#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Bishop Barber Meets AMC CEO, Chicago Firefighter Discrimination Suit, Florida's Abortion Rights

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

1.4.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Bishop Barber Meets AMC CEO, Chicago Firefighter Discrimination Suit, Florida's Abortion Rights A federal judge ruled a conservative group did not violate the Voting Rights Act when it challenged the eligibility of more than 360,000 Georgia voters just before a 2021 runoff election.  Harvard's ousted President, Claudine Gay, sheds light on why she resigned in an op-ed for the New York Times. We'll examine why she said, "What Just Happened at Harvard Is Bigger Than Me." Bishop William Barber will be here to discuss what happened in his meeting with AMC's CEO after police escorted him out in a North Carolina theater.  117 Chicago firefighters have been a part of a civil lawsuit for decades. I'll talk to the employment attorney handling the case to find out why this case, which started in the late 1990s, has not been settled.  A Florida group wants the issue of abortion left up to voters and not legislators. I'll talk to the President of Women's Voices for Southwest Florida about the petition to get abortion on the 2024 ballot.  Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. 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. It's Thursday, January the 4th, 2024. I'm Greg Carr sitting in for Roland. Here's what's coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network.

A federal judge ruled the conservative group did not violate the Voting Rights Act when it challenged the eligibility of more than 360,000 Georgia voters just before 2021 runoff election. Harvard's ousted president, Claudine Gay, sheds light on why she resigned in an op-ed for The New York Times.

We'll examine why she said, quote, what just happened at Harvard is bigger than me. Bishop William Barber will be here to discuss what happened in his meeting with AMC's CEO after police escorted him out of a North Carolina theater where he and his mother had gone to see the color purple. That's right, nothing good gonna come of it. 117 Chicago firefighters have been a part of a civil rights lawsuit for decades. I'll talk to the employment attorney handling the case to find out

why this case, which started in the late 1990s, has not been settled. A Florida group wants the issue of abortion left up to voters and not the Florida legislator. I'll talk to the president of the Women's Voices for Southwest Florida about the petition to get abortion on the 2024 ballot. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Let's 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 Roland. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all.

It's Rolling Martin. Rolling with rolling now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Roland Martel now. Martel! A federal judge in Georgia found the

Texas-based conservative group's 2020 mass voter challenges were not illegal and did not rise to the level of violating the Voting Rights Act. U.S. District Judge Steve Jones, the same jurist who upheld the state's new congressional and legislative district maps, by the way, an Obama appointee, a black man, he's been at the center of a lot of these rulings, including a couple on the Trump case in Georgia, unfolding as we speak. He ruled that True the Vote, that's the organization, True the Vote's actions did not constitute

illegal voter intimidation. In Judge Jones's 145-page decision in favor of the Texas-based nonprofit True the Vote, he said the evidence presented at trial did not show that the group's actions quote caused or attempted to cause any voter to be intimidated, coerced or threatened in voting, end quote. But he concluded that the list of voters to be challenged compiled by the group, quote, utterly lacked reliability, end quote, and

quote, verges on recklessness, end quote. Georgia law allows anyone to challenge a person's voting eligibility. True the Vote filed challenges in December 2020 ahead of two runoff elections that led to victories for Democrats John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in the United States Senate. The challenges claimed that the affected voters appeared to be ineligible to vote because of changes in residency. Local election officials rejected most of the challenges. The lawsuit was filed by Fair Fight, a group founded by former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Let's discuss this case and its implications with our regular Thursday night panel. It's good to see our sister Recy Colbert here, host of the Recy Colbert Show, Sirius XM, coming out of Washington, D.C., and our brother Joe Richardson, civil rights attorney out there in L.A., California, City of Angels, Hollywood. So both of you, let's start recently with you, sis.

Of course, you had a lot of commentary and covered this. And of course, we know Roland pretty much moved to Georgia, along with a whole lot of other people to get those senators across the line. None of this is surprising. Any thoughts on this ruling and what it might what some of the implications might be in terms of how particularly the right reads this as perhaps a victory? Well, I think this certainly is a victory for the right. I mean, basically, the judge was like, you guys were too stupid and incompetent to actually successfully get a number of voters purged. However, that is their tactic, throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. And so I don't think that they should be rewarded by their incompetence with a favorable ruling. And I think this is also more evidence of the difference

between so-called liberal or progressive judges and conservative judges. Conservative judges would not let any small victory, moral victory whatsoever slide for people who are against their ideology, whereas, you know, Democratic-leaning judges tend to try to be more sticklers for reading the, you know, reading by the law or the letter of the law or whatever. And I think sometimes it's about time for some of these Democratic judges to play a little bit more hardball like these conservative judges are, because it's not going to get any easier going up the food chain in terms of getting rights or getting protections for civil rights.

And so if you have an opportunity to nip some of this suppression in the bud, you need to easier going up the food chain in terms of getting rights or getting protections for civil rights. And so if you have an opportunity to nip some of this suppression in the bud, you need to take the opportunity, brother. Hello. You know, Recy, that's funny you say that. And, Joe, you know, echoing what Recy said, I mean, these right-wing judges don't seem to have a problem, certainly on the appeals courts, well, given those judges in Texas and Louisiana and then the Fifth Circuit, of course, doing what it's doing.

But any thoughts on Risi's observation, particularly since Judge Jones, who seems to have now be at the center of a number of these cases in Georgia, certainly isn't overreaching with the law? And this was a narrow ruling, too, from what the opinion, what part of the opinion I've read have so far has said. But do you think maybe he should move a little bit faster or, you know, perhaps be more expansive in the way he's doing this statutory interpretation? Yeah, there's a couple of things that could happen here. First of all, yeah, sometimes Democrats are accused, perhaps whether it's fair or not, is it really real, is the question of saying, oh,

you know, we'll be such sticklers for the law, so we won't go quite now. We think it's reckless. We think it's a problem. I mean, he expresses some difficulty with their methods, that there's a problem with their methods, right? And so my sense is where there's a will, there's a way, right? And if he thought, based on his reading of the law, that it didn't go quite far enough, and he's thinking of approaching it fairly conservatively so that these things don't become political weapons, that's fine and good and well. But meanwhile, back at the ranch, this group is vindicated and validated and willingly trying to keep people that ought to be able to vote from voting. I mean, most of the challenges didn't end up being successful.

But I think it reminds you what we need to do as it pertains to voting rights. The best thing you could do is have legislation that is more stringent and more exact and more expansive in terms of what the rights are. So even a judge that wants to approach it conservatively can say that by virtue of the law, this is a problem here. You know, you stand back, you got your hands, you know, up in the air and you're waving them like you just don't care and say, gosh, what does it take for this brother to bring us across the line here? We know what they're trying to do, you know, and so that is frustrating for sure. There's no doubt about it, but it just reminds you that the fight wages on. You go to court, we win the well trying these cases, bringing appeals and whatnot.

Sometimes you're going to win and sometimes you're going to lose. But you have to continue on the multi-pronged facet in both judicial issues, the judiciary, and specifically with legislation. Because once you get elected, not only can you pass legislation, but you can also bring on the kind of judges that you need to bring on. Absolutely. And, Reese, before I come back to you, I want to ask you one more question following up. Because as you're talking about it, I'm thinking aboutesa, before I come back to you, I want to ask Joe one more question following up. Because as you're talking about it, I'm thinking about it, and I'm also thinking about that

ruling on the gerrymandering, the redistricting that he just got that said that I'm not saying you can't come back to me on this issue of whether or not dismantling Lucy McBath's district amounts to a violation of the Voting Rights Act. But he didn't reach that. Do you think maybe he has, and maybe in his left eye, the 11th Circuit in mind, he's trying to write in ways where he won't be overruled on appeal?

Could that be a factor? I don't know. I'm asking you as an attorney. He could be looking around the corner because what he's going to say is, you know, no judge wants to be overturned. Right. Okay.

And if he goes all the way out on what he may be thinking, he could absolutely be overturned. I don't think there's any question about that on what he may be thinking, he could absolutely be overturned. I don't think there's any question about that. So he may be thinking of it that way and understanding how they rule. He wants to position it, perhaps, you know, in a best case scenario in a way that makes it narrow enough and strict enough where it's difficult even for the 11th Circuit to overturn it. So he may be looking at that. That doesn't make what's going on any less frustrating. It reminds me of my dad, something he used to always say, rest in peace. You know, when I asked for something, he said, no, he said, you're looking to the corner, I'm looking around it.

Maybe that's what's happening here. We'll have to see once we get around the corner. But that doesn't mean it's not frustrating in the meantime. Absolutely. Recently, of course, like Joe said, I mean, we got to keep the fight going and maybe the courts, we can't look to the courts initially. And like you opened up and made the comments, saw the front page of today's USA Today with the vice president on the cover again. It seems like she can't get any love from the white stream press as they talk about her. And we know that it's going to be a tough election cycle in 2024. Any thoughts on Georgia in particular and whether or not this could dampen perhaps the energy there?

Of course, we notice the Stacey Abrams organization, looks like Seante Stewart-Reed, who's the executive director of Fair Fight now, said that she was disappointed with the ruling, but we can't wait on the federal courts. Any thoughts on strategies the Democrats need to employ in the state of Georgia, where they're clearly trying to shave people from the voter rolls as we speak? Yeah, I mean, that's been their tactics for years now. I mean, Brian Kemp was one of the major architects of the biggest purges, particularly of Black voters, even before he became governor, he was secretary of state.

And so voter suppression is baked into the cake when it comes to Georgians, not that that makes it any more okay or it's not something to be complacent about. So when you know that they're trying to steal the vote, when you know they're trying to take your vote away, then you already know how to account for it. It's not going to come as a surprise. So I think that there is a big infrastructure in terms of voter turnout and voter participation in Georgia. I'm more concerned

about the enthusiasm and the potential lack of turnout that could happen in Georgia. We did see black voter turnout drop off a bit in the midterms. Those are the kinds of things that I'm concerned about. And I think that's going to take more than just boots on the ground, more than just volunteers canvassing. I think it's going to take a lot more attention from Democratic leaders and Democratic surrogates to really engage, particularly with the Black community down in Georgia. But there is some erosion I have seen in polls in the support with Latinos and in the Asian community with the Biden-Harris ticket. And so it's going to take a lot of engagement, not onesie-twosies, not a jump in, you know, which obviously is

good to go down there and visit, but it's going to take way more conversations and going into the spaces where people already are to reach them and motivate them for 2024. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, we're going to obviously be monitoring this and I'm sure we're going to be in the thick of it in 2024. So we're going to take a pause. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the

price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick.

Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. 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. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Come back. This is Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, and we'll be right back. This is Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, and we'll be right back. A new year for a new you. CurlPrep Natural Hair Solutions at CurlPrep.com is an amazing organic line for curls, locks, braids, twists, and even those wigs and extensions. Women, men, and children are loving this line. Look at this video and you be the judge. People line up to see this product

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people can't live with them, can't live without them. Our relationships often have more ups and downs than a boardwalk roller coaster, but it doesn't have to be that way. Trust your gut. Whenever your gut is like, this isn't healthy, this isn't right, I don't like the way that I'm being treated. This goes for males and females. Trust your gut. And then whenever that gut feeling comes, have a conversation.

Knowing how to grow or when to go. A step-by-step guide on the next A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network. Субтитры подогнал «Симон» Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherry Shepard Talk Show. This is your boy, Irv Quaid. And you're tuned in to... Roland Martin, unfiltered. A day after her resignation, former Harvard University President Claudine Gay published an opinion piece in the New York Times addressing her decision to step down, acknowledging her mistakes and defending her academic research. In the column, Claudine Gay, What Just Happened at Harvard is Bigger Than Me, Gay said she decided to resign after weeks of having her character and intelligence and seeing Harvard

come under attack. In fact, she says here, I've been called the N-word more times than I care to count. I'll tell you what. In her piece, Gay said, yes, I've made mistakes. In my initial response to the atrocities of October the 7th, I should have stated more forcefully what all people of good conscience know. Hamas is a terrorist organization that seeks to eradicate the Jewish state. And at a congressional hearing last month, I fell into a well-laid trap. Shout out to Elise Stefancic, a Harvard graduate.

I neglected to clearly articulate that calls for the genocide of Jewish people are abhorrent and unacceptable, and that I would use every tool at my disposal to protect from that kind of hate. Never did I imagine needing to defend decades-old and broad research. But the past several weeks have laid waste to truth.

Those who had relentlessly campaigned to oust me since the fall, often trafficked in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned argument. They recycled tired racial stereotypes about black talent and temperament. They pushed a false narrative of indifference and incompetence. It is not lost on me that I make an ideal canvas for projecting every anxiety about the generational and

demographic changes unfolding on American campuses. A black woman selected to lead a storied institution, someone who views diversity as a source of institutional strength and dynamism, someone who has advocated a modern curriculum that spans from the frontier of quantum science to the long neglected history of Asian Americans, someone who believes that a daughter of Haitian immigrants has something to offer the nation's oldest university. Claudine Gay, the school's first black president,

resigned Tuesday after fewer than five months amid plagiarism allegations, scrutiny over her response to the Israel Hamas war, and testimony at a congressional hearing over campus anti-Semitism. It isn't lost on any of us that in all of the articles they stress that Claudine Gay's presidency was the shortest in the history of John Harvard's plantation, also known as Harvard Magazine. And I say that because John Harvard made his money in the Caribbean. You read Ebony and Ivy, Craig Stephen Wilder's book.

You know, it's interesting, Risi, I was thinking about this, having looked at this copy of Harvard Magazine from September, October, the first fall issue of the magazine, with her on the cover. Here's Claudine Gay on the cover, a long article on this sister. And it opens with this. Claudine Gay arrived at Cambridge in the fall of 1992 as a first year graduate student, lugging the things that seemed most essential to her success.

A futon, a Mac Classic II, some of y'all don't know what that is, and a cast iron skillet for frying plantains. Now look here. To the presidency of Harvard, and these white boys put a bullseye on her back. And not only are they after her, the billionaire who's after her, in particular Ackerman, wants her job. She's going back to the faculty, and he said no.

Nobody should get paid $900,000 a year after this. And he's going after J.B JB Pritzker's sister, Penny, who's on the Harvard board as the chair, says he wants her out. Racy, help us understand this. Because, oh, help us understand this, Racy, because Claudine Gay has, by the rule book that is established in this country, done everything right. And yet, that was not enough.

How do you read what's going on at Harvard with Claudine Gay? Well, first of all, the op-ed could have been much shorter. It could have just said, fuck all y'all. And then it could have said, go to hell, bitch. Okay? Y'all deal with this shit. I'm not sending no warning. I'm not talking about what the implications are.

Y'all could just go to hell and figure it out for your damn self. Okay? It's very ironic that Bill— well, actually it's not ironic. It's actually quite predictable that Bill Ackerman's, who's leading this charge against plagiarism, allegedly it came out today from the Business Insider that his wife plagiarized. Yikes. Like I said, allegedly. Major, multiple paragraphs in her dissertation. His wife is a plagiarist.

Who? Allegedly. Who? Who? Who? So let's see if he has the same energy for his own household. Wow. To watch this become about plagiarism

is peak gaslighting and ridiculousness. To watch this black woman become the face of anti-Semitism, this is all really fucking ridiculous. No question. Meanwhile, kids are still getting slaughtered by the thousands in Palestine and Gaza. And the black woman of Harvard is a boogeywoman.

That's the person that they need to get the hell out of. What about Netanyahu? What about what he's doing? Killing civilians. Like the way that the topic has been changed, the way that the boogeyman has been created out of the president of Harvard, which doesn't move the needle that the boogeyman has been created out of the president of Harvard, which doesn't move the needle in the country at all. I'm sorry. Maybe for some people

that does, it's never been a beacon on the hill for me. It's never moved the needle. It's not moving the gas prices, the price of bacon, the price of a cheeseburger at McDonald's. It does not move any needle. It only serves as this institution that people get to put up as elite and say, I did it or whatever. Good for you. So I don't think that there's really anything to mourn here. I don't think there's really a loss here. I think that black women, it ain't your job to hoist up these institutions.

Yes, they will. As you pointed out, Dr. Carr, put your black ass on a magazine and talk about how, oh, look at how good we are. We're so progressive. We're so woke. We got a black woman. The first time in 400 years, celebrate us. And the second that you step out of line, whatever the little imaginary line is that

they had, they're turning a black ass. And so I think that this is liberating for Claudine Gay. I think it should be liberating for black people across this country. I think we should stop looking to these institutions to validate us. We should stop trying to tiptoe the line to get into these places that don't want us there to begin with. If they want to say, send a message, don't come, then don't come. There are plenty of other institutions that are welcoming with open arms, Howard University being one, many HBCUs, et cetera. There are also not so quote-unquote elite institutions that'll want me on Black Ass too.

So I think that people are, I understand the outrage. I understand that it's always a punch in the gut to a certain extent to see something like this happen. Somebody who followed all the rules, who did everything supposedly right, and they still are on the Black Ass. But that's the story of America. It's never changing. The only thing that can change is what we celebrate, what we strive

to. And the last thing I want to say is the whole conversation that this has turned into around DEI and diversity. She was a diversity hire. Guess what? If I'm a diversity hire, if you pick me, even though I wasn't supposedly qualified, thank you, bitch, because

the check is still clearing. My family is still eating. I'm still going on vacations. I'm catching planes, trains, and automobiles. So we need to stop trying to push back on whatever it is that you sleep all night. That's fine. The check is clearing, boo. I didn't know that.

If I'm a diversity hire, that's fine. If I'm a DEI hire, that's fine. If I'm affirmative action, that's fine. I don't give a damn. Yes, please give me every single leg up that I don't deserve, just like how you give the white boys and just how you give the white girls. I want all them legs up, too. Okay?

Point blank in a period. Ooh, that leaves a mark. I'm sure Christopher Ruvo wouldn't like to hear you say that, particularly since he has a degree from Harvard Extension School, and he's been running around telling people that he has a degree from Harvard. Of course, he's taking credit for this. And I saw a tweet the other day said, now let's return to merit-based work at Harvard, signed Jared Kushner and Robert Kennedy Jr.

So, I mean, like you said, affirmative action, the real affirmative action in this world is whiteness. We know that. And so, can I just say, I don't want to be the merit hire. I don't want to work twice as hard to get to be the merit hire. Let me be the affirmative action hire. That's all if I could just show up black and get a job please sign me up. Sign me up for that gig.

Don't sign me up for the gig of slaving for 10 years trying to get somewhere and then okay now you pay me 70 cents on a dollar for white men. No thank you. I will absolutely love to be the affirmative action non-merit hire any day of the week, okay? Now seriously, you know they're going to clip that and make that the only thing they said you said,

which is fine because you don't give a fuck so it don't matter. And I'm dead as serious. That's what we, why are we fighting? Why are we fighting for what they're going to say we are anyway? Embrace it. Embrace a hand up, a leg up, a hand out, whatever. That's what everybody else is doing. They the low-low, they're doing it.

Their cousins and their uncles and their aunties and their friends work at the factory, work at the company, and they bring all their people around with them. They're doing all the same shit. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways.

Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms,

even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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, It's really, really, really bad. 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. 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. I'm out. 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. Then you have to get in on marriage. Actually, you just, I mean, Recy, that really is the question, isn't it? You framed it. Why are we fighting? Why is Claudine Gay fighting like this? Now, her whole life, Stanford, you know, undergrad, coming back over to Harvard, spent most of her life at Harvard, a professional career.

She was the dean of arts and sciences for years before this. In fact, two of the reasons that a lot of people in academia know Claudine Gay's name ironically involve black people, two black men. Ron Fryer, who was a professor of economics, he was, if memory serves me correctly, accused of sexual harassment and some other things. When she was the dean of the college, she suspended him for two years without pay. He was restored to the faculty, but they took away his lab.

He won the MacArthur grant, the MacArthur Foundation, the so-called genius grant. And at the time, now, his politics are considered right of center. And a lot of people accuse Claudine Gay of perhaps punishing him for his politics. And then in another case, Ron Sullivan, Professor Ronald Sullivan, who was the master of one of the houses, and the master of the house at Harvard, a resident scholar who lived in the dormitories, lived in the student housing. He was suspended. No, actually he wasn't suspended. They chastised him because he's a lawyer.

He represented, he had signed up to represent of all people Harvey Weinstein, who of course got a piece of art to the point you're raising from Bill Ackerman's wife, Oxman, Professor Oxman, when he gave $150,000 to her lab at MIT. So yeah, this is definitely incestuous. But in the case of Ron Sullivan Jr., another black person, black man, she was the dean when he was stripped of his privileges at the house where he was in residence. And he, according to Newsweek today, tweeted in the wake of the resignation, karma, a one-word karma. So again, we've seen these folk fighting in these kind of white plantation systems, certainly

these white elite schools, and you're absolutely right, don't agree that Harvard is the standard for academia, certainly not having graduated from a black school and then worked at one. I'm wondering, in fact, what is going on, Joe? I mean, there's clearly a battle going on. They're not finished. They're going to look at Cornbluth now, the president of MIT. They're taking credit for getting two scalps, the president of the University of Pennsylvania

and the person they're really after, which is Claudine Gay. So as Recy said, you know, why should we even be concerned about this? Should this be a topic? And what do you think is going on in this world, this kind of assault on these three presidents and through them as kind of proxy on this question of higher education? This is really what she's writing about today in the New York Times. Women and black women have been always questioned when they are in leadership in academia, right? Not unlike other black people. You know, you get over, you do well, and even if you do, you're prescribed as—you're

described as the exception and not the rule. You're more miraculous than you are indicative. It makes them say that he's not like the others, not that there are others like him or her, as the case may be. Interestingly, I would say Sister Gay has been, to a fault, very loyal to this institution. Absolutely. Very loyal.

