#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Black biz must apply for PPP; Misinformation and Black Twitter; Biden's Black plan released

Episode Date: May 8, 2020

5.4.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Black biz must apply for PPP! Rev. Barber says stay home and speaks out against unsafe reopenings; Howard University opens COVID-19 testing site in one of DC's most undeserved communities; Misinformation spreads like wildfire on Black Twitter; Concerns over NYPD's biased enforcement of social distancing guidelines; Biden's Black plan released; How will a Black the appointment of a black supreme court justice affect you? Women owned businesses are being passed over for PPP; Fitness expert Kuti Mack is here with some exercises to keep you fit on lockdown Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's Monday, May 4th, 2020. coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered. $130 billion is left in the PPP program. More than half of America's black businesses have not even applied. We're going to talk with the president, the National Bankers Association. We have got to get black businesses applying in the next 48 hours or we're not able to access the money. You don't want to miss what we're going to have for you. So please check it out.

Also joining us, Reverend Dr. William Barber says folks must stay home and use this time to organize and mobilize. How University is opening a COVID-19 testing site in one of D.C.'s most underserved neighborhoods. Misinformation is spreading like wildfire on social media. We'll have a top black digital expert to explain why we must not succumb to it in 2020 like we did in 2016. Also, NYPD beating down, arresting black folks for social distancing, passing out masks to white folks. What the hell is going on? And Vice President Joe Biden has released his black agenda. We're going to go through it and break it down for you. Plus, how the appointment of a black Supreme Court justice could affect you.

And a new study shows that women-owned businesses are being passed over for PPP. And we'll talk health and fitness with expert Cooney Mack with some exercises to keep you fit on lockdown. Folks, it's time to bring the funk and roll the mark on the filter. Let's go. He's got it.

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

He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's rolling Martin Rolling with Roland now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Roland Martin now. Martin. Martin. All right, folks, we've been talking about the PPP program as it relates to how Congress passes money to help businesses as a result of COVID-19.

Folks, this is important because many of our businesses are not applying for the money. We've had numerous guests on the show talking about this. And right now, I want to bring up my next guest. He is the president of the National Bankers Association, but as the consortium of black banks, his name is Kenneth Kelly is the chairman and CEO of First Independence Bank. First of all, glad to have you here on the show, Kenneth. So you were on a call today with the Treasury Secretary Steve Mnookin. So that's correct. And he said, what, one hundred and thirty billion dollars is still out there for businesses.

Yes, Roland, it's approximately one hundred and thirty billion dollars that is still available. And those funds will move pretty quickly. So we need people who are in business in 2019 into 2020 looking at ways that they can participate in this program. And so when I was so my understanding is that when you look at the community, the community, when you look at the various community development institutions, you look at the community banks, more than half of our businesses haven't even applied? That's based on some sampling polling, Roland, that's been taking place across many different communities, the Harlem community, the Mississippi Delta, in Detroit, where we're based, et cetera. We believe that there is a underrepresentation in the minority community. And one of the things we really want to do is be sure to heighten the awareness that this program is out there and that individuals and their businesses can participate in this program. So, and again, we, and so obviously for a lot of people out there, they talk about the issues with the various banks. So explain

how this also works because you guys have a direct pipeline there. And so versus somebody, let's say they have a banking relationship, meaning an account with Bank of America, Chase, we're hearing all kinds of stuff, how it's difficult to even get through. They're helping out the much larger companies. And so even if these black businesses don't have a banking relationship with a black bank, can they still go through you to apply for PPP? Yes. The answer to that is yes, Roland. So if you don't mind, give me just a moment. Sure. Go ahead. Capture what's really going on. So we heard back in the late part of March, early April, that there was going to be X billions of

dollars available. Many people took that to mean that the government was going to give all of that money to the banks. Well, that's not what actually happened. I want to describe what actually happens. So the way it actually works is all of the banks have their balance sheets, which is based upon the customers who deposit money into those banks. So the capacity for each bank is directly related to the actual capacity associated with those depositors. And so what we're doing at the bank level is basically lending against our balance sheet to those respective businesses.

The intent is once we collect the paper, meaning the loan from those individuals who are borrowing money, we will take that to the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve will take that paper and give us cash back for the actual money that we have given out that was already

on our balance sheet. So that's how it actually and more technically worked. Now, the challenge has been when you look at these large institutions and even some small ones, they've been challenged with trying to deal with the sheer number of individuals who are trying to apply for these loans. So you take, for instance, I think it's been over 2 million individuals who have applied for loans inside of a four-week period. I think SBA has come out and basically said they have done more lending over the last month plus relative to 14 years of lending. So there's a capacity problem, which has left many individuals kind of in the dark and not knowing where they stand with, in particular, their large institutions. What we have seen is individuals now starting to come back to smaller institutions to include our

African-American banks that are small community banks and making application in the process simultaneously with some of their large institutions. It has created a little bit of a confusion, but the reality is we need to take care of our community. And so we're standing here as the National Bankers Association. We've been around since 1927 and want to serve our community. And so again, so explain this as well. So let's say I have a business. So for instance, my business is headquartered in terms of it was incorporated in Illinois, but we actually do the show here in D.C. Let's say your bank is located where? Our bank is actually physically in Detroit, Michigan. OK, so so is it possible that since that I could apply for PPP loan through your bank in Detroit or do I have to be in that state, in that city?

You actually can apply, Roland. When the program initially rolled out, the intent was to go to your existing bank, and we know how complicated that has become. But the reality is, if you apply to another bank, you can do that. There are some catches to that. Because of banks being regulated.

We have to do a know your customer first. We also have to deal with the Bank Secrecy Act to be sure there is no anti money laundering. And so those processes may take a little bit longer when you go to a new bank, but you can go to a bank that is willing to take you on. And the reason I'm putting that out there, because, again, we are hearing so many black business owners and people have tweeted me, sent me messages, how the difficult they've had with their banks. There was one woman who she wanted, she tried to get a credit card a while ago from, I think it was Bank America or Chase, and she didn't get it so that she wouldn't got a Capital One card. Yet when she then applied for the PPP loan, they said, oh, well, you don't have a credit

card with us. She's like, what the hell? You wouldn't give me a credit card. And so for a lot, and then for, I'm also hearing from business owners who say, look, banks are helping out these other businesses that have loans with them. A lot of black businesses like myself, we don't have loans with any institution, but we have a banking relationship in terms of checking account, savings account or whatever. And so that's one of the things that we're hearing. And so I just want to be clear for all the people out there, again, who have businesses, they can go to the National Bankers

Association website. Is all the information on there? How do they get matched up with the bank? Must they choose one or how does that work? Walk through that process. So the easiest way to do that is to try to do what you just talked about, go to the banker that you know. But what we're willing to do is to try to do the best we can in helping all that we can. And so I'm willing to give out from our bank the PPPL at first independence dot com. Again, if we can't serve you, we will make our best effort to get you served as soon as possible. But do you have all the information that's there on your website? We have the information on our website that you will need, but the irony is,

and the way we've done this, Roland, has been more high touch. So we will send you a packet of what we would need for you to fill out in a way that we can keep high touch with you, with our customers. So that is the process that we put in place. So when you say send a packet, I just want to be clear, are you emailing that packet or mailing that packet? We will be emailing that by secure email to that individual. So you will be able to send us an email to the PPPL at firstindependence.com. You will receive a reply email back to you identifying a packet of information that you would need to fill out. At that point in time, we'll begin the processing of that and then we'll respond back to you to let you know how that process is moving forward.

So I'm on the Web site right now. OK. And so let's say versus. OK, so let's say I'm in Houston and I see down here I'm on your site right now and I'm going to pull it up right here. And so you got Union National Bank. But let's say I'm in Baton Rouge, and then I see Liberty Bank and Trust in New Orleans. And so are you saying that, so are you suggesting that if you have a business, should you contact the one that's closest to you, even if they're in another state?

You should. You should make that effort. Again, they may not be able to serve you. Many of our banks, because of that capacity issue I brought up, are reaching their capacity. But I would still say what you'll find is national bankers will try our best to help you as soon as we can. So you can feel free to call on us directly at First Independence Bank or Liberty Bank or Citizens Bank in Atlanta, Industrial Bank in D.C., and see if we can give you the help that you need. And again, it may be challenging for us to respond right away because we have a very small infrastructure. But the intent is we need to be sure to heighten the

awareness in our community so everyone is aware that these dollars are out there for them to participate in this program, Roland. And again, so I'm here on the website and I'm showing the member banks. Guys, you should be able to pull that up right now and you will see the website is nationalbankers.org, nationalbankers.org and banks in Mobile, Alabama, Los Angeles, Pasadena, California, D.C., Atlanta, Savannah, Georgia, Chicago, Weir, Kansas, New Orleans, Baltimore, Boston, Detroit, Durham, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Philadelphia, Columbia, South Carolina, Nashville, Memphis, Laredo, Texas, to Laredo, Texas, Brownsville, Texas, and Unity National Bank in Houston as well. And so, look, bottom line, $130 billion that's out there, still available, and folks have to fill it out.

I do have to ask you this here because I was talking to someone. Through the first round, they stated that if you had 1099 employees, that you could not include them in the PPP program. You have to file individually. I was talking to somebody else who said in the second round program. We have to file individually. I was talking to somebody else who said in the second round, you could include 1099s. Well, let me try to clear that up. The reality is the rules were written that 1099 and sole proprietors could not apply until April 10th.

That was during the first round, but it was late, a week later than the opening, which was on April 3rd. So 1099 and sole proprietors actually got a late start into the process, but that is open now for them. Okay. All right. Kenneth Kelly, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a bunch for joining us. My pleasure, Roland. Take care. All right, then. Appreciate it. Thank you very much. Again, folks, go to nationalbankers.bankers.org nationalbankers.org again black businesses look apply at the end of the day if you don't if you don't this is very simple if you don't apply you damn sure not going to get any money and so i would rather apply and then somebody tell me no as opposed to never apply and And so get it done.

And you need to get it done in the next 48 hours. Okay, I want you to understand this here. Imagine, take $130 billion, okay? Imagine if black businesses received $2 billion of that. Think about it. 2%. Think about that. Think about it. Two percent. Think about that. One hundred thirty billion dollars. If we got two percent of the available money, that'll be two point six billion dollars going to black businesses. Folks, we cannot talk about our businesses failing. You cannot be in a situation where you should give up and say, hey, I don't know. Get your paperwork.

