#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Census shows white population decline; Biden pressed to end filibuster; Anti-CRT amendment passes

Episode Date: August 13, 2021

8.12.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: 2020 census report shows white population decline for the first time; ; Biden pressed by voting rights activists to end the filibuster; Warrants issued for Texas Dems who fled the state; Tom Cotton's amendment to ban federal funds from promoting CRT in K-12 passes; Are discussions about Critical Race Theory really being fueled by social media; Group of young advocates detail what divesting from the police should look like.#RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: CeekCEEK is a streaming platform for virtual events and Virtual Reality experiences featuring the biggest names in music, sports, and entertainment from around the globe. CEEK's mission is to enable content creators to directly generate revenue from a global audience on multiple devices, including VR Headsets, Smart TVs, gaming consoles, mobile and desktop devices. Whether you're a gamer, music, or sports enthusiast, CEEK has something for everyone Go to http://www.ceek.com and use #RMU discount code RMVIP21 for your next purchase.Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. I'm your special guest host Faraj Muhammad. Tonight, folks, we want to start off the conversation talking about the census data report that was just released earlier today to talk about the implications of the data and what should we expect as folks are in the scramble to use that data to create new forms of political power now joining us on our panel tonight is reesey colbert who serves as the women of founder of black Women Views, Dr. Greg Carr, chair of the Department of Afro-American, excuse me, Afro-American Studies at Howard University, and Amisha Cross, who is a political analyst and democratic strategist. Thank you all folks for being on the panel tonight.

Good to have you on. Good to be here. Let's start off talking about this situation. All right, Dr. Carl, I'm going to start with you. I remember there was some time ago, Doc, and I might be going over some people's head, but I remember in the 90s, the 90s, there was a big conversation going into the 2000, but there was like in the late 90s, there was a big conversation about the browning of America. For years, some have talked about the browning of America. Some say that that really started to take place when Barack Obama became a president.

Some say that it really—you know, when they put out there that America would look different by—and I think at that time time they were talking about 2040. But looking at how this latest data confirms that the white population is on a decline, while others of us are on an incline, how should we see this potential growth of power? Well, I think ultimately the United States will dissolve. It probably won't dissolve in our lifetimes, but certainly the trajectory is toward disillusion, because we're talking about a race-based settler state where white nationalism, white supremacy has been the foundation for the country. And as a result, the threat of being overwhelmed by non-whites is a running theme in American history. You can look back to the

Constitutional Congress, look at Ben Franklin talking about it as early as the late 18th century, and then come forward to the really beginning of the 20th century. LaTrope Stollert wrote a book called The Rising Tide of Color. This comes in maybe about maybe 40 years after the 1884, 1885 Chinese Exclusion Act, where they start worrying about the number of nonwhites coming into the country. And at that time, nonwhites was broad enough to include folks like the Italians, if you can remember. And then, of course, we have the Immigration and Nationalization Act of 1965, which is the first major piece of federal legislation that tries to close the door or at least shut

the door a little bit on nonwhiteness. So this has been a running theme in American history. Soon, white people will be the largest minority in the country. This country will be majority nonwhite. That doesn't mean that everybody in the nonwhite group is going to vote the same way, which brings us to the census. I think that this positive moment we'll have finally, just to kind of begin this conversation, this positive moment we're going to have is going to end up in the courts. We may look at some—pay attention to the concept of opportunity districts.

The Voting Rights Act—the Voting Rights Act, Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act says that if you can determine in a state that, quote-unquote, minority voting power and strength has been diluted, and that is defined by determining whether or not 50 percent of that district is minority or not. You are under federal law, under the Voting Rights Act, required to create an opportunity district. So folks who are thinking that these white nationalists in the Republican Party can kind of gerrymander their way into permanent minority rule, like a kind of neo-Rhodesian, it's not that simple. And we can talk more about it as we go on, but that's just some opening thoughts. I appreciate that, Doc. I want to get your take on this as well, Recy. Does this report surprise

you? And from a cultural and political vantage point, how do we make sure that the interest of Black people stay at the forefront where our issues aren't, as the brown community continue to grow? TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio Network, Well, I mean, you make a good point, Faraji. I think, in terms of Democratic politics, we are also—we're starting to see the kind of shift towards courting Latino voters, and they're not a monolith, just as black voters are not a monolith. But I think the more important pressing issue that we have is, as Dr. Carr stated, gerrymandering. I'd like to think that there will be some protection in the courts.

They have ruled in the favor of minority rights and minority representation. That is until now. We have a 6-3 court, which is predominantly conservative and right-wing even. So I think that the census is really important, because I think it's going to trigger that much more urgency from the Republican Party to try to get as much of this minority rule enshrined as they can, while they're the majority. And they're going to do the gerrymandering that we've talked about. I wonder, though, if the efforts that the Trump administration took to try to suppress the census turnout actually is part of what's driving this demographic change. There were more pushes in minority communities and with different groups to fill out the

census, as opposed to the Republicans, who were very much down on the census. And Donald Trump tried to cut back on the resources for that. And that could be part of it, so it could be a data issue. But there's no doubt that this country is becoming more diverse. And I think that we're going to have more nuanced conversations when it comes to politics, because just because somebody is not Black or not white doesn't mean that they are aligned with us as, you know, like people like to put us under the umbrella of people of color. It's definitely not that simple. And black people are going to have to make sure that we exercise our considerable electoral power to keep our interests at the forefront. Amisha, speaking of electoral power, now that there's, now people are scrambling

to redistrict a lot of the areas across the country to meet the fall deadline. Some states have already, you know, passed some of their deadlines, but they're trying to get it in place for the midterm elections coming up next year. My big question is, because we often talk about census data, we look at the data, but how do we make sure that we use this data that's going to garner some real political power, especially for Black political leadership? How can they use this data to gain power, as well as to empower citizens to get more civically involved? Before I answer that, I'm going to double down on something that Recy said a moment ago. I think that we have to remember in the context of talking about the census that those numbers,

though they are helpful, we also have to remember that the Black participation in the census was extremely underrepresented. And we can recognize that by the amount of counties and the amount of districts that are actually going to lose funding for things like hospitals and various other resources that are extremely important, especially to African-Americans, because the African-American participation in the census was actually quite low. With that being said, I think that we have to look at the fact that the importance of consistently advocating for ourselves, the importance of consistently pushing for advancements in health care and health care

equity, educational equity, housing equity. These are things that we have to do not only in census years, but also in midterm years and off-election years, and ensuring that those who are in elected positions and elected capacity have their feet to the fire when it comes to not only promising us things on the campaign trail, but also getting those things done once they're actually in office. I think that one of the most tragic things about policy when it comes to the African-American community is that the majority of people who look like those of us on this panel are looking towards the White House for solutions and the White House only and Congress only. We need to re-envision the understanding of state and local government power, because at the end of the day, the effects and the change that matter the most on a daily basis

to the Black community specifically are going to be done at the state and local level. You want to see police reforms? Guess what? That happens from the mayor's office. That happens from city council. You can make that happen at your county government level as well. You want to see advancements in how education funding happens. Make sure that you know your state legislative bodies. There are so many things that we can do without a dependency on the Biden administration or Congress. And I think that once our population has a better grasp on how policy is made locally, we will see some things move a bit more swiftly, and we'll see advocacy at the local level. Because again, redistricting is happening, and it's not only happening in red states, it's happening across other states as well.

Voter suppression is happening. It's not only happening in the South, it's happening in the North as well. There are so many things that should be not only flash in the pale instances or things that mainstream media focuses on, but also things that we focus on within our own communities. And as someone who is a native of Chicago, when I hear individuals say over and over again voting rights is not something that matters to us, it's not affecting the state of Illinois or it's not affecting Chicagoans, I would argue that you are 100 percent incorrect, because when one of us is hurt, all of us is hurt. And we have to align in fighting with

our brothers and sisters across this country, because as the census points out, and as we see with a lot of the rising people of color numbers, that's not us. Black people are not a large portion of that rising number. Actually, our numbers are dwindling. When it comes to the census specifically, the population that's rising in this country the fastest and has been on that trajectory for nearly 20 years now is the Latinx community. And that shows no signs of stopping. So there's a reason why we see Republicans courting the Latinx community. And to Donald Trump's credit, be it whether it's good or bad—I would argue bad in this case—he actually increased the vote margins for Republicans when it came to the Latinx

vote. For Democrats, there's still this consistent push to try to figure out what the Latinx community wants. And again, to back up what Risi said a moment ago, because they are not a monolith, just like Black people are not a monolith, but I would argue that the Latinx community is a little bit different, because Black people do vote largely in lockstep in support for the Democratic Party. The Latinx community does not. And I think that because that vote is up for grabs, you're going to see both parties try to kowtow to the needs of the Latinx community. And unless the Black community rises up consistently, we're not going to see those same level of prioritization. And it brings me to that point that you just brought up, Aneesha, around, you know, should there be

a greater effort to create a stronger alliance between Black and brown communities? Because we are seeing that growth from Latino communities, because we're seeing a greater engagement, would it be in the best interest for Black folks to start to build alliances and political alliances with Latino and Hispanic communities. Recy, I'll start that question off with you. Absolutely. I think we should align with people on issues, specific issues, where there are areas of mutual benefit. That goes for the Latinx community. That goes for the Asian community. That goes for any community. We have intersectionality, because I would remind you that there are Black Latinos

with a variety of different demographics. And so we should not be limited to just only thinking that we're all on our own, and it's we need to get something that's only for Black people and nobody else, because that is not going to be a successful strategy. So, when you look at areas like COVID, Black and Latino have higher rates of hospitalization and higher rates of mortality. And every, pretty much every facet of American life and where systemic racism plays, Black and Latino people are both—both demographics are impacted by these inequities. And so I think the challenge comes in the fact that, you know, there isn't an overall appeal that you can make to all Latinos or Latinx people that would appeal to them just

the same—just the same as it is when it comes to Black people. But, yes, we are not enemies. We can be—we're natural allies just when you look at the data. And so I think it's time that we really start to form those partnerships. We have them in a lot of places. So it's not that it's not already happening, but I think we have to look at it as something that's not just a Latino issue or not just a Black issue, but an area of, you know, an issue of, you know, I — like I said, I know I said, don't call us all people of color, because we're not all the same. But, realistically speaking, we're going to have to start making stronger alliances with people across different spectrums, because, as Amisha pointed out, our numbers are dwindling. Last week, we had a discussion about how the fact that one in 420 Black people have been