And when she answered the questions the way she did, she was actually serving the institution, because the question was about free speech. And so she, you know, she may have not have done it quick enough for what Congresswoman Stefanik was talking about, you know, only two years after she got removed from a Harvard board. But we talked about that some other time. But she was actually trying to preserve the institution. And even in stepping down now, she's seeking to actually continue to protect the institution. You know, we forget that a lot of times folks in these situations love to start at the middle of the story. They don't like to start at the beginning. The beginning of the

story related to Harvard was that, you know, affirmative action was about having the force of law when others had the force of legacy, the force of tradition, and the force of relationships. And by the way, BTW, IJS, as my daughter would say if she was here right now, legacy started in the Ivies to keep our Jewish brothers and sisters out. It was a changing of the rules so that white folks that may not have measured up could continue to go to school because they daddies went there. And because they mamas went there most of the time, in that case, they daddies. And so basically, you know, there's these assumptions that when we get these jobs, it's affirmative action and it's DEI. But when these white males get these jobs, well, they're instantly and automatically qualified.

They're immaculately conceived. They're born saved. They can smoke cigarettes and not get cancer. They walk on water. It's almost like Jesus themselves, you know what I mean? Which is crazy, right? But to the point, Sister Gay ultimately had to take care of herself. Indeed. She's been taking care of Harvard.

And, you know, you get called nigga enough. Come on. You know what I mean? And you get enough threats, you know, and enough this and that and the other. At some point, you might say, you know what? I'm good. I'm good. You know what I mean? And you get enough threats, you know, and enough this and that and the other. At some point, you might say, you know what, I'm good. I'm good. You know what I mean? And so I'm not mad at her for doing that, but we have to be reminded at the end of the day, even Harvard liberals, come on now, even Harvard liberals get insecure about us moving up, about our demographics changing, which they are, you know, and she talks about this in her article. The whole idea is that, you know, I'm a great canvas for this

because I represent the future. Whether you want me to or not, whether you remove me from this place or not, we have a different expectation. And kids my daughter's age have a different expectation. This is one of the problems Joe Biden is going to have. I agree. Because he's an old white man and they're saying why? We're in a different space now.

Absolutely. Well, you know, we're gonna keep following this in the words of the mighty most deaf as he said in one of his songs, when they start doing it well, it's success. When I start doing it well, it's suspect. So in this case we see. So we're gonna come back in a moment. We'll be joined by our friend and brother, the great warrior, Reverend William Barber. Roland Martin Unfiltered will be back right after the break. You're watching the Black Star Network. Next on the Black Table with me, Greg Carr, the enigma of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

What really makes him tick and what forces shaped his view of the world, the country, and Black America? The answer, I'm pretty sure, will shock you. And he says, you know, people think that I'm anachronistic. I am. I want to go backwards in time in order to move us forward into the future. He's very upfront about this. We'll talk to Corey Robin, the man who wrote the book that reveals it all. That's next on The Black Table, only on the Black Star Network. I'm Faraj Muhammad, live from LA, and this is The Culture. The Culture is a

two-way conversation, you and me. We talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together. So let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Black Star Network. Carl Payne pretending to be Roland Martin. Holla!

You ain't got to wear black and gold every damn place, okay? Ooh, I'm an alpha, yay! Alright, you're 58 years old. It's over. And you are now watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Uncut, unplugged, and undamn believable. When Bishop William J. Barber arrived at a Greenville, North Carolina AMC movie theater

to see The Color Purple, he did not expect to be escorted out by two police officers because of his chair. That incident has Reverend Barber calling for more awareness and justice for disabled people, and that was part of his conversation with AMC's CEO, Adam Aaron, on Tuesday. Bishop Barber joins us now to tell us about that meeting. It is always good to see you, our brother, freedom fighter and warrior. I suspect that you didn't think you had to take the fight to the movie theater with you

and your mom watching The Color Purple, man, but I guess you never get to take a day off, do you, Rev? How you doing, man? Well, first of all, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for that interview you just did, you know, not starting in the middle, but telling the whole story about legacy and all those things.

Thank you for what you all do. You know, I didn't expect that. And I had to meet with the CEO, well, he called immediately and apologized, but I said, you know, it's more than an apology, it's about action. Because here's the take, if this happened to me and folk know me and know who I am, what happens to the average Joe or the average Josette when they go in? And the first thing I had to do in meeting with him was set the record straight. Number one, I went to the theater to be with my 90-year-old mother.

It was a special Christmas gift to her. We don't know how much longer she will be with her. She had asked me just, could you come home this Christmas week and just us? It was a time of tears because my brother is dead. My brother died suddenly from pancreatic cancer. He had a 30-day diagnosis and died. And so she doesn't have anybody but me. And I'll just be honest with folk on this call.

My mother was scared to have children because her mother died in childbirth, and she watched her bleed to death because the white hospital wouldn't send an ambulance. So this was a time of just me being son, not being bishop, not being president, not being this, that, just son. And we went, as I have gone, from the White House to Broadway to same movie theaters to the Vatican with my chair, because of my own disease, ankylosing spondylitis, and was told upon entering—well, not upon entering, let me get in. But as we got to the place to go into where the theaters are, the managers said, you can't bring that chair. And I said, oh, I understand you think that's what, but that's not what it is.

This is the ADA. No, it's not ADA. We only do wheelchairs. And I said, well, no, you don't do only wheelchairs because I see other people with other devices. But the point is, this is an ADA. No, it's not. It's a fire hazard. I said, it can't be a fire hazard because it's a chair.

Because if high chairs are a fire hazard, you have high chairs over there. It would be a fire hazard if I put it in the aisle. I'm not trying to put it in the aisle. I'm trying to sit it where I normally sit it. Well, it's not ADA. Yes, it is. Well, go get a doctor's note and come back. I said, now, you just said it was a fire hazard.

If I go get a doctor's note, how's that going to change it? Exactly. Then she said, well, wheelchairs are stationary. I said, honey, by the nature of it being a wheelchair means it's not stationary. I've done this everywhere. Let me go in. And then I said, I'm just going to go sit down. You can do what you want to do.

So we went in, and I sat down, put'm just going to go sit down and do what you want to do. So we went in and I sat down, put it in a handicapped area, not in an aisle. Yes, sir. Cut out says H. Right. That's right. Nobody would block the people. And they never said anything about where you block people. Because if you block them, put me at the back wall or something, as I've done before. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith.

Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1 Taser Incorporated

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

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

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

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. The next thing I know, two white officers with guns are there tapping me on the shoulder saying they're going to charge you with trespass. And we're going to have to end the entire theater if you don't come take me out. I'll go. I thought they were going to charge me outside.

When they got outside, the cops apologized and said, we don't even want to be here. They left. Of course. Then this man comes out and tells me I can't even wait on my mother. Wait a minute. I can't talk to the media. Right. Yeah.

My mother is still inside now. No, sir. With an attendant and a young girl that has epilepsy. But she tells, you can't wait on her. The media was outside. She said, you got to leave. She told the media they had to leave at a public accommodation at a theater. Oh, this is—

And brought—yeah, brought a white cop out, a white security with a gun on him. Then when she turned around to leave, waved at us tauntingly, like, I got you. Okay. And here's the kickoff of it. They were both black minorities. One is, I think, mixed with one black. And the white cops treated me better that day than the black managers. Yeah, because they weaponized them.

I mean, help us, because we've heard now you lay this out on all these platforms. When you met with the CEO, how did he approach this? I'm assuming maybe they tried to throw the point of contact under the bus, but we don't know. How did the meeting go? Well, he tried to, first of all, he was very cordial, very nice. Of course. He said he wanted AMC to be known as treating folk right and came up with suggestions. But they had given him some wrong facts.

Uh-huh. For instance, part of the reason why this might have happened was because Reverend Barber was loud. No, I was debating them taking my rights. And I do this all the time and will never stop debating, you know, people for when they're trying to take people's rights. But because I debate my rights does not disviolate your discrimination. Secondly, well, your chair was in the aisle. No, it wasn't in the aisle. Wait, what?

It wasn't in the aisle. Everybody can see that. Well, it may have blocked the sideline. No, it didn't block the sideline. Nobody ever raised that as an issue. So I had to, first of all, correct the facts. And after we did that, we committed to meet again in about a couple of weeks because we are at resolution. We've had some suggestions of what might can be done. But here's what I said

to him. It has to be concretized. It has to be measurable. And it has to be effect system-wide. And please don't tell me out of all the people that have come here, we've never had a problem with anybody. First of all, you have no way to, you can't say that. You don't know number one, who didn't come because they might think they would be challenged. And you just can't really qualify that. So we're going to meet again and see where we go. Well, Doc, I mean,

you've seen this scenario more than all of us, I'm sure. You know, was it an offering perhaps to engage in training or retraining, the issue of weaponizing law enforcement? We've seen that happen before, people in restaurants or hotels who will call the police and basically turn them

into an agent of the private company that has done that. I mean, was there any discussion? Like you said, not even to have engaged in fact finding. He didn't, he came in, sounds like, in a completely defensive posture, cordiality notwithstanding. Any conversations about, as you said, the solution or resolution stage? Is this a matter of training? Is it a matter of protocol? I mean, what's going on?

