#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Black women urge action on voting & reproductive rights; Communion battle rages; Nassar hearing

Episode Date: September 16, 2021

9.15.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Black women, allies descend on SCOTUS, demand action on voting & reproductive rights; Pope weighs in as Communion battle rages; Simone Biles, elite gymnast testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee over the FBI's botched Nassar investigation; Mississippi Black farm workers sue former employer for paying White foreign farm workers higher wages; Trinidad and Tobago's health minister debunks Nicki Minaj's swollen testicles vax claim; eport reveals social media giant Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for young teens.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.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Today is Wednesday, September 15, 2021, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Reproductive rights and voting rights are all hot topics across the country. So is the Remove the Stain Act. We'll be joined by the co-executive director of Four Directions Native Vote to discuss that bill,

but also talk about the impact of voter ID in this so-called Senate compromise and how the act could actually impact Native Americans. Six black men in Mississippi are suing Pit Farm Partnerships for hiring white South African laborers and paying them more for the same job. The attorney from the Mississippi Center will be here to discuss the lawsuit.

The Liberian government preparing for its 200th anniversary, the resettlement of freed slaves in 1822, the country's founding as a Republic will talk with Liberian Minister of State, the presidential affairs and the Minister of Finance to discuss that big anniversary next year. New report says Instagram is damaging

to young teens self esteem, causing rising rates of anxiety and depression among the groups of people who use them. We'll talk with a digital expert about that. In Minnesota, Supreme Court overturns the murder conviction before a black police officer. Folks, and also, in Minnesota,

judges put a hold to a new law that govern police use of force. We'll explain that as well. It's time to breathe the funk. I'm Roland Martin Unfiltered with Black Star Network, let's go. that govern police use of force. We'll explain that as well. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered, the Black Star Network believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks.

He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's Rolling Martin. Rolling with rolling now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know, he's rolling, Martin. Martin. Folks, black women leaders and others took to the Supreme Court today to express their thoughts on Congress passing bills protecting reproductive rights, but also voting rights. The Black Women's Coalition, Black Women's Roundtable, they were involved in that. We live streamed that particular event as well.

Here's some of what took place at today's news conference. We have to demand that Congress pass federal legislation to protect the right to vote and the right to choose. Right now, we're at a critical juncture in our fight for justice. As state after state passes laws to restrict the right to vote and restrict reproductive rights, it's clear our democracy and our bodies are on attack. At the same time, we're also fighting against a Supreme Court that is hell bent on destroying Roe versus Wade, as well as our nation's most consequential voting rights legislation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For me, the fight for voting rights is very personal. Growing up in Selma,

Alabama, no one had to tell me about Amelia Boynton Robinson. No one had to tell me about the foot soldiers that fought for justice and gave themselves their blood, sweat, and tears, and many died for the right to vote. Old battles have become new again. Surely we thought that our mothers had already fought for reproductive rights and won. Surely we thought that the foot soldiers had fought for the right of every American to vote and won. But we know old battles have become new again. We see over 400 laws just this year being introduced in state legislatures across this nation, trying to restrict the right to vote. And we say no. We say on the foot of the Supreme Court, no, hell no, we're not going back.

That, of course, is Congresswoman Terri Sewell of Alabama. Of course, she is from the Black Belt there, where so many civil rights battles were actually fought. Now, there's talk that the United States Senate is going to vote next week on this compromise bill being led by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. There are a number of things that were stripped out of that bill, especially the ethics pieces. But one of the issues deals with voter ID. Now, although it does not explicitly call for a national voter ID, it does, though, according to Reverend Dr. William Barber of the Poor People's Campaign and others, literally pave the way to a national voter ID when there are a number of organizations and states

continuing to fight voter ID in the courts. This issue of voter ID has an impact not only on African-Americans, Latinos, but also Native Americans. Joining us right now is O.J. Siemens, co-director of Four Directions Native Vote. O.J., glad to have you back on Roller Martin Unfiltered. So explain to our audience how Native Americans were specifically targeted in the last presidential campaign over the issue of voter ID. Sure. First of all, thanks for having me here, Roland. And I want to congratulate you on your show of the power roundtable a few days ago. I think you straightening Governor Christie out, and I think we should name him now Governor Crispy after you roasted him,

was pretty good. I mean, it's always good when you confront them with facts and they try to say that the words that you use aren't really the words that they understand. So congratulations on that. You did a great job. I appreciate it. First of all, voter IDs are really dangerous, not only to Indian country, but people of color, depending on where you live. On reservations throughout the United States, we do not have residential addresses. And so what is happening is by requiring a voter ID, they require a physical address on that. And so most Native Americans do not have physical addresses. And it is intentional because I can tell you when we were in North Dakota and they brought this on, it was the Eighth Circuit and the Supreme Court that basically said they could have this. And it was weird because during the primary, they were able to vote without that ID, and

then it came to the election, or prior to the election, then they required it. So I mean, it was very intentional. But what happened was these states all over the United States, if you look at your telecommunication bill or your cell phone bill, there's a surcharge on there. That surcharge is used and then from the federal government given to the states. And then the states use that. What they first used it for was to provide those residential addresses within the state. Now, they did it all over the state, but they never did it in Indian country. And then they realized that they didn't do it, so then they required physical addresses.

I mean, it's just absurd. So it's a very, very harmful strategic surgical, I should say, move to lessen the amount of people that are able to participate fairly. We talked in Georgia, 150,000 Native Americans residing in Georgia. Native American vote was huge in the state of Arizona. That is a battleground there as well. You, of course, had a Supreme Court decision dealing with the Second Amendment and, excuse me, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. But you also have Arizona Senator Kristen Sinema, who's a Democrat, who has been saying she doesn't want to get rid of the filibuster, has been fighting that as well. And so many believe that Native American, the Native American vote is going to be severely impacted if Congress does

not do something with the For the People Act. What is happening? How are Native Americans in Arizona putting pressure on her to say they need her to step up? Native Americans in Arizona, all the tribes in Arizona are actually reaching out to her office saying, you know, this, it's actually harmful to you because if you look how you won and you look at the number of Native Americans that voted, you wouldn't be sitting there if we didn't show up. Now, if you take and allow this to happen and we can't show up, you probably won't be a senator anymore. But, you know, the thing is she's got six years. And I hate it when people get elected and have a long time before they have to make amends. But I can guarantee you that they are putting pressure on her in order for her to move forward with the John Lewis Voting Rights Amendment,

with the People's Act, and actually pushing for the Native American Voting Rights Act, too. So they are letting her know they're not happy. Is she responding? Is she at least talking with them? Because many other groups she's just completely ignoring. Well, that I really can't answer truthfully right now because I haven't reached out to see if they really received any feedback. But, you know, it's on my list. Let's also talk about the Remove the Stain Act. Explain to people what that is and what it means. Sure. 1869, December 28, 1869, Chief Spotted Elk was taking people from the Cheyenne River reservation in South Dakota and going to the Oglala Sioux Reservation. They were met by the 7th Cavalry that night.

They immediately surrendered to the 7th Cavalry that night. They immediately surrendered to the 7th Cavalry. 7th Cavalry escorted them to the Wounded Knee Creek, where the next morning they found an excuse to open up on them, and they killed over 250, mainly women and children. And those soldiers all received medals of honor for that massacre of killing those women and children. It took 100 years to get the U.S. Congress, the House and the Senate to issue an apology and say it was a massacre, because up until that time, they called it a battle. And so what we've been doing now for the past few years is trying to get

Congress to move on taking those Medal of Honors away from those soldiers of 7th Cavalry that killed the women and children there. And so where are we with that? Are you seeing any forward progress? We're actually moving along pretty good. We got legislation in the House and the Senate called Remove the Stain Act. We did attempt to get it put in the National Defense Authorization Act, but the Republican side would not allow us to do that unless we agreed to an amendment. That amendment was basically saying that, okay, we're going to let the Department of Defense review it, but we want them to review it with the terms that were used in the 1800s, and basically saying that it wasn't going to happen.

So we would not agree to the amendment, and so it did not get out of the committee because it was a 50-50 split. One thing, if I can have a moment. Sure. General Miles, who was with the – he's in charge of the overall cavalry and was awarded the Medal of Honor during the Civil War, wrote this, and it was a confidential letter. And here's what he said about the wounded knee. He said, wholesale massacre occurred, and I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than a wounded knee.

About 200 women and children were killed and wounded, women with little children on their back and small children, gunpowder burned by the men who killed them being so near as to burn their flesh and their clothing with the powder from their guns, and nursing babies with five bullet holes in them. These are the people that they gave the Congressional Medal of Honor for. There was more medals given there than during the fight on terrorism this past, you know, 20 years. Wow. Well, that's certainly some history many people may not be aware of. We certainly appreciate, O.J., you being on the show. We're going to continue to focus, obviously, on the voting issue. It is so critical.

And we'll see exactly how the Senate is going to move on this next week. And so, hope to have you back. I always appreciate it. I'll keep an eye on you. Alright. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

You have a good day. Alright then. I want to bring in my panel right now. Talk about, again, the continuing pressure being applied to the United States Senate. A. Scott Bolden is former chair of National Bar Association Political Action Committee. Robert Portillo, executive director of Rainbow Push Coalition, Peachtree Street Project.

Lauren Victoria Burke, writer with the NNPA, as well as the GRIO. Lauren, the news conference held today, what was key was that it was black women leaders, but also you saw them bringing a lot of these white women out as well. We've been talking about that, how too many white liberals have been silent over this issue of voting rights. The reality is it's not just black folks, Latinos are going to be impacted, but it's also going to be white folks who live in the suburbs, young white folks as well. And so it's about time they speak up. We've seen black lawmakers, of course, protest and go to jail. You ain't seen a white lawmaker go down there, led away in twisty ties or handcuffs. Right. The last few rallies

have been more diverse. The one yesterday, the one today. And that is good to see. Unfortunately, it still does come back to the fact that the filibuster has to be ended in the Senate to pass real legislation. I don't care what watered-down Joe Manchin bill has been presented. I'm not sure why the whole big sticking point for Joe Manchin was voter I.D., but I guess he's thinking he's going to appease what I would call his Republican colleagues, even though he's a Democrat. I don't think that's going to happen. I think the Republican strategy is to make it harder to vote. That's what they're doing in the states. And the only thing that can stop them is federal action.

They know that. McConnell's not going to allow it to happen. So there are some really good provisions in this latest bill, the Freedom of Vote Act, one of which is actually to reveal the dark money groups and make them have to reveal who they are publicly. The other obvious thing is to make voting a federal holiday, which that should have been the case already. But I don't know. I don't think it makes any difference. It doesn't matter to the Republicans. They will always be against making it easier to vote because they understand that making it easier to vote means they are going to lose power. And the biggest thing I'm sure that they're looking at is the state of Georgia, which, of course, flipped with Joe Biden over to the blue side.

And they can't have that happen again. So I think this is a kabuki dance, and we'll see what happens next week. But Manchin claiming that he's talking to Republicans is very cute. I don't think it makes any difference. So he still has not identified one Republican that is signed on. And that's the thing that Reverend Dr. Barber keeps saying, Scott. Manchin keeps talking about bipartisan, bipartisan, bipartisan. Yeah, but show me who you're going to bring along. This was

Reverend Barber speaking on August 28th, the anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. We watched two senators hold up everything. We got 58 black members of the black caucus, 100 members of the progressive caucus, and two black senators. What if those 158 members of the United States Congress were to say, you can't get our 160 votes until you do right by D.C.,

until you pass the Voting Rights Act, until you passed the For the People's Act, until you raised the living wage to $15. You said, well, that's radical. Well, when we wanted freedom for South Africa, people protested every day in D.C. for two years. You can't get this stuff with one rally on an anniversary day. It took 381 days in Montgomery. From Selma to Montgomery, Diane Nash didn't come to the March on Washington.