killed by COVID. And so the landscape isn't improving fast enough for us, for our mortality or for our health outcomes, for us to take for granted the partnerships that we need to form. But that does not have to be at our expense. I should add that. That does not mean that we have to take a backseat to anybody else's interests. It just means that we need to lock hands with people in different organizations and different demographics that have a shared mutual benefit that we can all benefit from. Dr. Carr, if we start taking such a big step of strengthening alliances and really working to

connect to the struggle of our brothers and sisters in the Latino community. This could really shake up not just power, I mean, politics. This could shake up economics. This could shake up education. I mean, you know, I kind of think to a moment where Pat Buchanan, you know, he talked about the death of the West. He wrote a book about the death of the West, and then he talked about the death of the West. He wrote a book about the death of the West. And then he talked about the suicide of the superpower. But one of the key elements is that he started to see that white power, white power was on the decline. So if

we start taking those big, broad steps, I mean, we're fundamentally changing how America operates. Are we ready for that? And do we have the capacity to do that? I think a great deal of this conversation is reliant on numbers and demographics. And what our experiences have shown us really contradict the assumptions sometimes we make about the nature of what we have to do. First of all, the idea of alliances and political alliances is something that we have shown great strength on over the last century. Remember, African people aren't brought into the electoral process really robustly until the 20th century and really the

second half of the 20th century. And the United States isn't a nation. I know we like to call it a nation, but by that I mean there's no common culture as such. There's a lot of myth-making, a lot of mythology. But to reinforce something that Amitia said a minute ago in terms of dealing with state and local elections and paying attention, this census data does tell us

that about 9% of the metro areas in this country, the metro areas in this country grew by 9 percent, and the top 10 cities in this country in terms of population for the first time in American history all have over a million people. New York City, where you see the Spanish-speaking community, the Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and others, they—if you look at their voting trends, they're very consistent with people of African descent who speak English, who we call African Americans. To Recy's point, a lot of those people up there, including the members of the Congressional Black Caucus, would be considered Afro-Latinos. Now, that's very different than Texas. But if we're

talking about Texas, are we talking about San Antonio? Are we talking about Dallas? Are we talking about Houston? Things begin to dissolve in terms of this data when you start looking very granular. And when you look at the labor coalition, when you look at the 1960s and 70s, whether it be migrant labor, say the Chavez and those, that was part of a very important and strong labor movement. But the attacks in this country have been on trying to forestall that coalition, not on us trying to make the coalition. We have sustained it.

Look at the Rainbow Coalition, working Jesse Jackson and them. For that matter, come forward to the 1980s and 90s and look at some of this youth energy that built those kind of coalitions. The other thing, last thing I'll say is this. This, you know, when you see who has lost seats and who's gained seats, so when you see Montana and Oregon and Colorado, New York City, you know, New York losing seats, and then you see, no, I'm sorry, Montana, Oregon, Colorado, North Carolina, and Florida gaining seats, it doesn't mean that that kind of coalition in North Carolina is going to look the same as it does in Florida.

And, remember, mass white-facing media pushes, drives this Florida conversation, as if Puerto Ricans in Florida and Cubans in Florida are the same, and a lot of those Cubans in Florida are revenge-minded white Cubans in South Florida, and their own children don't vote with them. So, again, it is important to engage in this coalition political building and not to forget that this isn't something we're starting. It's the continuation of something we've been doing for over a century. And that's the thing that these, you know, it's being driven as if we're trying to, you know, do something we haven't been doing. They're working to keep us apart and they're going to fail.

And that's the interesting part about it, Dr. Carr, because there are still some folks within our community that push back on this idea, that say, oh, no, no, we can't do it because they take our jobs. I've had conversations about this on my radio show. Folks are like, no, it's not happening. You know, they're taking our jobs. They're doing this and they're doing that. The narrative around the struggle and the plight of the brown, the Latino community is a narrative based upon being a threat to black progress. And I think that that's something that we really have to have some deeper conversations about to ensure that we can gain the type of power and like you said dr cardin

and we see to to in the long run that there is some some greater strides that are being made amicia we should take no i think that that's absolutely correct and i like dr carr's breakdown specifically of the the different demographics that actually come to play when we're talking about the Latinx community, because Florida and Texas are very diverse in their Latinx community, as well as the origins of those Latinx voters, as well as the ages. What is known is that younger Latinx voters tend to be a lot more liberal, a lot more progressive than their parents. It is what it is. With that, I would also argue that this unification that was brought up not only, you know, in this conversation, but also through organizations like the Rainbow Push Coalition, this is something that a lot of civil rights leaders have been working on for a very long time. It hurts me to a certain extent, to a

great extent, that we've seen this discussion that started in the conservative alt-right stratosphere about basically Latinos taking jobs that is now kind of broken into the African American talk speak as well, largely because when white people decide that they want to divide and conquer, they are excellent at the messaging strategies to do so. They have been talking about this for generations now. And at this point, noticing that their own population is dwindling, that they are not going to be the majority, that originally this was predicted to happen in late 2040, possibly 2050. Now we're seeing it expedited. We're looking at 2022, 2025, that you're going to see a lot of these things happen and happen

at a more hyper-intense rate. I think that the push to talk about and to continue to distance themselves, as well as to push African-Americans to distance ourselves from the Latino population, only benefits white people. That is done purposely. Because if you were to join these two groups who have largely a lot of the same issues when it comes to education failures, when it comes to failures of our environmental system, when it comes to failures of our hospital system, when it comes to failures in equity, these are things that are shared by both African-Americans and those from various Latinx backgrounds. If you were to combine and to join together and to have those conversations and to link up in advocacy and pushing for reforms and change, then that would be one powerful and

unstoppable group. And I think that what we're seeing amongst very strategic white people is that in understanding that that is exactly what it is. They do not want that coalition to happen. They have fought very hard to make it never happen. And I think that at this point, it behooves us as African-Americans not only to look towards our interests, which, again, are shared interests in many cases with various members of the Latinx community, but to also look towards where our leadership is actually going. We see, to Dr. Carr's point, congressional Black Caucus members who are also Afro-Latino and congressional Black Caucus members who have linked up with organizations like Unidos who understand the importance of making sure that we carry we carry our Latinx brethren as well because at the end of the day a lot of our issues

are the very same when we're talking about public schools the public school system in America is not driven by white students 75 percent of them are brown and black students. That is the system. Our teachers are largely white, white women. Over 80% are white women. But the student population themselves, schools would not get funded without the black and brown kids that actually attend. We are the public school system. I think that at the end of the day, we have to ensure that we are fighting for those people because no one else will. And where does the next generation fit in on this? I mean, because you mentioned, Amisha, that like Dr. Carr and Recy, that there is a shift in attitudes from Latino youth,

as well as I will even go as far as to say some even Black youth. So where does the next generation fit into this? How do we use this information to empower the next generation? Well, I think part of that is to move beyond. Right now, we see a lot of activism, hashtag activism. We see activism when it comes to advocacy in the streets. I think that it behooves us, everyone on this panel, as well as those within the listening audience, to teach some of our younger population.

I mean, I'm a millennial, but I consider myself old at this point. This next generation is doing some excellent things. We have to teach them how not only to organize in a social media platform or to organize in the streets, but also how to understand policy, also understand the levers of government, and how to utilize their voices in that way. Because right now, they've got the Internet covered. They've got TikTok covered. They've got the streets covered. But what they don't necessarily always grasp is

the policy. And I think that we have to do better, our schools need to do better, in educating people on how state and local government works, what the levers are there, as well as how Congress actually works. Because our systems are not designed for youth to come up and shake things up. They're not. Mainstream media loves to see young people in the street. What they don't love to see young people doing is actually writing, understanding, and negotiating policy. And once we get our younger generation to that level, they will be unstoppable. Recy, what's your take on that? I completely agree with Amisha. I think what we have seen over and over again, every election, there is going

to be a surge of youth turnout, right? Oh, this is the candidate that's going to energize the youth vote, and it's going to be record-breaking. And it doesn't necessarily materialize to the proportion that it could to be exponentially more impactful. And so I think, to Amisha's point, we have to find a way to engage with them into turning protests and activism into political votes. I mean, the reality is that is the mechanism through which change happens in this country on just a mechanical and administrative level.

It happens through elected officials. And so I think it's very important to engage on that level. It happens through elected officials. And so I think it's very important to engage on that level. But another point I wanted to bring up was, to your point, Faraji, about, you know, some of the divisions that have been sown between the different groups within this country. I think one of the things we've seen, and I have an op-ed out today in The Griot about disinformation campaigns targeting the Black community. It's not specifically on this topic, but one of the things that we've seen is we've seen the pop-up of groups online, particularly Black groups that have very xenophobic attitudes. I won't name-check them because I ain't trying to invite the bots and all the craziness. But what I will say is that there are very xenophobic,

bigoted groups that are purportedly trying to or presenting themselves as trying to advocate specifically for the Black community. But they're actually encouraging people to not vote. They're encouraging people to, you know, sit out the electoral process, which is, by default, obviously not advocating for us, because, if we don't vote, we don't have a voice. We are giving our action to somebody else. So, but part of that xenophobic tent is to convince Black people that if it's not happening for us alone, then it's not worth supporting. And we know that's not true. And we know that it's going to be incredibly difficult to ever get anything that is only and specifically for Black people, just like as much people—as people want to name-check the Asian-American—so-called

anti-Asian-American hate bill, which was not actually specifically only to Asians. It was something that actually benefits the number-one victims of hate crimes, which are, unfortunately, Black people. So, I think that we have to realize that there are forces, sometimes from within our community, sometimes infiltrating our community, that want to see us divided and try to tackle some of those attitudes, because we do have shared economic interests. As Amisha said, you know, it's going to take—the economic engine is not going to—is going to change through alliance. And as Dr. Carr, you know, pointed out, this is something we have been working together for. I'd also name-check the