Go through the process. Fill it out. Apply. Do all you can to ensure that our black businesses stay solvent. And we also find there are issues that women-owned businesses that are facing with PPP. First of all, as you heard Kenneth say, this is a significant amount of money that is being spent in a very short period of time. The SBA has complained about the difficulty of processing so many applications so quickly. They said they've been overwhelmed. Banks have been overwhelmed. You name it, folks.

But the bottom line is here folks are getting through folks are filing and it's happening right before our very eyes and so all of us need to ensure that we are doing all that we can joining us right now is donna harris she is the founder of builders and backers an organization that helps entrepreneurs donna what are you finding out when it comes to women-owned businesses? What's preventing them from accessing these dollars? Yeah, I was just listening to you talk about some of the structural challenges, and that's exactly where we are with women as well. It doesn't appear as there is blatant discrimination,

but it definitely does show up that all of the structural reasons that women get less funding than men were present, are still present in the way the PPP program is being executed. The study we put out last week highlights some of the challenges that the women in our nationwide survey had in accessing funding, getting their foot in the door to even apply for funding, and the varying success that they had depending on which bank they chose to go through. There were all sorts of challenges at every step in the process. Well, look, I mean, we've heard that from for black businesses. We've seen the study showed 95 percent of black businesses will not get a PPP loan.

Same thing, Latinos and others. And so what are you, though, how are you walking your folks through that process? These women own businesses, because, look, the is, it's hard to navigate this year. People are not, you know, there are certain things that a lot of some businesses that don't use payroll services companies. If you have a payroll service company, it's a lot easier because they've already had all the documentation. And so versus, so we know there's a problem. So we know there's a problem. What are you, what are y'all laying out as a solution to help these women-owned businesses? Sure. Yeah. So there's a problem. So we know there's a problem. What are y'all laying out as a solution to help these women-owned businesses? Sure. Yeah, there's a couple of things. One is that we laid out a number of pieces of advice in the report.

The evidence from our survey showed that the women who succeeded, one of the characteristics that they had was definitely a level of scrappiness. They tended to apply at multiple banks. They tended not to rely on the big banks. The success rate was dramatically higher from smaller community banks where you could actually get someone on the phone. Our women in our survey had a three times more likelihood of succeeding if they went with a small bank as opposed to a big bank. And then they were reworking their relationships. So getting on LinkedIn, working their contacts, figuring out succeeding if they went with a small bank as opposed to a big bank. And then they were working their relationships. So getting on LinkedIn, working their contacts, figuring out who they know, who they knew, who could help them figure out how to get their application moved through

the process. And so, you know, I think ultimately it does come down to you have to apply. You have to be persistent in applying. We had a lot of women in our survey who just plain gave up. 25% of them never even got their foot in the door because the process was difficult. They didn't know if they qualified. There was confusion as to whether sole proprietors could qualify or not, whether if you had to be an existing client or not. And that's just shameful. You think about the, you know, over a trillion dollars of revenue that women-owned businesses generate, 25% of that is at risk of failing because they couldn't even get their foot in the door in the program.

And some of that is programmatic and structural in nature, but some of it's also just the persistence to get in there and keep at it. And it's a lousy process. It's a lousy process for everyone. We're trying to cram how many billions of dollars through the system in a couple of weeks. The system is naturally going to favor people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work 24-7 if you have to, to go figure out who you know, who you can go get along with. And then there are lots of organizations like we partnered with Her Corner and Hello Alice and Springboard Enterprises and a handful of other organizations who are

literally taking calls from women saying, OK, what do you need? How do we help you? You tried Bank A. Let's get you to Bank B. We've hand walked women into different banks to help them sort of get through the funding gaps. But if you don't apply, you're not being scrappy enough to stick with it through the lousy process. And if you're not willing to ask for help when you run into the roadblocks, the odds of you getting a loan decrease significantly. So to some degree, we've got to sort of pull ourselves up by the bootstraps here and go after it. And we're meeting tomorrow with some people from the SBA and a number of other organizations to sort of talk about what we might do structurally with the program and with the money that's left or any future rounds of money.

But, you know, right now there's money to be had and people need to go figure out how to go get it, go make it happen, figure out who they need to call to help them, including the organizations that were part of this study. We're all here willing to help women who are saying, hey, I applied, I still haven't been able to get a hold of someone, I haven't been able to get through the application process. Pick up the phone and let us know, and we'll try to help you. All right, Donna Harris, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much.

My pleasure. Thanks for having me. All right, then. I we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. All right, then. I want to bring it now on my panel right now to talk about this. Right now joining us, Dr. Avis Jones-DeWeaver, political analyst. Teresa Lundy, principal founder, TML Communications. Michael Brown, former vice chair of the DNC. Teresa, I'll start with you.

You've been a business owner. I mean, this is the thing that, like I said, look, I get it. It's a bitch trying to go through all this sort of stuff, trying to file the paperwork, all different things. But at the end of the day, if I got a choice between having no business and not only my employees screwed, I'm screwed because now I have no income. I have not got to go out and get a job and think and try to do all I can to file the paperwork. I'm filing that damn paperwork. Absolutely. I think everybody should, especially with $130 billion that was reallocated, was essentially allocated into the budget for the second round. But I can tell you personally,

Roland, there has been some very extreme issues that has been happening even with my small business. You know, we have five employees full time at that and we are still pushing the payment, hoping to get a PPP. So in an experience testimony, I had to go, I went to Republic Bank. My initial bank was PNC, but I heard there were so many issues with that. So I told them to drop my application in the first round. Then I went to Republic Bank. And then there was legislation from Congress that directly funded small minority entities, such as CDCs and not really CDCs, but small banks that was specifically funded for this purpose. And so I went through them, literally had a streamlined process.

Within five days, my application was processed, and it's still in processing now. But absolutely, everything that your two guests came on to say, they were spot on. You have to keep pushing. Because we use a payroll system, it was a bit more seamless for us to have our paperwork ready. But if you don't have your paperwork ready, you could call your bank and actually follow up with the tax documents that you did file in the last two to three years and try to configure some of those numbers. So they are working with people as it relates over the phone. If you're trying to

go into the bank, I'd probably say a no go, but just keep pushing and wait for that answer to say yes on the application. Avis, when we talk about, again, these opportunities, Again, let's just say black businesses get 2%. I mean, we're talking about $2.6 billion that comes into our community. That's real money. And if you keep those employees for a certain period of time, it's long forgiveness. Right. Exactly. That's the part of it I think some people are not getting, perhaps, and I think it's very important that we reiterate that message. The whole purpose of this is to encourage you to maintain your employees. And so if you use that for maintaining those expenses in your business, if you use that for maintaining payroll in your business, so if you apply it in the way that you need to

apply it to run your business anyway, as you normally would, you're right. The loan is completely forgiven. In other words, I would kind of contextualize it as it turns from a loan into a grant, meaning that you do not have to pay this back. And so why not even try? At least try. This is free money. All these other people are grabbing it. You might as well try to grab some, too. Michael, again, daunting process. We hear these stories about people who hire lobbyists who hire other people to to lead them through the process. But this is also when John Hope Bryant was on the show, he talked about how he was pushing Congress to allow National Urban League, NAACP and other groups to become deputized, if you will, to help people walk through the process. I mean, that's what you're dealing with.

This assumption that somehow everybody gets it, knows how to do this stuff, as Teresa said, it's not simple. Look, we applied for it, got preliminary approval. I'm still waiting for final approval. But again, if we don't apply, we're screwed. And the bottom line is this here. Other folks are. They're applying. And we as black business owners cannot, just like Donald was just on, I don't want to hear oh, how hard it is, how

difficult it is. Get it. Understand it. But damn it, still apply. Well, it also, Roland, starts with people that say, oh, I don't trust the government. They're not going to take care of me. I'm not going to get the money anyway. But you've got to, as you've said time and time again, you have to apply. And we've heard a lot of horror stories throughout this process.

But people of color in particular, even if you're not sure if your application is correct, submit it anyway. And then let somebody come back and tell you, here's what you missed. Here's what you have to fix. And then fix it. And maybe you're going to get the money. But to not apply because you think they're not going to take care of you is ridiculous. So clearly, do what you need to do. The money is there. Congress passed it. 45 signed it. It's there for you. Go get it.

Simple as that. All right, folks, let's talk about where we stand when it comes to COVID-19. As of today, 1.2 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States. Sixty nine thousand four hundred and sixty eight people have died. One hundred and eighty four thousand folks have recovered. Man, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says we are heading down the mountain, although the decline isn't as steep as the incline. Major progress is being made in New York State. Let's give you an update on where we are today. The total number of hospitalizations is down. You see that curve coming down.

You see that mountain that we went up. Now we're on the other side of the mountain. You start to see the shape of the mountain. Unfortunately, the decline from the mountain is not as steep as the incline, right? And the big question for us in New York and every state across the nation has been how fast and how low does that decline go, right? We were hoping for a quick up plateau at the top, which is what they talked about, but a fast decline. You see the decline is, again, not as steep as the incline, but it is a decline and that's good news. The net change in total hospitalizations is down. Net change in intubations is down, and that's always good news. And then the other end is how many new cases are coming in the door every day, how many new diagnoses in COVID cases.

And that number is also declining. So not only are the number of people in hospitals coming down, but the number of new cases coming in the door is down. And that's good news because it had plateaued at about 900 statewide for a few days, but this number is down at 700, and that's a good number. I would take this with a grain of salt, as they say, because this is reporting from yesterday, which was a Sunday, and sometimes we get different results on the weekend. Remember, this whole reporting system has just been put in place. This never happened before. This is now every hospital in the state reporting every day for the first time. So it's a plus or minus across the board.

