#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Blacks wary of COVID vax; Racism in medicine; McDonald's links exec pay to diversity

Episode Date: February 19, 2021

2.18.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Blacks wary of COVID vax; Racism in medicine; Commissioner Rodney Ellis of Harris County, TX about the impact the winter storm is having on Texas residents; McDonald's links exec pay to diversity; Biden's student debt plan; Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Today is Thursday, February 18th, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, broadcasting live from St. Louis, Missouri.

African Americans wary about taking the COVID-19 vaccine. We'll talk with a doctor out of Texas. Speaking of Texas, Senator Ted Cruz getting lots of heat for flying to Cancun with his children and wife for vacations. He actually blames it on them. Dude, stop it. Also, millions of folks there are still impacted by the cold temperatures. A power is slowly being restored. You still have major food, water issues there as well in Texas.

Also on today's show, we'll be joined by NAACP President Derek Johnson. Talk about their lawsuit against Donald Trump. Also, $15 living wage. And we'll discuss some other stuff as well. Also, folks, we'll discuss a new plan to help black students reach success in LA+. We'll also talk with a doctor about battling racism

in the medical field. McDonald's, under fire when it comes to their black franchisees, they plan to tie their decade of pay to diversity. Also, we'll talk about the issue of student debt as well as President uh joe biden and again this crazy video of a white teacher trying to redefine the n-word for black students

that's not crazy as a lot of people segment plus folks um so again lots of stuff we're talking about here on today's show it's time to bring the funk and roll the mark unfiltered. Let's go. With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin' Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best

You know he's Rollin' Martin Now She's real the best, you know he's rolling, Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel.

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Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. Martel. St. Louis. Right across the street from Harris Stowe, HBCU here in St. Louis. We are here, of course, I'm going to be moderating a town hall tomorrow for Tashara Jones.

She is running for mayor of St. Louis. And so we'll be actually live streaming that on tomorrow's show. So we certainly look forward to that also doing some various interviews uh here in St. Louis with folks like Tef Poe, Michael McGillen who heads the St. Louis Area Urban League also talking with the two black prosecutors of the city and the county here uh Kim Gardner and Wesley Bell so we got a lot of things that we're going to be doing here uh in St. Louis while we're here. But let's get right to today's show. Lots of stuff we want to talk about. And one of the issues is, again, coming. First of all, there's a lot of stuff we're going to deal with.

What's happening in Texas, a lot of criticism of Senator Ted Cruz. We're going to talk about the minimum wage, all those issues. And, of course, NAACP, they're going to be joining us. And so we're working on all of that. Let's start, though, with this $15 living wage. Today, the Poor People's Campaign, they actually held a meeting with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, emphasizing or pushing him on this very issue. Manchin has been opposing an increase of the minimum wage, even though he represents one of the poorest states in the country. Remember Dr. William J. Barber, he joined us a couple of days ago talking about this very issue. And it really makes no sense

when you talk about this living wage. Some folks are even talking about having an index, that way it's lower in some places than others. Folks, this is real simple. When they marched in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963, do you understand that the minimum wage was barely $2? It's now $7.25, the federal minimum wage. That means you've only seen it go up five or so bucks in 58 years. That makes no sense whatsoever. Let's go talk to you about what I pay on Dr. Greg Carr, chair of the Department of African American Studies, Howard University,

Reesey Colbert, of course, Black Women Views, Erica Savage-Wilson, Savage Politics Podcast. Folks, glad to have you on the show today. Eric, I want to start with you. When you hear Manchin talk about, oh, not wanting to raise the minimum wage, I'm just trying to understand. Do these people use calculators? Do they even talk to their constituents? When you look at the numbers, when you literally look at the numbers of poor people in his state. How in the hell could he oppose a minimum wage of $15 an hour when people literally cannot live off

of $7.25 right now? And if you work in restaurants, you're actually making less than that because you're factoring tips in. What is wrong with these U.S. senators? Erica. Erica. Erica, your mic is not on. I can't hear you.

All right, let's go to Recy. And then we'll come back to Erica. Recy? Yeah, I think that these politicians, after all this time, have not learned how to make the political case. Instead, they just rather go with the political wins or go with the status quo. Joe Manchin is not up for reelection for another four years. There is really no downside aside from just playing into the Republican talking point that higher wages are job killers. And that's just flat out not true. His constituents will be the ones to benefit the most because as you point out, Roland, they're among the poorest in the country. Also, those coal mining jobs are not coming back. And so he really should be one of the people on the forefront of pushing the economy forward, pushing the living wage forward. But I think it's awesome that the Poor

People's Campaign is putting pressure on him. He and Kristen Sinema and perhaps even Mark Kelly, we haven't seen where he falls on the spectrum, will need to be pressured. We should not take that they are moderates or even conservative or right-leaning Democrats as a given. They need to be pressured just like anybody else. Erica, do you now have your mic? Was it on? Is it on now? I don't know what's happening with erica's uh audio uh great carlos go to you yeah no uh reese is right i think joe mansion is concerned about his donors i mean so you're talking about folks in insurance finance real estate in west virginia um he knows

good and well his people are suffering, but that's not his priority. I mean, when you start talking about federal elected office holders, you're talking about people who are beholden to the constituents that support them. He doesn't want to get primaried. He wants to retain his seat. No, he's not up for reelection anytime soon. But this isn't just the courage of his convictions. And shout out to Joe Manchin for holding high the bloodstained banner of that former Klansman Robert Byrd to say you won't blow up the filibuster in the memory of Robert Byrd. You're really stepping in it, Joe. But, you know, there in order to be elected, you've got to rally and keep your base. And I think Manchin confronting finally the fact that he is in a state that was visited by Jesse Lewis Jackson in 1983 and 84 when he was running for president. And standing next to some of those coal miners, standing next to some of those folks who are at risk of hunger and all of those things, stifling debt.

Now, William Barber, I think, is is doing the right thing by confronting Manchin. And hopefully, hopefully we will see the type of pressure put on Joe Manchin that we need to put on all elected officials. Again, they're not our friends. And Joe Manchin will break if there's enough pressure put on. Absolutely. Look, the thing here that again, that jumps out. If you do, if you just do the math and we'll just do it right here. Uh, and I just want people to understand when you talk about, uh, a $7 and 25 cent, uh, minimum wage, uh, that, that makes no sense, uh, whatsoever. Uh, Anthony, go ahead and take my iPad. So, all right. So let's say you, let's say you're working, let's say you're working, you know, 20 hours a week, seven dollars and twenty five cents times. That's one hundred and forty five dollars per week at seven twenty five.

All right. Times 52 weeks comes out to seven thousand five hundred and forty dollars. All right. Let's say it now goes to $15 an hour times 20 hours. That's 300 bucks per week times 52. Now at $15,600. So even at 20 hours a week, if you go to $15 an hour, you're talking about going from $7,000 to $15,000. You're doubling it. If you're talking about making $7.25 an hour times 40, that's $290 a week, which comes out to $15,080. I don't know who can work 40 hours a week and live off of $15,080. But if you do the math, 40 hours a week times $15 an hour is 600 bucks times 52 that comes out

to $31,200 that's basic fundamental math you're now talking about people who are able to come out of poverty receipt who can now live who can now work and guess what if they're making more money they're actually spending money in the economy. And every time you hear one of these people say, oh, my God, no, we can't do that. That's going to just somehow just take all of this money away from businesses. It really doesn't support their argument, because guess what? You want people to be able to make a living wage to continue to work. Absolutely. And I mean, you know, it's proven that, you know, at that income level, you do not have the kind of people don't have the money to save.

So they are stimulating the economy because they're out there maybe going out to eat more often, maybe getting their hair and nails done, maybe buying new tires or getting their brakes fixed. Also, you have a higher tax base. So instead of people being a, you know, being tax receipt or, you know, tax funded dollars receivers, they're putting money back into the government that can go to more resources for that community, better schools, better fire departments and things of that nature. And so I just think that this is the propaganda that has gone on in this campaign, the trickle down economics, that if you don't tax the people at the top, if you don't pay the people at the bottom, then everybody else is going to come out ahead. And that's just absolutely ridiculous. It's immoral that people are working 40 hours a week and they don't even make a living wage. And it's untenable and it has been for the longest time.

So it's about time that people step up and Joe Manchin with, as Dr. Carr said, the Dr. Reverend Dr. Barber, the poor people's campaign also with VP Kamala Harris and the Biden Harris administration showing that we're going to go into your territory and talk to your people and make the case to them. Maybe now they will feel the pressure that they need to come on board to the 21st century The thing here actually when I said that that federal minimum wage Greg in 1963 Go to my iPad, please folks. You'll see it right here. Okay in

1963 my iPad, please. Folks, you'll see it right here. In 1963, September 3rd, 1963, the federal minimum wage was $1.25. It is $7.25 today. That means the minimum wage has gone up $6

in 58 years. Essentially, every 10 years it's gone up 90 cents roland the minimum wage is an excellent um indice for the rising inequality in this country and that's really what reverend barber has been attacking and Liz Theoharis and the Poor People's Campaign. When we see Anna Arnold Hedgeman out of Minnesota bring together A. Philip Randolph, who was really talking about jobs in the late 50s, early 60s, coming out of that first march on Washington movement and when the Roosevelt administration in 42 and and Hedgeman along with um uh with Bayard Rustin are really pushing on this when Hedgeman brings Randolph who was coming to DC anyway with the crew together with Martin King who is more focused on the civil rights legislation namely the civil rights act of 1964 it it converges the fact that it doesn't do you much good if you've got these rights on the

books, which are parenthetically not necessarily being enforced, not really being enforced, and you can't afford a living wage. And King makes this point over and over again. You see John Lewis saying this, what good is integrating a lunch counter when we can't buy a hamburger? And in fact, Ella Baker says bigger than a hamburger, but if we can't afford the hamburger, we have an issue. There are two things at play. Number one is the ability to live on the planet. And let's be very clear, the United States is not one state. It's 50 states and territories, meaning what?

D.C. has a $15 an hour minimum wage. California is closest with $14 an hour right now. But can you live on $14 an hour, working 40 hours a week? And you did that calculation at 52 weeks, meaning you don't take any time off. You can't live in California or DC on that or New York city on that. And so this isn't even a living wage. That's number one. And number two, Dr. King would say this over and over again. It's about the dignity of labor. See, this is a mentality these white nationals have. This is the mentality these corporate elites who are running many of these politicians like Manson's

and others have. You act like people don't want to work. People be busting their ass. Have you ever talked to someone who works a minimum wage? And here's the danger, finally. When they push to minimum, first of all, it's an incremental step. Bernie Sanders has been saying it's incremental. You're not going to do it overnight. And when you get there, it's still going to be so woefully underpaid. But what it might do, unfortunately, which is why there are a lot of moving parts here, it might then trigger some of the other rules which raise you out of poverty for purposes of the poverty index and means you don't get other federal benefits. So, I mean, this is nefarious, man. The minimum wage should at least be $25 an hour in California. People say, that's ridiculous. Okay. You talk to somebody who has worked to their bone tired. My little job in Nashville when I was flipping hamburgers at Wendy's in high school and then in college, putting my little money on the books, tuition at Tennessee State University for a year,

where a semester was $900 something. I could do that. We're going to talk about student debt later on. And the minimum wage was $3.35 an hour. This is a torture and abomination to the people who live in this country. And you damn corporate elites, it's going to collapse one day. Either we're going to take it from you or you're going to give a little bit back of what you've been stealing since the beginning of this criminal enterprise. This is indefensible, Lola. We now have Erica. Erica, go ahead. Hopefully we can hear your audio this time. Sure. And so- There we go. Really took the words out of my mouth, particularly when you mentioned those coal mining jobs. Those jobs aren't coming back. But the job that has been a steady income producer for him has been senator.