She went to Selma, organized for two years before John Lewis and others ever came there. And it took from January to August to get the 40 Rights Act. Eight months! The March on Washington was a day, but it grew out of the Birmingham campaign, which was weeks. And then it continued. So if we want statehood, Madam Mayor, we can have it, but we got to organize to have it. How did Moses beat Pharaoh? He organized for it. How did Joshua bring down the walls of Jericho? He organized for it. How did David bring down Goliath?

He organized five rocks so he could get his cousins too. How did Esther defeat the plan against her people? She organized for it and said, if I people, if I perish, I perish. But I'm going to see the king. Scott, bottom line is this here. Schumer says there will be a vote next week. I still need to see the numbers. I don't buy nothing Joe Manchin says.

I don't think there's going to be one Republican who goes along with this compromise. What did my colleague call it? Did you say a pookie dance or a bookie dance? Whatever type of dance it is, whatever type of dance it is, it's not going to be a winning dance. We may have a vote, but it's not going to be a winning vote until he brings some Republicans along. And notice the irony of Joe Manchin. He's won vote and is holding up the Voting Rights Act for millions of people. He comes out with his own bill, right? And then he tells you, sit tight, I'm going to bring some Republicans with me. And we sit there with bated breath because we really have no choice, because the White House and the powers of the Democratic Party simply will not

do what is necessary to bring him in line to remind him that he needs to be from the Democratic side of the Democratic Party. And so we'll have a vote, right? But then the voters are going to vote in the midterms in 2022. And the question will be, will black people show up again to give Democrats the majority in the Senate and the House? And in four years, will they show up to do the White House and give them the Democratic vote when the Democrats haven't kept their bargain with Black voters? Will we show up? And the risk is that we won't. But Biden and the leaders of Democratic leaders simply don't believe that. They want to pass infrastructure. They want to pass the Build America Back Better budget. They want to pass climate change to placate white progressives and white Democrats and white independents, right? But it's black people. It's black people who delivered the

White House and the Senate and the House. And now that they're there, we are essentially being ignored. You got to call it the way you see it. And time is wasting. It's getting short. And black people again are being ignored and shafted by white Democrats who they gave their vote to. Why should we give them our vote again? Robert, this is, Lauren talked about the dark money aspect, but this is what Walter Schaub, who used to be the director of the Office of Government Ethics, tweeted out. He said the bill has to pass because voter rights are under attack, but he also laid out what's not in the bill. He said what was stripped out of the bill.

He said these are the provisions that the House representatives passed, but the Senate, no. This was a bridge too far for these senators. Somebody should ask them why. He said it required POTUS, vice POTUS, plus candidates for POTUS, vice POTUS to disclose 10 years of tax returns. Stripped out. Required the Supreme Court to 10 years of tax returns. Stripped out. Require the Supreme Court to finally adopt an ethics code.

Stripped out. Void federal contracts with POTUS vice president and impose penalties for holding such contracts. Stripped out. Bar spending federal funds on a business owned by the president or the vice president, cabinet officials, or their spouses and children. Stripped out. Authorize the Office of Government Ethics to conduct investigations and issue subpoenas which can be enforced by a district court, stripped out. Authorize OGE to impose disciplinary action, stripped out.

Authorize OGE to require agencies to seek OGE's approval when resolving conflicts of interest, issuing waivers, or handling other ethics matters. Require OGE to create a public online database for any records it approves. Require agency ethics officials to provide OGE with a broad array of ethics records, require OGE to post them online, require a presidential appointee to recuse from any particular matter involving a party who is the POTUS who appointed him or her, the spouse or child of that POTUS, or an entity in which any of these individuals has a substantial interest. Again, all of this stripped out. There are other things

that have been stripped out of the bill, and you have to wonder, as he said, what are you afraid of? Well, this isn't a mystery. If you go into a room full of criminals and ask them to pass laws to regulate themselves, what do you think they're going to do? The reason those things got stripped out is because

they got stripped out because these people have no interest in regulating themselves. And let's understand, the For the People Act was already too weak when it passed the House of Representatives. It was not responsive to the new wave of voter suppression the Republicans are doing right now. We're still talking about voter ID, those sorts of things. What Republicans are doing in 2021 is selecting their own voters. Look at what they're doing right here in Georgia. Look at what they're doing in Texas. They're attacking the right to vote in whole new ways. So you took a bill that was too weak to

start with, and then you made it weaker. And now we're talking about a compromise that paves the way for nationwide voter ID. Well, what the hell are we even voting on it for? Let's look at Georgia, for example. That's where I'm at. So President Trump lost by a little less than 12,000 votes. There are 159 counties in the state of Georgia. He lost by a grand total of about 80 votes per county. So when you're talking about voter ID, you're going to be stripping out far more than the 80-ish votes per county that will be needed to get President Trump in the White House, to get John Ossoff out of office, to give Republicans a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate until they'll be able to govern by fiat from now until the end of time.

What the hell is the purpose of us marching and fighting to get Democrats elected if they're going to be doing exactly what George Bush was trying to do back in 2004? What Scott was saying, I think, is putting it mildly. You know, I feel like what Joe Banch is doing right now is just throwing up smoke signals to try to run out the clock, because everybody knows that after Labor Day, you've got about 90 days to pass legislation before everyone turns into campaign mode for the 2022 election cycle. So if every part of this agenda is not passed in the next 90 days, well, then we're not going to get any of these things done because 2022 is going to be a dead

season. After Joe Biden's no good, terrible, very bad summer, everything from the economic numbers to the pullout from Afghanistan, he's got to put points on the board. This is not putting points on the board. It seems as if they're trying to intentionally lose. They are trying to pave the way for the reestablishment of that MAGA government, which is going to be coming back in. President Trump is already running a Vichy regime in the shadows. They have their candidates ready to run, rip-roaring, ready to go. They have their media apparatuses. They've got an entire cabinet in waiting. And the Democrats seem to not know what country they are running in. So the fact that they're not putting every effort into passing this entire agenda shows you that when they come to the community every two to four years and say,

black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party. We know who out there are lying to you through their teeth. They don't give a damn about you. You're the last thing on that agenda. And at this point, anybody who's still falling for it, now you got to start looking at them sideways. So it's nice that the white women have finally decided to show up to talk about voting rights now that we have tied it to abortion. But I want to see them coming together, standing alone when it's not something that they want on the table also. Standing up for that coalition of people that they say is the backbone of the party, not just in the election years, but during legislative seasons, and we're not seeing it right now, and I don't think we're going to see it.

We're not going to see the pressure put on Joe Manchin and Christian Sinema because they have bigger agenda items they want to get passed. And because of that, I'm not going to blame black folks and be browbeating them when they say, well, why do I need to get out and vote? Because what we're seeing is exactly what the naysayers have been saying the entire time. Folks, again, supposedly they're going to vote on this next week. We're going to continue to cover this. If you want to see the full news conference that took place in the Supreme Court today,

simply go to our YouTube channel or go to Black Star Network, the app, and you can actually see that full news conference. We live streamed it as well. Got to go to a break Network, the app. You can actually see that full news conference. We live streamed it as well. Gotta go to a break. We come back. We're gonna talk about the 200th anniversary next year of the country of Liberia. We'll hear from a couple government officials what their

plans are for that country which was settled by freed slaves in the 1800s. That is next on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Back in a moment. I believe that people our age have lost the ability to focus the discipline on the art of organizing. The challenges, there's so many of them,

and they're complex, and we need to be moving to address them. But I'm able to say, watch out Tiffany, I know this road. That is so freaking dope. Floyd's death hopefully put another nail in the coffin of racism. You talk about awakening America, it led to a historic summer of protest. I hope our younger generation don't ever forget that nonviolence is soul force.

Christ. Non-violence is soul force, right? That's true. Carl Payne pretended to be Roland Martin. Holla! Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, next year, Liberia will be celebrating its bicentennial. That's right, 200 years. Of course, it was settled by freed slaves. It is, of course, also the place where you had the first female president of the continent,

Ella Johnson Sirleaf, as well. And so we're looking forward to that. Joining us right now, a couple of guests. They were here in Washington, D.C., of course, catching up. A lot of journalists are on this very issue. So joining us right now on the show is the Honorable Samuel Twye, hope I pronounced it correct, Minister of Finance and Developmental Planning for the Republic of Liberia,

and also the Honorable Ledger Hood Rennie, Minister of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism for the Republic of Liberia. Gentlemen, glad to have both of you here. So first and foremost, when is the actual celebration? Is it going to be all year or are you designating a particular area, a particular time in 2022? Well, thank you, Mouthing, for having us here on this important show. It's going to be all year, straight answer. There are events we're planning along the entire year, 2022, which will make this 200th anniversary of freed African-American black slaves from the United States, multiple states from the United States, coming together to establish an example of African or pan-African leadership on the continent of Africa.

So imagine the context in which this is happening. At the time they're making this decision, blacks are slaves in the United States. And they're fleeing the conditions of slavery and they say, we can search for freedom back home in Africa where we belong and 200 years after that decision after conjoining with other African brothers and sisters indigenous brothers and sisters on the continent in in Liberia where Liberia is today we now have the Republic of Liberia you just said we had our first Africa had his first has had his first female president,

and Madam Ellen Johnson-Salib, and now we have President George Maleware, who's been in office since 2018. So this next year, we wanna invite the entire world, we don't invite Americans, African Americans, to celebrate this history, to celebrate this joining to freedom and to pen AfricanAfrican leadership.

This is going to happen. We want to bring the word to see what Liberia is. Liberia's story is an untold story. Most of Americans do not know about Liberia, even though we have this umbilical relationship with the United States. Most of Europe does not know much about Liberia, Asia, all over the world. We want people to hear the Liberian story. And the beginning of that is this 200th anniversary. We're going to be planning massive events, a number of things, a number of experts, all dimensions will be there. And I think it's going to be a great moment for the country. It's interesting. So you hear people say all the time, or you've heard people say it for a very long time,

you know, we need our own country. Well, the reality is Liberia is the only country in the world that was settled by free slaves from the United States. And that is why it's deeply rooted in our foundation and our history. That is why we want to commemorate that history, strong and deeply rooted to that of the United States of America. We cherish our rich and diverse culture, but yet at the same time, a union so strong that has led to the emancipation of many other countries across the world. Liberia's history is deeply rooted in the fact that black men, people of color, let me say, have been able to show to the rest of the world that they, too, have the gravitas

and the will of all and the intelligence to continue on their own, to be able to rule themselves, govern themselves in a respectable way and be free. And that is what that unit has shown. So we talk about this celebration. Obviously, we go back to 1619, 2019. There were Ghana really, really put together a strong plan. A lot of people were traveling to Ghana for the year of return, its 400th anniversary of the first people of African descent coming to the United States, which

began slavery in this country. And so are you looking at doing something similar to what they did, where they begin to reach out to folks, people begin to put tours together, and then creating sort of a really strong tourism opportunity. And then also, now granted, people have been going to Ghana for a very long time, but you don't have the same emphasis of travel that's been happening to Liberians. So talk about, from an infrastructure standpoint, what are you putting together to actually make this really a strong bicentennial celebration? Yeah, definitely. You know, we definitely will learn from the Ghana experience,

but I think the Liberia experience is going to be unique. Yes, we're setting up, we've set up a national steering committee in which the ambassador of the United States to Liberia is a member. And we're working with leaders across here in the United States to help make this happen. Obviously, Liberia does have its fair share of infrastructure challenges. But we're putting together a program that is consistent with the level of development we are. We're having some innovations to overcome some structural challenges as part of the planning process.

