#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Black Owned Media Coalition seeks ad $, WCBS racism claims; Black sailor finds noose on Navy warship

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

2.3.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Black Owned Media Coalition launches, demands ad $, WCBS in New York faces racism claims; Ted Cruz delays vote on U.N. Ambassador appointee Linda Thomas-Greenfield; Man and his wife are both found innocent after two police officers accused them of armed robbery; Minneapolis police officers must wear activated body cams at all times; Black sailor finds noose on Navy warship; Justice Department drops discrimination lawsuit against Yale; Plus, in our Black Tech segment, an app that allows users to donate their spare change to HBCUs.Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$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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black media. We all talk to radio station owner, actor and activist Wendell Pierce about this new black media coalition in Louisiana. The CBS drama continues with new racism claims against WCBS in New York. Republican Senator Ted Cruz chose to delay the vote on United Nations Ambassador Appointee Linda Thomas-Greenfield because of a speech she made in 2019. Senator Cory Booker had her back. We'll show you the exchange.

Plus, a law Mississippi man and his wife are both found innocent after two police officers accused them of armed robbery in November. Um, y'all, it's an unbelievable story. And in Minneapolis, Both found innocent after two police officers accused them of armed robbery in November. Um, y'all, it's an unbelievable story. And in Minneapolis, there's a new policy that says police officers must wear activated body cameras at all times. About time. The Navy is investigating after a black sailor found a noose hanging at a base in San Diego.

And the Justice Department dropped its discrimination lawsuit against Yale University. It was stupid. In our Black Tech segment, an app that allows users to donate their spare change to HBCUs, and of course, our deconstruction on how black businesses are playing themselves small. We'll deal with that with Wendell Pierce.

It's time to bring the funk and Roland Martin unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling.

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I have consistently tried to explain to all of you the importance of black media, trying to explain to you why we must stand firm when it comes to demanding the dollars to ensure that we are able to survive and thrive. Well, today, Wendell Pierce, the actor who also owns the historic radio station in New Orleans, tweeted this out today that speaks to that very issue. He says, today we launched the Black-Owned Media Coalition at the New Orleans City Council. As an owner of Equity Media LLC, WBOK, 1230 AM radio station, we joined other coalition members, Data News Weekly, the New Orleans Tribune, and the Louisiana Weekly. Now, there were, do we have other tweets, folks? If we have it, go ahead and roll that. There were about

10 tweets that he actually posted of what these black media outlets wanted to do. And that is to challenge businesses in New Orleans that make their money from black people to actually reinvest in African-Americans. Why is that important? Because what is the point of black folks spending our dollars, making other folks rich, and they in turn not reinvesting in the black community? Joining us right now is Wendell Pierce.

He's, of course, part owner of Equity Media LLC. Wendell, glad to have you here. This was something that I had tweeted out a number of a couple of weeks ago. Actually, it's weird that I posted on my Instagram page and there were a couple of items that I posted. One of them that I said was that folk in America have been able to monetize black culture except black people. All of these people out here who launched these media companies that are black targeted, but they're not black owned. But another point that I had made that people, and they thought I was playing, they thought I was joking, was when I said that, and this is what I posted.

Go to my iPad. I said, it's a trip to be a black-owned media company, and you demand a fair share of advertising with the metrics to prove the reach, and folks want to say you're sticking them up. Nah, y'all just not used to a black media CEO making it clear he won't accept crumbs. I'm coming in 2021. When I saw your tweet, that's exactly what that said. I agree with you wholeheartedly, Roland.

We are exercising our right of self-determination. companies in this country are becoming wealthy and have built their success on pulling dollars out of the Black community. And at the same time, they don't do business with Black media companies out of those same communities. And here in New Orleans, I decided with my partners at EquiMedia, we own WBOK 1230 AM, which is a legacy radio station, talk radio station. And we joined with the other Black media owners here to go to the city council, to the utility committee, which regulates companies like Entergy, AT&T, the Sewage and Water Board here, Regional Transit Authority, companies that basically have the monopoly, the contracts to do business solely in the area without competition. But they aren't required to do any business in the black community.

And New Orleans is 65 percent black. And that was unacceptable. was a couple of weeks ago, Donald Rouse, who was the founder of Rouse's Grocery Store, had gone to Washington, D.C. and participated in the rally that led to the American insurrection. He came by request. He asked us to come on our radio station to apologize to the African-American community. He said that he didn't know he was in the middle of an insurrection. He didn't know what insurrection was about. He didn't feel as though he was complicit. And I explained to him that there was some complicity there. But what I realized was, in the 30-year history of Rouse's Grocery Store, one of the most successful businesses here in our region, he had never done any business with Black media. That his success was built on the dollars from the African-American community, but he had done no business with African-American business owners. So we realized that that was the canary in the mine.

That was the moment where we said we have to call all businesses, regulated and unregulated, in the New Orleans area to task and say that if you make a business decision, that you don't do business with us, we can go to our constituents, our listeners, our subscribers and readers of our media and say we're going to make a business decision about you and hold them accountable. Let's be clear not to work with them. He was coming to all of y'all. Yes. To apologize. So he knew y'all existed. So he reached out to black media for his apology tour.

But he had not been spending money on the same black media. Absolutely. And that was unacceptable. This is a grocery store that thrives because of the community here. We're, as I said before, we're the majority in the city. So to thrive in New Orleans, you have to make sure that the majority in the city is buying your products, taking part in your business, bringing you their revenue and their dollars. So his success was built on that. But he's not the only one. This is a pattern across the board when it comes to businesses here. We first saw it and we see it in the regulated companies. As I said before, our energy company here, Entergy, our regional transit authority, AT&T, Cox Cable, all of these companies don't do business with Black media, yet they thrive off it. Now,

as you said before, Roland, in your tweet, and as you put out before, and as you said at the beginning of this segment, they will tell you we reach out to the Black community. But we, and they'll cite different media outlets. But we have to remember that those media outlets aren't owned by Black folks. Those are large white conglomerates that are putting out Black content, that are making money off of cultural appropriation. Not appropriation, but just putting out our stuff, as you say. And they're making money off of it. But then they'll tell you that that's enough, that you should be thankful for that and yet

spend no dollars with us. Well, you can make that business decision. But if you choose to make that business decision, we're going to call you out. And so we put together the Black-Owned Media Coalition to say that when we identify those companies, we will let our constituents know so that they can take their revenue elsewhere, so that they cannot contribute to something that is successful for you, but not successful for us. The economic power that we have in our community, we have to use that and exercise our right of self-determination. And we believe in our coalition that the 21st century social justice movement is economic development. And that's what we're all about. For everybody who's watching, I need y'all to

also understand this, because this happens all the time. Folks love to talk about Dr. King. They love to talk about what he and others did. They love to talk about the March on Washington. They love to talk about all these different speeches. But I often say that the most important speech he gave was his last on April 3rd, 1968. And I want y'all to listen, because again, if you go back and study that 43 minute and 16 second speech, Dr. King lays out the game plan for the future advancement of black people. He literally gives the marching orders for the future. This is Dr. King on April 3rd, 1968, talking specifically what Wendell and I are talking about 53 years later. What we'll have to do is this. Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. Now, we are poor people. Individually, we are poor when you compare us with white society in America. We are poor.

Never stop and forget that collectively—that means all of us together, collectively we are richer than all the nations in the world, with the exception of nine. Did you ever think about that? After you leave the United States, so did Russia, Great Britain, West Germany, France, and I can name others, the American Negro collectively is richer than most nations of the world. We have an annual income of more than $30 billion a year, which is more than all of the exports of the United States and more than the national budget of Canada. Did you know that? That's power right

there if we know how to fool you. We don't have to argue with anybody. We don't have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don't need any bricks and bottles. We don't need any Molotov cocktails. We just need to go around to these stores and to these massive industries in our country and say, God sent us by here to say to you that you're not treating His children right. And we come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda fair treatment where God's children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you. So as a result of this, we're asking you tonight to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy sealed test milk. Tell

them not to buy what is other bread, Wonder Bread. And what is all the bread come to Jesse? Tell him not to buy hard bread. As Jesse Jackson has said up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain. Now we must kind of redistribute the pain. That point, redistribute the pain. What he is outlining is exactly what we're talking about. These folks want to take and take and take from us, starve our black media. That's how we are unable to get information. So when we don't know what's happening at city hall or county government or the state legislature, because the mainstream media outlets are not covering it. When you only see a couple of black

faces, when they're not hiring us, they're not making us the president of a publisher of the paper. They're not making us the top editor. In essence, when they starve our black media, they actually are cutting off the flow of information. And so we are unable to not only feed ourselves, we can't feed our minds. And that's exactly right, Rowling. As I speak to you right now on the national stage, the local media didn't even cover my presentation at the city council yesterday.

Now, here I am, someone who's from New Orleans, of New Orleans, working around the world, exercising our right of self-determination and calling people to the carpet. But they didn't feel as though that was important enough. The same companies that we were calling out that are regulated, that that body of the body of the city council, it's their job to regulate these companies to make sure that our tax dollars are properly spent, can call companies to task for not being online for half of the time. It was a meeting actually about high energy bills that out of the blue hit people really hard in January, and they claimed that it was very cold. And they said, well, we have all of these programs to show you energy efficiency and bills subsidizing and all kinds of assistance.

We just need to get the message out to the people. And the first thing I said in my presentation is, well, if you had come to the black media, purchased ads, put out a campaign, a messaging campaign with us, you would have gotten it to the people. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You don't know how to do that? No, no, no, Wendell.

We're going to rely on you to run a nuclear power plant, but you don't even know how to get the message to 65% of the people in New Orleans who are African-American. And here we are, a legacy black radio station, WBOK 1230 AM, what New Orleans is talking about. But you don't know how to talk to us. That's a problem. No, no, no, no, no. That's a problem. But here's what they do, Wendell. But here's what they do.

They know how to reach us. They want us to run it for free. Right. They want us to run the press release, run PSAs. Can you do a mention? And so they know how to reach us. But what they want us to do, they want us to work, do all the work for free. They want to invite us to their Black History Month events, take photos and put it on the photo page. They send stuff to your radio station. We named this African-American to a position. Can they get a shout out on the station? Can you run the photo in the black paper? Don't none of that pay the bills. Don't none of that hire staff. But when it comes to a mainstream TV station, radio

station, newspaper, website, oh, they're shelling out dollars. And let me also remind our audience something. If black media does get money, when we ain't getting actually advertising money, they're't getting actually advertising money. They're giving us community relations money.

