#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Census legislation fails; Biden $280M ad buy, will Black media get $? COVID hit Black biz areas hard

Episode Date: August 6, 2020

8.5.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Census legislation stalls in Congress; Rep. Barbara Lee breaks down just how important an accurate count is for African Americans; Rep. Brenda Lawrence sends letter to Donald Trump about mail in voting; Primary election update; Biden announces $280M ad buy, will Black media get any of the funds? Congressional candidate Desiree Tims is here to talk about her race against Republican Congressman Mike Turner; Fed study shows that Covid-19 overwhelmingly hits counties with the most Black businesses hard; Black biz owner using material from Nigeria to make face masks + Wildin' Out Wednesday with comedian Cynthia JohnsonSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner: Ceek Be the first to own the world's first 4D, 360 Audio Headphones and mobile VR Headset. Check it out on www.ceek.com and use the promo code RMVIP2020-The Roland S. Martin YouTube channel is a news reporting site 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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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. A wrap-away, 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. Today is Wednesday, August 5th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the census. Will black people and other minorities be undercounted? We'll talk with Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California about that. We'll also talk with Michigan Congresswoman Brenda Lee. She sent a letter to Donald Trump about mail-in voting. She's here to tell us what was said.

Also, five states held their primaries on yesterday. You give the results, including a major upset in St. Louis. Joe Biden plans a $280 million ad buy across 15 states. How much of that money is going to black media? Speaking of Joe Biden, he is not going to be in Milwaukee for the Democrat National Convention. Who will? Plus, Ohio congressional candidate Desiree Timms is here to talk about her race against Republican Congressman Mike Turner. A recent Fed study shows that COVID-19 overwhelmingly hits counties

with the most black businesses. You'll meet a black business owner who's using material from Nigeria to make face masks. Plus, we have a new batch of anti-Trump ads to show you. And, of course, as well as that Wednesday, comedian Cynthia Turner, a.k.a. Solaudi, is here. Is she a little loud? It's time to bring the funk. I'm rolling the filter. Let's rolling. Best belief he's knowing.

Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling, Martin. Rolling with rolling now. He's funky, he's fresh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, legislation that would have extended the census bureau's national head count folks has failed in congress of course democrats have been making the argument uh that that needs to actually happen in order to properly count the u.s census yet republicans have been fighting them fiercely when it comes to united states sentences joining Joining us right now is Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California. Congresswoman, how you doing?

Good, Broome. Nice to be with you. Everybody's healthy and your family? Oh, everybody's good. Everybody's good. So we're just staying away from everybody else. Tell them all the time, look, learn to wash your hands, put a mask on and social distance. And so it's all good. Let's get back to this census deal. That's part of the issue in terms of where we are now. We are behind. And of course, a lot of Democrats wanted to extend it. Republicans are not trying to participate. And of course, many people are concerned that this is going to result in a massive undercounting of people of color, which means that's billions of dollars we don't get. Yes, Roland, and that's who they are, the Republicans.

And so I hope people remember this in November. But also, Donald Trump has moved the deadline up by one month to September 30th. And let me tell you, in 19, you know, in 2010, excuse me, we had 47 million to count. Now we've got 60 million left to count. And it's outrageous because given COVID-19 and given all of the challenges we have compressing this time to count unsheltered people, residents of nursing homes and dormitories. It's outrageous. But also, Roland, in addition to the huge amounts of money and funding for our communities, the political lines are driven based on the census count. So you have two things going against us if, in fact, these deadlines are changed and that our people aren't counted. One, we don't get

the resources. And two, our voices are not heard in the political bodies. When you... This country. And so we have to fight hard to make sure that if we can't turn this around, that we do the census in a way that we meet those deadlines and that we're counted. One of the other issues is also outreach. How do you reach those communities? Yesterday, we had Congressman Stephen Horsford on, who said that when he met with the Census Bureau and the ad agency inside the national

contract, Young and Rubicam, also known as YNR, they made clear they were not buying any newspapers under 50,000. That means virtually every black newspaper in America. We submitted a proposal in May, never heard from them. Other black media, the same as well. And so I was told that black media was supposed to get around $100 million in terms of outreach and black media, they've gotten pennies. So part of the issue also with the undercount is that not only because of COVID, you couldn't knock on doors, you couldn't have massive events, if you're also not doing anything with black media to drive the message that our people are not hearing it every single day with a drumbeat. You're absolutely correct. And I know this because we've had many meetings and oversight hearings with regard to the census. And, you know,

what happens is these companies, they get the resources that we appropriate. I serve as an appropriator on the Appropriations Committee. They make all these promises, then they do these contracts, and then they back out of the promises that they made. And so this is just, hopefully we'll have some hearings and we'll begin to unpack how all of this happened on the census. But in the meantime, we've got to make sure that we get as much as we can out of them. And it's obscene that they don't invest in ads in black media and that they lie about who they're going to work with and then get the money still. I wish there were a way we could hold up these contracts until they do the right thing.

So you have the month of August. It's just another example of this white supremacist agenda that's being run out of the Trump White House. You got August and you have September. So you got less than 60 days to get the messaging out. What is the Census Bureau saying as to how they're going to achieve that? Well, they're not saying much. I think they, in many ways, some in the Census Bureau don't really mind because they're Trumpites. Others are really concerned.

And so they're scrambling now trying to figure this out. But I can tell you, like in California, for example, we have a 60 percent return rate, but in the black and Latinx community, it's way, way down. And so we have to do a lot of outreach and we have to hire people from our communities now to really do the outreach that's necessary and try to get more money for the ads. You know, a lot of, especially African-American seniors, they may not be online, for example, or have broadband access or internet access. And so that takes the extra step of going within a COVID protocol to find out, you know,

how to help them and tell them how they can do it by mail or by telephone. So this is a heavy lift that has to happen. And we knew this going into it. But then the Trump administration just pulls the rug out of everything to try to make sure that black and brown people and seniors and the unsheltered population and young people aren't counted and low income people. It's outrageous. This is another example why we have to vote in November. All right. Congresswoman Barbaralee of California, we certainly appreciate it. As I said, the Congressman Horsford, I certainly hope that the CBC demands an audit of Young and Rubicam to know exactly where every dollar went, what black media outlets, what black-owned media outlets, and there's a full accounting of what happened. Because I talked to somebody who's been working with the census for a very long time, and I was told this exact same thing happened in 2000. Same thing happened in

2010. And now in 2020, how they made it hell on black PR and ad agencies. Yeah. Well, just know that I'm, no, I'm going to ask for an audit because we appropriated that money, but I want, I wish we could do something before. Right. And in fact, in fact, in one in fact, in one of those top black ad agencies, Carol H. Williams, right there in Oakland, one of your constituents, and that Y&R has frozen them out of this process. They were supposed to be the multicultural agency, and they have been giving them the runaround as well. And that's one of the reasons why black media and black ad agencies and black business overall can't grow is when we're frozen out of the dollars. Again, another example of systemic racism in case anybody doesn't understand that. I just want to put that out there as truth telling time. This is a manifestation of what

we've been talking about and what the movement has been about since for four hundred and one years. Yeah, that's why I'm wearing a shirt today. Where is our money? I got this from the folks when I spoke in Cincinnati for the black agenda there. So that's why I got it on. Congressman, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. OK, thank you. Nice talk. Thank you. Let's go. Let's go to our panel right now. A. Scott Bolden, former chair, National Bar Association, PAC, Robert Petillo, executive director, Rainbow Push Coalition, Peachtree Street Project, Dr. Julian Malveaux, economist, president, emeritus, Bennett College

doctor. Dr. Malveaux, I want to talk to you because, look, it's a money thing. The census is about money, okay? It's about determining alignment of districts in terms of boundaries, but also it's about the annual $1.5 trillion that is spent in this country. And when we are not counted, that's money that's not going to Black neighborhoods, not going to Latino neighborhoods. That's the money that's not going to our schools and our roads. I mean, it impacts everything in this country. It absolutely does. It also impacts the drawing of congressional lines.

But on the money side, I wish that I could ask a congresswoman, I may send her a text, why can't they pass legislation that says you have to do X, you have to have this much subcontracting, et cetera? I mean, they put conditions in all kinds of legislation. And it would seem to me that this would be a place really to put conditions in. Carol Williams has been a seasoned advertising professional for a very long time. She should have a piece of that. But, you know, these, excuse me, white boys, you know, it's interesting.

They want it all. They really don't want to share it. They want it all. They're building on us. No, and that's precisely it. And, Robert, that's what Operation Breadbasket came from, which, of course, morphed into Rainbow Puss Coalition. And I keep saying this is how we are constantly remaining broke, having to beg for people. And then they throw out a couple of pennies or nickel and then frozen out. And so not only are we screwed in terms of the black ad agencies and not only are we then screwed when it comes to the black media companies. Well, if you're not getting the word out and you're undercutting us, black people across the board get screwed when it comes to the census.

You're completely right. And part of it, we have to understand that, you know, first day political science class, the first thing they teach you is politics is the question of who gets what when. And when you're determining who gets what when is all based on population. We're going to have redistricting, redistricting and reapportionment all around this country. And what we saw in 2010, the last time we did this, was that black folks were were systemically gerrymandered. They were redlined. They were packed together into congressional districts. They were broken apart into to take away their voting majority. That's why you end up with a state like Georgia that has a 35 percent African-American population, but a constitutional majority for conservatives in the House and the Senate. All statewide offices are held by

Republicans who have not elected a Democrat in over a decade. That is because of realignment, reapportionment, gerrymandering. And if we do not answer those census questions, if we do not put ourselves in the arena to determine how exactly we will get access to the resources, we will be frozen out again, not just on the small business side, not just on the economic side, but on the political side. When we're talking about passing many of the large generational items that people are in large agreement on, the way that you don't get those things passed, even though having 60, 65 percent of the American people agreeing with them, is by playing with the rules, gerrymandering and blocking people out of the process.

The thing, Scott, again, people don't understand connecting the dots. Let's just cut to the chase. In the last 20 or so years, 20 or 30 years, there's been one party that has been consistently wanting to undercount Americans, Republicans. And there's been one party that has been trying to count as many folks as possible, Democrats. This is where elections have consequences. And we're actually seeing this here. Republicans are not only on the federal level, they're trying to undermine the census. But in these various states, Texas, for example, said we're not going to put any more money towards that. You're going idiots. Don't you know that you're actually costing yourselves?

