#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Chaos at Ga. Capitol; Netflix to spend $100M on diversity; 1st Black woman to run nat'l park police

Episode Date: February 27, 2021

2.26.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Chaos at Ga. Capitol; Netflix to spend $100M on diversity; 1st Black woman to run nat'l park police; Alabama lawmaker seeks harsher penalties for riots; Oklahoma City cop shoots man in the back three times; School choice and racial equality; Black Lives Matter opens up about its financesSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man.

We met them at their homes. We met them at the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, February 26, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, drama in Georgia,

where a state trooper literally moves a black state rep out of the way while she is protesting voter suppression. We'll talk with a State Representative Parker Cannon about that. In addition, we'll also talk with State Representative Shannon, who gave an empowering speech on the floor of the Georgia House saying, why were Republicans trying to keep local governments from defunding the police? I thought Republicans believed in small government and local control. We'll talk with her as well. Today, the National Park Service announced they've named Pamela Smith as Chief of the US Park Police.

Mickey Smith, the first African American woman to head the federal agency. Was she first due? Body cameras for all of her subordinates. We'll also discuss a new bill passed by the Maryland Senate Committee that would create criminal penalties carrying years of potential prison time for Maryland police officers who

intentionally used excessive force. In Oklahoma City, an officer who used excessive force and shot a 60-year-old man in the back three times is facing a charge of first-degree manslaughter. In Alabama, a lawmaker is proposing harsher consequences for individuals who participate in protests that turn violent. Black lawmakers are opposing the bill, saying this is just an attempt to stop people from fighting injustice.

We'll also talk with Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter in LA, to discuss how much money the organization raked in last year and what the organization is doing to help members of the black community who have been crippled by the pandemic. We'll also speak with Lenny McAllister, CEO of the black community who have been crippled by the pandemic. We'll also speak with Linda McAllister,

CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools about school choice and racial equity. Folks, it is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the biz, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling, Martin.

Rolling with rolling now. Yeah, yeah. It's Rollin' Martin. Yeah, yeah. Rollin' with Rollin' now. Yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Rollin' Martin now. Martin. The battle for $15 an hour minimum wage continues in Congress. The Senate parliamentarian announced that Democrats could not include that into their COVID-19 relief bill. Yet some Democrats believe that Vice President Kamala Harris can actually simply overrule the parliamentarian saying that's just guidance. Is that the real case here? What's going on? Let's go to my panel. Candace Kelly, legal analyst. Rob Richardson, host of Disruption

Now podcast. Michael Imhotep, host of the African History Network. I want to start with you, Candace, because this has been a major battle that's been going on back and forth. Democrats campaign on this. You have Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin, Christian Sinema, who they say they're not going to get rid of the filibuster, which now means Democrats need to have 60 votes. Now, when it comes to this whole issue of overruling the parliamentarian, in order to do that, some experts say they got to get 60 votes to even vote on it. And so it's going all back and forth. And then others are saying that, no, Senator Kamala Harris doesn't, excuse me, Vice President Kamala Harris doesn't need to have the power to overrule the parliamentarian. And they also cite when Trent Lott was a Senate majority leader, he fired the

Senate parliamentarian who gave a ruling that they disagree with. So they move forward. So it's all this back and forth. It's just it's curious to me how Democrats want to play by a set of rules that the Republican counterparts have no problem ignoring when they feel like it. That's right. And not only do they have no problem ignoring it when they feel like it, but they ignore it when it actually benefits them. So this is something that they're going to have to get used to. We're looking at the first female vice president who is African-American. And for Republicans, this is something that it's hard to give up the power in terms of what she is able to do. We know that she's going to be the deciding factor in this process. But when we look

at the numbers and we look at all these games that are going on, they are holding out not simply because or not only because of the fact that they might have a problem with the contents of the bill, but ultimately they have a problem with Kamala Harris and that decision making process that she's going to have the final say in. This is something that we've known that we've seen coming for a long time. And now that it's here, Republicans can't play the game the way that they've played it in the years, in the former years, where other people who were in the position of the vice president were able to make the same decision. So that's really what we're dealing with here. Rob, what do you make of this? And what, again, you have very progressive Democrats who are saying, look, use all of your power.

Say, fine, that's advice you gave. We can overrule it. Then others will say, well, if we do this, that's going to lead to an appeal. Okay, fine. Fine. Lead to an appeal. Yeah, I mean, look, this is something we keep going back and forth over and over again. I don't even think it's a progressive thing. It's a do you want to use power thing?

And so we know that, you know, Democrats get in office. They have to go to the highest standards, make up rules that are even have higher hurdles. And then Republicans can get off as they do whatever they feel like. So I guess we're like this is the point, though. The American people do not care. This is what they know. They know that the Democrats won the presidency. They know the Democrats won the Senate. They know that Democrats are in charge of the House. And even if it's by one vote, you know what? They were able to get a lot of stuff done with one vote with Donald Trump as president. No one wants to hear the excuses. No one. No one cares. The Senate makes up its own rules. Make up rules so you can get things accomplished. No

one else cares. That's what I think the people want to see happen. About 60 to 70 percent of people want this bill to pass. That's what they need to take to Joe Manchin. Everybody else say, do you want to be responsible for killing this bill? This will guarantee your defeat and I will help you and I will not help you in your reelection. That's how you get things done. Democrats have to get more comfortable moving things forward in power because otherwise no one's going to care about it. You have to get things accomplished when you have power in the story story. Michael, again, I made the point yesterday and I saw some folks, they were commenting on this on the segment that we did where I said, Democrats, if you don't pass these things, you're asking to get your butts kicked in 2022. You can't go out and make an argument to people.

If you want to replace, if you want a Democrat to replace Rob Portman, if you want a Democrat to replace Richard Burr, if you want a Democrat to replace Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, if you want a Democrat to replace Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania. I mean, the reality is Democrats have an opportunity to expand their majority. You're not going to be able to go out and convince people, hey, if y'all come out and vote and do all you can to put us in power, we're going to do what's right. Not when you had the shot. Right. You know, when you have power, you have to wield the power because you don't know

how long you're going to have it. But the you know, I talked about this last night on my show, Roland. There is an element that. There's a tool that I don't haven't heard anybody mention yet, period, in any of these discussions. That tool is economic withdrawal, targeting certain corporations that back some of these Republicans who are standing in the way and speaking out against the $15 an hour. And what I mean by that is that, you know, you know this, Roland, FEC.gov, Federal Elections Commission, it lists the corporations that donate to people who run for federal office, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and President. We need to really look at, because see, as Dr. Greg Carr said yesterday on your show, there are no rules. There are no rules, okay? So we really have to take a page from Dr. King, April 3rd, 1968. I've been to the mountaintop. He said we have to always anchor our external

direct action with the power of economic withdrawal. If you look at what the CEO of Costco said today, they're raising their minimum wage to $16 an hour. And he said he can't see why $15 an hour, raising their minimum wage to $15 an hour. And he said he can't see why. No, Costco's going to $16. Yeah. Costco's going to $16. That's what I thought.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. He said he can't see why Senator Lindsey Graham has a problem with raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. It hasn't been raised in 12 years. So we really need to look at, put it, four, five, six key corporations that help to back some of these Republicans financially. We need to really look at putting economic pressure on them. And then the companies like Costco, who support the measure,

have them really speak out as well. Because the last time the federal minimum wage was raised was 12 years ago, and that was raised by Democrats. And it was raised to $7.25 an hour. And this will lift millions of Americans out of poverty, especially millions of African Americans. So there are no rules. You have to use the power while you have it. Absolutely. And for folks to understand, when we talk about how do you use the power, that's what Republicans are doing right now in Georgia. What they have been doing, folks, is, I mean, they are absolutely targeting the issue of voter suppression. They are passing and introducing bills at a furious pace that just in many ways is going to greatly change what happened in that state. Why? Because they are angry that

black folks voted. They're angry that black people took advantage of various rules. So check this out. Ari Berman tweeted this here. Republicans go to my iPad. Republicans on Georgia's Senate Ethics Committee. This is an hour ago. Just voted to repeal automatic voter registration, which five million of the state's seven point six million voters used to register more egregious voter suppression in Georgia. OK, folks, do you see this here? Then he also tweeted this here. Georgia Senate Ethics Committee also voted to repeal no excuse absentee voting, which 1.3 million people used in 2020, including 450,000 Republicans. Republicans trying to undo everything in state that makes it easy to vote. Do you hear that? That, folks, is so you understand. And so check this out. Ari also tweeted this here. Press releases from Brad Raffensperger,

who's a Republican. Brad, that Georgia has gold standard trifecta of automatic voter registration, early voting, and no excuseexcuse absentee voting. He writes, Georgia Republicans have now passed bills through committees to repeal or restrict all three. If you want to understand what's going on, that explains what Republicans are doing. Now, folks, what's been happening there, black caucus members have been leading the effort in this whole deal. They've been battling not just on voter suppression, but also on Republicans who want to use the power in the state legislature to tell local governments how they must do their jobs.