Right. To keep their license. Half of the time. But what we have to realize is that we have power within our community. We have economic power. We have an economic engine. You know, I'm talking to you right now from Puncher Train Park,

a historic district in New Orleans, because in the 1950s, we exercised our right of self-determination by having access. This was the result of the civil rights movement, a blackion call and a mission to make sure that we use the knowledge that we have and our economic power to make sure that there's benefit brought to us. And those who do not accept that, who do not have our best interest at heart, we have to make sure that they are held accountable and that there's something that they have to pay. They have to have some consequences for those actions that are not in our best interest. And that's what we at the Black Owned Media Coalition, Louisiana Weekly, the Tribune,

New Orleans Tribune, Data News Weekly, and WBOK with Equity Media are going to do here in New Orleans. But Roland, I commit to you that we will join your effort nationally because we want to know, we want you to know that this is something that's just not localized. This is a national problem. And the more, the merrier, the more strength and unity. And I join that effort with you tonight. I want to show our folks this, and I've talked about this before. This was from three years ago ago where the NNPA and those black papers are members of the NNPA asked the congressman Eleanor Holmes Norton to have a federal study done on federal government media spending,

because in fact, when you when I saw your tweet, I immediately said, how much is the city of New Orleans? How much are are they spending dollars? And so this is the federal level folks. Go to my iPad. The study was done over a period of five years, 2013 to 2018. The federal government spent $5 billion on media advertising. Of the $5 billion in five years, 51 million went to black media. That is 1%. And so what you're talking about there is, cause you're talking about the businesses there in new Orleans.

The first thing I said was, huh, what's the city of new Orleans doing? Where are their dollars going? Uh, what is, where's the state dollars New Orleans doing? Where are their dollars going? Where is the state dollars going? Because all of those agencies are spending media money. And again, because I've run three black newspapers,

because I was news reporter morning anchor at a black radio station in Dallas, because I was morning talk show host and midday talk show host at WVON radio in Chicago, black-owned radio station, because I was the first editor of Tom Jordan's website, blackamericaweb.com, news editor of Savoy Magazine, worked at major broadcast and cable network for a special 13 years at TV One. So can't nobody talk to me about a black media experience. When I've done it all, the fact of the matter is the government dollars also don't go to us. So we are taxpayers, and we're not getting it back. And so then, Wendell, people then go, I guarantee they ask you, man, I can't hear your station.

Can y'all get bigger? Well, hell, we can't afford to buy another tower or extend our reach, or actually we can't grow our circulation because if we have more dollars we can advertise more put up billboards put up all kind of different stuff to grow audience and so that's how they choke us so we never are able to build capacity because they keep the dollars from us and it's not a handout that's the other thing that those dollars that you're talking about coming from the government, that's our treasury. That's our money. So if we're only going to get 1% of that over the five years, let me pay 1% in taxes over five years.

Right. You're not going to give me that rebate. So it is a demand and it's a necessity to make sure that we change the structure. It was very deliberately done. And in this time of reckoning, we have to understand that it's not about trying to convince people and try to make them understand what we're trying to do.

It's really being just as deliberate as they are to depress and exercise us out of participation in the economic flow, to be just as deliberate to put us in the flow. Ultimately, we want it to be memorialized and legislated in law. That's right. That a percentage of spending has to go to our community, reflected in a percentage of what our community gives you in the treasury.

So that's the clarion call that we're going to put out here in New Orleans to our city government to make sure that here we are a community of 65% that we are going to have to mandate it in law to make sure that whenever you do a media spend, you're going to have to spend with black media by law, not just by desire. We're not just going to put people out and embarrass them or shame them to do business because that's never worked before. Leave that to me as an actor to try to change somebody's hearts and minds. Let's change the law to make sure that we change business. I often talk on this show about Dr. King's book, Where Do We Go From Here, Chaos or Community? And I tell all of my people, I tell all of my folks to get a copy of that book. And it's interesting because I literally put this book in my bag today.

I'm always reading it, always referencing it. But I chose to put it in my bag today. And actually, this is before I even saw your tweets. If anybody wants to understand that King's speech, and if you want to understand how do we actually do what Wendell is talking about, what I'm talking about, you've got to read Martin Depp's book on Operation Bread Basket. The book is called Operation Bread Basket, an untold story of civil rights in Chicago, 1966, 1971. Martin Depp, white pastor, was actually on the committee with Dr. King and Reverend Jackson.

He was the one he kept all the notes. And in this book window, he literally lays out their strategy. He lays out how they did it. He lays out how they were able to negotiate these MOUs. And he lays out it was actually was, it was a six-point plan. It was six steps. Now, for the folks who are listening, Reverend Leon Sullivan, if y'all don't know his name, Google him. Reverend Leon Sullivan, amazing brother. He did this in Philadelphia, told Dr. King about it. Then what he did was, Dr. King then said, come meet with SCLC to present to us.

He presented to SCLC. King says, we're going to adopt it. That's how it became breadbasket. These were the six steps. First, information gathering. Two, committee evaluation. Three, negotiation and education. Four, economic withdrawal. Five, agreement covenant. Six, monitoring. Now, why am I saying that? Economic withdrawal was fourth. When part of the problem for a lot of black folks, we want to yell boycott first. You're not saying boycott first. What you're saying is there's a process to this.

We're going to give you an opportunity to work with us, to provide resources. But if we reach a point where you're obstinate, like they were in Chicago, then they went to the pulpits and told folk, do not spend money with these stores. That's what caused them to get to agreement. So there's a process that we, that's, this is right here. They laid out, it's a process that we have to follow so it's orderly and

proper so we're educating our audience about why we're doing it and how they should respond. And that's exactly what we're doing here with the Black Owned Media Coalition. We told them, it's March 1st. Take this month of February to figure out why

you're not doing it, how you can change it. Look within your internal protocol and find out what's preventing you from working with Black media, and then try to rectify it. But come March 1st, we're going to be calling people out. And so you're exactly right. There's the protocol that Operation Breadbasket put out there. That's why I'm a supporter of the Poor People's March. These are all tools in which we'll be able to have a tangible, a tangible impact in our community. An exercise I write, this is my mantra of self-determination.

We have it within our power economically as well as politically. Well, I certainly support what y'all do. You let me know when y'all want me to bring Roland Martin Unfiltered to New Orleans. If there's sort of a drive-in rally, we did a lot of those in Georgia covering politics. If there's something socially distanced, something whatever, we'll be happy to come there, live stream it, put it out there, because I am absolutely committed to this as well. I am pushing the Biden administration. I push Senator Chuck Schumer.

I'm sitting here. I just hit Nancy Pelosi's office again trying to get her on this show. Her staff is tripping. I'm going to let her know. I've been telling the CBC that $5 dollars over five years, a billion dollars a year. We must be getting that. Don't come talk to black media to run stories on covid vaccine. When you're paying other people to run ads, that has to be our piece, because we need black media having 50 and 100 employees. We can have you. I'm sure you would love to have a city hall correspondent, a state legislature correspondent, have people all around.

Especially if the government has given these the right for these companies to merge and become these conglomerates that try to move companies like ours out. You know, you're going to approve those conglomerates, but then you're not going to come back and do business with us. So I agree with you. Not only is it going to happen in business, regulated and unregulated, but also in government as well. That's it. Well, just let me know. I'm there with you, man. And again, you have been a mentor to me. You are you are a media mogul in my mind. And it's evidenced

by the product that you put out every day. And are greatly appreciated roland it's always a honor to be on your show thank you for giving us uh amplification of what we're doing here in new orleans and i just want everybody to know that my name is wendell pierce and i'm the owner of wbok 12 30 a.m what new orleans is talking about well i tell you in the words of frank lucas i'm gonna get that money yes indeed well i appreciate it man I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right. Let's bring up our panel right now, folks, to chat about this issue. And it really is a fundamental issue that we cannot ignore because it speaks to exactly why black media is unable to be able to have capacity,

to be able to grow, to be able to send people out. Joining us is A. Scott Bolden, former chair of National Bar Association, Political Action Committee, Robert Petillo, executive director, Rainbow Push Coalition, Peach Tree Street Project, Monique Presley, legal analyst and crisis manager. I'll start with you, Robert, because you with Rainbow Push. Rainbow Push was born out of Operation Breadbasket. There are a lot of people who speak negatively about Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. The reason I have always given due respect to him, and I've criticized, but I've always given due respect to him and I've criticized, but I've always given due respect

is because there are a litany of people today who have lived off of the millions that he and bread basket made possible. there are individuals who at their college paid for because they went after these companies and the people read this book they didn't just say hire black people they said hire them senior positions put them on your boards they said invest money in black banks they said hire black companies to do work for your company as well. What has happened is we've gotten so far removed from that because, Robert, we figured, oh, it's just going to happen. So I don't really need to say anything. You can't show me nothing where black folks got anything in America and did not require us to have to get in folks ass.