We're also learning from some of the weaknesses in the Ghanaian experience. We have experts who are already working on that so that we can have tourists and people from around the world come to Liberia, have a place to stay, but more importantly, want to return to Liberia. The goal is not just to have this event for a year, and then people leave, and then they don't remember Liberia. The goal is to plan in such a way that people go, they see the experience, they are hooked into Liberian history, they understand that the root that we have with the United States, the whole joining of slave trade, the whole essence of black struggle and black history, which is a big part of social consciousness in the world, of pan-Africanism.

They see Liberia as a go-to place. They visit the Providence Island, for example, where the slaves landed and see the artifacts and visit museums and they see all those other places in the country. They will have wonderful places to stay. We're looking for ways and convenient ways to accommodate as many persons around the world as possible, consistent with the constraints we have. But the real goal is to make sure that this is not a single event, that there is going to be continual flow after this event, that we become a tourism economy after this event, and we're moving in that direction.

This is very huge for the country. Before I go to my panel for questions, you talked about the challenges that you have. Look, I went to Ghana in 2008. I was back in 2019, and I saw the dramatic change in facilities in that 11-year period. When President Johnson's relief, when she was sworn in, I remember, Bob Johnson, if I'm correct, didn't he also open a resort or a hotel there. In terms of that level of capacity, what are you doing? Are you also looking towards African Americans also for investment in terms of being able

to build up your infrastructure ahead of the 200th anniversary? And when we talk about preparing for that, you just said something that I think is a lot different. When you travel to Ghana or other West African nations, typically people are going there and they are visiting slave dungeons or they're visiting the places where people of African descent made their final stop before being shipped away. Well, the difference with Liberia, you just said it, you're going to be showing where they returned.

That's correct. And that's why we want to show the ownership that we, as the leaders on the continent, because, again, it's true. We have a cocktail of different things. And we have our own fair share, like Minister Twist said, about our deficit in infrastructure. But notwithstanding, you're coming to Africa. You're coming to where every man of color is considered free,

regardless of where you come from. And that is why we need to celebrate 200 years of that sort of freedom. Yes, we're looking forward to, you know, the U.S. corporate partnership and the U.S. government's buy-in, buy-in, because we cannot do this celebration without the U.S. government's buy-in, because we cannot do this celebration without the U.S. government's buy-in to this whole celebration. It's about our heritage. It's intertwined. It's interlinked. Liberia cannot write its history without mentioning the United States of America. We see this as an opportunity now to rebrand Liberia,

to take its place as the rightful nation in a community of other nations that has been there, talking about the freedom of black people, championing the cause of other countries across the world on the continent, especially. There have been several movements that Liberia have had leadership roles in. So we want to make sure that we do not just have the Biden administration or the U.S. government's involvement in all of it. We want the corporate America to be involved in all of this also, too. We want the African-Americans to also be a part. So we're seeking this, you know, confluence of partnership so that we can make sure that when we celebrate, we celebrate the black freedom race,

because this nation is the pedestal upon which black people show to the rest of the world that without any assistance from anywhere, they can rule and they can build a nation that is enviable and that has all of the qualities that you would think about. Our country has a great history of democracy and deeply rooted to that of America, and we can tell that grandiose story when we celebrate next year. And Martin, if Liberia develops, Liberia succeeds, Liberia becomes a middle-income, high-income country. That success is going to be an African-American success. When you go back to African-American

history, there was tension about who wanted to leave America. After we've worked for America, why should we leave America and go back to Africa? We own, we are citizens of America. We've labeled here. We've been here. And then some African-Americans made that decision. Well, 200 years from now, here we are. African-Americans are here. They see life in Liberia.

The challenge is that we want to make life in America nearly the same as life in Liberia. So we have a lot of development work to do. That work is ongoing. Next year, we want all African-Americans to come and partner with us in this journey to perfect Liberia's development. That maybe after 50 years, in the next 100 years, or maybe the next, you know, the 400th year anniversary, the African-Americans who will be alive, they will say, OK, well, but I think it's OK. I mean, some of our brothers and sisters left and went to establish Liberia.

Liberia is doing wonderful today. We're doing wonderful in America. African leadership, African-American leadership has been proven to be a success. Those who stayed here are validated. Those who departed can be justified and the word can just be better. This is a wonderful commemoration and a moment to conjoin forces to take Liberia to the next level. Questions from my panel, I will start with Robert Petillo. Thank you so much. We really do appreciate all that you are doing there. If you haven't noticed, things aren't going great over here. So many of us are thinking about expatriating. What's the process that people will go through or who will they speak to if they wanted to move to Liberia long term or permanently? So we have the Liberian embassy here. It is located in Washington, D.C. As part of this

exercise, we're going to be setting up shops, online, digital platforms, different centers throughout the United States here. Because our real focus is the United States, even though we're trying to get everybody in the world. But we want to focus mainly on the United States, particularly African-Americans. All right. Places like South Carolina, where the history between Liberia and South Carolina is deep. Places like Virginia, where our first president... Texas announced that state for Texas for that example. For example, yeah. Yeah. So you're going to see a lot of platforms, a lot of setups. It's going to be easy. And yes, we're going to make it especially easy for you if you're going there. So there's going to be no hurdles. The normal bureaucratic process will be eliminated. It's fast lane, enter the country,

and everything is going to be fine. Celebrate and enjoy. Yeah. All right, Lauren. So, gentlemen, if there were two things, two top lines that you could, you know, impart on Americans for them to know about Liberia, what would they be?

What would, like, the top two things be that you would want Americans to know? That the country first was established by freed slaves from the United States. That's the most important part of our history. And it has been a beckon of hope on the continent of Africa for most African countries. Our blighted history over the last two decades have been the civil war, the Ebola, and the COVID. But yet, we've stood strong, resilient as a nation, have overcome all of our different pitfalls. But we continue in a union so strong. And that is why we believe that our forebears coming from the United States of America, conjoining with the indigenous on the

ground, making this union 200 years later so strong in pan-African leadership cannot be nothing more than a commemoration worth celebrating for all people of color, especially from the United States. Let me say, I don't think there is another country, I could be wrong, I don't think there is another country whose democracy is patterned as closely as possible to democracy here in the United States. Simple. Liberia has a bicameral legislature, a Senate, and a House of Representatives in much the same way as the United States. Why? Because the Liberian Constitution

was drafted by Simon Greenleaf of Harvard University. So an American who already knew what American Constitution was about wrote the Liberian constitution. So we pride ourselves on American democracy. And let me tell you this important fact. We are equal to American democracy in the sense that no president of Liberia can run for more than two terms of office. Recently in Africa, you've seen some finagling with term

limits here, all right, all across in West Africa and other places in Africa. That is not possible in Liberia. In the last three years, I want Americans to know that Liberia has gone to elections. There have been some protests, but there have been no political deaths. This is the place you want to go. Yes, we have a strong sense of security. We have a strong sense of freedom, like Americans. We have a strong sense of democratic right. This is the tradition we are building, partnering after here, the democracy in the United States. So I would like for African-Americans, for Americans in general, to know about Liberia.. And if you look at Liberia flag, Americans might be confused as to why is the flag so similar.

It's as if we took one of the, maybe you have 51 stars, and we took one of the stars and made it a star of Liberia, so you came down to 50. We consider ourselves the 51st state in the United States. So there are many similarities. And if you walk down the streets in Monrovia, the capital, any place across Liberia, once you are an American, you are home. You know, white, black.

Once you see you are an American, you are home. Liberians love America. They dream in America. The streets are named after Americans. The streets are named after them. Buchanan, Ashman, you know, and we can go on, Baltimore, you know, and we can go on. Baltimore, you know, and Philadelphia.

James Monroe. James Monroe, the capital city is named after him. Yeah. So our history is intertwined. You know, we cannot divorce ourselves from the United States. And I believe this is an opportunity for that history that has been, you know, on the dustbin for a while to be dusted up and brought to the fold so that the world can understand

that there is a nation on the African continent that carries democracy, that carries the freedom, unity, and respect for the humankind as its mantra for, you know, the human race. And maybe Americans don't know about Liberia because we've not asserted that leadership in the last hundred years. We've taken it for granted.

Maybe this is the seminal moment for that assertion now. This is the beginning. The 200th anniversary is the beginning to galvanize the momentum to let African Americans and Americans in general know that Liberia exists. Maybe this is a moment for Director Spike Lee or Denzel Washington to start scripting something about this founding of this country 200 years after free slaves left and joined their compatriots in Africa

to establish what has become of this country. This is the moment. This is the moment. Scott? Yeah, real quick, Roland. Congratulations, gentlemen, on your bicentennial celebration in 2022. I think you're right. I think it's an incredible opportunity for creating stronger tourism economy, but also a business and economic international economy with so many black businesses that are thriving and striving large and small in the United States. As a former chair of the D.C. Democratic Party, my question is rooted in whether you've been able to partner with the National Black Chamber of Commerce and other chambers of commerce, of commerce

in this country who have a thriving Black business membership, because that type of partnership would feed and shape up nicely with what you're trying to do for 2022. Can you talk about what those partnerships are or the ones that you're working on regarding chambers of commerce here in the United States? That is correct. We're forging these partnerships all across states in the United States. That's what this is going to be about. We're bringing delegations, state legislature, chambers of commerce from corporate America to Liberia. Senators, state senators, legislators are going to come with business people to see this.

So this is going to start probably at the end of this year or running through next year. Now we're having the conversation. We're putting in place the structures for doing all of that. You're right. When you look at the number of American investments in Liberia, even though we've had this wonderful history, you can literally count American capital in Liberia. So you think Firestone, for example, right, Firestone has been sold out. It's no longer an American company, I think, but we still associate that with America. So Firestone is a fixture in the American economy.

Coca-Cola is another one. You know, you run, you stop after naming two or three. The key question is that there are lots of small businesses in America. There are lots of small entrepreneurs who could locate in Liberia. We want to use this opportunity of this 200th anniversary to begin to attract them, to

have a conversation with these entrepreneurs in different state capitals. You know, African American business people, American business people in general, that's the conversation we're having. We're talking about investment climate. We're looking at opportunities that we can give these companies to locate. Liberia has a generous tax incentive for investors. We give you, you know, input waivers for a period of 10 years if you're investing a certain amount above a certain threshold. We can give you tax waivers if you're moving into certain industries. So we can make special provisions for you for land and land ownership and all of that. All of these we're prepared to give just to attract the world and just to attract African-Americans and Americans in general to Liberia.

We want to use this as an opportunity to create an oasis of the United States on the continent of Africa. That you can leave from here, you know, six to seven hours on a flight and land in Monrovia, any part of Liberia for that matter, and feel at home, that you're not losing anything. And that is why we believe that this sort of partnership, corporate as well as political and social, will do us best if we can get this down the road. Yeah, so I'm rolling real quick. I'm sorry, go right ahead. Go ahead.