So you think about somebody who is representing a very poor state, but that makes six figures, has health care, is well taken care of, has security. Saying that $15 an hour is too much money for his constituents basically to fight for. And so when you begin to see that, but you see above and beyond that Bishop Barber having folks from his community talk back to their own community to say that, listen, the way with which we are operating is not something that's sustainable. We are in a pandemic and now we're having to fight just to have a little bit more money so that we continue to take care of ourselves and our family. I think that was really effective. The white woman that Bishop Barber had on that was talking back to a lot of the strongholds as it

relates to the economic pains that they're facing in West Virginia. So this is what is an engaged citizenry, what we're talking about here on the show week after week, day after day. This is an engaged citizenry, a citizenry that's in place from its space that's saying this is not going to work for us and puts the pressure on said politicians with advocacy groups to help make change happen. This is certainly a huge issue that, and we certainly stand in support of Reverend Dr. Barber and the Poor People's Campaign because a living wage is critically important. It greatly impacts a lot of Americans, including a lot of our viewers and listeners. And so that is important. Let's now go to the folks with the issue with COVID-19 vaccine.

Another issue, how black folks have been greatly impacted. One of the things that we're dealing with, we've been disproportionately impacted by the deaths. Those who have been tested positive for COVID-19. Now we're dealing with, we've been disproportionately impacted by the deaths, those who have been tested positive for COVID-19. Now we're dealing with also this, you know, a lot of black folks not wanting to take the COVID-19 vaccine. There's been a significant effort to get folks to understand the importance of it for us to get our seniors and others vaccinated. President Joe Biden earlier this week said that he hopes by July there'll be enough vaccines in America for every single citizen. Hopefully that is the case. Joining us right now

is Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children Hospital. Dr. Hotez, certainly glad to have you on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Good to see you again, Roland. It's been a while. Yes, it has been. You posted something on Twitter that caught my eye

when you said, I will do any and every show out here to encourage Americans, but especially African-Americans, to take the vaccine, to explain to people about its efficacy, how safe it is as well. But there's a lot of, I saw one story where one, I saw an AP survey, actually, one in three Americans have said they're not going to take the vaccine. Yeah, no, it's crazy. We did a study with a group of social scientists at Texas A&M. And what was interesting as we looked at the groups that are saying they may not take the vaccine or won't take the vaccine, and it came out to the same two groups that the saying they may not take the vaccine or won't take the vaccine. And it came out to the same two groups that the Kaiser Family Foundation found. So maybe there's something to

this because we found identical results. And it's pretty impressive. The two groups that are saying they won't take vaccines are one, Trump, we found Trump voters, and second, the African American community. And the Kaiser Family Foundation found, they didn't call them Trump voters, they called them Republicans and the African-American community. So for two very different reasons, we think these are the two groups that we're worried are going to refuse vaccines. And I'm trying to go on as many black radio shows, African-American shows that specifically work with African-American communities as I can to bring up those numbers because I'm really worried. And the reason I'm especially worried, Roland, is some new the worst part of our epidemic, has found that life expectancy among the African-American community from COVID-19 is going to decrease by almost three years. And that's a huge number because remember, that's an average. It doesn't mean that everyone's life is cut off from 80 to 77. What it means is that neither side of that number, we're losing huge numbers of people from the Black community. And particularly,

I'm worried about our moms and dads in their 40s and 50s and 60s. And this is, I think, going to turn out to be the real devastation that comes out of this COVID epidemic. A generation of African-American families losing their moms and dads in their 40s and 50s and 60s, basically parents of teenagers, parents of still young adults, kids really in their young 20s. And it's a story not being told. And it's backed up by an earlier CDC number that found about a third of the deaths from COVID-19 in the Black communities occurring of people under the age of 65. So when I saw that vaccine hesitancy in the African-American community, I said, wow, this is an opportunity to save lives, especially those moms and dads in their 40s and 50s and 60s. And that's how I was really thrilled when you gave me the opportunity to come out today. That is important messaging.

That's critically important. Do you believe that the federal government and state health departments should be having clear campaigns with affected groups from trusted voices. And I don't mean celebrities. We know based upon various studies that people, the African Americans, only 7% follow the advice of celebrities. People always want to say, hey,

let's get a celebrity out here, do some PSAs. I saw a story today on ESPN.com where they said NBA players are wary about encouraging people to take the vaccine. Well, first of all, black people are not listening to celebrities. To me, this is where the federal government, state

health departments, county health departments, city health departments must be drilling down and going to black newspapers, black radio, digital operations, same thing in the Latino community, going really grassroots, creating a level of partnerships, creating pop-up vaccination spots where people are able to get to.

In the town hall the other day on CNN, President Joe Biden talked about the difficulty of certain segments of the black and Latino community when it comes to getting online, knowing where to go, how to access. And there was people who were upset by saying, oh, he said black people can't get online. Numbers don't lie. Look, I had people who had to teach their grandparents who wanted to watch my show how to watch this show on their phone or on their television or on their computers. And so there has to be an extremely aggressive communications plan and outreach to targeted communities in order for them to be able to understand the vaccine, understand the process and for them to understand other people have taken it who also have not had any issues? Look, there's like four or five moving parts to this. So first

of all, we have to open up vaccination sites in African-American communities. And often that includes low-income communities. And we're not doing doing that we're too focused on the pharmacy chains and oblivious to the fact that a lot of low-income neighborhoods are pharmacy deserts they don't have the cvs and rite aids sitting there in in low-income communities so we've got to make new sites available and i think the biden administration gets that and they're starting to really open that up but also we've got to to figure out the reluctance of segments of the African-American community to take vaccines. And particularly because it's been so devastating. I mean, the numbers of hospitalizations and deaths in the African-American community is so much higher than the group they call non-Hispanic whites. And, you know, I think the

other part of this, Roland, that nobody talks about, and I've noticed it because I'm often targeted myself, is by the anti-vaccine groups. They specifically go after the African-American community. And they've been doing this and starting in 2019, even before COVID, they staged these rallies in Harlem claiming that vaccines caused this and that and comparing vaccines to Tuskegee experimentation, saying it's a cause of genocide. And this has been the new modus operandi of the anti-vaccine groups. They targeted the Somali immigrant community in 2017 in the Twin Cities, got them to stop vaccinating, caused terrible measles. Then they did this with the Orthodox Jewish community in 2018. And in 2019, they've been targeting the African-American community. So there's that component as well.

And I'm really worried because, you know, we don't have a lot of time. And you know who's going to bear the brunt of this. Once again, it's going to be the African-American communities for a couple of reasons. One, those living in low-income neighborhoods are doing essential work. They're not working at home via Skype and Zoom. They're working family-owned businesses on construction sites. They're getting exposed at higher rates. Second, they're often living in multi-generational homes where a 20-year-old kid comes in from a construction site or working in the police force. He's coming home to mom and dad and grandma and grandpa infecting them, and they're getting sick. Third, we have higher rates of things like hypertension

and diabetes in the African-American community, which exacerbates the severity of the illness. So that's all the perfect storm. And the reason I'm really concerned right now is we've got to vaccinate ahead of that variant that's coming out of the United Kingdom. Otherwise, those numbers are going to continue to climb. By next year at this time, the life expectancy will have not have dropped three years as horrible as that'll be. It'll be much more than that. And so, again, doing everything I can to try to sound the alarm and do everything we can to get get people in black and brown communities to get vaccinated. All right. I certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you, Roland. I appreciate it. I want to go to my panel here. Greg Carr. Look, when you know there is a problem, then you have to have a solution to the problem.

And and this is where, again, folks in the health arena must talk to black folks to say, hey, what are what are you hearing and seeing is the problem? OK, and then how do we now deal with that? So what are the numbers? Are you seeing groups of folks who are young, who are college age, who are 18 to 35? Are they ambivalent about this or are they embracing this? Which means let's get them communicating to elders as well. There has to be that because, look, I know some black people who like, man, ain't no ain't no way in hell I'm taking the vaccine. I had somebody on my Instagram page saying, man, I had I had on my goggles and my mask and my headphones when I was flying. It don't take all that.

I was like, look, I ain't bullshitting with COVID, okay? I'm not, I ain't trying to even be sick for 24 hours. So people say, oh, you know, big deal. Wasn't that bad. 480,000 people have died of COVID. Young people, athletic people, middle-aged people, teenagers, adolescents,

older people. I am not about to see them play around and if you tell me that I've got death, major sickness, and long-term effects, and there's a vaccine,

I'm like, sign me up for the vaccine. Maybe that's just me. Is you rolling? It's a lot of us, but I tell you what brother, Dr. Hotez really, and thank you for having him on. You know, he raised a couple of things that are critical. One is access to the vaccine. Here in Washington, DC, I was in a conversation today with some colleagues at Howard, folks who live in the upper northwest along 16th, right out the window here, who had to

go to southeast D.C. to get their vaccine. And they said once they got to southeast D.C. because the center was put there, I guess, to encourage black folk, they said over half the folk they saw getting the vaccine were white folks who had driven in. So, you know, part of it is you got to open up more centers. The second thing that he raised is very important, is that those centers have to be, well, I'm saying this as well, they have to be strategically located. They need to be near churches, community centers, Prince Howard Mason Lodge, Order of Order Eastern Star, wherever the folks congregate so that you can see people you know. And, you know, Raphael Warnock said this, now Senator Warnock on your show over a year ago, he said COVID-19 has exposed COVID-16-19. And so what

you now see is, you know, I'm looking at things and you've seen them all rolling, you've been sharing them on social media. You get a black nurse or a black doctor and she's inoculating an elder in a church. And you say, okay, this is a black woman inoculating an older black woman. And you begin to build trust that way. The other thing is, and this is the thing that, you know, yeah, those variants, this is serious, man. You know, South Africa has already shut down AstraZeneca because it's proving ineffective against this new variant that they have. So we've got to worry about that tidal wave. But here's the issue. Finally, what happens when, and right now they're saying New York Times is reporting roughly about 5% of the population in the country have been fully vaccinated and at least 12% have gotten at least one dose.

What happens when those numbers continue to build and tip? And then you have an outsized group of non-white folk, particularly black and brown folk who have not been inoculated. Will you then be fired? Will you then be coerced and say, if you don't take it, you're going to lose your job? And will there then emerge a kind of a two-tiered system, a kind of medical apartheid of sorts that say, you can't come in this eating establishment. Your child can't come to school until they get vaccinated. We're setting ourselves up, in other words, for a very difficult future, not just in terms of the long-term effects, but perhaps even the politics of this vaccine. So, you know, by all means, if you can get it, go get it. And, you know, for the policymakers right there where you are, you know, you got to

follow what you did in Georgia, Roland. We got to roll into these places, talk to the people on the ground, in the ground, listen to what they have to say, and you distribute the vaccine through those people that people trust. They're not watching TV to build trust. Well, and that's it. And when you talk about building trust, when you talk about what we did in Georgia, that's what it was about. It was about being on the ground. It was about being able to go there. There was somebody who posted a comment on one of our channels that said that there are teachers in Georgia. It says, this is from Samuel Rowland, teachers from Georgia are driving to Alabama to get

the vaccine because they allow teachers to get it there and Georgia does not. And so, this thing is all over the place, Erica, and look, folks want to say stop bringing up Donald Trump, but the reality is this is an example of when you had

an incompetent group of people that had no national strategy. They were like, hey, whatever you want us to do. And so we had Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price on the show. But Dallas County said, we're going to prioritize the communities that have been great, mostly impacted by COVID. Republicans in Austin, Texas say, oh, no, y'all can't do that.