Well, you're absolutely correct. And one thing I think that people have to remember is the economic component of the civil rights movement. What we've allowed to happen is with Black History Month, we've allowed our history to be co-opted. What do you think? It was all about marching and singing and not by the economic aspects of what they were fighting for. It wasn't simply a question of racial justice, a question of economic justice of what they were fighting for. It wasn't simply a question of racial justice. It was a question of economic justice, housing justice, fair representation. One thing that Reverend Jackson pioneered was civil rights organizations buying stock in Fortune 500 companies and then showing that up at the shareholders meeting to demand, do you have a minority contracting firm, to demand that you work with minority truckers, that you have African

Americans on your board of directors, that you have African-Americans on your board of directors, that you have a chief diversity officer. This was going on in the 80s and early 90s. Many people who have those nice corporate jobs now would not have those opportunities if it wasn't for people raising hell and fighting and dying and getting shot and all these other things 30 and 40 years ago to open those doors up for them. So what we have to do is stop reciting this black history fairy tale that we're taught every year, where, you know, one morning Abraham Lincoln and Harriet Tubman decided to go on the Underground Railroad to pick up Martin Luther King and have the march on Washington. Then later on, Obama was elected and racism was over. That's the way that we teach young people that the civil rights

movement worked in this country, when in reality it it continues today that we have to pick up this baton and fight not just for representation. Representation matters, but power matters more. We look at what happened with Robin Hood just last week. We could do that in the black community every day if we were united. We could simply say everybody buy this penny stock today and we'll get rid of it tomorrow, and it would quintuple in price, and then we will move on to the next thing. But it requires unity. It requires us all singing from the same sheet of music. It requires us all to be fighting in the same direction, because that's what we've done in the past, and that's where the things that we have today have come from. They did not simply arise organically. There was never a moment where white America decided that they would give African-Americans equal rights. They didn't simply

have the kindness of their heart decided that you could have a corporate job, that you would integrate these institutions. It took blood, sweat, and tears. And to kick down those final doors is going to take blood, sweat, and tears from this generation to ensure that we get across the finish line. Monique, the other day day you and I were talking about this very topic. I'm not going to name the individuals or the companies, but what we were talking about was what happens when black folks are in a position to generate revenue and what then happens when we turn around and say, you know what? I'm not going to hire this white PR firm. I'm going to use my dollars to help build

and cultivate this black PR agency so they have capacity. I'm not going to just run to Good Morning America and CBS this morning with the first interview of a client. I'm going to say we're going to talk to Good Morning America and Roland Martin unfiltered. Or when I interviewed Kerry Washington, when her people told her, well, Kerry, when she was doing the Anita Hill movie on HBO, matter of fact, window play Clarence Thomas in that movie, they told her, well, can't we just give Rowling 15, 20 minutes? Because,

you know, we've got Jimmy Kimmel. And she said, well, no, how about we give Jimmy Kimmel 10 minutes and get rolling an hour? See, black folks have to be intentional with how we spend our money in order to build up our, our own companies. And what Wendell is talking about saying the same thing, we're just going to be intentional saying, oh, since your supermarket, you don't support black media. We're going to go shop at the supermarket that does. Yes. First of all, I just want to say every single thing that Robert said, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, all so true, so poignant and on point. And, yes, we were just talking about this, and here's my thought there is nothing more tragic more hypocritical

than having black folks with means with ability with power to be out front calling themselves activists calling themselves leaders in movements and then when you peel back the onion, when you pull back the curtain, every single person working for them is white. I don't mean working for them like the employees working. I mean, the companies with which they're doing businesses, the names that are on the shingles. So we're publicly saying buy Black and then we're not buying. We're publicly pushing for people to be hired, but we won't hire. We won't work with.

We won't groom. And so if you know the deck is stacked already and you don't use your power in order to level. Remember, we're still talking about equity, power and equity. How does the small media company ever not be small or the PR company ever not be able to grow? How do they grow to become the same as the behemoth that you've been using if they are not given those opportunities and if they aren't given them with weighted decision making? Yes, you could probably get more service from a global company, but then you'll never have companies of color that are global because we keep making these same decisions over and over again.

The. I do this consistently, Scott, because I really need the audience to understand the correlation. I had somebody say to me, why would you tell your audience how much that cost? I said, well, when my fan base last year gave $672,000, it's important for them to know that that new streaming equipment that cost $90,000, they paid for. When we got new C300 cameras, that whole suite was about $75,000. They paid for that. When we're traveling, they paid for that. When we're traveling, they paid for that.

One, I think it's important for folks to understand how much this stuff really costs. And that's important. But it's also important for them to understand why when we do 20 to 30 million views a month, and then I see other folk don't even get near that, yet they are receiving several million dollars from ad agencies. And then when we talk to the ad agencies, they talk to us like we're crazy. When we were pushing aggressively

against the Biden campaign to spin with black owned media I literally had some black people telling me man you need to stop you should be satisfied I said hell no I ain't satisfied and I wasn't satisfied with what we

got because it wasn't what we asked for and again there's no there is not a single black media company with a congressional correspondent. There's not a single black media company with a correspondent at the Department of Justice. There's not a single black media company that actually has a correspondent at Health and Human Services, at Interior, at Commerce, at HUD. April Ryan was with American Urban Radio Network, White House correspondent.

She now went over to the grill. That's it. Just April. That's it. Nobody else. I can go around this country. You do not have a single black media company that has a national correspondent dedicated to business. There's not a single black media company with a national correspondent

dedicated to politics. There's not a single national black, there's not a single black media company with a national correspondent dedicated to covering black lives matter. So what we have right now in black media is what I call aggregation. We got black media people rewriting stories that white folks have written in other outlets, putting their name on it, or put a so-and-so staff writer, but they didn't actually do any reporting whatsoever.

We're not traveling. We're not going anywhere. We're not covering anything. And the problem is we are, in essence, relying on somebody else to tell our story. And that simply has cannot happen. But, you know, the other thing is, is that the demand of excellence doesn't change. But you as a journalist demand for excellence, you've still got to be excellent, even with less dollars and less money. Secondly, there are a couple other buckets to what you're

saying as far as Black economic empowerment, right? Black people and the psychology of Black people, we've got to work on our people too, Roland. For example, many of them who say, why don't you say that, or why don't you stop saying that through the Biden campaign, they actually believe that people that don't look like you, they're ISIS-colder, whether it's in media, the law, medicine, architecture, you name it. The psychology of many of our brothers and sisters is that somehow if you're black or if you're a person of color and you run a business, you don't really have a good sense of business, so they're giving you less. That's why the big advertising companies and many Fortune 500 companies advertise, they give you community relation dollars. I'm general counsel to the NMPA.

We don't always get advertising dollars, and if we do, they're far less than they would give to the majority newspapers, even though those advertisers, majority of their work or the majority of their business or a large chunk of it is from people of color. And then the second bucket under that is that we have to be as excellent as our white competitors, right? So when we do buy black and you're black of a means or white of a means or whomever you are, right? In order for us to continue to change that myth, we've got to provide

an excellent product or excellent services. But it's hard to do without smoke and mirrors if we're not getting the same money our white counterparts are getting. And so it's a broader piece, but they all are intertwined.

They all work back and forth to change this issue. For folks who are watching and listening, understand something. You cannot have a media company if you don't survive on advertising. Now, sure, you could create their nonprofit outlets out there. There's a Texas Tribune. There's a Marshall Project. There's a Texas Tribune. There's a Marshall Project. There's ProPublica. But they also have been able to receive, you know, significant foundation support things along those lines.

You have Wendy Thomas with MOK Memphis with what they're doing there. They were born out of MOK 50. You have a number of different projects. But the bottom line is this here. 99% of the media companies out here are for-profit media companies and they're dominated when it comes to advertising. And what happens is, what happens is they force black media. Look, we'll fund y'all entertainment stuff. We'll fund your gossip stuff. We'll fund your sports stuff. No, no, we ain't going to fund the news stuff.

But then our people then go, well, why is it that we don't know about this and this and this and this and this and this? Because they don't cover that stuff. They don't cover it. There's a reason why I don't spend lots of time on that stuff. They don't cover it. There's a reason why I don't spend lots of time on that stuff. Now, I'm going to say this because I literally have been interviewing people in the last week for this. Because when I told y'all, I was serious about this here. And this is, no, I'm going to stay right here. Go back. Go back. I need my panel up. Because I need the people listening

to understand what I'm about to lay out. What I need y'all to understand. When I agencies, federal government, when it comes to the lack of media dollars. And they're going to be covering the lack of pension dollars that we're receiving from these federal from these federal and state pension funds. And how so for everybody to understand something, New Jersey, 80 billion dollar pension fund, the federal government, nearly a trillion dollar pension fund. Black people are managing 100 million of the nearly 1 trillion. Let me be clear, Monique, they ain't got no problem with us talking about mass incarceration. They ain't got no problem with us talking about social justice. But let me remind people,

King was killed when he started talking about the money. Economic empowerment. When King started talking about the money, when he started talking about the money, I keep telling y'all,

there's only one federal agency that shares along with the White House, the Department of Treasury, White House power, treasury money, power, money, money, power. And so we have to be fixated on the money because if you don't deal with the money, money, you can't deal with the education. You can't deal with the health. You can't deal with the housing. You can't deal with none of that. And see, we sitting over here, well, man, what if we, well, this budget allocation, I'm telling you, the money is sitting,

y'all, you can yell reparations all day. The money actually is sitting there right now when it comes to the pension fund, when it comes to the media advertising, when it comes to the 8A program, when it comes to the pension fund, when it comes to the media advertising, when it comes to the 8A program, when it comes to how the Trump, how the Obama folks unbundle contracts, the Trump people bundle the contracts back up. So you are a small black owned business. You can compete for the larger contracts. Why does that matter? Because when Maynard Jackson was the mayor of Atlanta in 1973, it was black people getting.0012% of

all city contracts. He then came in and said, when they rebuilt the airport, he said, look, I will have tumbleweeds going down that damn runway before I allow this airport to rebuild if black people are not getting part of those contracts. How he broke apart the prime

contracts into smaller prime contracts to allow black firms to be able to get those dollars. I need our folk to understand they are systematically freezing us out of the money. And while we are over here protesting, hey, we need to have criminal justice reform, which we do. They over here taking all the money, Monique. Absolutely. And I mean, the word says money answers all things. And it's the truth. And it's the answer for freedom, liberty, equity, equality for our people as well. When we were brought here from our homeland, the reason was economic. It was money.

Sure, they thought that we were less than. They thought that we weren't as much of a human as they were. But the utility of slavery was the point. The point was for the slave owners to keep getting wealthier and wealthier because they did not have to pay for the wages what we were worth for the work that we were doing, for the building, for the crops, for every area of this country that we're responsible for developing. And the same is true now. The real racists aren't the ones necessarily who we saw being criminals and insurrectionists at the Capitol week before last. Yes, they are racist, but they lack in power. That's the most powerful day they will ever have because they played their hand. They overplayed it. And now the real racists, the ones who they provide cover for, are having to shut them down so that they're not outed.

Because the real racists are the ones in the bank who are doing the red line and who are keeping us from getting loans. The real racists are the ones who are in control of hiring, who are running networks. The real racists are the ones at the hedge funds who keep the people with small amounts of dollars from getting ahead. That racism is about keeping an advantage in perpetuity. And until we get right about that and understand, like you said, Roland, it starts and ends with the money, we will keep having to struggle and fight for the crumbs. See, Robert, I've had some other people who said, you know, why you got to ask for money? Why are you begging? I said, it's not begging.