One of those areas, defund the police. State Representative Rita Shannon spoke on the floor of the Georgia House. Wait till you see this video where she lays out, okay, and just blisters, blisters Republicans for their nonsense. And I thought they were all about local control. Watch this. In committee, it was said that this bill was to defeat calls to defund the police, which is really just black and brown communities saying that over-policing leads to more police killings and police brutality in our communities. And there are better ways for the money to be spent and let us figure that out in our communities. Republicans know that these issues are connected, and that's the reason why you didn't want to talk

about this bill yesterday, because it was the one-year anniversary of Ahmaud Arbery being killed. So you know that this stuff is connected. But let's talk about the real animus for these bills, because Georgia's not the only state that's seeing one of these bills. These bills are being filed across the country by Republicans. And I think that this is a weird PR campaign by Republicans to absolve themselves of the fact that domestic terrorists from their party went up to the Capitol on January 6th and killed and maimed police officers. Defund the police has never killed any police officers. Defund the police has never maimed any police officers. So Republicans, you can continue to run these weird PR campaigns if you

want to. Democrats will continue to press for justice and to make sure that we don't see any more of the following. Eric Gardner's, Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Samuel Dubose, Freddie Gray, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rashard Brooks, Jamarion Robinson, Shalee Tilson, Tanisha Anderson, Alexia Christian, Maya Hall, Nick Thomas, and many more. I'll yield the next comment. Now, folks, that's one issue we have to talk about. We're going to speak with Representative Shannon in just a moment. Also today, you had protesters in the state capitol protesting Senate Bill 531, dealing with, again, all of these voter suppression bills.

Representative Park Cannon is standing with those protesters. State trooper speaking through a bullhorn. She decides to stand in front of the bullhorn. Why is this state trooper physically touching her for no reason whatsoever? Watch this. Attention. I am Sergeant Longwood of the Georgia State Patrol.

You are in violation of 1611. 4.1 Step aside. 4.1 don't step aside. Yes, first immediately. arrested. Representative Cannon steps in front of the bullhorn. State Trooper moves her out of the way.

For what reason? All the other trooper had to do was simply raise his bullhorn. She wants to blow her ears out. That's on her. She's demanding an apology from that state trooper. He's saying, I'm not going to apologize. Joining us right now on Roland Martin Unfiltered is Georgia State Representative Park Cannon, as well as Georgia State Representative Renita Shannon.

Glad to have both of you here. Let's deal with this because all these things are tied together. And Representative Cannon, I'm watching the video. I don't understand the deal. You stand in front of the bullhorn. All he had to do was raise the bullhorn, go to the left or to the right. Why did that trooper think that he had the power to touch you, to physically move you out of the way? And I saw you talking to him.

What was that exchange about? They feel like they have the power because earlier today they were doing that to unarmed other people in the state capital specifically a black man who was speaking up about the need to stop house bill 531 they do it because this is what they do and but okay where i come from i'm just trying to understand where a cop has the right to touch someone, to move them out of the way. Now, if you are arresting someone, if you are ordering them to move and they refuse to do so, but to physically move you out of the way, under what right do they have to do that?

They have no right. These are the microaggressions in policing that we speak fervently against, just like on the House floor yesterday against the House bill, making it clear that they are standing in between a conversation on increasing transparency in policing and limiting transparency in policing? Well, people look, I've always warned our folks constantly. I've warned them that when there is black success is always followed by white backlash. I warn folks in Florida after Amendment 4 was passed. Don't think for a second Republicans are going to accept this. And what if they do? Change the law. I mean, it's difficult saying, oh, you got to pay all your fines and fees to get your right to vote back.

After November, Biden-Harris wins. Then Warnock and Ossoff win. I said, y'all, it's coming. These folks are going to come after black people in a fierce way because they cannot stand losing. And that's exactly what you're seeing. Representative Shannon, when you were on the floor talking about defund the police, and I keep saying this, Republicans love talking about local control, local control, big government, get government out of our lives. Don't tell us what to do. Now in the Georgia legislature, they want to do the exact same thing Alabama did,

Mississippi did, Texas did, Missouri did. They want to be able to say, no, no, we're going to tell you in your cities how you should do your job as opposed to the local leaders that voters voted. They really are saying to all those cities in Georgia with black leadership, we're going to tell y'all what the hell to do. Absolutely. And they've had a long history of doing this. This is not the first time. I like to talk about how how much nice white racism happens at the Capitol. These people want to silence black people through the legislation that they pass.

And then they want to have you in the ante room. And it's not going to work. Right after Brian Kemp was after the election from Stacey Abrams, I led a legislator boycott to say, basically, you're not going to run these racist, homophobic, sexist campaigns and then just act like it didn't happen. And you want everybody to attend your speeches. It's not going to happen. You have to call these people out because they really want to avoid full accountability for the types of legislation that they pass. And so to your point, these defund the police bills, you know, the governor comes down and shouts, well, in Georgia, we back the blue. That's not what happened on January 6th. And I let them know.

And on that particular point right there, which is which is a critical one, that all these Republicans. Yeah, a cop was killed on January 6th. One had an eye gouged out. One lost three fingers. Several committed suicide. But you know what? They're patriots. Those were patriots. And we still stand by Donald Trump.

I have been saying white fear, the changing of the demographic of this country, the changing of the look of this country is causing these white folks to say, no, we are going to try to guarantee that we are in control and holding power for as long as we can. So if they're able to gerrymander districts, voter suppression, if they're able to sit here

and the crap that's happening, and why these idiot Democrats don't want to get rid of the filibuster, The Republicans, their deal is we might be the minority, but we want to be able to control policy in this country. And if we control the courts, anything y'all pass, we can overrule as well. So people better buckle up to understand what's really happening here. And Georgia is a ground zero for what we're talking about. And I think the main thing that they are resisting is that, you know, for so long, our government, and it still looks this way today, but for so long, our government has mostly been made up of the people who have been able to vote

the longest, and that is white men. And so they are resisting the fact that now you have voices like myself and Representative Cannon coming in saying, hey, this stuff, it's not that this stuff is divisive. It's not that, you know, it's not that this stuff is divisive. It's not that, you know, you're upset that you're hearing new voices that were previously suppressed. We're happy to be those voices. We know what happens in our communities. And that's why I read them the names of just a few black people who have been killed by police. We know what's happening in our communities. We know what we need. And you're not going to tell us that we don't know what's happening in our communities.

Representative Cannon, we spent about five weeks in Georgia. We were on the ground going all around the state, live streaming, covering these rallies because I told our viewers we got to be there. It's important that we can't just, we can't ignore what's happening there. Then I said, we got to continue. We got to be in these places. And so what is the pushback like? Republicans control both chambers. They control the governor's mansion. But what's the plan to fight this, to battle this? Because for them, they're just going to run a rough shot and just pass these things left and right. It's the fiscal impact. House Bill 531 will cost the state of Georgia $32 million to implement. That's not even including any of the lawsuits that will follow very soon after the governor, if he does, signs it.

