#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Big biz against Ga. voter suppression; Sen. Johnson racist BLM remark; Black home ownership crisis

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

3.15.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Big biz showing support for Black voters and pushes back against voter suppression in Georgia; Texas GOP launch efforts to suppress Black votes; Sen. Johnson's racist BLM remark sparks ire and calls for his resignation; Young people will determine the outcome of the 2022 election but most have not committed to voting for Democrats; John Hope Bryant says Black people who argue against Black home ownership are just wrong and he'll join us to explain why.Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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skill through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org, brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. so that's monday march 15 2021 coming up a roller martin on the filter folks i am here in atlanta georgia where black activists are putting major pressure on business groups to come out against Republican voter suppression bills. We'll talk with the head of the Black Chamber of Commerce here in Atlanta. We'll also talk with what's happening in Texas. Republicans are also trying to push voter suppression. Senator Ron Johnson, he said he wasn't afraid of the folks on January 6th, but if it was Black Lives Matter, that would be a whole different story.

We'll talk to Congresswoman Gwen Moore of Wisconsin about those comments. Also on today's show, the issue of housing. Black home ownership, John Hope Bryant of Operation Hope says a lot of black people have got this wrong. How a home loan is good debt. We'll explain on today's show. Also, folks, a recent survey talks about young people and their thoughts on the 2022 midterm elections. Next year, we'll talk with a poster to break all of that down.

We've got a jam-packed show. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin on the Pilgrim. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time.

And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. It's on go, go Uncle Roro y'all it's Roland Martin rolling with Roland

now he's funky, he's fresh he's real the best you know he's fresh, he's real, the best you know He's Roland Martin Martin All right, folks, Roland Martin here. Roland Martin here broadcasting live from Atlanta, Georgia. Sorry we had some technical issues that we're still sorting through, but we'll do the best that we can. All the focus right now, folks, on this thing is on voter suppression.

Republicans are doing all they can to suppress black votes and that of others, pushing forward bills that black activists say will do harm. They have been putting pressure on the Chamber of Commerce, as well as many other groups, such as Coca-Cola, Home Depot, UPS, saying they should be standing up coming out against these bills. Over the weekend, the Georgia Chamber of Commerce did, in fact, release a statement criticizing some of these proposals, saying they are working with people on both sides of the aisle. But activists say more should be done. Let's talk to the head of the Black Chamber here in Georgia. Joining us right now is Melinda Sylvester.

She's president and CEO of the Greater Georgia Black Chamber of Congress. Melinda, glad to have you. Roll the mic and filter. Mr. Rowland, I'm honored to be on your show. Thank you for the opportunity. Money talks in America. The activists here, folks at New Georgia Project, Black Voters Matter, they understand that they need the business community to put their level of pressure on these Republicans in this state to stop these voter suppression bills or they're going to your counterparts in the Chamber of Commerce? And what are you saying to these corporations in Atlanta and Georgia, Delta, Coca-Cola, UPS, about them using their voice to oppose what's happening in the state capitol? Let me get to the beginning of

this. The Georgia Greater Black Chamber of Commerce have been working on this initiative, and we have been taking a stand saying all eligible voters should be able to vote. And what we created was it's your business to vote. So we had been marketing businesses and voting for a long time. And so you've been doing that for a very long time, but let's talk about though, let's talk about those companies. What do you want them to be doing? We want everyone to get engaged. It's going to take all of us. It takes public-private partnership. We need to revisit. There's some good in the legislation, like Sunday voting. There's some good having our poll watchers get training and, you know, important. There's some good where

poll workers can work in adjacent counties and communities. So there is some good. What we would like to do is take a step back. Let's listen to voices that are different and let's come back together at the table. There's no urgency to hurry up and push current legislation. I think it needs to be looked at. There's changes that need to be done. Let's look at the good. Let's do what's right. And then let's revise everything. But that's not what they're doing. They're not talking about those things, Melinda.

They want to actually end early voting. They actually want to stop no-expect absentee ballots. And they want to basically limit Sunday voting because they want to stop sold to the polls. They want to, I mean, so and they want to uh uh basically limit uh sunday voting because they want to stop souls to the polls uh they want to i mean so what the republicans want to do is uh they they are mad they lost uh with biden harris winning and ossoff and warnock and they literally want to rig the election that's what they're trying to do well again we believe all eligible voters should be able to vote. And we're talking with our partners, we're working with different organizations, and

we're telling them, look, this is what the Black business community is saying. This is their expression. This is what the Black leaders are saying. Yes, we know the importance of voting, and we want to protect that. Let's protect democracy. And we need to run a state with integrity. The President- With that point, though, look, what you have here is a solution,

excuse me, a problem in search of a solution. That's what Republicans are doing. I listened to what they said. Well, there are some people who question the integrity. So you literally up in the entire system because people can't accept a loss. What this is all about is trying to change the law because Donald Trump said it was fraud. But Republican secretaries of state said that wasn't the case. And so how do you deal with that where you have folks who literally want to change the entire voting apparatus because they're mad they lost? Again, we're collaborating with partners, and we're definitely working hard.

We're working behind the scenes. We're definitely doing everything we can within our resources to make sure that doesn't happen. All right, Melinda, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much for joining us. Thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Folks, as I said, this is not, I told you this was not going to happen just in Georgia. It's happening all across the country as well as happening in Texas. They are specifically trying to target Harris County. The Republicans there have proposed election reform. They want to stop curbside voting.

They want to stop drive-through voting. All of the creative ways they were able to use to get folks to vote there in Texas, they want to stop all of that. Now people, I keep telling people what's going on here to understand what these folks are doing. They are going to try to use their majorities in the House and the Senate, as well as holding the governor's mansion to actually stop from voting. This is the greatest threat to voting since the Jim Crow era, and Republicans are leading this. My panel right now, of course, is Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeaver, Leadership Strategist. We have Dr. Julian Mabo, President of the Emerita Bennett College, and also Omegengo Domingo, Professional Lecturer of School of International Service, American University. Let me start with you, Avis. This is pure Jim Crow.

We can't, look, they can dance all around. This is targeting of Black voters. And again, Georgia, Texas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, we can go on and on, North Carolina. They want to stop the voting for Democrats. They want to stop Black people because they see the train that's coming down the track in 2022. And they're saying we want to guarantee victory. Yes, I have said for quite a while that the Republican Party seems to respect the black vote more than the Democratic Party does, given the amount of investment, time and effort they put into stopping our ability to vote. And now they've just taken it up a thousand by what they are coordinating across the country.

This kind of reminds me of the Stand Your Ground laws and how that was so well coordinated and replicated in states all across the country. They've basically taken that same playbook and they're doing that now as it relates to voting rights laws, trying to undercut our ability to vote by specifically targeting our methodologies as well as our geographic concentrations in those various different states. Absolutely, this is modern-day Jim Crow. They're not even trying to hide it. They have gotten big, bad, and bold about it now that they're no longer under a fully

strengthened Voting Rights Act. That's why it's so important that we have legislation passed in Congress that's going to curtail these efforts by strengthening the Voting Rights Act and ultimately putting it back in place. Julianne, again, Julianne, back here in Atlanta. And I told folks this was going to happen. This was coming down a pipe. And we've seen what they're trying to do in Texas. And the governor admits today in Texas at a news conference, there was no voter fraud, but he still wants massive voter reform. You know, Roland, they have gone and looked at our playbook, looked at the playbook of the voter activists and gone directly at it.

When you decide that there will be no Sunday voting, that means you don't want our souls at the polls. When you decide that you will not have the drop boxes, you're saying you've got to come inside. Many people are reluctant to come inside. But one of the things that we must understand is that people like LaTosha Brown and others, they're smarter than these devils. They're smarter than these devils, and they're going to figure it out. And when they figure it out, it's going to be an issue of what will they come up with next. But I remember I had an aunt in Moss Point, Mississippi in the 60s who first learned Latin, Roland, had to learn Latin because she had to translate a phrase from English to Latin. So she learned Latin.

Then they had a jelly bean test where she had to figure out how many jelly beans were in a jar. She didn't give up. She kept coming. And that's what these people understand, is that need to understand Black votes are going to keep on coming. Black votes are going to keep on coming. It may be more difficult, but we do have H.R. 1. And what's interesting about H.R. 1, it went down on party lines. One Democrat voted against it. But other than that, it was party line vote. And what does that say?ans don't want us to vote this is pure jim crow and they're trying to say what really again is shameful when they say well there are people there are people who simply just didn't trust the last election yeah because they're believing a lying idiot that's why so we're supposed to sit here and accept the changing of voter laws because you got some stuck on stupid people who believed in idiot like Donald Trump who said the election was stolen?