No, the business incentives, I'm really happy to hear you talk about those business and tax incentives because that'll be so vitally important to black businesses in the U.S. who may not be thinking about doing anything internationally, but those opportunities are there.

You present those business incentives, making it easy for our large and small businesses here to do business there will be the key to your success. So all the best of luck. Thank you. We do appreciate it. And I hope you'll be an ambassador for all of us to make sure that this works because it's a home far away from home. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I have a few more questions. Have any of you traced your origin back to Liberia?

Have not. Have not. You should. You should, Martin. You look just like me. I think we have something. Now you know you don't look this good. Hey, guys. he thinks he is free. You cannot tell him anything.

He thinks he is free. Whatever, whatever. So I want to go over a couple of things, and this is sort of related to what Robert had to say. So Ghana did this. Are you looking at creating any dual citizenship opportunities? That's the first question. Yes, we're looking at those possibilities.

Actually, our president tabled before the national legislature a dual citizen bill. So that conversation is happening right now as we speak. So, yes, dual citizenship. Look, we have a huge population here in the United States. Probably around 400,000 Liberians of the 500 million Liberians live in the United States. They are American citizens. We want our people to have dual citizenship.

The president has championed that. And so yes, the answer is yes to that question. Remember, it's a union of 200 years of free slaves from the United States and the indigenous people. So there's always an opportunity for that to be passed into legislation. Already there are many of Liberians living in the United States, as Tu had said, and they share in the dual citizenship of the United States. We two have no reasons why we cannot do the same for our brothers and sisters from across the globe, from across another part of the ocean, just

about eight hours away on a flight to Monrovia to come and share in the glory of a land, under the fact that liberty is for all of us. I'm glad that you said that. I was pulling up,

going to my computer, I was just on Orbitz, and I was looking at flights. So are there direct flights from the United States to Liberia? At the moment, no. But before the war, there was a pen and flight directly from the Roberts International Airport to the John F. Kennedy, John Fitzgerald Kennedy Airport here in New York. So if you it takes it, it takes about it.

You know, and Delta was also there. But because of economic reasons, right, they were they were able to continue. But so we were working on that. So if you're going to have that leads to the next question so we saw, look, the airlines made a lot of money, black folks and many people from across the African diaspora

who traveled to Ghana in the year of return so are you having those conversations with Delta or Americans saying hey folks, listen if you're going to have a lot of black folks from the United States traveling to Liberia to celebrate the 200th anniversary, the opportunity, because, you know, again, I'm looking here.

I just put in just, you know, let's say you left on January 10th and came back on January 24th. It's showing, you know, two stops flying from JFK to Paris, another stop to get to Monrovia. And so that's just one thing I was just looking at. And so those conversations are ongoing. That is correct. We're having those conversations with American Airlines,

and this is going to be a part of the package. Okay. All right. So that's one thing. So now, look, we have obviously a digital show. I launched Black Star Network. And actually that name came from Marcus Garvey's cruise line because he wanted to create that to connect people in African-Americans with the African diaspora. Of course, you have Black Star Square there in Ghana. And so in terms of your Internet infrastructure, and so let's say we

streamed this show. So for us, if I decided to broadcast, if I decided to go to Liberia and decided to say, okay, fine, you know, as a part of this, we want to broadcast right now, it's 7.05 our time, it's 11.05. So if we broadcast live from Liberia, it would be at 10 o'clock at night when we do the show here, when we do the show here live. And so let's say we cover stuff all throughout the day and then we go live. So from an Internet standpoint, infrastructure standpoint, where are you with that to ensure that we're getting a strong, stable signal to be able to broadcast? That is correct. We have the bandwidth to do that. We have two major telecommunication carriers in Liberia, Orange and Lone Star.

And our Internet is probably a little stronger than what you have here in the United States. So you have to test that, Martin. You have to test that. Okay. That infrastructure is good. So here's the deal. So here's the deal. So here's the deal. Like I say, I went to Ghana in December 2019 when Bakari Sellers reached out to me

saying the breakfast y'all putting together. I said, all right. I said, let me know when the celebration. Obviously, it's going to be year long, but you're going to have some sort of major kickoff stuff along those lines. Love to see the schedule. Because this is Black-owned, I don't have to ask anybody's opinion.

We definitely can bring the show to Liberia and broadcast from Liberia next year. This is our first break. You have a seamless broadcast. This is our first break, and we're having our first break on a black-owned show. That's it. Talk about pan-Africanism. So we absolutely will talk and connect in terms of, you know, hotels, booking rooms, all that sort of stuff like that, bringing our crew, shooting stuff. I also would like to know, and again, this is where I think also for you,

when I was in Ghana, I hired a crew there. So I also believe in giving folks opportunity there. So the folks there who do audio and video, we want to connect. And so I look forward to having a greater conversation on what we can do to help participate. I'm sure you guys are going to be advertising. You're going to be trying to reach a lot. And so we reach a whole lot of black people. And so we certainly can partner in this. Thank you.

The ITC infrastructure is in place to get you going. So you don't have to worry about that. Also, the personnel, we have the technical crew to be able to assist your broadcasting, the kinds of works you want to do, to get your show going, to get even the restaurants here, the business people here,

to stream from Liberia, their products. When they go to Monrovia and see, and parts of Liberia, to see the beautiful beaches and the ecosystem, you know, we have a lot to show the rest of the world. And just by using the internet, they too can be good ambassadors for our country. And that's what we're trying to do.

We bring Liberia, tell this Pan-African history, and that brings it to the full internationally. And that's what our focus is for this Bicentennial. Y'all better get ready. I got a whole bunch of followers and fans. And so all of a sudden, if a couple thousand of us show up, we're going to be ready to party and have a good time. I'll tell you we're going to party. You'll be okay.

All right then. Gentlemen, I appreciate it. Good luck with the Bicentennial, and we definitely will be chatting more. This sounds like an absolute fun thing, and I think it is important for a lot of African-Americans who do not know the history of Liberia being settled by freed slaves. And so we look forward to sharing that information over the next several months.

Thank you. Thank you for having us. We appreciate that. Thanks a bunch. Thank you very much, sir. One more back to my panel. See, this really is, I think, Robert, Lauren, and Scott, really is a great opportunity because, you know, we always hear folks talk about, oh, man, you know,

some people, we ain't talking about that African stuff. We're not from there. Well, the reality is people don't understand the history, you know, of their country and the ability to provide the information and where you do have that connection. And we can't just keep also sitting here talking about the investment that the Chinese or the Russians are putting in these countries.

As I said, one of the first things when Ellen Johnson-Saleef became president was Bob Johnson invested in a hotel resort there because he said, if people are going to be coming here, not doing business here, they're going to have to have a nice place to stay. And look, Roland, I think you're exactly right. Also,

I want to go when you go. So just let me know what the dates are. Oh, you want to be a part of the, we want to be a part of the black star network. Contingent. Oh, you ain't taking us over there with you.

I am about it. You're talking to yourself, huh? I thought you thought you're number one. Scott, stop talking. Robert's talking. Scott, stop talking. Robert's talking. Look, one of the things I always get in arguments with the ADOS and the Foundation of

Black Americans people about separating people within the diaspora, that we which all be united as one. But I think Liberia is a prime example of understanding that, oh, look, we are united across the globe and we really do need to be forging these economic ties. And then once you get out of this American sphere of influence, you realize there's a whole rest of the world out there. There are tremendous economic opportunities out there for you. And just as you said, my friend Rashad McCrory went to Ghana at the beginning of the pandemic and is still there

because he realized how great it is simply to just stay there. I think more African-Americans seeing what we are dealing with in this country, where after hundreds of years, we're still marching and protesting just for the right to vote, getting over there and being able to stretch your legs out and be around your own people and be around your own culture and society, your own history and traditions in a very westernized way, whereas the acclimation process is a little bit easier where there's not so much of a language barrier and cultural barriers they were just mentioning. I think it's a great opportunity. And like I said, I'm in there. Just let me know the dates. I'll be right there with you.

Just make sure it's at least a four- to five-star hotel. I'm there. So you look at you already. So you're trying to sit here. Already. Hold on. At least four or five. We ain't going to ask your booze yourself, Scott.

I ain't going to be in no hostel by the airport. See, already, already, y'all. Lauren, go ahead. I will say, at the risk of sounding like a snob, I'm definitely looking for the three- or four-star hotel. But it's interesting, Robert, you mentioned Ketos and the sort of complaints that people generally have about us not being as joined as we should be in a Pan-African way or an economic way. But, you know, there are doers and there are talkers.

And the people, what we find in our technological age is that these pieces of technology like Twitter and Facebook provide for a lot of talking and not a lot of doing. And I think that what Roland was saying about the economic piece and going over and doing a show there, I mean, right there is a big piece of action because you involve so many people in that, who you have to hire, obviously, on the ground. I mean, it's just such a basic thing. And, you know, if you do that and you multiply that by all the black companies who are in the United States that have some bandwidth, that makes a huge impact. It looks like a powerful country. And again, Scott, I mean, first of all, I mean,

I'm being dead serious. I mean, the reality is, you know, the experience when we were in Ghana, we're literally editing right now, finishing editing that 10-part series. And what I'll do is I'll be sure in one of the commercial breaks, hey, guys, if y'all pull that three-minute sizzle reel we put together, we put that thing together right now, and it's telling a story. It's telling a story that a lot of people just simply do not know. It is actually, it's our history. Right. Yeah, no question about it.

It's an incredible opportunity. And I'll tell you this, Roland. If you go, and if we're not being remote, then I will go too. I ain't working for you or anything. But if you let me do my Wednesday night spot for Monrovia live on the set, I'll certainly go and then I'll vacation the rest of the week or two. No, I'm serious. I might even buy you dinner.

I'm serious, too. I'm very serious. The important thing is this, though. That investment opportunity that I talked to with the gentleman is super important, but they've got to have the infrastructure and be ready for it. And then, two, that'll allow black businesses all over this country to be willing to invest because they have a level of comfort because they have the infrastructure. They make it easy on them. Most black businesses, big or small, are reluctant to do business in Africa because they either don't understand it or do business anywhere else other than the U.S. because they don't understand it. But it's a thriving economy out there, world economy,

and the opportunities are even greater there and around the world than they may be here with whatever business limitations they have. And so I would hope that you would promote business investment as part of what your discussion is about this bicentennial. Alright then. So folks, we're going to go to a break right now. We come back. We're going to talk about the issues here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. We'll be back. Of course, you can also support what we do. First off, download

the Blackstar Network app. As I said, announced last night, we've surpassed we've gone past 10,000 downloads. Let me just see where we are right now. See what our number is right now. So we're past 10,000. Now we're on to the next 10,000. So we want to hit 20,000 downloads.

Our goal, of course, by December 1st is to have 50,000 downloads of the app. And so all you got to do is go to all the platforms. We're at 10,367. iPhone, Android, Apple TV, Android TV, of course, Amazon Firestick, Amazon TV, Roku, Xbox, Samsung TV. You can download us on all those platforms. You can also support us because your dollars allow us to do what we do. We were, of course, in Atlanta last night at the Four Brothers Only meeting. Phenomenal conversation. If you missed that, y'all, go back and watch that show. It was unbelievable.

And so check it out. It's right there on the Black Star Network app. It's also, of course, on our YouTube channel. Go back and watch that. And so check it out. You can support us. Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal.me, forward slash RMartinUnfiltered, Venmo.com is forward slash RMUnfiltered,

Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. In this break, I'm going to show you, of course, the teaser of the 1619-2019 project that we're putting together, that we are editing. And so after we show you this, we'll come back right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.