Poor People's Campaign, the great work that the Reverend—the great Reverend Dr. Barber does to try to get people to see, you know, see on an economic level how we all have shared interests. I'm not a fan of the race, not class argument. That's not the argument that he makes. But I think that's something that we need to realize. We can all come out ahead together on specific issues and issues where we don't agree, hey, we got to march to our own drum, the beat of our own drum and do our own thing. But there are a lot of areas that we need to be linking hands with. And but the last thing I'll say is one of the things that I was very angry about was the fact that that VP Kamala Harris was not replaced with the black woman. And there was

arguments that Gavin Newsom made or that people were making. Oh, well, you know, the Latino vote is significant in California. And, you know, they deserve representation as if leaving Black women with zero Senate representation was acceptable, and that a Latino senator, a male senator, when there are already several of them in the Senate, is an acceptable substitute for Black women specifically being there. So I do not mean by any means to suggest that other folks being in these roles are a substitute, as we've talked about local and state representation. They're not a substitute for us. They can be allies with us, but we still absolutely need to make sure that we are running for these positions, that we're voting for our candidates, we're not buying into the electability arguments that white is right, and that we are

keeping our interests at the forefront. Dr. Carl, I want to get your final take on that part. As you're a professor, you're talking to young people. You see the next generation in these spaces. What do you tell them when information like this is put out there? what do you say to empower them? Ignore white frameworks. That's why I went into Africana Studies. You've got to ignore white frameworks. Don't turn that noise down. Turn it off. Turn it absolutely off. Turn it off. They do not share our interest if they are still placing whiteness at the center of all of their logics. Understand that they're, roughly speaking, this census will note about, there'll be about 330 million people

in the United States right now. That's up 20 million from 10 years ago. So it isn't, you know, the percentage of people of African descent who are seen as people of African descent first hasn't changed, but the numbers have grown, meaning that our population is growing too.

It's just not growing in terms of percentage. And note the changes in the census over the last several decades where they've tried to disaggregate HAVE GROWN, MEANING THAT OUR POPULATION IS GROWING, TOO. IT'S JUST NOT GROWING IN TERMS OF PERCENTAGE. AND NOTE THE CHANGES IN THE CENSUS OVER THE LAST SEVERAL DECADES WHERE THEY'VE TRIED TO DISAGGREGATE BY ALLOWING PEOPLE TO CHECK MORE THAN ONE BOX. IN OTHER WORDS, PART OF THE POLITICS OF THE CENSUS IS TRYING TO CONTAIN NONWHITENESS. SO IF YOU SPEAK SPANISH, YOU SEE, HISPANIC DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING.

UNDERSTAND THAT IF THIS WAS A MATHEMATICAL EQUATION, WE WOULD BE ANGLOS, LATINOS AND ANGLOS. doesn't mean anything. Understand that if this was a mathematical equation, we would be Anglos, Latinos and Anglos. Those who speak English first are Anglos. Now, does that mean we're black, white? So when you say Latino, you're really not saying anything. But that hasn't been said. Listen to young people. You want to look at some young people, let's look at somebody like Jasmine Camacho Quinn. Jasmine Camacho Quinn won an Olympic gold medal last week for Puerto Rico. Now, some of y'all are saying, wait, I thought Puerto Rico was part of the United States. It is, but the International Olympic Committee allows territories to compete under their own flag.

And although she was raised in South—born in South—born in Puerto Rico, but raised in South Carolina, and her brother plays linebacker for the Chicago Bears. And if you listen to her, you wouldn't know she's running because her mama is from Puerto Rico, and she was born there. Now, here's where it all comes together. There are 435 members of the House of Representatives. They don't want to change that number, which means that, as the population shifts and people have babies and people migrate, they're going to take one from here, add it here. California loses one, Texas gains two, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. But they have 100 senators. You know why they don't want to let Puerto Rico in, the Virgin Islands in? You know why they don't want Washington,

D.C.? Because those seats would look like you and me. So they want to get people fighting over a language when if you look at Jasmine in her face and she never opens her mouth, you're going to put her down in the sense that she's African-American. And guess what? She is African-American. She's African-Caribbean-American. Stop listening to white people. That's the rule on this topic and many others, but since we're talking about this topic, on this topic. There it is. Dr. Carr, I appreciate you for that. Folks, let's talk about this big other story. For the second day, family members of the late Representative John Lewis joined activists at a rally outside of the White House today, demanding President Joe Biden to urge the Senate to nix the legislative filibuster. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and a coalition of activists delivered a petition

to the Biden administration calling on the president to act on the filibuster, a move that would pave the way for Senate passage of the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Now, Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, and Congresswoman Norton say the filibuster must end. Check this out. It will not end without action from people like you with petitions, with thousands of names, you are delivering today to make the point that we must end the filibuster. Yes!

Yes! How long before we end this filibuster, this Jim Crow filibuster that going back to 1874 was used to block Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts during that time, during Reconstruction in 1874. How long? Not long! Before we end this filibuster that going back to the 40s and 50s and the likes of Strom Thurmond that did their standing and talking filibusters, right?

How long? Not long! Before we end this filibuster that as recently as a year or two ago was used by one man to block lynching legislation that has never been passed in this country. How long before we allow this filibuster to continue to block the voting rights that we're seeking today? And we say today not long because we are here today to deliver a message clear and strong that we must end the filibuster and we must end the filibuster now. AND WE MUST END THE FILIBUSTER NOW. THE VOTING RIGHTS GROUP SAY THE SENATE MUST RETURN FROM RECESS EARLY TO PASS THE FORTHER PEOPLE ACT.

I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE PANEL TO GET YOUR TAKE ON THIS. RECI COVERT, DR. GRADE KARR, AND AMISHA CROSS. IF WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THIS FILIBUSTER, IT SEEMS TO BE THIS ANTIQUATED EXERCISE OF HOLDING ON TO POWER. filibuster, it seems to be this antiquated exercise of holding on to power. What's the odds? And Amisha, I'm going to start with you, sis. What is the odd? What are the odds, rather, that the Biden administration is going to now really listen to this call to end this filibuster? I mean, you've got Cliff Albright. You've got Eleanor Norton Holmes. You have the family of John Lewis. What will it need—what's going to have to be done in order

for the president to say enough is enough? President Biden has spoken many times, not only on the campaign trail, but also in his elected position as president of the United States, of his disinterest in ending the filibuster. He thinks that it is a very useful tool for the Senate and that, honestly, if it is ended, that the pendulum will swing and things will get a lot harder for Democrats to pass after Congress becomes more Republican hell. He's looking at midterms. He's looking at possible losses in 2024 as well.

I think that the civil rights leaders, the advocates that we've heard from thus far, are spot on. There is no movement in terms of voting rights as long as the filibuster is in place. I think that Joe Biden is just as wrong on this as he is on student loans. At the end of the day, this needs to end. If we do not move forward the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, if we do not move forward the For the People Act, all of the work that he is trying to do, everything that he said on the campaign trail, the equity lens that he was trying to design policy through is for naught. Because without Black voters, without younger voters, without that diverse coalition being able to show up in the same way that they did in 2020, there is absolutely no way that this type of legislation will ever see the light of day.

This is bigger than just this moment in history. Should these egregious voting rights bills continue to get passed across the country unchallenged, we are going to see a generation of people, possibly multiple generations of people, who do not have access to participate in our democracy. That totally upends our constitutional rights. And I think that Republicans are very strategic in the sense that they know that Joe Biden will have to have his self lit up before anything will change here. And I think that he's cast his favorability as well as his widders to the spoils, particularly around this infrastructure package and this infrastructure deal and being

able to work side by side with Republicans. There is no side by side work that is going to be done when it comes to voting rights, because unlike with the infrastructure package where they can go back home and tout jobs and money that's given to states that they represent, they can't do that with voting rights. Voting rights, Republicans see, is only benefiting people who will not vote for them. Republicans had a strong hold on the South because they designed a system where their people were going to be the ones who had the greatest access to the ballot. They saw that greatly diminish in the 2020 election and have been fighting tooth and nail to end the level of participation they saw just a few months ago.

It does not behoove Republicans to support the voting rights access for people of color and younger people because they know intrinsically that they don't have the types of policies, they don't have the types of mind frame, they don't have the types of rhetoric that those populations support. And they will never accept any type of legislation that means that they will lose seats or that they will actually have to formidably compete to get into office. So I think that without getting rid of the filibuster, without actually leaning in and listening to the very people who made it possible for Joe Biden to become president, for this administration to even take shape, without listening to those individuals, we're going to see this nation be taken back generations.

Recy, as I'm listening and kind of watching things unfold, I'm asking myself the question, how come Vice President Kamala Harris, how come she's not taking a more aggressive stance when it comes to this issue? Or maybe she is, and we're just not hearing about it, and it's behind the scenes. But, you know, I'm wondering, you know, what is—she's having these conversations with all of these different groups, especially with the women who have been protesting in the front in D.C. She's met with Until Freedom and a whole lot of other folks.

So should we expect something to come from the vice president at this point? YAMICHE ALCINDOR Well, Faraji, I think, number one, she's vice president Harris. She's not the Senate majority leader. And I think the problem really lies in the fact that the Senate doesn't have the same incentives that the House does to tackle some of these things like gerrymandering, because their elections are statewide. If Joe Manchin had to worry about his district being redrawn and being screwed out of Democratic

voters, he might have a little bit more of an incentive. Same with Kyrsten Sinema. But the reality is there are a lot more Democrats that are not for filibuster reform than, you know, the two that get the most attention, which is Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Jim Crow Manchin. They're hiding behind those two senators. And so those folks need to be fleshed out as well. But I would argue that, in terms of the filibuster reform, that's a Senate rule. That's something that Senator — that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has to do. And I think that he needs to be a lot more creative with ways around the — this procedural hurdle in the Senate. That's something that Harry Reid took a step on.