You are absolutely right. And we have to remember that for anybody out there who says my vote doesn't matter, all we have to do is ask the question, if our vote doesn't matter, why are Republicans working so hard to prevent us from doing it? We have to continue to stay active. Right now, I even heard a story today where they cut early voting by nine days. And so they're doing everything possible. As Dr. Malveaux said, I know that we're going to rebound, but we have to stay awake in every way, shape, and possible because they are not going to stop until they not only have a Republican back in office, but Trump back in office. So we cannot let our guard down and we need to continue to support.

If we're not in a state where this is happening, we need to put our social media, our finances, everything we can towards making sure that this does not happen, because they will not stop. Again, what you're looking at, and this is what the black chamber, excuse me, this is what the Georgia Chamber of Commerce actually released uh this is with a tweet the georgia chamber the

georgia chamber continues to engage in a bipartisan matter the leaders of the general assembly on bills that will impact voting rights in our state we have expressed concern in opposition to provisions found in both hb 531 and sb 241 that restrict or diminish voter access. As these two omnibus bills move through the legislative process, we will continue to work on ensuring both accessibility and security within our voting system. That's obviously stronger than what they initially said. You still hear the dancing by the Chamber of Commerce here. And look, they are not going to come out hard in support of going after these companies, but what the activists are saying to Delta,

Home Depot, Coca-Cola, as well as UPS, Aflac, and others, they expect them to say something, and you also have the internal dynamics of people inside of these companies also saying, we got to say something. And you also have the internal dynamics of people inside of these companies also saying, we got to speak up. You know, Roland, it's really interesting when you look at the combination of corporate responsibility and corporate integrity, because these folks know they're wrong. They know that the legislature is wrong. They know that they, Home Depot, Delta, you go down the list. They have employees and constituents they don't want to take a position. Well, now is the time to take a position. What we know now after we look at the insurrection on January 6th, after we looked and

looked at a number of other things, it's time for folks of conscience to stand up, speak up, and man or woman up around these things. So, you know, I'm not sure why these corporations are dancing, except for you know why they're dancing, because they still want to have Republican approval. And not Republican approval, because I'm not going to disrespect all Republicans, but Donald Trump-affiliated approval. And that's what we have to push back on. You talked about January 6th, folks.

Republicans, white Republicans are still doing their best to try to act as if that was just a picnic taking place on that day. Listen to this comment that Wisconsin Senatorson made to uh conservative radio talk show host joe packley arulo listen to this folks also criticized because i've made the comment that on january 6th i never felt threatened because i didn't and mainly because i knew that even though those thousands of people there there were uh marching to the capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they wanted me to vote, I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break a law. And so I wasn't concerned. Now, had the tables been turned, Joe, this is getting me in trouble.

Had the tables been turned and President Trump won the election and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters. I might have been a little concerned. Wow. It's a big statement, but it's a true statement. We see the recent history. Big statement, true statement. Joining me right now is Congresswoman Gwen Moore of Wisconsin. Congresswoman, welcome back to Roller Martin Filter.

Thank you so much, Roland. And Dr. Malvo, I tell you, this is when I miss being in person, when I'm with folk like you. Well, hopefully we'll get there soon. I had my first Moderna shot on Friday. My next one is April 9th. And so hopefully in a few months, we can be back to being in person. Give us your thoughts on this unbelievable comment made by.

And Ron Johnson, he's been blasted all weekend, folks saying his vice president's views of standing up. I mean, here is somebody who supposedly supposedly was moderate voice or whatever, but he is absolutely a, a hardcore Trumper with this nonsense. And he would have been scared. If it was black lives matter and Antifa, first of all, as if those two go together, these people killed the cop.

These people, I mean, they actually, they trample one woman to death. It led to one of the fellow rioters getting shot and killed. Five people died. What the hell is your senator talking about? Well, you know, our ancestor at this point, Maya Angelou's birthday is going to be Easter Sunday.

And her words keep coming to me. When a person shows you who they are, believe them. And, you know, Ron Johnson didn't just start being like this. You know, Ron Johnson was in deep denial about the president and his corruption, denial about the riot, the incitement, and how, you know, he said, oh, as far as he was concerned, it didn't really fit the definition of an insurrection. He's someone that was pushing these conspiracy theories. I mean, to this day, he still was engaged and involved in denying that the election was a legitimate exercise in our democracy. And so, you know, maybe he's not planning to run again or maybe he's trying to take advantage of the fact that Joe Biden just barely won the state of Wisconsin is trying to inherit that base of hardcore white supremacists because his statement certainly has galvanized the emotions. I mean, these cultural wars,

this is their go-to position, Roland. Think about it. If you're a Trumpster, when you voted against giving people $1,400 a month, when you voted against helping poor farmers in Wisconsin, this is an agricultural state, by the way, debt relief that they desperately needed. You know, when you deny aid to restaurant and bar businesses that are barely hanging on to their chinny-chin-chans. You've got to come up with something. And so these cultural wars work very, very well. Well, you talk about those cultural wars working very, very well, but what you have here, again, is this trying to position that Black Lives Matter was somehow, oh, my God, these people are violent and crazy.

And you're sitting there going, and maybe, Senator Johnson, you're saying that because you're a white Republican, okay, who sides with them. But these people were hell-bent to kill. That was their strategy. They were hell-bent to kill. And the FBI is arresting numerous folks constantly for what they were trying to do. I mean, this is like, what world is this guy living in? He wasn't afraid. And they had Kevin McCarthy out there.

I mean, this isn't the first time that a minority leader was murdered right there in that storied building. And they were pounding on Kevin McCarthy's door trying to get in while he called the president. And that was when he made the snarky remark, well, Kevin, you know, apparently you're not as worried about the election as they are. You know, he was tracking down his vice president next in line for the succession with a noose. And, you know, the noose just brings, it strikes terror in my mind as an African-American. He had a noose chanting, hang my pants. They were looking for Nancy Pelosi. And so he was not frightened by his kindred spirits,

but he would have been intimidated by, I mean, there were 10,000 or more protests. And like I said, these protests garnered the support of people from every race, every age group, every state. It became a global initiative after George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. I mean, all these people were who were storming the Capitol. They were not Antifa. They were not Black Lives Matter. They were stone cold white supremacists, folk walking around with Nazi apparel, a Confederate flag. And he was not afraid among his brethren.

What are Black folks there in Wisconsin? How are they responding to Senator Ron Johnson? He's up for re-election next year. I've made it perfectly clear. We're going to spend some time there because folks like him need to be thrown smooth the hell out of office.

Thank you so much, Roland. Thank you, And I'm going to hold you to that, to come on to the Milky Way, because we're going to need it. I mean, this is a swing state. We have some of the worst conditions for African-Americans in the country here. Those data get buried underneath the fact that, you know, we're not Mississippi or Alabama or somewhere with large numbers of African-Americans. But per capita, we have the most incarcerated African-Americans, most redlined, least homeownership, worst place in the country for black children. So many indicators, so much of

the misery index. And the last thing we need is a Senator who wants to cast fear and apprehension and doubt into the minds of Americans about the worthiness of African-Americans. And so come on, we have a very bright group of Democrats forming a Democratic primary. And I wouldn't be surprised if Ron Johnson decides to run, that there wouldn't be somebody, you know, among Republicans who would challenge him,

because he is out to lunch. Well, he gave also indication that he may not even seek reelection. Either way, Senator Johnson, a bullseye is on your back in terms of taking you out for reelection. Bye, Senator Johnson. Bye. It's time to go. And so this is where black votes are going to be critical there in Wisconsin and for white folks in Wisconsin to step up as well. So, Congresswoman Gwen Moore, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Avis, I want to start with you here. Your thoughts on these comments, what he said. And again, what he's basically saying is, oh, yeah, if those Black people had come, I would have been scared to death. But I was with my white brethren and the Trumpers, and I was safe and comfy. The man's a liar. Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago when he was trying to sell the lie that it was actually Antifa that raided the Capitol? I mean, so clearly he lied there. Here, he may or may not be lying, but the reality here is that he is definitely trying to appeal to the white supremacist base of the Republican Party of what is the Republican Party right now. And so it's really interesting how right now people have gotten so used to being so flagrant with their racism, and the fact that with this particular Republican

Party it's actually used as an asset, because they know that that is now the base, the core. The new Republican Party is the Trump Republican Party, which is the white supremacist, white nationalist, redneck Republican Party. That's who he was talking to. And the fact that he would sit there and say, you know, these people aren't criminals and they wouldn't, you know, they love the country was especially ridiculous, given the fact, as you pointed out, they murdered, they maimed, they actually were in the process of a lynch mob. The only other thing I would do, quite frankly, if I was in Congress right now, if he's going to make statements like that, then he needs to

honestly be investigated to see if he was in some level of collusion with these people, because we know that they did have inside help. In fact, I believe that they had inside help, not only from Capitol Police, but also from some Congress people. So to me, you know, I'm really wondering why some of the Democrats don't start to open up some investigations on their colleagues who are clearly in cahoots with these individuals who put all of their lives in danger. Omicron, that was a story over the weekend where Democrats made it clear that they won't even work with any Republican who voted out to certify the election. That should be the position. Democrats should simply say, oh, I'm sorry, if you voted, if you made any comments with the January 6th insurrectionists, if you voted not to certify the election, I'm going to show you the hand. You can come talk to me.