The rest of the voter suppression bills, there's up to 78 today, many of them 30 pages long. That newest one, all of those together, would cost our state $57 million, still minus lawsuits. So what we really are hitting home at is our state cannot afford to not invest in labor payments right now, health care right now for people. Real life people are going through and we're standing in the gap. So today, yesterday, we were standing in the gap for our constituents. We'll go back on Monday and we'll go towards crossover day, which is only two legislative days away. And you just have to get the bills from the House to the Senate or vice versa by March 8th. And the other thing that you should know is it's not just this year, the result of the November election. They have been passing voter suppression bills for as long as I've been elected.

I served on the Governmental Affairs Committee, which deals with election law. And my first year was 2017. Serving on that committee, there was not a year that I did not see bills come through that were meant to target black and brown voters to make sure that voices get silenced. So they've been at this for a long time. And people like Brad Raffensperger, Gabriel Sterling, they are no heroes. These are the same people who would say that Trump is telling a big lie about fraud in the election.

Yes, he is. But also, they were. Gabriel Sterling and Brad Raffensperger, they've all been a part of it, telling the lie about voter fraud. And it's all just been an attempt to suppress black and brown voters who they knew were eventually going to show up in elections in a big way. What are y'all calling on citizens of Georgia to do? And what do you want folks around the country to also be doing? We are calling on citizens to, we're calling on folks in Georgia to let the governor know that we don't want these bills. Let the Speaker of the House know that we don't want these bills. But more importantly, until your earlier point, the segment that you were talking about before with

removing the filibuster, we need the Biden administration to make good on the promise that they will pass some federal bill that will ensure that we can have free and fair elections across the country. We need that because you see in states like Georgia, these people are determined to make sure that black and brown voices cannot be heard through free and fair elections. So we're asking people to reach out to the people who represent them at the federal level to say, this needs to be a priority. Yes, I understand you're doing COVID. And after you do COVID relief, the very next thing that has to happen is you have to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. You have to pass SR1. We need some type of protection. It's all connected. We want people to share their stories. If you voted absentee, if you voted by

mail, if you voted in person, if you voted early, we need your legislator to know your stories so that they can directly address and say, you cannot attack Sunday voting. We can anecdotally say that we'll attack polls to the polls. But what we can really also say is I have heard from 36 constituents in the past hour who said that they favored that style of voting. And in this moment, while we're still in a pandemic, we're begging people to wash their hands and to just take care and precaution, but still access their right to vote. We must meet them with the resources necessary for them to do that. So stay close to your legislator. There are three legislative days left for this one big bill, House Bill 531, to move from the House to the Senate.

And even if that bill does not move, there are bills already moving back to the House from the Senate that have been passed, just like repealing automatic voter registration at the DMV, where we go to get our licenses renewed. So, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. I was just going to say, you know that this stuff is so racist, what they're doing, because many of the things that they are now legislating against are proposals that Republicans actually push.

So now they are trying to say you need an excuse to vote absentee. Well, Republicans are the ones who took away having to have an excuse to vote absentee in 2005. So they were comfortable with really expanding the franchise to make sure that more people could participate in voting when it was mostly their voters, when it was mostly white voters. But now that we have shown up in such in the biggest way we've ever shown up in elections in Georgia, now absentee voting is filled with fraud. Now there's an issue with the drop boxes. Now there's an issue with how we vote in Georgia. Now there's all these things that need to be fixed. But nobody had any of these concerns prior to November or prior to the November election. It's clear what they're trying to do.

So where are the state's white Democrats? White progressives, are they out there protesting? Are they at the state capitol? Are they I mean, are they using their voices? They are. They're trying to. It's also very difficult right now because the speaker of the House definitely is using COVID as a vehicle to make sure that the public does not really have to be in the Capitol and really to make their voices heard. So, I mean, these folks, they do things like committee meetings around so that it's hard for constituents to come show up and use their voice in committee meetings. They play all kinds of tricks, and they have been for years, to make sure that it's really hard for the public. Are there any plans to do, granted, I know it's COVID,

but mass rallies to show support? Of course, we were there, like I say, all over the place, whether it was Columbus and Albany and Savannah, there in Atlanta and other places as well. Are there plans to do demonstrations across the state, a show of force? Because, again, what people don't realize is next year they are afraid of Stacey Abrams beating Brian Kemp.

They are afraid of Pastor Raphael Warnock winning a full six-year term. And so what I am saying to folks is we can't simply just sit back and relax. We have to understand that they're doing this because they look at, they see the numbers. And the Republican leader in the House, I think it was in the House, said, if we allow this type of voting, Republicans will lose every election. So they're not trying to make an argument on policy. They're trying to say, how can we strip away as

many, make it impossible or difficult for folks to vote because we can win by the margins. There are rallies. There was a rally yesterday and there was a rally earlier today, which is what led to the incident with Representative Cannon. So people are showing up to try to make their voices heard.

Over 20 statewide organizations wrote a letter when the bill was quickly changed overnight to say, stop this. Seriously, our entire state is watching you, and we will continue to mobilize our members about this issue because this is one that should be based on evidence, not on conspiracy theories that have been peddled again through legislative committee hearing and now a legislative draft. It is so critically important that everyone continue to mobilize. Right now, the state capitol in Georgia is under construction. It is COVID-19. It is a pandemic. We want people to still engage with us on the live stream, committee hearings, but we know that there is a level of separation that is happening right now, which is why sometimes we go on TikTok and we tell people about the voter registration repeals because we want people to actually see

what is happening. It's going to take a really big strategy to stop this bill before March 8th, but we actually believe that we can do it. Today, we saw a bill got pulled from the floor because there were members who were down protesting, so they didn't have enough to vote. So it'll be interesting to see how these two weeks go. And if these Republicans can understand, you are attacking your own voters as well. Five million of the seven million registered by the DMV. Why take it away now? We need Democrats to get tough, kill the filibuster, and pass some federal piece of legislation that protects states like Georgia and other states because we're not the only ones who need this help and support. We need Democrats

to get tough, kill the filibuster, use the power that we gave you when we all came out to vote and pass some type of bill that will protect us to make sure that we can have free and fair elections. Representative Cannon, Representative Shannon, we certainly appreciate it. Y'all keep swinging hard and we'll keep covering this as well. Keep us abreast of what's going on and whatever help we can provide. We certainly will be there for you. Thank you, Roland. And we love your show. You are the truth. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you very much.

Let's go back to my panel. I want to start with you, Rob. What Democrats in Washington have better understand is this here. Their fellow Democrats are under assault in these states, not just Georgia, but Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania. We could go on and on and on because Republicans see what's happening. They see white people are dying. They're not having babies. We are right now 22 years away from America becoming a nation majority of people of color. They are the party of white America, white conservative America.

That's who they are. Young white folks are not flocking to the Republican Party. We know black folks, not Latinos aren't. So they're saying, man, we got to hold on to power as long as we can. And soft punk ass Democrats are playing right into their hands. Well, no, we don't. We just we want to achieve bipartisanship. We want to do the best that we can. We want to just, you know, if we can just, you know, I really think we can convince them what's right. I mean, Obama was with that crap, you know, putting up Merrick Garland. Oh, the merits of the candidate. They don't give a damn about the merits of the candidate.

Their whole deal is we want one of our people in that seat for 40 years. That's their strategy. Rob, you're on mute. Sorry. There we go. We got you. Go ahead. There you go. There you go. There you go. So, you know, when you can think about everything that the former president took us through and the fact that they were willing to just,

they were willing to throw out the rules at any moment and they threw them out, right? And right now at CPAC, I just want to just play how crazy, this is the problem right now. We have a totally, not only crazy right-wing Republican party, of course, they've always been about the power, but now they're absolutely insane. I mean, there was a golden statue of Donald Trump. I am not lying to you at the CPAC today. They were, they are worshiping this man. I'm waiting for them to call him Christ or something. They are insane right now. So we need, it's not only about Democrats. Yes. It's about America. Like we have to save America from these crazy ass Republicans. They have lost their ever loving mind. And so we're, so Democrats have to stop trying to be

soft. So I already know that party, the Republican Party is lost for all types of reasons. The Democratic Party needs to get some principles and stay and stand strong. It's not only about Democrats, it's about the American people so that America can function. These idiots should not be in power for a long time. And the only way that's going to happen is if Democrats are actually get some gumption and fight and take the power. They have to do this. This is not about even trying to be bipartisan. This is about making sure America can function. All of America might implode if we let an idiot get back in office. That's what this is about.