Well, he wasn't. I would not characterize as defensive. I characterized some folk told him some things. Actually, we have some of the same worldview in terms of policy, but we still have to get down to the nitty-gritty on this. He's not a bad fellow. He believes in a lot of good things and people's rights. But in this instance, and I had to say to him, it doesn't matter that they were black. The discrimination wasn't raised. In fact, it makes it worse to me that you're a minority, because you have benefited so much from, like, the 64 Civil Rights Act, which actually the ADA

tracks the Civil Rights Act. So minorities ought to be more concerned. But I think part of us—you know, I can't say everything that's happened, but, you know, if you say training, how do you fix that? How do you measure it? How do you concretize it? How do you—how do we make it so that police tell managers, no, we're not getting involved in that. If you want to go down to the magistrate's office and take out a warrant, but we're not going to do this. In fact, to the matter, I reminded him that a few years ago, a young man with Down syndrome

was killed because he—because the cops were calling in when they should not have been called in. You know, this could have gotten very ugly, though. In the wrong hands—take for instance, it was somebody that wasn't like me, kind of trained in nonviolence. It could have gotten really, really bad. And I also have to make sure that folk

don't come up with false arguments. Like, they'll say, well, if a person feels like they've been discriminated, but they cursed. So because they cursed means they are the problem. No, no. You cursed at them when they said no. When you said no, that's a curse word because it's a violation of my constitution. It's a mean word. It's an ugly word. Or somebody or they try to

change the subject. Well, yeah, they may have said the chair was a fire hazard. But what they really meant was you would be in the line of sight. No, no, no, no, no. You can't change the hook, what happened now. And that wasn't the case either. Easy ways to fix this. And what I meant to say to him, reasonable accommodation doesn't mean the least that you can do. It means the most you can do. Absolutely. Well, in other words, how do you make sure that somebody with a disability gets to enjoy a public accommodation? And what we did end on, and I will honor the confidentiality until after the next meeting, what we did end on was what he should want and what I certainly want is that when people see AMC, it means that AMC will accommodate me cordially and carefully.

Absolutely. Accommodate me. And I said to him, you know, it'd be a shame. I'm opening a movie that Rob Ryan has done called God and Country in February. I'm the opening voice and the end voice and part of the middle. It'd be a shame for me for my voice to be in the theater and my chair can't be in the theater. Absolutely. I mean, listen, Reverend Dr. Barber, your efforts to bring together coalitions,

particularly multiracial coalitions around class issues and the poor, they certainly precede, your reputation precedes you. And in this case, particularly given the uncertain climate for movie theaters these days and people staying home and that coming on. And I think a lot of people went to see the Color Purple on Christmas Day. I know I saw a flood of folk, not just black women, families were going to see Color Purple. This probably was a good day for AMC.

I'm wondering if you see this as a point of entry for much deeper conversations. As you said, people without your experience, your background, your training, your temperament, when confronted with the police coming in a space like that may behave very differently. And it could have turned out tragically, quite frankly. I mean, while the circumstances that surrounded this incident certainly are specific to you and your mother and love to your mom. My mom was at her 90th year when we did the exact same thing. She may transition shortly after that. And you need to spend those times with your moms when they're at age. So certainly our love to her. You know, even as this was your very personal experience, is this a point of entry for even

beyond those who are differently abled, even beyond those who, you know, might be confronted with something like this and have been confronted with things like this, shifting explanations, any deeper message you see around your encounter here that we can take away as AMC continues to try to write this? Well, two things, or maybe more than two, but at least these two. Number one, we cannot be ashamed of our disabilities. We cannot run and hide. We didn't get an ADA by people running and hiding.

They stood even when they were arrested and were thrown in jail. And we have to know history. In the Bible, the greatest leader, from Moses to Paul, had disability. In history, from Fannie Crosby to Isaac Watts, who wrote Joy to the World, to Roosevelt, to Harriet Tubman, to Fannie Lou Hamer, to John Kennedy, I go on and on, had disabilities. So we're not ashamed of it, and we don't have to stand down. Everybody doesn't have to have everything right with them to be in the public square. Number two, your disability or differently abledness should make you more conscious and empathetic and caring about. But then the other thing is what I'm ashamed of is with all the real stuff to be fighting, you know, Islamophobia, homophobia, the need for living

ways, poverty being the fourth leading cause of death, 87 million people either uninsured or underinsured, 350,000 people dying from the lack of health care during COVID, not from COVID itself, voting rights, having less voting rights today than we had August 6, 1965. For two minorities to say, I know, we know who you are. Yes. And then decide with the power that they receive from struggle of other people that they're going to take all the energy they have to block a chair and accommodate somebody.

With all the real fights. And so one of the things I want to point out of this, we ought to evaluate what are we really willing to fight about and putting energy in. Yes, sir. You know, I stood that day, not because about me. We went on the day after Christmas because we knew a lot of people would be there at Christmas. We went during the matinee. You know, they even said to me, well, you should have called in advance. Well, first of all, the law doesn't say that.

But guess what? We did. We purchased seats in the van. We made sure there were handicapped spaces. We didn't have to. The law doesn't say that. But guess what? We did. We purchased a season of air. We made sure there were handicapped spaces. We didn't have to. The law said. But the larger thing is, brothers and sisters out here, we've got to decide where we're going to put our energy. And I thought about that.

This thing went on about 45 minutes or so. All of that wasted energy over something as simple as letting a son and his 90-year-old mother go in, finding a place to accommodate. If you want to fight, fight the real thing. Yes, sir. Real issues. Yes, sir. But not—and I'm going to keep lifting this up and lifting this up. And then lastly, Doc, you know, I was once told years ago, you know, Rob, you might have certain voice and can say things, but people don't like crippled leaders.

I said, well, they don't like Jesus then. Because Jesus was acquainted with sorrow. You know, their suggestion was basically that I needed to be 180 pounds or real thin and wear a shirt. You know, that's so crazy. When we look at our history, you know, Fannie Lou Hamer had polio and diabetes, but the power of who she was. And I'm so sick of this othering where people have these prescribed views. You know, I was one time told you can't be a pastor and be crippled and heavy. I pastored 30 years, and that time developed $14 million of community development

and was one of the first churches in the South black to welcome all people, regardless of the race, creed, color, sexuality, and led in movements and led in justice. It's amazing how we bring these ideas about who is welcome and who can and who can't. And, you know, and really we need to challenge it in every way. Absolutely. We not only should not be judged by the color of our skin, we should not be judged by the ache of our bones or the sight of our eyes or the limit of our hearing or the bend of our back.

We really should be judged by the content of our character or the bend of our back we really should be judged by the content of our character yaybo yaybo well let's let that be the final word for now let those words continue to echo uh we love you brother love to your mom reverend william j barber people's champion fighting for those very people even and especially those perhaps who would enforce something like that try to enforce something like that. Working people working poor. This is going to be a transformation, Bob,

and we appreciate the fact that you're at the center of that work. Thank you for carving out some time to, to spend with us tonight. And of course we'll, we'll eagerly await the next meeting. Power to the people, brother. Power to the people.

Always, always. So we're going to come back in a moment here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back and pick up with a conversation around the mayor of New York City and the governor of Texas. Back in a moment. Thank you. No experience is necessary. Learn at your own pace. Complete the online certificate program on your own terms. Stand out to employers. Get on a path to in-demand jobs and connect with top employers who are currently hiring. Take one professional career certificate program or all six.

Earn a Google Career Certificate to prepare for a job in a high-growth field like data analytics, project management, UX design, cybersecurity, and more. All professional career certificate programs must be completed by December 31st, 2024. Scan the QR code to complete the application. There are 1,000 scholarships available. Grow with Google and J-Hood and Associates. Be job-ready and qualify for in-demand jobs. I'm Dee Barnes, and next on The Frequency, we're talking about the rise in great Black literature and the authors who are writing it. Joining me will be professor and author Donna Hill

to discuss her writing journey and becoming a best-selling author. I always was writing, but I never saw anybody that looked like me in the books that I was reading. Plus, her work with the Center for Black Literature and... A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one

of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms,

even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

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

I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. 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. Hello, I'm Paula J. Parker. Trudy Proud on The Proud Family. Louder and Prouder on Disney+. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Evan Fenton has been missing from Perkinson, Mississippi since December the 5th, 2023. The 15-year-old is 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighs 290 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Evan Fenton is urged to call the Stone County, Mississippi Sheriff's Office

at Air Code 601-928-3191. News out of New York City. New York City Mayor Eric Adams has had enough of Republican-led states sending migrants to his city without any financial assistance. New York City officials say they have received over 14,700 new arrivals within the last month. According to the lawsuit filed today, roughly 33,600 migrants have been bused using these companies since the start of the New York City migrant crisis in April of 2022. Adams took to social media to announce the city's $700 million lawsuit against nearly 20 charter bus companies as the migrant crisis intensifies in the city and across the United States. The lawsuit comes a day after the Department of Justice sued the state of Texas over a new bill allowing police to arrest migrants who enter the United States illegally. So we've been joined by our sister Lauren Victoria Burke, Black Press USA, out of

Arlington, Virginia. Lauren, you're a native New Yorker, and it looks like the mayor has come up off the mat swinging. Any thoughts on this lawsuit and the politics surrounding these migrants being shipped all over the country, particularly to the New York, New Jersey area? Well, the politics are that we do have to do something about this crisis. And frankly, the federal government, I think, hasn't done enough to really confront it. I do think now, getting into a presidential year, it has gotten the attention of the president and of the Democratic Party. I don't think there's been enough discussion about it. Obviously, the way that the Republicans want to talk about it is not necessarily the best way to talk about it,

which is, you know, lock down the border and that's about it. There is no real policy other than that. So that is problematic. And so I do think, though, that in some weird ways the Republicans have been correct in terms of this problem needing to be dealt with. And finally, I think it's come to a head because, of course, everybody's running out of money to take care of all these folks that are not American citizens. So there we are. I hate to sound so conservative here, but, you know, I do think, though, that the federal government really is the answer in terms of the border. The individual states really can't do anything about it. You probably saw some footage maybe on Twitter with regard to some citizens in the city of

Chicago complaining about how certain things, certain services in Chicago shutting down or being overtaken by folks that are from outside the country who have been bused there, certain school activities in Chicago. I think people are understandably annoyed by that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, before we come to you, thank you, Lauren. Before we come to you, Recy and Joe, let's hear from the mayor of New York on this case. New York City has and will continue to do our part to manage this humanitarian crisis.

But we cannot bear the course of reckless political ploys from the state of Texas alone. Today, our administration filed a lawsuit against 17 companies that have taken part in Texas Governor Greg Abbott's scheme to transport tens of thousands of migrants to New York City in an attempt to overwhelm our social services system. These companies have violated state law by not paying the cost of caring for these migrants, and that's why we're suing to recoup approximately

$700 million already spent to care for migrants bused here in the last two years by the state of Texas. Governor Abbott's continuing use of migrants as political pawns is not only chaotic and inhumane, but makes clear he puts politics over people. Today's lawsuit should serve as it A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest

stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters and how it shows up in our everyday lives. Guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley

comes a story about what happened when a 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 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 of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush.

What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeart radio 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. ...to all those who break the law in this way.

Recy, I mean, the politics of this, any thoughts on that? We saw the Department of Justice Wednesday sue Texas over this law. Abbott and them want to use state police to arrest migrants and trump the federal government. Clearly there's a federalism issue here.