But this was by design. Republicans have not been wanting to properly count folks because they frankly want to have as many white folks as possible to basically cut the influence of minorities? Well, it's the party of racism. I've tried to avoid using that term, but it is the party of racism. And this is Donald Trump's gift to the future GOP party. That is giving less resources, investing less resources in our communities of color. It is the Mitch McConnell. He gives to the future of the GOP party by these judicial appointments of incompetent people who are not approved by the ABA. The Republicans cannot win unless they have a policy of voter suppression, unless they have a policy of voter suppression, lest they have a policy of lack of investment and disenfranchisement of black and brown people. They want to cry foul when we use the R word.

They want to say that they want more people of color in their party, but their actions say just to say something very, very different. We can call it out on them, but the reality is we need to vote and we need to stand in line and vote and we need to vote in large numbers all across this country because not only can we beat voter suppression, but then we got to fight to make sure every vote is counted to look for November to be the showdown.

Well, we talk about the notion of voting, of course, that also deals with what's going to be happening with COVID-19 and mail-in voting. Last week, a letter was sent to Donald Trump and signed by six members of Congress addressing his continued attacks on mail-in voting. It reads, in part, we write today in response to your continued attacks on vote-by-mail, the American public's best opportunity to safely participate in the upcoming November elections. Over 4.3 million Americans have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and tragically nearly 150,000 have died as a result of complications from the virus. While we all hope this crisis will subside quickly, the scientific uncertainty

surrounding it necessitates that we take action now to prepare for the safe administration of elections in November in the event that it does not. As president of the United States, you should be ensuring all states, territories in the District of Columbia have the election administration infrastructure they need. So all Americans may exercise their constitutional right to vote without fear of contracting the virus. In a moment, we're going to be joined by Michigan Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence, who is leading this charge. But here's a deal that we also have to deal with. So, yes, we want people to be able to get registered. We want them to be able to get out there and vote. The problem is that you have certain cutoff periods, Robert, where even in states where it's allowed, a lot of ballots are being thrown out if they're

not received by a certain period. I'm going to bring the story up in just a second. That's why I'm trying to get people not to wait, not to wait to the last second to be able to get information out, to get your ballot in. Do it early so you're not caught trying to rush at the last second milling it in and your ballot may not be counted. You're absolutely right. I think we really have to focus more so than in any other election on the concept of early voting. In the African-American community in particular, people do not trust the vote-by-mail system, particularly older African-American voters who are used to voting in the exact same electoral precinct every single year, year in and year out. Historically, we've seen more conservatives, more white people using

vote-by-mail options because black folks just simply put do not trust the system. They feel like their ballot will be thrown out. They'll end up soaring the Chattahoochee River and not getting counted on election day. In addition to this, we saw in the Georgia primary this year that only 96.4 percent of ballots actually got delivered to the person who requested them, and we, and an unknown percentage were thrown out because of things, the signatures not matching the documentation provided. In states where you have to request a absentee ballot, such as Georgia, you have to first request it, then they send you an email, then you email them back with a license or some documentation,

so on where you live at, then they send you your absentee ballot in the mail. These are steps that many people are not taking. So as we get closer, under 100 days until this election, Republicans, including the Speaker of the House in Georgia, Walston, including Senator Ted Cruz, including Donald Trump, have said that if we have vote by mail and we have full turnout, they will never win another election again. So we have to impress upon our young people how important it is to turn out, to vote early, get it out of the way. Don't wait till election day when you're in a five or six hour long line and we're bringing in election monitors. Get it done as soon as the early voting period opens up. Get registered and get out there and vote. The thing I'm sitting here looking at,

this is the headline of a piece in the Washington Post. Scott, Trump just told us how mail delays could help him corrupt the election. Greg Sargent wrote this piece. This is what he said. Here's an additional reason for alarm that needs more attention. The impact of those delays could be dramatically exacerbated by state laws that invalidate ballots that are mailed before Election Day, but arrive after Election Day. Guess which key presidential swing states have such provisions invalidatingating ballots that arrive after election day. All of them do, with the exception of North Carolina. I think Washington, D.C. is different, but I'll take his report for what it's worth. Again, the voter suppression piece with a race neutral reason, with a negative racial impact. It's the only way that they can win. But don't get caught up in just that.

When Attorney General Barr and the president tell you that the greatest threat to the election and mail-in voting is that some foreign country, this is a quote, some foreign country could stuff the ballot box with fake ballots, and we don't know where they come from, and they could jack up, essentially, the election results in each state. Now, the last time we heard him say something like that was Russia, come find the email, Hillary Clinton's emails. And they did. Sounds like a 2020 invitation to me to for corruption from some foreign country, even if they manufacture the threat. And then lastly, we know that the mail-in ballot system is not only safe and secure, but it hurts Republicans, too,

not just Democrats. Because if you look at some of these state races and the governors who are promoting, these are Republican governors promoting, and Secretary of State promoting mail-in voting because of the coronavirus. It's a mixed message. And I can tell you, many congressmen at the state level and at the federal level and the senators are very concerned about this mixed message because it hurts them, too. That's the thing, Julian, when you begin to look at this whole process here and we talk about what's going on. And we it's the same thing when it comes to the census. We look, we have to use our black platforms to tell our people and arm them with information. And that's the phrase information is power. And that's the problem.

But you got some sites, your entertainment sites, they aren't focused on this. And so that's why my whole deal is if you're going to vote by mail, get your request in now for your ballot. And when it arrives and when that window opens, fill it out, sign it, follow everything. Make sure your name is right, your signature is right, everything is right, and then mail it in so it's not invalidated. You know, that's the most important thing, Roland, is for people to get on it early. The rules change state by state. But if you don't know what the rules are, call your board of elections. You can do that. Or go online and get the information from the board of elections.

If you must do an in-person ballot, make sure you know where your polling place is, because many places have cut back the number of in-person voting just because of the coronavirus. There are a lot of things that people can do. What I'm concerned about is the fact that the coronavirus has made it difficult for us to do the kind of town halls and rallies that we usually do. Our churches are probably going to be closed until, you know, who knows. But usually we have, you know, good preachers will encourage people to vote and, you know, many people will follow their minister's lead. So this is the most important election we have ever seen. And people say that every four years, but this is really true.

Yeah, but Julianne, we've got to get better at this, doing this virtually. This is our new reality. And a lot of black people and brown people who are poor and disenfranchised cannot operate or function virtually because they don't have the systems. But the people that do have the systems, we've got to get them motivated and engaged on the virtual level and then have them do outreach to those who are not engaged and who are disconnected. It's going to take a lot of work. And with Donald Trump polling, I want to bring below, it's a real challenge. I want to bring in Congresswoman Brennan Lawrence right now. Congresswoman, I'm looking at this story here from NPR, which said during the primary, some 65,000 absentee or mail-in ballots were rejected because they arrived past the deadline. And so and this story says those who use mail-in voting for the first time, especially young black and Latino voters,

are more likely to have their ballots rejected because of errors, according to Charles Stewart, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies election administration. You, in that letter y'all sent to Trump, make the point about it needs to be a clear and safe process. But, you know, this is going to be an issue that there has to be a massive education issues that people are going to be voting by mail and not going in person. You're absolutely right. And that's why we sent the letter. There are so many glitches and issues with this vote by mail. We must do it because it's our democracy. The coronavirus created this. We did not sit on the sideline and say, oh, let's vote by mail.

We think we can win that way. That's not the case. We're voting by mail because we don't have another option and we must protect our democracy. I few people know, Roland, I worked for the Postal Service for 30 years. I moved up from a letter carrier up to a mid manager and have a district level job in the Postal Service. And I'm one of the few there walking the halls of Congress as a member of Congress after working in the Postal Service, and I'm one of the few that are walking the halls of Congress as a member of Congress after working in the post office, I know exactly the game that they're playing, because now the Postmaster General is saying no overtime. Well, if you have

mail and it's time for you to go just leave it on the floor, well, the reality is the next day there's going to be another pile of mail on top of that, and it keeps stacking. And if you're not regulating that and rotating the mail so that the oldest mail is on the top, the oldest mail goes out the door, then we're going to have this massive issue of votes, ballots not getting to back to the clerk's office to be counted. And it's really, really concerning for me because I know what this looks like. And one of the things, I was at the polls yesterday. I won my election. My primary, 93%.

I'm very proud of that. But I'm at the polls working. And this this lady who was sight impaired, an elderly lady, had someone walking her in, holding her arm. She said, I have not been out of my house since March. I am scared to death, she said. But they kept telling me I had a ballot, but it never made it to the House, and I was not going to not vote. And there's so many people that are not going to be that committed. But we've got a lot of work to do. But we've got to keep our

thumb, our knee, our foot, whatever we need to do on this administration, because the postmaster general is an appointee of the president. He is a new person who never ran logistical operations like a postal service. He's coming in making all these changes. And it's going to have a really, really devastating impact on our ability, first of all, when you get an application and you send the application back and then to take the ballot and put it back in the mail. I made a point of telling constituents throughout the campaign, do not mail your ballot back in. Take it to the clerk's office. You don't need to interact with anyone. I know in Michigan, there's a drop box or a container that you could just drop your ballot in. You didn't have to interact with any people, so you're safe. But we're going to

have to do major, major education. Well, again, that's going to be a key. And that's also why you're going to have to, you know, these campaigns. Look, the Biden campaign, DCCC, DSCC, all of the Democratic Governors Association, all of these different groups, even the labor unions and others, they're going to have to be able to put the resources there to be able to drive this messaging and has to be extremely targeted, targeting deadlines, targeting dates, all those different things. And it has to be a constant drumbeat so people are aware of what's going on. You know, we used to say, take your souls to the polls. We're going to have to do some modification and say, can we pick up your ballot?