Candace, the thing I told folks and I don't want to sit here and and act like what I'm saying didn't happen. I said, when the election is over, we are going to have to exert pressure, external pressure and internal pressure for them to do what's right. I was real clear. And I said, that is going to mean pushing them in Congress. That's going to mean bringing folks to Washington, D.C., flooding the halls. That's what I made clear. So we can sit here and I said, you can't just hope things happen. No, they have to feel that heat and that intensity and say, you are going to do right by us or there will be a penalty. True. And, you know, I want to co-sign a point that you said before, and that is when you do

have people who are flooding the halls and making a point and a bullhorn is being blown in their ear and then a police officer decides to push you, that's what we call in the law, assault and battery. So I understand what you were saying. That's not how it's done. You are allowed to peacefully assemble and make your point. But the bottom line here is that they're using the system that Trump put in place while people weren't watching. And that is the courts.

That is the hundreds of judges that he put in place in order to make all this happen. While we were sleeping, while people weren't watching, and that's why you are preaching the way you are, saying we need to watch right now because it's happening in front of our eyes. And it is. And the courts are deciding in their favor. I mean, they might as well have a poll tax or make people sign their signatures to prove that they can write. Right. We're talking about the vestiges of slavery. We are talking about everything years ago, hundreds of years ago, that prevented Black people from voting. It's the same thing that's going on today. So this is nothing new. What's new is the strategy. What's new are these people in different pockets across America having the courts get on their side in order to what really comes out to be this kind of de facto racist voting suppression bills and ride. He has got to make a decision to make this happen. Just like they said,

it's not going to happen any other way than a federal law coming down and just stamping the foot on everything that's going on to squash it. That is the only way this will happen because Republicans are working in earnest and they work with strategy and they work in stride with one another and they hold their ground. In fact, that's that's kind of their the way that they do things. That's their M.O. Just hold your ground, hold your ground, hold your ground. It is not going to change. But Biden has the power to make this happen. And that's got to be the next step.

Can I say something real quick? Even the moderates, Republicans hold their ground. Have you noticed that, Susan, the so-called moderates, they always hold their ground. Somehow the Democratic moderates Republicans, hold their ground. Have you noticed that, Susan? The so-called moderates, they always hold their ground. Somehow the Democratic moderates can't hold their ground. They've got to figure out a way. Joe Manchin has to vote against somebody because he just has to do it because he's in West Virginia. But you see, Susan Collins don't have to do that. Mitt Romney, even though, okay, yes, he voted to make sure Amanda tried to kill him and held him accountable. I'm glad.

But when it comes to any substantive bill to move things forward, all of them are holding the line. All of them. You know, so Rush Limbaugh died last week. And if anybody remembers, years ago when he was first kind of put out on this national platform to make people know who he was, they invited him to kind of a Republican orientation. And his whole message was, whatever you do, do not sway. Whatever you do, don't try to, you know, have conversations in the hall to make things happen. Don't try to be on these bipartisan efforts. Make sure that it is purely partisan

in the way that Republicans want to grow and that you want to show other people how you function. And they are still working based upon that edict. That was a really big thing. And that's why Rush was given the Medal of Honor for really no reason, but because of the force he had behind making sure that people stood their ground at no cost to make sure that the Republican agenda was carried out. Michael?

Yeah. You know, Roland, we always see, you know, I enjoyed the interview that you did with the two representatives, Shannon and Cannon. There's always a white backlash to periods of time of advancement that African Americans have made, whether it's the compromise of 1877, whether it's Richard Nixon becoming president in 68, running on the platform of law and order, whether it's Donald Trump 2016. And this is what we're seeing. This is what we're seeing right now. This is the fear of the browning of America. You said it's you said the year 2043.

But in June of 2018, the Census Bureau put out a memo that talked about how white people have a negative birth rate in 26 states out of 50. It increased from 17 states out of 50 in just two years. So this is what we're looking at. So we really have to understand how to use all of the tools that we have in our toolbox to push these policies through and to put fire on behind some moderate Democrats or some Democrats that don't have a backbone. There was the document that came out a couple of years ago called Indivisible, Indivisible. And it was put together by former congressional staffers that looked at the strategies that the Tea Party used to fight against President Barack Obama. They put this together in a document to fight against Trump. And it talked about how to

engage and put pressure on your member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, things like this. These are things we have to look at. Then also the economic pressure that oftentimes gets missed. And you talk about this, Roland, oftentimes the economic pressure. But lastly, in Georgia, the reason why you have a state runoff election rule in Georgia is rooted in racism, specifically designed to keep African-Americans out of statewide power. State Representative Denmark Groover in 1963 championed that bill. And it was specifically designed to block African-Americans like Reverend Raphael Warnock from having statewide power. So we have to understand how deep rooted it is and how these laws are used against us and fight against us. But we have to push the agenda, hold the line and put fire on the behind of some Democrats and other Democrats.

We have to vote out of office and vote and run more progressive candidates. So we have to leverage our economics also to enforce our politics as well, as one of my teachers, Dr. Claude Anderson, says. Folks, bottom line is this here. We're going to continue our focus, not only with the agenda, but letting folks know, doing these interviews. And I'm just not, I'm not wasting any of these times, any of our time, folks, on some of this silly stuff

that these other networks are talking about, because this is about informing and empowering our audience about what's going on. We just have to understand what's happening here. And sisters like Representatives Cannon and Shannon need to also have access to shows like this to be able to reach our audience, because we also are going to be pressing people to say, what do you want us to do? See, it's one thing just to talk about these things and complain, but what do you want the audience to do? How do you want them to be able

to put pressure where pressure is needed? And so that's what we're going to continue doing. Please support us, what we do, by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. You can do so, of course, via Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered. Also, paypal.me forward slash rmartinunfiltered. Vemo.com is forward slash rmunfiltered. And, of course, you can reach us via Zale, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Going to break, we come back. We're going to talk about a bill in Alabama. Really? Now they want to create the felonies.

They want to actually throw folks in jail for protesting. I keep trying to tell you all Republicans are using power to assault the rights of black people because they are angry that we're using our power. That's what is going on before us. We'll discuss next on Roller Martin Unfiltered. When you think about the fact that 2043, we are gonna be a nation that's majority people of color. I've really focused on this a lot, on television, on radio, in my speeches, that my focus is trying to prepare us to have demographic power while also having educational economic power at the same time.

Because there's nothing worse than having demographic numbers, but then you still don't have that economic power, that political power, and education power. Well, you know, you and I, and I think most people know and understand that education is what we've got to impress on all of our people. We've got to help people to understand that if you want a decent quality of life, if you want the kind of quality of life where you're not having to worry about your food and your nutrition and, you know, being able to pay your bills or buy a house, then you've got to become educated. The more education you have, the larger the paycheck is. And of course, we've got to be involved in entrepreneurship,

taking the talent that we have to create businesses. And there's a lot of opportunity for that. Hello, everyone. It's Kiara Sheard. Hey, I'm Taj. I'm Coco. And I'm Lili. And we're SWV.

What's up, y'all? It's Ryan Destiny. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Alabama Republican Representative Alan Treadway, retired Birmingham assistant police chief, introduced a bill on Wednesday that would stiffen penalties for participating in a riot that turned violent or destructive. Okay, a riot is violent and destructive.

So under the bill, a person arrested for participating in a riot, blocking traffic during a protest, or assaulting a first responder would have to wait 48 hours in jail before being eligible for bail. The bill would also create the new felony crime of aggravated riot for knowingly participating in a riot that causes property damage or harm to a person. A person convicted of the crime, which would be a Class C felony, would face a mandatory minimum sentence of six months in prison. Many lawmakers oppose the bill, including Senator Roger Smitherman, who says what this bill is trying to simply do is shut folks' mouths. Candace, this is the kind of stuff where Republicans love talking about Second Amendment, all rights. They cannot stand the first. They cannot stand the first.