But at the same time, as Lauren says, there's a national issue here as well. And they want states' rights when they want them, and then they want everybody to participate when they want them. So can you help us disentangle what's going on here politically? This is political malpractice on the part of the administration. This is obviously a problem for Democratic mayors, governors across the country. It's a problem for the administration. Kicking the can to a Congress who's obviously not going to solve it and saying that they

need to fix the system is not going to happen. And I think sometimes Democrats kind of fall into the trap of wanting to do white papers and studies and focus groups and take a year or so to solve a damn problem. And this is something that is a serious issue for them. Let me just say, Kamala Harris is not the Bordasar. She was supposed to solve or work on migration from the Northern Triangle. She's not supposed to be down there with lassos and whips and shit winding up immigrants or whatever. I think that it demonstrates, at first, it certainly seemed like a human trafficking situation where you had Abbott and you had DeSantis down there tricking migrants into getting on buses and flying somewhere to drop them off to make these

political statements. But the reality is that when tens of thousands of people are just getting a ticket anywhere, you know, the administration needs to figure something out. We have plenty of room in this country for 30,000 people, Chad. We are a country of 300 million-something people. So it's not that we don't have room for migrants in this country, 200,000, 300,000, whatever the numbers are, it's that you can't afford to drop tens of thousands of people in a particular spot with no resources and have the taxpaying citizens of those cities, you know, figure it out.

It is unfair to them. And so, unfortunately, these are the cards that the administration has dealt. Figure it out and figure it out fast. Put your ass on your ass and Trump is fake building the wall all over again because he don't have the solutions either way. But it sounds better than just, you know, taxpayers. And I don't, not to me personally, I'm not saying that. I'm not pro-Trump.

I'm not pro-expelling migrants and all that kind of stuff. I'm just saying when we're talking about the politics of it. Sure. The politics is not going the way it needs to go, and I don't understand what's taking them so long to figure that out. Well, I mean, they love that issue, right, because it gets to gin up that nativism and nationalism. That's why Mike Johnson was down there the other day.

Joe, looking at this lawsuit, man, these 17 bus companies that are being sued, what are the prospects of this being successful? I mean, it doesn't seem on its face as if New York is going to be able to go after these guys. But again, maybe we're all missing something. Can you make any heads or

tails out of that? I think it's a message to the bus companies. Have a chilling effect. So, you know, it's kind of like you want to fight somebody back in the old school when people used to put hands on each other. You can't do that now when you've got jobs and stuff, but you know, you trying to tell the third person, okay, now you stay out of this. Okay. This is not your fight at all so that I can deal with this person. This is what New York

is telling governor of New York is telling the bus companies. Um, don't you bring nary another person up here? Cause I bet you, among other things, you don't have indemnification against the state of Texas in your contract, okay? So yeah, if I'm the charter companies, I absolutely, for this lawsuit, I argue that, hey, I was just commissioned to give a service, I was paid to give a service. And I didn't do anything wrong by providing the service that I provided. There's nothing to say that they violated immigration law or they violated anything in particular. But meanwhile, back at the ranch, do you think they'll take another one of those? You want another bus law right now and get sued again?

No, you're probably out of that business. OK, you're probably saying as soon as we get done with this, this is going to be the only time we do this. So I will be interested in the politics of it. I mean, and the legalities of it. You know, you know, New York's a little bit more liberal can be as it pertains to the law, et cetera. And it might be a bit of a creative lawsuit, but it's absolutely meant to have a chilling effect to basically get them out of the fight so that Greg Habit has less companies to ask to bring out and perpetuate this whole political thing that he's doing. Absolutely.

You just cleared it up for me, brother. That is right there. And of course, Governor Murphy in New Jersey and Governor Hochul in New York are both on board with this. But I think you just cleared it up, the politics of that. He's sending a message to those companies and who wants that? They don't want that smoke. That's very interesting.

Well, thinking of private companies benefiting off the largesse of taxpayers in this country, let's turn our attention to Donald J. Trump and four of his properties, including two there in New York. While Republicans are still trying to find out if President Joe Biden had anything to do with his son Hunter's foreign business dealings. A report from Democrats on the House Oversight Committee found Donald Trump's businesses took in at least $7.8 million from 21 different nations during his time in office. Shocked, shocked. Actually, the report only covers two of the four years that Trump was in office and only four of his properties. The report said that most of the funds came from China. Is that China, as he would say? Okay, most of the money came from China.

That's $5.5 million, $5,572,548 million, to be precise, from Beijing going to Trump Tower in New York and two Trump International Hotels in Washington and Las Vegas. According to the report, Trump said in 2016 that he loved China and that the biggest bank in the world is located there. He said the United States headquarters for that Chinese bank in 2016 was in New York's Trump Tower. The Saudis, more friends of the Trumps, paid $615,422,

the second highest amount from foreign governments to Trump World Tower and the Trump Washington Trump International Hotel, of course, now having been sold. The forward to the report written by the Oversight Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin said the payments violated, quote, the emoluments clause of the United States Constitution, end quote. But then again, who cares about that? Apparently doesn't mean anything, at least not in courts of law here, which prohibits accepting payments, titles, or offices from foreign states.

Lauren, this man making money hand over fist, huh, from these different folks. Anybody who, let me ask you this, and this goes to you too, Recy and Joe. Have any of y'all ever been in that hotel when Trump owned it and can confirm that when you go into the restaurant or the bar, you see all these

people who are clearly ponying up to try to get largesse from the administration drinking and eating? I don't know, Lauren, did you ever go over there? Not when he owned it, but after it changed hands I've been in there, not not when he owned it, but after it changed hands. I've been in there, but not when it was called Trump or whatever.

So the answer to that is no. I'm wondering what Merrick Garland does all day. Like, what are we doing? We've known these things for years and we've heard these things for years. And we've heard these things for years. You know, the Republican Party doesn't seem to have any problem bringing up Joe Biden's son every five seconds for some perceived unethical behavior. And yet Jared Kushner never comes up in the conversation with the Democrats. Now we've got this whole thing that has now been found out that I don't think is a surprise to anybody, by the way. And once again, what is the Justice Department doing? Where is the Justice Department?

Why is it that we can hear announcements that the FBI is doing on everything under the sun except something like this, right? So I'm not sure why everybody is scared of Donald Trump, by the way. I mean, it's like we got three or four people who are not scared of Donald Trump, Fannie Willis. You know, it's like two or three people in the country, and then everybody else is scared of Donald Trump. And if you run the Justice Department, I don't know why you're scared of Donald Trump. But apparently, there's a fear of doing anything with Donald Trump, obviously, because you're in the shot, Matthew. So it's like,

give me a break. I just think that, you know, this is another huge thing right in front of our face that nobody is probably going to do anything about. And we're just going to move on to the next thing. I can never figure that out. We see other people get indicted. We see other people get prosecuted. And what's up? That's right. That's right. I mean, yeah. And we all remember Carl Racine, the attorney general of the District of Columbia, who did try to do something. But as you say, if the Constitution isn't worth the paper it's written on, then you need to say that. The eminence clause is very clear. Raci, I mean, you know, to echo Lauren and ask you the question, I mean, why is everybody so scared of this guy?

I mean, you know, the guy is a brazen criminal. I think he figures if he breaks as many laws and commits as many crimes as possible, people can't keep up, you know, and who really going to check him? At the end of the day, I mean, the law doesn't seem to matter 99 percent of the time. Now, he got caught up the other 1 percent of the time when it came to classified documents. Now, I don't know why he was fucking with that because anybody that knows classified shit wouldn't be playing with that. Right. But even $6 million is a drop in the bucket to him. I mean, this is a person who's hundreds of millions of dollars

in debt who had major loan payments coming up when he left office. And so he was scheming and lying and scamming everywhere he could. And I don't know. I don't know other than the fact that he's white and he don't give a damn why he's exempt.

Because, you know, Andrew Gillum couldn't get Hamilton tickets or was it the trip to Jamaica? Whatever the situation was with that, he wasn't acquitted. Mariel, I mean, I'm not Mariel Bowser. Mariel Mosby, she just got got 10K from her damn pension and shit. So they don't seem to think that any crime is too petty when it comes to black people doing it. But when it comes to a white man walking away with $7 million in violation of the Constitution, bygones. So, I mean, yeah, he's going to continue to do what he's doing. And to Lauren's point, where are the Democrats talking about this? Do they just think that all people are tired of hearing about Trump?

Trump is kicking your ass in the polls. Hello? He is picking up sports. And he has 90-something charges. He keeps racking up stories that would be disqualifying from anybody else. And it's just crickets. Crickets. Just crickets.

Wake up. It's 2024. It's go time. Y'all need to start putting your foot on this motherfucker's neck so that people can know we cannot have him back in office, chef. Right. Golly. That's exactly right.

I mean, you may have helped answer the question, though. I mean, people are worried about voter apathy. They think people don't care. Some of these people are going to vote for him, vote for him because he's a criminal, and they feel like he's above the law. You may have even given us the answer recently to this. In fact, maybe they're not doing anything because they're just scared that they'll just fan the flames more. Joe, any thoughts on this, man? Yeah, I mean, you know, maybe that's there. I mean, we've been talking about the monuments clause for years. I mean, the second that he decided not to divest himself of his properties and of his assets once he became president, you know, you knew where he was going, you know.

And so, you know, Merrick Garland's a little gun shy, for sure. I'd say that. And so, you know, and interestingly, I mean, you know, one thing you've got to give him credit for, you know, he might have his problems. But Jared, you know, Jared gets his mail. He gets his money. No question. And Merrick could be banging on him all day long. You know, they're prosecuting Hunter Biden, and Hunter Biden got some problems, but money is one of them. Hunter Biden's money ain't straight like that. You know what I mean?

Right. Jared has got it cracking. There'd be a whole lot of stuff going on with him if they wanted to just uncover that a little bit. But they seem to be making the choice not to do that. Now, that's not to say that Trump's not being prosecuted for some other things, but there's no surprise here in terms of what's going on. And relatively speaking, you know, you got 91 charges on him already. There's five or six other things you could bring. You know, even though this is probably one of the first things that we talked about,

relatively speaking, it's actually relatively minor. You know, and in a world that's just 24 hours in a day, maybe it doesn't have the priority now just for that reason, because there are all these other things. But it's been around for a very, very it doesn't have the priority now just for that reason, because there are all these other things. But it's been around for a very, very long time to the point, May, and it's crazy that folks ignored it and act like it hadn't happened. Now, that's true.

The words of Sean Carter, he got 91 charges, but in the Monuments Clause, ain't one. But we know that we know that Tiz James, if Tiz James get it. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering

on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 one, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

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

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one.