If you can't, you know, we would pick people up to take them to the polls. We might have to pick up ballots and drop them off in the box. But you don't want too many people doing that because then that gets to be messy. But we've got to figure out a way to get those polls and get the ballots to those voting clerk's office so they can be counted. And that's our biggest challenge right now, counting those ballots. All right, then. Congresswoman Brenna Lawrence, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Be blessed. All right. That's what it boils down to. All right, folks, let's talk about speaking of the Biden campaign. They announced today a huge, huge outlay, a two hundred and eighty million dollar fall advertising blitz,

two hundred twenty million for television and 60 million in digital ads across 15 states. And they lead it to the November election. The ad reservation, which will begin on September 1, is by far the biggest of the 2020 race by either campaign. Now, they have not said how much it will spend in any particular state, but the initial ad buy includes 10 states that Trump carried in 2016. And one of the things that the campaign manager, she actually sent out a statement on this here. And just give me one second. I want to pull that up because one, it breaks down again exactly what they are going to do with the dollars. And so let's see here if we can pull this up if I can. Let me turn it this way. All right. Let's see here. Go to my iPad if you can. So you may not be able to see this, folks. But Jean O'Malley Dillon, the campaign manager,

she lays out the overall strategy in terms of what they want to do with this buy. And so but one of the things that and they're calling historic, but they have the states, they're reserving TV and digital ad inventory, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas. Now they lay out their television strategy and their digital strategy. Then down here, they have preparing for the big moments, including the DNC convention, the RNC convention, as well as the debates and national voter registration day.

Now, what's interesting here is they say that they're going to be grabbing inventory that reaches specific audiences, such as Complex for our African-American audience track and Univision to reach our African-American audience track and Univision to reach our Spanish-speaking Latino track. Well, that jumped out at me because I immediately said, well, wait a minute, Complex, not a black media, not a black media company. And so I reached out to the campaign, talked to Kamu Marshall. He said that is not correct. And so that is not the only African-American buy that's going to be there. I made the point again, Complex, which is owned by Verizon and Hearst, it's not a black media company.

But if you go through their statement, they go down as his key constituents, African-American media. And so this is what they say. We'll be making a sizable commitment into African-American targeted media across TV, radio, digital and print media. And so this is what they say. previous election cycles to emphasize Biden's commitment to speak to and meet black voters where they are. We will partner with African-American owned media outlets, both nationally and locally, to ensure we are creating a surround sound conversation, both in advertising and local social media voices as well. Now, they say television, they're going to be buying ad time or they reserve ad time. BET, TV One, Bounce and Own. But digital says our digital

reservation will reserve inventory on Complex, Blavity, Vivo, iHeart and Pandora. And then they have radio. Now, I again said to them, hey, wait a minute. Under digital, only one black owned company there is Blavity. I said Complex, iHeart, Pandora, Vivo, those are not black companies. They shouldn't even be called African-American media. Again, said that that was an issue. They said the other company, they're talking to other people right now, negotiating various deals. Dr. Melvin, I want to start with you. It's very interesting because when I put this out on social media, I had some black folks who were upset by saying, why are you rocking the boat? Look,

we got to get Trump out. And I said, wait a minute, what the hell are you talking about? I said, I said, I've been saying for years, I did a commentary just six days ago saying, don't have us operating as political sharecroppers. Here's the deal, Julian, if black media doesn't get the ad dollars from political campaigns and if we're not getting ad dollars from corporate, uh, like I talked about the whole issue with Y and R and the census and we're, so that's government money. Then we're not getting money from these major advertisers. That's why black media is small.

That's why black media can't hire staff. That's why black media can't pay competitive salaries. And I'm like giving money to black targeted media. I said ain't the same as giving money to black owned media. And yet these black people who were like really upset. And I said, well, how in the hell do y'all think we ever going to be able to grow if we don't get those big contracts? Exactly. Anybody who's upset about you so-called rocking the boat needs to have their head examined. Because we have seen

Democratic conventions, Democratic primaries come and go, or elections, and we've seen black folks getting crumbs. Getting very, very little. We have the capacity. Anything that we need to do, we can do. We have the capacity in our community. You ought to be having

a big old chunk of change because you have, I don't know how many million folks, but it's millions. We had 30 million views last month alone. So, I mean, you should be getting a big chunk of change. You're the only black person who has your own digital platform.

But it's not about you, Roland. It's about us. It's about the way that these folks treat black people. And Democrats have consistently felt like we don't have anywhere else to go. And frankly, often we have not had. And we need to get Trump out of there so badly. But we don't need to suck it up. If indeed we don't get what is our fair share, we need to show out, show up and show out. And we need to reach out to Biden almost immediately. What are you doing? Not the campaign manager.

This is a statement about Biden. Here's the deal. Here's the deal, Scott. I reached out to the campaign. I talked to Kamala Marshall. I talked to others and they said, look, there are a number of other buyers we're going to be doing. This was just the first salvo. I said, yeah, but first impression. I said, hold on. I said, I said, first impressions matter.

I said, so I said and I said, here's the other piece. I said, you're reserving time beginning September 1. I'm going. I said, hey, if we got to wait longer, I said, it's only 60 days from September 1 to Election Day. And so the deal is, if we're getting money over 60 days, that's more money versus money over 30 days. But the bottom line is, is here. But but and the thing that gets me, Scott, on this deal is I'm dealing with black people, again, who are commenting and whatever. Like I had one guy go, oh, so you trying to make this so you can get some money. And I'm going, oh, well, yeah. And Essence and black newspapers and other magazines, other black websites, because here's the piece.

We because here's what happens in campaigns and ad agencies like when it comes to y and r in the census they create metrics so when y and r says we're not going to buy any newspaper under 50,000 circulation well when black papers are starred of ad dollars they will never be able to grow to be more than 50,000. Exactly. And they don't get the money either. So me and Dr. Chavis, who's president of the National Newspaper Publishers Association, a client of mine, I've been working on this. Dr. Chavis actually called the Biden campaign just like you did and said, hey, one, why are you announcing this? Because it's going to cause Republicans to try to raise 300 million. But two, how much of that 284 million or however much it

is, is designated for black newspapers? Because black people, you can't win without the black vote and you still got to reach them and get on the ground. They assured Dr. Chavis, and I don't know who he talked to, assured Dr. Chavis that there was a quote fair amount in that 284 for black newspapers. He could not get a figure. And what was interesting was Dr. Chavis indicated, he says, well, the Bloomberg campaign during the primaries gave $3 million to black newspapers, many of our members, all of our members. And that was the largest buy in the history of black newspapers and politics for a long time. And so Dr. Chavis has decided to stay on top of this, to continue to call and communicate

until they can get some defined answers. And I think that's what we've all got to do. And by the way, to your listeners and your people on Twitter, this is not about Roland Martin. He's in media and he has a right to ask because Roland's not asking for himself. He's asking for his digital platform

and every other black newspaper or media outlet because it's going to take multiple voices because people get amnesia when it comes to black people and voting and politics. They go get elected, and then they forget about how they got there, whether it's Biden or anybody else. You've got to stay on top of it.

Well, and the thing, Robert, here's the piece, and it's very simple. Our audience watches. They watch. Our audience is paying attention. They're watching these videos. And they vote, too. And the thing that, look, I was talking to a woman today who wasn't

very much involved in politics. She said, I can personally attest to your audience. She said, whenever I come on your show, she said, I get phone calls and text messages. She's like, damn, all y'all folks watch? And the thing, Robert, what historically happens is that campaigns and corporate America, they undervalue black media because they are using metrics established, frankly, by white ad agencies. When the reality is black people, we might watch this, but we're engaged with this. It's a difference.

We might read this, but we're engaged with this. And it's this constant battle that we are in. And look, in 2016, I'm going to tell you what happened. It was pushing the Hillary Clinton campaign to invest money in black media. They were like, yeah, we're good. We're good. Well, guess what? The Friday before the election, I get an email. Hey, could you send us some names and i'm like election tuesday they were they were they were trying to throw as much money and i'm going because your asses didn't do it 60 and 90 days ago you waited till the friday before the election now the biden campaign again i talked

to him said we are not gonna make that same mistake and, OK, but we will be watching, Robert. But Hillary. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, Robert. Look, Roland, Malcolm X said you put them first and they put you last. Why? Because we act like chumps. Let's understand something. The Democratic Party does not exist without the African-American vote. If African-Americans left the Democratic Party tomorrow and became an independent party, there was a swing voting party that was not ascribed to any particular party on the left or the right, then the Democratic Party would turn into the Whigs. They would turn into the Greenback Party. They would disappear

into time. And everyone knows this and understands it. However, you said it was political sharecropping. No, it's political slavery, because that's why you need to run campaigns on a day-to-day basis, the ins and outs, the call time, the volunteer recruitment, so on and so forth. If I was going to Emory to try to get students to work, they would say, well, we're paying $15 an hour for phone banking, for canvassing, for knocking on doors. If I was going to Clark Atlanta or to Morehouse or Spelman or to Atlanta Metropolitan to try to recruit people, they say, well, we have volunteer opportunities available, and we are hoping that they will come in to do phone banking and knocking on doors and so on and so forth.

They simply put African-Americans to put 100 percent into the Democratic Party, have churches organized to get sold to the polls. They want the civil rights organizations on pushing the census, pushing voter registration, pushing legislation to make it easier for Democrats to win. And then when it's time to cut the check, some little white boy shows up in a Tesla, and he's the new political strategist for the entire region, and he's going to teach you how to cut turf. He's going to bring in his qualitative

models. They're going to have a white ad agency. They're going to have a white pollster. And you're expected to continue doing that slavery and working for free and recruiting for free. And then when they finally get into office, they'll tell you, oh, dang, we ran out of this four years, time for election again. This is now the most important election of our lifetime. Y'all need to see that same thing again. The reason I am, the reason, first of all, y'all see, and Anthony, you can zoom out, you see I'm wearing this shirt again.

This came from the Black Agenda Cincinnati. Zoom out. It says, where's our money? And not zoom in, zoom out. That's why I decided to wear this shirt. But what I'm trying to get every black person. And look, there are people who are watching this show who are white, who are Latino. And so I appreciate you watching as well. But what I'm trying to get black people to understand, I need black people to stop being scared. I need black people to stop being afraid to do what Frederick Douglass said, and that is power concedes nothing without a demand, never have, never will. He said, agitate, agitate, agitate. The reality is

this. Black people have always had to demand our fair share. And what I need, and again, I really, really need all of y'all who are watching to understand what I'm talking about. Because this thing, this issue right here goes beyond the Biden campaign. It goes beyond the Republican Party. It goes beyond the DCCC, the DSCC, the DNC. This goes to the entire economic apparatus in the United States of America. It goes to the entire economic apparatus in the world. And unfortunately, what's happening right now in African nations, they're being forced to give up valuable resources because the only place they can get money from is China. And China is then dictating to them, Chinese workers must work on these projects, as opposed to training African workers in those different countries to work on those projects.