And he did filibuster reform as it relates to the Supreme Court and other measures. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer needs to do that as well. And I think that, if they had the votes, you would see a lot more public posturing from the White House. I do agree with Amisha's point that President Joe Biden is really focused on this infrastructure package, and he is not willing to use any political capital on voting rights until he gets that done. But as far as Vice President Kamala Harris' approach, I think what's important about what

she's doing is, she understands that this is a multifaceted approach to voting rights and voter suppression. Even if these bills pass, they probably won't pass in their current iteration. They may not pass in time to actually override any of these bills that are getting passed at the state levels. And we have a very hostile judiciary in the Supreme Court, which has again had a blow to voting rights. And so what she's doing, her efforts in putting, pulling together different advocates and different community organizations and different demographics, like the disability community, is that there are a lot of ways that we have to

make sure that people are involved in the electoral process. So I think that's what she's doing. She's focusing her areas on executive power, on getting resources to these communities. And I do agree with Black Voters Matter. They've said this many times. It's not fair to put the burden on community organizers to do the heavy lifting that Congress is supposed to do. But I also would argue that it's not fair to put the onus on Vice President Kamala Harris to do what the Senate majority leader is actually responsible for doing. But I think she is doing important work there. I think that the White House does recognize that it's not going to be a silver bullet by passing voting rights legislation, though it is very important. And that's why President Joe Biden has appointed a record number of black women specifically

to the judiciary. Those kinds of personnel choices, as well as what the Justice Department, you have Kristen Clark, who's in there as an assistant attorney general. They will be forming lawsuits. So I think it's a multifaceted approach. And as much as I'm against the filibuster, I wonder whatever happened to filibuster reform in terms of the speaking filibuster is supposed to return. They've dropped all that. So I'm going to put the blame on Senate Majority Leader. He needs to be the one to step up to the plate and find out some kind of carve-out or find out some kind of carrot to dangle in front of these Democratic senators to get them to get rid of it. I'm going to have to say, Recy, I don't—I'm not holding my breath

for that one to happen. I'm not holding my breath. And that's why what Vice President Kamala Harris is doing is so important, because we cannot just wait and rely on belligerent senators who have said repeatedly, regardless of who's met with them. We've had Reverend Dr. Barbara in the Poor People's Campaign has met with them. We've had so many civil rights organizations. We've had the Texas Democrats who are under threat, as you mentioned earlier, from being arrested for trying to protest these bills that they're passing in Texas, they have tried to appeal to Senator Joe Manchin. And he is not budging on this. And so I think that it would be irresponsible and naive of the Biden-Harris administration to rely simply on Congress, which has shown a very, very, very nonexistent appetite to really fight the fire that needs to be done.

And that's why Vice President Harris's work outside of Congress is really crucial. And I think we're going to see even more from her on what can be done with executive power. I definitely hope so. Speaking of Congress, critical race theory finally made it to the federal level before going on recess, the Senate voted 50 to 49 to pass Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton's amendment to prohibit federal funds from promoting critical race theory in K-12 schools. Quoting Martin Luther King Jr., Cotton said the concept is quote-unquote un-American. Take a listen. Mr. President. Senator from Arkansas. Growing up, I was taught, as I suspect most of you are, that America is a great and noble nation,

in large part because, as Lincoln put it, it's dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. In America, our rights have no color. Our law and society should be colorblind. And as Dr. Martin Luther King said, we should be judged not we should not be judged by the color of our skin by the content of our character. Sadly today some want to replace our founding principles with an un-American ideology called critical race theory. They want to teach our children that America is not a good nation but a racist nation. Those teachings are wrong and our tax dollars should not support them. My amendment will ensure that federal funds aren't used to indoctrinate kids as young as pre-K to hate America. Our future

depends on the next generation of kids loving America and loving each other as fellow citizens, no matter their race. I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the amendment. The issue about critical race theory has been most people aren't sure what it is, what it I WOULD ENCOURAGE MY COLLEAGUES TO VOTE YES ON THE AMENDMENT. THE ISSUE ABOUT CRITICAL RACE THEORY HAS BEEN MOST PEOPLE AREN'T SURE WHAT IT IS, WHAT IT MEANS, WHILE MAINLY BECAUSE OF THE MISINFORMATION THAT HAS BEEN DISTRIBUTED IN ALL PLATFORMS SINCE IT BECAME A TOPIC. TO BREAK DOWN THE CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND DISINFORMATION DISTRIBUTION ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER, WE'RE JOINED BY SHERINE MITCHELL, WHO IS A SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYST AND DIVERSITY STRATEGIST. distribution on Facebook and Twitter. We're joined by Shereen Mitchell, who is a social media analyst and diversity strategist. Shereen, thank you so much for joining us here on

Roland Martin Unfiltered. We truly appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I appreciate having this conversation with you today. Absolutely. Can I just start off the conversation, Shereen, and say how I am disgusted that Senator Tom Cotton quotes Dr. King as a justification for America to not face its ugly demons. You know, when I heard that, and I just said to myself, he says un-American, that you're going to use Dr. King's words and just totally distort them about the content of our character. Just take them really out of context. Because Dr. King was a man, as I've studied Dr. King,

he was a man that really talked about racism in America, especially as it affects the poor, especially when it's talking about foreign policy. So this whole, his whole justification kind of blew me, to be honest with you, Shereen. But when you look at what the conversation is about CRT on social media, it really takes a whole nother level. It's like disinformation personified. What have you been seeing around this issue? Yeah, first of all, I want to concur with what you just said about the way in which they're using Martin Luther King's

words. Actually, Bernice King herself had several tweets about the way in which her dad's, you know, words are being misconstrued to talk about racism as if it was in the opposite frame. What they're talking about with critical race theory is to basically say that they don't want to have a conversation about race at all in this country and this impact on individuals who happen to be of different hues. And they're using his words in the complete opposite way. I totally agree with you with that. And I'll say also one of the things that we've tracked in terms of some of these policies that some of these schools are trying to institute, including Tennessee. They don't want to tell Ruby Bridges' story. You know, Ruby was the young girl who had to go against a mob to just go to school every day. And so as they're saying that they don't want young children to face this when they go

to school from K to 12. They're not talking about Ruby at all. They're not talking about any children that look like Ruby. They're saying that Ruby and the likes of children like her, she was six years old, should endure racism while children who are maybe participating in racism are not being held accountable at all at the exact same age, nor their parents. What we have seen in terms of these parents who have shown up as mobs at school boards trying to downplay critical race theory in the school systems, when what they're actually saying, it's not critical race theory. What they're saying is they don't want history taught. In Texas, for example, they are basically trying to remove the notion that KKK was immoral.

They're trying to remove Martin Luther King from the school's curriculum. They're trying to remove a whole bunch of host of issues of what the history really was in America. And to be clear, that had nothing to do with critical race theory. The way that they're using it is different. And so what we did today is put out our report about how this has transitioned to actual legal and legal action, school boards, legislation, which is what Cotton has done. It's all based on disinformation. It's all based on disinformation that has been led predominantly by conservative media and spread through Facebook and Twitter. And so what we've done is we've looked at this historically, looked at a whole year on Twitter. We went through around 40,000 pieces of content on Facebook. We've taken 10% of that content and tried to show a story about how this has happened, why it has happened, but most importantly, what content is being distributed and how often.

There's always this conversation, and there's been plenty of hearings on the Hill, that there's conservative bias on these platforms and that the tech companies are more liberal and they're instituting these biases. But what our data says is that that's not correct. Actually, the majority of the content being shared overwhelmingly is conservative content, it's the anti-CRT, it's the disinformation, and it's targeting anti-racist in any kind of anti-racist frames, any kind of diversity frames, any kind of discussion about race in this country. So how do you how do you stop that from happening? and these social media platforms, they have a problem that you and I already know with stopping everything from what we saw from the 2020 election to, you know, even keeping our personal information, you know, safe. So how do you uproot that level of disinformation about such an important situation, such an important issue like critical race theory? I think that we have to admit the fact that what

has been happening is that the algorithms have been benefiting and amplifying the disinformation and has been amplifying the conspiracy theorists, has been amplifying predominantly white voices. I mean, that's what our data shows. Because when you look at the data that actually comes from liberal media or media that is in—or any content that's being shared by the black community or black scholars, very little content is distributed or shared. Basically, from a black content perspective, it's 2.8 percent when it comes to how it gets shared. It's 0.9 percent

in comparison to the conservative shares of this content. So that's why we took a look at this. We're trying to say it's more than just an accident that this is happening. It's that the systems of which these companies have built on in terms of their algorithms and their amplifications is allowing this to happen. And one of the ways that we can maybe counter this is to go back to saying, well, how are we elevating

or maybe suppressing the voices that are trying to say, account a narrative to the disinformation? And from what we're seeing is that there's some steps that can be taken, but first these companies have to acknowledge that their algorithms are amplifying and weaponizing the disinformation for clicks and impressions and user base. So from the average user like you and me, should we be advocating to not have these conversations on social media? No, I don't think we should stop having the conversation. I just think that we need to be, one, we need to be talking about it more to counter the

disinformation. We need to report. We need to be, one, we need to be talking about it more to counter the disinformation. We need to report. We need to also report more of that disinformation. But we also need to make sure that we are participating and sharing more of that content. But I will also say this. The media, i.e., the media who is supposed to help us counter that information needs to be doing more as well. Because the content that's going out from even, quote-unquote, left-leaning media, if you look at our report, we go through all the different media through a bias lens, a third-party bias lens that tells us

which media is leaning which direction, whether it's left or right or center. We're noticing that the content that's being shared the most is mostly right-leaning. And if the media decides to talk about it, they're just amplifying the disinformation, giving profiles to people who are already spreading the disinformation, instead of giving profiles to people who are counting the critical race theory frames, telling the truth about what critical race theory is, telling the truth about what critical race theory is, telling the truth of what history is in the school systems. Those people are not being amplified.

The media, by the way, isn't talking about it. We're doing this right now on black media, but we need this on mainstream media as well to have more of our voices to help amplify, to also be shared and distributed on these platforms as well. I want to bring back our panel to pose questions to you, Shereen. Recy, I know that you have been a strong advocate about disinformation across many different conversations.