That's local control. They know what's best for their people. So that's what should have happened in this case. So what we're dealing with here are bureaucrats, politicians. In the case of Trump and his cronies and Republicans allow it to happen, did not have a real, true, substantive rollout plan and to Greg's point and I've heard it where you had stores on predominantly black towns whole line white is 200 people

in line and it's 10 black people first thing you say is hold up y'all ain't never here there's 200 white folks in line and 10 black people who knew who knew was available who was there and so when people criticize you know president biden the other day saying oh he dissing black people if if a system is set up to set alerts on your phone that notify you when COVID vaccines are going to be in a particular zip code,

if our folks are not that engaged with it, then we're not going to know. I'm just tired of people playing games with this because our lives are on the line and we all know, Erica, in Georgia, Albany was ground zero for COVID-19

in 2020. All these things are true. And you know that very well because you were in Georgia. You did work in Georgia. And the first COVID death that I experienced was the week leading up to my birthday. And it was a dear friend of mine that had passed away from COVID. They rushed her to Emory to get her on a ventilator and she passed away. That was in March of 2020.

So here we are. The previous regime had no interest in rolling out a COVID strategy. They had no interest in distribution and logistics. And so we are all paying the price for that. 493, 122 people later now trying to hurry up and spin up. And so looking at the map, we pretty much have 50 different nations within the United States. And so within those nations are all of these different counties and all of those different counties are functioning very differently. You may have more vaccine in one county than you do to the next.

And then it just depends on within that state or county if they're operating through the tiered system, if they are saying that people who are health care workers are going to go first and then the second priority are those people who are 75 plus with compromised systems. It just all depends on how it operates. So that is also the importance of what is happening within your state. How are they making sure that the shots are getting in arms equitably? That is something that has really been spun out for the states to make and then those counties to logistically organize around. And so when you talk about going into places where they are very much so the home of black folks, but you see non-black folks that are penetrating

those communities to get the vaccines, well, if we only have about five to 7% of physicians that are represented as people of color or black people that are in that space, well, how are people who are supposed to be getting the vaccine finding out about it? If all of the people that are showing up to those particular places are reflective of the people that are actually providing the service, then there's that. But then you have a standout like a Dr. Alla Stanford, the Black Doctors Consortium, who through the snow today was still making sure that people were able to get their second dose for the COVID-19 vaccine.

So, you know, just to wrap it up, representation is definitely important, but it's also very important the way a state specifically is handling not only the distribution, but making sure that there's access to places that are ruled that don't have pharmacies in their communities, right? They're not in affluent communities where there's CVSs in two or three different places, where clinics have been shut down, hospitals have been shut down, as going back to when Republican governors decided that they did not want the expansion of Medicaid within their states back in 2013. So now here we are in 2021 paying for many of those decisions that were made in the interest of Hardy and not necessarily people. And so as people continue to see a lot of the disparities and inequities in their communities,

do lift up those people that are doing their very best as black physicians to make sure that there is equitable distributions within their community. Uh, Reesey again, um, we are being impacted. And if the word is not getting out in black neighborhoods about vaccines being available in black neighborhoods, I say to those who are in charge, get with the people who know how to communicate with Black people. Absolutely. And I think that the Biden-Harris administration in particular is trying to do that. I saw Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, who is head of the COVID Racial and Ethnic Disparities Task Force of the Biden-Harris administration doing an interview with the Shade Room. And this is where I have to, you know, make a very unpopular statement and say that as Black people,

we need to come to terms with the disinformation and misinformation in our community. Now, there are a lot of Black people out there that are doing everything that they can to get the vaccine. And there are disparity issues. There are access issues. But there are a good number of Black people out there that are spreading disinformation about the vaccine. There are people who are anti science. They're anti anti anything. And let me just say something to those people. You are not outsmarting the government by not taking the vaccine. The government is not trying to kill black people through the vaccine because it's a real ass backwards way of going about it, of trying to kill black people through the vaccine. But you got all the white folks signing up to take it. How does that make sense?

I know at my job, every time there's an appointment available, I get an email there and these people are snatching up these appointments. OK, so why don't we band together? And there are a lot of people doing that. I'm not saying that nobody's doing that. But why don't we band together and try to help each other get these appointments that the white folks are snatching up instead of banding together in many cases and spreading disinformation, trying to sow confusion and doubt about the efficacy of the vaccine because we are disproportionately impacted by it. Juices and berries is not going to protect you from COVID. OK, it's just not. There is no clinical evidence to show that. There's clinical trials that have been done. This is a worldwide galvanization of science. It's utilizing decades worth of science. This is not science that popped

up out of nowhere. It's leveraging decades of research. Do the actual research from reputable sources, not from your YouTube scholars, not from your Instagram scholars. I don't understand why when people see some random person who makes a video about their face being half frozen for a day, take that and say, oh, no, no, no, I'm not going to take the vaccine. But you ignore all of the science, you ignore all of the experts. And when you do see experts come into our communities and try to communicate to us, then you have this hostility and this cynicism towards them. So there is an amount of responsibility we have to take within our communities

to combat the disinformation, combat the misinformation. And I understand this whole umbrella of mistrust and Black people have been done wrong by the system. And we're going to talk about racism in health care. But at a certain point, we are part of the problem. When we allow this anti-science, this this completely wrong information to spread and permeate in our community. And we almost make it a badge of honor to be anti-vaccination. And to be the recent truth truth be told one of the reasons why that kind of stuff can spread in our community because frankly we largely have entertainment and sports sources and we don't have news it's been straight up i mean i mean i mean the right i'm

talking when i when you study again more than 50 percent of af-Americans get their information from radio, from black radio. Well, if all you're doing is playing music. And you're not actually talking about this and you don't have guests like the doctor on. Guess what? Folks are just jamming away, not getting any information. And so I'm a firm believer. And again, you diagnose what the problem is. And this is why I'm saying that. Yeah, it was great that she did the shade room, but that can't be a one off. It has to be a consistent thing, has to be a consistent messaging, which is critically important. And again, there are people who understand that. Rodney Ellis is a Harris County commissioner. We will talk about what's happening in Texas with the weather.

But I want to bring him in on this because Commissioner Ellis, you understand this. You win the state legislature in Texas. You're county commissioner. You know what it means to have trusted black voices speaking to the community. Is that what y'all have been doing there in Harris County to ensure that the right folks are getting the information when it comes to COVID-19 vaccine? It's always hard, Roland, to get through that filter, but we're doing as much as we can. Obviously, you use social media, you use black radio, you use trusted figures, not just political figures, but people who have a following out there, and we're doing the best that we can. The numbers are not great in terms of African Americans who are getting vaccinated. It was interesting with this drama from the weather crisis. You know, we had a number of vaccines that were about to go bad. So I was talking to

the county judge. And so we're trying to think of places where there were large clusters of people. For a second, we had to forget about equity, but we did decide to give them to folks at the Harris County Jail. Unfortunately, there are a disproportionate number of us in the Harris County Jail. We were just looking for arms to put it in. We did Rice University. TSU was shut down. We didn't have as many folks in the dorms over there with the power outage. But look, it's a challenge, not just here in Texas or Houston, but all around the country.

Again, so that's really important. We got you on talking about what's happening there with the weather in Texas or Houston, but all around the country. Again, so that's really important. We got you on talking about what's happening there with the weather in Texas. First of all, you yourself lost power earlier this week. Power is now back on. How are things looking now? How are things with power when it comes to many of our folks who have been freezing with these frigid temperatures there in Texas? What are they looking like today?

Most of the people who did not have power do have power now. The real challenge for us now is water. What are we going to do, not just here in Houston, Harris County, but around the state in terms of water? And look, here's what's so tragic. This is a crisis that could have been avoided. When you were here for the Super Bowl a decade or so ago, the federal entity said, we needed to make sure that we weatherized our facilities so we have capacity in the event of a record of COVID again. It has happened before. But, you know, this attitude in Texas, we're all against the federal government until we need them.

Now, I'm hoping and praying the Biden administration will give us the most expansive disaster declaration so we can help people whose pipes are bursting in their homes. They may not have insurance. If they do, the insurance may not cover it. They may be renting. It is a big challenge. And so I'm hopeful we'll get past it. Hey, look, my little problem being out of my home for a couple of nights really pales in comparison to so many people that I represent who were already in a dire situation. And by the way, for a second, COVID went out the window. You know, we just forgot about, look, I was just trying to find

somewhere to go. You know, my wife and daughter went to a sister-in-law's house, forget the cat, forget what was in there. I slept in the office for a couple of nights. As you can tell, these whiskers are now gray, but I am, my water's back on and I do plan to shave. So if you talk to me later this week, I'll look better. But my constituents were really- Understand, understand. Commission, last question for you. I got to get your take on Senator Ted Cruz

going to Cancun with his family. Now, all these conservatives trying to say, oh, what can Senator Ted Cruz really do? Do y'all want him to emote with people? I'm sorry. You have been a electric official for a very long time and when there is a major major uh natural disaster people expect if the elected

officials are going to be on the job 24 7 trying to help any way they can not going to cancun kicking it with the family. Well, Mayor Sylvester Turner had a great line. I heard him say on CNN, well, the weather must be nice down there. But look, now is the time when all of us who can be here ought to be here. Forget about D, R, black, white, brown. I mean, just go out and be visible and try to help people. Even if it's just people on your block Now is the time

When all of us need to be trying to do as much as we can and then let's figure out how this got screwed up And how we can avoid it from happening again after this is over All right, then I certainly appreciate it sir Thanks very much Commissioner Ellis and all the folks there in Houston, all my family and friends. I said hello. And we certainly are thinking about them. And thank good. My family, the lights are back on, powers back on, and they actually have heat down there. Hey, thank you, Roland. Come home. We miss you. Well, I definitely want to get home as soon as I can.

So appreciate it. Thanks a lot. I want to go back to our panel here and talk about that. As a matter of fact, I gotta I'm gonna play this video for y'all Uh, I I was absolutely uh cracking up, uh at this, uh At this video. I mean it really was just uh, just hilarious. Now. This is not real y'all. This is not a real video Uh, this is a satirical video that was put together uh so uh watch this uh this woman uh who is she's a fake Ted Cruz spokeswoman watch this um yes Senator Cruz is in Cancun right now um but you know here in his offices we say big look Senator Cruz deserves to relax unwind unplug recharge know, like you would a power

outlet, or his power grid is going to go out, and we can't be having that. You know, that's too important. So he's got to take care of his lot, which comes from the inside. And it's just like, why can't he have his eat, paint, love moment like everybody else can? It's just funny to me. It's funny that whenever he's here in America and he's doing his little jokes on Twitter, everybody says, go away, Ted, we hate you. But then when he goes away to Cancun, everybody says, well, where's Ted?

Why isn't he doing his little jokes on Twitter? Now, sometimes you just don't know what you got until it's gone, and that should be a lesson for the obedient wondering where Senator Ted Cruz is at this morning. All right. All right, Reese, you're the queen of shame.

That was pretty damn funny. Oh, that was great. And it's even funnier that some people don't realize she's a parody account. And so they really take it seriously because she sounds exactly like how Republicans sound. I think it says it's very telling that for Ted Cruz, the way that he sees his constituents.