And so then what I'm talking about here, folks, is now coming to the United States. Do you realize one hundred million, one hundred billion dollars is spent every year on advertising? One hundred billion dollars. $100 billion. Do y'all realize that the Pentagon, the Department of Defense annually spends $600 million on advertising? Now you got to ask what black networks are getting that money? What black radio stations? What black newspapers? What black media companies. Now when you start going to the Department of HUD, they spend money on advertising, HHS, Commerce, Defense. You can start going, EPA, all of them, they're spending government money, they're spending government money, which is your money, taxpayer money, and that money's being funneled through

mainly, not mainly, completely white ad agencies. And those white ad agencies maybe are going to hire a black ad agency to work as a subcontractor. And even if they do, that means that white agency is getting their money off the top and the black agency is getting a lower amount, which then means the black ad agency does not have the capacity to be able to be, to get the main contract, which is the big dollar. So imagine, I need y'all to listen to what I'm talking about. Imagine if Carol H. Williams or Burrell or Univision or fuse or the other black ad agencies got the big contract.

You know what? Let me make it a little more plain. What if they got the big piece of chicken? Y'all hear the story where Daddy always get the big piece of chicken at dinner. What if they got the big piece of chicken? Do you know who did this? Maynard Jackson. Maynard Jackson. Maynard Jackson, 1970, 19.

Listen to y'all. 1972. Maynard Jackson is running for mayor of Atlanta. At the time, black people were getting point zero zero one two percent of all city contracts in Atlanta. Maynard Jackson said, no, hell no, that's not going to happen. And so then when they were going to look to expand the airport, Hartfield Airport, Manor Jackson said, I will. He said there will be tumbleweeds that will be rolling down the down the down the runways before I allow this to happen. And black companies don't get a piece of it. But let me also explain to y'all what he did. What he did was he broke up the large contracts. Cause see y'all, I cover city hall. I cover county government. I need y'all to understand. I know what the hell I'm talking about here. You cannot bid on a prime contract unless you've been a prime.

Some of y'all didn't catch that. You cannot become a prime contractor unless you've been a prime contractor. So if black firms are always subcontractors, which means we're always getting a smaller amount, we never get to be the prime. So Maynard Jackson said, oh, well, the black firms don't have the bonding capacity, the insurance or the capital to be able to manage the big contract.

So we're going to break up the big contracts into smaller contracts to allow the black firm to be able to qualify. That's y'all how he changed Atlanta economically. The reason Atlanta today is called the black Mecca is because Maynard Jackson used the power of his office to change it. But let me also tell y'all what he did. The banks came in and he said, y'all got to put some banks, some blacks on y'all board of directors. They said, ain't none qualified. He said, well, guess what? As long as y'all ain't got no blacks on your board, ain't no city money going into your banks. They went out and found them some black people. Then he said, um, I need y'all to extend lines of credit to these black businesses because they can't afford to float their businesses for six months.

They were like, we don't do that. He said, well, fine. City treasurer, come here. Take the city money out their banks. They all wait, wait, wait, wait a minute. Why do y'all think when Maynard Jackson was no longer mayor, not a single white shoe law firm in Atlanta would hire him to be a partner. He had to go to Chicago to become a partner in a law firm because the white firms Atlanta was so pissed off at him that he used economic reciprocity to ensure black people got money. So what I need y'all to understand when y'all hear me talking about this stuff on the air, I need you to understand that when we put pressure on political campaigns and put pressure on YNR and put pressure on other agencies and other companies, then we have the ability to do this wide shot, Anthony.

Then we have the ability to be able to build sets like this that were built by a black set maker. Then to be able to install a new lighting system that was installed by a white lighting company. And we would not have to sit here and beg y'all to send in

donations in order for us to do our job if black media companies were able to get their fair share of the advertising dollars. And guess what then happens? When we are able to get our fair share of the advertising dollars, then we can also then begin to hire African Americans and others to do more work. Then our staff can be more than five people.

It can now be 10 and 15 and 20 and 30 and 50 and 100. Then we can grow to be able to the size of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and CNN and MSNBC. And now all of a sudden, while we are doing that, we're then able to hire more people, create wealth, and build. Everything I just told you starts with us getting our fair share. So don't sit here and say, how dare you make a demand? That's what the hell you're supposed to do. Otherwise, we will never be able to grow. We will always be small and we will always be begging somebody, please,

can you give me a nickel when we've actually earned the full dollar? Going to break. I'll be back. Roland Martin Unfiltered. You want to check out Roland Martin Unfiltered? YouTube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. It's Roland Martin Unfiltered. See that name right there? Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. All right, folks, let's talk about what's happening in campaigns. We've had a number of people who are running for office on this show. Folks who are out there, yesterday we had some races that took place in Missouri. We'll get to that in a second. But in Ohio,

Desiree Tim, she is trying to run for Congress's Ohio 10th district. The Dayton native is determined to unseat Congressman Mike Turner and flip her district seat blue. She joins us right now. She, of course, how you doing? Hi, how are you? Doing good. So what are the top issues that you're focused on and what does your district look like? I mean, is it a purple district? Is it a largely red district? What does it look like? Yeah, so my district is purple. My district is surrounded by, it's the city of Dayton and surrounding areas. We have more than five colleges and universities, including two HBCUs. What we know to be true in my district is that in 2012, African-American voter turnout here was 74%.

And in 2018, it dropped to 43%. Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Hold up. What did you just say? And it was how, go ahead again. That 74%. In what year? 2012.

74% in 2012. That's right. That's the presidential election. Turnout, turnout. 74% black turnout. Turnout. And it dropped to what in 2016? 43.

Wow. So we have to make sure that we're turning out to vote and that we're showing up. My Republican opponent has been in office for decades, and it's time for change. I'm the granddaughter of sharecroppers. I'm born and raised here in the great city of Dayton, and I'm a proud product of the Dayton public school system. And we're fighting for change and opportunity and hope. People are tired and we've had enough. And so I am thrilled and honored

to be the first African American Democratic nominee and the first woman to represent this district in Congress. You've gotten backing from Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Cory Booker and others. And so what is the strategy there? Because so when you look at those particular numbers in 2016, what was the margin by which Turner won reelection? I'm sorry, 2008, 2018. Yes, he won by several points. And we know that we can't let that happen again. We have to make sure that we're turning out the vote.

But more importantly, we have to make sure that in Ohio, where we've seen efforts to suppress the votes around election time, we see billboards that pop up in African-American communities from Dayton down to Cincinnati on I-75. There are voter intimidation signs that say if you vote or you misspell something or you do this wrong, you're looking at felony jail time. We have to make sure that we're stopping that from happening so that people feel comfortable voting. And that's going to be key to this election. We have the numbers on the ground. Frankly, we have the momentum. I've outraised my Republican opponent last quarter.

I outraised him five to one. We're running a people powered grassroots campaign and we have the numbers and the energy on the ground to show it. This is going to be a turnout race. We need everyone who's eligible, eligible to vote. Everyone who can register to vote to register to vote and turn out because we are going to be dependent on people getting to the polls and mailing in those ballots. And if you are mailing a ballot, you may need two stamps. A lot of people who voted in the primary by mail, they used one stamp, and it wasn't enough to get the ballot all the way to the box. So we have to make sure that that happens here in November. Everything is on the ballot.

And when we talk about that,, it's a process there. But look, turnout, turnout, turnout. What are the issues that you are raising specifically to get African-Americans to get out to vote in your district? Yes. So in my community, we were once a booming area with General Motors and manufacturing. And we have been trying to rebuild since the 2008 recession. We have an amazing Air Force Base, Wright-Patt Air Force Base, which we're trying to expand and build jobs for people here in the community. Here's what we know

to be true. We have a lot of people who graduate from some of the local colleges and universities, including our HBCU, and we have a lot of people who are working at GM and the mom and pop subsidiaries, part of the supply chain, earning $25 an hour. And they had a union card and those jobs are gone. So what I'm talking about on the chain is on the trail is economic justice. We're talking about bringing opportunity and money back into people's pockets, making sure they bring home more money every two weeks. We're talking about rebuilding our community and our country. Our roads and our bridges are crumbling and our air and our water, it needs work. So we have to make sure that we're talking about the issues that are relevant to Black people. And it's not just criminal justice.

We care about those issues too, but we need to make sure that we're economically able to compete and that we have jobs that are viable, that we'll be able to uplift our families out of poverty or move from working class to the middle class. Black people care about these issues too. And so that's what I'm talking about on the trail and people are interested and they want to see it happen. They're ready for federal investment back into our community. There has just been too much disinvestment over the past several decades and it's time for action. And we're ready for that, and we want it, and we need it. All right. People get more information about your campaign. Yeah. So if you want to join our campaign, please visit my website, which is timsforcongress.com.

You can also add me on Twitter at Tims Desiree. We are championing issues and bringing everything to the table. This past week has been a very hard week for our community. The Dayton shooting that happened one year ago. We celebrated that anniversary yesterday. And then today marks six years since John Crawford, the third, was shot and killed in a Walmart in Beaver Creek. Right now, we have activists, protests, and community leaders outside demonstrating and standing up for what we know we need, which is the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act and reform. We have to make sure that we feel free to move throughout our community and that we can coexist and live in peace.

But more importantly, we know that justice is on the ballot. So I just wanted to reach out and send my condolences to the Crawford family. We're thinking of you today. All right, then. We'll surely appreciate it. Desiree Tims, thanks a lot. All right.

All right, folks. Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, and Washington held their primaries on yesterday with some major results in a huge upset. Cori Bush, one of the leaders of protests against the police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, defeated longtime Congressman William Lacey Clay. They the Clay family held that seat for 50 years. It was a huge, huge upset there, of course. And how huge was it? Well, a night in two years ago, two years ago, Clay beat Bush by more than 20 points. Yesterday, though, Clay won the county vote, lost the city vote, and that's what put Bush over the top in Michigan. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib blew away Brenda Jones, the president of the Detroit City Council, in that particular race, holding onto her seat.