What's your question for Shereen Mitchell? Hey, Shereen. So good to see you again. Yes, you know, I mentioned earlier, I have an op-ed today in The Grill about disinformation. So, it is something that I feel like we are not talking about enough in our community. Can you kind of explain some strategies, like, for instance, instead of retweeting, maybe screenshotting and, you know, also explain how we interact with some of this inflammatory data like you know the algorithms reward these people because they um they pro they use what you interact with as a basis to show you even more of it so even if you are disagreeing with it it's not necessarily taken into account

whether you approve or not it's still going to push more of that data into your feed so can you kind of just give the the viewers a little bit more insight into how those algorithms reward this um this this inflammatory and disinformation activity yeah definitely so the more you know the more quote tweets more the more retweets on a particular piece of content that is disinformation and you're trying to debunk it it's just going going to help that be amplified. What you want to do is not quote, tweet, or retweet, but to have a different tweet that you are basically criticizing that particular tweet. If you're doing a screenshot, that's fine. But maybe what you do is tell a whole different narrative and do a whole thread

on what critical race theory really is and what's happening in your community that is being done about it. Like to counter the narrative is to help get that content amplified from other people, from other experts that may talk about it, but not to amplify the disinformation content at all in any form. The way in which these things are gamed with the fake accounts, and I think you know about this, pretending to be us and all these other aspects that may share that content, when that happens and other people continue to share or even respond to the fake accounts, it just allows the amplification. And what we want to do is make sure we're amplifying the real people. We want to make sure we want to amplify the real experts. We want to amplify the content and the articles and the media pieces that are about what CRT really is to counter the

narrative that's out there. Right now, disinformation is spread six more times than factual, and we need to change that number around. Absolutely. Absolutely. Dr. Carl, what's your question for Shereen Mitchell? Shereen, this is a difficult one for me because, yeah, I U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General,

TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General,

TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former U.S. Attorney General, TERRANCE HAYES, Former and political power. I mean, when you really

stop to think, and having read the 1776 report and really done a deep dive and looked through, thematically, in my mind, there's no difference between the 1776 report and the 1619 project in terms of still placing American exceptionalism and this idea of this country, this perfectible experiment, at the core of our aspiration. Now, how much of this is our inability or unwillingness to grapple with the fact that the heart of critical race theory opposes everything these white nationalists stand for and that they are fighting for their lives instead of trying to make appeals about logic and facts? This ain't about logic and facts. These white people are circling the wagons. How much of this is about our inability to

have an honest conversation about this? Well, there's a lot to that. I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, not only the honest conversation is like the fact that they don't want Ruby's book in schools. That means that they don't want to talk about what happened to Ruby. They don't want to talk about the mobs, right? We're having a conversation about the fact that we want to pretend. I've said this multiple times as I hear that, hear people say, well, my, you know, my I didn't my I didn't enslave your, you know, your ancestors. Right. That conversation comes up all the time. But your people did. And the truth is, right at this moment, you're still denying the racism that you participate in right now. That's what cancel culture is about. That's what wokeness, you know, anti-wokeness is about. And in my opinion, anti-wokeness and the frameworks of it is saying anti-Black anyway,

because it's a, you know, it's a Black term. So we're basically saying that people in this moment don't want to be held accountable. So we know they don't want to be held accountable for the past of their own ancestors. And so because of that, we we are systematically and we have systematically been coming up with muzzle laws to make sure that we aren't telling those stories. And so we have already had a problem with even telling the true stories in our current history books. And now what they want to do is remove them entirely. Like, when you see states that are literally trying to take MLK out of the books, that

just tells you they don't want to tell the history at all. And so what you are saying is that this country does not want to grapple at all with its history. No matter how many times someone says it, you know, real history needs to be told as if it's not being told now in proper ways. But they're also saying that we want real history, we don't want theories. But what they're doing is they're using the theory, you know, the concept of critical race theory, which is looking at laws, the actual laws in this country that are racist laws like sundown towns. Like they're using they want to use laws right now to remove history. But if you think about a critical race theory, we criticizing the fact that they wanted to remove that history and using the law to remove history. But if you think about it, Critical Race Theory will be criticizing the fact that they wanted to remove that history and using the law to do it.

So we're in a cycle here that is very much about what you just said. I mean, Tom Cotton is really saying out loud, we should never have to rehash any of our history. We should not remember Tulsa. We should not remember slavery. We should not remember Tulsa. We should not remember slavery. We should not remember that even at this moment, some cities still have sundown towns, right?

That's what they're asking for at this point. And what we've been doing is saying, we need to not one, talk about it, but two, get rid of those laws. That's right. Amisha. Well, first of all, I wanted to say thanks for coming on and giving us as much information as you have thus far. As someone who's worked in the K-12 system and has designed policy for both K-12 as well as early childhood education,

we tell facts on Roland Martin and Filter. Critical race theory is not taught in ECE and it's not taught in K through 12 and it's not taught at the university level either. This is a law school theory. And if you haven't been to law school and chosen it as an elective, you're not hearing anything about critical race theory anyway.

What we're seeing is a major pushback from largely conservatives who are upset about the Black Lives Matter protests, who are upset about the reaction of the Globe after they saw the tragedy of George Floyd's murder. What we're seeing is this push from a lot of right-leaning individuals to eradicate Black history, which is American history, from our history books. Be mindful, only a short portion of it was actually ever included to begin with, but they want to get rid of that as well. My question is around what is it that makes them believe

that young people don't already know that America's racist? As a kid, I remember in first grade, one of my close friends who I rode the school bus with held her arm out after inviting me to a birthday party and said that her mom told her that only people who had the same color arm as her could come to her party. When we have people who say this and understand it in the first grade, you cannot tell me that these kids are totally in some mythical

world where they don't see the differences between black and white. Learning how we got there and why this persists is part of understanding who we are as America. Why is it that the right consistently acts as though teaching these things about our history and how we got here is somehow going to make you unpatriotic or is going to destroy this ideal of American greatness? It's around the guilt that they have about what they have done to people like us in this country and what they're telling their children, because that child didn't put her arm out there to do that if her mother didn't tell her that that's who could come to her party. And it's also the same argument that we're having. They're saying, we don't want, you know, these five or six-year-olds to know

anything about race, and we don't want to have that be a discussion, while those same parents are having that discussion at home with their children. They just don't want their children to get punished if they come to school repeating those words, right, on the school bus that you're talking about. Like, that's what they don't want. And they don't want to have curriculums in place that would make it possible for there to have children who can have some kind of recourse if it was to happen to them. Like, what happened in Texas, as an example, was the video of the kids, you know, basically showing themselves saying the N-word. Those kids were being held to account. And that school, the parents came and took over that school board. That's what they're actually talking about. They're just using CRT as the umbrella of the

justification to do so. We're not having the conversations that really need to be had. But what they are saying is that black and brown children should experience racism as it's always been, and that their children should not be held accountable for any of their actions. And neither should they as parents teaching their kids that either. That's the truth. Well, Shereen, you know, it's going to be interesting to see how this continues to play out, especially now that the Senate has said that they're not going to provide federal funding. So it's, you know, when we're seeing all of this different disinformation on social media, you know, going back to something that you said, which I think is very important,

is we have to use our voice, amplify our voice against the conservative view of history of America. And I'm a true advocate of this, Shereen. If this country wants to get better, it has to hold up the mirror to look at itself, to be the good, the bad, the ugly, take it all in. Otherwise, this denial, and going back to Dr. Carr's point, to always be in the space of American exceptionalism, that is going to be the Achilles heel of this country. This country is already on shaky ground, but that is going to be the Achilles heel, that if we get past, we don't see a past, a quote-unquote exceptionalism, and say, oh, no, we're great, and just being in a constant state of denial, we're going to do ourselves more harm than good.

So I appreciate you coming on tonight. What I will say is just really quickly, the lie of American exceptionalism is the biggest American disinformation campaign we've ever had. That's right. That's right. That's right. And they're never never gonna give it up they can't live without it they're never quick but anyway enough Barry White

Shereen Mitchell thank you so much for joining us tonight here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. We truly appreciate it. Thank you for having me again. Absolutely. Folks, we've got to take a quick pause. When we come back, more conversation. So stay with us.

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Mary Spiel is the founder. And so, again, go to Seek.com and use the promo code RMVIP21. George Floyd's death hopefully put another nail in the coffin of racism. You talk about awakening America. It led to a historic summer of protests. I hope our younger generation don't ever forget that nonviolence is soul force right y'all know who Roland Martin is

he got the ascot on he do the news it's fancy news keep it rolling right here rolling right now you are watching rolling martin unfiltered i mean could it be any other way really it's rolling martin welcome back to rolling martin unfiltered i'm your special guest host for Raju Muhammad. Folks, we want to talk about what's happening down in Georgia now, because we're finding out

that there's continued to be some issues in Atlanta, where a black mother claims her child's school segregated classes based on race. Now, Kyla Posey, who filed a federal complaint against Mary Lynn Elementary School, Posey said that she was stunned to find out that the principal, Sharon Briscoe, who is also black, placed her daughter in an all-black class. Posey insisted that her child be placed in a class with white students, but Briscoe said the second grader would be isolated. A recorded conversation between Posey and an assistant principal confirmed separating the student by race was in fact Briscoe's idea.

Now this is a violation of Title IV, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Atlanta public schools conducted a review of the allegations and found appropriate actions were taken, quote, unquote. But Posey was not satisfied and filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. Posey wants the principal and her administration removed from the school. I want to go to our panel, Recy Colbert of Black Women Views, Dr. Greg Carr, Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University,

and Amisha Cross, Political Analyst and Democratic Strategist. Panel, this situation down in Georgia, black class. All right, I'm going to throw this in to you, Doc, because I feel like you might get us off on an interesting start. This mother was upset that her daughter was placed into an all-Black class. Yeah. Okay, I'm trying to hold my tongue. Number one, I don't know enough about this to speak intelligently about the specific circumstances. The questions I would want answered is, if she is not funding this federal court challenge, who is? OK.