This is the number that haunts me every day. And this number is not declining anywhere nearly as fast as we would like to see it decline. Well, in what's happening across the country, we have images of people just gathering fireworks displays, not practicing safe distancing, going to beaches, going to parks, as if somehow these things aren't real. The Poor People's Campaign is certainly opposed to the unsafe reopenings we're seeing across the country. They've launched a drive to encourage people to stay in place and use this time to organize. Joining me right now is Reverend Dr. William Barber, co-chair of the campaign and president and senior lecturer at Repairs of the Breach. Reverend Barber, when we see the videos of people gathering, I mean, look, I get it. I get folks like, oh my God, I'm being cooped up. But, you know, I think your life would be a hell of a lot worse if you're sitting on a ventilator in a hospital and you definitely would be intubated as opposed to losing your mind because you can't go to the beach.

Exactly. And some of the things, Roland, that we're having anxiety about, you know, it's 95% of the world doesn't, you can't expose themselves. Can't do those things. Can't enjoy them anyway. So why are we acting like, you know, this is so hard to not go to a beach or not go to a, a restaurant, but, but our people particularly where our campaign is saying, stay at home, stay, no, stay in place. Cause everybody can't stay at home. No, stay in place because everybody can't stay at home. Stay alive. Organize and don't believe the lies. Stay in place.

Stay alive. It's lethal out here. And then organize. Use this time that we're in at home to be organized. We're going to ask folks to make 100,000 calls to Pelosi,

answer McConnell about a real rescue deal organized toward June 20th, 2020. The mass poor people's assembly march on Washington as we raise the list of voices of poor people who were impacted before COVID and are being hurt now. But then don't believe the lies. These governors are the same governors that lied to us about voter suppression. They lied to us about Medicaid expansion. They lied to us about the need for living wages. These governors that are saying go back, most of them, particularly in the South, are the ones that have not really cared about the lives

of our people in the first place. And when you think about it in Georgia, 80%, for instance, of the people in hospitalization are black from COVID, are black. You know, we should not allow folk who've lied to us on other things to then tell us to go out into a lethal situation and we listen to. Essential things, that's one thing. But just going out, no, stay home, stay alive, organize and don't believe the lies.

One of the things that obviously you're seeing is that when you look at these states, you look at Georgia, you look at Florida, you look at Texas, and look at how we are being impacted. Bottom line is here, look, if non-black folks want to go out there, knock

yourselves out. But when I look at those numbers and see how we are being impacted, that's a whole different conversation. It's a whole different conversation. The conversation, you know, and this thing is legal. And even if we look at, like, the businesses, for instance, that Trump, think about this. We'll use the Defense Authorization Act to force people in weak, prior to setting plans to go back. Now we asked them, 45 state coordinating committees, 100 partners, 16 religious denominations, we wrote to them and said,

use the Defense Authorization, or 12 pastors like Freda Haynes, Yvette, Flunder, Tracy Blackmon, and said, use the Defense Authorization Act to make sure we have PPEs in Bernard and black communities, make sure we have rural hospitals there and testing sites and in urban communities, use the Army Corps of Engineers to get hospitals. He didn't do that. But when it comes to an industry, say, the meat plant, there's primarily black, female, Hispanic, and poor. He's actually saying to folk, I'm going to make you go back into a lethal situation. That's straight-up racism, though.

It's straight-up racism. And what we really need to be focused on politically, I think we ought to be saying, for instance, you and I talked about this, the Black Caucus, take a lot in the House. We must make free health care a part of any new rescue bill. No matter what the Senate does, the House where we have a majority and we have to say, look, all of these states that are saying for folks to go back where we're having this high number of

COVID infection, they are states that didn't expand Medicaid, Republican governors. So we should say that we should show the intersection between racism and voter suppression and denial of health care and say to the Democratic Party, of them, Martin, nearly $3 trillion to corporations. And not one of those bills has addressed what's happening disproportionately in our communities and in poor communities. And by the way, last, it's not just black folk, it's poor black folk, poor and low-income black folk who are being hurt the most. Absolutely. That was a 60-second PSA y'all put out on this very issue. I want to go ahead and play that right now. And so let's see if we can, you guys, you should see it. Go ahead.

Across America, we are the 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this country, and we are building the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival. On June 20th, we will rise together for the Mass Poor People's Assembly and Moral March on Washington, a digital justice gathering. Our nation is at a historic crossroads. But history teaches us that people from all walks of life strengthen us and prepare us to fight for the kind of society we know we so badly need and deserve. Rise with us. Visit June2020.org. listening to is that pandemics, especially all the experts, pandemics live and breathe and exploit the fishes of our society. And America has a whole lot of fishes when it comes to poverty and systemic racism. What we had planned to do, we're going to do online. And what that is,

is to lift the voices, Martin, of the people that are not being heard, the people that are dying of every race, creed, color, and sexuality because there were 140 million of them poor and low wealth before COVID. There were 250,000 people dying a year from poverty and low wealth before COVID. There was 80 million people that did not have health insurance or were uninsured before

COVID. And so it's time now for this voice of people to lift. There will also be religious leaders. There are going to be actors there. But the main focus are people like this, Roland. I just got off a call with nurses, aid workers in Chicago. Sixty-four nursing homes have decided they're going on strike because they are having to cut up trash bags, Roland, trash bags to wear into the care. They are seeing things. They don't have protective equipment. One lady said, I feel like I'm participating in my own mass murder. People who haven't seen their own loved ones because they're being forced to work for less

than a living wage, being forced to work without the protective covering. I mean, just listening to these stories that just a few hours ago tore me apart. And we're going to make America see those stories. And they are demanding change. We have to see what has happened. And then they said this, and this is what really got me. They said, Reverend Barber, this was going on before COVID. But COVID has been like a contrast die. When you put it in your blood to show inside what's really going on, they said this is not a lot of, this is not new. It was going on before COVID. What is new is that now if we do what we were doing before COVID,

we die or our spouses die or our children die. Children die. And so all of the people who are low- income, that are in our campaign, we were thinking about canceling. They said, no, you cannot cancel. We have to use every tool available to humankind on social media because we must tell our stories. We, America, must hear our voice and see our faces. And we must make demands.

And we must register like never before to vote because no longer will poor and low income people not be engaged in the political process. Well, it's also important, obviously, to do this digital because reality is that might be the scenario come November. And so digital mobilizing and organizing is going to be more than likely the way we have to operate between now and November. Exactly, Roland. You've been leading us. You've been telling us. You've been warning us long before this. You say, y'all better get some stuff you own your own. So for three years, we've been building a digital platform with the Four Peoples campaign. You know, we just did it underneath.

We've been connecting people. And we also, I don't want to tell everything we can do, but we also are having an underground type newspaper so we can reach the homeless community. I mean, the bottom line is there are 140 million poor and low-income people. There were 100 million people that didn't vote in the last election. We did a study that was commissioned with Columbia University that said a lot of the 100 million people who didn't vote are poor and low-income. And if just 5 to 10 percent of poor and low income people, regardless of race, would begin to get around an agenda and they would vote, they could fundamentally shift the political calculus in any state in this nation, in any state in this nation,

and especially in the South. We cannot leave this work undone. Dr. King and others would kill, Robert Kennedy would kill trying to do this work. But it must be revived now. And COVID-19 is making it more essential than it was even before. They'll ask you this here. Last week, I did a commentary talking when Diddy did a video with Naomi Campbell saying that unless we get a number of things from Democratic Party, from Joe Biden, who was going to hold the vote hostage. My response to that was, look, that all sounds great. But unless you have infrastructure, unless you are mobilizing people and organizing people, unless you are creating institutions, that's just all talk.

And I and I and what I argued is that if you're able to say, look, my group has gone out and we put 20, 30, 40, 50,000 people on the rolls. What y'all are doing, the Poor People's Campaign, when you're able to sit here and say, this is what we've done in these states, organized how many rallies, how many home deals, how many trainings. That, to me, gets the attention of a candidate more than simply doing a video with a supermodel. Infrastructure has to follow when you make those sort of threats. If you're going to fight structural racism and structural poverty, you have to have an infrastructure to fight the structure. That is why the Poor People's Campaign was built from the bottom up, not just from the top down. We didn't just announce the campaign. Forty-five coordinating committees in 45 states plus the District of Columbia,

every one of those coordinating committees is registering voters in poor and low-wealth communities. We are connecting 30,000 people directly to our Poor People's Campaign in each state. That'll be over 1.2 million people. We have now a coalition that has a reach of a mailing list and an emailing list and a social media list of over 50 million people. If you add up all of the people that are connected to this, it is about building power and shifting the narrative. Some people, Roland, just want to shift the narrative.

You can't just shift the narrative. You have to build power. And you also have to know what power is there to be built. So we do this empirically. We don't just get up and say we're doing it. We went to a group of sociologists and scholars and people who do demographics and said, tell us what the reality is of poor people. What's the voting power? You know, we found out, for instance, Roland, in the South, there were 25 million poor and low wealth people that were not reached, not touched, not moved in the South. You add up all the poor people

that can vote, it's 25 million more than the margin of victory that Trump had in the South. You think about that. You start looking at these numbers. Trump wins by 100,000 people, for instance, 150,000 people in North Carolina. The number of poor and low wealth people that didn't vote, just black, for instance, is three or four times that number. I could give you all the numbers. We've got enough data to do stuff. So what we're doing is trying to look deeply, shifting the narrative, but building the structure in order to build power. You have to do those. You have to do those things. Otherwise, you're not playing, well, I don't want to call it playing, but you're not really engaged in the fight that we're in. And that's what extremists and Republicans have been very good at. They go all the way down to the one vote. They know,

they don't look to win by big margins. They just want to win. And the thing they fear the most is for black poor and low wealth people, white poor and low wealth people, Latino poor and low wealth people, gay poor and low wealth people, Asian, Native, to come together and understand their political power if they move around an agenda. And that's what we're trying to do. And the last point, and what I keep also saying, it's one thing to say something before the election. It's one thing to make a demand of a candidate while they are running. That means nothing if you then don't have the infrastructure and the plan of action to make them follow through after they win. That's exactly right. You said it. It's the truth. And that's why we call the poor people. If you notice the word, it's not a march. It's not a rally. It's a poor people mass assembly march on Washington. But the poor people's campaign national call for a moral

revival notice campaign. It doesn't stop that we have things along the way, but we're not talking about just being engaged from now to November and then going away. Oh, no. We're building power right in the backyard of all of the senators, all the legislators, all the governors, where they can be touched, and we will continue to move in that vein. And I would say that even to the members of, just to take an aside, the members of the Black Caucus in the United States Congress, if Black people, for instance, are the backbone of the Democratic Party, and everybody comes to us to get endorsements, and our people are dying in astronomical ways and in percentages higher than anybody else, then they must at this point before the election put their foot down and say,