When I ask people to support our fan club, that ain't no different than asking somebody to take a subscription out to the newspaper. Washington Post does it. New York Times does it. But see, the way they do it is they had the money to put together a commercial. See, the Washington Post put a commercial together. Went and paid somebody to produce a commercial. Then went and paid some other folk to air the commercial for them to get

subscriptions. Well, hell, we can't afford that. We built our audience. We have not bought a single ad on this show because we can't afford it. All the money going back into the show. So when I say what we're doing, and I ain't got a problem putting money on it, I am trying to allocate $100,000 to pay a writer to solely focus on this for the next year.

That means if 2,000 of our fans give 50 bucks each, that's paid for. Because see, when the freelancers out there, Robert, I've been there. I've been that freelancer. The freelancers out there, they dole out a $500 story, a $250 story, and a $1,000 story. What I'm trying to tell them is, don't worry about it. You're going to eat for the next year. You can pay your bills. I just need you to focus on this and churn out stories.

Write them. We're going to post them on the site. We're going to provide the stories for free to the black newspapers. Then we're going to have them come on the show because we have to have the data that shows. And when I say the data, Robert, I'm talking about going to publicists

and Mediacom and WPP and Group M and every damn media ad agency in America to say, what is your black spin? Not your black targeted spin. What is your black owned media spin? And what are the numbers? And while we at it, what's the percentage of the black folks who work in your company and where do they work? Are they on the creative side? See media? We're the only ones who shine a light on everybody else. But media don't like when a light is shined on them. I'm prepared to bring a big ass spotlight. You're absolutely right, Roland. I think one of the things that's important to understand is there's been a big push for, we talk about this idea of representation now since the marches and protests last year. Every single commercial seems like it has to have, you know, an African-American woman married to a white man with curly hair, and that's the commercial.

Whether you're selling Nissans or sneakers, it doesn't matter. They just want to have that representation there to make it look like they're doing something. But if you look at the people who wrote the commercial, you're not going to see a black face. If you look at the people filming the commercial, you're not going to see a black face. If you look at the people catering the commercial, you're not going to see a black face there. So what we have to do is move past this concept of simple representation, move past this concept of just having a black person reading the script and figure out how to have more black people writing the script and operating the teleprompter and working behind the scenes and creating that vertical and horizontal integration that we know is the key to creating wealth. Janice Mathis, executive director of the National Council of Negro Women, makes a great point, which is that racism has never been about proximity.

Racism was never about white people not wanting black folks around them. During slavery, you know, we were on the plantation with them. We were in the house with them. Often we were in the bed with them. We would breastfeed their babies. We would cook their meals. We would shave them. That is what they did.

It was never about proximity. It was always about power. Separate but equal was fine until we started doing better. And that's where you get a Tulsa 1906. That's where you get Atlanta race rights. That's where you get Atlanta race rights. That's where you get many of the insurrections and white race rights that happened in the early part of the last century, because they were fine with being separate, but they were not fine with us having more power than them. So we have to fight through this system to not simply

be in proximity to others, but to have the power to do something about it. And that's going to require political activation. It's going to require our business community to unite with our media community, because this is cross-sectional. This goes across every cross-section of Black society, whether it's media, whether it's plumbing, whether it's the legal field. I think everybody who's a lawyer who's been in private practice has had that experience of understanding that there's a lot of your white counterparts who are getting special assignments, who are getting quarter-pointed work, or who are able to go into the jail to get supplemental income that often is not given to black-owned law firms when you're first starting out. So there's always going to be a cross-sectional demand for black power and economics, and we have to fight towards

that, not simply the image of black power, but the actual economic ability to affect change. Scott, for the people, again, how you connect the dots. Yesterday, my folks sent me a batch of invoices that I approved twice a month, the 1st and the 15th. Yesterday, I approved $17,000 in invoices that was tied to the work we did in Georgia. Those were freelancers in Georgia who were not getting work as a result of COVID, who we were able to pay who worked with us. So when we are demanding the dollars from the Democratic Senate campaign committee and from the Biden presidential campaign, we are paying our people. See, that's also the difference. So it's not just, oh, no, we're just going to keep it. No, no, no.

We also hiring people. But the thing that I want people to also understand here, Scott, when we talk about how we hold them accountable. Last year, I had to come on this show to publicly call out Young and Rubicam like I did Senator Amy Klobuchar and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and I ain't done, Speaker Pelosi. I had to call them out because Young and Rubicam got the whole contract to handle the census money. Young and Rubicam froze out the black ad agency, Carol H. Williams. Tell everybody to go to their online portal. We filled it out in April. Didn't hear from nobody. Hell, we got down to August.

It's a month left. I'm like, hey, what's going on? I start calling them out on the air. Then all of a sudden, they call Kelly's with them. Oh, my God, what's going on? She said, hell, y'all ain't responding to the man's request. What should we do? She said, I advise y'all to cut a check because he ain't going to stop.

I literally have folks saying, you know, why are you doing that? I said, did you miss the part how they didn't even respond to our proposal? We didn't hear from them. We're reaching 20 to 30 million views a month and like we don't exist.

There is no other black entity doing a daily digital show like we are. No black cable network, no black broadcast network. And you're going to act like we don't exist. They literally took Stephen Horst for Congress from Nevada. Scott, he literally said on this show that YNR told him, we are not going to buy any print ads for a paper of 50,000

circulation or fewer. Scott, that's 98% of all NMPA newspapers. That means that the black papers are not going to receive, did not receive any census money

and they are taxpayers. Exactly. Which is why I called for them to have a call for an audit of YNR to see where every single dollar went to see who got that $350 million. Well, it certainly didn't go to community-based newspapers in these communities of color all around this country who reached thousands of voters, if you will, who have reached thousands of people who should be part of the consensus. And to be honest with you, the real message that you're sending here when it comes

to Black people and these contracts is power concedes nothing without a struggle. It never has and never will. And so as you, as Frederick Douglass would say, it never has and it never will, which is why it's so important for you to be bringing this issue up. Let's not forget about what Maynard Jackson did with the banks in Atlanta, his first term and second term. They had no black people on the banks. And so he used his political power to say, you want to put my public dollars in your bank that are black taxpayer dollars, then you put somebody black on the board, put them on the loan committee, if you will. And so it all just fundamentally makes sense. What I don't understand is black people who ask

you those questions, who seem to be educated, who listen to you every day, and still, from a psychological standpoint, have an inferiority complex in regard to equality. Scott, I get it. No, no, Scott, Scott, I understand it. You know why? Tell me. When you've... 2021...

No, no, no, no. No, it's actually, actually, it's not hard at all. It's not hard at all. It's not hard at all. How can a man who never experienced love know love when he sees it? How can a woman know what real love looks

like if she never experienced it? The reality is this here. Most of us have never in the words of Bob Johnson, been in the deal flow. Most of us have never sat at the table of power. Most of us have never sat across from somebody and negotiated a six-figure salary. So if you've never negotiated, first of all, if you ain't never had a job that required a negotiation,

they just said, that's what we paying. So when you've never actually operated and been in that space, then you don't know what that looks like. So when I, and again, this is why when I said I was going to do this conversation yesterday called I need black business and stop playing themselves small. I decided to go ahead and merge it in this conversation, I have sat in meetings and had someone tell me and my associate, well, we can take $20,000 and give it to these five black papers and they'll be happy. I said, I ain't them. That's right. And the basis of what I'm saying, and this may sound real weird to everybody who's watching.

Nearly everything I know about business came from my grandmama and her catering business. I used to sit on my grandmother's couch and I used to watch as the bride and her mama would come to my grandmother's house to book weddings. And I'd be sitting over there on the couch either with the bride's daddy or the bride's fiance watching TV while they booking a wedding. And I would see people sit there, Monique, and they would be booking the wedding and they would be going through whether we're doing glass plates or plastic, candelabras, whether they're going to have an owl runner, silk or fresh flowers, and they go through.

And all of a sudden, they would get to the end. Now, my grandmother's sitting there, you know, going through. Now, this is a three-, four-hour process. And we get to the bottom, and all of a sudden, she get a calculator, and that sucker say $32,000 hour process. And we get to the bottom and all of a sudden she get a calculator and that sucker say $32,000, Robert. And all of a sudden the bride, her mama, oh, we, well, Miss Lamont, we were really thinking about a budget of, you know, 10, maybe 12,000. First of all, why don't you walk in here and saying, look, I got a budget of $10,000. What's the best package I can get for $10,000? That ain't how folks want to do it. But then I remember, Scott,

my daddy, who did the cooking for the catering business, my mama had a separate cake business. I remember one day my daddy said to my grandmother, I ain't cooking no more. She's like, why? Because he said, I'm not getting paid enough. And my daddy stopped cooking for the catering business. Now, my grandmother, she tried to work around. It didn't last more than a month or two. Then she had to go back and beg him to come back. But she had to pay more money. Mm-hmm.

Why am I telling you? Yeah, but you know, Rolla. Hold on, hold on, hold on. But let me, for the people who don't know where I'm going. The reason my grandmama, who we call mother, Robert, couldn't pay why she was so stingy paying my daddy, because she wasn't charging enough.

See, had my grandmother charged for what her services were worth, then she would have been able to freely pay my dad more and her profit would have been fine. So one of the reasons black businesses are in our condition is because one, we walk into meetings

with a hat in hand, head bowed, talking mealy mouth, say, it'd be nice if we could. Now, you may not be able to do 20, but we'll go ahead and take 10. You've already negotiated against yourself. This requires, this requires, Monique, for black businesses to walk in and say, I am going to deliver you this. I'm going to produce a quality product. This is my number. You're not going to pay me 22 cents on the dollar.

You're going to pay me 82 cents on the dollar if I can't get 100. But what they are used to, Monique, is for us accepting the 22 and then say, be happy with the 22, that has to change. It does. But so there are three different things I see that are going on that are at play. I listen and watch a lot of Bob Proctor. And one of the things that he says that he asks anyone who's getting ready to come on and join him either in a mentorship type relationship or as a partner in the company, he asked them the most money they've ever made. He says the number itself is not really important to him. It doesn't matter if the most they've ever made is 50,000 or if the most they've ever made

is 500,000. He asked them what that number is because then he knows their mindset. Because if they've already made $500,000 in a year, then making $500,000 in a year is not anywhere outside of what they know can be done. If the most they've ever made is $50,000, then they're at their limit. And everything they do on top of that, that they are trying to get to from there is aspirational. So we have to bring our people into the frame of mind through association and exposure that they can do more and be more because you can't be what you can't see. The problem though, Roland, is that some of us make it somewhere and don't bring nobody. Right. You know, if you're in the meeting

and you're placing a demand in the meeting and you know how to adequately pitch your proposal, you know what your elevator pitch is supposed to be like, you know what it's like to negotiate, you know what it's like to bring somebody in with you who's going to do the majority of the talking and you're just the decision maker. You go in with this plan.