Can't stand the first. And we're talking about abridging someone's right to peacefully assemble. In fact, when we talk about riots, we already have laws on the books in order to deal with people who get out of hand and disrupt property. That's what people are being brought up now in terms of crimes when we're talking about January the 6th, are we not? There's already information, laws in place to make sure that people get in trouble for the acts of violence that they commit. So this is simply a scare tactic. This is simply something that he wants to put in place to make black folks go away,

the black folks who have been protesting, and the white folks, and all colored folks who have been protesting over the past year, especially in the time of Black Lives Matter. That's what this is all about. He's not going to get much support, I don't think. I think that this is something where the First Amendment is going to win because the First Amendment guarantees your right to peacefully assemble. He makes specific mention in this bill of people sitting in the middle of the street and blocking traffic. They would get arrested. They would have major charges that are against them. We know exactly what this is. This is just

a racist way of getting to people through the law and making sure that people shut up. That's what this is on its face. It's clear. And what's interesting is that he is a former police officer who understands what it means to protest and and and and make your voice be heard. He understands that he has been trained. He was a police chief. So he knows that this goes against everything that people understand and know about protesting in America. It makes no sense. Rob, we see exactly what this is. This is using legislation to intimidate and stymie people from demanding change in this country. Yeah, I mean, and then you when you said they don't like the first,

they don't actually, when it comes to black people, they don't like the first, the second, the 13th, the 14th, the 15th Amendment. We've seen this play out over and over again, just like the movie Judas and the Black Messiah. They didn't like the Second Amendment when it meant black people carrying the arms. Like, that's not something that they liked. So, you know, the issue is when the law is applied to black people, it's applied in a different standard. And what this type of law will do is

just make it easier to place black people in jail. That's what they want to do. And it is a scare tactic, but it's also an implementation tactic. If they can get any law like this, they will put more people in jail and then use the criminal justice system to drain more money from us and drain more opportunities. And this law, I think it will be thrown out as unconstitutional. But, you know, they will try. And who knows? They got a lot of the courts. I mean, we can't take anything for granted.

We're going to – we are in a fight right now, Roland. You've said it over and over again, but I want to make sure the listeners understand this. And to me, you said you've kind of – you really kind of hinted around this. What can we do? One thing is we need to put all the pressure we can in the world on each one of our representatives, each one of our Congress members, each person we voted for. If they're a Democrat, this is the most Joe Biden received the most votes in history. We need to make sure that they get rid of the filibuster. That needs to be the one thing we fight for, because that's it, because nothing else can be done until we do that, because we need to have comprehensive laws.

I mean, the thing here, the thing here, Michael, is being, again, and this is why I'm always talking about connecting the dots. Right. For the people,

the people who are always, oh, you know, rolling, you talk about voting, voting don't do nothing. This guy is a state legislator. Right. Which means somebody else voted and he won. Now he is using the power of the political office to try to change the law in order to impact those who are protesting. So for those who are protesting, I need to remind you that your protest is great and wonderful. But your protest means nothing if policy is not connected. These things all come together. And so he is showing you what happens when you have political power. The Republicans in Georgia are showing you what happens when they have political power. And then when you let them win with such a majority, they then are able to politically gerrymander districts.

Now they can control the state legislature. In Pennsylvania, they are so pissed off that the state Supreme Court ruled against them when it came to Donald Trump and voting. They are trying to do something that very few states in this country have done, and that is create what are called state districts. So they don't want there to be a state Supreme Court, which is over the whole state because Democrats hold a majority. Same in North Carolina.

So they want to actually gerrymander state courts so they will be able to control, have Republican elected judges in hardcore Republican areas to invalidate the power of the state Supreme Court. Folk don't act like voting ain't a part of protest. Absolutely. It's definitely part of protest. So let me try to unpack this here, Roland. What's important for many of our people to understand

is that we're playing a political game of football and they don't know the difference between a first down and a touchdown and wonder why we don't have any points on the board because we don't understand the rules of the game. We don't understand how to advance the ball and how to score. Politics is the legal distribution that scares wealth, power, and resources. See, Republicans understand that, many of us don't. Voting is only one aspect of politics. So when we look at these laws right here, when we look at what State Representative Alan Treadway is trying to do in Alabama, you got to understand, Alabama has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country,

one of the highest poverty rates in the country, and I think it's either 50th or 49th when it comes to educational attainment. So what he's trying to do is to rewrite laws, not just to punish, especially African-Americans who want to protest against the conditions there in Alabama. But they talk about putting the felonies on people, which means you can't vote. because see when you study Alabama Alabama has a history of felony disenfranchisement as well which is another way to strip you of your 15th amendment rights okay so all this is coming together

so we have to understand these pitfalls and booby traps that they're playing against us and understand how to fight back against this as well so you know brother know, brother, this is deep. And you're looking at former Confederate states. And we really, you know, all this is connected to history. You have to understand the Civil War and Reconstruction and the fight to always lock African-Americans out of power or will we get some to try to take it back away from us? OK. And this is exactly what's taking place right now.

So, brother, we have to stay vigilant. We have to understand law and understand how to fight back and defend against what's what they're trying to do to us as well. And both these jackasses out of office at the same time? It is. It is. I just need people to understand again how serious this is, because they are going to try their best to legislate us in a huge way. And I'm just I just need people to understand what's going on. I need you to understand what's going on. The game that's being played here is real. And bottom line is we can't ignore what's happening. And so just critically important for us to keep pressing this whole issue for people to realize that. I want to talk about what's happening in the state of Maryland. Again, we talk about when you have public policy, when folks are in control. And for a lot of us, we want to put the right people in place. And so in Maryland, they are trying to address what is happening in this country when it comes to police.

And so they are moving forth a new bill that I've been watching that will create criminal penalties for cops who intentionally use excessive force. This, Candace, is something that is important because, look, you have these contracts, you have too many cases where officers are not being penalized for their actions, but you've got to have something in place holding them accountable for their actions. Now again, the Maryland Senate committee passed this bill that would create

these particular penalties, okay. Not only when it comes to excessive force, but also if they would use excessive force but also fail to intervene to stop colleagues or refuse to aid someone wounded by police. The proposal is among a slate of major police legislation, and leaders in the Maryland General Assembly have vowed to pass this session. Also being considered is a mandate for all police officers in the state to wear body cameras. Changes to the Maryland Public Information Act to allow access to some police disciplinary and internal affairs records, and a repeal of the Maryland law enforcement officer's bill of rights. That would be substantial towards moving us to accountability. That would be huge precedent. That would be huge precedent because that's what we're

looking right now when we look next week at the Chauvin trial or March 8th, whenever we begin it. But we're looking at police officers that not are just doing the crime and violating somebody's rights, killing them ultimately in many cases, but also those police officers who are standing around. And that's what we're going to see on March 8th. So this is really a testament to the way that people are thinking. And if this goes through, this is going to be a huge deal. What's unfortunate is that the laws on the books don't deal with this properly so that police officers keep getting away with it, except when you're talking about civil rights. When it comes to federal civil rights, they're penalized financially. Okay. So this is going to be a huge precedent and a step in the right direction so that we can hold police officers accountable for the crimes that they

have committed because the system that is in place right now is not working, which is why they always get away. So this is something that we're going to be looking at in terms of this bill as precedent, if it is passed, and also something just to keep in mind when we look at March 8th and we look at the trial of Derek Chauvin and what would happen if we were in a state where something like this law existed if passed. It's a huge deal. Michael, I always say this, that, is where people to realize you have Republican activists who may pass things to serve as the basis for now spreading across the country. Right. If Maryland moves forward with this, now you have a template for what you can then carry forward in other states.

Yeah, it's a test case. It's a test case. And this this article benefit the community if you put this in place, if you put this bill in place, but also talk about how this bill will benefit the police officers who want to root out corruption in the police department as well. The reason why I say that is the police union is going to do what it does. Usually, they stick up for police officers regardless, regardless of whether right or wrong. But you oftentimes have officers in the department that don't agree with the police union. OK, so show how this deal is going to benefit all parties as well. But this this right here, man, if they if they pass this in the state legislature, this becomes a template for for across the country. So, you know, this is something significant. Rob.