not another bill comes through this Congress that does not address those issues of what our people need. Because if you address those issues, you're going to address poor white people as well. But not another bill can come through the United States House, at least where we have a majority. And if the House cannot do that, I know what McConnell's doing. I know what Republicans are doing. But I'm talking about the House, where Democrats are in control. If they can't do the things we need in a bill, whether McConnell cuts it up or not, they can't pass the free health care and the living wages and the guaranteed sick leave and so forth and so on. Then I have a question, Roland, and that is, do Democrats value Black life? Do Democrats value poor life? Do Democrats really value the life of those poor white folk

up in the mountains or those poor Black folk down in Mississippi and the Delta, who we now stop calling service workers and we call them essential workers. This is, as my grandma, you know, I'm a country preacher, Roland. My granddad used to say, you got the Fisher cut bait now, baby. This is real. Well, great point. When I spoke to the Maryland Black Caucus, when we were trying to get that money for HBCUs,

of course, they should have gotten a billion dollars. They initially, Governor O'Malley, Democrat, offered $100 million. Then when Larry Hogan, Republican, he offered $200 million. And they were like, no, we need bare minimum $500 million. Well, we had the rally of the black caucus. This is exactly what I told the black caucus. I told the chair, I said, in point blank, I said, y'all are the largest black caucus out of any state in the country. Y'all should tell the Democratic Party no bill will be considered unless we fund HBCUs. Guess what happened? That's right. That bill passed. And those four HBCUs in Maryland getting that five hundred seventy seven million dollars. That's how you use your collective power as a caucus. Right. And if you can't do it now,

when people are dying, and that's not to knock the some things that have been done, but we don't need folks to say, but we did this in the first bill. Look, in all of the bills that have been passed, no guaranteed health care,

even to folk who are working, essential workers. They say testing, testing, testing, but you get tested, can't get health care. That doesn't help. Many people won't get tested. No living waste, no healthcare, no guarantee of rent forgiveness. Right now, the bill says you don't have to pay rent for three months, but in the fourth month, you have to pay all four months. There's not even a moratorium on

cutting off people's water and utilities. And our people are dying, man, are dying. We can't have that. This is a point where you have to say, OK, you've said we are the backbone. You've said we are this. Everybody wants our endorsement. Well, OK, now it's time to ante up. And the House ought to make McConnell walk the political plank.

In other words, put a bill in front of him that makes him have to stand before the American people, poor whites, poor blacks, low-income folks, and say, I'm going to vote against all these essential workers having health care. I'm going to vote against them having the money they need. I'm going to vote against them not being able to be kicked out of their home. They can do it because what will happen then? If we can go rolling to the polls in November, this is the thing people haven't thought about. A lot of people haven't. You and I have talked about it. If folk have to go to the polls and we can't do mail-in ballots and Trump and them are going to fight that, we're going to be asking people to vote and risk their lives. So people need to know who was willing to fight for their lives now. Because we're going to be asking people to go stand in the line, not be able to do social distancing, and vote.

That's literally, in the age of COVID, that will be a life-death situation. I believe people will be willing to do that, to change this country around, just like people are willing to go to war and change this country around. But they have to know if I do that, I'm fighting for something, and I need to see who's fighting for me right now. And the only way they can see that is if legislation is passed that there's a real rescue bill in the House. And we need that to happen. And we need it to happen now.

Reverend Dr. William J. Barber, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. People go to the Poor People's Campaign website, follow them on social media as well, Repairs of the Breach. They're doing the work. And I just talk the talk.

Reverend Barber, thanks a lot. God bless. All right. Thank you, sir. Go back to our panel here. Avis, the point, what you hear constantly from Reverend Barber is real simple. You can talk, you can talk, you can talk, but if you are not doing the hard work of mobilizing, of teaching, of training and organizing, it's a waste. That's the work that Melanie Campbell does.

That's the work that many other peoples do. And I say this all the time to preachers and celebrities. Look, you can get out of here and you can say, my, my, my, my, my, but if there's not a plan on Monday after Saturday's rally, all you did was hold an event. Absolutely. I mean, you know, Reverend, your discussion just now with Reverend Barber, it was a master class on power. He has a very sophisticated understanding of power, what it is, how to wield it, how to exert it, and how to do it strategically. And that is really what the game of politics is all about. How are you going to utilize your power to get what you want? I know that a lot of folks out here, celebrities kind of get caught up. I

think Diddy kind of got caught up. I think he got caught up in the moment. But he does not have that level of sophistication in terms of the understanding of what power is and how to wield it. Yeah, he wants to say he can unilaterally cause some sort of, I don't even know what the word he used, a boycott essentially, hold a vote hostage. He can't do that.

How? How? Okay? He just wanted to say something that sounded good to him, at least, and although it was illogical because what he asked for already existed. But I will say that as a people, we really need to understand that voting is important. We have to do it. But beyond that specific act, we have to think more broadly about how we can utilize power in various ways to get what we want, leading up to before, during, and after an election. And the organizing that Reverend Barber and others, as you mentioned, Melanie Campbell and so many others are engaged in, is really about that. It's about understanding how to organize, amass and willpower 365 days of the year, every year, every day, every week, month, all of the time.

And not just during electoral season, but obviously an escalated point during that period. Michael, here's the deal. Here's the deal. I'm not mad at Diddy. I'm not taking shots at Diddy. I'm actually agreeing with Diddy, but I'm going to the next point, and that is it's very easy for a Diddy or a T.I. or a Killer Mike or a Cardi B or a Beyonce or a Jay-Z or a Kerry Washington or anybody to get a meeting.

What I'm talking about is taking that level of celebrity and then taking the resources of Aditi, okay, owning this entertainment company, owning a cable news network, owning all of these different things, and then saying, creating the infrastructure that's going to pound it, pound it, pound it, and making it clear. I'm going to use this as a weapon to say, no, you're going to do these things. That's what I'm talking about, spending the time to actually build. Well, and that's where Reverend Barber and what he's done with a whole host of other people that we could all clearly name has stuck with it. I remember when I worked with Puffy or Diddy or whatever name you like to refer to him as

on his Vote or Die campaign. And the one thing I said to him was, Diddy or Puff, I forget what I called him then, you have to stick with it. You can't just do this for one election cycle. You have to continue this through every election cycle, not just for one year, two years, three years, five years. It has to be a decade, two decades. Take a page out of Reverend Barber's book. You have to stick with it because even as you move some people towards in the right direction, there's still a lot of people that aren't hearing the message. So you have to keep that message going time and time and over and over again. And that's the frustration with our people

and other people of color and poor white people is they don't think that voting matters. Why does it matter? How is it going to impact my life? That it's not going to do anything for me. But then the day after the election, we're the best armchair quarterbacks in the world. Oh, I knew it wouldn't matter.

No. And that's why the messaging has to be continuous. Well, I think this, Teresa, I think that part of the problem when people say, well, my vote doesn't matter, is because if you do not have the institutions that have the infrastructure that are then championing those issues, then all of a sudden what you become is what you actually detest, and that is an entity that only focuses on voting. And so if you don't have the continuation, it's just, look, I've made this point to fraternities and sororities. I've made it to my fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha. I've said, what's the point of us having conversations and town halls and public forums and public meetings if we're only having that event, yet when we leave here, we don't then take our membership and then say, okay, this month,

we're going to roll up in our black and gold to the city council meeting. And then next month, we're going to have a show of force at the school board meeting. The next month, we're going to have a show of force at the county meeting. Or if there's an education issue, we're going to show up to the school board meeting every single meeting for six straight months. Now, all of a sudden, what you're doing is you're taking this organizing entity and you're moving your members to actually do something. I think part of the problem is that even black institutions, we only are communicating with black people

around election time as opposed to when the election is over, just like we did the top of the show with PPP. Look, it's real easy for me to have guests on to say, oh, man, woe is we. We can't get money. No, no, no, no, no. Put somebody on who can say, here's the site, here's the infrastructure, give us a call, make it happen.

But you can't do that unless you have something that is consistent every week, every day that people can go to. I've always said this, Roland, that I believe celebrities have a strong presence in our society, but they are missing the investment of that surge that comes inside of them the same way they started their business, the same way they've escalated their platforms, their vision. But when it comes to going back to their roots, right, everybody has a story of this is where I'm from, this is how I started. And now I'm here. So now that you're here, what are you going to do with the platforms that you have in order to invest that vision so others can then rise up with you and join in on the story? I think Diddy, you know, prime example in this whole conversation, did he kind of blend it in with everybody? And what do I mean by that? Is he went to revolt, right? I love the voter die initiative. I was hoping for more, right? So when

it didn't happen the next year, I was disappointed and many other friends were disappointed. And when we sent an actual email to the organizers, we didn't get a response, right? And so what happened now? Did I go off the path and decide, you know, I don't want to join a movement? No, I got involved locally. But I also believe that if we start charging our celebrities, you know, with that investment and allowing them to fill that surge,

they'll be able to do great and impossible things. Let's look at Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, right? They worked with organizations such as Cut 50, which is a criminal justice and advocacy organization. They worked with them inside of the White House, and they got the first step, act pass. That is a proven scenario where a celebrity used their influence in order to get something passed. Now, do I agree, you know, that there's going to be some really good results from there? I'm still, you know, waiting for some of that to happen, but there has been some good stories. But what I think we need to do is keep pushing our celebrities to keep doing what they want to do.

It's just I think they lose focus sometimes. And it's really, I think, up to the audience, you know, the people that's watching them daily and saying, hey, what's going on with the day to day? What's going on with the week to week, you know, conversations? We want to hear more of how you want to impact, not just donate dollars and show up to events and be at panel discussions. We want to see you more by using their platforms in order to advance us all out of the struggle. So let me add this. I agree with nearly everything you said except this. I actually don't want to see more of them. Let me be real clear. And I really need people to listen to what I am saying because what I'm about to say is not throwing shade or taking a shot at black celebrities. Please show me where

white celebrities are leading white America. Take your time. I don't see, now let me be clear, it does not mean that Sarah Silverman or Meryl Streep or George Clooney or any of these individuals are not involved in public policy. Brad Pitt and Clooney and Don Cheadle and Jeffrey Wright, others have been to Capitol Hill. Michael J. Fox, he's been to Capitol Hill. But if you're an entertainer, that ain't your job. Let me be clear. Let me be real clear. Let me be real clear. The whole deal with the last dance, people saying, well, Michael wasn't doing this, Michael wasn't doing that.