Both of those seats, they are pretty much guaranteed to win strong Democratic seats there with Bush and Tlaib. Back to St. Louis, Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner. She won a primary challenge from former city prosecutor Mary Pat Carl. They have been targeting Kim Gardner for quite some time, but she was able to beat back Carl to win the Democratic nomination. And Tashara Jones maintains her seat as being the city treasurer there in St. Louis as well. Remember, she ran for mayor, but she held on to that. Those races are all important. I'm going to go to my panel here. Robert, I'm going to start with you.

The Bush one is huge. Again, ending a 50-year Clay dynasty, holding that congressional seat. She outraised him, outspent him on television and radio in the last several weeks. Some folks say he took that, he took this race for granted, thinking he beat about 20 points. He can do it this time. This time, she's the one who is going to be heading to Congress come January. Yeah, I think if there's anything that we learned from the wave of young progressives that have come into the last couple of years to Congress is that for the old guard who are comfortable in their district, do not be comfortable.

These young lions are coming and they are hungry. They are, if you saw the, the AOC shoes from her campaign against Crowley, where they were worn through to the bottom from knocking on doors and going door to door. These people are out here, they are hungry or they are ready. They are campaigning. They have the wind at their backs. One part of all this activism that we have seen is that young people are motivated. Young people aren't just showing up every four years for presidential elections. They are turning out for primary races. They are turning out for off-year elections. They're turning out for city council races and county commissions.

So if you are comfortable in your seat, just know there's a 25- to 35-year-old who is ready, who is in the streets, who has the community at his back. And don't be surprised if we see more of these established seats turn over in the next couple of years because a new generation is ready and they are coming through. But see, the thing that I find to be interesting, Scott, when I see people talk about taking on the establishment, first of all, you look at me and these folks, they ran against other people. I mean, even though Charlie Rangel was retired, he ran against Adam Clayton Powell and he beat him. So, you know, I've always said point blank,

I'm not offended when people run against incumbents because I'll say all the time, you're not guaranteed that seat. So you shouldn't be offended. How dare they challenge me? No, what you do is you establish your record. You get out there and you run. Look, yesterday, the results in New York were certified. Congresswoman Yvette Clark won her race, 54% of the vote. The other four or five candidates, they split the other 46%. What did she do? She ran. She raised money.

She talked about her record, talked about being the only black woman in the New York delegation, and she ran hard. That's what you're supposed to do. I don't get these people who somehow act like, oh, my God, how dare they oppose me? I got to go out and campaign. Yeah, it's not your seat. It's the people's seat. Yeah. But but but here's the problem. Fifty years of reign. That's a lot of that's more than a dynasty. That's something else. That's a documentary in regard to leadership in that jurisdiction. That's a huge upset.

But secondly, when you hold that seat as an incumbent and the accoutrements of being a federal elected official, you're called honorable. You're feeded wherever you go. You have offices and accoutrements that you would not have unless you were very successful in the private sector. You get comfortable. You start to believe in yourself, what's real and even not real. You still believe that. So you do develop a sense of entitlement. The reality is, though, with Black Lives Matter and the young people becoming more active, they're not afraid to take on an incumbent because they don't see the establishment, the CBC, those who get reelected every two years, are seen as the establishment, right? And so they're not afraid because they're not being responded to, and our people keep dying. And so one way is to raise money in March, but another way is to run for office and change leadership.

And hopefully, Cori Bush and others won't become complacent and entitled to the political process. They are subject to the same danger. Well, Julian, it's real simple, and that is you run, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win. The point I'm making is this here. I don't care who you are. There is no one who is entitled to a political office. If a young ump start wants to run against you, you run against him. And the bottom line is, look, Lacey Clay beat Bush by 20 points last time. And so what you got to do is when you're in the House, you got to run every two years. There's no guarantee.

And so you got to run. Julianne, go so you gotta run. Julianne, go ahead. I'm very impressed by Cori Bush. I was watching MS today and then I went and looked her up. She looks amazing for any number of reasons. She's a single mom. She has been evicted before. She only got really civically involved

after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson. And she has basically built a political machine for herself. Meanwhile, as Scott said, as you said, Lacey Clay probably got complacent. Some of the things that I read from the St. Louis paper indicate that he may not have spent very much money on advertising. Why? Because he didn't think he had to. This woman has been taking it to the streets, walking the streets. I'm highly doubtful, but I don't know as a fact, that Lacey Clay did the same thing. So we're going to see a lot of this. These young folks are not going to be turned around.

In contrast to Lacey, let's look at Maxine Waters. She's had opponents for the past six or seven elections. Now, ain't nobody going to get rid of Maxine because Maxine is involved in her community. She walks the streets. She knows people. She spends money. So, you know, she one time said, yeah, they can keep on coming.

And that is where you have it. But what you do have going on, though, what you do have going on, what you do have that's happening is you have folks who are supporters of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others who say that these are corporate Dems. You see them, for instance, they they try to target Congressman Gregory Meek in New York. A lot of these folks, they think they say that Congressman Hakeem Jeffries is a corporate

dim, but here's the whole piece. Again, I don't care who you are. You got to run. You got to run. And so if you get targeted, that's the nature of the job. If you establish what your record is and why you can deliver the bacon to your district, they're more than likely going to reward you. But if you don't and you assume that you're just going to have it easy, you're probably going to lose. But I think every one of those Democrats that you named who are CBC members, their counterpoint to you would be exactly right. I do have to run every year, and I'm not entitled to it.

But within their concept and precept of running hard to hold onto that seat to make a political difference for their constituencies, it's simply not enough when they lose, when you have the young energetic upstarts who want change now and are messaging the community that they can do better. They both run hard, if you will, but the messaging, the energy and the volunteers and what have you are just outpacing them for the 2020 election. No, no, no. Those incumbents are still running like they're in the 80s and 90s. Right.

But that's what I'm saying. That has nothing to do, Robert, with the other person being young. That has to do with the person who's the incumbent being lazy. What you have to do. Look, look, look, look. Maxine. No, no, no, no, no, no. Follow me here. Julian just said it. Robert Maxine is 81. They call her Auntie Maxine.

She is a Congresswoman Maxine Waters is 81 years old, but has this whole generation of young people because she is speaking to the issues. That's the point, Robert. Yeah, and it's interesting you say that because, for example, the late John Lewis, who recently passed, everyone in Atlanta has a selfie with John Lewis. And when he passed, they posted it. Why? Because he was omnipresent in the community. He ran his last race the same way he ran his first race. When I was

in college, I was cutting keys at Home Depot working in the hardware department. John Lewis would come in and we would literally have a 45-minute conversation with a 19-year-old kid making minimum wage. That is how you run for office. Many of these congresspeople don't even live in their own district full-time. They get houses or apartments in the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia, and Maryland, and they spend most of their year there. They feel like they can simply run on name alone, not have to be responsive to the needs of young people. And when I say corporate Democrats, that means your voting record is such that you are putting the interests of the corporations that fund your campaign ahead of the interests of your district. And if you start thinking that money is the corporations that fund your campaign ahead of the interest of your district.

And you start thinking that money is the same thing as power. You will soon find yourself on the outs with the people in your district. So it's regular mathematics that if you're not responsive to the people in your district, you're not going to be representing the people of your district much longer. And look, I'll give you an example. Congresswoman Joyce Beatty. It was an upstart who ran against her. Beatty went out

there campaign debated her and she crushed her that is called you gotta run all right y'all right uh here's the whole deal a whole new batch of anti-trump ads that have been dropping left and right we're gonna show those right now talk about with our panel roll it take a look at some of these charts in numerous categories uh we're lower than the world let me explain well the test right here take a look you can test too much you do know that what it says is when you have somebody that has it where there's a case it will last no but you're not reporting it correctly we have cases our testing i believe this is the testing yeah check it out new cases new cases new cases the top one that's a good thing not a bad thing we test more we have now

take a look death is way down from where it was take a look at this these are the tests going it leveled out and it's going down this this excuse have to look at this. This is, excuse me, where it was is much higher than where it is right now. But you don't know that. That's my report as of yesterday. Wait a minute. You have to go by where, look, here is the United States. You have to go by the cases.

What's called science. We have more cases. Don't we get credit for that? Well, we show more cases. They are dying. That's true. And it is what it is. Now it's going down again. And, you know, there are those that say the world is so very...

Just read the manuals, read the book. This one didn't reach my desk. The national death toll surpasses 150,000. The CDC predicting the death toll could top 180,000. reach my desk. More Americans have died from COVID-19 than were killed during the Vietnam War. The U.S. is now reporting more COVID-19 deaths than anywhere else in the world. It is what it is. The United States has become the first country in the world to record more than 2,000 coronavirus deaths in a single day. That's true. It is what it is. President Trump gives lots of jobs to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Insiders whisper he may be even more powerful than Trump, but like his father-in-law, Jared's not up to the task.

This pampered princeling has never met a problem he couldn't f*** up. Take the COVID response Trump assigned Jared to handle. 150,000 people dead and an economy in ruins. By July, the country's really rocking again. His task force put Trump cronies first. And of course, Jared's family cashed in on bailout money. No surprise from the son of a convicted felon and slumlord who served time in prison. Jared's a perfect fit for this White House.

But if you've ever wondered whether this president took COVID-19 seriously, look no further than who he put in charge of protecting America's health. Jared Kushner, Trump's secretary of failure. The Lincoln Project is responsible for the content of this advertising. I sort of love the way they say Obama did the economy, Obama. Obama had a lousy economy. It was a dead economy. I built the greatest economy in the history of the world. It is incredible when you see the economy would have been so bad

had I not got elected. I gotta admit, Robert, that one where they had Trump talking to Trump from Axios interview, my God, that was genius. True, but the issue I have with ads such as that is, one, they do not have a positive message of why you need to vote for the other candidate. That's a suppression ad. And I think the people who are Trump's base have been consistent for five or six years now.