The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And it's another one that ain't scared, never scared. So, so you know we'll see how this plays out you're watching roland martin unfiltered on the black star network we'll be right back a new year for a new you curl prep natural hair solutions at curlprep.com. It's an amazing organic line for curls, locks, braids, twists, and even those wigs and extensions. Women, men, and children are loving this line. Look at this video and you be the judge. People line up to see this product in action at hair shows, and when they take a seat and try it they don't believe it's their hair buy the products at curlprep.com it works on all hair types use code roland that's r-o-l-a-n-d lowercase letters to get a 15 discount parents remove the ouch you will love this system because

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117 black Chicago firefighters say they've been denied promotions and opportunities for decades. In 2005, the city of Chicago was found liable in federal court for the fire department's discriminatory practices in hiring and promotion of black firefighters. However, according to employment attorney Chiquita Hall-Jackson, the 111 men and six women were never credited with the

seniority that they had earned. She joins us now from Chicago. Attorney Hall-Jackson, welcome to Roland Martin Unfiltered. How are you doing? Good evening. Doing just fine. Glad to have you with us. Could you walk us through the history of this case? It's been going on for some time, huh?

Yes. So thanks for having me. And ultimately, it has been going on for quite some time. The case was brought in 98. It ultimately was reached by a jury verdict that there was definitely discrimination in the hiring process of African-Americans into the Chicago Fire Department. And then that was in 2007. And between 2007, 2012, post-trials, the parties, the city and the attorneys for the firefighters were trying to work out some terms on how they can make this happen per the judge's order to hire on 111 firefighters. And ultimately they ended up hiring 117, including six African-American female known as the Godfrey class as well. And eventually, although they was hired per the order, the judge foresaw that there would

be some issues along the way, and so she retained jurisdiction for that. And as a result, in the background, the attorneys that originally helped these group of individuals to settle, I mean, to pretty much finalize everything with the city and reduce it to writing some form of agreement, they have now retired, went on, and they're no longer with the firms. So the firefighters spent some time trying to find someone to assist them once they noticed that they would not get promoted over the years, and their seniority was not allowing them to do so. You know, this is quite disturbing. So the 1998 case involving hiring, and then you say from 2007 to 2012, post-trial, trying

to work out these terms. So all of the people we're talking about, all the women and men who were hired, came in the wake of the initial lawsuit. Is that what you understand? Yeah, that's exactly what happened. What happened was a lot of individuals, but because there's no way the firefighter can hire the thousands of people that were discriminated against and doing a hiring process the judge put a cap on it to 111 people that she felt was reasonable interesting do you have any sense of why that was the number and you said a thousand like like we're talking about a huge force right yes when you're talking about class actions what they do is anybody that they

carve out a time frame and anybody that applied during this particular time frame that was African American or black background and nationality they allow these individual they send notices to them if they opt in to be a part of the class action then they are participating were allowed to participate but you you got to understand, if we allow thousands of individuals in solely on their race, then that would cause Caucasians from getting opportunities to apply. So that's the reason why it's now limited that we're only going to give so many of you guys opportunities. Of course, of course. You know, it's interesting you say that because I'm assuming that like the police, you know, let's set aside NBC and Chicago Fire and Chicago PD.

We can assume that they weren't the most racially progressive in the fire department of Chicago prior to 1998. Was there an initial class that was certified in this lawsuit or do you know? I'm going to say I do not know, honestly, but from what I'm saying, no. OK, yeah, I would assume that. So, okay, so we've got these souls here, these 117 souls, and they just knew they were being discriminated against. Could you help us walk through some of that? They're hired.

They're not getting promoted. I'm thinking about the long history of discrimination in firing police, whether it be tests, sergeant exams, or evaluations? How did this discrimination play out over the arc of these years? Great question. So ultimately what they was noticing is certain exams come out every, let's say, three to five years. And within that, excuse me, when those exams come out, they, the firefighter, the CPCFD have it already structured that. So 30% of the a hundred percent of the exam goes strictly to a seniority.

So based on your seniority, 30% of that trumps the educational part, whether you studied hard or not, your seniority is 30%. And so if these people came in and they didn't come in until 2012, because that's how long it took from 1999 to 2012 to finally finalize the terms of the agreement to get them staffed and start working. And so they were supposed to get retroactive to 1999 so that that can be their active date when they initiated the lawsuit. And so if they're stuck at this time, you have people coming in after them.

And what they were noticing, all these younger people were coming in after them. They were being now promoted to lieutenant in different roles like that. And then when we saw the various classes, they weren't necessarily certified as a class from a lawsuit, but that was the entry class, like you have an academy class in the police world. That was the fire academy's classes. So the different classes on that chart you guys probably saw was just talking about the different classes that entered the force in the academy during that time. And they noticed that all these individuals are now becoming chiefs, lieutenants, and all the different ranks. And everybody that came through to this lawsuit we have

yet to move we're not you know they're getting little promotions here and there but nothing that allows them to move to the ranks and have a nice retirement yes um package and that's ultimately the what's the harm here not to mention the daily promotion and daily increases but the idea that you understand when it's time for someone to retire, most places take the average of the last four years you worked there. If I'm not maximizing that during my employment time, then I'm harmed retirement and beyond. Yes. You've, I'm going to ask you one more question and then we're going to take a break and come back for the panel to, to ask questions. But, um, attorney Hall Jackson, this is, you Jackson, this seems quite brazen.

So you're saying that these hires were supposed to be back-mapped retroactive to 99, and that the judge kept the case with her to monitor it, anticipating that there were going to be problems. What are we missing? This seems like it's kind of open and shut. They didn't do what they said they were supposed to do. Is that why they came to get you? I mean, walk us through this. So what happened was the judge appointed an African-American female within the fire department

that had a higher rank at the time to serve as this monitor. And she was supposed to be going back to the court as a liaison and letting them know what was going on, if anything ever did arise. She's also supposed to have been that voice and advocate for those 111 firefighters that got hired under that particular lawsuit. But from my understanding, she has not done

anything since they got in. Oh, no. And what the judge did, she retained jurisdiction. So a judge can retain jurisdiction. All that simply means is that no one can now say statute of limitations has lapsed or you waited too long to come back so if you don't actively let her know what's going on and get emotion in front of her or anything in front of her then there or him or her but in this particular case as a female then nothing there's nothing she can do and so that's where the gap is. No one notified the court at this time

that what is going on. But she did predict if they finally get in, they're going to eventually have problems with seniority and promotions. And she predicted that. Yes, yes, indeed. Well, we're going to come back on the other side of this break

so that our panel can ask you some questions. We're with Chiquita Hall-Jackson, who is the attorney for these women and men in the Chicago Fire Department. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. Don't you think it's time to get wealthy? I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show on the Black Star Network focuses on the things your financial advisor or bank isn't telling you. So watch

Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. I'm Faraiji Muhammad, live.A., and this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation, you and me. We talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together, so let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Black Star Network. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie,

people can't live with them, can't live without them. Our relationships often have more ups and downs than a boardwalk roller coaster, but it doesn't have to be that way. Trust your gut. Whenever your gut is like, this isn't healthy, this isn't right, I don't have to be that way. Trust your gut. Whenever your gut is like, this isn't healthy, this isn't right. I don't like the way that I'm being treated. This goes for males and females. Trust your gut. And then whenever that gut feeling comes, have a conversation. Knowing how to grow or when to go,

a step-by-step guide on the next A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney Plus, and I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network.

I'm Greg Carr sitting in for Roland and here with our regular Thursday panel. And we're talking with Attorney Chiquita Hall-Jackson representing the Chicago firefighters in their lawsuit. Let's start, Joe, with you. Any questions for Attorney Hall-Jackson? I appreciate what you're doing from one employment attorney to another. It's a great fight to be in, somewhat thankless and, you know, I think confirmed by the fact that this is a 25-year fight. And sometimes they take that long. But I'd be interested in knowing—I was looking at a couple of the documents and playing this memorandum of law in support of the motion to enforce and rule to show cause. Tell us what's happening next procedurally.

Is there, you know, is there some kind of opposition before that hearing is set? Or what do you expect? Give us a little bit of, you know, what we expect, what we can expect to see on the procedural side. I know. I appreciate you. Next procedurally is there is an opportunity for opposition. They asked for an extension. They originally had to 1215 or something like that. They asked for an extension to 131 because all the attorneys for both sides pretty much have retired or moved on. So they want to find some people internally. They can investigate and ask all the questions they need to ask so they can properly respond. So we did mutually agree that they will have until one 31,

January 31st. And then from there, I'll get opportunity to reply. Then I'm pretty sure the judge will either allow some oral arguments or will rule on paper. Thank you, Joe. And Recy,

any questions here for Attorney Hall Jackson? Yes, I'm curious how much of this can be resolved with the actual mayoral administration as opposed to through litigation. Have you seen any kind of affirmative steps to make any resolutions towards this, or is this strictly a matter of the courts at this point?

I'm very hopeful with our new mayor and about him being an African-American man who has been getting some backlash and want to do something progressive while he's there. And the current fire chief as well, indicating that they want to do some advancements for African-Americans in that department. So I'm hopeful. But so far, because of the attorneys that they have hired, they are outside counsel, meaning they're not all internal city employees. They are going to do their due diligence. But I have been invited through the firefighters that are actually involved in the class that they have been invited to meet with the mayor's assistant

and lieutenant to the mayor to see if they can resolve some affirmative action clauses in the CBA, which is known as the collective bargaining agreement as of now. But that's about as far. But I'm really hopeful that we can possibly have this taken care of at a litigation and see if we can resolve this. But it all boils down to, you understand, that's how people eat and sometimes motion practice and litigate. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice 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 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. You know, I feel like I remember a very similar case in New York, and I wondered if you knew what the—but I don't know what the outcome was. Do you remember what the outcome of that case was in New York? It was a firefighter sued in New York on discrimination, and it felt that the case that you're doing now is very similar to that. Did they win? Do you know? I honestly do not know the one you're referring to there was a the other case in illinois and it was brought on about white firefighters in chicago due to the fact that these firefighters won and they was now saying it was reverse discrimination and so we have studied

that case and um that's the case that we are also referencing in our memorandum of law. But I definitely will look into that in your case. Thank you. OK, thank you. Yeah, I remember, in fact, Attorney Hall Jackson, that that was a case. I want to say Rehnquist was the chief just on Supreme Court. There was one of Alabama's very Birmingham firefighters. And once they made those concessions for those black firefighters, the white firefighters went in, even though they had gone past the statute of limitations and the Supreme Court allowed them to maintain as interveners in the case. I mean, white supremacy just never, never stops. One more question for you, sis. Any sense of what the racial makeup of the fire department in Chicago is now?