Absolutely right. Michael Jordan wasn't doing this, Michael wasn't doing that. Absolutely right. Michael Jordan wasn't doing those things. Michael Jordan's primary responsibility was to play basketball. Same thing about Kobe Bryant. Doesn't mean you can't do some things, but my point is the people who are there every day, you mentioned Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. Here's the deal. Yes, Kim Kardashian visited with Trump, went to the White House, tweeted

things out, used a celebrity. But the people who were doing the work every day were the people who were with the group. Cut 50. It was the staffers. It was people who were doing the work. For all of the work that Harry Belafonte and Dick Gregory

and all the celebrities did in the civil rights movement, unless Clarence Mitchell is there as a lobbyist for the NAACP, stuff ain't happening. The problem that I think that we have, and this is the problem I think we as a community have, I want to get all your thoughts on that, is that we want them, we want Diddy, Killer Mike, T.I. to lead when that is not their place. Their place, Avis, is to support the infrastructure, is to fund the infrastructure, is to lend their name. If you're a John Legend, if you're a Kerry Washington, if you're operating like Ruby D and Ossie Davis did, doesn't mean you can't even be involved in the planning. But I think it's different, Avis, when we want them to lead. That is not their place because that ain't

what they do every day dr king told diane carroll boo we don't need you on the front line we need you doing exactly what you doing and diane carroll was acting but she was also holding private fundraisers at her apartment that funded the movement. Sidney Poitier tells a story when he went to down south with Harry Belafonte, they almost got killed. And Sidney was like, don't you ever have me do this again. Like, Dr. King was like, Sidney, we need you doing what you do on that big screen while we do what we do. Everybody has a lane. I think, Avis, we somehow want celebrities to drive the bus when really that's what organizational leaders are supposed to be doing. Go ahead.

Well, yeah. You know, I don't think we want celebrities driving the bus. I know I sure as hell don't. But I think what happens is that you have the media that always wants to position certain people as Black leaders. It's not only that, you know, the analogy you used about, you know, what white entertainers are taking this type of role. The same thing is true writ large when you talk about black politics, it's like the media always wants to sort of anoint someone the black leader. And I just don't get the feeling that the grassroots or that most people, most black people are saying, hey, Diddy, please be our leader. No, I think. But that said,

I do think that the role that you just laid out is precisely what would make sense. I mean, we do need people who can help to fund our organizations. We do need people who, through their celebrities, can, you know, raise the attention or awareness of people around issues. But, you know, this is not their area of expertise. When I was saying previously that Diddy really didn't get the sophisticated nature of power, it was not because I was trying to say, you know, I wasn't trying to insult him in any way. It's just a statement of fact. I can't do what he does. Right.

This is not his area of specialty. So let the people who specialize in this do this and you support in the same way that you just described uh michael then theresa um i agree with everything that you've said um that ava said and theresa said i don't think i have anything really earth-shattering to add to it except that celebrities are important in that one circle as you called called it, Roland, in that one lane to bring attention to the effort. And then, but the thing with celebrities is same thing with everything else that we talked about earlier.

Will they stay involved in that, making sure they continue to bring attention to that particular effort or that particular movement? Or do they hop in for one event over the weekend or do something online or tweet out something? Or are they continuous? Everything has to be continuous. That's what's so frustrating about the rise of white supremacy, because they've been continuous. No matter how much people try to knock them down, don't give them a voice, even though 45 has given them a voice, they're continuous with their message. Maybe they stay in the shadows. Maybe sometimes they come out,

but they're continuous. We have to be the same way. You know, when I talk about, again, infrastructure, look, Teresa, I made the argument that we got to have black news. We got we got to have our own platforms. OK, so when TV one gets canceled, well, BT didn't call me. Diddy's Revolt didn't call me. OWN didn't call me. Aspire didn't call. And so Bounce, I talked to the, Bounce, what OWN wants to do, entertainment. And so I could sit here and bitch and moan and say what we need, or I could build the infrastructure and actually do it.

That's the point, that's the point I'm making. People tell me all the time, Roland, why don't you leave marches? Because that ain't what I do. How in the hell could I leave the march? I'm supposed to be covering the march. Somebody got to cover the march to tell the people

what happened. And that's the thing. And so again, I think too often, there are people out there who get roles confused. Who get roles confused. And there were people, I remember when Revolt did that conversation in Atlanta, and they, Jeff Johnson moderated, and they had Candace

Owens, T.I., Killer Mike, Tamika Mallory. People were like, you watching? And I was like, no. They were like, why? I said, I don't disrespect entertainers, but I'm not going to have a discussion about public policy if it don't involve public policy people.

Just like I can't have a conversation about black business if on the panel are people who don't own shit. I'm just having a theoretical conversation. And again again i think we have to this is just one of those things that where we so look so what did he wants to do oh i hope he does it and i'm saying bro i'm willing to help you but i want our people to understand we've got to go to the institutions and the people who are doing the work and not keep saying, well, no, no, no.

Why can't you do it? And that's what a celebrity should say. I am. I'm working with them. And why don't you come with me to work with them? Teresa, your final comment on this. Yeah, so I agree with everybody. I believe the infrastructure definitely needs to be in place. The only thing I will add to this ending thought is that the reality is that we have celebrities who aren't as high as they used to be. I'm not talking about Diddy because he's still on top and he has a lot of enterprises in between in order to make his establishment grow even bigger and faster. But the other ones, you know, that we talked about, Killer Mike, T.I., they are all still fighting to make sure they are still relevant. And so you have a lot of publicists, you have a lot of their agents are saying, what is your thoughts about this?

You rapped about this. Right. And not knowing that they were at a different place when they were growing up in the hood and poverty. And so now they're like, hey, use that same energy and use your voice to take action. driven organization in order to better equip their population, the new generation Y millennials, the next generation moving forward. So we're all educated on how we're supposed to talk about, you know, moving the country forward. All right, folks, going to go to break. We come back more. Roller Mark unfiltered back in a moment.

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possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. The Howard University Faculty Practice will be opening a COVID-19 testing clinic in the heart of one of D.C.'s underserved communities. The goal is to get more people tested to decrease the impact of the virus among African-Americans. Joining me now is Dr. Hugh

Mighty, Howard University Vice President of Clinical Affairs. Dr. Mighty, how are you doing? Doing well, thank you, sir. How about yourself? Doing great. So explain what this is going to entail, how many people you hope to test, how long it's going to last. Well, first of all, we hope to test many of the people who live in the underserved populations in Washington, D.C., particularly in Ward 7 and 8 east of the river. We hope to reach at least 200 tests a week and then see if we can't even expand from there. And how long it's going to be lasting is for as long as we can possibly provide it. So

there's no real end. This is a way to help the city and the citizens of D.C. get tested. What's your daily testing capacity? So you say 200 in a week. Are you testing Monday through Friday, Monday through Sunday? What's the process? When we start, we will begin next Tuesday, and we will be doing Tuesdays and Thursdays to initially start. Then we'll gauge from there the people who show,

and if we need to expand the hours we'll begin to expand the hours uh and when we talk about uh the testing and that's one of the criticisms that we don't have enough national testing to really understand the impact of covert 19 in this country that is true and the answer in large part is that we just simply need to test more so we're in but a part of several other units that are opening in and around Washington, D.C. to try to expand that testing. So when we talk about and so we uh to testing walk through the process is it the rapid testing how long will it be before people know exactly what the test results are? Right so right now we're testing we have have it'll take us 24 to maximum now 48 hours to get that testing back. We will contact everyone whom we test to make sure that they get a result back from us.

So it is not the so-called rapid testing, but it is within 24 to 48 hours. It is the oral or the nasal test, if you will, that we will be using. And so we can collect those fairly rapidly and then get them processed. So let's say, so what's happening is, what's the testing? Is it coming to an office? Is it parking lot testing? Is it, I mean, drive-through testing? What exactly is happening? Okay, so right now we have a clinic that we've established over east of the river in Ward 7, and so we are going to open up that office and use that office to have people come in and get their testing done.

So we have it by appointment. We fill the appointments. We go to the next day and so forth. But folks will come into the office and get their testing done. All right, then. We certainly appreciate it. If folks want more information, where do they go? We have a website that's available for people to check out the testing, and all they need to do then is to reach out to the office and go from there.

All right. Dr. Hugh Mighty, Howell University VP of Clinical Affairs. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. My pleasure. Thank you very much for having us. All right, folks, we talk about what's happening out here, even with COVID-19, there's tons of misinformation being spread on social media that started with idiots like Diamond and Silk, you know, that minstrel show that Donald Trump loves to support. As a result, they lost their job on Fox Nation, that streaming service of Fox News, because of the stupid stuff they were saying. Well, that kind of nonsense found its way into the Twitter feeds of people who normally don't subscribe to conspiracy theories. We're seeing this all over the place, not just when it comes to COVID-19, but also when it comes to voter suppression. Do you want to meet now and talk

about this? All right, folks, let me know when y'all have Shereen Mitchell. I want to go to her next. She wants to talk about that. I'm going to bring my panel in right now before I bring in Shereen. And that is, this is critically important. We saw this impact, Michael, in 2016, how the Russian, those troll farms, how they were able to seed discontent by driving information. The largest Black Lives Matter group on Facebook was actually a Russian troll farm. And so we got to be very careful. This is where trusted sources matter, Michael, when you're getting stuff versus some of the harebrained, nutty stuff. People send me all the time. They're like, Roland, you hear about this here? That's a lie. Oh, thank you. I mean, I spend more time shooting down stupid stuff because people are

believing any nuts cases out there. Yeah, I guess I spent probably not as much as you, but I spend a lot of time knocking out these conspiracy theories. And I say, look, you know, spend a minute. You don't have to spend your whole life. Spend a minute reading some of the mainstream newspapers or watch CNN or MSNBC for a few minutes. I'm not asking you to prescribe to their beliefs, but just get some real news somehow. Watch Roland Martin unfiltered. There are so many opportunities for you to get real news and real information and take advantage of it. Don't just use, oh, I was on my phone and somebody passed this along and said black people cannot get infected with COVID-19. Remember when that came out a few weeks ago?