Well, they don't teach that in school of hard knocks. They don't teach grandma that when she's growing her company out of her kitchen. They don't teach sister girl that when she's doing hair in her garage. You don't get management level training. You don't get management level training. You don't get deal making. Warren Buffett isn't sitting on the corner telling you the way you're supposed to get it done and what the value is of real estate and how holding on to grandmama's house is actually worth more than that Mercedes you sold it to get. So we have to provide a vehicle for personal exposure to how we got somewhere. Another thing Bob says, you want to get somewhere, go talk to somebody who got there.

Well, when somebody comes to talk to me, I got to be open to that conversation. Are you serious? If you're serious, you can walk with me. If you're not serious, I'm going to find out in 30 seconds. But we're accountable for those lessons. And so I am thankful that you're doing shows like this. And I want people who are listening to know

don't feel bad if most of this is going that's a lack of exposure. And we're trying to do something about it. And I am committed to that. Scott, again,

there has to be a reprogramming of black folks. Yeah. We have got to reprogram ourselves. And what I appreciate, and I really appreciate, what I appreciate what Wendell and others are doing is that they are not doing it alone. I can tell you, Scott, there were numerous black media people. And if I did a roll call,

oh, some feelings would be hurt. I did numerous black media people who I reached out to saying, y'all, we can't individually cover Georgia the way we need to. So why don't we simply pool our resources together and work together and then also go after the ad money together where we all get paid? Very few responded. Yep. Very few. So we said, fine, we'll go it alone. And we did. And I know a couple of people, Scott, who tried to cut an ad deal but didn't want to include us. Separate and apart from your coalition.

No, no, no. They ain't want to do nothing together. Right. But a couple of people, a couple of folk tried to cut a deal. I know for a fact, Scott, this is what they got. I can tell you we got a hell of a lot more than zero. A hell of a lot more. I keep trying to tell these people, stop trying to play games and cut folk out.

We are more powerful as, this is us, but we more powerful as this is us, but we're more powerful like this. But a lot of folks are scared of this because even some black people are scared of black power. Final comment, Scott? Exactly.

The fact of the matter is, it makes all the sense in the world, but black people just don't trust black people, or they think it's going to be too aggressive, and they're scared of their own shadows. It's that psychology that's got to be reprogrammed. The other thing is, when you talk about deal flow and coming to the table, my mother, who's not here anymore, used to say, tell me when I was growing up, that you're from Joliet, Illinois. Wherever you go in this world,

you better act like you belong there, not like you're happy to be there. And what she was talking about is what you were talking about, sitting at that table across from what the deal that you want and being assertive and confident and being prepared to walk away if you don't get your 80% or something that you can make sense of versus just taking that 20% of that $20,000. And so those buckets that I talk about, we got a lot of work to do on our community in those industries. We got a lot to do with fighting white privilege and what the crumbs we get when we go to Fortune 500 companies. But then we also got to do the psychological work on our people, too, in these industries so that they have confidence and believe in themselves and trust each other to get more

from the masses or by coalition than going it alone. Robert, final comment. One, as you said, advertising is important. Join Rainbow Push Coalition, www.rainbowpush.org. But also, I think it's crucially important what you were saying, that this would be cross-sectional. Every attorney that I can think of who started off in private practice had that experience that Scott was talking about, where they said, well, I went to the white attorney and he said he can't do my son's murder case for less than $30,000. I got $3,000 and can give you $20 a month for the

next 10 years. Will you take the case? And that's how many black lawyers end up not being black lawyers anymore. And the reason I'm saying that, because I took that case and I won that murder case. You cannot build those large multinational law firms on $3,000 cases. You cannot build the next, you know, Ken Nugent or whoever the big white attorney is taking nickel and dime cases. So we have to treat black businesses and black business people with the same respect that we give other folks. And Plaz has a song where he says, 12 lawyers and they all Jews. Because in our community, for some reason, having a white Jewish attorney is seen as being a status symbol, as if a black attorney cannot give you those exact same or better and more competent legal services.

And quite frankly, this goes into media. This goes into catering. This goes into every field because black business cannot grow if you do not have black business support behind it. And that's willing to give give the same compensation as they would to a majority firm. Folks, this is about the money. And if you wonder why black media is starving and why we can't cover things the way others do, it's because when Fox is profiting more than a billion dollars, when CNN is profiting a billion dollars,

when MSNBC is profiting $700 million, msnbc is profiting 700 million that ain't they revenue y'all that's their profit that's what they that's what they have after expenses ain't no black media company near that bottom line is we need you to stand with us if y'all want to support what we do please do so by joining our bring the funk fan club Every dollar you give goes to support the show the one of the reasons I tell folks you give on YouTube we get 55 cents Of every dollar you give you give to us direct we get a hundred percent Again, if two thousand of our fans contribute an average of 50 bucks each Which is what we ask for the course of a year we can pay that writer to do exactly what we're talking about

We can hire that person literally in the next two weeks. And so please support us at Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered, PayPal.me forward slash R Martin Unfiltered, Venmo.com forward slash RM Unfiltered. You can support us at Zale, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Money order, you can send to New Vision Media, Inc., 1625 K Street, Northwest, Suite 400, Washington, D.C., 2006. Going to a break. We come back. I'll give the update on the latest story detailing racism at CBS. including the store out of Mississippi where black couple arrested, found not guilty, not about to sue the cops.

That's next on Roller Martin Unfiltered. What still impacts and what creates change is when we mobilize, when we say we're not powerless. And if I get with you and you and you, and all of a sudden it's 10, then 20, then 100, then 500, then 2,000, then 5,000, all of a sudden you have mobilized people, that creates that voting power. And then when you throw somebody out, it catches their attention real quick. But not only just that, they have to know what it is that they're standing for. Because if you have friends that talks politics,

then of course we're having a decent conversation and I'm being educated at the same time. But if my group of people are not talking about that, then I still don't know. So I can unite with you, and then I'm making sure that you have the voice, but what if you don't have the courage to speak? So you're still getting a group of people together that don't know how to do nothing.

When Donald Trump unleashed a violent mob to seize the U.S. Capitol and hold power, Republican senators did what they always do, hid. As Trump's bloodthirsty army screamed, hang Mike Pence, these senators were muted in fear, just like always. As Trump's shock troops beat a police officer to death on the steps of the Capitol, they knew who ordered the assault, and they stayed silent, just like always. They knew the moment the neo-Nazis, alt-right militia groups, white supremacists, and Trump fanatics stormed the Capitol,

they were under attack from their own voters. They know Trump is guilty, which is why they'll protect Trump on impeachment. Serve him. Obey him. Bow down to him. Just like always. The Lincoln Project is responsible for the content of this advertising. L.A. Town has a new story detailing issues dealing with racism at CBS. They've been covering this story from a variety of angles, where two executives, Peter Dunn and David Friend, they actually have been put on administrative leave as a result

of their actions detailing an external independent investigation. But the news today's story in the L.A. Times details even more troubling issues there at WCBS, the flagship station, where folks who worked there talked about station management not wanting to cover issues in the black community, not wanting to actually send staffers out there, even focusing on what they call the bosom, upscale white viewers and focusing on the issues there. Now, attorneys for both Dunn and Friend deny this story, but it is the most recent story detailing fundamental problems dealing with race there under their leadership. Again, CBS has placed both of them on administrative leave pending an external investigation. They have been the outside law firm has been hired to conduct that investigation with the National Association of Black Journalists,

called for them to be fired, but also called for that investigation. And we will be, of course, meeting with the team there, meeting with the meeting with the external folks here about that very issue. So we'll be covering that in very extensive way. So we keep you abreast of what's going on there. But there's more drama there at CBS. Folks, here's a strange story out of Mississippi. A couple from Laurel, Mississippi Mississippi are going to file a federal lawsuit against the city of Laurel

and two of his cops after an incident that took place in November. Here's a video from a local TV station. Okay. The attorney for Desi and Portia Moore says race played a significant factor when his clients were arrested

on their own property by an officer who was not wearing his uniform. Y'all watch this. So this is absolutely crazy, this video right here. The cop was sitting here. This is nuts. The cop says that he thought this man was stealing something. The brother was running back into his house. All of a sudden, they chase him

into his house. Then you see, watch this one cop jump on the man's back. They jumped on his back trying to take him down. His attorneys say, wait a minute. You just can't just roll up. No identification. The cop was in an unmarked car, Robert. The man says, I don't know who the hell this guy is running up on me. What was I supposed to do? Went to court. The couple found not guilty. Yeah, they're lucky in this situation.

The cops, I mean, because if they had been in my house, they'd be two dead cops and I would have to explain myself because if you don't have a badge, you're in an unmarked car, you chase me into my house, the minute you get into my house, there are things available. So I think it's very important for these officers to understand that just because a person is African-American does not make them de facto a threat. There are processes and procedures that do not involve

chasing someone down, jumping on their back, wrestling them to the ground in their own home. I like to compare and contrast this with the Capitol riot, where we saw people being let into the Capitol, shown a nice tour by police officers, given the keys, basically, to the Speaker of the House's office and allowed to walk out and go home.

And then they thought about arresting them several weeks later, compared to what an African-American has to go through simply going into his own house. So when we talk about this effort towards criminal justice reform, it has to be a holistic method, starting from your first day of training as a police officer

and continuously done throughout to get rid of implicit bias. And also, I hope this couple is able to sue this jurisdiction and these officers in their individual capacity. The best way that people learn is by having lighter wallets. The thing here, Monique, is I remember I was living in Chicago, and I was driving down this street on the west side. Actually, it was near Oprah's studio.

