazing artists whose story has never been told. That is, you know, when we do, I mean, listen, the reason we didn't do any of our, I think the only one-on-one we did last year, we did Kim, it was here in the studio, normally when we travel to LA, and it was because of money.

It was because of money. And there was a reason when we did Richard Roundtree. We shot that. He becomes an ancestor three years later. We did Louis Gossett. He becomes an ancestor

15, 18 months later. I go back to I go back to September, October 2017. We were shooting interviews, getting prepared for the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King. TV one cancels my show. News one. Now I'm sending them emails in January saying, yo, what are we doing for MLK in February? What would be okay? Nobody's responding to the emails. So I then make the decision to spend thirty thousand dollars of my own money to go to Stanford to interview Clarence Jones, to interview Claiborne Carson, to go to at a speech in Buffalo. And then Anthony and I drove to Cornell to interview Dorothy Cotton. We went to Atlanta interview Juanita Abernathy. I went through this. So then when we meet with TV one in March and they finally agree, OK, if I will do something, I had all those in the can.

Thank goodness, because Dorothy Cotton died three months, like two months after the anniversary. I think Juanita Abernathy passed the following year. I'm glad we had that stuff on tape. But that's the thing that, again, when a legend like Nicky Giovanni passes away, Lorne, thank goodness we were only on the air.

We launched the show September 4th, 2018. I was trying to look for the photos. I couldn't believe we didn't take any photos. Somebody had to snap photos. I know we did. We got the video, but I was looking for the photos and I was trying to remember when we did this and I appreciate it. So she sat down with us on October 26, 2018. We were only only doing this show for 40 some odd days. And this is what it means to have these spaces. I mean, even even having this conversation. Sure.

The New York Times did did a bit on Nikki Giovanni. I maybe I don't know because I don't watch I don't watch these other networks. I'm sure the New York Times did an obit on Nikki Giovanni. Maybe, I don't know, because I don't watch these other networks, like at all. So I don't know what CNN did. I don't know what, I don't, like, I literally don't watch them at all. We know damn well Fox News didn't do nothing. But even when you talk about, even when one of our greats pass away, it's barely a blip on the rest of these networks. They sure as hell are not going to give it an hour and 20 minutes like we've done.

And then we still have are going to air the 51 minuteminute interview I deal with. Go ahead. Roland, it's starting not to matter because new media is overtaking legacy media in a big way. In a big way, and you can see it in the numbers. So that whole thing, and you're right, I very rarely find myself watching MSNBC or CNN. So it's kind of interesting. But to go back to what you were saying about documentaries, you know, it's not just that we are sort of not in the same position monetarily to document our own history. It's even worse than that, which is that a lot of times what happens is that the content that gets green-lighted about our community is negative. I actually thought that the documentary that was on Netflix on Sam Cooke, for example, The Second Killing of Sam Cooke, was interesting, but it was effectively negative, right? Even though it was a reveal about his life, a bunch of stuff I didn't know. But what I found is that

when I, you know, and I thought, you know, Surviving R. Kelly was a well-done documentary, but I hated, I've hated a lot of these documentaries that have gotten greenlighted. The Cosby one, certainly the R. Kelly one was good, but what I find is that the content, when it comes to the black community, a lot of times very negative on our community and greenlighted by white folks that then fund the negativity and have black people produce the documentary. So that almost never happens with any other community. And funny thing, the technology that we have now, I remember when I started ABC News many years ago, you could not have done with video, of course, what you can do today, which, Roland, I know you're familiar with. You just need a bunch of memory now, a good laptop, and really, to be honest, you only really

actually need your cell phone in a lot of situations. Of course, you want to probably go higher end than that for a documentary, but for documentary shorts, there's a real opportunity there to build a documentary. But what kills me is is when and this thing with Jay-Z recently is another example of it. You know, years from now, we will see a sort of surviving, of creating controversial content about black people, using that content and monetizing it against us, showing the most negative light of our community as possible, and making money off of it for other people. And that, for me, has been hugely problematic because when you pull back the curtain on who's making that documentary, I can almost assure you, nine times out of ten, it's nobody that looks like us.

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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.

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That is hugely problematic and has been for some time and has to be fixed. Because particularly we enter the age of misinfo and disinfo and Donald Trump and the lying and all of that. We got to fix that piece in a big way. So we coming up next, we have the fan base investathon. But after that, we're going to restream the interview that we did with Nikki Giovanni. This is just a little bit of it. We're just going to play like the first 90 seconds of it because it was just fun to have her in the studio. Just go ahead and play a little bit of it. Hey, folks. Glad to have Nikki Giovanni here, the great poet, activist, author, college

professor, rabble rouser, all that sort of stuff. But here's why I'm happy to have her here. Okay, so I had my show Washington Watch for four years on TV One. I had News One now for four years on TV One. And the problem is I couldn't cuss. So I could say, I could say, damn, hell, ass. I couldn't say that. Okay, so y'all need to understand, I have been wanting to tell this story. This is flat out one of my favorite quotes of all time. This quote is up there with Malcolm X, with Martin Luther King Jr.,

with Frederick Douglass. I mean, some of the greats. I'm telling y'all. Okay. So in 2000, we're at Tavis Smiley, State of Black America at USC, on USC's campus. And I think Charles Ogletree was the one who was interviewing Nikki Giovanni on stage. And I think the brother with the New York Daily News, Stanley Crouch, I think he was on the pound. So the question was asked to Nikki, why do you love hip hop and why do you love Tupac? And this is what she said. She said, somebody got to call a motherfucker a motherfucker. Right there, the whole

audience lost it. And every time I had it on the show, I couldn't say it. I had to dance around it. That is a top five all time quote. I'm embarrassed. I'm an old lady.