And I don't mean the Texan voters, but I mean the 2024 primary voters for the presidential race. The Republicans, his corporate donors, is he has to absolutely has to be on the side of the insurrection for his political expediency. But he doesn't have to stay in Texas and actually deal with the crisis that's at hand. That says a lot about the Republican Party. And we all know that this kind of behavior won't necessarily be much of a deterrent for Republican voters because they don't give a damn anyway. They don't vote based on any kind of effectiveness or anything like that. They vote because they're white nationalists. But some people have been saying, well, what is he supposed to do? Look at Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. She has organized water distribution throughout Texas.

That is what you do. She's a congresswoman. And these Senate offices, as well as congressional offices as well as local offices they have constituent services they're the ones who are supposed to help triage things like this and come to the rescue so this whole notion that there is nothing cruz could do and he might as well go on vacation just shows a lack of civics understanding that people have and a complete prevalence of propaganda and double standards in the republican, but it's inexcusable and I'm glad he was busted and shame on him For throwing his whole family under the bus. I mean he throw his wife under the bus when Donald Trump caught her ugly

Shit about it. He says that a bear kiss up to Donald Trump for the next four years But he throw his daughters under the bus. He's a scumbag No, no, but it gets better. It gets a lot better because Erica, what's real interesting here is that on Monday, Ted Cruz said they had power at their house.

Then later, they didn't have power. First of all, it happens. My family had power on Monday. Lost power a little bit later. The New York Times has gotten hold of some text messages. Go to my iPad. See, I just

lost some receipts. Kyle Griffin posted this, Erica. New York Times has text messages Heidi Cruz sent to friends and Houston neighbors. Their house was freezing and she proposed a Sunday return.

Ted Cruz invited others to join them at the Ritz Carlton in Cancun, $309 per night, where they had stayed, quote, many times. Oh! It's a little bad when your wife,

when the text messages show up and you out there lying. And now you got text messages from Heidi. The same one that he allowed his master to call ugly. This is Raphael Edward Cruz, a.k.a. Ted. Ladies and gentlemen, this is who hea. Ted, ladies and gentlemen. This is who he is. But, you know, this is really par for the course. Republicans are essentially a death cult and they care nothing about anything except for proximity to power and their own elections. That's what they're wrapped up in. So this kind of behavior will be yesterday's news in a few days because that is how the Republicans move.

It is on people to have long memories for them to know that this is the same Ted Cruz that when people were trying to vote safely, he definitely had all of the smoke for that. This is the same Ted Cruz while his state was facing food insecurity crisis was silent. That is the same Raphael Edward Cruz. This is the same Raphael Edward Cruz that made his family comfortable going to Cancun and he followed suit with a big ass Texas face mask on. And so now that he's been caught and the lie has turned around and came back home. But just remember that these are things that people have to remember when, again, these folks are cropping back up for their reelection bid. They don't care about you. They care about ensuring that they are properly wed to power in any place at the call and command of their master, Donald John Trump. That's who these people are. And people have to make sure that they remember that.

Real quick, going to Dr. Greg Carr. More receipts. This was a tweet that Ted Cruz sent out just in December. Go to my iPad, Anthony. Hypocrites! Complete and utter hypocrites. And don't forget Mayor Adler, who took a private jet with eight people to Cabo, and while in Cabo, all caps, recorded a video

telling Austinites to stay home if you can. This is not the time to relax. Oh, ain't nothing like them receipts, Ted. I'm sorry, Raphael. How does Rafi Cruz walk around

with no spine? He has to do what Heidi said because, you know, she's got to get down there to Cancun. I'm sure she has a regular masseuse there to help with those scars on her back from the last time the Trump train ran over her. He has to do that because he can't stay in the house hot, cold, or lukewarm because she will spew him out of her mouth because that's the price he had to pay when he gave his whole little manhood to Donald John Trump, as Erica said, and he put it in his back pocket and begot he had. He probably has been sitting on it the whole time.

But I think the number here, and you know this, Roland, I mean, your family is in Houston, your parents are down there in Texas. My mama's down there with my sister and them. They burning fireplaces, got to switch out in my niece. You know, the man who there is a special place in hell for at this moment is Greg Abbott, you bastard. Because I'm going to tell you something right now. My mama's down there. And ain't no sense in threatening you with no physical harm. The numbers we must remember at this moment, even as we get our folks through this crisis are two zero two two, you bastard. Because, you know, the oil and gas lobby that

has you running around in the propaganda saying this is about the Green New Deal, you shovel mouth bastard, while people are out here freezing to death. And I got friends, you know, down there, I'm looking on social media. I'm looking at, you know, my friend, I have to borrow Nelly. He's tweeting pictures of folks, breaking off firewood to keep warm out the trees as the trees crack. And let me tell you something, you got to go punk. And then once that's done, you go two years later and then Rafi, you know, you should have stayed in Texas. We just sent the bill, you know, they got waste disposal dumps down there. You should have stayed down there.

But the important thing we must never forget is that that piece you showed us at the beginning, that parody. The reason in this country we can't tell the difference, as Reece just said, in terms of what's real and what's not, is because it's all propaganda. That is right. They're going to forget tomorrow about Rafi Cruz and his base is not going to abandon him because you're going to have to pry their

white nationalism from them literally in the words of Charlton Heston with the NRA, the now defunct NRA, from their cold dead hands. They don't give a damn. All right, folks. Let's go now to our next story.

All right. That is, we talked about the NAACP suing Donald Trump on behalf of Congressman Benny Thompson and others for inciting the insurrection, in addition to Rudy Giuliani. Joining us right now is Derek Johnson, CEO of the NAACP. Derek, glad to have you back on the show. Can you hear me? Go ahead and talk, Derek. Go ahead. Can you hear me now?

Yeah, I got you. I got you. All right. The day this was announced, I had a guest on the show who said the NAACP is wasting precious time filing this lawsuit. And the guest said they should be more concerned about what's happening in the black community. I said, well, they can actually, you know, chew gum and talk at the same time. I don't see what the big deal is. Why did you decide to come out this quick with this lawsuit against Trump, against Giuliani? Well, white supremacy unchecked only spreads over time.

History has shown us that domestic terrorism in this country have always been rooted in white supremacy and primarily in the South, particularly during the times of the 2030s, 40s and forward. And if we don't do anything to try to put this in check, the genie will continue to grow out of the box and we will see a larger incident moving forward. What we're looking at here is a fail coup. And anytime you have a failed coup and you do nothing, no one is held accountable, you can guarantee that more people will be emboldened to try it again. This is no different than what happened in 1860s leading up to the Civil War. We must at all costs do all that's possible to address white supremacist behavior, particularly when they are radicalized and become domestic terrorists. Anyone who understands the history of this nation, anyone who can think themselves out of a box, know that helping black folks is suffocating

white supremacy at all costs. And anything short of that, it'd be foolhardy. NAACP in this moment, we are representing Congressman Thompson and soon to be other members of Congress under an act that was adopted in 1871 for the express purpose to protect members of Congress from intimidation and threat and their activities of carrying out their duties as members of the United States Congress. Who else should bring this case if we're not bringing it? This is the point that I have been making, that at some point there has to be accountability, that you've got to be in a situation where the House impeachment managers didn't call any witnesses. Trump didn't testify. Pence didn't testify. None

of those things happened. They need to be on the record. There needs to be conversations with Congressman Kevin McCarthy, with Kellyanne Conway. Did she make that phone call? Did Donald Trump ignore that phone call when, or she reportedly called the body man of Donald Trump as well? Those things should happen. political proceeding. And we were not surprised that more members of the Senate will put partisanship over their patriot duty to protect our constitutions. No one was surprised by that. But unless we get this in a court of law, we would never get to that point to put anyone under oath for deposition. It was ironic that today in the paper, the lawyers representing the oath keepers are now saying Trump made us do it. They're beginning to fight each other. But at the end of the day, no matter whether it's Trump or some financier behind Trump,

we must address this forced question of accountability. Because if we don't, they will change the narrative of talking about coming together and we should get along and and bringing people back together there is no getting back together until people are held accountable for causing harm and seeking to subvert our democracy uh i do what i want to ask you uh a couple other questions derek at the top of the show we talked about the poor people's campaign meeting with senator joe manchinchin in West Virginia about the $15 minimum wage. They have been very aggressive on this, trying to push President Joe Biden as well. Is the NAACP also fiercely advocating and pushing the Biden administration and rallying your 2,000 branches to put pressure on their elected officials to make the federal minimum wage $15 an hour.

In 1963, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at that time, the federal minimum wage was $1.25. It's now $7.25. That means it went up $6 in 58 years. Is this a major issue for the NAACP? And are you all pushing these folks to say you need to have a living wage in every state in this country and there should be a federal standard? Well, absolutely. And plus, we should index the minimum wage so we don't have to come back and adopt it every several years. And until we not only get it at $15 and then index it, we're going to have this fight five years from now because the

rate of inflection continues to go up. Mary Kay, Henry and I, we spoke today. SEIU created this campaign. We have been inside of this campaign from day one. But we also understand that people are responding to their constituency base. And where we have West Virginia as the second poorest state in this country, it's going to be interesting to see what the citizens of that state do to put the pressure on Joe Manchin. Understanding all politics is local. And our local branch in West Virginia, they have been in communication with his staff. But at the end of the day, he's going to come around because the corporate interest he is placating to isn't strong enough to offset the economic harm to his constituency base in West Virginia. I want to be clear when you say indexing some some I've heard some people talk about indexing.

And what they mean by that is that in certain states it should be lower than 15 are you arguing that the base the base should be 15 an hour and then from this point forward based upon the rate of inflation it might increase according to that you're what and so uh so explain what you what do you mean by indexing. The base is 15 and you index based on the rate of inflation. Just like if you work for a company, you get a COLA, a cost of living increase. Because of the price of bread and milk go up, you should also appreciate a floor that's heightened to keep up with the rate of inflation. Anybody who's arguing for a regional minimum wage or state-based minimum wage is in complete support of cheapening our labor. In the South, where 52% of Black folks live, that has been a problem, maintaining a cheap labor reality. Some of the

work that I did before I got in this position was working to get labor unions to organize black folks in the South because if they don't, they would die. My family migrated from Tennessee to Detroit because that's where the jobs were. If you look at the great migration of black folks, they went north for jobs. Those jobs were union jobs. They were union jobs so that people could make an affordable living. What has happened over the last 20 years, politicians in the South have sold our labor for cheap, allowing for international companies to locate in the South, and then they create the political atmosphere so those companies would not have to have collective bargaining with the workers, although 90% of those companies who move here

from overseas come from countries where the workers have the ability to collectively bargain. Last question I have for you, and it deals with the whole issue of the student loan debt. Chuck Schumer tweeted on this particular issue when he said that That the stood that that President Biden should use the exact same power that President Obama and Donald Trump used With the executive order to wipe out at least fifty thousand dollars of student loan debt At the town hall the other day, President Biden said that he was opposed to wipe out student loan debt because he did not want to reward people who went to elite schools. The reality is this. Black students are more impacted by student loan debt than anybody else. Same thing is the NAACP making it clear to President Biden, Vice President Harris, make this happen.