Has this stopped people from applying for trying to become firefighters? Any sense of what the racial makeup of the fire department in chicago is now has this stopped people from applying for from trying to become firefighters any sense of that um they have it has not stopped people from applying it has uh there is more progressiveness in hiring african-americans but it's not great and they probably make up less than 10 percent of the chicago firefighter department Department. Chicago alone is just very political and industry driven. If you're in construction, the Irish run it. So that's how it's all about

nationalities that run. And as you know, Chicago's like New York, have different pockets based off races. That's how the construction industry is fired police. And, you know, unfortunately, that's how it goes. But that police and you know unfortunately that's how it goes but that's why you now have a mayor who's claiming and a fire chief who's saying they want to help get more african-americans but it's not progressive at all well i mean god bless our

brother uh brandon oh my goodness 10 in a city as black as chicago i can believe so my goodness. Ten percent in a city as black as Chicago. I can believe so. My goodness. Well, I guess I guess it's not surprising. We continue to fight. So it's Keita Hall Jackson. Thank you so much for joining us from from the Windy City. I guess it's halt territory now. So stay warm and we'll check in with you soon to hear on developments on the case. So thank you. Have a great one. Absolutely. Absolutely. You too. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. And we'll be right back.

Next on the Black Table with me, Greg Carr, the enigma of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. What really makes him tick and what forces shaped his view of the world, the country, and Black America? The answer, I'm pretty sure, will shock you. And he says, you know, people think that I'm anachronistic. I am. I want to go backwards in time in order to move us forward into the future. He's very upfront about this. We'll talk to Corey Robin, the man who wrote the book that reveals it all. That's next on The Black Table, only on the Black Star Network. Grow your business or career with Grow with Google's wide range of online courses, digital training and tools.

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It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you're watching. Roland Martin on Unfiltered. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Republican-led states have stripped women's reproductive rights. A Florida group is working hard to get enough signatures to put a proposed constitutional amendment on the 2024 ballot. Floridians protecting freedom is close to getting enough signatures to allow voters to decide on the issue. Joining us from Sarasota, Florida, is Sarah Parker, the president of Women's Voices for Southwest Florida. Welcome, President Parker, to Roland Martin Unfiltered and the Black Star Network. Hi, how are you? Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. It's actually an honor.

Well, the honor is ours. It sounds like you all have balled up the fists and you're punching the governor and the legislature's dead in their face. Tell us about what's going on with this. Y'all aiming to get 1.4 million votes? Sounds like you're well on the way. Yeah, I think we've pretty much collected 1.4. Right now we have 891,000 verified. And we're extremely excited. We're extremely excited.

We started this campaign earlier this year. So it's incredible that we were able to collect these many petitions, which a huge shout out to our volunteers. It's been an amazing experience. My first ballot initiative ever. We are actually Women's Voices of Southwest Florida. We are the smallest grassroots organization on the board. So it's been an honor. It's been hard work.

And, yeah, we are taking back, you know, we're taking back the baton. And when when Dobbs got overturned. Yes. They said, let's put it back to the states. And we you know, we took we took that. We took that and we ran with it and we put in work. We put in money. We put in energy, blood, sweat and tears. And here we are. I feel like days away from it being verified and going in front of the Supreme Court. You know, it's interesting, I mean, given the numbers, the sheer numbers of signatures you've had to collect. And I'm glad you said that. You all are the smallest

of the organizations engaged in this kind of work, huh? And of course, you can't just gather signatures in southwest Florida. What is this business about having to have signatures from every county in the state? Could you walk us through actually what you've had to do to gather these signatures? You know, we've had an amazing volunteer team, an amazing volunteer team. We have to gather a certain percentage from every congressional district. That's what I wanted to know. So there's a percentage.

It isn't enough to get one signature from a county. What? Yes. Yeah, and we did it. We have done it. We're past that qualification, or we're damn near close to it. Actually, we had 864,000. I just checked my notes. And we need 891,000, and we know

that we're going to get it. We're very confident. But yeah, we had to go into different counties. We had to go into red leaning counties. Our volunteers have been amazing doing that. We had to go across Florida. And we were at one point every single county out collecting petitions even before the hurricane that came through during the summer and the heat. So it's been it's been brutal, but we've done it. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I want to open it up to the panel so that we can all get in this conversation and I'll come back around for another pass in a minute. But Lauren, why don't you lead out today and ask President Parker about

some of the work they're doing there. President Parker, how long did it take you to collect as many as you have? I missed it's that's an awesome an amazing number. And we started earlier this year in 2023 so right after I believe we announced right after the 6 week abortion ban. So that was March April and we started to collect or in the summer. Yeah, that is a lot of things that are bad attack. But the joke. I want to congratulate you sister on what it is that Yeah, that is a lot of seniors in a short amount of time. Brother Joe.

I want to congratulate you, sister, on what it is that you're doing. And I can only imagine how you must feel being part of this particular issue. That is a huge issue that has the potential to really send shockwaves up and down ballot, which is why these guys are doing what they're doing, saying that the wording is confusing and all of this other stuff. They're just incredibly concerned about people actually coming out, particularly women, on this issue, including independents, including Republicans and some conservatives, and saying that we're taking the state's rights back. Therefore, we're not going to have abortion before viability, et cetera. How does it feel to be part of something that can really have an incredible, incredible effect on this country because it's such a consequential state?

You know, first off, as a girl that grew up in the middle of Georgia, which is where I am right now visiting my family, I never thought that I would be helping change the Florida Constitution, definitely as a black girl or black woman. As a black mother of a child, of two children, my daughter, it feels incredibly important. As someone that went through a very hard pregnancy, it feels detrimental. You know, we look across, we look across at other states that have had this. We look at Texas. We're looking at Florida now. Look at Anya Cook. You know, we have black women bleeding out in bathrooms. It is incredibly important. It feels empowering to be able to do this. I never thought I would., but also feels very detrimental. It's a

lot of lives on the line and that's, that's real. And I don't think a lot of people think like that, you know? And I think that's really important. I like, I want, I like to bring it back to that because this isn't just like, uh, this isn't about just people that are having an abortion would because, you know, oops, I got pregnant. There are some people making really hard decisions that are expecting to bring home a child. They're expecting, you know, they've decorated their nurseries. They picked out a name. And you're telling them that they cannot, if their pregnancy is not viable,

that they cannot, quote-unquote, have an abortion. It's devastating, but it is extremely, extremely empowering. And I believe it's extremely important. And I'm glad to be in this work. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you, Joe. Recy. Recy, please. President Parker, you know, abortion continues to be something that the mainstream media, not obviously Roland Martin and Filter, underestimates as an animating factor for women voters. As you've been collecting signatures, have you seen this become a little bit more of an afterthought, or do you still see that people are galvanizing around this issue in the state of Florida? I 100 percent believe that people are galvanizing around this issue.

I think that it's very important. It doesn't matter if you're a Democrat or Republican. That's what I'm seeing. You know, we got a letter in saying that this person is a diehard Republican, is a pro-lifer, quote-unquote, and still they sent in their petition. I think they're going to galvanize, I think on both sides even. And I think it's going to bring a lot of people out to the polls and people that normally wouldn't vote, even though they should.

They'll be there. And that's one of the most empowering things, actually. Absolutely. Thank you, Recy. And to echo what Recy said and what you're saying, it looks like by the polling numbers that we've all read that this is something that would pass easily if it makes it to the ballot. And it sounds like the attorney general there in Florida is working hard to try to stop this. She's got y'all in court. Yeah, we will be going to the Florida Supreme Court on February 7th and 2024.

You know, I think I know that our wording is concise. We've had legal expert opinion after legal expert opinion. I think that this is politically motivated. I think that this is politically motivated. I know that this is politically motivated. I mean, we live in Florida. It's not only politically motivated, but it's hollow. And it's disingenuous for Attorney General Ashley Moody to believe that voters can't understand a paragraph.

No question. No question. Well, we know that technology has been put into play in many states in this country and sounds like you're not going to let it impact you in Florida. Any kind of echo again, something else recently raised in terms of the national profile of this case, which is, of course, going to in many ways maybe even determine the 2024 federal election cycle. Have you been in contact or coordinating with or in conversation with other organizations in other states? I know you mentioned Georgia and some other places. Any ongoing dialogue with other folks about this? I mean, we've talked to people in Ohio. We've talked to people in Michigan. You know, we're not recreating a playbook. We are doing a ballot

initiative that has been done. We've seen it win. And we're confident it's going to win. We're confident. Actually, we're very confident in the Florida Supreme Court. And I'm very confident when we make it to the polling booths or when we make it to the voting booths that we're going to win. Very confident. But yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Sarah Parker, the president of Women's Voices for Southwest Florida, we are honored and glad that you've joined us tonight on Roland Martin Unfiltered. And best of luck in this ongoing work, sis. Thank you so much. And again, I really appreciate being on here.

Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you as well. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. And we'll be right back. I'm Dee Barnes and next on The Frequency we're talking about the rise in great black literature and the authors who are writing it joining me will be professor and author Donna Hill discuss her writing journey and becoming a best-selling author

I always was writing but I never saw anybody that looked like me in the books that I was reading. Plus, her work with the Center for Black Literature and next year's National Black Writers Conference. That's right here on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr, the enigma of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. What really makes him tick and what forces shaped his view of the world, the country and black America? The answer, I'm pretty sure, will shock you. And he says, you know, people think that I'm anachronistic. I am.

I want to go backwards in time in order to move us forward into the future. He's very upfront about this. We'll talk to Corey Robin, the man who wrote the book that reveals it all. That's next on The Black Table, only on the Black Star Network. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, people can't live with them, can't live without them. Our relationships often have more ups and downs than a boardwalk roller coaster, but it doesn't have to be that way. Trust your gut. Whenever your gut is like, this isn't healthy, this isn't right, I don't like the

way that I'm being treated. This goes for males and females. Trust your gut. And then whenever that gut feeling comes, have a conversation. Knowing how to grow or when to go. A step-by-step guide on the next A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

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

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

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Faraj Muhammad, live from L.A., and this is The Culture.

The Culture is a two-way conversation. You and me, we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together, so let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into.