You read about their history, you know, you talk about, you see it on our side, you know, of the United States, but to actually come here and see where this story of slavery started and connecting the dots is just a wow factor for me right now. It's gonna be dark inside. You might not see too much, but you're gonna to feel everything.

Just imagine seeing prisons in the yard in the United States. A lot of us get to realize what is required in 2019, 2020. The century for us to be reprogrammed. What they call us needs to be removed and extracted. It just doesn't make sense that the richest continent in the world should be inhabited

by the poorest people in the world. Part of that is by design. Um, self-hatred has been a very tragic part of our whole existence. And I'm not blaming anybody for it. But if you look at most characterizations

of being of African descent in the world, it's with these kind of tats. Always say, you're going to do a lot of shopping. They go, oh, I don't think so. And then they come, so they brought think so. And then they come, so they brought limited reserves, and then they spend all their time running to the ATM because they see all these clothes they want and fabric they want. It's overwhelming. I've been here for eight years, and I'm still taking pictures out of my car because it's just, it's a feast for the

eyes on any given day. The kind of opportunities you have in Africa, you don't have those in America. The kind of money that you can make in Africa, very few of you would have that opportunity to do that in America. Cordy, who was working for the Congress in the United States, she has started a waste management company. She's the number one here in Ghana now. She looked at...

She took all the found in trash. There it is. What used to be jeans... Used to be jeans. management company. She's the number one here in Ghana now. She looked at it. She took out a thousand trash. There it is. Used to be jeans. Used to be jeans. Is now a huge problem. In Ghana alone, we have a 2 million unit deficit in housing.

2 million. 2 million. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh! Thank you! Seven of the 10 fastest growing economies right now are African nations. Why in the world would we not be trying to figure out how to connect? Because the Lebanese are. The Chinese are. Yeah, everybody's.

Everybody else is doing it. We will be crazy to do it. And it's for people who look like us. We will be crazy is doing it. We will be crazy to do it. And it's for people who look like us. We will be crazy to do it. We will be crazy to do it. We will be crazy to do it. What TV does matter, dang it? Hey, what's up, y'all?

It's your boy, Jacob Lattimore, and you're now watching Roland Martin right now. Yee! I'm your boy Jacob Lattimore and you're now watching Roland Martin right now. Let's go to Mississippi where six black farm workers are suing their former employer for paying white foreign farm workers higher wages. Pit Farm Partnerships is accused of hiring white South African laborers and paying them more for the same job.

Attorney Ty Pinkins from the Mississippi Center for Justice joins us right now. Ty, glad to have you here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. So walk us through this. Paying white South African workers, importing them more than the black folks who live there? Well, first of all, thank you for having me, Roland. It's a pleasure to be on your show.

And last Wednesday, the Mississippi Center for Justice, which is the law firm I work for, and the Southern Migrant Legal Services filed a lawsuit on behalf of six black farm workers against their employer, Pitts Farms, which is a large agricultural operation in Sunflower County in the Mississippi Delta. And our lawsuit against Pitts Farms, which is a large agricultural operation in Sunflower County in the Mississippi Delta. And our lawsuit against Pits Farm is based on allegations of racial discrimination and

discrimination against American workers, specifically that this farm paid white workers imported from South Africa more than they paid the Black workers from Sunflower County, where Pits Farm is headquartered, and that they eventually laid off most of the local black workers in favor of the white South Africans, and that they lied to the federal government in order to obtain the visas for the South Africans. And so we allege that the false statements this employer made to obtain the visas include first that they had attempted to recruit American workers for these jobs and had been unable to do so.

So they first, they said that they attempted to find American workers and they were unable to find them. And then they said that they would pay the local workers that already had the jobs the same amount as they would pay the South Africans that they had brought in. And we believe both those statements made by Pitts Farms were not true. Now, it's perfectly lawful to obtain visas for foreign workers when they are needed as long as you pay the local workers. You do have the rate you pay the foreign workers.

But in this instance, we feel like Pitts Farms did not measure up. They did not make the tape. And you guys laid out, you have the documentation as well, and the proof showing the white workers were actually earning more. Well, when farmers go through this process, they have to go through the Department of Labor, and they have to meet certain standards and obligations. First, they have to offer these

jobs to local workers. In this instance, the Mississippi Delta is about 70, more than 70 percent Black. So you have to offer these jobs to local workers first. And when you, if they can't find a local worker, then they can reach out to foreign workers. But if they do have local workers working on their farms in conjunction with foreign workers, in this instance, white South Africans, they have to pay them the same pay as those white South Africans are getting paid. However, in this instance, the local black workers were making $7.25 an hour. And from our research, the white South Africans, they came over in 2014, as early as 2014, and started making $9.87 an hour.

And that increased over most years until it reached about $11.83 an hour in 2020. But what were the local black workers still making? About $7.25 an hour. So what is the next step for you? Has the company responded? Well, the next step for us is to prepare for litigation. I can't get into whether the company has responded or not,

but the next step for us is to get into litigation where Pitts Farms will have to explain the discrepancy in the pay and why, given that in Mississippi, particularly the Mississippi Delta, you have some counties with an unemployment rate exceeding 13, 14 percent and a poverty level in some of these counties in the Mississippi Delta as high as 39%. Why is it that they're saying that they can't find employees when the unemployment level is that high, the poverty level is that high, and when they do have black people working on their farms, they feel like it's okay to pay farm workers more than they're paying local black workers. All right, then.

Well, look, we certainly look forward to more information on this lawsuit. Keep us abreast of what happens. All right. Thank you for having me, Roland. I really appreciate it. Thank you very much, folks. Let's talk about Haiti, where the man leading the assassination investigation and the country's president has been removed.

Port-au-Prince's chief prosecutor, Bedford Claude, was taken off the case by Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Claude believed there was evidence linking Henry to the July 7th murder of President Jovenel Moise. Henry was asked to testify about the case, pointing to evidence that a key suspect in the assassination called him after the attack on the first family. France Louise Juste is now the interim top prosecutor. More than 40 arrests have been made in connection with the assassination.

This continues to be an absolutely strange story that is going on there and we're going to continue to follow this. The assassination of the Haitian president. No one can still explain how in the world armed individuals stormed his home. No guards got killed, but the person they were protecting, he's dead. Hmm. Some shenanigans there. A school in Minnesota where the Minnesota Supreme Court overturns the murder conviction of former cop Mohamed Noor. The state's high court reversed the 2019

third-degree murder conviction in the killing of an Australian woman who called 911 in 2017. The second-degree manslaughter conviction remains in the death of Justine Damon. Noor was sentenced to 12 and a half years in prison. Now, of course, that could potentially be lessened. Very interesting here with that. In addition, a judge there has actually put on hold a law that was passed in Minnesota when it came to police use of force. He said that this thing must be, they must get this right when it comes to this use of force and allow this other case to move forward. Scott, it's interesting looking at these two here. Minnesota is sort of this battleground. We know where George Floyd was murdered there in Minneapolis. Those police

officers going on trial. Yet this case here, where prior to the cop who killed George Floyd, yet the brother who got convicted when previous white cops had killed folks and they didn't actually get convicted. The legislature who changes the law now, judge says, hold up, let's back off of making, actually instituting this and some other things get sorted out. And so you're seeing how, they're seeing where, I'm always talking about this here, where you can fight for change in the streets for policy to be made, but you can't even know what the courts do. Yeah, but the courts still have to follow the law. And if it's new law, how they implement it,

is it retroactive or not, is going to be what you need to watch here. You know, Minnesota has some really peculiar criminal statutes. One, I don't believe the police union supported the Ethiopian police officer. You didn't hear about that. They didn't issue any statements, I don't believe the police union supported the Ethiopian police officer. You didn't hear about that. They didn't issue any statements, I don't think. And so the dichotomy, the dynamic between Chauvin and these police officers who are still need to be tried, other than Chauvin, although Chauvin and them will be tried on the federal level too. And then you juxtapose that with the optics that you have this black police officer with white police officers and he shot accidentally or whatever the allegation is, a white woman in an alley who allegedly was reporting a rape or they had heard a scream and what have you. it doesn't cut down the middle. It cuts across and cuts to this black police

officer. And the racial dynamic and difference with how these cases are perceived are consistent with what black people say versus white people. Black people, they don't see us. The police don't see us, if you will. And now you have a black person with a badge on who by accident or purpose, whatever he was convicted of, he still doesn't enjoy the fruits of protections of the criminal justice system or the police union, if you will. You can have a lot of analogies here, but it's just a weird circumstance and one you can draw a lot out of, but it's still consistent with how black people are treated in America and how white people see white people through the white privilege lens and how black people see life in America through the reality image of what they've lived. I find this to be very interesting as a test case to see how this will be applied to police shootings going forward. As Scott said, it is very interesting to me that we do not have the same level of support

or outrage from the law enforcement community when it's a black man shooting a white woman, that we cannot ignore the racial dynamic. It's tantamount, or it or paramount in many of these cases when it comes to how people view, how the media treats, how groups and communities treat these cases. And we have to start working when we're drafting new legislation.

We keep talking about the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. It's not enough just to get legislation passed. It has to be properly crafted legislation to ensure that you can take out implicit bias, that you can take out any other factors to make sure you're only getting a ruling on the facts, not based on cultural stereotypes, based on race, based on ethnic background. The white woman is the most protected creature in America. Forget the three-toed sloth,

forget the spotted owl. We don't protect anything like white women in America. And I think it's very clear that- He said it too. Yeah, I think it's very clear what they're doing. He said it. He just said it. Oh, man. Go ahead on, brother. Keep going. I'm listening. Oh, no, that was this guy. Robert, you're done. Go ahead, Lauren. I'm done. Yeah. Yeah. You know, even bigger than that, we see this on the national level with the national FOP with regard to the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. Exactly. You heard all of those African-American cops speaking about how they were treated, what happened, what happened to them. You heard absolute dead silence from the national FOP.

It would have been impossible. Here you have an attack on the U.S. Capitol. It doesn't get any more dramatic than that. It doesn't get bigger than that, unless it's the White House, right? And the national FOP said absolutely nothing. And I don't know, A. Scott Bolden, it seems to me somebody should be suing over that. I mean, it's sort of obvious, right? You've got to be Irish-American before somebody says something at a police union or national FOP. You know, I mean, it's just obvious

that when it's a black cop, nobody cares. Nobody cares in these organizations. And they're not even trying to pretend. There's no pretense. The shield is off. They're not trying to pretend they care about black cops. So I don't know what that's about. And they may.

You know, if a black cop gets killed in the line of duty, they tend to show up and have a large procession if it's a high-profile matter. But I'd wonder if they show up if it's not a high-profile matter. I don't know, and I can't cast aspersions, but it feels that way, doesn't it? It just feels that way from a perception standpoint. When it comes to funerals and things like that, the ceremonial, everybody does show up. I will say that.

I went to a series of funerals right after 9-11, and I'd been to a few before that. And so it is very... The allegiance when somebody dies is clear. I'm talking about the union. I'm talking about the police union. I'm talking about the heads of the union. And I'm talking about the National Fraternal Order of Police,

who have gone completely silent, completely silent on January 6th. And I get it, because, you know, a good friend of mine is a police officer, U.S. Capitol Police officer. His friends all voted for Trump. I get all that. But you would think that just out of the...

out of what that organization is supposed to be doing, which is representing police officers, they would be representing police officers, black or white. And they don't do it when the police officer is black. And it's right out in front. Well, you see the same with the National Rifles Association. I got it.