Don't even come near me, because that's part of the problem. To me, that's exactly what should be going on. That's exactly what needs to happen. The Democrats need to play hardball. You come in, you got the White House, you got the Senate, you have Congress right now. Trump has shown that he's a loser all across the board. And so even when you see what the stimulus bill,

many Republicans across the country supported it, but not these so-called leaders in the House and Senate. So we don't need them. We need to go forward, work to build common ground with the people who want to work with us. But we know that they are going to be the party of opposition. They stated it. They did it with Obama. They're doing it now. We need to go forward and we need to build because 2022 is going to be equally crucial. So I say to the Democrats, stop trying to work with these people. This is a party, as it has been said by Dr. Davis, of racists, of anti-Semites, of homophobes. They don't care about us. They care more about the Marjorie Taylor Greene's of the world. We don't need them. Stop trying to work with them and let's get to the work of helping the people, period, bottom line. These people are pure

evil, Julian, as simple as that. And for them to endorse and support what took place on January 6th and give lip service, we can't ignore it. And so there has to be an absolute repudiation and say, no, we're not dealing with any of y'all folk. We can't trust you. And y'all support people who want to put people's lives in danger. And if you still flat out on Mar-a-Lago

and taking a picture of that white supremacist Donald Trump, then to hell with you. Well, you know, Democrats have to draw a line in the sand. Joe Biden has said, President Biden has said he wants to be, whatever, inclusive, bipartisan, blah, blah. But the fact is that these people will not vote for anything that Democrats vote for. Let's look at H.R. 1, which went down on strictly partisan votes.

They say they want us all to be able to vote. They lying. They want them to be able to vote and them to exclude us. And so when we look at all this stuff, what we have to say is, as you say, line in the sand, if y'all not down with the real deal, step, just step. And we have to do everything by reconciliation. We will. We have the votes to do it, and we have basically the gravitas to do it. Roland, what is going on here right now is that these people, they're not even honest. They don't want fairness. They want power. And this is how they have set it up. They don't want

to be fair. They want to be in charge. And they're disturbed that Black folks, Democrats, poised to attack the work of the Black Lives Matter, Black Votes Matter, LaTosha Brown and those movement. Get rid of souls of the polls. They don't want our souls in the polls. They want our souls as well away from the polls as possible. And so we have to just man and woman up. Y'all going to try it? We got something for you because we've always had something for you. And now we know what we have to do. Well, absolutely. All right, folks, got to go to a break when we come.

We'll talk about gun voters in 2022, how critical that could be. We'll talk with a pollster who has been talking with them and give the results of this new poll. As next, Arolla Martin unfiltered broadcast live from Atlanta, Georgia. Senators, this cannot be our future. Do not concede, Mr. President, fight hard. This cannot be the future of America. That's all we got, the false right's gone. American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. Where the fuck are they? Everybody stay down. Grab those fucking names, son of a bitch. People died that day. What message will we send the rest of the world? What happened today in Washington, D.C. is not American.

America has stood for some very important things. I think what we're saying in the United States is terribly distressing. Incited by the current president. President Trump. The world is watching and wondering whether we are who we say we are. You are patriots just like the patriots gathered at Bunker Hill. The election in many ways was stolen. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

At one point, people started chanting, kill him with his own gun. They thought they were going to die. Watching someone use an American flagpole to spear and pummel one of our police officers ruthlessly, mercilessly. We didn't need more witnesses. We needed more senators with spines. President Trump declared his conduct totally appropriate. So if he gets back into office and it happens again, we'll have no one to

blame but ourselves. The work you do is important. A lot of people depend on you and you deserve respect. Respect includes making a decent wage that reflects how hard you work for your community. So, what's the best way to make sure you get the pay you deserve? Join a union. Union members are paid more than people with similar jobs who aren't in unions. For women and people of color, the union difference is even greater. The respect you deserve, the pay you've earned. That's the union difference. Yo, what's up? This your boy Ice Cube.

What's up? I'm Lance Gross and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. The young voters have played a critical role in many of our elections. That is no different than, of course, the 2020 election. What's going to be happening in 2020? And that is young voters are going to play the critical role in that midterm election. So, Jeremy Berry, the founding partner of Hit Strategies, he's been talking to these voters. Let's hear what they have to say. Tans, welcome back to Roller Mark Unfiltered.

What's up, Roland? Thanks for having me back, brother. How you doing? Doing great. So let's talk about the election. We get, you know, as you keep moving forward, younger voters will play an even bigger role. What are you seeing?

What are you hearing about what happened in 2022? You know, Roland, young voters are becoming not just the biggest voting bloc in America, but they remain the most diverse voting bloc in America. 37% of voters in 2022, I'm sorry, in 2020, were under the age of 39. That's the millennials. That's Gen Z. But again, what's unique about them is the diversity within this generation. We hear a lot from Democrats and from other politicians talking about removing identity politics and turning towards economic issues. The truth is, Roland, for young people,

their identities are their politics. You know, they lead with issues like immigration, with issues that are, like racism, which is a number one issue across all races of young people. Racism and discrimination has emerged as a top issue. So this is, I mean, that's really what's shaping their political identities and shaping their political participation.

And that started, Roland, in 2020, during those protests following George Floyd's death, where we saw the protest following George Floyd's death. The complexion of those protests began to change, and they began to look a lot more ethnically diverse. The majority of protesters after George Floyd's death were actually young white people. And so that's really what we're starting to see shape up here, and understanding how to speak to those priorities is going to be critical if Democrats want to hold power in 2022.

The clear-cut Democrat-Republican thing, obviously, when you look at issues and you have these voters who say they may not turn out, their deal is, look, if I'm not being satisfied, I may stay at home. So what should Candace be saying to reach them? What should they be saying to touch them? Well, first thing we have to do is kind of we got to disaggregate a little bit. Right. Young voters are very diverse so that you got Gen Z and millennials and there's a lot of a lot of difference there. But but but ethnically, when you look at young voters, we've really got to start looking at young voters of color very, very differently than we look at young white voters. There's this perception, Roland, that young voters are much more progressive, that even young white voters are much more progressive. the issues on climate, on student loans, on the need for police reform, when you start looking at disaggregating them by race, young white voters are participating politically a lot more like

white voters than like young voters. And so when we're talking to this younger generation, we have to keep it. Yeah, the operative word is still white. That's right. The operative word is still white. That's exactly right. And so the truth is that the young white voters aren't significantly more progressive. There's just significantly less of them in this generation because it's so diverse. And so when you look at a state like Georgia, 60% of white voters under the age of 30

voted for Donald Trump. But 67% of white voters overall in 30 voted for Donald Trump. But 67% of white voters overall in Georgia voted for Donald Trump. And so young white voters, again, are operating a lot more like white than they are like young. And so, and that's why I think there's this effort on the part of folks to say, oh, well, you know, we've got young voters. I'm like, no, you can't just say young. You've got to keep that focus on, no, they may be young. Which I think also what has to happen is folks have to also dig a little bit deeper. Even when you start talking about Black

voters, Latino voters, you can't just sort of stop there. Now you guys started saying, you know, their income level, what part of the country they're from, all of that. And campaigns are going to, and this is where I think really is going to be the big deal here. Campaigns are going to have to do even more micro-targeting. That's right. So there's sort of this broad brush. No, that's not going to do it. You're going to have to do a different type of campaigning to get them to turn out in 2022. That's exactly right. That's exactly right, Roland.