Absolutely preposterous, incorrect. Frankly, it impacts us more. So please just get some real news from time to time. Take the time and investigate on your own. Avis, I say you might want to watch us before you watch CNN, MSNBC. Absolutely, because we're going to really tailor what you hear to those issues that are specific to our needs and to our interests and to our future. And so, you know, it's really, though, important. The larger point here couldn't be any more correct. It's really more important that we don't get thrown off base by misinformation. And the reality is that, you know, there has been a great, a lot of investment into creating confusion and spreading lies and misinformation, specifically for other people to use it for what?

Their own ability to gain and maintain power. And so I'm hoping that we will be a bit more discerning in terms of where we get our information from, that we question and don't just assume. When we see some graphic on Facebook, for example, or we read some tweet that's not quoting anything or providing a source, but it's making some statement that appears factual, that we slow down and wait a minute and think, what is the source of this information? Is this a credible source?

And it doesn't even just make common sense. If we just took those three steps, I think we'd do a lot toward sort of stopping a lot of the spread of this misinformation that happens, specifically targeting our community. Shereen Mitchell is now here. Shereen, again, we talk about information being spread. I mean, look, you look at how the Trump people, Shereen, are targeting their folks, how they're using Facebook messaging just with a deluge of messaging. Look, at the end of the day, people respond to this and we have to understand that there's a flip side to information. Information is power, but also it can turn against you. Absolutely. When we talk about this from a framework that people don't understand, it's like they think that they're not impacted by this sort of disinformation.

They think that somehow disinformation is something separate from them. And they are actually operating from a concept that they have all the information they need. Or they think they've gotten some information that the media is not telling them. And so they use that as a weapon. And unfortunately, so many of our community is a part of that disinformation because we have a historical framework of not trusting the government, not trusting media, and it becomes very complicated in the way that we look at this. And so give us examples of what is happening, what is really taking place out there with disinformation. I mean, look, this is what you study, and you're looking for,

you're connecting the dots, and other people are just going, well, Shereen, I don't see what the big deal is here. And you're kind of like, no, no, you need to go deeper. As one person said, some folks ain't deeper than mustard on a hot dog. You're trying to go to the bottom of the hot dog. Hot dogs. Okay. But the truth is.

Well, the average person out there go mustard on a hot dog. Oh yeah. That's on top. There you go. You're trying to go deeper. At the bottom. Or the bread for that matter.

I'm sorry. I was laughing because I thought that was a great analogy, but the key is that the key is that what I work on is taking the truth, right? We have some historical truth. We have some historical facts that impact the way that we believe certain things that come to us. And that's part of the problem. So when we get to the top, which is where the hot dog, you know, framework of the ketchup or mustard is, we've gotten way past what the root of it is. And so historically in our culture, we know that we don't trust the government in terms of testing us.

We don't trust the government in terms of vaccines for us. But what is different now is we're watching this culture change in a broader context. And that is, there's some overlap here now. So those who don't trust the government are now sort of meshing together for reasons that are unhealthy in the sense in this moment with this particular virus, this virus is killing us more than any other group. And if we participate in the disinformation, then we're also participating in harming our own community more than we think we're saving them. So it's really important for us to understand, and I say this all the time,

every single one of us has been impacted by disinformation. To ignore that or to dismiss that or to say that that does not have an impact is literally dismissing how we can fix this moving forward. We don't have the tools or the tactics moving forward. If we basically say disinformation has no impact whatsoever, it has no impact whatsoever for our elections and voting, and it has no impact whatsoever in the terms of trying to save people's lives in this moment right now. And this is not new. We went through this before the Civil Rights Movement. We went through this before. And what I feel troubled by is the fact that people are all of a sudden

wanting to dismiss this right now. That all of a sudden that they have the, they think that somehow with everything that just happened, everything we know from 2016 and all the tactics from 2016 to 2020, that somehow we're still immune from disinformation. As if the first story of us being immune as black people from the virus. We are not immune from any of this. We have to take action in the concept of we need to understand that this is part of it. And we also have to do a little bit of extra work to decipher what's real and what's still disinformation.

The media isn't helping us either, by the way. So I thank you for having me on, Roland. But what I'm saying is that we're also taking part of this. We're actually taking action on the disinformation. So, for instance, explain to people when you're out there monitoring the people who say this don't happen, I'm not voting. Or how is that weaponized and used against black people? Oh, thank you for asking that question. weaponized and used against black people? Oh. Thank you for asking that question.

So, let's just be clear. We have a historical framework, right, about the vote. We've gone through Jim Crow, right? We've gone through, now, the Voting Rights Act. We are watching daily the ways in which there are different states trying to manipulate our ability to vote.

Gerrymandering the police state, you know, making sure that we are we're put in prisons instead of able to vote. All of that's against us. So when someone says, I'm going to use my vote as a hostage vote until the Dems do what I want or demand. We are allowing the same thing to happen before. Our ancestors, our elders fought and died for our vote. If you think that you can hostage take your vote right now in this moment, you're basically saying to our elders, you died for nothing.

And that troubles me. It troubles me on multiple levels. But it troubles me more in the context that if you think showing that we have no power by our vote is better than stealing our vote, which everyone else is trying to do, and we are just going to join that crew, then we have not learned the lessons of our historical framework in this country and what we need to do going forward. And that's the struggle I have about digital voter suppression, because there are people who are participating in digital voter suppression. They're saying to our community,

don't vote top of the ticket because they're both the same. Why bother? When I said, last time I was on your show, 90K people did not vote top of the ticket in Michigan, and he won by 77K.

Total. Total. He didn't win Michigan by 90,000. So what you're pointing out is that was just in the state alone. One state alone, one state alone. It does not count all the other states where the digital votes oppression was happening, where all the actual votes oppression was happening on the ground votes

oppression. What we saw in Wisconsin was on the ground voters suppression using COVID as a weapon to win their own seat. COVID and now is a new version of voter suppression. We have both the on the ground version and the digital voter suppression version. So absolutely, Wisconsin had suppressed one million votes before the election of 2016. One million. I'm talking about a small sliver of how he won versus the 90K that didn't vote top of the ticket, also the 75K who didn't get their opportunities to be counted at all. We should not be participating and not getting ourselves to vote. Everybody wants us to not have power. What happened in South Carolina for Biden is that he he got a vote that no one thought was important.

Sometimes I'm not sure he knows how important that vote was. But every other candidate had had weaponized the fact that they did not need the black vote. And then Biden won with exactly that. And when you say not, and again, I want to go back. When you talk about that suppression, 90,000 people in Michigan did not vote the top of ticket. If you, if you look at the numbers, people, uh, Trump won Michigan by less than 11,000. Yes. He got 2,279,543 votes. Hillary Clinton got 2,000,000 yes he got two million two hundred seventy nine thousand five hundred and forty three votes hillary clinton got two million two hundred and sixty eight thousand eight hundred and thirty nine votes and ninety thousand left at the top at the top so uh so a final point here shireen

for people to understand first of all there was a report that y'all have done. Where can people go to see the report, to digest the full report? Yes. So please. Thank you, Rowan. So please go to our website, stoponlinevawa.com. Stop online. Vawa, V-A-W dot com. All right.

Stop online V-A-W dot com to see the full report. And that's also important when our people are sharing certain things. You're participating in digital voter suppression based upon what links you share, what means you share, what what stories you share. Yes. And we have two reports. Remember this. We did the report before anyone else did this on what was happening in 2016, before the Mueller report, before the state Senate report. In 2018, October 2018, we did the first report on how black identity was used as a tactic for voter suppression. Our follow up report, which is the one that I just which is the one we're talking about today, was just an expansion of that. Go to the first report and then go to the second report so you have a full synopsis of how this is being used against us in general.

Sheree Mitchell, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you for having me. All right. More than 1,000 New York police officers were sent over the weekend to enforce social distancing rules. Photos were posted on social media of crowded parks and other public spaces as New Yorkers took advantage of the warm weather. Folks, if y'all could show those photos, we'd be great to see it. Now it became so here's some of the photos here. You see folks out there, cops are talking to people and passing out masks. Yet, see the more photos and how people are sitting out there, no black people, and they're passing out masks. They're sitting out there on benches and in the parks,

not sitting six feet apart. Now let's show you what took place with black people. Let's show you the video that was shot. I'm going to stop. I didn't do nothing! I swear I didn't do nothing! I swear I didn't do nothing! Move back! Move the fuck back right now! Move the fuck back! Move the fuck back! What you flexin' for? Don't flex, or you'll get lost on the train! Look, look, look!

He ain't even do nothing! He ain't even do nothing! He ain't even do nothing. He's on it. He ain't even do nothing. He ain't even do nothing. He ain't even do nothing. Look. He ain't even do nothing. He ain't even do nothing. He pussy. That nigga pussy. That nigga pussy. That's why y'all get hurt, boy.

I got all that. I got all that. He got all that. He got all that. He got of that. We got more of that. We got more of that. We got it all. We got it all. We got it all. Back up.

Back up. Back up. Back up. Back up. Back up. Back up. Back up. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. All right, folks. So go to my iPad. Here's another video. My son posted as well. Again, how cops are reacting. Avis, it's perfect. It's very clear that again. Oh, my goodness.