One second. I got to cut this conversation off because I got another guest waiting. I got to get to this next story. Four elite gymnasts testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee today about the shameful abuse that they suffered at the hands of former team USA doctor Larry Nassar, in addition to how the FBI completely botched the investigation. First of all, Christopher Wray, the FBI director, apologized for how the FBI conducted the investigation. Among the people who testified was Simone Biles, who blasted the agency,

citing everyone is to blame for letting this happen. I don't want another young gymnast, Olympic athlete, or any individual to experience the horror that I and hundreds of others have endured before, during, and continuing to this day in the wake of the Larry Nassar abuse. To be clear... Sorry.

Take your time. To be clear, I blame Larry Nassar, and I also blame an entire system that enabled and perpetrated his abuse. USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee knew that I was abused by their official team doctor long before I was ever made aware of their knowledge. In May of 2015, Rhonda Fayan, the former head of USA Gymnastics women's program, was told by my friend and teammate, Maggie Nichols, that she suspected I, too, was a victim. I didn't understand the magnitude of what all was happening until the Indianapolis Star published its article in the fall of 2016 entitled, Former USA Gymnastics Doctor Accused of

Abuse. In July, Justice Department Inspector General report found FBI officials failed to respond to allegations with urgency and seriousness. Lawmakers on both sides are calling for answers from the Bureau. Larry Nassar was convicted in 2017, folks, on 10, abusing 10 girls, but 265, 265 young women have stepped forward and said that he sexually abused them. And so that was a shocking and devastating testimony today there on Capitol Hill. Folks, let's talk about this Wall Street Journal story that came out today that shows that young teens are greatly impacted by what they are seeing on Instagram. In fact, it shows that it speaks to how they view themselves, how they and this is an internal report. In fact, and they say that these teenagers are greatly impacted negatively by Instagram far more than any other app, including TikTok, Snapchat as well.

Now, Facebook, which owns Instagram, this is a driver of their revenue. And so this report was received based upon information that the Wall Street Journal received. And these platforms, according to their own internal folks, were flooded with unrealistic ideals of body imagery, career ideals, and even dietary plans ready at their fingertips. Instagram was linked to the rising rates of anxiety and depression among the groups of people that use them. Almost 6% of American users trace their desire to commit suicide back to Instagram. Joining us right now is the founder of Stop Online Violence Against Women, Shereen Mitchell. Shereen, glad to have you here back on Roller Martin Unfiltered. What's interesting about this report. This is an outside group making

allegations. It's literally from the inside of Facebook. They've been saying one thing publicly, but internally know something completely different. Yeah, this has been going on for quite some time. And also the problem with this, if you haven't seen this pattern already with Facebook, is that even when outside entities are trying to get access to the data to discern like what's going on on these platforms, Facebook has always put up barriers like we saw with the NYU Observatory organization at this point, the academic university at this point. But the fact that they have multiple internal reports that they deny or they don't act on or they decide to make a decision that is not in the best interest of his users no matter what their internal reports are but just to be clear like um instagram itself is the the majority of users is 22 22 and younger and we have seen this before and as a matter of social dilemma, like the people who helped to create Instagram admitted to what it was doing and how it was impacting young girls. And we saw that a

year ago. So that means that there was a video about it. They had their own internal reports about it. The FTC Commissioner Chopra has talked about it as early as May 2021 this year. And yet with all of that evidence, they still decide to do nothing. And that now that there's bad press, bad media, now they're making statements about things they want to do or suggestions that they have. But that's the problem. They have done their own internal workings on multiple aspects of the problems of their platforms, both multiple of them, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp. The decisions that are being made internally are what we're hearing that are problematic. And there's always this, you know, Zuckerberg gets up and goes to testimonies and hearings and says he's sorry and they're going to do better. And yet we know that unless there's public pressure, unless there's another hearing, and even in some of those instances, they don't actually make dramatic changes. And this is a problem across the board. But particularly, you know, with the work that we do, we see this kind of harassment and targeting and the ways in

which they do not respond to that in the comments section and the like, particularly with young girls of color. And the thing here that, again, that jumps out is saying one thing publicly and knowing something else totally privately. And so what do you expect? I mean, what can be done against them? Look, they understand. Look, it's $100 billion. They know the amount of money that they're earning as a result of this. And one of the founders of Instagram acknowledged, yeah, you know, there's an issue. But they always say, oh, there are great things that we we able to do with these platforms. But when you start talking about how it is affecting these teenagers mentally and how it's how it's causing other health issues.

When you talk about that particular documentary was stunning watching it because they knew how they built these algorithms and how they did things to grab your attention with the likes and all different things along those lines, how it impacted people personally. Yeah, I mean, and be clear, they've even, remember, they've done studies where they manipulated people's feeds and they tested the algorithms to see what kind of impact and reactions. In many ways, if you think about it, the what we see now on Facebook, the likes, the angry, the sad, those are all emotional triggers. They're actually collecting more data every time someone clicks one of those emoticons. That's what they've been doing and that's what they know. And I think the problem

here is that people still think that what they're doing is very innocent and that the platform is neutral and people are just operating with the way in which they engage on these platforms, when we now know that much of that has been manipulated. And that's the problem that we're having. And now we're talking about children, but ultimately across the board, I mean, they have been manipulating emotions and allowing disinformation, all the way up to the rage and the violence that we have been seeing since January 6. They know these things have been happening. They have not been taking action. And when you ask the question what can be done, I mean, this is the point where we can't just keep having hearings, that regulation needs to happen.

And I'm hoping this time around, with a different administration, the FTC, the FCC and others will actually take action and put things in place with teeth that can hold the company accountable. I mean, they have a dissent decree with the FTC, and it seems to me that's not working. Yet they used that as a weapon to say that they were accommodating the dissent decree by cutting off third-party researchers and data scientists from getting access to their data. As a matter of fact, they just recently removed from their crowd tangle to some of the information about January 6th. So they are saying

one thing publicly and talking about all the great things they're about to do and the transitions that they want to have. And they're giving all these suggestions, but their actions say something completely different. And we need to start accepting the fact that it's been years of these apologies and them doing something different. Now children are being affected. Like, we know that there's been pushback from them about the COVID information. They've been focused on that now. And I just feel like at this point, we need to take more actions and hold them, hold their feet to the fire a little bit more. I do think that we have, I've said this before, where other countries may, you know, kick them under the table.

America constantly plays footsie with them. And they are beholden to certain aspects of these debates that I just don't think that we're holding them accountable to what they're actually doing to the users. Lauren Burt. Yeah, I'm muted. Everyone understands. Can you hear me? Yes. Everybody understands that Mark Zuckerberg isn't going to do anything. I don't understand why we allow him to sort of waltz in and out of these hearings, waltz in and out of meetings, waltz in and out of the situation,

and change absolutely nothing. And it just keeps going on and on. The only thing Mark Zuckerberg cares about is making more money. That's it. That documentary, Social Dilemma, was shocking. It's on Netflix. I think it's still on Netflix. That was an absolutely shocking documentary. There's a book by two New York Times reporters that is out right now called An Ugly Truth on. His Zuckerberg's game is clear. He's not going to change anything. He's not going to do anything. He's going to come in.

He's going to answer some questions. He's going to walk back out and do absolutely nothing. Obviously, Facebook's lobbyists are very good and has control of our members of Congress. Because we've been sitting here now for years watching this dance. We know that the level of divisiveness in our politics has gone up. We know how they make money. They make money through conflict. They make money through

divisiveness on Facebook. They make money through arguments. Facebook does a lot of good things. We understand that. When a baby is born, when somebody dies, when somebody's sick, we find out about it through Facebook. But there's a lot of unstudied consequences of that platform and the impact that it has on people, particularly young people. There are things that we do know and that we have figured out already that nobody wants to confront. And I suspect that as somebody who has a few friends that work at Facebook who used to work on Capitol Hill, I think that they've just got really good lobbyists to keep stopping our members of Congress from changing the policy.

But it's ridiculous, and I think it's dangerous. We just found out on January 6th how dangerous it is because there's nobody that believes that that would have happened without social media. There's no way. And misinformation, of course. Okay, but then isn't Facebook and social media nothing more? And I'm not saying it's innocent when I say nothing more,

but isn't it a reflection of everything else that's going on in America? No. And do you want to regulate everything that's going on in America, good, bad, and ugly? No, it's not. So, Shereen, please explain. How come it's not? So, Shereen's about to explain.

Shereen, please explain to Scott how pervasive Facebook now is with the amount of data they have and how they are able to take that data and literally manipulate it to drive profit. Yeah. So, I think there's a couple of things. Like we do this data analysis and we get as much data as we can from Facebook and other platforms. And so I think what you're trying to say is that you feel like this is a reflection of where America is right now. And sometimes it is, but sometimes it's an exacerbation of that. So when you see the way the data has been collected, again, when I talked about those emoticons, right, they are collecting data on people's emotions and figuring out which content gets the most emotional reactions out of people. And they're using that to discern which additional

content is presented to you. So to be honest, a lot of the happy stuff that goes on does not get as much traction as the horrible stuff, as the deadly things, as the harmful things where people are threatening each other, the violence, the attacks, the ways in which that is happening in our communities, in my opinion, is probably very different. But Facebook is actually measuring that data and actually using their news feed. And they've said this multiple times themselves. They will change the news feeds depending on what they think is happening or what they think people need. At one point, the news feeds were just about sending news out, and then it was, we're going to just allow people who are connecting. That's why some people don't even see their own friends anymore, because they're suggesting

different sets of content to them. And people are saying, well, I'm not seeing my other friend so-and-so as much as I used to. And I hit all the buttons that says this person should be priority in my feed and they're no longer there. But that's because Facebook has changed the algorithms around. I agree. And you're right about it exacerbates it, right? So what do you do about it then? From your perspective or your organization's perspective, what do you do about it? Because if you tell me you want the government to regulate it, okay.

Now that gets complicated. So here's the question, Shereen. The question is this, Shereen, is do you believe that Facebook is now a utility? Right. We can go into that. Be careful now. That gets into the Section 230 argument.

But yeah, like this is... Here we go. That is a very tricky question, right? Because, because that's a key piece to that. But, but that, that goes into another question, right? If people are getting elected through Facebook and that, and that's being used in that way, I do think we need to think about what content is there and how that content is being manipulated. Well, Scott, hold on. Hold on. I got to pull in Robert.

But, okay, hold on. I'm going to come back around. Shereen, please finish. I'm going to go to Robert. Go. Yeah. But let me just be clear. There are ways that regulations can hold them accountable for the content that's on there.

They are making decisions about the algorithms. They actually have an algorithm right now that can pull down hate speech. They're choosing not to deploy that algorithm because one political party will be pulled down more than the other. So they should be held accountable for making that decision. There are different aspects of this that we can have conversations about, but I understand how tricky we can go down this line about a utility. But I do think that there's conversations that we need to be having that we're not having presently. Robert? Well, piggybacking a little bit off of our tangentially piggybacking on what Scott asked, what do you think the role is of parents in this? Because it's primarily, I think,

the study affecting young people, and particularly young women who are the number one consumers of social media. But, you know, parents now, they create Instagram accounts for their children as infants that are, you know, 10 and 15 years old. What role do parents have in making sure they regulate the amount of screen time, they regulate the amount of online activity that their young people are doing, knowing that they're being negatively affected by the unrealistic body images that are being put out there, the type of beef and drama that's being put out there? And how can we talk to parents more so about

making sure they're providing the real world alternative to the digital experience? Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that there's no accountability there, but let's just be clear, if there is actual manipulation, just the same way that we would handle the way in which Instagram could be used to deploy sexual predator content for young children, right? We have laws against that.