And it starts right now. You know, when we look across some of these issue priorities, amongst millennials, we see that they really do prioritize some of those kitchen table issues, and wages you know the cost of health care but when you look at younger at the at the younger generation gen z they still prioritize a lot of social issues immigration and racism and so again like you said we have to start uh start micro messaging here and really talking to the priorities of these individual groups. You and I will have talked a lot about not just the gender gaps amongst black voters, but also the generational gaps amongst amongst black voters. And so we really do have to start acknowledging some of these differences, understanding not just by demographic or by,

you know, by cutting them up along these turf lines that campaigns like to do for canvassing, but understanding the values and the priorities of these voters and speaking to that in a real way. Look, Democrats have a razor thin margin in the Senate and the House. They don't have a margin in the Senate. Kamala Harris is the margin in the Senate. And so we've really got to, they got to start that work right now if they're going to mobilize the largest and most diverse voting bloc in America. Questions from our panel. First off, Avis, your question for Taryn. So you mentioned that young white voters are really, in essence, white voters. Let's just focus on that. But what I find was interesting, so this past year I've been involved with the Black Women's Roundtable survey that we do with Essence annually.

And one of the things that we've been noticing in recent years is when you look at Black voters, and particularly Black women, that's who we focus on, that younger Black women are actually more likely to start to be more diverse in terms of their political leanings, meaning that they're much less likely to be clumped, quote unquote, in the Democratic category and that are more likely to be interested in looking at independents as an independent leaning or maybe even Republican more than their older counterparts. And so with those trends, first of all, is that applicable with other young people of color? And if so, what can that tell us in terms of the overall direction of young voters? Is it that they're quite really not nearly as progressive as we think, not just in terms of white voters, but as it regards to voters of colors and specifically Black voters too?

That's a great question. And, you know, I mentioned the gender gap between black voters where black men are slightly less likely to support Democratic candidates, slightly less likely to personally identify as Democrats. But the same gap exists amongst, generationally, young black voters have have less loyalty to the Democratic Party less affinity to Democratic candidates and are less and and and quite frankly are more likely to consider and to support Republicans but the differences are important that for the gender gap black men are more likely to support Republicans because they are in fact

more conservative on some issues but but for younger generations, it's not because they're more conservative. When we talk to young Black voters in focus groups, the reason they are less likely to support Democrats and more likely to consider Republicans, it is punitive. It is frustration and cynicism towards the Democratic Party and what they would consider a herd mentality. And so they are willing to consider options. And that is why Democrats do in fact have to start treating young black voters and black male voters as a persuasion audience. What have you done lately is a question that young Black people bring to the voting booth. Julianne? I'm shaking my head because I'm thinking about what you're saying, especially around what Democrats promise and what they don't deliver. The Biden-Harris ticket promised higher minimum wages, student loan recovery or forgiveness,

and now they're doing the Mr. Bojangles thing where they haven't done that. Meanwhile, Republicans have not promised Black people anything. So I understand why many young voters are disillusioned, but what have Republicans done to make them feel affinity? Absolutely. So two things to respond to there. One is what the Biden-Harris administration has and has not done, recognizing that the Biden administration has been in office for less than 90 days. But they do have an exceptional approval rating. Amongst young black voters, Joe Biden has a 61% approval rating,

which is exceptional and significantly higher than the 18% approval rating that Donald Trump had with the same group. But the Biden-Harris administration is going to have to spend just as much time marketing what they do as they spend governing, right? For young black voters, the single most important issue is racism and discrimination. But if I focus group 10 random black, young black voters from across America right now,

they don't know about the racial justice task force that Susan Rice stood up within a week of the Biden-Harris administration. We can debate about the teeth that that task force has, but there's no debate about whether or not it is significantly more progress than Republicans have made. Because on the flip side of that is exactly what Donald Trump spent the last year of his term doing,

which was marketing his perceived wins to the black community. Those same black voters that I recruit into that focus group, they can tell you that Donald Trump had the lowest unemployment rate amongst black people. They can tell you about the First Step Act. I am not saying that those are accomplishments that had significant impacts on the black community. I am saying that those young black voters know about those accomplishments. And that's where the Democratic Party has to get creative and aggressive about how they talk about what they have done. I mean, today we just passed a bill that has $29 billion in rent assistance, you know, that has

child credits for every child in the house. These are things that will have significant impacts in the black community, but that we need a marketing plan to tell people how their lives are improving because of the work that the Biden-Harris administration is doing. Terrence, I got one more question from our panelists. Go right ahead, Makongo. Yes, I was wondering, first of all, your research is amazing, and thank you for that. The number that stood out the most for me was 38 million. You said there were 38 million young people that were unreached by either party. And so kind of following up on your last question,

when you talk about the marketing, what does that look like? Is it more social media? Have they tried social media, but that's just not effective? They got to move to new platforms. What does that look like in terms of reaching that demographic?

I mean, it is social media, you know, and, you know, Barack Obama really did pioneer democratic efforts of reaching disenfranchised and disaffected communities using the Internet, specifically to raise a ton of money. AOC and a lot of other young politicians are still using it in very effective ways. But so are misinformation and disinformation campaigns that have begun to use social media more aggressively and more surgically to target the most disaffected voters. If you all remember, Republicans had a stay-home campaign during the 2020 campaign that was not geared at converting young voters of color to Republicans. It was geared at keeping them from voting. And when voters are already cynical,

when they already have questions about whether or not politics affects their lives, then that misinformation is effective. And it was a young black man in Florida who said to me, my hood didn't get, in a focus group in Florida a few months before election day, he said, my hood didn't get any better under Obama. It hasn't got any worse under Trump. So tell me what any of these presidents got to do with me. And so until the Biden-Harris administration, until Democrats in Congress and Senate can explain to that young black man how his life is getting better because of the things that they're doing every day, then we can expect them to remain disaffected and keep on fighting over the existing

voters in the electorate as opposed to activating that sleeping force of power that is 38 million young voters that stayed on the sideline in 2020. All right. Terrence Whitbury, we so appreciate it, man. Thank you so very much. Thanks, Roland. Always a pleasure. All right. Thanks a lot.

All right, folks, got to go to a break. We come back. I'm Roland Martin. We're going to talk homeowner. A lot of African-Americans got all kind of information out there. Over the weekend, John Hope Bryant and I were tweeting, and there were people who took exception to his perspective that owning a home is good.

We're going to have that conversation right here on the show, and so come right back. We'll be back in a moment. If people begin to believe that their democracy is fraudulent, if they conclude that voting is a charade, the system is rigged, then God knows what could happen. They rigged an election. They rigged it like they've never rigged an election before.

Actually, we do know what could happen. It's happening right now. The U.S. Capitol overrun, under siege. Pro-Trump extremists storming inside, flooding the halls, breaching the floor of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Millions of Americans sincerely believe the last election was fake. It was a landslide election and everyone knows it. We will not go quietly into the night.

When thousands of your countrymen storm the Capitol building, if you don't bother to pause and learn a single thing from it, then you're a fool. I know you're pained. I know you're hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. We got to this sad, chaotic day for a reason. It is not your fault.

It is their fault. Donald Trump is not done dividing America. He's come out of hiding to find his old friend, the spotlight. On Sunday, he took the stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida, where he lobbed insults, spread conspiracies, and lied. The same things he's done for four years, with no concern for the destruction he leaves behind. He'll get the attention he craves. After all, even condemning him feeds his insatiable need to be seen.

Which is why it's more important than ever to remind ourselves that in November, one thing became clear. America is not Donald Trump. America is the people whose names you may never hear. Whose only fame will be among those whose lives they touch, but who are the best of America all the same. They're doctors, nurses, health care workers, the people working tirelessly to get every American vaccinated against COVID-19. They're the disaster relief workers and first responders

holding up their Texas neighbors during the harshest winter the state has ever seen. They're the people who show up, lend a hand, and give a damn when their fellow Americans are in need. Remember them. The lives they lead are the best proof that Trump is a liar. Because America's greatness comes from us, not him. The Lincoln Project is responsible for the content of this advertising.