And so I sped up, and all of a sudden, this car just speeds up, and this guy's on the side of me, and he's sitting here, like, waving, telling me to get over. And I'm like, I don't know who the hell you are. So I speed up, and he speeds up. And then eventually, we pull over. The guy basically forces me over. So he comes to my car. He's like, why didn't you stop?

I said, I don't know who the hell you are. I said, you're driving a damn unmarked car. How the hell am I supposed to know you're a damn cop? I said, I don't know who you are. I said, you got no lights, no insignia, but you want me. Well, you need to slow down. I said, you need to identify yourself. So I totally understand.

This brother was running back into his house. This guy chases him, comes onto his property, and then says, I'm about to arrest you. The brother is fighting because he's like, I don't know who the hell you are, man. I see, yeah, you got some walkie-talkie

and some cuffs, but I can't tell if you a cop. Right. I'm just thankful he lived to be able to tell that story and lived to be able to fight off the charges and will live to be able to sue and be successful because, as I said on your last show, and I'll just keep saying it,

our black bodies, we are not perceived as human. We are perceived as less than and the manner in which we're responded to is different by and large. The numbers bear that out and it's shameful. When they see us, they are

criminal. They said that was a nearby robbery, nearby armed robbery, and that's why he followed this guy. But Roland, wait a minute, Roland. What did they arrest him for? They got his ID because it was his house. The cop literally said

he matched the description of somebody involved in an armed robbery. Where? Where? Nearby. His house or somewhere else? Nearby. Really? So black running, you get jumped by two police.

That was a big brother, too. They couldn't handle him. They better be glad they better be glad he decided to submit. But again, they go to trial and y'all,

they found not guilty. Of course. What did they charge him with? I'm sure resisting. I'm sure he picked up an APO. I'm sure he did. Hold on. You gotta have a legitimate underlying charge before I can resist.

I mean, that is the dumbest ass arrest. And, Roland, this is what I'm going to say. I say it on your show all the time. We talk about training up police officers. Uh-uh. I say before you even give them a gun or a badge, test them psychologically for whether they need to be a police officer or not. They got tested to tell you whether you got a propensity to de-escalate or escalate versus de-escalate. Are you a racist or not?

You have the need to be a police officer. And watch this here. Play the video, y'all. So you're going to see another So, you're going to see another cop. You're going to see him in the parking lot. Now, watch this here. Check this out. He come running. No, no, no, no. Watch. You're going to see him come

running, but what's the first thing he does? Watch this here. You're going to see him in a second. He's about to... The wife is recording the altercation, okay? She's recording it, the wife is recording the altercation. Okay, she's recording it. Okay, so she's standing there recording it.

You're about to see the cop from the parking lot. He's about, there he comes. He sprints up. The first thing he does is smack her and the camera. That's why the camera goes down. Right, he assaults her. She's recording. So he doesn't go straight to deal with the brother. He slaps her, knocks the phone out of her hands.

And she cussing him out. And then he goes over. So that's what happens when, you know, folk don't want to be recorded. Now, you talk about the importance of body cameras. Let's go to Minneapolis where the mayor, Jacob Fry, and the city's police chief have announced, oh, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, have announced a new policy that will require officers to keep body cameras on at all times during most calls. The mayor and police chief also demanding officers keep their cameras on when having casual conversations at crime scenes with

colleagues. This change is the latest in a series of police reforms within the Minneapolis Police Department since the death of George Floyd in May, killed, of course, by a Minneapolis police officer last year. His death sparked nationwide protests and calls for police reform. Mayor Fry said in a statement, this update helps leadership provide a more complete and accurate picture during and after incidents and puts officers in a better position to hold each other accountable. The reason I'm saying that that's important, Scott, is because we didn't see the body cam footage of the cops in Laurel, Mississippi. That was the woman shooting. That's why the body cameras are important and why they should always be on. And the reason they should record casual conversations, that's how the cops in Georgia, Robert, the chief got fired and the cop quit

because the fools recorded their racism back and forth to each other. Scott, first then Robert. Exactly. That casual conversation. That's powerful feedback for those looking at those cameras. And this also could be the impetus or show intent on their part, whether it's a 1983 action or whether there's a motivation for what they're charging or who they're arresting and stuff. So I fully support that. It's about time. I don't know why any jurisdiction would give the police officers the option

of turning on the cam versus not turning it on, because they're not going to turn it on unless you make them do it. And while it may be more expensive for the film to run its course, so what? It's got to be less expensive than the 1983 actions or the other state actions that are brought against police officers and departments and municipalities. So that makes all the sense in the world.

And by the way, if you're a good cop doing good work and you're not a racist, then you ought to want the camera to run all the time. All day, Robert. Point blank. Secondarily, back to the case in Florida, him slapping the phone out the white space. No, Mississippi, Mississippi, lower Mississippi. Lower Mississippi. Yeah, I'm used to crazy things happening in Florida.

But those officers have to understand that, particularly in the South, there are many women who carry a gun on their hip under their housecoat. And it's not a good idea to run onto people's property quote-unquote cloud, and that's why they need to turn them off and on. It is 2021. We all are recorded 24 hours a day. It is saved to a cloud. Those technological issues don't exist anymore. Having terabytes of data in the police car is no longer an issue. Having things cloud recorded are no longer an economic issue. Every 13-year-old who runs a TikTok channel or YouTube

channel can do exactly that. So those arguments are gone. And if jurisdictions do not want to have the cameras record 24 hours a day while officers are on duty, here's the second option. Anytime that a police officer has a body cam that is not turned on, that case is immediately thrown out of court. That you cannot have a probable cause case. That can be a district-wide policy that does not have to happen on the federal level or even the state level. They can happen in the district attorney's office, can be an edict from the superior court. But if you don't present the body cam footage when a body cam or a dash cam was available, that case should not go to trial.

And that eliminates automatically the whole issue of police officers forgetting to turn on their body cam or saying mysteriously didn't work. Monique, I've said I said for the longest, Monique, I've said if a cop does not turn a body camera on or they turn it off or they turn the dash cam off or don't turn it on automatic firing. That's it. Look, when you when when you go to the station, guess what? You go put your uniform on, you put your gun on, your cuffs, your taser, your flashlight, camera go with it. Don't turn it on, you should lose your job. Right. I mean, I don't agree.

We've talked about this before, so I still don't. My point is here. The body camera should be an essential part of your responsibility. And that's what you should do. Fine, you want to give them one warning? Okay.

But we know for a fact that in Chicago, cops were purposely breaking the antennas off of dash cam videos, dash cam recorders. In New Orleans, there was one guy was pulled aside.nas off of dash cam videos, dash cam recorders. In New Orleans, there was one guy was pulled aside. They turned the dash cam off as they were approaching the guy's car.

And then all of a sudden, he turned it back on later. Other cops, we know in Louisville, where the shooting took place, not just with Breonna Taylor, but with also the community activists who owned the barbecue restaurant, the cops didn't turn the body cameras on. I'm sorry. That should be a part of your job. You don't turn it on. You lose your job. Well, it is. Wait, wait, Scott, Scott, Scott. Wait, Monique's going to respond. Then Scott, Monique, go. Yes, it certainly is a part of their job. And they are required to do that like they're required to do many other things.

This is such an important thing that I am more in keeping with Robert's suggestion. And I think that the first suggestion, I think it is very doable in terms of there always being rolling footage in the cars. There always being control of the body camera from sources that have nothing to do with whether the officer turns it on or off. That subjective turning on and off should not be part of what they have a chance to do. So I think it can be secured other ways. But I also believe that there is a due process issue, especially with government employees, in doing an automatic firing for something like refusing to turn a camera on

or failing to turn a camera on or mistakenly not turning a camera on. There would have to be an investigation like there would be of any other mistake that an employee makes, and then there would have to be a decision that's based on, to the extent that they can determine it, the intent. I think we're creating... No! I don't need intent! I don't know no cop,

Monique, that walks out the station. Do you know a cop that walks out the station who forgets to put bullets in their gun? It's a body camera. It's a body camera. Click. Right.

But so with what you're suggesting, somebody could actually kill a person as a cop and have an investigation, but they'd get fired for not having their camera on. It's inconsistent and it makes no sense. No, it's not. It's not inconsistent. I'm trying to guarantee...

I'm trying to guarantee, oh, my bad, I forgot to turn it on. No, before you leave... That doesn't guarantee it. Before you leave the station, click, it's on. Yeah, but what Roland is really saying... Monique, I understand what you're saying because you've got an ADA, Administrative Procedure Act,

and you've got to give them due process. You can give them due process, right? But if they don't turn it on or they turn it off, right, you create this negative presumption that they're up to no good or it's a bad act, right? You can warn them a couple times, but they're subject to being firing and they get their due process. But it's a negative presumption that weighs heavily with the board of review and they lose their job. I don't know if you could just fire them right out if you're not chief of police because they got union rights. But the reality is, if they know that they're subject to being firing and they're being cut. Right. They're going to turn that camera on every chance or do something automatically that lets it run. And so, Roman, she's not that far off. She just, this whole due process piece.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, y'all can do process all you want to. Here's what I know, Robert. This is what I know. If I hired your ass to go, no, if I hired your ass to go, hey, Scott, I'm talking. If I hired you to go record a news conference, and you brought the camera and a tripod,

but your ass left the SD card, and you didn't record nothing for the news conference, guess what? Your ass ain't gonna have a job when you come back to the station and say, hold up, when you come back to the station, they're gonna say, my bad, I brought everything but the SD card.

But, Roland, you're going to fire. Hell yeah. And you're going to have a lawsuit. No, I'm not. You're going to get a lawsuit. No, guess what? Try it. Let anybody around here try it. Roland, the issue is, and this is to Monique's point, we had this absolutely just happen in Atlanta.

The two officers who assaulted the college students during the protest who automatically tased them and were immediately fired, they were rehired within the last couple of weeks because of not having their due process rights followed. So that's what Monique is talking about. Hey, give them due process. Create whatever system you want. Put it in the police union contract. Put it in the police union contract. Put it in the police union contract. Don't turn your camera on.

Your ass ain't going to have a job. Hey, who going to represent him on this panel? Who going to represent him? He gets fired. He fires that guy. Scott, stop talking. Robber talking. I said this is why things should be done through the evidentiary process.