So we need to make sure that we don't discount that part of this conversation, even as we talk about parents, right? There are things that we can take responsibility of. But the other piece that you're speaking to in terms of parents being able to deal with screen time at home, very easy. But if you saw that documentary, when they go to school, that control is different. And so you're trying to ask parents to be somewhere present with their children and their phones 24-7.

In that social dilemma, a parent actually took the phones away and locked it in a case, and one child actually broke the case. So we do have issues that we still need to deal with in terms of the way in which the expectations are, but also in terms of even if parents know, unless they're not giving their children phones at all, which is a whole different other conversation to be had, you're going to disconnect your children, period, from the Internet. Then we're having a problem about a discussion about utilities because most of what they have to do with school, work, and their future, and even their possibilities of careers that they may take, not having access is going to take on a whole different aspect. So we can't go down that route, because that's not possible.

But I do think that having more conversations about for children to speak to parents, but also providing more resources to children and young adults about where to go when they're feeling the way they're feeling if they can't go to their parents. Because some children can't go to their parents because some of the abuse that they're dealing with also comes from home.

Scott, one final question. Go. Okay. But you have an advocacy group. So tell me if government has a role in regulating Facebook and social media, then tell me the top three things you'd like to see the government do to bring Facebook and other social media entities under control. I mentioned a couple, but the very, very top one is to have the FTC hold them accountable for these algorithms, especially the ones that they know that there's data. Like they keep saying they don't want to put out their data because of privacy issues. But again, they stopped other external researchers from doing that.

So one of the things I would suggest, one, is for them to hold them accountable for what the content and the problems that are happening on the platforms. Two, allow third party to have access to the data, not with any privacy violations, because that's not what anyone's saying, to be able to detail what's actually happening, to come up with solutions that maybe external entities can come up with solutions to help them address this. What is clear is that Facebook cannot fix this problem themselves, because every time they go to hearings, they walk away and repeat the pattern. So those are my top three it's not cannot say they will they don't want just not being held accountable to do it got it all right Shereen Mitchell we appreciate it uh you guys could do lots of data

research where people's give more information yeah go to our website stop online Viola calm and and please check out our latest research on the CRT which where people can get more information. Yeah, go to our website, stoponlinevile.com, and please check out our latest research on the CRT, which actually shows how much of conservative spread that Facebook lets happen in comparison to other media. So when you hear this conservative bias, it's actually not true. Regarding critical race theory?

Yes. Cool. All right. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Folks, California, Governor Gavin Newsom will keep his job after blowing away his Republican challenges. And last night's recall election during his speech, Newsom thanked his loyal supporters and blasted Donald Trump for his accusations of voter fraud. And I think about just in the last few days and the former president put out saying this election was rigged. Democracy is not a football. You don't throw it around.

It's more like a, I don't know, antique vase. You can drop it and smash it into a million different pieces. And that's what we're capable of doing if we don't stand up to meet the moment and push back. I said this many, many times on the campaign trail. You know, we may have defeated Trump, but Trumpism is not dead in this country. The big lie, January 6th insurrection, all the voting suppression efforts that are happening all across this country, what's happening, the assault on

fundamental rights, constitutionally protected rights of women and girls. It's a remarkable moment in our nation's history. Of course, he racked up more than five million votes. People said no. It was boosted by healthy turnout among an overwhelmingly Democratic electorate. Of course, he bested the likes of Larry Elder, that fake brother, as well as Caitlyn Jenner, who got one percent. So can we just go ahead and agree we don't need to ever need to hear a word from Caitlyn Jenner about a damn thing when all you got was 1%. And also, Larry Elder,

yeah, you know what? We can trade him for anybody at any day. The fact that we're even discussing Larry Elder as a serious person that would serve him, it's really, really scary. It is an indictment of the modern Republican Party that

they would present him with a straight face in any election, unless it's the governorship of California. Incredible. And thank God he was crushed, because if he got even close, then you've got to deal with him again and probably will have to deal with him again anyway, but he'll probably get crushed again. But Larry Elder is a joke. He's an absolute joke. I don't know why Republicans think it's cute running these types of people. Herschel Walker, you know, what are you doing? I mean, if you want to create, if you want to present these nuts to the electorate, okay, fine. But you're going to get what you paid for, unless you're in a really red state. You you're going to get what you paid for. Unless you're in a really red state, you really don't get what you paid for. But Larry Elder is one of their worst moments.

And that's saying something. Well, I think also it's part of a strategy that the GOP is employing right now, just circling back around to what we were talking about earlier, about Black voter turnout. The GOP for the last several years has been making inroads and attempting to make inroads with Black male voters to separate them from the black female voter. Remember back in 2020, Donald Trump got 19 percent of the black male vote. So that's why you're seeing Larry Elders in California, Tim Scott in South Carolina. Right here in Georgia, we got Herschel Walker, Kelvin King running for Senate, Vernon Jones running for governor. And so right now they're running joke candidates. They're running Vernon Jones or Herschel Walker or Larry Elders. But I think the Democratic Party

needs to look out for 2022, 2024 going forward when they start having actual serious candidates, people who you can't simply just laugh off, people who have actual records and resumes and aren't, you know, these insane caricatures of what a black conservative is. The Democrats are going to have to start passing some actual legislative agenda items and not being able to just write these things off. Because with Donald Trump getting 19 percent of the vote, imagine what a competent black Republican candidate, you know, the old school Colin Powell type of black conservative, the old school Condi Rice type of black conservative, the type of vote they would get going forward. So the Democrats, you can laugh it off now, but it's a

this to look at this going forward for a place where they might have weakness. Well, the number one group that supports the Democratic Party is black women. The number two group is black men. And if they want to keep running these people, they can go keep running these people. They're not going to get—see, you're talking about the 19 percent of Trump. That's versus Joe Biden. That's not versus Obama. That's not versus Obama.

That's not versus Kamala. So who the person's running against is a big factor here. I think the Republican Party is really ending itself with these types of candidates. But the demographics in the country are going to be ending the Republican Party, and their policies and what they believe in, and the party of no, and the party of hate, and the party of Trump is what's ending the party. And it's being ended based on all of those things, but it's ending in front of them. No, no, no, no, the party is not ending.

Can we please stop saying that? Republicans right now- It has ended. the Republicans, no. No, it has not ended. No, it has not. The Republican Party right now controls 31 state legislatures.

They control 30 governor's mansions. Ain't shit ended. No. See? No, no. This is the mistake that we make. The party is ended. The party is not ended. They are still there. They are still in power. They are still passing laws in Florida, in Texas, in Arkansas, in Alabama, in Mississippi, in Tennessee, in Louisiana, in South Carolina, in Georgia, in North Carolina, in Iowa. I can go on and on. They are still here. Okay. So I agree with you. They're still here. But the takeaway from

California, which is, I think, the original question, the takeaway from California is twofold. One, that COVID-19 and vaccinations and the health of individuals and kids in this country is priority number one for most Americans. I know all Democrats, but for most Americans, and that's going to continue to be the case for the midterms. The Democrats can learn that part from California, even though it's uniquely Democratic, it's a huge economy and what have you. The second thing that you can take away is that Donald Trump is incredibly unpopular. And the Democrats are gonna hang Donald Trump. I don't care what state it is.

Their Republican nominees are gonna continue to reflect Trump's values, if you will, and hang Trump around Yunkin in Virginia, for example, and anywhere else, because he is deeply unpopular, especially since January 6th. That's going to matter in the midterms. And if the Dems have enough money, and they have a lot of money to spend on quality Democratic candidates, then they can survive, if not succeed, in winning the midterms. However, it's still tough, but those are two political themes that every Democrat in this country running for federal or state office needs

to embrace. Bomb lines is here. You can run it all you want to. And when it comes to the House, those are special. That's a different distinction. It's 700,000 people you're appealing to in districts. In fact, you're also seeing with gerrymandering going on. So, for instance, in Texas right now, Republicans hold an 18-13 majority in the state Senate. They're looking to change the maps that will actually lead to a 20-11 majority. They are looking to expand their electorate.

Let's go to Boston where Michelle Wu wins the primary election for the mayoral election there. Wu, the Boston city councilor at large, will face off with fellow councilwoman Uni Susebi George to be the first woman of color elected as Boston mayor. Wu owned 33.36% of the votes. George got 22.48%. Of course, the sister, who was the interim mayor, she actually came in third. In Cleveland, Cleveland will elect a new mayor for the first time in 15 years. Justin Bibb will face off against City Council President

Kevin Kelly in a mayoral election in November. Bibb, African-American, earned, first of all, he earned 27.14% of the vote. Kelly got 19.39% of the vote. And so that's actually happening there in Cleveland. So those are the local races. And again, we're always talking about the impact of all these different races. And that's why these things absolutely matter. Let's talk about Catholic Church. The Pope came out today and addressed this whole issue of bishops and priests saying that they were not going to extend communion to any politician who supports abortion. Well, the Pope is already, the Pope, of course, who leads the Catholic Church,

has said, y'all outside your damn lane. Focus on what you are. He literally said, you are not politicians. You are pastors. Stop being involved in politics. I'll read the quote in a second, but the reason I find this to be interesting, the position of Pope Francis, is because have y'all heard the Catholic Church is just as opposed to the death penalty as they are to abortion. Y'all notice you never seen these bishops announce that they are going to come out and stop giving communion to any politician who supports the death penalty. You notice that? Huh. Yeah, that's actually happened.

The leader of the Catholic Church actually says that religious leaders should remain outside of politics and act with compassion. Quote, communion is not a prize for the perfect. Communion is a gift, the presence of Jesus and his church. A pastor knows what to do at any moment, but if he leaves the pastoral process of the church, he immediately becomes a politician. See, the thing here, Lauren, that again jumps out at me, you don't hear these conservative American Catholic bishops saying jack about Republicans and some Democrats who still support the death penalty. It's amazing how they only want to talk about the issue of abortion. Yeah, well, there's two reasons for that. One is the patriarchy of the Catholic Church and this idea that men can somehow be in control of women's bodies and women's decisions.

And the other reason is just straight sort of a lack of recognition for other people's views when they are on the left. I mean, it doesn't surprise me. It's sort of the same hypocrisy we see from so-called Republican libertarians around all sorts of issues, like, say, police brutality, which they never speak out on. If that's not too much government, I don't know what is. But this isn't really surprising. I mean, the Catholic Church is patriarchal, which most religions are, very deeply patriarchal. So they're focused on women. They're focused on what women are doing. They're focused on controlling the decisions of women that they know nothing about. And so that's not, there's nothing surprising. Well, and what really jumps

out at me, Robert, again, is the hypocrisy. And guess what? The folks in mainstream media, they never say a damn thing. They never say a word about it. And I'm going, if you're going to discuss that issue in the Catholic bishops, then challenge them on the death penalty. And why are they not as vocal in calling out Republicans and some Democrats who still support it? Well, you can take it even beyond the death penalty. If you're going to use biblical teachings to determine what politicians you're going to give a communion to, what about people who oppose universal health care? How can you be against Medicaid for all and still get communion?