It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Blackstar Network. What's up, everybody? It's your girl Lat Weekdays at 3, only on the Black Star Network. What's up, everybody? It's your girl Latasha from the A. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. I'm Greg Carr sitting in for our brother Roland. And here at the

beginning of the year, we're going to end with some ancestors who became recent ancestors in the last few days. The first one we will mention is Mashriki Jawanza. Mashriki Jawanza was a queen mother. She's actually in stool in West Africa. She was the past immediate female co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, a teacher, a warrior, a pragmatist, a pan-Africanist, a mother, sister, daughter, helped represent our people in 2001 at the World Conference Against Racism in South Africa, a member of a number of organizations, the Council of Independent Black Institutions, the National Black United Front, and so many

others. These photographs here, some of them you'll see her in May at the Martin Delaney tribute annually that's held in Xenia, Ohio. Queen Mother Masheriki, just a remarkable sister and representative of a freedom fighter from the black power era. The images you're seeing now are from the black table. We'll probably at some point on the network here run again the conversation that she had with one of her sister friends and warriors, the great attorney Nkechi Taifa, on the question

of reparations. So we lift the name of Mashariki Jwanza, who made transition on the day of Imani, the last day of Kwanzaa, the first of January. Next we'll raise the name of Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson. The funeral for the trailblazing longtime U.S. Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson will be held on January the 9th in Texas. Congresswoman Johnson was a nurse from Texas who helped bring hundreds of millions of federal dollars to the Dallas area as the region's most powerful Democrat.

She made transition on Sunday. She was 88 years old. She served in the House of Representatives for three decades after becoming the first registered nurse elected to Congress and the first black chief psychiatric nurse at Dallas's Veterans Affairs Hospital. She was the first black woman to chair the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and led the Congressional Black Caucus. She left office in January after repeatedly delaying her retirement.

And of course, she left that seat not filled. She backed a sister who was there, who we've seen many times on this network, young Jasmine Crockett. Before serving in Congress, she served in the Texas legislature. So we raise the name of Eddie Bernice Johnson.

Panelists, any comments on these two sisters who have made transition? In particular, Congresswoman Johnson, who of course was the better known of the two. Anybody can Yeah, I'll say

she leaves behind obviously a very accomplished legacy, but I think it's so important that she passed the baton and she was able to go out on her own terms in the sense of, you know, you have so many

people who are just trying, let me just say somebody like Chuck Grassley. I'll just throw him. This is one of many examples I could use, you know, but she really did pass the baton. She cultivated and poured into the congresswoman, Jasmine Crockett, who's there and who's a dynamic force who will carry on her legacy of that seat. So I think it's so important that people leave behind a pipeline, that people leave behind a legacy. And it's not just about what you've done, but pouring into people that can continue

on to do the good works that you're known for. Absolutely. Joe, Lauren, any thoughts on the Congresswoman. Yeah, she was a very shrewd operator and very interesting person and a very informed person to talk to, to say the least. She had delayed her retirement, as you mentioned, several times

and, of course, was the chair of the Science Committee, but a very smart member, not one of the most loudest, dynamic members of the Congressional Black Caucus or anything, but she really did know what she was doing and a very, very shrewd operator. And definitely, she's going to be missed. You probably saw on Twitter a lot of the other members talking about her because they were shocked that she had passed away when she didn't even know she was, you know, older. And it's just like one of those things. But, you know, what Jasmine Crockett wrote, what Congresswoman Crockett wrote was really nice on Twitter.

And it was a big shock to everybody. But, you know, it's funny. In the last few years, Alcee Hastings and John Lewis, a lot of these older members, I myself really, really like the older members because they get to a point where they don't care what they say into a microphone and they will tell you they're like the older relative you have in your family. So she was like that and she was a lot of fun. So I can't wait to see the tribute they do for her on Monday. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Thank you, Lauren. Joe? Yeah, I mean, you know, she's accomplished. She's been around a long time. Those of us that have any exposure to Congress, whether interning, I mean, I interned 30 years ago for my local representative, Maxine Waters, during her first term. And so you get to know and get to see those that have been around for a while. I wasn't as familiar with Bernice Johnson. My day was more like Ron Dellum's and John Conyers and some of those guys, even though Bernice Johnson was there for a long time. Sadly, there's potential for a medical negligence related case. I don't know if you've seen anything about that based on, you know, some things towards the end of her life. The question is whether or not she had an infection. We'll let the lawyers handle that. You know, I've got enough to handle on my

own in our work. But what we can do is we can uphold her, remember the good things, and hopefully people are taking advantage of that example of consistency. You know, Denzel Washington said in American Gangster that the loudest person in the room is the weakest person in the room. Some of them are school operators that don't necessarily have to yell the loudest, but they get things done. And so she got things done.

And so we should celebrate her for that. And we should celebrate the other sister as well, the queen mother, those that have just done so much for us for so long. And so we have that legacy. If we really hold on to those lessons, then we truly do have them forever. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, yeah, that would be an irony given her pioneering work in health care, if that were something that had come to that. But I mean, both of these sisters, as you say, their testament is Mashariki. I can hear her now saying this is a this is a phrase from the 60s. So as you say, Lauren testament is Mashariki, I can hear her now saying this is a phrase from the 60s.

So as you say, Lauren, these old heads, these folks who are really the bridge from the black power era to the era that we're in now, they used to say in the movement, Qazi is the blackest of all. Qazi is a Kiswahili for work. So it's a lot of talking, but at the end of the day, work is the blackest of all.

So both of these sisters represent that. And in thinking about the working class, as Reverend Barber, of course, has reminded us many times, those folk were out there just trying to earn a living. We have another ancestor, Elmore Nickelberry. Not a name that a lot of people might know, but Elmore Nickelberry is one of the last living sanitation workers who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis during the Civil Rights Movement. He made transition. He passed away early Saturday morning following a hospital stay. He was 92. Nickelberry was 36 when he joined many sanitation workers who protested for better pay and working conditions in 1968.

Nickelberry worked for the city's sanitation department for over 60 years. The footage you're looking at, that is not something that is not, well, some of it historic, but some of that is very recent. This man retired in 2017. If you can believe that, the city of Memphis in their great largesse gave those sanitation workers when he retired $50,000 to help them, such an exorbitant sum. Any thoughts, Lauren, about the fact that this man didn't retire or I guess couldn't retire until 2017? So we're looking at footage. He was in his 80s when he made transition. Can you all imagine that?

I find that to be incredible that he worked there that long. You got a few people who are on Capitol Hill who have, you know, sort of they're on the civil service and they've been there for really, really long periods of time like that. It's always amazing to me. But there's a lot of reasons why people don't retire sometimes. Sometimes they don't retire because they feel like retirement means really the end of life, no matter what their job may be. But wow, that is amazing that he was there for 60 years. For some reason, I missed that. When I saw the news of his death, I did not read long enough, obviously, to find out a little bit more. That's incredible. Yeah, it really is.

And I think you mentioned, you probably knew this brother. I didn't know him, but I know Roland covered it. Bertie Bowman, right? Yeah, I knew him. Did you know him? Yeah. Yeah, I did know him. He was, when I was an intern on Capitol Hill for Ted Kennedy, he was there.

I mean, that was a while ago. But he was a really good guy to talk to, very personable. And so everybody knew him, even if you had nothing to do with that particular committee, Foreign Affairs. But I had like three or four internships on Capitol Hill and then worked for a few members, none of whom were related to foreign affairs, but foreign relations. But anyway, everybody knew him because he had just, he was just a personable guy and very noticeable because quite frankly, a lot of the staffers on that particular committee were white. He was like the only black staffer I remember on that committee and really good guy.

So that was sad news as well. Indeed. The longest serving black staffer in the history of Congress, up until 92, made transition in October. So I tell you, let's end with one final obituary. This is the brother of Gregory Hines. A lot of people know Gregory Hines, the great performer, tap dancer, artist. His brother Maurice made transition on Friday

in Englewood, New Jersey, also an incredible dancer. It was in today's New York Times. Maurice Hines, a high wattage song and dance man who rose to stardom as a child in the tap dancing act with his brother Gregory, then performed on and off Broadway, including shows he directed and choreographed. Died on Friday in Englewood, New Jersey. This brother who left Tap for a while

then came back to Tap and in fact created Ballet Tap USA with Mercedes Ellington who was Duke Ellington's granddaughter, danced not just to jazz but also to contemporary movement. Then he left that company for a chance to appear with his brother in the film The Cotton Club. I don't know. Any of y'all remember Maurice Hines? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Joe, talk to us, brother.

Actually, I never had the pleasure of meeting Maurice Hines, but I had the pleasure of meeting his brother, Gregory Hines, several times. Yes. Going back to 1998 and backstage at the Gregory Hines Show and met a dear friend who's continued to be a dear friend, a Howie Bell comedian whose brother was a staffer there. And Gregory and—my understanding is that Gregory and Maurice were similar in spirit. They were very nice people, very down to earth, and incredibly, incredibly, incredibly good

at what they did. You know, and I remember seeing the Cotton Club going to the Baldwin Theater in L.A., not really understanding it because I was a little bit young. Oh, yeah. And so now I've been able to see it the last several years and appreciate it more, not only like the plot line and the things that were going on and then how that connects to the Lawrence Fishburne movie that was done later on with Vanessa Williams, et cetera, but just the interplay between them as brothers. I did see Maurice in a documentary probably about two or three years ago.

Yes. And one of the things he talked about was he was satisfied. He was ready to go. He'd accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish. And so, you know, when they're ready to go, brother, who are we to hold him back? And maybe just maybe he gets to dance with his brother again. So God bless. Oh, man, that's a powerful thing. In fact, the Times a bit writes about that. It says in his final years, he mostly spoke about the past and about the fact that he missed his brother.

So I don't know, Carol, if we can cue up that. We saw it there, that's actually the scene from Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club, where they're playing a fictional pair of brothers, Sam Anselms and his brother, and they're in the Cotton Club. Of course, black people were not allowed to attend, but the gangsters, represented by Lawrence Fishburne, ironically playing a role he would reprise in the film Hoodlum,

namely Bumpy Johnson, after beating his way into the Cotton Club, standing in the back, and Lawrence Fishburne delivers the famous line, why don't you dance with your brother? And of course, they do it to a song that was made popular by a number of people. I think about the great Nat Cole on piano when they play Crazy Rhythm. Crazy Rhythm, you see the Hines brothers dancing. It's one of the most moving pieces I've seen certainly in the history

of American film. And I don't know if we can show it. Karen is, I'm sorry, I'm thinking about Karen. I don't know if we can show it Carol on the way out. But if we can, let's do that and thank our panelists. Thank Recy, thank Joe, thank Lauren, and thank everyone. Thanks, Kyle. All right, y'all.

That's right. And we'll let the Hines brothers take us out on Thursday night here at Roland Martin and Filter. Remember to subscribe to the Black Star Network. Support the Black Star Network. Bring the Funk Fan Club. Join the Bring the Funk Fan Club if you haven't.

It's the top of the year. It's a good time to join. There we go. There's all the information you need. And I'm going to get out of your ear and let these two brothers dance us out. Now ancestors united again, as Joe said. Have a good evening, everybody.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, boys. Yeah. Yeah. I'm real revolutionary right now. Black media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller.

I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The 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? You can't be black on media and be scared. It's time to be smart.

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