You throw out any arrests they made that don't have the camera on. You avoid the due process issues. You give them a negative feedback loop, as Scott was talking about. And you achieve many of the same goals as you were trying to do by firing them, by making sure that they can't proceed with a case if they do not turn on the camera. I don't agree with that one either. There are other ways to have witness accounts and evidence of something that happened other than the body camera. I don't agree with that one either. There are other ways to have witness accounts and evidence of something that happened

other than the body camera, and I don't know that that's in the interest of public safety or justice to be just automatically throwing out a case that has police involved in misconduct because the camera wasn't on. That's why I said

to me the best way to handle this is to make sure through external sources to take it outside of the officer's hands and purview whether those cameras are on and off. And we are much further along than when we started having these body cam discussions a decade ago, such that that really can happen. And yes, they're going to even have to get around some privacy issues with keeping the camera always on when officers are entitled to have private conversations, even when they're on a job, they deserve to be able to go to the bathroom, et cetera, and so on. So some things will have to get figured out.

But we're safer there than doing things that we should not, which is allowing people to get away with it. Yeah, yeah-huh. What is, mm, yeah. Hiring people. Government employees are not employees at will like your poor camera person was.

God help me. No, no, no. Ain't no poor camera person. Hold up, you're right. If your ass forget that card and don't bring that video back, you're going to be poor. You're absolutely right.

Right. You're absolutely right. One, I'm not going to pay you. Send him a retain absolutely right. One, I'm not going to pay you. One, I ain't going to pay you and you're going to get fired. It's kind of basic. When you go to shoot a news conference, you bring the damn camera, the tripod, the

tripod plate. That's the inside story. And you bring the SD card. That's what you do. All right, y'all. A new just, a new investigation in the Navy. The Navy is investigating a black sailor. He reported, actually investigating as a black sailor reported finding a noose last week

aboard the USS Lake Champlain based at the Naval Base, San Diego. According to the first, to the San Diego Union Tribune, a sailor found the noose in his assigned bed on January 26th. An unidentified sailor, who officials say is a suspect in the case, told investigators it was left there as a joke. That shit ain't funny. An investigation into the incident is ongoing. At this time, no charges have been filed. Today, the Justice Department, the Biden Justice Department,

dropped that idiotic-ass discrimination lawsuit filed by the Trump administration against Yale University that alleged the university was illegally discriminating against Asian American and white applicants. The Justice Department stated it voluntarily dismissed the affirmative action lawsuit filed by the fools in the Trump administration. It was originally filed in October. Attorney General William Barr alleged Yale rejects scores of Asian American and white applicants each year based on their race. But the DOJ has not found any evidence to support these claims. The decision by the Biden administration to drop the lawsuit is the latest move to change its position in a number of cases that are pending in federal courts and around the nation. This is what happens. But I got it. I got to laugh, Scott, at fools making allegations.

Ain't got no proof. Just no proof. And then when it went to court, they went to court, yell one. Right, right, right. But that was the Trump administration. All talk and no walker. All talk and no beef, what have you. No, no, all talk, no evidence.

Right. Well, we saw that in the whole voter fraud, what have you. No, no, all talk, no evidence. Right. Well, we saw that in the whole voter fraud, the big lie. But this is the difference between competence and incompetence. DOJ, you're going to see them reversing themselves on a lot of cases like this. Just like they threw executive order, Biden stopped that executive order that took government contractors who couldn't teach diversity or advocate or talk about diversity in the history of this country because they believed it didn't support American values. Reversing Trumpism within the government is going to take some time. When Merrick Garland gets there, you're going to see a lot of these cases not only drop, but new cases picked up. You're going to see these agreements with police departments around the country that were withdrawn, if you will,

see them reinvestigated and put back in place or new ones put in place as part of their overall effort to reform police departments. It's an effective means to have those agreements in place and have metrics about the progress made by those police departments, whether it's L.A., Atlanta, Baltimore, D.C., wherever it may be. And so that's a good thing. Well, it is. And so thank goodness we...

I got it. Robert, are you like me? Do you wake up feeling a little better knowing ignorant fools not in the White House? I'm not Driving I was dry I had to get here earlier this morning for this education thing and I was driving and I was drive by the old executive office Building and it was just like him it feels nice not to have some dumb asses you got to wake up to every morning. I mean, am I the only one? Well, I think

people feel that way. Just the fact that I've gone several days since the inauguration and not watched any news and not thought about politics the entire day. And it's been great to not have to worry. Did the president tweet out something? Did the president try to invade Ohio? Did he make Ms. San Diego the new secretary of state? Anything could have happened and that not existing anymore is very important. But despite that, it is important for us to stay vigilant on our government. Because remember, these folks were not our friends or allies. We were allies out of convenience. And now that the convenience, now that the mutual threat is over, I think Churchill once said that if Hitler was invading hell,

then I would become allies with the devil. That's the position we are very much in with some of the people who are part of this coalition. And now that that that threat is over, it's time to make sure that we're not being left out as we move forward with the new administration, with the new policies, and ensure that the things that we got out there and voted for and fought for and marched for

are actually being executed. Look, Lamoni, I agree with all that. That's fine. All I'm saying is, just literally driving by the White House, I mean, you can by the White House. I mean, you can feel the sanity return. I mean, I'm sitting there

driving and I said, I was like, y'all smell that? Clean, fresh air. Not the funk of dumbass people. Not the stench. Not the stench of corruption. I mean, I'm not of corruptions. I'm not lying. I'm just driving

in the car like, you don't understand, man. Driving down E Street and going up, the closer I got to the White House, Monique, it was the equivalent of when you are near an evil-ass person. And when they're moving closer, you just like, the Bible talks about, T, don't even get me started when you're around evil people. You just like, just, your face just like, damn, here they ass come. I just, oh, here they come.

That's literally what it feels like. Those folks were evil. All of them. Everybody who worked there. Him on down. It rotted from the head down. But just to have competent people, to watch a press briefing and they speaking in complete sentences. You're like, man, I forgot what that was like last night to watch a procession to pay respects to a cop who gets killed. You didn't have no ignorant statement.

No big old show. Y'all notice everybody ran it except Fox News. I thought they love cops. I'm just simply saying it is nice to wake up and not to wake up to an ignorant tweet from an ignorant fool who

was married to an ignorant woman who they were all hired a bunch of ignorant ass people. Yes. You're like deep in your Chris Rock right now. I'm not. I'm just... Y'all don't understand.

I was just like... I was like, damn. Man, it feels nice. It feels... The fact that they're even having the press conferences and then there's competent delivery from it and then they invite the experts to just come in and then there's competent delivery from it. And then they invite the experts to just come in and talk. Nobody hovers over them like helicopter

mode to jump in and stop them. They have these COVID briefings, you know, and it's all sane and straight talk and good information. And we're not traumatized daily by these tweets and not knowing when the next one is going to come. Now, we all have some PTSD. We probably need to get checked out because it was a rough four years and we have had so many losses. And so I'm in agreement with Robert. We shouldn't be at ease in Zion. But we definitely can breathe better knowing that there is competence at the head than we could before. So I'm thankful. This is the equivalent to me of, you know, this is the equivalent when somebody invites you to their house and they know how to cook. You look forward to the dinner.

But there ain't nothing worse when you get invited by somebody who can't cook. And now you gotta sit here and just lie and say, yo ass just ate. Or when they force you to eat, you like, okay, just

give me a taste. Cause you know they can't cook. I'm just saying. Look, I ain't know about y'all, but Scott, I know you might be comfortable with them Trump people, but I just could not stand. I told y'all what

did I tell y'all what happened the first time they had a meeting at the White House with the TV anchors with Trump? You have a couple times. No, I didn't. I actually didn't. I don't think I told y'all this. Y' I didn't. But tell us again. Go on. No, no, I actually didn't. I don't think I told y'all this. Y'all, this is a really true story.

Normally when the president walks into the room, everybody stands up. You know, you're eager. You know, Mr. President, good to meet you. Good to see you. You walking over. All right. I ain't really had that feeling.

He came into the room. All the other media people, Jake Tapper and Chuck Todd, and they all moved to him. That's the whole thing. They all moved to him. Mr. President, I fell the hell back. I was like, well, he got to walk past here anyway. Y'all think I'm lying.

I felt like, well, hell, he got to walk over here to get to his side of the table. I'm like, I ain't in no rush to shake his damn hand. And they all walk up there going, Mr. President, Mr. President, Mr. Trump. And I'm sitting there going, I can't call this son of a bitch Mr. President. I just can't do it.

Then I said, I can't call him Mr. Trump. I said, I can't call him Mr. Trump. I said, now we got a dilemma. What am I going to call him? So he making his way. He getting closer and closer. I'm like, damn, what am I going to call him? Then he finally gets up to me and I go, he stick his hand out.

Good to see you. I go, hi. You just said hi? I did. I went, hi. I'm not lying. I am not lying. My mouth.

No, you never told this story. My mouth. You never told this story. I'm sharing it with others. My mouth could not fix itself. I couldn't. I didn't say Mr. President. I didn't say Mr. Trump.

I didn't even say Donald. I went, hi. How you doing? No, that's all I said. Hi. How you doing? No, that's all I said. Hi. That was it. Good to see you. And did he say anything back to you?

That's all he said. Then he said, good to see you. I'm like... Good to see you. He sat my ass all the way at the end of the table, three black people. We were all over here on one side of the table. It was the three black people, the three that had Lester Holt sitting two seats from him, but they had me, Yamiche, and we were all over.

We were like truly in the hood. But at least Scott Pelley and David Meara would have was over there in the hood as well. But y'all, I couldn't even say nothing. It was just, I couldn't. It was just, hi. You see, well, that was your opportunity to ask about the advertising. Nah, hell no.

I couldn't. Look at me here. We need the money right now. We black. What room is it in? Where does the money reside? We black. I ain't even going to give y'all my response at the next meeting when Melania was there. Oh, my goodness. I literally did one of them Bernie Macs.

They look up and down like, why are you here? Y'all don't understand. I had just disdain for them people. Okay. All right, y'all. We got to go to commercial break. We come back more Roller Martin Unfiltered. You do know that there is not a piece of your life that government in some way does not involve.

I mean, I crack up with these conservatives who talk about. Down to your name. Everything. Down to your name. Everything. I mean, just if you actually sat down and said okay what part of my life let me try to find something in my life that government in in does not have a part of i can't think of a single thing you can say fine they don't impact my

marriage which they do because you to get that marriage license. From the birth to the tomb. And if you're going to be here in the United States of America, whether you like it or not, you got to know about it. You got to know its history. Because when somebody knows about you more than you know yourself, that's slavery. That's volunteer slavery.