And at the bare minimum, use the executive order to get rid of an average of fifty thousand dollars in student loan debt. We'll be coming out with research. I think next week is when it's completed to address the question of student loan debt. Here is what's most troubling. The number one employer for African-Americans in this country is government, state, local, and federal. Many teachers fall into that category. Many of these employees are first or second generation students who had to take out student loan just to navigate and complete college. Many teachers realized that four years of school stifled their pay, so they took out more loans to go get a master's degree or a specialty degree degree under the current federal law the public service student loan program allow for individuals who work for a government to to have that debt discharged after 10 years our position is no one should have to wait for 10 years but there shouldn't be a cap on how much is discharged. It should be a cap on how much a person make. It should be discharged immediately as a stimulus to our economy. If you

put $300 to $500 per month back into the economy, that stimulates the economy. The amount of the public service student loan program alone is less than the current stimulus and five times less than all of the stimulus that we have done since last year, March. We absolutely understand student loan is a structural barrier based in a racist dogma that the public should not have the burden at the expense to pay for higher education. No other country that's developed creates such a high hurdle financially for people to participate and navigate through life. So at the end of the day, the student loan crisis as we see it disproportionately impact African-American is a part of the structural racist system that we currently exist in. It impedes our ability to accumulate and grow wealth.

It knocks out so many people from being able to qualify for home loans, which is the number one wealth creator in our country. And so absolutely we support it. We have had this conversation with the administration. We've had it with the secretary of education. We will have it when we release our report next week. It is one of the top things on our priority because it's about the money. We cannot navigate if we are crippled because of debt. All right. There, Johnson, CEO, NAACP, we should appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right. Well, quickly, I want to go to our pound on this discussion again. What Derek said, we're going to pick up the student loan debt thing a little bit later.

But I do just want to get your quick thoughts about that. Again, going back to the issue of the minimum wage. This is where groups like the NAACP, Poor People's Campaign, National Urban League. We can go on and on and on. Must be leveraging its power to push President Biden aggressively. Stop giving speeches saying, hey, I think they might strip it out of the bill. No. Put the pressure on to say, don't you dare touch it. That is how you get a return on your investment. When folk went to the polls because Democrats ran on this. People want them to deliver. Yeah, I haven't heard President Biden say that they are going to strip it, but I agree with you.

Right now, President Biden has amazing favorable ratings. So this is the time for him to use that bully pulpit and to actually assert his favorability, assert the fact that he won. He, along with Vice President Kamala Harris, won over 80 million votes, the largest margin in recent history, and put some pressure on these senators to stick with his promises of $15 an hour for minimum wage. And as Dr. Carr pointed out, it is indexed. And so this is where, you know, you know, there's so many things going on right now. And I understand, you know, that if it's not politically tenable, they're not as willing to die on that hill. But again, that's where you leverage the favorability that you have. And you

you force the issue along with the organizations that are behind you, and go straight to the constituents with it. And I think if they do also a better job of explaining, I mean, $15 an hour sounds better than $12 this year, $13 the next year, however it's indexed. But I think that they should absolutely do more of a campaign on explaining why this is beneficial and putting that pressure on the senators. Yeah, that's it. You got to use the power. That was important. All right, folks, I got to go to a quick break. When we come back on Roland Martin Unfiltered, we'll talk with the sister who has dealt with racism in the field of medicine. Her story is shocking and stunning, and we'll tell you about it. Also, we're going to continue the conversation about student loan debt. Folks with color change dropped their own study on this that lays out how black students are grossly impacted by student loan debt. Plus, crazy as white people, white teacher trying to redefine the N word to black students in AP class.

Yeah. Nice try. You're watching Rolling Mark Unfiltered, broadcasting live from St. Louis, Missouri. We'll be back in a moment. I grew up wanting a lot of activities in my neighborhood that was in close proximity. You know, my mom wasn't always

there, so I didn't always have a ride to places. And you know, you want to be able to walk down the street and get to something that's some food for your soul in your community you know you know I relish you know the days of being in Clarksdale Mississippi and when I had to go out there live my people they had actually black on corner stores my uncle on uncle owned one. My Uncle Donald owned a cleaners and a corner store. And he a city councilman down there now.

It's like, that was big for him. He was like, yo man, you got to own something. Got to own something. His wife was named Louise. It always killed me. I used to call him George Jefferson. His name was Donald. Because his wife was named Louise and that was big to see my family own and stuff and

it just cultivated what my dad told me my dad he didn't say a lot of good stuff but the three things that he did give me play play chess so you'll be a thinker, you don't have to work for nobody. He told me that, I said, you don't have to work for nobody. The same energy that you put into for somebody else, you can put that same energy into for yourself. And then he'd go into his field.

See, they talking about black people don't wanna work. Black people just don't want no jobs. They say, we don't work for nobody else. We want our own stuff. Give me my own stuff, I come to work every day. You know what I'm saying? He goes to his own field.

And, like, I don't work for anybody. Hey, everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond. Hi, my name is Bresha Webb, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. And, well, I like a nice filter usually, but we can be unfiltered.

It's time to be smart. When we control our institutions, we win. This is the most important news show on television of any racial background. Y'all put two, three, four, five, 10, 15, 20, $30 on this and keep this going. What you've done, Roland, since this crisis came out in full bloom. Anybody watching this, tell your friends, go back and look at the last two weeks,

especially at Roland Martin Unfiltered. I mean, hell, go back and look at the last two days. You've had sitting United States senators today, Klobuchar and Harris. Whatever you have that you have, you can bring to Roland Martin Unfiltered to support it. Please do, because this information may literally save your life. Watch Roland Martin Unfiltered daily at 6 p.m. Eastern on YouTube, Facebook or Periscope or go to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

Support the Roland Martin Unfiltered daily digital show by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans distributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com Alright, folks. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered here in St. Louis, Missouri.

Dr. Aisha Khoury, who was a member of the founding faculty of Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine, was suspended and then later fired from her job. She was asked to lead a conversation at the school in the wake of the death of George Floyd and, of course, the shooting in Wisconsin of Jacob Blake. Now, she said the conversation was authentic, emotional, and students were engaged, but she was suspended after someone complained about, quote, certain classroom activities that took place. She joins us right now. Dr. Kuri, glad to have you on the show. Thank you very much for having me. It's wonderful to be. Oh, I'm trying to understand this. So they asked you to lead a conversation in the wake of these incidents. And you're the one who ends up getting suspended in fire. That's how things roll at PWIs, right? So what happened? So classes started in July.

You know, this is in the midst of the protests. We had just had Jacob Blake being shot. We had the Kenosha, Washington shootings. We had our own Anthony McClain here in Pasadena, blocks away from the school, being shot and killed by police. And students wanted to have a conversation about that. That week, we were also from a medical school perspective, talking about bias and racism in medicine, talking about how Black people are undertreated when they're in

emergency departments, talking about maternal death rates. We say all that with Serena Williams. And as the only Black American moderator who was a physician in my classroom, I had a very candid conversation about not only my experiences as a physician, but my experiences individually. And the conversation was very engaged by the students. And nine hours later, I received a call saying that I was suspended Surely your reaction had to be y'all got to be playing a prank on me I'm being suspended for leading the conversation that you asked me to leave. What do you what what the hell? did they think the conversation was gonna be about I

Wish I understood that better. It's a conversation I would definitely have again, and I think it's a conversation that the younger generation of trainees and students that we have coming up are ready for and they're excited about. My students gave me incredible feedback about that. That session almost immediately. It's through one of my students that endorsed that my email had been suspended. He found me on LinkedIn to say that, hey, Dr. Corey, I'm trying to reach out. I hope it's OK to reach out to you here. It was just shocking. And I was just numb for about three days. So you get suspended. How long were you suspended before it all of a sudden leads to termination? Ultimately, the

decision was made not to renew my appointment. And so my appointment ended January 31st. But I went from having a promotion expected in an email to me from my chair, June 10th, and then I get suspended from the class in August 28th. I don't work at the school for several months. And then suddenly, I get a letter of non-renewal. And in that saying that, you know, I have poor work product and I have poor judgment and, you know, all of the things that they do to kind of denigrate your character and disparage you. What has been the, well, first of all, did they ever fully explain to you why it wasn't being

renewed? Did they actually say a student complained, a faculty member complained, a parent complained? They give any actual reason? I never got a reason. I never got any understanding of the complaint from the class. I don't know who it came from. My students came out publicly for me on Twitter and sent several letters on behalf, on my behalf, to the leadership saying that they wanted me to be reinstated. The eight students of my class say that they are not the ones who complained. I did have a co-facilitator in the class. At the end of the day, though, I don't know who complained. And also, I hold leadership accountable.

If we're going to have these conversations in medical schools and these conversations are necessary, evidenced by all of the conversation you all have had on the show today, then schools have to understand that if someone is uncomfortable, it's the school's responsibility to walk them through that. You cannot ask black folk to do this work and then retaliate against them. I also saw on social media that there were some students, some Black students, who refused, who turned down acceptances into this medical school as a result of what happened to you. Not only did some medical students withdraw their applications, students who had already been accepted, and mind you, that comes with $200,000 of free tuition, withdrew their acceptances from the institution. Wow. It's incredible. It's really incredible.

But I think what we're seeing is that psychological safety is important, and students of color, especially Black students, deserve to feel psychologically safe in school. I want to pull in my panel here. Dr. Greg Carl, I'll start with you. Faculty member to faculty, your question for Dr. Khoury. Yeah, I'm sitting here, Dr. Khoury, shocked, sis. Let me just ask you, I mean, I have so many questions, but I suppose I'll try to keep it. Is there no faculty handbook? I mean, it seems like this is a new faculty that is being established. I mean, who's the accrediting body for them? And I'm reading the suspension, as I'm sure you are, as a setup for further action that they took. So in that respect, are they or is there not a process that they are beholden to at the risk of jeopardizing their accreditation?

So that's really interesting because I did I did follow up with that accrediting body and there is a handbook. The handbook is available online for anyone to read. The handbook was not followed in my case. Okay. So, so in other words, stay tuned maybe for the lawsuit. I hope. Thank you, Roland. Is that, is that, is that a plan for you, Doc, to sue? You know, what I'm learning, Roland, is that justice is very difficult and very expensive to find. So at this point, I can't say I can't say. Recy, your question for Dr. Curry. Dr. Curry. Yeah, I shared your story a couple months ago, I believe, on Twitter.

So I'm happy to see you on rolling, raising awareness about this. What really struck me is, like you said, this is what they always do. They turn something that is supposed to be about, you know, educating and enlightening people into a personal and professional attack against you. It's not just a matter of retaliating against you for the class room session that happened but actually trying to impugn your character your professional ability have you found that that has been an issue and pursuing other opportunities or in has your speaking out been a hindrance and further opportunities how does that

retaliation and that write-up that they that they gave you how does that impact your future prospects? Yes, so I think for sure, I'm definitely getting mixed messages. I am getting some folks who feel like it's a bit too hot to touch, right? In terms of my joining other institutions. But my hope is that people get to know my character because they get to see who I am

through opportunities like this, through Twitter, and that I'll land at an institution that will appreciate my talents and skills and appreciate that I'm someone who will keep people accountable to health equity. Erica Savage-Wilson, your question for Dr. Khoury. Thank you, Roland. Yeah, Dr. Khoury, really appreciate being able to speak with you tonight. to the floor about the coolie thank you Roland yeah dr. Corey I'm really appreciate being able to speak with you tonight and so and thank you for being here my question to you is be we were talking earlier about positions and there's only about the five to seven percent of positions black positions

that are represented in your field what has the support from your body of colleagues been like? And is that support enough to really raise more awareness? You know, Recy talked about, she tweeted out, retweeted your story out earlier, and now you're here on the show. But what do you think that it will take in terms of galvanizing to get more people engaged in what's happened to you and what is yet happening to you? Yes. I mean, definitely we have to move from being performative. You saw that in medical institutions all across the country, everyone kneeling for their eight minutes and 46 seconds. But at the end of the day, we need people to put action to their performative activities. For sure, I got incredible support online from a medical community in general.