Or cuts to the poor. I was going to say social programs, caring for the poor, the money changers. How are you giving those people communion? The people who are anti-vaxxers right now, causing old people to die, how can you give them communion? This is why the church has to not meddle in and this is why you're seeing so many young people leave religion

across the board because of the hypocrisy that is involved and you teach one thing in the book and then you have the exact opposite when it comes to your public policy and your public statements. It's funny how we grew up I grew up in the South, so I grew up with Jerry Falwell, the moral majority, the Crystal Cathedral, the Christian Coalition, all that stuff in the 80s. And then when you get Donald Trump and his porn star wife up in the White House,

they are in there shaking hands, smiling, and acting like nothing ever happened with Donald Trump who got five kids by three different baby mamas. So it's all complete hypocrisy. And this is why so many people pay no attention to it. Well, you don't have to limit that to the Catholics. I mean, you can look at every religion and say the same thing. I mean, I agree with you all about the hypocrisy of the church, but the church, the Catholic church has its own dirty laundry that it doesn't want to talk about either. And what these orders come down from the Pope, they're unenforceable compared to the human condition. I mean, the priest, they can't marry, they can't have children, and they have a history of being pedophiles. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no

You just said the orders for the Pope are unenforceable. That is not true Well, they're unenforceable compared to the human condition. Oh, no Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott No, you said no, no Scott Scott Scott Scott Scott. No, no, no, no Scott You said unenforceable I was born and raised Catholic the meeting to find us. No, no, Scott, Scott, Scott. Scott, Scott, Scott. No, no, no, no, Scott. You said unenforceable. I was born and raised Catholic. The meeting to follow. I was too. No, no, no.

But the meeting to follow. So here's the deal. The Pope can issue an edict that is followed by all priests and bishops. So he can issue edicts that are enforceable within the Catholic Church. Roland, I'm talking about the Catholic members, okay? Let me clarify. Right, thank you. But you have to specify for that very reason. Okay. But you can't say

that a Pope can say something that's not enforceable. It's not true. Go. Well, it's enforceable with the patriarchy, but it's certainly not enforceable with Catholic members. It's enforceable with people who are under the authority of the Pope. Pope. Fair enough. But Catholic members violate those edicts, notwithstanding they're in church every week. But the Baptists

and the Lutherans and all Christians, quite frankly, have various edicts and orders that they're supposed to follow and what they're supposed to believe in. And as a practical matter, in the daily life of human beings all around this world, they simply cannot follow them. And so it's important to have that leadership. We have to believe in something that's called our religion. But at the same time, they also teach that we're all sinners, if you will. And so we have this sinful life that we ask for forgiveness and we have to take contrition for and what have you. And so it's a highly imperfect organization, including with its followers, because it's tough to live by those edicts if you're a member or a Christian. And so, you know, okay, what do you do? There aren't religious leaders in the Baptist

church talking about, I'm not going to serve you if you don't do X, Y, and Z. I mean, Catholic, Catholics in particular tend to do that. There are Baptist churches that won't serve homosexuals, for example, or preach against homosexuality in the Baptist church. Let's not get holier than thou with the Baptists or the other Christians just because the Catholics are the largest and the richest religious organization in the world. I mean, really. So they all preach against homosexuality, right? Are they not going to serve communion? Because Baptists serve communion once a month. Are they not going to do that? Or the AMEs serve communion?

Are they not going to serve if you're homosexual or transvestite? Okay, first of all, again, what you're dealing with here, okay, first of all, to understand what is happening here, these are bishops who are making political statements. That's what they are. And they are, and many of these bishops are very conservative bishops. And so that's what they're appealing to. And so what the Pope is saying is get out of the political business. Focus on being a pastor.

And I'm trying to make a point. I'm simply saying they love to speak on abortion, but you never hear them talking about the issue of the death penalty. All right, folks, I've got to end the show with this here. So I saw this story, and apparently a lot of people were really pissed off when they saw this video. And I've got a few thoughts about it. Roll it.

Roll it. Roll it. All right. Look at the girls. Yeah! I can't get enough oh I can't get enough. All right, so here's the deal. So people who saw this video, they were commenting. They were like, oh, my God, this is embarrassing. How dare he? He's coming down the aisle. He's smoking a cigar. He's drinking. OK, first of all, if you saw the venue, they were not in the church. That's the first thing. OK, that's first. Two.

You can do what the hell you want to do at your own damn wedding. I am really sick of all these people out here whining and complaining. If that man want to walk down the damn aisle first with a bottle, with drinking and a cigar, he probably is a kappa. If that's what he wants to do, then go

right ahead. See, I don't understand all these people out here. First of all, y'all got to understand something. My grandmother had a catering business. I worked with a catering business since I was 70 years old. I stopped when I was 30. I have catered numerous weddings, okay?

Numerous, hundreds of weddings. And I don't understand people who have this whole idea of you can do what you want to do. My first marriage, I actually walked down the aisle with my parents. This woman was like, how dare you? I said, first of all, your ass didn't write no check.

You didn't write one check. So, I don't give a shit what you think. I said, oh, by the way, your ass wasn't invited to the wedding anyway. So, I obviously don't give a damn. She's a co-worker. I said, don't give a damn. I said, thoroughly, you ain't even got a man. But you want to weigh in

on my damn wedding. On my damn wedding. But here's the deal. I don't care. I've seen other weddings where they've come down the aisle dancing and grooving. It's a cultural thing. So who cares?

That man can do what the hell he wants to do on his wedding day, and the woman he married can do what the hell she want to do on the wedding day. So I just don't get all these folks with these silly-ass wedding rules, Lauren. It's like, well, no, no, you can't. Look, we've seen them all. I can't even tell y'all. Like, that was a rule. And again, we catered.

No one can walk on the aisle runner except the bride. I was like, that's bullshit. I'm like, she the only one can walk on the aisle right now? And then it was like, we would do these weddings, and the center table, the bride's table, was always like the most decorated, the nicest, the nicest linen. The groom table was like, his cake was on some side shit with a punch bowl. It was like, damn near in the corner.

And so it just cracks me up how people have these, Scott, put the damn phone down. It's after eight o'clock, it's 815. Well man, look, if they call, hit in, text their ass and say, yo, look, if they call, hit in, text their ass, and say, yo, I'm going to hit you back. But I'm just... It wasn't no client. Stop lying.

I'm just tired of these people who act as if they can tell you what to do at your wedding, and they ain't paid nothing. Yeah. I hear that. I totally hear that. I think it's just the weddings are about the day.

That day is about the bride and the groom and that's it. And to me, really nobody else's business. Maybe the parents, if one of the parents is contributing financially. No, hell no. It ain't about their ass. But I mean, sometimes you do have people paying.

No, no. It ain't about their ass. They ain't the ones, it ain't their day. And I can't stand that bullshit. The weddings are about the people at the wedding. And I really can't stand that bullshit, oh, it's the bride's day. If it's the bride's day, Robert, her ass can get married by herself.

I'll be playing golf. Roller, two points. One, I feel for the groom because I think everybody passes out after their wedding day. You wake up first thing in the morning, you got to get dressed, you got to do the cruise meeting, you got to walk down the aisle, you got to take pictures, then there's a reception, then there's a dance,

you got to talk to your mom. After about a 12-hour date, you pass the hell out. It's a long day. And secondarily, this is why women can't marry Kappas no more because that's how a Kappa shimmies down the aisle all by himself. He has to make it all by himself the entire time. I would put money on that.

It's his day, too. Well, listen, whether it's a Kappa or an Alpha or a Q. I ain't seen the video at all. That's true. But here's the deal. He could be a Kappa, Alpha, Omega, or Sigma for all I care. The bottom line is, his wedding, her wedding, it's their wedding. And the judgment is just ill-placed.

It's not well-placed because it's their day. And every wedding is different. I could care less. Now, he passed out. Okay. But that's their wedding. That's their less. Now, he passed out, okay, but that's their wedding, that's their story, and that's what they posted. So what difference does it make?

I mean, I don't even know why we're doing this story. What's the point? Here's the deal. First of all, we aren't doing this story. This is my shit. I'm doing this story. So I'm going to do the same thing the groom did. What the hell I want to do? And so that's the whole deal.

But again, for all y'all folk, all y'all people out there who've been whining and complaining about this video and what this groom did, y'all, watch this. We're going to end the show on this. I found this on YouTube. These Congolese folks got married,

and they had a straight up wedding entrance. Boom. KKT. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be right back. Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for the Bridal Party! See, that's what I'm saying. If you're going to do a wedding entrance, do a wedding entrance. The only problem, clearly three or four of them groomsmen did not bring their ass to practice.

All the bridesmaids came to practice, but three or four of them dudes did not come to practice. And so I'm just saying. Yeah, they were probably alphas. I'm just, no, you know damn well. You know damn well that they were cappers. They were house-less. They looked just like cappers.

But the real deal here, I just need people to understand, black people, we do stuff different. We do stuff different. So this whole idea of what is a traditional wedding, damn that. That's like when I do commissions at HBCUs, I'm like, can y'all stop playing that boring-ass pomp and circumstance?

I'm like, it's an HBCU graduation. Can we be black, please? Please. Well, there's a lot of tradition at Morehouse. We don't play all that funky music. That's the problem. We got 150 years. Because y'all got a bunch of...

Benjamin Mays would turn over in his grave. Well, guess what? Guess what? He ain't here. He ain't here. No, you're not. So guess what? If you want to change the graduation, change it.

But see, y'all bougie. So don't even try to front. Y'all bougie. So that's the whole deal. Guess what? You can change it. That's why when I get a commencement speech, yeah, we turn up because that's what we going to do. All right, y'all. We got to go. Robert, I change it. That's why when I get a commencement speech, yeah, we turn up because that's what we're going to do.

All right, y'all. We got to go. Robert, I appreciate it. Lauren, glad to have you on here. You've been battling breast cancer. And so we're glad to have you here. God bless you, sweetie. We love you. Thanks a bunch. I'm praying for you. I see you got... Is that one of the pink, one of the women's

March hats? Is that what you got? It is. It is. It is. I get a lot of comments from a certain demographic, as you might. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you do. Absolutely.

All right, Scott, take your little punk-ass phone call now. All right, we done. All right. You're not going to say anything positive about me? No. I'm on this show faithfully every Wednesday. Say something positive before we sign off. By the time you got a new light, because your ass now look lighter.

All right, we got to go. Y'all want to support what we do? Well, I'm light-skinned anyway. Yeah, but you need to still more light, because you were sometimes real damn dark. Yeah. All right, y'all. If y'all want to support what we do, please join our Bring the Funk fan club. Cash app, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered.

PayPal.me forward slash rmartinunfiltered. Of course, Venmo is rmunfiltered. And Zell, rolling at rollingnessmartin.com. Rolling at rollingnessmartin.com. I was about to look tired tonight. Y'all, I flew in early this morning from Atlanta. Hell yeah, I'm tired. And of course, don't forget, download our app, Black Star Network.

You can watch this show right on our YouTube channel or you can on Facebook. But I really want you all to download our Black Star app. We've surpassed 10,000. We're on the way to 20,000 downloads. iPhone, Android, Android TV, Android Koo, Apple TV, Apple Fire Stick, excuse me, Amazon Fire Stick, Xbox, Samsung Smart TV as well. All right, folks, I'll see you guys tomorrow. Rolling Mark on the filter on the Black Star Network.

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