There is no suppression ad that is going to get them to turn against Trump. He can say drink bleach and shoot up Lysol, and he'll still have the same 42 percent of the country supporting him. So I don't know what voters that's actually going to flip. And then on the practical side, you could cut together clips of Joe Biden doing the exact same thing for the most part. So I don't think those are the type of ads that really swing voters in the middle and get them ready to vote. I would rather see a positive ad about what is going to happen, what will be the policy prescriptions that will help American people, not simply making fun of the other. Jimmy Fallon does that every night. Jimmy Kimmel does that every night. Stephen Colbert.

And so many shows do that every night. I don't think that that's going to be the most effective and resonating ad. But the reason I'm just, go ahead now, Scott. But my colleague, my fellow brethren in the law, has one flaw in his presentation and argument. Nobody's trying to change Trump's followers of that 42 percent. They're going to vote for him anyway. These ads are to remind Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans of the damage this president has done. And so those ads are more than sufficient and powerful reminders as to what tragic circumstances this president has led this country down. And so to that effect, it's very effective and very important. And I got to tell you, very persuasive. Because remember, people can forget. We need these reminders.

And as long as we're reminding Democrats and moderate Republicans and independents, right, Trump can be beat. Again, he only won by 77,000 votes, and that was before his performance in the White House. I think they're very effective. They're reminders, and we need that. Go ahead. Go ahead. The only thing I'll say, Scott, realistically right now— Hold on, hold on, hold on. Robert, respond to Scott, then we'll go to Julian. Scott, realistically right now, what is the craziest thing that Trump did last week?

That's how our news cycles go. He did this interview Sunday. We can't even remember the crazy thing he did last week, let alone two weeks ago. So I don't think we need reminders of the crazy stuff he does because he's going to do something to top it within 48 hours. And the reason I, the reason, the reason, because Biden does every time Trump opens his mouth, he's a walking billboard for electing and voting for Biden. So when I can remember what he said or not, I can remember seeing what he said and I can see what he's done to this country. So I think they're effective. Here's the deal,

Julie. Julianne, go ahead. Julianne, go ahead. A number of reasons. First of all, the more we're reminded and not reminded, some people are living this COVID nightmare. It was 157,000 today, and it's going to be more. But we're not even looking at the other issues, which is we have 4 million, 4.6 million people who've gotten the virus. Some of these people recovered. But many of them are going to have long-term implications with their breathing and other things. And still do. Still do.

Yeah. And all those people are going. They have a circle. One lady who was on TV and she said that she had voted for Trump. She wasn't going to vote for him anymore. And I think a lot of people are feeling that way. Then we have this crisis in the schools where teachers are quitting because they have complications, diabetic, overweight, whatever. And they decide they're not going to jeopardize their families because of this man.

So these ads, you know, the first one was funny, but I'll tell you what, when you say it is what it is about people's dying, when you say it is what it is and people are dead, that shows the kind of callousness that this man has basically wallowed in since he came into office. A lot of people say, oh no, he's got that callous. Yes, he is. I mean, you say it is what it is when you break a date or something. Yeah. Yeah. of people say, oh, no, he's got that chaos. Yes, he is. I mean, you say it is what it is when you break a date or something. Yeah. Yeah. But the one but Julianne. But Julianne, the one statistic that is most telling about the Trump campaign and this chaos is that you look at the number of elderly voters who many of them have people that have died in their families and elsewhere

in their circle, he's losing support from them from Florida. And that support law started three months ago, maybe four months ago, and it has stayed below where he needs to be to win for the elderly vote. And those votes have gone to Biden. If he can't turn that around, I don't care about anything else. Biden wins. You've got to turn that around and add that to back to the 42%. Here's the piece here. One second, one second, one second, one second. The reason, first of all, these ads don't appeal to Trump's base. Trump said I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and they'll still support me. That's not the issue.

But you do have you do have when you start breaking down the numbers you have to Scott's point, Robert, you got older white voters. Biden is peeling them away. OK, last night, last night, Missouri became another state that actually expanded Medicaid, the 39th state to do so in the face of Republican opposition. What you also are doing is here. Trump, on one hand, is lying about the COVID-19 response. What these ads are doing is saying he's lying. This is actually what's happening. And so you have to have that because what he will do is he will label everything fake news.

Everything is false. Everything is rosy. But you got to keep pounding that. And they remind people he was in charge. He was in charge. He was in charge. And here's the deal. They're not getting better in August. It's probably not going to get better in September. So you got to keep reminding that. And by reinforcing that this dude is evil, it's also about driving up your side to have the intensity say, absolutely, I'm going to vote. If I don't vote by mail, damn it, I'm going to risk standing in line to get vote. That's why those ads work, which is why Republicans always ran negative ads against Democrats. Negative ads do work. Roland, this time last week, President Trump was singing the praises.

They're scared about what's going on. Republicans know that they're losing support. You can see it. And you know that Biden has steadily increased, not a lot, but a little bit. Our challenge is to get especially younger people excited about Biden. And that may be difficult, but at least excited about getting rid of Trump. If you look at 2016, well, look at 2008, 2012, 66 percent of black folks voted. By 2016, we had dropped down to 59 percent.

If all those people voted, Hillary would have been president. But she didn't, as you say, Roland, she didn't give any money to black media. She didn't pay attention to her base until the last minute. And that's why she lost. So, you know, basically we have to excite the young people. Last election, this young sister told me she didn't like Hillary. I said, you don't have to like her. She ain't coming to your house. You know, so we have to get people to say they'll vote for Biden no matter what. And that's our challenge. That's our charge. Only 30 percent of young African-Americans voted in 2016. Robert, go ahead. Robert, get in. Yeah, but my point is that to Dr. Malvo's point that she was

just making, negative ads are not telling people to vote for Biden no matter what. To her point about the number of people who are going to have medical bills, people are getting coming out of the hospital COVID with 70, 80, $100,000 in medical bills after being on a ventilator for a month. I would like to see an ad telling us how exactly the Democrats are going to fix that if they're in office. We're going to have an educational gap for children who have been out of school for a year or two years by the time they can actually reenter the classroom. I'd like to hear what the Democratic plan is to fix that. But Robert, Robert, these ads are not Democratic ads. They're Republicans against Trump. The point is that this time last week, Donald Trump was singing the praises of a doctor who believed in demon sperm impregnating people causing disease.

And then the next day he said he was going to suspend the election. Less than seven days later, none of us remember that because something crazier happens every couple of days. So campaigning on Trump doing crazy stuff is not effective because he's going to out crazy himself. Well, actually, Robert, you're wrong because it is effective because when you talk to Republicans and when they look at what's happening, how Republicans have lost massively in the suburbs of this country, Donald Trump is down 12 plus points with white women. He is down against Joe Biden, against white folks with a college degree. It actually is working. It is working. But can he turn it around? Hold on.

Wait, Julianne, then Scott. The Lincoln Project is a Republican project. These are moderate Republicans, but they're not all moderate. They just cannot stand this man. They can't stand what's happening to our country. We are international laughingstock. And so these are Republicans who want to get rid of him because they don't believe that we can sustain this kind of foolishness for another four years.

Robert, final comment. I'm sorry, Scott. Scott, go ahead. These are Bush and Reagan Republicans who are working with Democrats on these issues, but they care about the country and they certainly care about the democracy and the constitution. They're purists, if you will. They don't love Democrats, but they know to be better, they've got to get rid of Trump. And so far, he's got no answer. He has no answer. And Robert, here's the piece. The ads that you're talking about, that's Joe Biden's responsibility. He is going to, he's going. So these ads are from other groups, not Joe Biden. We already said, well, they're going to start rolling out come September 1st.

You likely are going to hear those ads. And also remember, Joe Biden has been giving those speeches. He's been giving economic speeches, education speeches, criminal justice plans. But guess what? You don't see the national network giving that level of attention when he gives those speeches. Robert, final comment before I go to my next story. Yeah. Final comment is that all these outside groups, these 501C3, 501C4s that are on the progressive side need to be buying up as much ad time on this show as the Lincoln Project and other groups are, because if you want us to turn out, you're going to advertise on our outlets.

Well, yeah. I mean, first of all, it got advertised. But what the Lincoln Project is actually doing with their ads, they're buying time specifically on Fox News. What they're doing is they're targeting folks because what they understand is that the people who watch Fox News aren't all hard right. And so what they're doing is also, they're also there just to piss Trump off because they know that's all he watches as well. So we'll certainly see what goes on. Yeah, they've said that in interviews. All right, folks, as you know, yeah, they've been on the show here.

As you know, we'd like to feature black businesses here on Roller Mark Unfiltered. Today's business owner has an interesting story to tell. Whenever Mapati Diop's mother traveled to Nigeria, she would return with rolls of Ankara, a boldly colored and patterned fabric used throughout West Africa. Well, today he uses that same material to make masks and other clothing for his business. Diop, what's up? How you doing, Roland? All right, then.

So you're making these masks. So are they N95 masks? Are they just the cloth version? Let's talk about these masks. They're just the cloth version. It's three layers of 100% woven cotton and elastic straps that go behind your head. They're not personal protective equipment, nor are they an adequate substitute for PPE. So when did you start

doing these and how have sales been going? We started doing them April 16th. In March and April, we were going to put out our fourth collection of clothes. Typically, we make shirts, bandanas, shorts, all sorts of fun clothing, but that was delayed due to the crisis and our customers contacted us to ask if we would consider making masks. So, yeah, we put those out on April 16th. The original purchase order we had was for 600 masks, and then as of last Tuesday, we've sold over 100,000. Wow, 100,000? Yes.

I bet that didn't even surprise you. It certainly does, and I'm sure you, we really wish it were under better circumstances. But, you know, we're happy to just continue making things people like and that we're able to help out in a small in our own small way. Now, where are you manufacturing these masks? Baltimore, Maryland and Los Angeles, California. So you have. So how many employees do you have in both locations who are outputting these masks? Diop is just me, Mapate, my co-founder, Evan Freed, and then our intern, Ivan. We have manufacturing partners in Los Angeles and Baltimore

who have roughly 15 to 30 employees. It's only really 15 at a time because they're practicing social distancing measures and following public health guidelines. Only 15 workers or 15 masks? 15 workers at a time, but there's roughly 15 to 30 employees at each location. Gotcha. And so how many are you producing per week, per month?