No, I actually completely agree with that. And it needs to pass. something significant. Rob? No, I actually completely agree with that. And it needs to pass. And Roland, you made a really great point earlier that Republicans, they start in a few places and then they spread it out. And then suddenly ideas that were, Roland, ideas that were crazy even five years ago are commonplace for Republicans now. What they're doing in Georgia would have been thought of as crazy four or five years ago.

But now you're going to see that happen. I guarantee all across. No, no, actually, no, no. I got to correct you. What they're doing in Georgia is what North Carolina did. But like so North Carolina did it. It became the standard operating procedure for Republicans. And they're kind of like, oh, well, it wasn't that long ago. The point is, they keep moving the ball like this is. Oh, yeah. Was that. Oh, well. But it wasn't that long ago. The point is they keep moving the ball. Like this is. Oh, yeah. What's that? I said, oh, yeah. They're going to always move the goalposts.

Always. Yeah, they move forward. They come up with a template and they spread all across the country. They have the organization ALEC. At least that's what the organization used to be, really big. And they would put that and they would write the legislation and they would go all across the country. Right after President Obama became president, they said, we got to make sure this doesn't happen again. So that's when they really started pushing these bills to make it

harder and harder for people to vote. And they've kept stepping up and stepping up. What Democrats need to do is do the opposite. What we want to do is actually have people vote. You know, we believe in this thing called democracy, where people participate and then the voters get to decide instead of just figuring out which voters you want to vote and preventing the others from voting. That's what Republicans believe in because that's just what they're hanging on to. But, you know, Democrats have to be more aggressive. They have to be more proactive. And when it comes to everything, police accountability, when it comes to elections being transparent and being open for everybody. And I think we have to start doing model legislation and really pushing it when we have power.

Because when Democrats have power, they ask, well, what are Republicans going to think? And then when Republicans have power, they say, let's do it. Who cares what anybody else thinks? Simple as that. Yeah, go ahead. You know, what this also sheds light on

is the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, because there are a lot of things in this bill that fills in the holes when you look at what the Policing Act is proposing to do. So this is a great time for those who are behind that particular bill, which has some great things, but to look at Maryland for what they're doing, because it's definitely more progressive. Well, yeah, I mean, absolutely. And so that's what we have to keep paying attention to, because, again, folks, look, if you keep waiting on Congress to do something, you might be waiting a very long time. And we talk about addressing it because very, very few times you're going to have action taken, such as in Oklahoma City, where a police sergeant who faintly shot a man in the back as he was fleeing last December, was charged on Thursday with first-degree manslaughter. 36-year-old Sergeant Clifford Holman shot 60-year-old Benny Edwards,

who was struggling with mental illness, in his back three times as he was running away. Officers were responding to a call about a man disturbing customers near Pawn Shop. According to police, Edwards was near the store when officers approached him. He then opened a folding knife and told the officers to leave. The officers remained on the scene and used a taser and a gas substance on Edwards that had little to no effect, according to the officers. That's when they say Edwards charged towards an officer with a knife before running away from them. Officers then opened fire, striking Edwards in the back. Once video of the ordeal surfaced, protests erupted throughout the city. Protesters then demanded that Sergeant Holman face charges. This,

first of all, granted, for a manslaughter charge here, Candace, that's still significant, but here's the deal. You got to change the law to say, if somebody is running away, you don't shoot them. That's right. Yeah, that's the whole point. I mean,

they could see that this man had a knife, number one. So we're talking about knives and guns. That's not equal. And we see that often. We're talking about a 60-year-old man. And we're also talking about someone who clearly was displaying some type of mental illness. And if it wasn't clear to them, then you need to retrain officers to recognize that. And that's what's happening when we're talking about defunding the police. Let's put the money someplace else in order to retrain officers because the world has changed. It's not just a matter of, you know, cops and robbers. It's a matter of mental disabilities. It's a matter of ways of interacting with people, with different cultures. It's a matter of ways of interacting with people with different cultures.

It's a matter of a lot of things. Police need to be retrained. And again, yes, there's a manslaughter charge, but what was your intent in shooting the man in the back when you had a taser? This also brings a point, you know, I was speaking with a couple of my friends and we were looking at the police officers just overall and their inability to chase down a suspect and catch them that way. Why wasn't that an option? I mean, the truth is that you have a lot of police officers that aren't in shape to catch a 60-year-old man who happens to be running away from them. And that seems to be the only option that is available to them. The laws, as you said, have to be changed. They have to make sense so that if someone is running away from you, clearly showing you no harm, that there's got to be some intent behind you shooting them that many times in the back.

And it's not just to harm. It's to kill. It's real simple. Walter Scott was shot in the back running away. Numerous examples of folks being shot in the back, mostly black, running away, Michael. And it's just, look, you have to say to cops, if they're running away, you will be fired. You'll be penalized. If you simply if you allow them to keep doing it, they're going to keep doing it because in their minds, we've been trained shoot to kill and we have all the rights and the protection to do so. Yeah. You know, with this case here, it seems like if whoever made the call, the police received a call about a man disturbing customers near a store. I don't know in the dispatch call if whoever made the call said this person seems like they're mentally ill.

But when the police officers arrive on the scene, they also have to be able to assess what's going on and determine, okay, am I dealing with somebody who's mentally ill? And call for medical professionals to come to deal with the person who's mentally ill, as opposed to chasing them with a knife and then shoot them in the back, things like that. And the other thing is that a lot of times in African-American communities, there are people in our community who are mentally ill, who may be loud, what have you, but we know they're harmless. We know they're not gonna hurt anybody. They may be selling wolf tickets.

They may talk about, I'm gonna beat you behind all this stuff. We know them. We know Joe, we know Sally. We know they're not gonna do anything. They're just loud. But a lot of times when you have officers arrive on the scene that don't live in that community, they don't know that. And then automatically they are threatened when they don't follow directions, when they don't follow command.

So this is another reason, you know, why we have to reduce responsibilities, reallocate resources and have more funding for mental health. Rob, for the people who complain about defunding the police, for the cities where they have shifted resources, I keep saying it. These cops are not trained to deal with people with mental illness. All they simply know is, oh, threat, shoot and kill. Kajima Powell, 16 seconds, 16 seconds, from the moment they pulled up and opened the door to when the first shots rang out that killed him. He was dead in 16 seconds.

Yeah. And to take a different path here, I don't think it's it's not training. It's not training. You know, a black person could be 6'5", 5'2", 16, 5 years old. A black person is seen as a threat. And they're not seen as humans. When you think about Dylann Roof, who just executed nine people in a church, not only can they find a way to bring him in alive, they take the man to Burger King afterwards. Think about that for a minute. But somehow when there's an issue with a black person, they can't deescalate. This is not training. The culture of policing is broken in this country. And there does need to be new laws. There needs to be new levels of accountability. And it's both, we need to figure out how to hold

them criminally accountable, but also get rid of statutory immunity. So look, you know what? It shouldn't be taxpayers paying these bills. Some of it should be – it come out of the police – some of these police officers should go broke. If you do this, if you go over the line and maybe we can't find you criminally – actually criminally liable, then we ought to be able to take away a lot of your income because you took away somebody's life. We need to really, really raise the level of accountability and change the culture of policing in this country. Absolutely. Folks, got to go to break. We come back. We're going to talk about the issue of school choice in Pennsylvania and Black Lives