That's what I would need to know, because if you know the Harvard case, where the Massachusetts state court said that Harvard's affirmative action policies could remain in place, Robert Mercer and others and some of the same Klan crowd that funded the Fisher, Sarah Fisher's challenge that made it to the Supreme Court are backing them. And it's not in federal court. If it can get to the Klan majority on the Supreme Court, they're looking to dead—you know, to dead out affirmative action. But they did not use white people. They used the argument that they're advocating

for a point of entry that began with Asians who had higher test scores and higher scores. So in this situation, I hope that this is something similar, because if this is as simple as a black parent who I'm afraid may have picked the white doll if she had been given the Clark doll test that went into Brown versus Board and turned out which doll do you like the most, didn't understand that a black woman educator is attempting to help her young black child perhaps see someone black in front of the room, because, remember, there were a number of teachers who said, why don't I have access to all the teachers? Maybe there are only two black teachers. I want to know the race of the teacher in the classroom,

because typically in those classrooms, you don't have teachers who look like the students. So, maybe there was a black teacher, a black woman or a black man. And at that age, which was to create space for us to have access to resources and to develop ourselves as human beings, not to be giving access to white people. You may be doing your child more harm than good, but I don't know enough about the circumstances. I just hope that she's not being put out there by some people who do understand what this is about, which is what? Control over public education and making sure that you can never attack racism in this country in a way that addresses historical wrong,

but you bring it forward in the words of John Roberts, the kind of Klan-adjacent Supreme Court chief justice, that the way you get rid of discrimination based on race in this country is to get rid of discrimination based on race in this country is to get rid of discrimination based on race in this country. You know what they call colorblind constitutionalism. That's something you would see in critical race theory. But as Amisha said, they don't teach it outside of law school. So I just hope that lady, I don't know. Amisha, what's your take on this? Because even though the mom said that she wanted her daughter to be in a class with white students, and the principal is saying the second grader would be isolated. You just talked about the story of what you learned about racism as a girl in the first grade.

I mean, does the principal have a case? Does the principal, you know, making this decision saying, look, I think this is in your daughter's best interest to put in an all-black class. Excuse me, all-black class. I mean, is the principal wrong in making that decision? I don't think that the principal is wrong in making the decision. I do think, again, as somebody who's worked in education at the K-12 level, that that conversation should have happened with the parent before moving the child. And I say that because, to Dr. Carr's point, this could be one of two things. This could be a parent who just assumes that water tastes better or water is colder if it's on the white side.

Or this could be a parent who honestly feels like her child learns more in a diverse—in what she is assuming is a diverse classroom. I would have to know more backgrounding on the school itself. Is this a school that just has very few African-Americans in general? What I do know is that schools across America have a whole lot of white teachers. Over 80% are white teachers. So for there to even be a black head of the classroom in the K-12 level is exceptionally rare. As someone who had only two Black teachers in K-12, one of them was my own mama because I was homeschooled for a while, at the end of the day, I can say that it does make a difference having a Black person lead the classroom,

be it whether you're in an all-white classroom, which I was in outside of homeschooling. I was often the only white kid in my class. And trust and believe, I am in accordance with that principle. There is no way you don with that principle. There is no way you don't notice it. There is no way that you aren't treated differently. And I think that that type of conversation needs to be had with that parent before moving that student. But I also think that we need to talk to black parents differently, because at the end of the day, there are a lot of black parents across this country who assume that if your kid is in a white class or your kid is in a class led by white people,

that they are learning more than they are or their education is going to be better than if they are in a classroom full of black kids. And I can say that that is flat out a lie. What we know is that there are significant resource differences between schools that house predominantly black kids and schools that house predominantly white kids. It is not an education deficit based on teaching. It is not an education deficit based on culture. It is a deficit based on the fact that we have a system that provides more funding, more assets to white schools, to suburban schools than they do to African-American schools or schools that are largely in African-American communities. That is something we need to continue talking to parents about and something that, honestly, we have to, as a nation, do more for because our community schools

are largely black and brown and not white, even though the leadership of them happens to be predominantly white women. Absolutely, absolutely. Speaking of students, I wanna bring up this other story and we're gonna be joined by another very special guest. The concept of defunding the police has turned into a controversial one,

but it simply means reallocating funds away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipality. Now, today, the Advocates for Youth releases brand new report detailing what divestment from police and reinvestment in students should look like. Joining me now is Kinjo Kima, who serves as the associate director of youth organizing for Advocates for Youth. Kinjo, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here tonight. Absolutely. Absolutely. As we, you know, we talked about the situation in Georgia, you just heard, but there still needs to be a lot of work done around, you know,

getting students actively engaged, but more importantly, supporting students. You're saying advocates for youth are saying, look, let's put that money, take the money that we do for the police department and start putting it into students. I can say here in Baltimore that a significant amount of the city's money, our police department has a budget of a little bit over $500 million. It's about $510 million. But there's more money put into public safety than there is in education. And I think, and I've looked in other cities across the country, Kenjo, and found that that could be the trend. So when we're talking about uprooting that trend, it seems like that's almost like a revolutionary act of saying, let's put less money in public safety and more money in education. But there might be some

consequences to that. How do you justify this approach to education and to public safety? KAYLA TAYLOR- Absolutely. So, we support young activists all over the country in organizing for changes related to sexual health and reproductive justice, like comprehensive sex education, in their local communities. So, today, we launched a toolkit for activists in partnership with an amazing organization based in Miami called Power Youth Center for Social Change, about advocating for schools to divest from policing and criminalization, and instead invest in reproductive justice and comprehensive sex education. So we know that police in schools don't keep young people safe, especially youth of color.

Young people need a safe environment to learn everything from math to sex ed to history. And when so many encounters with the police turn violent, schools with police aren't a safe environment for many students. We also know that many public schools are under-resourced. Our schools struggle with funding things that will actually help young people stay safe and healthy, like sex education, nurses, counselors in schools, resources for LGBTQ students. And overall, schools with cops are way more likely to refer young people to law enforcement, and Black students specifically are more likely to be targeted. To me, that alone is

good enough reason to get police out of schools. But we know change just won't automatically happen, and we know we have to come together to demand more as a community for students, which is why we created this toolkit. And so can Joe talk to us? And I'm happy that you brought up this fact about this toolkit. But what do you say to people who say, look, if you start to cut the budget on public safety, on policing, then the dire consequences is that police will, quote, unquote, fall back on doing their job, that crime will essentially go up. You know, how do you—what do you say to folks who think that that is going to be the natural outcome of a budgetary cut? Yeah, that is a common question that people who support abolition and defunding the police hear.

So there can still be accountability and public safety without students potentially being brutalized and armed officers being present in a school. Research and the experiences of countless students, especially students of color, have taught us that while increasing police in schools may create the appearance of safety, the actual effects wreak havoc on school culture and fuel the school-to-prison pipeline. The ongoing criminalization of youth of color does not make them or their schools safer. Interactions with the criminal legal system often lead students to disengage or to drop out of school, both which increase

the likelihood of incarceration in the future. Policing in schools, as you noted, siphons money away from essential services that make students safer and improve school climate, like teachers, counselors, sexual health education, and other intervention programs. So no one calling for the police to be defunded thinks that there should be no mechanisms for public safety. There are unarmed professionals, like counselors, trained to work with young people who can leverage the relationships they already have with students in schools to de-escalate tense situations and repair harm after violent ones. So is a recommendation from Advocates for Youth, is the recommendation that students

learn about conflict resolution, you know, that students become equipped with knowledge on how to resolve, you know, heated situation, is that a part of the recommendation from Advocates for Youth? I think a lot of it is about schools investing in restorative justice and investing in conflict resolution without using violence or force against students, especially students of color. So yes, of course, I think that conflict resolution is a valuable tool for every person to have, but specifically administrators, teachers, other folks who work in schools should invest in learning more about practices like restorative justice instead of criminalization and throwing

young people in cages. DR. KEN JOCHIMA, University of Minnesota, Absolutely. I want to bring our panel back into this conversation. Dr. Khan, we will start with you, sir, for your question for Ken Jochima. DR. KEN JOCHIMA, University of Minnesota, First of all, thank you for the work, Sister Jochima. KEN JOCHIMA, Former U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Attorney General's Office of Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice

and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice

and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice and Justice structural problem that all of this concept of policing is grounded in a fundamental anti-Blackness that is not susceptible to logic or facts or aspirations to live in a better society, but is based on a deep, visceral fear and hatred? How do we get at that underlying kind of core issue in your mind? That is a great question. A lot of this has to do with racism and anti-Blackness in society broadly and in schools, as you're pointing out.

You know, I think when advocating for your police to be removed from your local school district, there's a lot of things to consider. So the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and policing students of color is a key component of the school-to-prison pipeline for Black young people and for other youth of color. Minor infractions in school often lead to students of color being removed from classrooms, being placed in juvenile and adult correction systems. And I think that, as you're pointing

out, a lot of this is rooted in anti-Blackness. Black students face higher disciplinary rates, like higher suspension rates than white students. And I do think that, you know, this is, this work is about undoing racism within the school system as well. Absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely. Great question, Dr. Carr. Let me go to Amisha. Amisha, what's your question for Ms. Kendrick? AMISHA KENDRICK- Thanks so much for being here. I used to serve with the National Black Child Development Institute. One of the reasons why I came to D.C. was literally to drive policy change around the school-to-prison pipeline and to get rid of SROs, to make sure that we decrease a lot

of what we're seeing in terms of pushing out a lot of our young people, specifically those at all grade levels, but putting a special highlight on the youngest of those, our ECE babies. Our early child education babies are pushed out and literally walked out in handcuffs in 80 percent of cases. And I don't think that that's something that is acknowledged enough that the school-to-prison pipeline starts with three-year-olds, not 15- and 16-year-olds. It's bad at the high school level. It's extremely egregious at the ECE level. When we're talking about this and the riskiness or the dangerousness that white America happens

to put on black children, when they adultize a lot of them for basically the exact same behavior that you see among white students, there are a lot of students who can't sit still. There are a lot of students who will talk while the teacher is talking. That's not something you need to call police in for, but that's something that we consistently see happen in these classrooms. What will it take for America to see that not only that this is a level of egregiousness for the exact same behavior, but to actually reduce some of this in our classrooms? Because I think that when most people think of cops being called in, they think it's because of fights.