Per week, we do about 2,000 a day, so anywhere between 5,000 to 10,000 per week. And then in the month of July, we sold about 48,000, 49,000 masks. What do they cost? They cost $15. And so the material that you're using, were you previously using that for clothing and then you shifted to this? Yes, we were. We were previously using it for clothing. As COVID became more serious, there started to be shortage of things like nylon, things like lining, because we were preparing to put out our clothing. And a lot of those materials also are used for personal

protective equipment. But yeah, we talked it over with our manufacturer and he was able to get a hold of some elastic and we just took it from there. Well, it's interesting how we had a sister on black. Guys, remind me, was it Black Mom's Tea? I think that's what it was. And I think that's what it was. And so what she did was, I mean, she makes vodka and then she shifted. She shifted to making hand sanitizer. She'd already sold out her allotment for 2020 in alcohol. And she's had to go hire more people to keep up with the demand of a hand sanitizer. And that's a frequent story. I think you're going to keep hearing from a whole range of businesses, not just ones that sell things online. What you're really seeing in the broader

economy is the transition, what's supposed to be a five to seven year transition, has taken place in the space of 10 to 12 weeks when you talk about e-commerce penetration. America was already, some people believe America was already over-retailed, that we had too many malls and too many stores, and a lot of them are certainly hurting now. But there's also a lot of creativity and a lot of resiliency, and a lot of that productivity is being reallocated, and people are really adapting their businesses for the future because this is the new normal. All right. So again, where can folks get the masks? What's the website? They can find this at, our name is Diop. They can find us at wherediop.com, W-E-A-R-D-I-O-P.com. We're also at wherediop on social media, Instagram and Facebook. Again,

that's W-E-A-R-D-I-O-P.com. A portion of each mask sale is designated for a local relief effort or charitable initiative. So far, we've been able to give over $80, is designated for a local relief effort or charitable initiative. So far, we've been able to give over $80,000 to 40 different local relief efforts in Detroit, Southeast Michigan, Michigan, the Midwest, and nationally. Wow. Wow. That is awesome there. Well, man, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you for joining us and good luck with it. Thank you, Roland. Thank you for having me. All right. Thank you very much. All right, folks.

Numerous studies have already shown that the black community has been disproportionately affected by coronavirus. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that the virus has overwhelmingly hit counties with the most black businesses. Forty one percent of black owned businesses have closed compared to 17% of white-owned businesses. Areas with the highest share of black-owned businesses include Los Angeles County, Cook County, Illinois, Harris County, Texas, Wayne County, Michigan, and counties around Washington, D.C. Julianne, you're an economist. I just want to go to you.

I mean, again, when you talk about COVID impacting black people at a higher rate than anybody else, it also means where you're going to have those black businesses. I mean, this speaks to, again, the fragility of black life and existence in America. Absolutely. Black-owned businesses did not get their share of the paycheck protection money. I know many black-owned businesses who were turned down and then went back a second time and a third time. Congresswoman Waters has asked Treasury to give us an accounting

of how many black-owned businesses got money, and they said they didn't keep that data. Convenient, convenient. Most black-owned businesses do not have reserves that other businesses have. And because we don't have the reserves, we may be able to go a month while other businesses could go three months without getting into trouble. So we were in trouble sooner than others. One of the tragedies that we're not paying attention to, Roland, is that when black business is in trouble, it hits black folks in terms of employment disproportionately

because we are more likely to hire African Americans as our employees than others are. So this, it has, the coronavirus both has revealed inequality but it's also exacerbated inequality. And, you know, the whole issue with business, if you've talked about it yourself with your business, is the need for patronage. And we both see a lot of patronage of Black-owned businesses. Once upon a time, Roland, we had over

103 Black-owned banks. Now we have 22. And that's symptomatic to the shrinking of Black-owned business. And it's really a function of basically racist behavior, white supremacy. That may be out a couple of factors too, but I'm going to stick with those for the record. But Robert, one of the things that we also are seeing when we talk about this moment, how black people also identifying black businesses.

I was reading a story, it was a black ice cream shop. They've been selling out because folks have said, no, no, we're going to make a concerted effort. I think that's one of the things that we're seeing where African-Americans are in this reckoning, in this moment we're in, we're seeing a level of consciousness where people are making very deliberate attempts to say,

I'm going to support that black business and that black business. And that's sort of where we are. I mean, we actually the dollars are there. What we need is we need the customers. Well, you know, this part of the triple dimmick that's hitting the black community as a three part pandemic, we have the health pandemic, we have the employment pandemic, and that's we're going to have the housing pandemic all hitting the African-American community concurrently. And with the economic aspects of it, let's understand that, as Dr. Malvo said, many African-American-owned businesses not only do not have that capital,

that six-month reserve that we're advised to have, but also many, when we were doing Wolf Rainbow Push, much of the lead-up to the stimulus program and the application process many black businesses do not have their books in order when you're basically going from the cash register directly to the bank to pay bills and to meet payroll to meet staff a lot of people's taxes weren't in order a lot of people's uh 12 month profit and loss statements uh were not there therefore they were not eligible to get that federal money and missed out on that in addition to what we saw the ppp program was one who In addition to what we saw with the PPP program, was when it was initially rolled out, we saw Ruth Chris and we saw Kanye West and Potbellies and all

sorts of other people getting millions of dollars. And by the time the portal opened for single member LLCs and small businesses on that Friday, it was out of money by that Wednesday. So we're going to have to go to our federal government. And African-Americans have to stop being federal government shamed by things when we say we need the federal government to step in and offer a lifeline specifically to black businesses, not one of these panacea catch-all bills. We have to provide funding directly to black businesses because guess what? When Delta and the airline industry need $28 billion, they walk in, they say we need $28 billion, put in small bills,

load up on the airplane. I got to be out of here soon. And they get their money. When the auto industry needs a bailout, they get it. When Wall Street gets a bailout, they get it. The black community is too big to fail, just like any of those industries are too big to fail. And again, what we're dealing with, Scott, is when you have historically a lack of access to capital, the point I made earlier, when you're being frozen out of credit lines, when you're being frozen out of advertising, when you're being frozen out of contracts,

and then all of a sudden this hits, I mean, it just becomes a domino effect for black business. Yeah, the lack of access to capital is just the most powerful piece to that. Of course, there's racism. But the other thing is, without the access to capital, you can't hire lawyers and accountants and folks to help you get your books together. And your books have got to be together. You've got to make excellent decisions when you're in crisis. And so many of our businesses just are ill-prepared. And compared to other groups who have other small businesses, not just the large businesses, you wonder how they are able to get access to capital, other groups, or other people of color. But African-Americans don't seem to be able to solve that riddle.

And then with crisis, you've got to be excellent. None of us are excellent when we seem to be able to solve that riddle. And then with crisis, you've got to be excellent. None of us are excellent when we need to be. But the one thing in business that is, at least not always, the one thing you got to do, though, in being excellent is you got to skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it is. We got to define our future, these black businesses, versus having the pandemic define it for us. And that's why you've got to define our future, these black businesses, versus having the pandemic define it for us. And that's why you've got to stay ahead of the curve. You heard the other small businesses saying that they were making vodka. Now they're making hand sanitizer.

Diop made the alternative because that's where the puck is going to be, not where it is right now. And so you've got to get creative in the interim while we fight the racism and lack of access to capital. All right, folks, let's talk about this story here. Last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court denied a request to review a life sentence handed down to Fair Wayne Bryant, who was convicted to life in prison for trying to steal hedge clippers from a carport storage room in Cato Parish, Louisiana, in 1997. The long dissent came from Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Burnett Johnson, who wrote that Bryant's life sentence for a failed attempt to steal a set of hedge clippers is grossly

out of proportion to the crime and serves no legitimate penal purpose. Of course, she's the only African-American on there as well. Robert, this is the kind of nonsense we're talking about. He tried to steal some hedge clippers. That merits, now Grant, I don't care what he did before. That merits life in prison? Well, this is the ridiculous nature of the Eighth Amendment, as it's been interpreted over the first couple hundred years

of American Jewish prudence, that despite our prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, we are still a country that routinely electrocutes and poisons people to death. Despite not having star chambers, as if we're in the Middle Ages, we still sentence people to lifetime sentences for nonviolent crimes, for drug crimes.

We have a ridiculous criminal justice system in this country and on a state-by-state basis, it has to be reformed and turned around because we have ruined lives as a nation. America is going to have to come to terms as much as they complain and talk about human rights abuses in China, human rights abuses in the Arab world.

We have to look at the human rights abuses. That is exactly what these are, human rights abuses against the Geneva Convention that we have accepted by a nation while telling ourselves the lie of American exceptionalism. And part of what has to happen, both on the presidential level, but more importantly, because the majority of prisoners are on the state level, having state-level actors, legislators, senators, state senators, governors, courts step in and change and reform these laws. The governors of these states, it should not have to go to the Supreme Court of the state because the State Board of Parties and Parole or the governor should be able to step in

and reform these sentences. And that has to be a priority for this nation. The thing here, Scott, life in prison, you're the state, you're the state, Louisiana. You're going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep a guy in prison for some clippers. Now, mind you, this was 1997. So, so we're talking about this guy's been in prison for 23 years for trying to steal some hedge clippers? Well, you said it was irrelevant what he'd done in the past. I tend to agree with you, but the criminal justice system certainly looks at this prior record. I can't imagine he had a

prior record that would connote attempted theft and then being in jail for that long. I mean, Jimmy Gardner got 100 years or 80 or 100 years. You've had him on the show for one conviction that was tainted by bad evidence and blood evidence and other evidence that was just blatantly lied to. But here's the deal, and Roland, I'm going to say what you usually say. Voting for state's attorneys, voting for judges is as important, if not more, in your community than for the president and Senate and House. Because somebody asked for that sentence. Somebody passed laws that allowed that sentence. Somebody voted for that judge that used that bad discretion. And voting, everyone along the way was an elected official that contributed to that completely nutty and crazy sentence.