But what I've seen now, I don't know if you guys are familiar with the story coming out of Tulane with Dr. Dinar, and there has just been an incredible movement of support of people who are intolerant of Black women being removed from their academic positions. That is going to require not only support of physicians all across the country, but also patients standing up with a hashtag, we need Black doctors. This is an incredible moment in history. Black physicians have a lot to offer. And imagine if we are only three to five percent of physicians in general. We're even less than academic medicine. And if we're going to turn out the kind of doctors who we want to see treat us, black physicians have to be at the table. Right. Right.

Dr. Khoury, we certainly appreciate it. Actually, before I let you go, have other medical schools reach out to you? One. One. Wow. Wow. We appreciate you telling us your story. Let us know how it goes

in the future. Be glad to have you back on. Will do. Thank you so much, Roland. Thank you so much. All right. Thanks a bunch. All right. Got to go to a break when we come back. We'll talk about education matter segment. We'll go more in depth on that color of change study on the impact of student loan debt on African-Americans. Plus our crazy as white people segment. White teacher tries to redefine the n-word to black students in ap class ah it's still 2021 you you're watching roller mark unfiltered broadcasting live from st louis missouri we'll be back in a moment when you

think about the fact that 2043 we are going to be a nation that's majority people of color. I've really focused on this a lot on television, on radio, in my speeches. That my focus is trying to prepare us to have demographic power while also having educational economic power at the same time. Because there's nothing worse than having demographic numbers. But then you still don't have that economic power, that political power, and education power. Well, you know, you and I,

and I think most people know and understand that education is what we've got to impress on all of our people. We've got to help people to understand that if you want a decent quality of life, if you want the kind of quality of life where you're not having to worry about your food and your nutrition and being able to pay your bills or buy a house, then you've got to become educated. The more education you have, the larger the paycheck is. And of course, we've got to be involved in entrepreneurship, taking the talent that we have to create businesses.

And there's a lot of opportunity for that. Hello, everyone everyone I'm Godfrey and you're watching Roland Martin unfiltered and while he's doing unfiltered I'm practicing the wobble All right, folks. The board oversees LA Unified Students to cut $25 million from the budget. The school police said we'll use the money to help fund an achievement plan for black students. 70 sworn officers, 62 non-sworn police officers, and one support staff position for the Los Angeles School Police Department, leaving the force with 211 officers. Now, the board's decision came after a year-long push by activist students and community members that was intensified by national protests over racial injustice and police brutality last summer after the death of George Floyd. Jackie Goldberg, one of the board members, said, quote, I have heard the concerns of black students who have felt targeted by school police. I believe there are creative ways to keep our schools safe and don't rely on having an officer stationed on campus.

All right, folks. Earlier, we talked about the issue of student loan debt and president joe biden uh of course pledged to tackle the trillion dollar problem during his campaign but the other night when he was asked about whether he would support canceling fifty thousand dollars for 43 million american borrowers the president bought he answered the question during the cnn town hall in wisconsin wisconsin exacerbating several democratic congressional leaders who continue to aggressively push for that $50,000, including Senator Chuck Schumer, Congressman Ilhan Omar and so many others as well. Now, Biden is earmarked for giving $10,000 in federal student loans. But again, folks like Congressman Omar said that's simply insufficient.

She tweeted her position this morning saying that he has the power to forgive more. And as I said earlier, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic majority leader, he said President Barack Obama and Donald Trump, yeah, I don't call him president, they use the power of executive orders to actually do the same thing. Joining us right now, folks, is Arisha Hatch. She's the vice president for chief of campaigns for color of change they dropped uh a survey that specifically talked about the impact of student loan debt on african americans glad to have you a little about them thank you for having me all right so what did uh this survey uh reveal of how significant student loan debt is for African-American students? What our survey revealed and we looked we talked to black voters specifically people that voted about how they felt

about student loan debt elimination and what our study showed is that black women borrow more money when they attend school and hold more student debt than any other group in America. And that there is a significant percentage of people, almost 40% of folks that were polled by us that wouldn't support a politician go out and vote for a politician that doesn't support student debt elimination. And so what we saw is that this issue is a racial justice issue. And that's the conversation that we're trying to have with the Biden administration right now. And see, this is where I would, and I absolutely agree when you say it's a racial justice issue, but this is also why I have been using the phrase economic justice. I've been having these discussions on this show talking about, I use the hashtag, where's our money? When I spoke in Cincinnati several years ago to a black

group there, they were talking about African-Americans demanding more of the economic power in Cincinnati. And so they had these shirts made and they said, where's our money? And so I wore that on the air. And so I've been using that hashtag and I've been talking about economic social justice. And the reason I've been using that because folks are out here talking about criminal justice reform, critically important.

Mass incarceration, critically important. Defund the police, critically important. But we also have to be extremely adamant when we talk specifically about black folks and money when it comes to stuff like student loan debt and the direct impact that has not just on someone owing money, but if you free up black students from that, you now are putting them in a better position to be able to become homeowners,

which now means they are able to now establish equity, now be able to own something, now be able to build generational wealth. Just one example, it frees up them from also having to even further extend starting families. I mean, there's so many things that are tied into that student loan debt that some folk, I believe policymakers, don't quite get. And I think that's exactly why we wanted to put out this survey. Biden sort of classifying

this as an elite issue, an issue for elite people. It shows that he hasn't been well briefed on the impacts of student loan debt on the Black voters that put him into office and that delivered a majority for Democrats in Congress. What we saw in our poll is that Black people are deferring major life events and opportunities due to their debts. Student loan debt has prevented many Black people from saving for retirement, from buying a home, from starting their own business, from leaving jobs when they're facing discrimination. And so it has real connections to the disparities in terms of generational wealth, along with the minimum wage issue that was being discussed issue, along with gender and racial pay disparities. All of these things are adding up, and two, a concoction of things that keep black people from taking the

money, taking our money that we deserve, and getting, being able to provide the life for the, the lives that we want to provide for our families. Greg Carr, the reason I disagree with President Biden trying to make this elite argument is I also understand the difference between public schools and private schools. I'm a graduate of Texas A&M University. Public institution.

Students who went to Prairie View A&M University. Public HBCU. Texas Southern University. Public HBCU. Their tuition is different in Texas than Houston Tillotson, private HBCU, other private HBCUs. And let's just be real clear. OK, white folks are always going to be included in stuff. So if you've got some white students and who are involved in this.

OK, fine. But here's the other deal all right base that thing based upon on what you uh uh you know how much your parents make if you sit here and say your parents uh are making more 300 000 or 400 000 or more dollars your child don't qualify for uh uh long being wiped out i mean you can create things in this, but to sit here and say, well, that's going to impact elite institutions. Well, hell, if I use this standard, that can be applied to a student who goes to Howard. Of course. Well, I mean, this is a political issue, and I want to encourage everyone to read this excellent student debt elimination

survey because it covers much more than student debt, political landscape, opinion landscape. It's very important to look at this. Joe Biden is a politician. I don't know him. I don't like him and don't dislike him. He's a politician and we should use him as we should use all politicians. It was an absurd statement. And I agree with you, says he maybe he was under briefed or maybe he just that stupid or maybe he just that clueless. But at the bottom line is this. The the portfolio of the secretary of education enables that person to cancel federal student loans. They have that ability. He can do that with the stroke of a pen. I don't really care what Joe Biden thinks. It's time now to treat him as the opponent. We must

treat all politicians when they become obstacles. So we don't even need to get into a debate of trying to persuade him. We need to break his political back and you need to cancel this debt. It's just that simple. When you have people, and we are, I'll just last thing I'll say, you know, I have many colleagues, and I too went to a public HBCU, Tennessee State, that's my heart. I have many colleagues on faculties, Black colleagues at HBCUs and HWCUs who rent instead of own homes because of student debt that they've been carrying 10, 20, some of them 30 years. It's absurd. Joe, cancel the debt or we cancel you because the Democratic Party is playing with fire on this one. Go right ahead and respond, Arisha. Go ahead. I think it's absolutely right. Obviously, the country is facing severe issues. I want a competent COVID response. My family needs that, desperately needs that.

But this is going to be a real conversation that this administration has to continue with. I think we've survived the last four years of a president that was willing to break all norms, do anything, issue a ton of executive orders. And I don't think the American public or like black people are here for a sort of approach that doesn't include Democrats using all of their existing powers to make sure that we can actually feel change

from this administration. Erica, a question for Arisha? Yeah, Arisha. So thank you all for that wonderful survey, 32 pages of really in-depth information. And you really did capture the Black community. So one of the questions that I had was around, you talked about, I think it was about 52 to 56 percent of Black folks have student loan debt going from 15 on up to six figures. When you look at eliminating that 50,000 of student debt held by Black people, what else do you see opening up? I know you named a laundry list of things, but in the immediate term of that being eliminated, what are some of the gains that can be expected, especially when you're thinking about 90 percent of Black women came out for Biden-Harris, 80% of Black men did as well? I think what we see is that Black people's pocketbooks will be affected. This is a monthly cost for people.

This is a monthly cost for people, and they have to pay this bill instead of doing a host of other things in their lives. So it would be huge relief for a number of Black families. And so, you know, what we saw, what I saw that in the survey was that there are so many dreams deferred, not just because partially because of this pandemic, but also because of this student loan debt crisis that is consuming America and has disproportionate impacts on Black people. Raci. Yeah, actually, I have more of a comment than anything. I think President Biden ran on $10,000 student loan cancellation, debt cancellation, as well as free public education, free HBCU education. So I do think that it's interesting that the progressive wing of the party is really pushing this executive action through Biden, which he didn't make a promise for now i'm all for

advocacy i'm all for pushing the envelope but i think that the congress should uh put their money where their mouth is and put a bill on the table and call his bluff i think that's a that's a pretty effective way of forcing his hand rather than uh trying to push executive action uh they chuck schumer is the majority leader put a a bill on the floor, Chuck Schumer. Get rid of that filibuster. If you want to get student debt passed, same with the Congress people, the Congresswoman Ileana Omar

and things of that nature. So I do wonder what kind of campaign is there on the Congress people, the senators and the Congress and the representatives to actually push this forward rather than just on Joe Biden. Arisha, you can speak to that, but also does he actually have, I mean, y'all have done the

research. Does President Joe Biden actually have the authority to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt via executive order? We believe that he has the authority to cancel debt by executive authority, and we believe that Congress should be taking action. All folks are responsible in this situation. We happen to be talking about this in the context of Biden because of his remarks at the town hall a few days ago, but Congress is responsible. Biden is responsible. We expect Democrats to take action. We believe that if they want to maintain a majority in 2022, we need to see aggressive, progressive action that Black voters can feel in their daily lives.

And so that's the conversation that we're going to be having. We're not going to allow this to become a conversation about just elites from Harvard or Stanford where I went, being the ones that are benefiting. We know we know the truth. All right. Then Arisha, where can people actually go to see the full report? You can find it at color of change dot org. It's right there on our front page. And we look forward to folks continuing to take action and share these things and lift up this conversation because this is something that we can win. We deserve to win in this administration. All right.