If you're if you're white, here's some water. Here's a mask. How are you doing? Could you please just separate far more vicious enforcing social distancing among black people? Yeah, that that is state enforced terrorism. There is no excuse for what we just witnessed. I am, you know, Mayor de Blasio needs to be called to the carpet. What's going to happen to those police officers? There is no excuse for that. And I'm tired of seeing, you know, there's so many examples of this now that it's just making me angry. I mean, at this point, I don't even want to hear any explanations. I want to see some results. I want to see people fired. I want to see people put up on assault charges because that man just committed assault, that officer that we just witnessed. And, you know, when you compare it and contrast that, even if you look beyond New York at what's happening with

other states, with all of these, you know, white militia people who are out here, arms, carrying these very heavy arms, actually putting, threatening police officers. And nothing is happening to them. There is no more blatant display of what institutional racism looks like in America than the stark contrast that we are seeing right now in the middle of this pandemic. And someone needs to be held accountable for this. I am tired of seeing these types of videos. I'm ready for people to get fired. I'm ready for people to be put on charges. And when they're put on charges, I want them to be sent to prison where they can be put in very close facilities and find themselves at risk of COVID at the same

degree that disproportionately our people are when they are put in very close facilities, oftentimes locked up on tronked up charges, and some of them as a result are dying because of it. This is wrong and it needs to stop. This cop here, of course, has had his badge and gun taken, this cop right here, Teresa. But again, it shows you the difference in treatment. Yeah, this video is still playing in front of me. It's so frustrating. I have a lot to say, but we are on a rated G platform here. So this ain't G.

This ain't G. Well, obviously, you know, you know, it's so frustrating to see, especially of our own kind, doing it to each other. Right. There's no common decency. There's no, you know, let your voice be heard. There's none of that. There's no, hey, why are you here at the store? Hey, would you mind dispersing? It's what are you doing here? Oh, you know, why are you at this bus stop? Oh, where are you going? It's literally 21 questions before, you know, anything

appropriate happens or needs to happen. There's no, it's like, you know, there's two definitions that's happening in the precinct. One is, you know, without them saying color is just, you know, how your people are handled them accordingly. Right. Like this is just every day. But then when we look at these photos, you know, and then you see the protests, even in California, where people are protesting to get on the beach. Right. And they're so in close proximity, and it's not really us. It's not minorities that's out there protesting to get on the beach. It's white folks, right? And you don't see these type of incidences happening on the beach. You don't see these type of incidents happening when they're at the grocery store.

You only see it when it happens to us, when we're going to the bodega, when we're picking up our nephew or our child at the corner bus stop, when these type of travesties happen, and then when we record it, the actions of the police officer were then at fault. So, yes, I believe what Dr. Ava said, spot on. The reason why African Americans are so up in the tier for COVID is situations like this. We keep getting arrested. We keep getting put in paddy wagons with 10 or more people. You know, they're touching us. And the police officers are the ones with the COVID.

They're not even wearing the gloves. They're not even wearing their protective gear when they're handling us. And for me, that's just more than frustrating. We got to do better, period. Michael. Yeah. And you know what? And there's also like racism inside of racism. I mean, this this officer with the I'm assuming that's a New York Yankees cap. I can't really tell. It's kind of blurred. He's a person of color. And they took his badge and his gun. But how many times have we seen white officers do this? And then there's like, oh, well, there's an investigation first.

Let's see what happens. Let the facts come out. But they took his gun and badge immediately. And there was also an issue in Brooklyn the other day with the acidic Jewish community who were also harassed by the police. So this is just a pattern that is just, I mean, I don't know whether it's more training. It's having police officers understand their roles in the community, whatever it is, something's not working right. No, to me it's not training.

It's called getting fired. I think when all of a sudden when you stop paying police brutality claims out of city coffers and you actually take somebody's pension, trust me, that's going to get folks' attention. All right, folks, speaking of getting their attention, today Vice President Joe Biden's campaign dropped his plan for black America. This is the email here. Go to my iPad, please. It's called Lift Every Voice, the Biden plan for black America. It's a 20 plus page plan that advanced that talks about advancing the economic mobility of African-Americans and close the racial wealth

gap and income gap, investing in African-American workers, businesses, and communities and expanding African-American home ownership and wealth building. Expand access to high-quality education and tackle racial inequality in our education system by investing in universal preschool. Closing funding gaps by race, making college affordable, and tackling the student debt crisis. End health disparities by making far-reaching investments, expanding access to affordable health care, improving the quality of care African Americans receive, and making health equity a reality for African Americans. Strengthen America's commitment to justice by ending incarceration for drug use alone, reducing the number of people incarcerated, reinvesting those savings in communities affected by mass incarceration,

and addressing systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors' office. Make the right to vote and the right to equal protection real for African Americans by dramatically expanding the Department of Justice's ability to fight voter suppression and gerrymandering. Bring the full force of the federal government's authority to confront voter disinformation efforts targeting African Americans and appoint a federal judiciary that looks like America. Address environmental justice by making historic investments in forcing environmental justice by making historic investments, enforcing environmental justice bills and ensuring that African-Americans are dealt are dealt in and on the country's clean energy future. As I said, if you go through

this whole plan, it lays out, go to my iPad, please. It lays out where African-Americans stand. The 4% of all small businesses in America are owned by African-Americans, even though they make up 13 percent of the population. It talks about African-Americans being rejected at a rate nearly 20 percent higher than white-owned firms when it comes to getting capital. And it goes on and on and on. Michael, I want to start with you. You, of course, longtime official in the DNC. Do you think that this plan presented today by the Joe Biden plan is specific enough and covers to get the attention of black America? As I told you, Roland, and I like to be due full disclosure, Vice President Biden, when he was a senator, taught me in law school. So I have an affinity for my former professor. But having said that, I think the point of putting this out isn't saying that this is it.

We're not going to make any changes. This is a fluid document. So now people can say, hey, what about more here or less over here or let's elevate this topic. So I think this is a start. It's not the end. It's not the finished version. Now it's up to community leaders and organizations to say, okay, Mr. Vice President, we like this first start, but here's where we would change. Here's what we would edit. Here's what we would add to. And that's the point of this document. So I think it's a great first start. It's not perfect, but it'll be perfect along the way. Avis, your assessment of this black plan from Joe Biden? Yeah, I completely agree. This is this is a starting point.

I would definitely love to. I haven't gotten a chance to read the entire thing yet, but I will say it's good to see a starting point there, a place for discussion. I think it's very important, though, that the African-American community understands that it is really not, I'm just not of the belief, generally speaking, that we just need to rely on a politician to put together a black agenda. We put together our own agenda, and this is how we do it. Okay, he's put his proposals on the table, and now we come back and say, hey, these are some things that maybe are missing that we want. These things are maybe elevated in importance to us.

You know, now is the time to demand and really command our attention on those things that are most important to us and push for that. Yes, voting is important, but also making specific policy demands attached to what you are looking for in that particular elected official is critical too. And remember to hold their feet to the fire after the election as well. That's really what's especially important. Teresa, again, it covers education, economics.

It covers health. It covers a number of categories. Just your thoughts on it. I think it sounds good. You know, Vice President, former Vice President Biden has been in elected office for over two decades. So I'm hoping that the black agenda is at the top of the priority list instead of bagged in into legislation packages when times get tough and they need our support. I'm going to do this here, Anthony, again. So oftentimes people say, where's your black agenda? Where's your plan? OK, so, Anthony, go to my iPad. Go to my iPad. OK, I'm going to scroll through all 22 pages. OK, so just so you know, I'm going to do it slowly again.

So as you see it, it lays out, OK, here are the bullet points right here. Then it goes into investment, African-American business entrepreneurs. See the details there. Then it goes into increased federal contracting opportunities for African-American businesses. Then it goes into minority business development agency. You see all of that stuff right there. Support African-American churches during the COVID-19 crisis. Then it gets to home ownership and safe housing. Then it keeps going.

Then you go through that. Then you go through the Community Reinvestment Act. Then you go to equitable wealth building and more secure retirement. Then it goes through all of that. Invest in communities that need it most. Lays all of that. Support African-American workers. Lays in terms of those details there. Then we get to education and racial inequity in the education system. Then we go through all of that. And then we keep going. Any health disparities by race. Then you see all of the things that are here. Then, of course, strengthening America's commitment to justice. You see all

of that right here. Deals with the mortality rate of black women when it comes to having children. That's in here. Photo suppression in here. Environmental justice. You see that stuff in here as well. Okay. That's at the end. So anybody telling you where Joe Biden's black plan go right there. Go Joe Biden.com. Now don't run off around. People are saying, where's the plan? You got to read it you gotta read the plan first that's what's important

I think too often people aren't reading stuff and they're just popping off well I didn't see it what you did on this show it's on a website my advice to everybody out there I want you to go to the site I want you to read it I want you to look to the site. I want you to read it.

I want you to look at it. And then if there are things that you say that aren't being addressed, fine, come back and say it. But please don't run around saying there's no plan when there's a plan. One of the things he talks in here about, as he makes it clear about this, about the federal judiciary, a need for more black judges. He has said that if he wins, he will appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court. Those matter. In Washington State, Governor Jay Inslee made his third appointment to the Washington Supreme Court last week, elevating G. Helen Whitener, a judge on the Pierce County Superior Court, and joining a Supreme Court that has recently driven major criminal justice reform that is generally progressive but often divided.

Weitner could determine how it proceeds in years ahead. While this is important, joining us right now is Alicia Bannon, managing director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Alicia, we are seeing, obviously, we look at what's happening on the federal bench, but so many of these decisions are happening on state benches. And there are what, 24 states in America without a black Supreme Court justice? So right now there are 23 states with all white state Supreme Courts. All white, like no black, no Latino, 23?

23 states right now have all white state Supreme Courts. And that includes 12 states where people of color are at least 20% of the state population. So what are those 12? Like, name the states. Who we got? I mean, to give some examples, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada. So these are states with large populations of people of color. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,

hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, you're saying Pennsylvania and Michigan, two so-called traditional blue states have all white Supreme Courts?

Yep, as well as, like I said, Alabama, Nevada. So, you know, all across the country, we're seeing states where their highest courts, and these are really important courts. These are the courts that are deciding, are the final word on interpreting state laws and state constitutions. And in states across the country, their courts don't look anything like the populations that are being impacted by the decisions that they're making. So, wow. Now, in Pennsylvania, let's say Pennsylvania and Michigan and most of these states, are these elected positions or are they opponent positions? So it's it's a mix. You know, both states with elected courts as well as states with appointed courts have bad records. What we've seen, though, is that overwhelmingly states that use judicial elections, elections have very rarely

been a path to the bench for people of color. So in Washington, for example, that's a state that has judicial elections. But if you look at how the people of color have reached the bench, it's overwhelmingly been interim appointments by the state's governor. So what we've seen in a lot of states is that there have been real barriers to entry for people of color being able to compete in these statewide judicial elections. And that's the thing there. And so because we talk about statewide elections, it's hard for black people to get elected statewide. Yep. And we've looked at, we did an in-depth study looking at exactly kind of what the dynamics were. And we saw racial despair at basically every step along the way. So who ran, who was most likely to be challenged, who was able to fundraise the most, who got the most support from outside groups. So,

you know, there were racial disparities across the board. We also documented a lot of examples of racial appeals in these statewide judicial elections, a lot of, you know, sort of tough on crime ads that used racial stereotypes. There's also some evidence that at least in some states, people, you know, these are low information races. Usually people don't know a lot about the judges. And so that even makes it more likely that people will rely on stereotypes or kind of vote based on, you know, a last name that might seem more familiar. So what, you know, what is being proposed to change this, to remedy this?