Everyone. We want to change that. Notwithstanding the Eighth Amendment, we got to vote and vote for better and more talented people. Here's the article, Julian. It says here, go to my iPad, Anthony. Mr. Bryant has already spent nearly 23 years in prison and is now over 60 years old. This is the, this is the opinion that was written by Chief Justice Burnett Johnson. She wrote, if he lives another 20 years, Louisiana taxpayers will have paid almost $1 million to punish Mr. Bryant for his failed

effort to steal a set of hedge clippers. That is absolutely outlandish. Well, it is outrageous. What did the majority opinion argue, if I may ask, generally? Hold on. Julia, I'll answer that. This is the South where black people have been thingified, and so we don't

count, we don't matter. Nobody looked at this man. He's almost 60 years old now. What is he going to do? He's not going to try to steal any more hedge clippers. So it would be compassionate just to send him home. We should, I mean, we have an aging prison population that's going to cost us a lot more than we think it is. As the judge said, about a million dollars if he lives another 20 years.

But these elderly inmates also have health issues. And so we have to deliver health services to them as well. Louisiana does have what I think they call the frequent offender law, which is similar to the

California three strikes law. And that's rather inhumane, too. I mean, a man was sentenced to, I don't know, something ridiculous for stealing a loaf of bread. He was hungry. But in any case, these laws stem from enslavement. Yep. And you have to call it like that.

This is a relic of enslavement, and Louisiana is one of the most racist states in the country. Red State. They have a Gola prison and Mississippi has a Parchment prison. And people have written about the inhumane conditions in these prisons. And so it needs to stop. Let me read what this article says. It says, in the years following Reconstruction, Justice Burnett Johnson wrote Southern states introduced extreme sentences for petty theft, such as stealing cattle and swine that criminalized recently freed African-Americans who were still struggling to come out of poverty. Much like black codes before them, they allowed states to sentence people to forced labor.

Under these laws, the black prison population in the Deep South exploded starting in the 1870s. Quote, pig laws were largely designed to re-enslave African-Americans. Those same laws, she argued, evolved into Louisiana's habitual offender laws, which allows prosecutors to seek harsher sentences for lesser crimes if a defendant has previous convictions. Those laws have drawn heavy scrutiny for allowing excessively harsh sentences and driving mass incarceration. Almost 80 percent of people incarcerated in Louisiana prisons under the habitual offender laws are black. Brian is one of them. He was first convicted in 1979, serving 10 years for the attempted armed robbery of a cab driver. Johnson pointed out that the rest of his three convictions were nonviolent,

possessing some stolen goods from a radio shack, trying to forge a $150 check, and then in 1992, breaking into a home and stealing personal property, of which he served another four years. When the jury convicted him of attempted simple burglary five years later over the hedge clippers, prosecutors invoked the habitual offender laws to obtain a sentence of life without parole. Because Brian had four prior felony convictions, the sentence was legal at the time under Louisiana statutes. Statutes. Although Brian challenged the sentence as unconstitutionally excessive, the judges he

appealed to disagree. In 2000, Louisiana's second court court of appeals said that a life sentence was an appropriate punishment because Brian had already spent so long in prison as an adult. The quote, the litany of convictions and the brevity of the periods during which defendant was not in custody for a new offense, the court wrote, is ample support for the sentence imposed in this case. Following two appeals, Bryant was given the possibility of parole. He argued that he had received an illegal sentence and should have been appointed a lawyer during a resentencing hearing. But his motions were denied by higher courts. And last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court agreed.

Scott, that's just that. That's the kind of sadistic, archaic laws. And to the to the dis dis chief justice point, this is how Jim Crow laws still impact us today. Yeah, and those enhancements, we call those enhancements in the criminal justice system that the prosecutor has sole discretion to bring to the court. The court can't do anything about it. And I don't think the Louisiana court system or the judge can do anything if he's got the three strike rule or four strike rule or what have you many times the judges may or may not have discretion under under that scenario but but I got to tell you it is just inhumane it is inhumane and it is illogical but they see they don't see us

you see if you look at black people and you've broken the law, you're in the criminal justice system and they call you dog and perp and animal, right? They don't see you as a human being in the state as well as federal institutions. They don't see you. So treating you inhumanely or treating you like an animal in the criminal justice system, which is an extension of slavery, is more than acceptable to those who don't see us or believe that we are closer to animals than human beings. That's a raw assessment, but it's a true assessment. All right, then.

Scott, Robert, and Julianne, we so appreciate you being on the panel today. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, folks. Of course, we would love for you to support Roland Martin Unfiltered. I've got one more segment, but I'm going to do this right now. So I want to give a shout out to the people who are giving 50 bucks or more, joining our Bring the Funk fan club.

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Allison Kinsey, Anika Mays, Charles Brown, Charles Wyatt, Deborah Tony Jones, Diva Empowered Magazine, Ebony Gully, Ira Wright, Johnny Witte, Leslie Roberson, I certainly appreciate it. Lewis and Geraldine McCarthy, thank you so very much. VL Faulkner, thanks a bunch. Vanetta Hacknett, we certainly appreciate it. Lewis and Geraldine McCarthy, thank you so very much. VL Faulkner, thanks a bunch. Vanetta Hacknett, we certainly appreciate it as well. Let's see here. I'm opening this one up right here. Let me thank Deborah Collins, just saying thanks for you and your panel. You all have knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and you continue to keep us informed.

So we certainly appreciate that. Let me see. Barry and Nina Solomon. Barry and Nina Solomon. Barry and Nina Solomon, we certainly appreciate your contribution, a big contribution, to Roland Martin Unfiltered. Thank you so very much for that. Also, let's see. Crystal Gilmore. Crystal Gilmore.

I certainly appreciate it. Let's see. Priscilla Smith. Thanks a bunch. Sharon Woolfolk. We certainly appreciate it as well. Let's see. Priscilla Smith. Thanks a bunch. Sharon Woolfolk. We certainly appreciate it as well. Let's see here. Roberta Cromartie.

Thank you so very much for joining our fan club. Darlene Ware. Thanks a bunch. Let's see. Sharon Sanders Brooks. Charlotte Moore. We have Sharon Green. Thanks a bunch.

This is, okay, I can't make this one out, so let's see if I can read it here. Cornell Rose. Cornell Rose. I certainly appreciate it. And let's see here. I almost can make this one out. Let's see here. And then what I'm looking for.

Actually, no name on this one, so certainly appreciate it, folks. Again, please join our fan club. All right, folks. It's Wednesday. Y'all know what time it is. All right. Christian comedian Cynthia Johnson, a.k.a. Solari. Hey, what's up, Cynthia? Hey, how you doing, Roland? I'm doing good. And so

being a Christian comedian, do your fans expect you to always be holy, dropping Bible verses? And what is a Christian comedian? That's a very good question. A Christian comedian is actually a comedian that has a commitment to a relationship with God.

OK. So, yeah. All right. I don't know. What's up? What's up with her picture? Her screen is on pause. OK, so why don't you work that out so we can see her? I mean, we gotta see her. We gotta see her. Okay. Okay, Kristen, so what's, we need to, you need to fix your screen cause it's on pause for some reason. Okay, what do you want me to do? Go to FaceTime.

Okay. They're gonna call you on FaceTime. They'll work it out, they'll work it out. Do this here, Anthony, go to a quick break. We'll come back and we'll talk with Cynthia Johnson right here in Roller Martin Unfiltered. You want to support Roller Martin Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club.

Every dollar that you give to us supports our daily digital show. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As Roller Martin Unfiltered, support the Roller Martin Unfiltered daily digital show by going to RollerMartinUnfiltered.com. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans

contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Alright, I think we got Cynthia back. Hey, Cynthia. Hey, Roland. There we go. There we go. Alright, then. So,

you're a Christian comedian. And so are church folks some of the most stuck-up folks, or do they actually laugh? You know what? They actually laugh. They really do. The strangest things as well. So, yeah. So in your comedy, do you make—

Actually, they're pretty cool most of the time in your comment? Do you make fun of Christians? So so because again, some folk don't like to be made fun of. But I think, look, you could crack on Christians a whole lot, especially with all of all the church protocol stuff. I know. Right. I know. And I'm telling you, boy, you got those, um, out of control praisers and I'm telling you, they they'll get you. They'll get you every time. Um, that's, that's when you really, really, um, you thank God for the mask, right? Because you need those for like those like super loud Christians. Yeah.

So you are, sorry, so you are, so you're based where? I'm based in Maryland, in Hyattsville, Maryland. So COVID has really impacted you. So what have you been doing since then? You know what? I had, like, three gigs lined up, and two of them had to be rescheduled. One was canceled. But, you know, it's really forced myself and other comedians to be creative, you know what I mean, and to kind of think outside of the box. So I think it's actually been partly beneficial in that way. So what have you

been doing? You've been cracking jokes on Zoom, on Skype. What's up? Yeah, you know what? I, you know, I had a wonderful interview on Facebook Live on the 3rd with Maurice Brown Comedy Hour. I haven't done a Zoom yet. I do have one scheduled for the 4th Saturday of this month, but yeah, I mean, listen, you gotta roll with the punches, Roland. I totally understand.

Where can people check out your work? Where can they see you? And where can they follow you? They can follow me on youtube shalade curse free comedy um on facebook at curse free comedy and on instagram at daughter of encouragement all right then well uh cynthia uh good luck with it uh you got a cash app you know i um they can they can hit me up on paypal sit just at cynthia johnson so cynthia cynthia you got to get a you got to get a cash app a paypal a venmo you got to get

everything what's wrong with you no no you got you got it you got it you got to like have the like the hat trick because you got to be able to get money anywhere possible. Oh, okay. I'll take your word for it. Trust me. You might want to. I'm telling you. All right, Cynthia. I appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. All right. God bless. Thank you. Take care. Folks, we got to go. Don't forget. Look, we got to speak to economics in our community.

Where's our money? Y'all cannot be afraid to make demands in order for us to get paid. Make demands in our communities. Make demands in our neighborhoods. That's what we got to do. And so I don't care who we are. We must be willing to speak to power because if we're consumers, that's our money as well. We should be getting our fair share.

I will see y'all tomorrow. Don't forget tomorrow. Ice Cube is in the house talking about his contract with Black America. Oh, y'all don't want to miss that conversation. Got to go. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future

where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. 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. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs

podcast Season 2 on the iHeart Radio app, app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. 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. A wrap away, 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.

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