So it's almost like double the education we got to pick up. what this place is all about, how it works, how it runs. I'm a firm believer being 112 countries that you got to think global and act local, but you better ACT act local. Trump won this election. So everyone who's listening, do not be quiet. Do not be silent about this. We cannot allow this to happen before our very eyes. Carl Payne pretended to be Roland Martin. Holla! Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, y'all.

My next guest is the creator of an app called HBCU Change, which allows users to donate their spare change to their favorite HBCUs. The company is looking to raise $1 billion over the next five years. Joining me now is HBCU app founder Xavier Peoples. All right, Xavier, first of all, why in the hell the app ain't called Spare Change? HBCU Change, because we got to raise this money for HBCU change and change HBCUs. That's why. So what caused you to say, let's do it this way?

What was it? Were you somewhere with somebody at the gas station asking for a dollar? You were like, you know what? I got an idea. No, it didn't quite work that way. So actually, my daytime job, I worked for a company by the name of Capital Group. And we're the largest active money manager in the world. And we manage money for a lot of endowments and foundations of institutions of higher learning.

And so we're sitting around in a conference room one day, and we're talking about the schools that we manage. And something just popped into my head. Hey, how many black colleges and universities do we manage? And the answer was zero. And so I got on a plane, flew all over the country to talk to HBCUs about the resources and the research that we can provide HBCUs. And when I talked to those schools, they stopped me in my tracks and said, hey, Xavier, if we can figure out how to get our alumni and supporters to give on a consistent basis, we can truly take advantage of the research and the resources that you all can provide. And so it quickly went from my daytime job to a truly

passion project of mine. And so with me being in the investment space, there's an app by the name of Acorn. And I said, what if we can take a similar app and create that app for HBCUs? And that is taking your daily transactions, rounding them up to the nearest dollar, and giving that change to the HBCU of your choice. So an example would be, Roland, if you bought a cup of coffee for $3.75, we would round that transaction up to $4, and that $0.25 would go to the APCU of your choice. All right. That's pretty cool there, panelists. Let's go to Robert first. Robert, what do you think about this idea?

Well, I think it's absolutely brilliant, primarily because that's the way that we all transact commerce now. Everything is done on your debit card or your credit card. It's not a cash-based economy. But my question would be, one, which HBCUs have been active in this, particularly pushing into their student body even? There's no reason for it to simply be alumni. And then also, on the technical aspects, who have you partnered with in building the app and building the platform? Right now, all

HBCUs are on our platform. Of the 103 accredited HBCUs, they're about north of 20 HBCUs that we've actually partnered with, and they're using their alumni list to push out the app in a partnership

with their school. And in terms of the actual creator or the developers of HBCU, there are a lot of great exceptional black developers out here that I've used to help develop this app and bring it to the market that you see today. Okay. So here's what jumps out at me. Okay, so walk folks through how it works. What do I just, and then also, do I have to designate somebody? Can I just, do you have just like a general pool it can go into? That's a great question, Roland. Yes, so we do have a general fund that if you don't have a particular school that you want to donate to, you can donate to the general fund and we could disperse that money to several different HBCUs.

But the way it works is you download the app in the Apple Store or the Google Android Store and you connect your debit and your credit card and or your credit card to the actual app. Once you connect the debit and credit card to the app, basically what it's doing is it's calculating, it's tabulating your daily transactions. It's rounding those transactions up. And so here's a fun fact. What we found is that on average, if a person connects both their debit and their credit card to the app, they can give anywhere from $54 on the low side to $87 on the high side a month to the HBCU of their choice, depending on the amount of transactions that they have. So for a school like Clark Atlanta University here in Atlanta that has 40,000 alumni, if only 10,000 alumni were to sign up to HBCU change, that's $540,000 a month, over $6 million a year going to Clark Atlanta University. That has a tremendous impact

on Clark. We know Monique, she ain't going to be giving to Clark. Monique, your question. I will be. The roaring panther. H-U. Monique, your money going to Hampton?

You're playing games tonight. No, you said H-U. Oh, Monique, your money going to Hampton? You're playing games tonight. No, you said H-U. You might want to be specific. Oh, my God. I'm just checking. I'm just checking. I'm just saying. He knows not what he does.

You said H-U. All I'm saying is, I'm saying, hey, Xavier, on your app, does it say H-U or are you specific? Are you specific? I'm saying, hey, Xavier, on your app, does it say HU or are you specific? Are you specific? I'm very specific. I thought so. So I'm just saying, Monique, don't put down HU. Your money might be going to Hampton.

Go ahead and ask your question. Go on. Congratulations, Xavier, on this wonderful work that you are doing and just the creativity and the ingenuity, seeing the need, meeting the need. The only question I had is, do you have any advice for young men and women who are Black and want to be involved in tech and want to be involved in money matters? Can you share a little bit of your path and what you suggest? My suggestion is do the research.

A lot of people, they're afraid just to fail. And so you have to just go out, do the research, and realize that there are people out here who can help you to achieve your goal in this space. There are young people who build apps day in and day out who know how to code. They're out there. You just reach out to them and say, hey, I have this idea,

and work with them to help bring this app to fruition. And so my advice is just to try, because a lot of times people don't even try, and they fail before they even take a step towards what they want to even accomplish. Amen. Scott? Amen. Amen. Scott? Amen. Yeah. Hey, Xavier.

As a proud graduate of Morehouse and Harvard Law School, I'm actually secretary to the board of Morehouse College. This idea, this concept is not only powerful because if you have young people and alumni giving, but here's the power of your app and i've got a question and that is this um um yeah i heard that question so you run down your damn resume colleges and universities for credibility purposes colleges hbcus need alumni giving in order to raise other money from foundation. The number one question for us is always, what's your alumni giving?

Annually, HBCUs give anywhere between 5% alumni to maybe 15 to 20% for some of our better colleges and stuff. And so once you link their credit cards, do those people who donate also get credit to the colleges and universities that they're linked to for giving, if you will, to get those percentages up? Because that's the real power of your app, if you ask me, getting those percentages up so those universities and colleges can raise even more money through gifts as well as foundations. That is an excellent question, and the answer is yes. So this is something that we actually provide to the schools. Most schools don't have good data on their alumni.

Yeah. No, no. Yeah. Excellent. Think about it. They're at a deficit from the get-go if you don't even have good data on where to find your alumni in the first place. Yeah. yep.

We've created a dashboard for every school where you have the person's first, last name, their email address, the amount that they've donated, and the zip code that that individual lives in. Why is that zip code very important? So if you are Morehouse and you have 200 Morehouse brothers that live in Omaha, Nebraska, now you can target those individuals and raise additional funds that you otherwise could not raise because you didn't even know that all those brothers were concentrated in Omaha, Nebraska. And so what we're finding is we're being an extension of the school and we're helping them to organize data, which is more important than actually raising funds for every school. And yes, to your point, every individual that gives,

no matter if you give 5 cents or $50, that's a big mark for the school as a percentage of the alumni that is now giving towards that school. All right. The app is, again, HBCU Change. Xavier Peoples, we certainly appreciate it, man. Thanks a bunch. Folks, you can download it from the

Apple Store. I've already taken a look at it. And I assume you also have it on Google Play? Yes, absolutely. All right, then. Thanks a bunch, and good luck with it, and hopefully you hit that billion dollars in five years. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Folks, that is it for us. I want to thank Monique. I want to thank Robert.

Yeah, I guess we'll thank Scott for joining us on our panel today. I love you too, Roland. Yeah, okay. Uh-huh. Yep. Gotcha. All right. I love Erica. I might give you a fan club. Yep. I love Erica. Thank you very much. And yes, and yes, you only gave

to the fan club under duress. Yeah, remember that. We don't need to share that story again. I want some equity. Who? I want some equity. Boy, bye. You ain't do no damn work.

You ain't do no damn. You ain't do no damn. The only thing you do is just talk over Monique and Robert. Don't even try it. We were so close this week, Scott. Come on. Right. He was. You know what? For the first 55

minutes, primarily because he wasn't even on. It was really me and Wendell. Then he came on. You know, we got to about, it was about 725. And I was like, wow, his ass minus P's and Q's.

Then once we hit by 730, that all went out the window. I said, chatty ass Scott back. Here it comes. Hang on. Somebody else talking. You know, look.

I've been wanting to say this. I'm just going to go ahead and say this. When Robert's talking, he don't need no Amy and Connor. Scott, Robert don't need you to affirm what he's saying. That's right. That's right. That's right. That's right.

He don't have to say that. He already saying it. That's my boy. No, that's my boy. This is not church. This ain't church. I like it, though. When I can hear Scott, he's like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Yeah, you don't like it until his ass start interrupting.

He be like, uh... I don't like that part. He be like, you be like, um, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott. See, Scott, Scott. See, that's why you can't encourage that nonsense. You got to shut Scott down. You got to say, ah, quiet. You give his ass a little room, then he go.

I'm trying to send him back to that fake couch on his green screen. That's what I'm trying to do. Oh, there ain't no fake couch. That's my home. You talking about Erica now? Scott, you know, Scott, you know doggone well you sitting in front of a green screen. That's what I'm trying to do. Oh, there ain't no fake couch. That's my home. You talking about Erica now? Scott, you know, Scott, you know doggone well you sitting in front of a green screen. Stop fronting. No, I'm not.

Go sit on the couch. Well, Nick, you better tell him. Go sit on the couch. No, get up right now and go sit on the couch. You can't! Oh, I will! Come on! Come on! Good! We got it off the microphone!

Give us, support our show, Roland Martin Unfiltered, Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal.me, forward slash, rmartinunfiltered, vidmo.com,

forward slash, rmunfiltered, and of course, zell at, roland at, rolandsmartin.com. See, that's how you get Scott away from the

microphone. Work like a charm. See, he didn't realize that's how alphas outsmart you capas. That's it, y'all. I gotta go. I'll see y'all tomorrow right here. Roland Martin, unfiltered. Join our fan club. We'll see you tomorrow. Thank you so very much.

Ho! fan club. We'll see you tomorrow. Thank you so very much. A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. From tech billionaires to the bond market to, yeah, banana pudding.

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