Well, I mean, I think there's a lot to do. First off you know I said that judicial appointments have often been a path to the bench for people of color and we need to be making demands of our judicial nominating commissions and our governors that they need to actually pay attention and pay attention to diversity and prioritize diversity when they're filling their benches. We actually have two states right now, Rhode Island and Maine, that have never in their entire history had a person of color on their state Supreme Courts. And both of them have a vacancy right now. So there's an opportunity at this very moment to call on those states' governors to look at diversity as they're looking to fill those vacancies. And in states that use elections, we can also, we should be

calling for things like public financing that can help make it easier for people who might not be able to tap into the same kind of million-dollar fundraising bases to still compete effectively. And we should be calling for measures that give voters more information so that they're not just going to be making decisions based on someone's last name, so voter guides, other materials like that. All right, then. guides, other materials like that. All right, then. Well, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. And the good work done by the Brennan Center. Thank you so much. All right, then. This is one of those things, Teresa, that people don't understand. Again, so much attention is focused on the federal judiciary, but people keep overlooking states.

And I keep saying, yo, if it ain't the Constitution, folks, it's real clear. States' rights. And a lot of major stuff now is happening on the state level. When you talk about the attacks on the Affordable Care Act, yeah, on states, Medicaid expansion. Dr. Barber talked about that. When you talk about the issue of choice, state level as well. So we can go down the line why state Supreme Courts matter. The reason they were able to end political gerrymandering in, or actually racial gerrymandering in North Carolina, state Supreme Court. Amendment four was approved by the Florida Supreme Court. State Supreme Courts are huge. Absolutely. And, you know, you're talking to somebody with experience in this. In 2017, I was on the campaign to run the hopefully second elected African-American for Supreme Court.

And his name was Judge Dwayne Woodruff. You know, he was also a former NFL player. And, you know, the Democratic Party did, I will say, statewide did clear the pathway for him to get the Democratic nomination. But, of course, he fell short. And the last time in Pennsylvania we had a Supreme Court justice was Chief Justice, well, Justice Robert Nielsen Nix. And he was elected in office 1984 to 1996. And that was a 24-year span of which he was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. So, again, when we talk about, you know, those issues that really impact minorities, people of

color, black people, you know, they do come, you know, at the cost of, you know, knowing that we need to have representation on the bench. You know, I believe this won't be the last time that we try to get a, you know, African-American elected statewide. I'm in the midst of it right now with an auditor general candidate to a statewide role office, because I believe if we get qualified African-Americans that have keen issues and our issues at the top of mind, utilizing their vast years of experience. I believe that's how we start creating change. And that's how we start making our position a bit more powerful as it relates to the next generation and future policies moving forward. Michael Avis, real quick.

Super quick. There are two ways to get on the bench. And depending on the state you're from, it can be an election or obviously appointed. Now, I sat on some panel a long time ago with some folks that did not look like us. An interesting conversation. Some white folks have no problem voting for a mayor of color, city council of color, whatever they want. But on the criminal justice jobs, judge, sheriff, DA, they have a problem with that because they fear that this will be the revenge for slavery and oppression. If you put somebody of color on the bench or sheriff, then now they're going to come back and hurt us as white people. So there are a lot of these institutional crazy issues that we have to

overcome. And so, you know, you got to play the game if you want to be appointed with the different organizations in a particular state to get to the governor's office and obviously to get elected. You need to get elected, you need to make sure you're touching base with those groups that can help you fundraise and overcome. Real quick, Ava's final comment. Yeah, I'll just say really quickly that this is an issue that unfortunately oftentimes

goes under the radar in our community. Whereas for other communities, this is almost like a one, this is a driving force in their electoral behavior. And so I just want to encourage everyone to understand not only how important this is, but to act accordingly and to do everything that you can to make sure that we have representation at every level in charge of the judicial system. All right. Pamela, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Ava, Teresa and Mike. Mike, get that voice straight. Stop yelling at your kids. All right. Thanks a lot, Avis, Teresa, and Mike. Mike, get that voice straight. Stop yelling at your kids. All right. Thanks a bunch.

All right, y'all. It's Monday and time for our weekly fitness segment. Of course, we've got fitness philosopher Cootie Mac who has some health tips for you when it comes to workout. Cootie, what you got for us this week? Hey, man. It's good to be here. You've had me on talking about nutrition. You've had me on talking about how to exercise. The one thing we cannot forget to address is our mental space. So in these times, there's a lot of stress and a lot of stressors that are bombarding us. And so stress is one of those things that suppresses the immune system.

The main thing that suppresses the immune system actually allows disease and unwellness to proliferate. So basically, managing stress allows us to be our best daily. So I'm going to show you a couple of my favorite BYB de-stressors that help us de-stress in 60 seconds or less. The first one I'm going to show you is a ragdoll stretch. What I want you to do is stand with your feet as wide apart as you can, keep your legs straight,

push your hips back until you're stretching your hamstrings, and from the waist up, I want you to just hang like a ragdoll. You're going to tuck your chin to your chest, relax your neck and shoulders and your head, let your head dangle off your neck, let your arms dangle off your shoulders, let your hands dangle off your wrists, fingers dangle off your hands. Don't reach for anything, just hang. So you're just going to hang and as you start to hang what you'll feel immediately is a stretch to your hamstrings and then your lower back is going to start to open up. Let gravity just take you. Don't reach for the floor and you'll find that if you start with your

fingers a couple inches from the floor, gravity is going to naturally take you as you relax and touch your chin. It's going to take you to the floor. Your back rarely gets the opportunity to be in this neutral position. Because of that, it's just going to automatically make you feel relaxed. The longer you do this stretch, the better and the more effective. But if you only have 60 seconds, you will feel the effects of it in 60 seconds. My second favorite one is something that most of us can do. Matter of fact, I'll have you do it with me right now.

So what I want you to do is I want you to inhale deep through your nose for 10 seconds, hold that breath for 5 seconds, and then exhale for 7 to 10 seconds through your mouth like you're blowing a straw. I'm going to do it right now, watch. So inhale ten seconds. Hold it. And then exhale now if you do that three to four times uninterrupted i promise you whatever was stressing you out before you did that breathing exercise won't go away but the way you'll process it will be completely different because now your body's settled. Why? Because you have oxygen coursing through your lungs, therefore through your veins, therefore through your brain.

Oxygen is our primary fuel source. You can go for days without food. Some people fast. You can go for a day or two without water. You might get dehydrated and uncomfortable, but if you go more than three, four minutes without air, unless you're a scuba diver, you're probably're probably gonna die so there's a huge difference between uncomfort and death your body associates three clear breathing with wellness that's why we read so deeply on where sleep so you can buy the physical feeling of wellness with the actual fact that your primary fuel sources of course into your body right now that's going to help you settle down and process your situation way differently

than you were when you were hyperventilating or excited or just stressed out from whatever situation it was preceding that exercise. And last but not least, today at least, go through your favorite search engine, and this will take less than three seconds. Go through your favorite search engine, just spend five five minute meditation.

A string of videos are going to come up. You select one of those videos and just submit yourself to it in private. And you'll be amazed at how long that five minutes will feel. But again, it only took less than three seconds to find it. I haven't found one that is my favorite per se, but I have yet to find one that does not work. And when you do that five-minute meditation, you'll come out of it feeling centered and armed with whatever you need to face whatever's going on with you.

I suggest that you do those in the morning because it gives you a chance to take on the day before the day takes on you. And I actually have a whole bunch more, but I'll share those the next time I'm on. But if you have any questions, feel free to hit me at KumiMack, K-U-T-I-M-A-C-K on Instagram or find me online at bybdfitness.com. Got it. Kootie Mac, thanks a lot, man. My man.

See you next time. All right, folks. We lost a couple of greats. Alton Big Al Carlson, who was a fixture on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, died on Sunday two weeks after having a heart attack. Born in New Orleans and a Xavier graduate, Carl Carson started as a tuba player in brass bands. He became a proficient vocalist and founded the Blues Masters. He was 66 years old, was born in New Orleans and graduated from Xavier University. And so again, we certainly lost him and prayers for his wife, Karina,

and his family and all those who loved him. You might remember his song, Take Your Drunk Ass Home, one of my favorites. You know I don't drink. Another musical great, Tony Allen, who created Afrobeat, has died at the age of 79. From 1964 to 78, Allen worked with the band leader, Fela, who became known worldwide by that name. He was a musical director for Fela's band, Africa 70, which forged music that was both politically committed

and danceable, merging West African styles with American jazz and funk. After he left Africa 70 in 1979, he went on to an international solo career, leading his own bands and collaborating with rock, jazz, reggae, R&B, and electronic musicians, also thinking of his family at this time. All right, folks, time for our folks to give our 50 bucks or more to our Bring the Funk fan club. Let's get right to it.

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Your donations make it possible for us to do what we do right here every single day. Y'all got to understand, it's conservative websites. You've got billionaires out there giving to them. PragerU, they've given them $54 million in three years. Bottom line is, we've got to have our own institutions speaking to our issues. We need your support, so please join our Bring the Funk fan club. Everybody who comes

in who gives $50 bucks or more, you get a personal shout-out from me right here on the show. Folks, I've got to go. I'll see you tomorrow. Nafessa Williams, you see her in Black Lightning. She's going to be right here on Rolling Mark Unfiltered tomorrow. Looking forward to that great conversation. Howl! We'll be right back. You got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback.

Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that in a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios.

Stories matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

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