What you're speaking on is taking risks. What you're speaking on is sacrifice. What you're speaking on is actually putting yourself in the mud to be in whatever positionality you play in this society, you gotta make a choice to say, I'm gonna roll over and let these white folks come in here and do what they do, or I'm gonna at least choose to be a resistor in this component. Where I do my thing, I'm gonna resist. I reside with the resistance. If you find me, I'm gonna be with the people,

if I'm washing dishes, we dropping dishes. If I'm delivering pizzas, we taking some back to Kapuki and Ray Ray because we know they ain't got no food at the house. Whatever I'm doing, I'm never in the position to reaffirm a goddamn thing that they got going on. And I don't care how I play it. I don't care what I put on. I don't care what suit, what tie I put on. I don't care how clean I look for the day.

I don't care how prestigious I talk for the day. I don't care how prestigious I talk for the day. If I'm in the building, black folks getting something out to do. Hello, everyone. I'm Godfrey, and you're watching... Roland Martin Unfiltered. And while he's doing Unfiltered, I'm practicing the wobble. So the Biden administration, they plan on launching a $500 million public relations and community blitz in order to push folks on the vaccine. What they're laying out is that the reaching out to community groups and others, talk about the efficacy of the vaccine, its safety, and also getting folks to sign up.

Let's go to my panel. Julian, I'll start with you. Here's one of the things that I made perfectly clear. You got to put the money in the hands of organizations that are proven. You got to access black media. And what you can't do, and let's just be real clear, you can't put it in the hands of white ad agencies who do not know anything about black people in order to talk to us about it. That has been a fundamental problem in the past.

And so I am hopeful with Susan Rice being there, Portfolio, dealing with race equity, Cedric Richmond, Karine Jean-Pierre, Simone Sanders and others,, that we're gonna have an effort where that 500 million is not going to white communities. Well, Roland, you know, we know what the population demographics are. We know that African American people, Latino people, Asian people are about to be the majority. We know that people, there is vaccine resistance in our community historically and for very good reasons. So if there is not a targeted, and the word is

targeted, outreach to our communities, there is a problem. The problem with white Democrats has been that they don't like the word targeting. They want to have equality without having equity. Equality says everybody gets the same thing. Equity says everybody gets the same access. And so if we all have the a 5, 10, 20 million deal with you, with BET, with a bunch of other folks who are doing the work. But this is going to depend on leadership. Cedric Richmond is amazing. Susan Rice has good sensibilities. But white folks are white folks. what they gonna do here's one of the

issue in here as I'm sitting here reading this political story on this very issue here on the Congo and that is this here they're leaning on the Ad. The Ad Council ain't the most diverse group in the country. Most definitely. You know, we see at the end of the day, they botched so much in the beginning. I live in Southeast DC, which is one of the most underserved, the most underserved area in DC. And all of a sudden, when the vaccines started coming out,

I started seeing all of these white people in our neighborhood grocery stores. And then I was calling my friends in Boston and New York and their hoods, and they were seeing the same thing because they primarily did this rollout on the internet and other spaces where we didn't have access to. And if you can have robocalls talking about vote for your favorite candidate, you should be having things like robocalls going in the churches and community centers, as Dr. Malveaux said, working with people like, you know, you have such large platforms directly for the Black community. And they botched that. The Ad Council is not the way to get the shots where they need to be as it relates to our community. And the Biden administration needs to do a better job of

reworking their plan, because as it stands right now, the majority of people who've been vaccinated are white women, which we should not be surprised. But this disparity is going to continue if they don't continue to do actual real work to reach us where we are every single day. They have the ability to do that, and they know how. They just got to actually show the will to do it. Again, what we're talking about here is utilizing trusted voices to reach our people. And what often happens in these situations, Avis, is that federal government, CDC, health and human services and others, they rely on these major entities, but they're also part of the problem. I can tell you, we deal with this all the time. These white ad agencies, they don't even want to bother

with black media. They don't, you know, the other person don't want to be bothered with community groups. And so we've got to make sure that there is strong race equity, a part of this deal. And it doesn't become another situation where folks are sitting here going,

how can we divvy up that 500 million and then black and brown folks left out? Yeah, it sounds like it's well on the way to being that. It makes me think about when I was executive director at NCNW and how funding was pushed with regards to the HIV crisis that disproportionately did not really target the black community as much as it should have, given the disproportionate nature of our community and the impact with that disease. What I really would like to know, though, is just, you know, it's my understanding that Susan Rice is supposed to be chairing a committee on equity. I mean, this needs to be what she needs

to be doing in terms of one of the things on her agenda. And so although we do have very capable black people in various spaces in this administration, my question is their power. Like, do they actually have the power to create the change that we need for the sort of direction of not only the funding, but just the capability, the access to be where the people are. The latest data that I'm seeing about it shows that really Black people are being convinced that, yes, I need to have this shot, that yes, I need to get it. But they're not having access to it, right? And so, you know, there needs to be work done to make sure that we have access to it. One of the biggest people they have to convince now, it seems, are Republican white men. And so the issue isn't as much, you know, just the messaging, but it's also, are people able to get it in their communities and how it's actually being distributed?

All of these things need to be attacked from an equitable standpoint. And right now, by all indicators, it isn't. It is going to be, I mean, look, when you start looking at the numbers, I think from Saturday, some 4.5 million vaccines were distributed across the country. The president has said he wants a vaccine for every American to be done by May 1st. They got a long way to go to hit that, but you got to figure out how to reach folk where they are. That's just what it boils down to. You know, Roland, absolutely. I mean, I think one of the challenges is that white folks have bought into the Tuskegee narrative. They keep saying, oh, well, they don't want to have the vaccine because of Tuskegee.

Well, Tuskegee is a stain on our nation's history. But as Avis said, and my other brother, if you have the vaccines sitting in Southeast, but the women from Ward 3 are running to southeast because they can't get it other people can't that's a challenge i got my vaccine because my godchild bless his soul basically camel jock the computer he was on it for hours to make sure that i could get it um i kept going on there myself and they say all the all the slides are filled. He figured out how to do it and he stayed on the computer for like hours.

Who's going to do that? Our people are being sidelined because they don't have, as Avis said, the access. And so this is the challenge is how to get the CVS and Southeast to say, we're only going to give you the virus, the shot, if you have this zip code. That's what has to happen. Well, how about this here? Okay, why in the hell are we not doing, as Tom Jones said last week, why in the hell aren't we doing vaccines 24 hours a day? Literally. I mean, I don't understand. I don't understand why you take them.

There are grocery stores. There are Walmarts. I don't understand why we're not doing 24 hours. Why is it not around the clock? So that way, those folks who want to go at 2 o'clock in the morning, look, if you can open some damn stores early for Black Friday, you damn sure can figure out how to do 24-hour vaccines. Yeah, you could. You could.

Absolutely. I mean, I agree with you. And, you know, I've heard of, of like specific localities that have had longer hours. And, you know, I'm not sure if it was 24 hours, but have been more aggressive. But it takes that type of creative thinking. It takes that type of desire to make a difference. And then we also have to realize that there are some states where we know that people are openly jerry-rigging the system for white privileged people, like in Florida, for example.

So a lot of this has to do with who's in charge, because it's 50 different systems in essence, because we have 50 different states. And some of these states just quite openly are being very, very politically driven about who they provide access to. And we all the time in those types of states, especially tend to be at the bottom of the list. And I even have students now in my classrooms, I teach at American university.

I got some of my students telling me that they've been vaccinated. I'm like, you're 19. How is that even working? And so we talk about those connections that people have, that complexion of connection, as some people say, and they're already ahead of the curve. And so we've really got to step up our game. The Biden administration needs to step up its game as it relates to working with local communities, because we're getting played right now. And Vice President Harris visited that same giant that I'm talking about right here in Southeast. We need more help here.

Again, I don't understand what the problem is, why these folks, look, if you're in a city here and have the vaccine, put the resources there and say 24 hours, seven days a week. That's what we're going to do. Forget this whole deal of trying to compete for a 15-minute slot to get in. It's like, no, it's going to be 24 hours. And all of a sudden, imagine if you've got 200 locations in each major city that's 24 hours. I think you can start backstating a hell of a whole lot of people.

I think that it would also be easier once we make the full transition. It sounds like more of the vaccine is moving over to the Johnson & Johnson version, which is a one-shot regimen. I've actually been vaccinated along with my 92-year-old mom. And when we went through, we had the Moderna, the two-shot regimen. Recalling on our experiences, they had windows of opportunity. You had to go online, as was mentioned. You got a time that roughly you had to be there in the morning or in the afternoon. But I believe there had to be a level of record-keeping there to be able to schedule you to come back for your second shot, which I think created a little bit more complexity than having it be more loose.