They think it's because of some type of violent action or guns or something brought in school campuses. And that is simply not the case. In many cases, we've seen kids get walked off in handcuffs because of an outfit they had on, because a teacher didn't like it. How are we going to be able to move past this narrative of risk and danger when it comes to African-American students specifically and the fact that it's extremely pervasive? Again, I've worked with the National Black Child Development Institute in concert with the Department of

Justice around trying to remove these types of policies, but we keep seeing them pop up in rural areas and urban areas across the country. TAMARA KEITH- That is a great question. So the reason we launched this toolkit is to support activists. So we support young activists in their local communities who want to make changes. And this toolkit, which you can find on our social media pages, sort of walks a student activist through the process of activating, organizing for this change, right? Because, as you noted, it's deeply rooted, right? So, you know, instead of having armed police in schools, schools could instead choose to adopt

positive evidence-based approaches to school discipline, like restorative justice models. There's just ways to prevent harm and violence in schools without spending millions on school resource officers. I think about the fact that there's not as much investment in preventing violence by investing in students. For example, according to a report by the ACLU, around 10 million students are in schools with police, but no social worker. Around 14 million students are in schools with police, but no counselor, nurse, psychologist, or social worker.

And I just want to note that, you know, this might seem like a really radical police, but no counselor, nurse, psychologist or social worker. And I just want to note that this might seem like a really radical idea, but there are cities starting to do this. For example, this last year, the Los Angeles Public Schools Board of Education approved a plan that cuts a third of its school police officers. They redirected some of the money towards climate coaches who will work to promote positive school culture and address implicit bias, racism at every secondary school. So I would say we should really focus on preventing harm and violence in schools without spending millions on school resource officers and instead investing in students. And we really hope that folks who are hearing this who want to make the change in their local communities download our toolkit and take action in their local community today because there's so many things that young people, young black people specifically need in public schools that they're not getting right now.

And it will take a mass movement to actually create change. Reese? Thank you, Kenjo, for the work that you're doing. You mentioned the Los Angeles school board. REESE YING. REESE YING. REESE YING. REESE YING. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. REESE YING. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. REESE YING. YAMICHE ALCINDOR.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. YAMICHE ALCINDOR. number one, what students and their parents can do to help shift the culture on the school boards,

because a lot of the policies are starting there or in city council. Are there any tools that your organization is providing to help walk people through that lens of advocacy? Because a lot of those are elected positions or they might be very local appointed positions. And I think that that's a critical area that is really not being addressed right now. Yes. So that is a great question. While I can't specifically speak to getting people elected, I will say that, you know, to me, making these sorts of changes is all about getting people together in your community who care about this, who believe in investing in Black students and students of color, and collectively advocating for change.

So the toolkit itself covers this campaign that Miami-based organization PowerU started to organize for the school district to divest from policing and instead invest in comprehensive sex education. And while the campaign is still ongoing, they have had some success in getting their public schools to improve the sex education. So, you know, the toolkit goes into great detail. And if you're an activist and you want to learn what steps you should take, I highly recommend you download it. But just a brief overview of what you should do if you, you know, care about criminalization in schools and believe that that money could be better spent elsewhere, first, you want to build a team of people who are impacted, right? So, you know, in this example,

in Miami-Dade, young people became activists with PowerU, and they supported them in learning more and in sharing their own experiences with being policed and criminalized in schools. And then out of this group, you know, they started to bring more and more people in. So activism is a lot about building relationships with other stakeholders, right? There's parents, community members, teachers, health professionals, faith leaders, and other groups who also believe that money could be better spent instead of criminalizing people in schools in other ways, like sex education and nurses, right? So it's about building relationships and taking collective action and calling on people in power, specifically if

you're within a high school district, a superintendent, or other folks on the school board to take action, right? So I would say if you're listening to this and you really want to see these changes in your local community, it's critical that you get other people involved and have people publicly demand this change, right? You know, you can find key moments like school board meetings, like hearings, and bring your friends, bring your fellow activists, bring your classmates, bring other people you know to talk to people in power about how important it is that money not be spent, millions of dollars, not be spent on caging and brutalizing students, but it's instead redirected towards resources you need. So I would say just start to build collective people power within your community,

because there's other people who also believe in the same things that we want. There's other people who believe that young Black people deserve to be safe in schools. Absolutely. Kenjo Kima, Associate Director of Youth Organizing for Advocates for Youth. Kenjo, thank you so much. Again, how can people check out your website to get that toolkit and to get more information about the work that you're doing? KENJO KIMA, Associate Director of Youth Organizing for Advocates for Youth. KENJO KIMA, Associate Director of Youth Organizing for Advocates for Youth. Absolutely. So, you can download our toolkit and follow us on social media,

at Advocates for Youth on Instagram or at Advocates Tweets on Twitter. You know, as I mentioned, our organization is really invested in ensuring people divest from policing and criminalization and instead invest in reproductive justice. We know that many political issues are interconnected and that, you know, every time we advocate for comprehensive sex education, for menstrual products, for contraceptives, people in power tell us there's no money. But we know that when they tell us they want to build a jail, when they want to throw young Black people in cages, no one ever questions where the money is,

right? So if you're hearing this and you see these problems in your community and sort of the violence and criminalization that cities and school districts are invested in, I really encourage you to, you know, go to our social media page and download this toolkit to learn more to take action. We can no longer just accept the status quo where we invest into violence instead of investing into caring for students. And we need to demand more for change. So, again, you can go to Instagram, at Advocates for Youth, or at Advocates Tweets on Twitter. I really hope you download it and take action in your local community today to support divesting from police and investing in

reproductive justice, because we know young people need sex education that's honest, complete, and accurate, and so many other resources like nurses and counselors. And it's going to take all of us to really make this change, all the people who believe in it, right? So yeah, I hope you take action today. Thank you so much for having me. Kenjo, Kima, thank you so much for the work and definitely, definitely we'll check you out. Thank you so much for being with us here on Roland Martin and the Builder. Thank you. Folks, we got to take a quick pause for a final break, and then when we come back, just a couple more stories we want to share

and talk about. So, stay with us. A lot more is coming at you right here on Roland Martin. White supremacy ain't just about hurting black folk. Right. You got to deal with it. It's injustice. It's wrong. I do feel like in this generation we've got to do more

around being intentional and resolving conflict. You and I have always agreed. Yeah. But we agree on the big piece. Yeah. Our conflict is not about destruction. Conflict's going to happen. Before Till's murder, we saw struggle for civil rights as something grownups did. I feel that the generations before us have offered a lot of instruction. Organizing is really one of the only things that gives me the sanity and makes me feel purposeful.

When Emmett Till was murdered, that's what attracted our attention. Hello everyone, it's Kiara Sheard. Hey, I'm Taj. I'm Coco. And I'm Lili. And we're Lili. And we're SWB. What's up y'all, it's Ryan Destiny,

and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. R. Kelly, folks. R. Kelly has officially, after three days, R. Kelly finally has a jury. Yes, that's the big news that's coming out. Seven men and five women will decide whether R. Kelly is guilty of a long list of federal sex crimes and racketeering charges. There are six alternates who are all women. The jury's racial makeup is unknown. The jury's identities will remain

anonymous, and they will be partially sequestered. Now, opening statements are set for August 18th and will last about four weeks. Now, according to the federal indictment, R. Kelly is facing 20 years on federal charges that include racketeering, bribery, sexual exploitation of a child, kidnapping, forced labor, man act, violation of the man act, transportation of the man act, coercion and enticement of man act, and the coercion of a minor. Now, how did R. Kelly get here? Here's a brief timeline of how all of this began. On August 31, 1994, he married his 15-year-old protege, Aaliyah Harton.

Then on May through October of 99, during this time, he is accused of illegal conduct with Jane Doe, number two, who met Kelly when she was 16 years old after a member of his entourage approached her at a fast food restaurant. Now, prosecutors say that Kelly filmed their sexual intercourse multiple times, creating child pornography. December 21, 2000, the Chicago Sun-Times publishes the first in a series of articles about R.A. Kelly written by James DeRogatis and Abdon M. Polish. The pair reported in their first article that Chicago singer and songwriter R.A. Kelly used his position of fame and influence as a pop superstar to meet girls as young as 15 and have sex with them, according to court records and interviews. February 1, 2002, the Chicago Sun-Times anonymously receives a copy of a videotape

that appears to depict sex acts between R. Kelly and a girl who is believed to be 14 years old. The newspaper turns the video over to the police. Now, June 5th, 2002, a Cook County grand jury indicts Kelly on 21 counts of child pornography based on the video received by the Sun-Times earlier in 2002. The judge has banned the public and all media from the courtroom due to the coronavirus. The trial will be viewed via a closed circuit camera in two overflow rooms at the courthouse. I want to go to my panel to talk about this recent covert. Dr. Greg Carr, Amisha Cross.

Who are killing? All right, Amisha, let me let me let me start this one with you. Dr. Carr, I see you shaking your head, brother. I see you shaking your head. But Amisha, the fact that we are at this point, you know, jury selection, I'm trying to make sense of it all because this is years of abuse. This is a litany of charges. What do we do with this?

I honestly thank Lifetime and the Surviving R. Kelly documentary. And I say that because as a native Chicagoan, as someone who literally worked at the school that R. Kelly used to prey on young people at, again, he did this in the 90s up to the early 2000s. He would literally come to this school and wait for up to the early 2000s. He would literally come to this school and wait for kids to get out. These were young teenagers. And then when he was banned by Chicago public schools from being on this campus, he went down the street to the McDonald's to catch those young kids at the McDonald's. This is a man who spent the better

half of three-plus decades preying on teen girls. He would find them. He would flash his wares as a celebrity. And he would get them caught up in these illicit sex acts. And in many cases, he would hold them hostage in his home. They were not allowed to have conversation with friends or family. They were not allowed to go outside without permission and without being with R. Kelly or some member of his entourage. This was a man who spent the entirety of his career preying on extremely young girls. I don't say young women because these weren't women. These were children. And at the end of the day, this is a man who did it in broad daylight.