Well, we still appreciate the great work that Color of Change does. Thank you so very much for joining us. Thank you. All right, folks. you know what time it is i'm white i got you illegally selling water without a permit on my property this took place in florida where they were in the AP history class and this white teacher decided to let's say all Educate these black students about the true meaning of the n-word the white people do what they would crack the slaves with the they wouldn't do that to slaves how do you know were you there

let me help you out with your okay before i kick you out how for why you want to have an honest conversation let's have an honest conversation? Let's have an honest conversation. Don't give me the ha-ha-hee-hee-ho. Let's have an honest conversation. Okay. That's what I want. That's what we're here in AP for. If I call somebody the N-word, what am I calling them?

The N-word? No. Huh? Ignorant? Yeah, ignorant. The N-word just means ignorant. It doesn't have any other meaning and any other vocabulary other than you are a stupid person. You are ignorant. You are not well read. You are not well educated. That's what it means. I laughed because on the Florida boy down here where we came up with the term Florida cracker. Everyone thinks Florida Cracker is like racist. I'm sorry.

Recy, if the black student didn't call the teacher the N word for being ignorant, the teacher would have said, okay, great usage. No, absolutely not. And I hope that Dr. Carr pulls out some of his words today. Because I know he's going to kill it. I know he's going to kill it on what doesn't have racial connotations for white people. You know what I'm saying? I got a pension, so I can't be the one to say it.

But I want to go ahead and I want to have you and Erica talk first. Dr. Carr controls it out. Okay, okay, okay. Let me say this. You know, I think that you know, white

people and their propaganda, it's so funny how he know, I think that, you know, white people and their propaganda. It's so funny how he says, if you want to have an honest conversation and then proceeds to lie, it's like a pathological just delusion that they have. And it's like, are you lying to yourself as well as to these students? Because it's clearly racist and there's nothing that is, you know, benign about the N-word. And, you know, shout out to that student for calling out. And I think that there was some disciplinary action taken against that teacher. But this is the problem that we have in our education system where we only have Black History Month, that's one time a month, where sometimes now in history, it completely leaves out the entire history of slavery and reconstruction, and it starts

practically after the Civil Rights Movement. And so our kids are indoctrinated with this white supremacist rewrite of the history. And at the end of the day, we all know good and damn well that if Black people were going around calling white people the N-word, they would not like that. It would not be okay. Erica? Well, I mean, you know, their master was impeached again. A quick again of

impeachment, you'd think that would be enough, but they just have to be able to say and explain away the N-word. And this is really the experience of Black children all across this land. This anti-Blackness is global. This real need to really make sure that black people understand our own is something that's really systemic. And so I say to parents, you know, also been very present when my son was in school because I understood those psychological, that real warfare that he went through on a day-to-day basis as a young Black person wanting to have his mind intellectually stimulated

by a group of people who don't feel otherwise, don't really see them as actual 100% human beings. So, you know, kudos to this young man and for using social media in a way that really does showcase to his peers and other people that these are things that are happening in the classrooms. And so continue to pick those pieces up on video.

This has definitely been a charge that we have had to keep for an incredibly long time and it's out of the classroom. Greg Carr, you're back clean up no brother i i may i may strike out on this one because i tell you what i was watching that i was being kind of contemplative about it you know why do i mean why do i say that that's an ap government course that young brother, if it's anything like the AP course, of course, that took at Hillsborough High School in Nashville, my AP English course, the teacher was black, Ms. Vaughn, and she and I were black. And I don't remember if there were more than two other black

people in the room. It's an advanced placement course, which means there's an AP test, which will give him college credit if he scores above a certain number. In other words, what he's confronting is not just a hillbilly who calls himself a proud southerner and a plowed Florida boy and talks about being a cracker in that 10-member social studies department there at Island Coast High School, so it won't be kind of hard to figure out who he is. He's not just confronting that classroom. He's confronting, this is what we talk about when we say systemic racism, because the educational testing service writes the AP exam. I remember when we did the Philadelphia curriculum for the mandatory African-American history course in Philly, we began to draw up plans to do an AP African-American

history course. Why? Because if we could do that, then you can get credit for it going to college. However, this is how the game is played, whether it be the SAT, the ACT, whoever's writing the test is going to determine the cultural logic of the test, what's going to be on the test. There's an AP test that's connected to that. He's in there trying to plot his future. So he can't just leave the class because that means he's going to give up that AP credit on his transcript. And when you hear those other voices in there, those are probably white students. And then when you hear that the teacher threatened him with, we're not going to have the boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.

That's because this racist is saying, nigga, you shouldn't be here in the first place. In here, playing in your hair, you got your be here in the first place. You're in here planning your hair, you got your hair in, which of course is a personal peeve of mine as an educator. But I know these young people. This guy right here is looking at him like, I don't want you in here anyway. I'm getting ready to put you out. So he's going to push the envelope. Finally, in schools like in prisons, First Amendment rights are diminished. The courts have established that, you know, since the beginning, really, of this criminal enterprise called the United States of America. And so this young man, this teenager is not only putting at risk the possibility of getting this AP credit because he's trying to go to college somewhere.

He's also putting at risk the possibility that these hillbillies down there at Island Coast, the board chair, Debbie Jordan, has said the video has been sent for investigation, that they don't flip it and turn it on him for putting it on social media. We must now protect this young man because what he stepped out on is a problem that's facing all of our young people in this hillbilly hick country where they can actually be... Let me slow down because guess what? Your little country coming apart anyway. So let's back this brother so that we can get him through this process. Because by my count, we're in the spring semester. And we're basically coming into March next week.

So he's trying to get his AP credit. We'll have to wreck the curriculum another time. But he put it all on the line right there. All right, then. Well, that is it for today's show, folks. I'm going to do this here. I want to give a shout out to some of our fan club members. Wendy Bridges, Renetta Hackett, Dana Doerson, Michael Stowe, Barbara Flood, Laura Fennell. I certainly appreciate all of you being contributors to our Bring the Funk fan club.

Thank you so much. Again, folks, your donations really make it possible for us to do what we do. I'm going through here. I'm going to pull up some other names in just a second. One of the things that we have been, we're here in

St. Louis because on tomorrow I am going to be doing a town hall with Tashara Jones, a sister who is running for mayor of st. Louis remember she ran last time barely lost she's not running again the election is going to be in April and so I'm gonna be moderating a town hall will be live from 6 to 7 p.m. Eastern during our regular show but being in the second hour of the show is going to actually be the town hall here in st. Louis it is in I think it's called the Omega Room.

I'm looking for it. She told me, she said she apologized. She said it's going to be socially distanced. She said for having me to go to the Omega Room, I was like, ah, don't worry about it. I said I'll go ahead. And they lucked up. I was going to sit here and rock a whole bunch of alpha gear going there. But I'm going to go ahead and just rock our Roland Martin unfiltered stuff.

And so I certainly appreciate that. Let me also also we're here at the Aviator penthouse here in St. Louis. Y'all can see the law. And literally when I say we're across the street, I'm talking about right there. If you were like right across the street is Harris Stowe, HBCU here in St. Louis. I've spoken on that campus on several different occasions. And so we certainly appreciate that. And, you know, so we sort of love this look. I remember when I was in Georgia, we had that living room look and I really, really liked it. And so we say, hey, let's do that thing here. And so we certainly appreciate the folk with the gold company. Can you go ahead and show their logo for allowing us to be able to do the show from here?

The interviews I'm going to be doing, we're going to be shooting those interviews here this weekend as well. Tomorrow, I'll be interviewing Wesley Bale, Kim Gardner. They're the county prosecutor, city prosecutor here in St. Louis. I'll be talking with Michael McMillan. He is the course leader of the St. Louis area National Urban League, and also my man Tef Poe,

rapper and activist. We'll be talking to him as well. We'll be sitting down with him for a series of one-hour interviews that we're actually going to show later on Roland Martin Unfiltered. That's one of the reasons we're here. We sort of maximize the time that we are here with

all of our different interviews. That's what we're doing. Let me also shout out Darlene Ward, Sam Williamson Jr., Otis Townsend, Tanya McPherson, Jerry Connell, Michelle Williams, Michelle Bird, Nat Farrell Enterprises, Guinevere Butler, Sidney and Shanda Scott, Curtis Thomas, Dorothy Bailey, Patricia Taylor, Julie Bass, Henry Shelby Jr., Donald Cronin, Ella and Keith Fleming, Deborah Triplett, Phyllis Coney, Natanya Brown, Jameson Toussaint, Shirley Williams,

Eretta Lyons, Sherlan Carrington, Otto Moore, Timothy Bishop, Yoruba, Sadiq, Tyrone, Miles, Wanda Vaughn, Zalene Moore, Rudolph Living Trust, Earl Johnson, Arthur Rooks, Melanie Tittle, Jeanette Sanders, Don Davidson, Lisa Jenkins. All of them have contributed $50 or more to what we do. So let me go ahead and say this here. Anthony, go back to the other shot. So so just so y'all understand a shot right there. So you understand why your support matters, why your support matters for what we're doing. Not as long as we will travel here and to do those kind of different interviews next week. We're going to be traveling. We'll be in Atlanta, Tuskegee, Alabama, as well as Jacksonville, Florida. And I am I am working on a project with Facebook that is allowing us to do a series of conversations, intergenerational conversations.

And we're going to be having the conversations with Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, Ambassador Andrew Young. Then we're going to have a conversation that I'm actually interviewing Fred Gray, 90-year-old Fred Gray, who Congresswoman or the historic lawyer who Congresswoman Terry Sewell has put up for President Joe Biden to give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. I tweeted this that I believe that Fred Gray, that president Biden should give Fred Gray the presidential medal of freedom. He also should give it to Reverend Dr. Jim Lawson, the creator of the Nashville movement. I also believe posthumously he should award a presidential medal of freedom to Ella Baker and to Reverend Dr. Ralph Abernathy. Out of all of those civil rights luminaries, Abernathy and Baker have not been honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. They are deserving. And so is Dr. Lawson. And so is Fred Gray. So I hope others take up that cause.