I'm sorry. But that was hilarious and truthful. Well, it was truthful. It was truthful. And there's no question about that, really. I mean, well, you have to sometimes. We've been talking football, you know. And, well, I teach at Virginia Tech.

And let me, can I read a poem? Yeah. Because I have a wonderful. Shocking. Shocking. She's going to refer to a poem. This is a nice poem. I have a kid that I taught, Kevin Jones, who is in our Hall of Fame.

Running back. Yeah. Yep. And Kevin came to me and he said, Nick, I need some help in writing a poem. And we talked back and forth. And I came up with this. So the I is Kevin. Some people plant seeds for corn and tomatoes and okra, which grow. Some people clean land, and at evening you can see deer eating flowers or just standing. Mother deer watching her babies. Some people live in crowded cities, and they put out window boxes with herbs,

enchanting folks who wait by. I play football. I have watched men grow too long for too much for too little, then come home to smile at their wives and children. I have watched every Sunday Sunday school children offer a psalm, preachers offer hope, a choir offers a voice and join the community in prayer to a merciful God, that life will be better. I play football.

I listen to my parents tell me to go forward. I listen to my teachers tell me I can. I listen to the wind whistling in my ear and sometimes the rain falling on my back. And I understood that the true heroes of our nation, I am doing my part to be a part of this community, this school, this team. I am humbled to be considered for this hall of fame when I know the true heroes are the men and women who go forth every day. I play football.

I hope I have done my part. And I think we forget that everybody does what they do. And aside from the fact that I love Kevin, I love that. That was again, it was a fascinating conversation. The opportunity just to sit there and chat. And as y'all saw that huge smile, that laugh, as I retold, is she like this? She's like, oh, I'm an old woman. Nick was always cussing.

She was a cussing professor. So again, we're going to do the next, the Fanbase Investathon. After that, we're going to stream the Nikki Giovanni conversation. So let me thank Lauren, Joy, and Greg for joining us.

We have some other stories we'll get to. Those can wait. We'll get to Biden's partners tomorrow. We'll get to those stuff tomorrow. And so we want to make sure that we just gave that sister her flowers. And again, y'all, the fact that having a black on platform, being able to talk to her for almost an hour, being able to celebrate her life for more than an hour. This is precisely why we have to have our own, because ain't no time limit. The only reason I'm stopping now, because I promised Isaac we would do this thing at 8 o'clock, but it's 8.04, but we're still going to do that.

But this is why. We didn't have to ask nobody, and there were a number of people I reached out. A lot of people were traveling. I reached out to Angela Davis, Cornel West and others. People were on the move, still trying to reach out to Sonia Sanchez. Been a few years since I've seen her. But this is precisely why black owned media matters, not black targeted black owned because we don't have to ask permission to talk about and celebrate black people support the work that we do join our bring the funk fan club you can of course give via cash app via strike via strike this is the cure code right here uh if you also want to send

your check and money order peel box five seven one nine six Washington, D.C. two zero zero three seven zero one nine six. PayPal are Martin unfiltered. Venmo are unfiltered. Zelle rolling at Roland S. Martin dot com. Roland at Roland Martin unfiltered dot 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 you can, of course, get the audio version of Audible and get our new gear.

That's right. Get your shirt, FAFO 2025. Also, don't blame me. I voted for the black woman. You can go to Blackstarnetwork.com rolandmartin.future.com or go to rolandmartin.creator-spring.com and as y'all see I don't know who gave me this I forgot it was in some swag bag

that I got and I can't tell you where it was a golf tournament or something so this was a line of clothing honoring Jack Johnson. Of course, the first black heavyweight boxing champion. And so this is what the front says right here. It says Galveston.

I don't know what the hell. I can't read upside down, y'all. It says the Galveston Giant. And then, of course, I don't know if there's anything on the hoodie, but this is what the back says. So you see the back of the back of this hoodie right here. And so I hope President Biden, first of all, we know that that last full part in Jack Johnson. So hopefully we talk about partons that Biden is going to pardon get a posthumous pardon to Marcus Garvey. Marilyn Mosby, Jesse Jr., Sandy Jackson, Marcus Garvey, Kimba Smith, and some others.

So trust me, we're going to be talking about that a lot between now and 1159 a.m. January 20th. So, folks, coming up next in the Fanbase Invest-a-thon, I see y'all guys tomorrow In fact, no, got a guest host tomorrow I got to go to an event at the Vice President's house But I'll be back right here on Monday But we will be live tomorrow right here on Rolling Martin Unfiltered Holla! Hi, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. Fanbase is a free to download, free to use next generation social media platform that allows anyone to have followers and subscribers on the same page.

Fanbase was built through investment dollars from equity crowdfunding from the Jobs Act. People just like you help build Fanbase. And we're looking for more people to help build fan base. We are currently raising $17 million in a Regulation 8 crowdfund on StartEngine. We've already crossed $2.1 million, but we're looking to raise more capital from people just like you that deserve the opportunity to invest in early stage startups without having to be accredited investors. So right now, I'd like you to go to startengine.com slash fanbase and invest. The minimum to invest is $399.

That gets you 60 shares of stock in Fanbase right now, today. And then use Fanbase to connect with friends, grow your audience, and be you without limits. 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. 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. Here's the deal. We gotta set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game.

We gotta 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.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. AdVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVentureVent We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.