Everyone knew. Some people joked about it. Even after he got caught in that pee tape, literally urinating on a 14-year-old girl, he was allowed that same year to participate in the Babilican parade, the largest Black parade in this country. The Babilican parade is a big part of Chicago history. It's also a parade that literally marks back to school. When you are chosen as the grand marshal of a parade that is about children, after you get caught urinating on a child, it is beyond words to me. So I'm thankful that at this point, he's finally going to be taken to task for his litany of crimes. But honestly, this is a long time coming. And the man, quite frankly, disgusts me. Amisha, I know that we heard about the girls,

but now there was some new allegations of him sexually abusing a 17-year-old boy. Do you think that will change the dynamics of this case? And I know that was even a question that was posed to the jurors about, you know, seeing video of same-sex. Does that change the dynamics of this case? Does this make this case even bigger? Well, I think you have to understand the detail of that, because when it first came out, people alleged that it was some type of homophobic thing. And there were a lot of people who jumped on and said, oh, well, all his other victims are girls. When we dig deeper, the allegation is that a young man was actually in the video with some of these girls,

and he was watching them and filming them. Not that R. Kelly himself was committing sexual acts with this teenage boy. But it is still a crime to film or to instruct another teen to engage in sexual activity with, again, underage girls. This guy, I think, was 17 at the time. The girls that were in that video were 14. By state law, that is also a very large crime because they are not of consenting age. Yeah, absolutely. Recy, do you think that these jurors will deliver R. Kelly justice fairly? And given that his supporters will be allowed to attend outside the court, what's your take on that? Well, I mean, I served on jury duty before, and I feel like I was a very fair juror.

That's why you have—you're supposed to be judged by a jury of 12 of your peers. But I would imagine that not everybody on that jury is going to know who he is or know any of his background, and they're going to judge the evidence—judge him based on his evidence. But, you know, a jury system is not a perfect system. Neither is the justice system. But, you know, that's what we have. But, you know, it's now his finally his day of reckoning or, you know, his now his second time of reckoning because he was acquitted on his prior charges. And it's time for him to be held accountable. It's pretty disgusting that it took this amount of carnage in his over decades before it to rise to this occasion. As Amisha said, I think that documentary, Surviving R. Kelly, was very much something that transformed the way that people looked at him and were willing to hold him accountable. And just the last thing I'll say is to Black people, listen, R. Kelly is not ours to save or to cape for.

He's not ours that they are going after somebody in our community. He is in the league of his own as an alleged pedophile, serial rapist, allegedly, and so many heinous things that he's been accused of and there's ample evidence of. And so I would just encourage Black people. I know sometimes, you know, I've seen it over the years. Oh, what about Harvey Weinstein? What about this person? What about that person? A lot of people felt that, you know, Bill Cosby was vindicated and exonerated. Please, let's just not turn this into they're taking another Black man down. I know I'm going to get fried up at YouTube, child, because they always think I'm just here to dump on Black men, which is ridiculous.

But this is not something that we need to own as a community, as a person that we need to wrap our arms around. We need to deal with the rampant sexual abuse. I'm not going to say maybe rampant is not the right word, but we need to deal with the problem of sexual abuse within our own communities and the fact that predators like R. Kelly are able to roam free, as Amisha said, in broad daylight for decades. That's an issue, and we have to address it. And before you get to Dr. Carr, I will say this to add to Recy's point just for a second. I don't think you should take back rampant.

At the end of the day, 9 in 10 Black girls, girls who are under 14, have been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted in our community. So we have to be very real and very honest about what is going on. And we cannot afford to sweep it under the rug because our young girls are suffering. Thank you. And I was going to ask you very quickly, do you think that now that we're at this point and that his trial is going to be made public via media, does it force us to have a different conversation around sexual abuse and sexual, you know, even older men-girls relationships? I mean, does it force us to have some different conversations at this point? Well, I see Dr. Carr, he's shaking his head, and I'm assuming he's probably going to say what I would say, which is I don't actually think so.

I don't think that we're ready in our community to change the language and the way that we speak about how Black girls, to Amisha's point, are preyed on. You know, they're called fast. You know, they're overly sexualized, even from a very, very young age. And, you know, they're kind of, you know, portrayed as vixens and as the ones who are the predators instead of the ones that are being preyed upon. And, you know, they're kind of, you know, portrayed as vixens and as the ones who are the predators, instead of the ones that are being preyed upon. And so, no, I don't think that this particular case is going to change that. I think it's going to take a lot of soul-searching within our community to decide that we're going to

protect black women and black children. And it's not only black girls that are victims of sexual abuse. It's also Black boys and Black men. So, unfortunately, I don't have any faith of us having that reckoning. Like I said, that reckoning didn't happen with any of these other high-profile cases. And so I don't expect that that's going to be the case now. You know, he's not at the point where he can make music to distract people. But, I, even when you look at it, and I'm not trying to compare whatsoever in terms of the scale of the crimes, but if you look at what's happened with the baby and some of the Tori Lanes, who allegedly shot Megan Thee Stallion, and she was demonized.

And she's a Grammy award-winning rapper, super famous, has a lot of fans, very beloved. And yet she was turned into the villain in this. And she still is villainized over her own assault. So, no, in our community, we do not protect black women. We do not protect black children, men, boys and girls. And R. Kelly is not going to change that. But at a minimum, his victims hopefully will receive justice and vindication for the abuses that they've suffered. Dr. Carl, what's your take, sir? Recy just said, I agree.

It's not going to change anything. I mean, you know, I believe that—I believe is the wrong word. Community doesn't exist along these artificial lines. There are some real gendered issues in terms of violence. There's some real gender issues. But when you talk about DaBaby, I don't care whether it's DaBaby. I don't care whether it's Megan Thee Stallion. I don't care whether it was Cardi B allegedly drugging people.

Not allegedly. I guess she said she did. Anyway, my point is the idea of sex and violence is essential and central. And in terms of this changing the dialogue, yeah, I mean, BNR Kelly certainly brought these things, you know, kind of to focus again and back. But, you know, looking at the jury selection in Brooklyn, realizing that on that jury of seven men and five women who they've sequestered now, we don't know much more about that. But I know in terms of the Batson challenges, you know, lawyers will tell you about Batson challenges. A Batson challenge is when you

challenge—you say either the defense or the prosecutor struck someone from the jury pool based on race. And there were three Batson challenges—Batson v. Kentucky is the case—that the defense said that the prosecutor tried to get rid of three black women out of the jury pool. And so, then the judge has to ask the prosecutor of the defense why you did it. And in the case, the judge said, OK, that survives the Batson challenge. It's pretty weak, because what the prosecution said, they asked them some questions. And the response was, one of the jurors said, prospective jurors, well, people, you know, have their own ways, and they can do what they want. Somebody else said,

who was struck, well, they willingly went over there and chose to stay with him. Now, on the side of the prosecution, they accused the defense of trying to get rid of seven people out of the jury pool who were white. And those survived Batson challenges as well. Now, where am I going with that? And this is the part where I say it's difficult to imagine where this is going to change. At the end of the day, class is going to play a role in this. Can this jury be hung?

Is R. Kelly going to be convicted of any of these charges? If you put a gun in my head and said, predict yes or no, and you can only pick one, I'm going to go with no. Why? Because, to quote perhaps the most important in terms of making this very essential and putting it where we can get it, theoretical analysis of this, the great Huey Freeman in the boondocks. Hey, what the hell is wrong with you people? Every famous Negro that gets arrested is not Nelson Mandela. Yes, the government conspires to put a lot of innocent black men in jail on felicitous charges,

but R. Kelly is not one of those men. We all know the Negro can sing, but what happened to standards? What happened to bare minimums? You a fan of R. Kelly? You want to help R. Kelly? Then get some counseling for R. Kelly. Introduce him to some older women. Hide his camcorder.

But don't pretend like the man is a hero and stop the damn dancing. Act like you got some damn sense, people. And I have no hope. As long as we tangled up in this culture of violence, whether it be Hugh Hefner or Harvey Weinstein, whether it be Woody Allen or Cuomo. As long as we're in this society

and as long as our young people go, I don't give a damn whether it's Lil Nas X or Megan Thee Stallion. I see what we dance to. And if one of them people on the jury, R. Kelly's going to walk free. Don't get mad in advance. Just understand where we are.

Mm. Mm. Mm. That's all I can say, Dr. Carson. At this point, we will have to see, but I think that, not to everyone's point, that we have to disassociate ourselves from certain individuals within our community. I see it on social media all the time. He's a musical genius. I mean, it rubs, but I'm listening to this. We just watched Kevin Hart and Snoop

narrate the Olympics for Peacock. Do y'all remember when the chronic came out and you heard the drum? It ain't but a drink. I watched Snoop walk two black women on chains like dogs down a red carpet. You don't get to be rehabilitated until you have come. In fact, not even after that,

but you must now come to a tribunal on this. We're not serious. I don't know. We make recoupment for recovery from slavery as long as we act like we don't have eyes. Jesus. All right, let me stop. Keep it going, Dr. Carr. No, I was going to say, Dr. Carr is making great points here. I think that part of the issue is with some of our Black legends, our Black entertainers, our black actors, people can't separate the talent from the backstage personality. And I think that at the end of the day, we have so many individuals. And it's not just R. Kelly.

We've heard allegations from various people, one of which decided to go to a country where he cannot get extradited from and is currently still making money. So at the end of the day, this isn't something that's new in hip hop culture and rap culture and sports or athletic culture. There are a lot of men who just happen to be abusers. Some of them are cousins, uncles, boyfriends, all of those things. And I will say this, the black community as a whole has done a very good job of shielding these men who are often perpetrators of violence against young women, young girls, in many cases, young boys as well. And we need to do better at holding them accountable, period. To Dr. Carr's point, I think that at the end of the day, there's just such a fierce push and protection of men who have been accused of things that they have not done. We've

got a history of that. Typically, the accuser was a white woman. But in addition to that, there's also been a criminal justice system that has preyed on black men. But guess what? There are also a whole bunch of damn black men who prey on young black girls and boys. And we need to make sure that we are putting those people under the jail, because if they get away with one, they're going to keep going down that line and attacking other children and young women. We cannot allow that to happen because way too many of our young kids have their lives destroyed and are going through trauma for the rest of their lives based on something that happened to them when they were in their youth. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We're going to have to end it right there, but I want to thank each one of you for being with me tonight to talk about these stories. Risi Colbert of Black Women Views, Dr. Greg Carr,

Chair, Department of the Afro-American Studies at Howard University, and Amisha Cross, Political Analyst and Democratic Strategist. Thank you so much, family, for joining us today. Good job. Thank you, brother. Folks, you know, if you enjoyed this conversation, then we want your support.

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