Matter. Black Lives Matter. They've taken in some $90 million in donations. Some say use that money to support black people, black organizations. We'll talk with the leader, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles. And also Netflix announced that they're going to be spending $100 million over the next five years for diversity when it comes to shows on their network. I'm gonna have part two of my discussion last night where I talked about leverage, influence, power, and how we must be thinking 360 degrees when we talk about demanding race equity. I'll explain when we come back. For black Americans, because of slavery, because of the complete destroying of the past,

there really is no direct connection to various African countries. But the reality is for Latinos, and even if you use that phrase, first of all, I'm from Texas. So in Texas, Hispanics is used. Other parts of the country, they say, no, call me Latino. Other folks, Chicago, call me Chicano. And so you also sort of have that going on. There's a connection with country as well. And so if you're from Mexico, if you're from Colombia, if you're from any other particular country it's

yeah I'm here but I'm also yeah from there as opposed to no no this is my country this is I mean I'm involved everything here I think that's also something that's also at play it is at play and it's unfortunate because it happens even even when we're not talking about politics I think that Latinos the word but it were very it's very divided because we have we all have this allegiance to this other place that we came from but I believe that that's that's not helping us that's not unifying the country we need to come together and understand that this is where you're raising your kids this is where you are this is where you're

paying taxes this is where you're living this is your This is where you're paying taxes. This is where you're living. This is your country. This is where- Hi, I'm Eric Nolan. I'm Shante Moore. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Education truly is the civil rights issue of our time. In a new opinion piece, how much are you using today? Linda McAllister was CEO of Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools, discusses education equity for students of color. McAllister believes that education equity is a civil rights issue and it must be addressed by the Biden administration. He joins us right now. Lenny, how are you doing? I'm doing well, Roland. How are you? Doing great. So one of the things that, so when you define education equity, explain

for folks what that actually means. I think that it means that there's an opportunity for us as African-Americans to have access to the best schools that fit our children. And I think a lot of times when people get into school choice, they think school choice means pro-voucher, anti-school district. No, choice means you get to choose what's best for your kid and their needs. That means that you've got to make sure that the districts are doing the right thing by all kids. But also, if you choose to go to a public charter school, you can find that public charter school, especially since it's public dollars. If you're able to get a tax credit scholarship or you're able to go to private or parochial schools or religious schools because you have the means,

so be it. But the bottom line is, more often than not, people that are overlooked and underserved don't have school choice, and as long as they don't have the opportunity to control their education, they're going to have less and less opportunity to control their pathways for life, and that's going to continue to hold us back generation after generation if we don't change that pattern. Obviously, you have lots of banter back and forth on this. There have been people who have criticized me for years saying, I don't like the

fact that you support charter schools, you support vouchers. This is what I say, very simple. And I got no problem saying it. I don't care what any critic has to say about it. And that is this here. There simply is not one way to educate a child. That our current system is a delivery system. Now, if I want to get something to eat, guess what? I got multiple ways of eating. I could call multiple companies to do it. I can go myself, pick up, have delivery. The point is, there are multiple ways out there.

The struggle I have for people who then say, oh, no, no, well, the answer is money. It's funding when actually that is not the answer. And this is real simple. If the current system was doing its job, we wouldn't have the issues. So if you want to compete and if you actually want to say, hey, don't go to a charter school, don't use vouchers. Educate, do your job because success beats anything else. I agree. And what you find, for example, here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, public education funding continuously goes up. But people seem to forget that part of the reason

why charters came into place in a lot of different states, including here in Pennsylvania in 1997, is because the public school system had been failing black and brown kids for decades prior. The school systems had been resegregating. The money that we had seen in the resources from the property taxes started moving out to the suburbs and the schools resegregated. So how do you find yourself beating the white flight and some of the trends that we have seen in Pennsylvania and other states? A thousand dollars a year are not supposed to have that for their kids as well. You'll never be a great country and you're never going to rise up as a people if you continue to take that approach. We have to change it. I think that you've been saying this for years and I commend you for doing so.

Pull my panel in. Rob is very interesting. When interesting when I talk about this, I hear from people. And I challenge individuals who are in this movement. I challenge them quickly. And I'll say to them all the time, oh, so do you actually support education options for kids in the worst schools or do you support it for everybody? And I do that for a reason because I make it clear that you're not going to have these white suburban folks who want to get access to these dollars because they can easily send their kids to private school. I say, no, I believe in the, I believe in the options to go for the kids who are in the worst schools. That's who need it the most. Yeah. And I actually agree with that, too. And it's being in Ohio, it's also pretty complicated

because I can say it depends on how your state regulates these things, because California tends to do a pretty good job because they have great, really great charter schools. You know, here in Ohio, they also give some of the money to for-profit charter schools. And so we had one in ECOD scandal where they lost like $500 million and they were just making the people a bunch of money and no one cared because they were funding these folks. But I will say this, there are some great charter schools that make sure that black kids are educated when public schools are not taking care of it. So what I'm for is any system that helps our kids. And we got to have we have to have a support system behind that that is encouraging the best options for our kids.

And also there are some there's some good black owned charter systems that do a better job of educating our kids than some public schools do. It's just no just don't get around that. The thing here is real simple for me, Michael. And that is I want black people to be in control of the education of black kids. I want to control the curriculum. I want to control the dollars that go into that school for contracts as well. And I tell people all the time, show me if you tell me that I can create a I can have I can I can control a school and I control the curriculum. I control who gets hired. I control whether we have arts and P.E. and whether we have band and choir and dance. I can control the contracts, who gets them, the soft, the software contract, a janitorial contract, who controls the food services contract,

who controls the construction contract. I'm taking that option. Yeah, you know, charter schools can, when it comes to African-American-owned businesses, that can be an avenue for African-American-owned businesses to can be a avenue for African-American owned businesses to tap into to get more business. I used to manage an African-American owned janitorial service company, and we had a contract with the African-American charter school. So there's a lot of opportunity there. I think we have to uh we know that one avenue is not going to take care of

all children some are going to go to public schools some are going to go to some will go to charter schools some will be homeschooled etc so we have to uh i think understand that and then also look at the avenues to correct any problems or correct failing charter schools also, just like failing public schools. So it's going to be and some are going to be some are going to go to school online, et cetera. So it's not going to be a silver bullet, but especially what you mentioned with economic opportunities for businesses, you know, I've seen that firsthand. I've been part of that. So that is something that's really important. It's more decentralized and there's more control that you have when you have a charter school than if it's a traditional public school. The thing here for me, Lenny, is is real simple. And that is if I could sit here and control the process, I'll take that any day of the week.

And and again and then. But it's also confronting this mass hysteria. You're trying to destroy. No, calm down. Calm down. Right. Because because the reality, Lenny, if people really step back and even and I understand Rob's point about for for profit charter schools. And I hear people when they yell and scream. Have you have you seen who gets the contracts? Have you seen who controls the technology contracts? Who controls the book contracts? Who controls the food services contracts? Who controls the software contracts? Who controls the construction contracts? See, I just get a kick out of people who do that because they're not understanding. Yo, there are people who have become billionaires off of public education in America.

Yes. And if you want to go, you're going down an economic path and that makes all the sense in the world. And yes, public charter schools that are more disproportionately run by African-Americans can help the community in more than just education. But let's take a step back to the kids. Here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, well over a quarter of all the school districts in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have not had a teacher of color in But there are certain school districts that that proportion goes up to 30 percent, a little higher. And those kids have seen maybe one teacher of color throughout their whole academic experience. Now, you relate that to charter schools. Less than 5 percent or less than 6 percent of all public district schools have a teacher of color in their schools. Charter schools, that's 20 percent. Our kids

have more of an opportunity to see educators that look like them, can relate to them, and will teach them the things that are going to help them not only learn and grow academically, but culturally be prepared to be contributors in the American society, but also navigate the American society. And when you find that, particularly in charter schools, that 70 percent of the kids here in Pennsylvania are black and brown students, and the people that are pushing up against charter schools are overwhelmingly coming from teachers unions, which are disproportionately white, professional, and progressive, you can see that our kids, once again, are falling through the cracks because we have people that are fighting over dollars. And this is the time we have to fight for school choice so that black and brown kids get the

education they need. And as we well know, generally speaking, when these fights happen, if we don't speak up, our communities first and foremost lose out. We just can't do that anymore. Candace, final comment. Go ahead. Like Whitney said, basically brown versus board of Education, it just has not vested yet. And that's why we are where we are. But when it comes to charter schools, it's not just an investment in the child. It's also an investment in the parent who has to learn the whole process and understand what their child is doing. And sometimes that's when charter schools find themselves at risk because the parent does have to be involved in order to make all of that happen.