Then we're going to be having in Jacksonville, Florida, Intergenerational Conversation, Tiffany Lofton, that's with Janetta B. Cole, and then Philip Agnew, co-founder of the Dream Defenders, with Charlie Cobb of SNCC. And so we're working on a couple of others, and so we're working on that right now. And so that is what you're able to do. And I'm going to go ahead and say this now. We are in the midst of working on a new location to do our show from. And so this look that you're seeing here, don't be surprised if you see something very similar in the location that we've already scouted. I'm not going to tell you where it is as close to where we are right now, but it's going to give us even more flexibility to do the show, to give us different looks. And so we're looking forward to that. And so your support, I told y'all, I'm going to always, I'm going to always share with you the things that we're doing to be very transparent, because I want you to see

what your dollars are going to support. More than 5,000 of you have been watching us on YouTube. If you give on YouTube, that's great. Remember, we only get 55% of all donations there on YouTube. So they get 45, we get 55. So you give to us direct, that money comes directly to us all 100%. Cash app is dollar sign RM unfiltered. PayPal is paypal.me forward slash rmartin unfiltered. Venmo.com forward slash rm unfiltered. You also have Zelle. Email is roland at rolandsmartin.com also uh you can send a money order to new vision media nu vision media inc 1625 k street northwest suite 400 washington dc 2006 and so that's how you can support us uh with our fan club there uh that

is it for us folks don't forget first of all let. Let me think again Recy. Let me thank Greg Oh, let me thank Erica for joining with us normally We are going through our studio. We use stream yard today Shout out to Kenan who was actually had dealing with the guests and directing all that sort of stuff Well because of the snow was difficult for my staff something to get out of the neighborhoods And so we did not do use our normal system But hopefully you didn't have too many problems. Again, y'all know we're going to work technology the best way that we can. We always have a plan B, plan C and plan D. But I just really want folks just to understand

that when you support this show, you are supporting a black owned media company that is speaking to the interest and the concerns of black people. The conversations that we had today, you're not going to get that intense dialogue anywhere else. And that's why it matters. And again, when you support what we do and great and Erica, you were there when I was in Georgia. This allows for us to be on the ground. When Tashar was running, I said, look, there are three black people who are running. I ain't heard from the other two black people running. But Tashar said, hey,

would you bring your show to St. Louis to cover the mayoral race? I said, sure, I'll be there. I said, I'll be happy to moderate a town hall. And the other people said, good. So that's why we're here. We want to do this in other places as well. I just saw that that

state representative malcolm kenyatta has announced that he is running for the united states senate out of pennsylvania i just saw that uh come across uh y'all need to understand we're going to be doing more of this uh us taking and as we get out there trust me uh i'm gonna eventually get the coven vaccine uh but we want to be on the road taking this show on the road, not being in D.C., being able to have socially distanced events, being able to have various town halls. There's another we're going to have coming up next week. I'll give you more details about as well. But that's what this is about. Recently, we talked about covid vaccine When I was talking about how we got to be driving information, that's what we really have to do. And so we want to do more of that. And so trust me, there are other races that we're covering. And I'm telling you right now, to the DSCC,

y'all better be ready to fund black media. Because I'm telling you right now, we're going to put the RoRoMobile on the road and we're going to Pennsylvania because we're going to take out Republicans there. Toomey is retiring. We're going hard in North Carolina. Oh, Lord, Trump, if your ass run, we're going to be hell on your ass, North Carolina. And I want I want to see who's black running in North Carolina. Ron Johnson, we're going after your behind in Wisconsin. We're going to be there. We want to be in Florida as well. We want to absolutely extend this. When you give also allows for me to be able to hire more people. We're going after federal media contracts. We're going after ad agency contracts because my vision is to be able to hire in the next 18 months, 20 to 30 black journalists. So it's not just me out here, multiple people out on the road out here, uh, broadcasting these stories and being

able to cover and have live stream these rallies and events because the future of black America will not truly happen. If we are asking-owned mainstream media to tell our story. They're not going to do it even when they have black faces who are anchors and producers. Let me just be real clear. I ain't got nothing against them. They are having to ask somebody, can we cover this? Roller Martin unfiltered. We don't ask nobody. In fact,

actually, this is who we ask. It's a big-ass mirror over there. That's who I ask. That's who I ask. Me. I'm looking at me. As a matter of fact, let me explain to y'all. This is how the conversation goes. Anthony, come on over here. Give me this right here. I'm let me explain to y'all. This is how the conversation goes. Anthony, come on over here.

Give me this right here. So I'm just going to show you how the conversation goes right here. Okay? This is how the conversation goes right here. Okay. Let me walk over here. I'm going to stay on this couch. I say, I say, I'm thinking we need to go cover

this story. What you think? Roland, I think that's a damn good idea. So I think we need to call some people from black people who are production assistants and say, I want y'all to help us. You know, Roland, I think that's what we should do. So let's go ahead

and do that. Y'all see how that conversation goes? That's really how it goes. See, that's a black man looking in the mirror, talking to himself and making his own decisions. I ain't got to ask nobody. I ain't even got to ask my wife or my mama or my daddy because they know how I

roll. Y'all, that's what it means to be black on. We ain't got to ask nobody for permission. Yes, sir. And shout out to you, Roland, because I saw somebody gave you a hard time when you were recruiting videographers and personnel. And they said, why aren't you posting that on Indeed? And you said, I'm my own platform.

So people need to start recognizing the power of the Roland Martin platform. You ain't got to always go and ask the white folks to get the people that you need. You can ask your own people. Yeah. Let me tell you this. Y'all, somebody hopped on my Instagram like, well, it's more professional if you post it on this

site. I'm like, man, y'all should kiss my ass. I said I got 3.5 million social media followers and y'all know what my fans do? They sit that thing around and even during the show, y'all, I was getting emails. I've been getting emails

from black people who are videographers, who are cinematographers, who are production assistants in Alabama, in Atlanta, in Jacksonville. A sister just sent me, me y'all who lives in Connecticut who said I'll travel I now have black people who are in New Jersey. I have been getting emails from people all Around the country who say I want to work

I want to help and here's the other thing when y'all give to support this show. I'm able to hire black videographers Black production assistants black lighting directors That is the that is a thing that we're talking about and since I'm gonna go ahead and play this because I just thought about I'm Glad you brought that up Recy able do bernay posted this and she was talking about she was talking about she was talking about, again, the power of when you are in control of something, you ain't got to ask. See, I'm not I ain't going to send no press release out touting diversity. We're just going to do it. Yeah. See, if you you wanted let me just go ahead and say if you wanted them black

people who say it's lonely at the top that's because your trifling ass didn't bring nobody with you see this is about changing the game this is about us using our power to redefine the industry to redefine uh what's going on. There's no need for us to continue to have to say, well, you know, let's go, as Tyler Perry said, y'all can go fight at somebody else's table. I'm

building not just my own table, we're building our own house. That's what we're doing. Ava DuVernay dropped this today. It begins tomorrow. I want y'all to watch this check it out we want to get to a point where conversations about inclusion and equity doesn't deserve a special panel or a special department that it just is that is our goal we've been cultivating this for the past decade. We know that these productions can happen and the crew can look the way the world looks.

It was deeply personal. There's no excuse anymore. Everybody should be a part of this business if they choose to. We went to the great Peter Roth and Warner Brothers immediately and said, this is something that we're working on. And what do you think about it? And he said, I think it's fantastic. And we're in.

Every studio, every streaming company, everyone came together and said, let's do it. You've created a foundation for something that I hope outlasts all of us. We made this possible so that there's not a barrier between everyone being able to work in our industry all right so here's the deal i ain't got ava money so we ain't made no cute little video all the behind the scenes stuff but i just want y'all to understand uh watch out and let me just go ahead and again i'm about to i'm about to be just for everybody. Again, is 4000 of y'all watching right now on YouTube?

And see, y'all ain't going to never accuse me of asking for money. You not knowing where the money going. That ain't how rolling roll. That's other people. That ain't what I do. Let me just help you all out. We've hired we've hired a freelance producer to handle the project for next week. The brother who drove us around in Georgia, he's flying in Monday. He's going to drive the Roro mobile. We're going to load up all of our gear.

He's going to drive it to Atlanta. That's the brother who's getting paid for the whole week. It's probably about $5,000, but he's going to get paid. We've got crew people, videographersographers and lighting people who are getting paid. We're sitting here. Also, I don't do cold food.

I told Shalee, don't have no damn box lunches. They're rolling through hot food. So what are we doing in Atlanta, Tuskegee and Jacksonville? I told her, go find me black restaurants, black caterers. Okay. We're going to have steel photographers on the scene taking pictures. Black steel photographers. Yes, sir. Yes.

That's what we're doing. Now, I know somebody's sitting here saying, well, what about white folks? Guess what? One of the audio guys, he Asian, but folks who have audio in my office, they white. So don't act like I ain't never had white people, but folks who handle audio in my office, they white. So don't act like I ain't never had white people, but I know that black people can do these jobs. We simply never get the shot. So what the video Ava just showed you, that there are black people who can do media,

who can do projects, who can do these things. All they are waiting for is somebody to give them a shot. And so I need y'all to understand when I, when I read your names and you gave 50 or a hundred dollars or one person gave $400, another person gave a thousand dollars. That means that this allows for me to go out and hire other people and provide opportunities for them and now they can build and grow from there that's how you do the collective people love talking about man that we black folk need to work together that's how you do it that's how you do it yes okay it ain't hard no but red folk just gotta be, you gotta, your heart and your mind has to be right. And you can't be selfish. You can't just say, I'm just going to keep hiring

the same people. No, our people have the ability to do it. That's exactly what, uh, what my man Gordon Parks did when he did shaft, when he did the Learning Tree. He had black folks doing the music, doing camp. That's because he was in control of the hiring. That's the only way we can guarantee our future is when black people use our power for good. That's right. That's right. That's right. I mean, Roland, when you saw, I mean, you're in a city. Walter Johnson just wrote a book about St. Louis called The Broken Heart of America, where he talks about the fact, among other things, that St. Louis is a great example of black folk who really worked hard in terms of trying to build independent institutions. Shout out to the Hornets, by the way, Harris Stowe, as you say, and maintain them. But what you're talking about, watching the Ava DuVernay piece is very, very

moving and very striking for me because one of her heroes, one of her models is Sankofa here in Washington, D.C., Hali Garima and Shrikiana Garima, the owners, independent filmmakers. He was a professor for many years, Hali, at Howard University. But they built that institution literally out of the money that black folk gave as they toured their film Sankofa almost 30 years ago. And they bought out theaters. People bought them out. They kept going and they took that money and they sucked it in the institution. And that is a place where people come to convene. They learn. Harley has taught, you know, Brad Young, who's an incredible cinematographer out there in Hollywood.

He worked on the Star Wars movie, was nominated for Academy Award. Ernest Dickerson is one of his students. He was Spike Lee's cinematographer for every movie up to Malcolm X. And then he went off and did his own thing. Arthur J. for so many others. And Ava DuVernay really holds the agreements in high esteem. And so the only thing I'll say in terms of how that relates to what you're doing is that, you know, there's a spectrum. So when Ava DuVernay says, I went to so-and-so at Warner Brothers. That's not what you're doing right now. So, of course, you don't have her money because we are living in a moment when, with the deaths

of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd and others, folks are saying, you know, we can't continue in this society. What do we need to do in order to stay in charge, but also open up? So there's a conduit. On the other end, you've got the Garimas in a very important establishment that is Black-owned,

that is independent. They're making film. They're doing this work, but they're on a smaller scale and very, very deliberate about their behavior. And then you're somewhere in between, completely black-owned, completely black-subsidized. Ain't nobody giving you nothing. You ain't banging on nobody's door for nothing. Everything you do, you probably have earned much more than they will give in terms of grants and contracts and things like that. But there will never come a day when somebody says, yeah, we're going to have to yank that grant we gave you, Roland. No. Oh, no, baby. This is Black History Month. After 1933, when, yeah, the spirit of Roland Martin, when Cargill Woodson, when the little grants from Rockefeller and Phelps Stokes started drying up, Woodson turned to the black community, which he had always been part of, and intensified the fundraiser. School children giving a dollar

or two, putting it on the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. The Q saying, hey, man, we got you on this Negro History Week thing. We made you an honorary member. Let us step up and do more. The black church, including Shallow, in the same block where his house is on 9th Street. Woodson said, if we fund it, if we do this ourselves, number one, no one will ever control what we write, what we say as we put black memory in the minds of our people. And number two, we will always make decisions in the best interest of the community because the community has done this. And we can never sell out the community because they are indeed our foundation. And that's what you're doing, Roland. That's why a lot of Negroes out here shook.

But that's OK. Let them shake. Well, trust me, the things that we got coming down the pipe, if they shook now oh if y'all shook now your ass is gonna be trembling six months but i'm gonna go ahead and go ahead wait i'm gonna i'm gonna let that one just marinate now trust me you're gonna be trembling in six months. Don't just let that one sit there and marinate. All right, y'all. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Great show.

We will see y'all tomorrow right here in St. Louis. Roland Martin unfiltered on the road. Y'all take care. Ha! Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. Arapahoe, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else.

But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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