But if it is a situation where, and it sounds like the administration has invested in buying millions more of the Johnson & Johnson version, which is the one-shot version, then with that, it's much more simple because everyone just needs that one shot. And so to me, when that becomes the norm and more of the standard, I think it probably will be easier to have a 24-7 type of regimen with regards to vaccine distribution. But you know, Roland, you've said, and it's a really great point, if you can open CVS 24-7 to get whatever, cough drops, whatever, you could open it to have the vaccine there. Whether it's a one shot or the two shot, my doc said, look, you get whatever they offer you.

Don't start quibbling about whether you get the Moderna or the Pfizer or the Johnson & Johnson. Just get whatever they offer you. But I think that one of the challenges is we haven't made it easy for people. And people who have more time, who have more resources, who are better computer literate, are able to basically manipulate the system. When I went for my first shot, there were about 20 white folks, frankly, standing in line who did not have an appointment. So they kept telling me, if you have an appointment, go ahead. They were waiting to see if there was going to be extra shots. And they had somehow figured out that there would be extra shots at that location. So they were just standing there waiting in line. When I went for my second shot, it was geriatric 101. I mean, I didn't see anybody, you know, who looked like they were under 60.

And again, it was the same kind of thing. So it's being rationed in very interesting ways. And the 24-7 rolling is a great idea. Let anybody walk up and get it. And if it's Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Moderna, whatever, it really doesn't matter. What matters is that we're able to get our lives back into the world when we're able to say we've been vaccinated. The big problem that you have is very simple, and that is we now live in a society, and again, this is coming from somebody with a digital show, where people are trying to drive everyone online, online, online, but we keep forgetting the fact that not everybody lives in an online world. Yes.

Not everybody does. And so it's just, it is not, and so you can't, and of course if you're living in places where you're, look, look, a perfect example. I'm sitting here, I'm sitting here right now, you know, in Atlanta, but the particular place where I'm staying, I've got 20 megabits per second download to upload. That ain't a lightning fast internet. And so that's the other issue. You might have internet, but guess what? That speed

matters when you're trying to refresh and you're trying to slide in slots. All I'm saying is, look, make it all hands on deck. Go 24 hours. And here's the whole deal. All right? You're the United States military. Use a damn National Guard. Come on.

Go 24 hours that's i mean look if you're trying to get everybody but but it's crazy oh this place is going to be open from nine to four then from nine to one on saturday no say 24 hours and guess what you what you do is you do limited number of places if It is overwhelmed you add Locations and guess what in a particular area if you're 24 hours and you're tracking it and frankly you're not seeing that traffic That is this between 1 a.m. And 6 a.m. Fine you make it 7 a.m To midnight you modify the schedule, but you got to have more places that are actually doing the vaccine. So that's what happens. All right, folks, got to go to

break. We come back. We'll talk about home ownership rates. Home ownership, not home ownership rates, but home ownership specifically when it comes to African-Americans. But the concept of what good debt versus bad debt. My next guest is going to break it down. John Hope Bryan says, folks, stop acting as all debt is the same. It isn't. We're going to break this thing down when we come back on Roland Martin Filters. I believe that it's movement time again. In America today, the economy is not working for working people. The poor and the needy are being abused.

You are the victims of power. And this is the abuse of economic power. I'm 23 years old. I work three jobs. Seven days a week. No days off. They're paying people pennies on the dollar compared to what they profit, and it is time for this to end.

Essential workers have been showing up to work, feeding us, caring for us, delivering goods to us throughout this entire pandemic, and they've been doing it on a measly $7.25 minimum wage. The highest check I ever got was nearly $291. I can't take it no more. You know, the fight for 15 is a lot more than about $15 an hour. This is about a fight for your dignity. We have got to recognize that working people deserve livable wages.

And it's long past time for this nation to go to 15 so that moms and dads don't have to choose between asthma inhalers and rent. I'm halfway homeless. The main reason that people end up in their cars is because income does not match housing cost. If I could just only work one job, I can have more time with them.

It is time for the owners of Walmart, McDonald's, Dollar General, and other large corporations to get off welfare and pay their workers a living wage. And if you really want to tackle racial equity, you have to raise the minimum wage. We're not just fighting for our families, we're fighting for yours too. We need this. I'm going to fight for it until we get it. I'm not going to give up.

We just need all of us to stand up as one nation and just fight together. Families are relying on these salaries and they must be paid at a minimum $15 an hour. $15 a minimum. Anyone should be making this a be able to stay out of poverty. I can't take it no more. I'm doing this for not only me, but for everybody. We need 15 right now. Everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond. Hi, my name is Bresha Webb, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered.

And, well, I like a nice filter usually, but we can be unfiltered. -♪ Black folks in America have a lowest home ownership rate at 47%. White Americans, 76%. Now, obviously, we could talk about student loan debt. We could talk about redlining and all those different things. But also, a lot of this is just the notion of you don't know

what you don't know. So over the weekend, John Hope Bryan, founder of Operation Hope, sent out a couple of tweets. It was to talk about this very issue. And I responded. And I talked about what's good debt. And that led to a bunch of people commenting and wanging and saying, oh, that's not right. Even if you buy a home, you don't really own the home. The bank owns the home. Some people call home ownership a racket. It was all this different stuff. And so I said, you know what, let's actually have a conversation on the show where we can talk about it and we can really walk folks through this. So joining us right now is John Hope Bryan, founder of Operation Hope. He's been on the show numerous times. John, I'm glad to have you back. Welcome back to Atlanta, my friend, the moral capital of America. Absolutely, absolutely. So let's talk about this, John, because I remember a few years ago, I got into this vigorous debate about student loan debt.

Now granted, I graduated December, 1991. Tuition was a lot different then as it is now. But I made the point to folks that I saw my student loan debt as good debt. Why was that? Because that college degree put me in a position for the jobs that I've had. And if you look at, if I added up the income that I have earned over the last 30 years, since graduating, I will, you know, that's a significant amount of money.

So if I compare that money to what my student loan debt was, I said that was good debt. I said, now, if I went out and got a $50,000 car right after I graduated, I said, that's bad debt. And I had this back and forth. And somebody was like, well, yeah, but what if you had no debt at all? I said, look, I couldn't have no no debt conversation. Mom and daddy didn't have the money. It's not like I had the money as well. I didn't have a full-rise scholarship.

And I said, and look, Congress hasn't passed free college, so that hasn't happened. So I said, but we do have to look at debt a different way. And you really were trying to help some folks with this weekend to understand the reality of home ownership and what the home means. Yeah. By the way, there's going to be a serious discussion about reparations in this country. It probably should be K-through-college education for every black person in America. As long as they do something gainful and positive with that education, it gets written off as an investment, but that's a separate,

separate topic, separate show. I was stunned, Roland. When we, I was, it was one in the morning and I sent out a tweet. I thought it was a non-issue, right? No big deal. I sent out this tweet that white Americans have half, you know, half of white America has a mortgage as debt, and one in five black Americans have mortgages as debt, and that we need more good debt. And man, the internet, I'm sorry, Twitter just lit up. And I couldn't figure out why.

Like, what's the complication here? It makes no sense that we're having this conversation, particularly this part. Wait a minute. We don't own the home. The bank owns the home. No, actually, that's not true. It's just not true. The bank has a mortgage on your home.

The bank does not participate in the uplift, the upside, on your appreciation. They don't get the depreciation, which you write off your taxes. They don't get the appreciation, which is the equity between what you owe and what the house is worth now and what it is worth in the future. In fact, I'll go one step further. So that's good debt. In fact, the tax policy on homeownership is brilliant. Like, if you rent from me, and as you know, in my private commercial life, I'm the largest minority-controlled owner of single-family rental homes in America, the Promise Homes Company. If you rent from me, you're paying off my mortgages. All good. I think I'm providing a good service as an affordable housing owner.

But I really want you to become an owner and not be paying off my debt. I want you to have your own mortgage debt that you pay off and you write off in every payment you make. You're writing that off of your taxes. You get that money back. So you're getting the benefit of depreciation. You're getting the benefit of appreciation. The house gains in value. By the way, Roland, you mentioned an auto loan, a Mercedes, you have a loan on a Mercedes and the loan is 26%, like one of our clients last week, we got him from a 26% interest down to 3% by getting his credit score up 80 points.

But if you have a 26% interest or an 18% interest on your Mercedes, that's not a Mercedes, that's Mercedes payments. Can I get an amen? So not only is that good debt rolling, and not only did wealth in this country get created through real estate, I mean, when you're upset, folks over here with titles, as you know, Roland, a governor, all it really meant was over here with titles, as you know, Roland, a governor, all it really meant was it's like, AKA, governor, AKA meant owns tens of thousands of acres. If you were a mayor or whatever the version of a mayor was back then, change the title, AKA, I own thousands of acres. It was all about land ownership. It was all about land

ownership. And what do they bring the slaves to work on? Land. So that's where wealth came from in this country. And it was another misnomer. Somebody said, well, billionaires don't have debt. What are you smoking? There is no billionaire on the planet who's a billionaire without good debt. Anyway, this obviously just lit me up because I'm just so heartbroken that my people are laboring under such bad information, which means we don't participate in the two things, Roland, that create upward nobility. Here's two things that have never gone down in the history of America, real estate and the stock market. Now, somebody, Roland, will say watching the show no no not true John's wrong we have the depression of 2009 recession 2009 we had this yes here's what happened it went up and it corrected and went down then what

happened it went up again and correct it it's gonna correct again it's gonna go up again these things these two twoes, and education was probably the third one, Roland, have never reversed and gone the other way. The thing that, even the point that you were making about being able to write off the interest on your taxes, again, it's sort of how you look at that. I'll give you an example. When I made the decision, I'm going to pay my house off, my home in Texas. My accountant said... I'd say don't do it, right, right.

The accountant told me don't do it because we're, because, because the, because we're getting the deductions. And I then sat down and I said, okay, I want you to tabulate the deductions. I said, what is it? They said, Oh, well it's the, it's the interest that you're paying. I said, right. So I want you to multiply that by 20 or whatever. I said, so you want me to keep paying the mortgage and keep paying that interest? I said, for the tax write-off, when, if I pay the house off, I own it outright. And the only thing I'm paying annually are the property taxes, which can also be written off. So let me stop you. Let's be,

let's be intentionally argumentative here. All right. So as brilliant as you are, and you're really brilliant. I did a whole video on the genius of your publishing library. But as genius as you are, let's just be argumentative here, I'm going to say respectfully, you're not right enough. Because the beauty is that if you have leverage on that house, a good debt appreciates, is debt associated with something that appreciates, bad debt is financing jewelry. Bad debt is financing sports tickets and financing a vacation, right? But good debt is... So if your house is appreciating and you have some debt against that house, 70 cents on the dollar, you have 30 cents against the 70 cents, but the house

is... Let's say the house doubles in value. If you own the house outright, okay, you doubled your money. But if the house doubles in value when you only have 30 cents in it, well, my God, the multiple on that is through the roof because you have very little of your equity, actually, your money at risk against the debt. Everybody who has succeeded in building legitimate wealth, please, if you're watching this documentation, almost a documentary of what Roland's doing here, if you're watching this program with Roland Martin Unfiltered, write this down. You can only build wealth in your sleep. You only build wealth by compounding. That's it. It's different from making money and getting paid and getting that check. I'm so tired of people saying, I'm trying to get paid. So what Roland just described was peace of mind, okay? That's what Roland just described. I'm so tired of people saying I'm trying to get paid. So what Roland just described was peace of mind. Okay? That's what Roland just described.

I have a lot of my celebrities. They want, they want, I own this house. Okay, okay, okay. But that's called peace of mind, not peace of mind. It was peace of mind, but it was also thinking ahead in that

my parents lived there, my sister and her daughter. So there are three generations of my family lives there. House is paid off. If anything, if anything happens to me, only thing has to be taken care of every year are property taxes. So and so and so the thing is, but again, that was a strategy in doing it. The problem that for me that I see, I think with so many people is that they throw stuff out there. And also to the point, like every year when I get to get the property valuation, I mean, look, I've been getting phone calls for the last two years, text messages constantly, sell, sell, sell, because there's a dearth of homes out there,

available homes. And so folks have been trying to buy, we'll pay cash, and we've been throwing everything out there. So the thing that, while the conversation to me was crazy, people going back and forth, is that they kept, they were going

through this whole thing of debt, debt, debt, debt, debt, and again, not understanding the notion of what is good and bad debt and how companies every year are financing debt, how companies are, how they are, how they're shifting, how they're getting, you know, lower interest on their debt. Because, in fact, there have been some companies that have been purchased with debt. Some companies? All companies? Right, right, right. And so the thing is, when I hear people say, have this notion that, again, all debt is bad, that's why it was crazy because that's just simply not true. And by keep pushing it out there, you're basically doing the same thing to me.

I think when it comes to the vaccine is that you're sharing misinformation and you're not educating people on what's real and what's true. No, it's worse than that, Roland. We are predicting a lifetime of debt and poverty because your consumer debt is going to continue to rise. Bad credit cards and all that kind of stuff, that's going to continue to rise. But if you don't have something to offset that, which is an asset based on good debt that continues to rise, then what you end up with is zero net worth, nothing to pass, no generational wealth to pass on to your family. So one lady was like, I'm gonna be a renter for the rest of my life. Okay, you're gonna be poor for the rest of your life. Because the only way that the average person in America builds wealth, let me rephrase

that, the most popular, most credible route, factually documented, that the average American family builds wealth is through their home, is the equity in their home. Where does the equity for the start of the business come from? From the home. Where does somebody want to secure your consumer loan from? From the home you know when you when you pass on the glory god god bless you that should happen you know happen god bless your family then what do they get the largest increase in wealth from the home I have

celebrity friends who brag about not having any debt on their properties and I tell them it's just not good use of cash to sit to have two million dollars sitting in a building somewhere. It may make you feel good. But what if you've taken, you know, $2 million building, put a $1.5 million mortgage on it, at good rates if you have a good credit score, I'm talking about 3% money rolling. You know, I believe in God and God alone. But if I was agnostic, I'd bow at the altar of low interest rates.

OK? I mean, if you can get 2%, 3% money, it's like somebody's giving you money. It's like free, right? And if you have good credit scores, 700 or above, you can get 3% money right now. I'm in a house that has 3% money. I don't know how the banks might make any money. But it's brilliant for me. And I mean, I can tell you examples of how I took,

well, there's a condo I had in LA. And I bought it for a couple hundred thousand dollars. It's on La Tijera for those watching you from Los Angeles. 7122 La Tijera, I think is the address I don't own anymore. So I don't give you the address. And you can go to public records and look at this. Bought it for 200,000 and change 15 years ago, whatever. It went down in the economic crisis of 2009. All my black friends around me, sell. Get rid of it. They all sold their stuff.

They were afraid. Sell it, sell it, sell it. So I'd hold on, hold on, because I needed some place to live back then. And I had a renter, sorry, a renter in it. And so the renter was paying the mortgage, just enough to pay the mortgage and the property taxes. Actually, I think I had to pay a little bit of property taxes. Everybody said I was stupid. So now I owe more, Roland, than the value. I owe, now the value's 100-something, and I owe still 200,000, right? So I forget about it because it's taking care of itself,

and I'm getting a little depreciation. Roland, I looked up five years later, I sold that condo for $750,000. Free money. Free money. And it cost me nothing to keep it because it took care of it. If you want to make sure you have a hedge against poverty, people watching this program, you need to do two in one. Buy a home and live in it like Roland's doing and pay it off just like Roland did if you want to.

And then buy two homes, rehab them and rent them. And I don't mean fancy properties. I don't mean we need to stop buying stuff in places we don't know with money we don't have to impress people. We don't we have no we have no idea about about stuff that don't matter. You need to stop profiling and renting uptown and buy something downtown in the inner city in a working neighborhood near jobs, right, and buy the worst house in the best block. Or, yeah, the worst house in the best block in your neighborhood and buy it, rehab it, and rent it. You will never go broke. That or an engineering degree. You'll never go broke.

You get your kid an engineering degree, they will never go broke. There's only 5% black engineers in this country, right? And there's more jobs looking for people than the other way around. And real estate, again, keeps going up, even in black neighborhoods. And I'm prima facie evidence of that. I own 700 homes in Atlanta and Florida, and I'm going to buy a bunch more. I'm telling every church, buy their block. Okay, I'm getting off the topic. But the bottom line is, it's about buying.

Julian Malveaux, I want to go to you. You're an economist. The thing that Julian just goes to is, when I use that phrase, when you don't know, you don't know, it speaks to the absolute need for comprehensive financial education, literacy, and where we're walking people through step by step to begin to understand this system and how we should be better taking advantage of it. Roland, Brother Bryant is absolutely brilliant. He's a colleague, and I appreciate him and appreciate his words. What I'd like to say about this is everything don't work for everybody. So some people are going to buy their home. They don't care about what they have access to in terms of interest rates and such because of the security. Others are going to use home ownership to leverage their wealth. Real estate was a historical foundation for black people over the years.

And we can go back and look at it. It's less so now, but back in the day, as John has said, people will buy their block, buy the house next door, do that, because that was really the wealth that they were building. This is important from the perspective of the ways that we build wealth, the things we do to build wealth, and the diversity of our approach to wealth building. But I think that I miss a Twitter

storm. I guess I just missed it, but I don't be, I'm not on Twitter every day. So I miss a Twitter storm, but I think that what John has said is important. It's not definitive, but it is important. Buy a home because most people, not black people, most people build their wealth through home ownership. Most people, about 70% of their wealth is around home ownership. So we are about 30% less likely to own our homes than white folks are. That's just saying something. So John's got a great point, and I think that people should pay major attention to it. And I just appreciate being on here with him.

Your brother's bad. She's bad. I want to go to Avis. Avis, your thoughts on this? Yeah, it is unfortunate that, you know, so many are so far removed from this concept that there was such a, you know, huge backlash with regards to a statement that, you know, should be quite a well-known thing. I mean, when I think about, for example, where my son is right now, I have a son who's graduate school at Johns Hopkins right now. It's all virtual with the pandemic, but, you know, he's thinking next year, if it opens up, he's looking at how can he buy

a multifamily house in Baltimore so that he can live in one side of the house and then rent out to at least two other spaces where other renters can live. I would love to see us be in a place where we can start to think about how we can actually narrow that racial wealth gap, because as was mentioned, we will never get there just by working more. We will never get there just by earning more money. You have to have some assets that will actually appreciate over time so that you can build wealth. And once we begin to understand that when we get our ducks in a row, when our credit score allows us to be able to have very, very low interest rates, as was explained, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using other people's money to make money. Everybody else does it, okay? And so I'm hoping that people will take advantage of the information that they're getting here today and start to think a little bit more broadly about different ways that we could leverage our earnings and turn it into wealth with proper

investments just like this. Omekongo. I think that this is powerful. And I feel like this entire show, we've been denied. But right now, when I'm hearing what Mr. Bryan is saying, I just wish that, I don't know, I just have a question for you, Mr. Bryan. What do you feel is the best way right now to get financial literacy out to our communities? Is it schools? Is it online programs? Is it YouTube courses? What's the best way to get what you're saying in the hands of more people so there isn't that Twitter storm out there? Yeah, we've got to make smart sexy again. We've been making

dumb sexy for a long time, man. We've dumbed down and celebrated it. Quincy Jones says it takes 20 years to change a culture. His birthday was yesterday, by the way. And in the last 20 years, we've made dumb sexy. Yo, yo, yo, yo, what's up, what's up? You know what I'm saying? I don't know what you're saying, man.

Speak English. Speak. Talk to me. Lead me better, right? We go to club tonight. The COVID-approved club. We go to club tonight, and we see the cute girl or the handsome guy. Hey, man, you're cute.

You're handsome. What's your credit score? What's your business plan for your life? Are you an owner? Are you an ownership mentality? We need to know what's in here and not just what's on here. Excuse me. I can say this on Roland Martin and Fildren, I think.

Your assets cannot just be on your ass. We've got to stop having lifestyle riches as a strategy. It's not riches. In fact, getting paid, as a young lady said, has nothing to do with building wealth. Zero. And so we've got to make basically, sir, we've got to get celebrities and ballplayers and folks who who for whom people pay attention to to really begin to bake this in. And it's beginning to happen. And I think we need to make financial literacy the civil rights issue of this generation. We need to make it like the law funded by Congress, K through college, free financial literacy.

And I think Ms. Malvo will agree with me on this, and I think she's brilliant, by the way, long underrated, brilliant. I think we should have entry-level, entry-duction to entrepreneurship in high school. Because if you can't get a job, then let's help folks create them, which is why Operation Hope is so passionate about 1 Million Black Business Initiative that we launched with Shopify to get all our businesses online. You know, 96% of our businesses don't have an employee. How do you build wealth that way? I mean, how do you do anything that way? You're on a treadmill. You're on a treadmill. We're stressed out. We're exhausted. What did Malcolm X say? We've been bamboozled. We've been tricked. We've been fooled.

Here's another one. I just couldn't believe that we spent, Roland and I spent, going back and forth. I think with Roland, it was a day and a half on Twitter. They were absolutely sure they were right, and they were wrong. It's just wrong. Everything that was said, with all due respect, I love you very much wrong it's just wrong everything that was said

with all due respect i love you very much it's just dead wrong and somebody has to lay it out so we got to make this appealing and interesting and to here's the good news people can still do it right now they can uh last point john you you said earlier you had a guy who had a mercedes with a 26 percent interest rate and by raising his by raising his credit score 80 points he went from 26 percent interest rate to three percent 3.5 3.5 3.7 i put it on twitter the exact number yeah his payment dropped like a rock, like a rock. So there's two ways to make money, make more or spend less. Do you know, Roland, that 41% of black people have a credit score below 620?

Basically half of us. So when you go to the bank and the bank turns you down for a loan, not you, because you'll get whatever you want, turn it down for a loan, we assume it's racism. Well, historically it has been. But right now, I think the gentleman said, racism. Well, historically, it has been. But right now, I think the gentleman said, I want hair like his, by the way. You got to show me how to do that.

But, you know, the gentleman said, this is, but in 2021, my mother's credit score is 867. I think she told me two days ago, which means my mother's not black, she's green, right? She can get anything she wants. So if you can get your credit score up today, so the reason that they're giving decline may not be because you're black. It may be because your credit store stinks,

and the bank's not going to tell you because they don't want to be sued. Half of us are locked out of the free enterprise system. You can't get a small business loan unless you have a 700 credit score. That's another show you need to do, which is this free money coming to black people through this 1.9 trillion dollar uh uh stimulus bill that's a whole deal all by itself that's a whole show by itself but oh we will we will trust me we will yeah i'm just i'm just exercised about this man because i think i think we're living in a moment in history like like right now but history doesn't feel historic when you're sitting in it. It just feels like another day.

And I think if Dr. King was alive today, this is what he'd be obsessing with right now. And we never got the memo on money because the Freedmen's Bank, after the Civil War, after Lincoln was assassinated, it was closed. That bank was chartered to teach free slaves about money. So other than Ms. Malvo and a few others, there's nobody doing this advocation. And meanwhile, the world is passing us by, Roland. There's a whole other show on between cash flow and wealth. Two completely different things. I get so tired of you saying, I want to get this money.

I want to get paid. I can get this dollar. I could care less about getting money. Let me build wealth. It'll create cash flow. John Hope Bryan, founder of Operation Hope. We certainly appreciate it. We're happy people get more information about Operation Hope. OperationHope.org or download the Hope in Hand app on your phone. It's all free, by the way. There's no charge for these services. Or call 888-388-HOPE or just talk to Ms. Malvo because she can probably hook you up all by

herself with her just some individual counseling. But we do counseling in 26 states for free. Well, folks, I can't say you didn't have the information and no one ever told you about it. John Hope Brown, we truly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Love and light. All right. I want to thank my panel as well. Folks, if you want to support what we do here, Roland Martin Unfiltered, your dollars make it possible for us to have these type of conversations, All right. If you do do that, trust me, we don't have to rely on corporate sponsors to be able to bring you the most unfiltered and unapologetic black news out there. You can go to Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered, PayPal.me forward slash R Martin Unfiltered, Venmo.com forward slash RM Unfiltered. Also, Zell, Roland at Roland S Martin dot com or Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

You can also send a money order to New Vision Media, NU Vision Media, Inc. 1625 K Street, Northwest, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 2006. Folks, that is it for us.

Tomorrow, a special edition of Roland Martin Unfiltered. We're going to focus on Black-owned media. Tomorrow is the anniversary, 194th anniversary of Freedom's Journal, the nation's first

Black newspaper, which was launched March 16th, 1827. So tomorrow, Byron Allen will join us. Rishi Lou Dennis of Essence will join us. Morgan Devon of Blavity, as well as African-American and agency owners. We're going to be talking about the money.

Black media. What is the money, Black media. What is the future of Black media? That is tomorrow, right here on Roller Martin Unfiltered. I'll see you then. Power! A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. Small but important ways

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Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else but never forget yourself self-love made me a better dad because i realized my worth never stop being a

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