So we do have to invest in our charter school so that they see themselves in the process they see themselves doing bigger things by those people who are standing in front of them because by and large it is not happening in the traditional public schools simple as that uh lynn mccallister we're sure to appreciate it man thank you so very much god bless you all thank. Thank you, Roland. All right, folks. Real quick break. We come back. Black Lives Matter. It's taking in lots and lots of money. What are they going to do with it?

We'll talk with the co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles when we come back on Roland Martin Unfiltered. You do know that there is not a piece of your life that government in some way does not involve now i cracked up these conservatives down to your name everything down to your name everything i mean i mean just if you if you actually sat down and said okay what part of my life let me try to find something in my life that government in in and does not have a part of i I can't think of a single thing. You can say, fine, they don't impact my marriage.

Which they do. Because you got to get that marriage license. Yep. Yep. From the birth to the tomb. And if you're going to be here in the United States of America, whether you like it or not, you got to know about it. You got to know its history.

Because when somebody knows about you more than you know yourself, that's slavery. That's volunteer slavery. So it's almost like double the education we got to pick up of what this place is all about, how it works, how it runs. I'm a firm believer, being in 112 countries, that you got to think global and act local. But you better ACT, act local, but you better ACT act local.

I'm Shantae Moore. Hi, I'm B.B. Winans. Hey, I'm Dolly Simpson. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. The lots of internal criticism of the Black Lives Matter organization recently decided to give $3 million to members of the black community who are financially crippled by the pandemic. There are people who are saying that, hey, BLM has taken in more than $90 million in donations. They should be doing more for local chapters, also for the community.

Through the organization's BLM Survival Fund, it has been giving grants of $1,000 to black activists. Black people are certainly struggling financially due to COVID-19 and black family members who have lost loved ones at the hands of law enforcement or while incarcerated. This move comes after the foundation exclusively shared with the Associated Press this week that it took over 90 million bucks last year. The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation says it wants to be known for more than just protests over the deaths of African-Americans who have died at the hands of police. Joining me, is Malina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter in L.A. Malina, I got to ask you this here. I'm not quite sure who was involved in this decision.

But, and this is just, again, this is specifically in terms of that deal there. I got a problem as a member of the black press with Black Lives Matter movement sharing the information exclusively with Associated Press. Now, we're going to talk about the fund as well. But the reason I have a problem with that is because as somebody who who has devoted nearly all of my professional career to black to black media. This is one of those stories that it helps for black media to be able to share with our people. And when when an AP has been sued by African-Americans, AP has serious, serious issues with race. And I think I get AP worldwide.

I just think that when black organizations have information like this, they should say, hey, AP, we're going to share it with you, but we're also going to do it with black media in order to reach our people. I just... Please take that back to Patrice and the others, because I've seen this with other groups where they give it to the New York Times, they give it to the Washington

Post, and then when they don't get it covered the second and third day, then they want to come to black media. You're absolutely right. And, you know, one of the things I've said about you is that, you know, I've often quoted the African proverb that until the lion tells the story, the hunter will always be the hero. And I've often called you one of our lions. You're absolutely right. And that

critique is well taken. There is nothing wrong with offering criticism. And I accept that. And we won't do that again. And so I can say that you're absolutely right. You and many other members of the black press have been ones to cover Black Lives Matter when people thought we were not going to be here any longer. You continue to cover us and you continue to share the work that we were doing. And we should have reached out to you first. So I apologize. I appreciate it. And let's talk about this fund. And so you may be the announcement this 90 million bucks has been taken in. And what exactly is this fund and how do folks apply, how they qualify?

So we thought we were putting together a significant amount of money by creating this $3 million fund that was meant to be kind of our contemporary survival pending revolution, right, which was a principle that was ushered in under the Black Power movement, that, you know, if you think about the Black Panther Party's survival programs, it was about making sure that our people, that we offered as much as we could to make sure that our people had what they needed to survive. And so we knew that we couldn't fund every single Black person, but we thought it would go, you know, at least a couple of days. We had $3 million set aside for $1,000 microgrants that were really no strings attached. You didn't have to demonstrate anything.

You just had to say, well, why do you need the money? I can't pay my rent. I can't pay my utilities. You know, there's medical bills. I lost my job. My business is about to close. And as long as you were black, you got that $1,000. That money went almost immediately. And so we're now working to raise additional resources and

hopes that we'll be able to provide more funds. But we're also challenging those, especially corporations and individuals who've made massive profits in the midst of this health pandemic with an unprecedented economic fallout that disproportionately is levied upon black folks. We're saying people like Jeff Bezos, corporations like, you know, Amazon, right, who have record profits, they can do far more than $3 million. And so we need to put pressure on them. We also need to put pressure on the government. And in some ways a lot of folks have been comforted by the fact that the form of white supremacy that we now see isn't as blatant or violent.

But when you think about what it means that we're talking about a $2,000 stimulus check, it'll partially pay for rent one time. But you have countries in this world that are saying, well, we need stimulus checks every month. And that's what we're saying, that we need stimulus checks every month. And there's organizations, there's corporations, there's individuals, and there's government that's much more well-equipped to provide these kinds of dollars beginning with the Black community than is Black Lives Matter. It's also important because, let me be real clear, folks who are watching. What I'm about to say is not just specific to Black Lives Matter. It's also for the NAACP that's raised, my understanding, more than $100 million.

Well over $100 million. That money was given because of black people. And so to your point by the Panthers, what black people are saying is the money needs to be used for black people. It needs to be judicious, and that is examining. Is it being used for internal purposes? Is it being used to fund the chapters, to fund the organizations, to fund the things that they want to do? And that really, really is critically important because if you are, like in my case, when I ask my fan base to give, I'm saying we're spending it here. We're covering this. We're going to recovering this. The people need to see the results of what has been done with the money.

Absolutely. And I would go further than that, actually, because more than Black Lives Matter and more than the NAACP, money was also given to white-led organizations like the ACLU, who has made far more than the $100 million you're mentioning. So what kind of pressure are we putting on those organizations and institutions? So you're absolutely right. The money has to go to black community. Black Lives Matter raised roughly $90 million. There was an impact report that was released that talks about how that money has been used. That impact report says that basically we gave away about 25 percent, a little more than 25 percent of what we raised. And that's before the survival fund to black led organizations to do work on the ground. So that 90 million dollars is intended

to not just go in the pockets of black people, although there's survival money that's necessary, but also to do the work of institution building. And, you know, there's organizations that have been around, I think ACLU is over 100 years old now, right, that have had an opportunity to institution build. NAACP should be institution building, right? Institution building is also important because if Black Lives Matter were to give away every single dollar of the 90 million dollars, that would be the end of Black Lives Matter and we wouldn't have the capacity to continue to do the work in the streets. I think what's recommended and, you know, I have a whole nother job. So this is also important. Right. This is not their day job. Right. The Black Lives Matter organizers, we do this work because we know it to be our sacred

duty. I believe I was called into this work by the creator, by my ancestors. And I do this work as heart work and spirit work and soul work. but we're not being paid by the movement. And so the dollars that go into Black Lives Matter actually do direct work on the ground. And we want to make sure that we have the dollars to continue to do that direct work on the ground and build up an institution that really can be abolitionist in nature by upending unjust systems and also abolitionist in terms of ushering in the kind of world in which we want our children to inherit. And see, let me be, here's the thing for people out there, and then I'm going to go to questions from my panel.

There are no issues. And I'll be real clear to anybody who's watching. In order to have successful organizations, you have to have infrastructure. In order to have infrastructure, you've got to be able to hire people, maintain people, keep those people. And Melina, the thing that, because if you study organizations historically, that's what SCLC, Urban League, NAACP, they all had those different things there. And so when people say, man, they sitting here getting rich. No, what you do is you're able to pay folks to live because you can't ask people to just constantly give of themselves and not be able to pay their rent, pay their lights, pay food, send their kids to college, all those different things along those lines. But what I do hear from other Black Lives Matter chapters and activists is that you also have to, and what I'm about to say, I've heard the exact same thing from NAACP chapters. I've heard NAACP chapters say national.

Y'all got to be doing more funding your state branches and your local branches. So this is not a solely BLM conversation. This is what I look. I'm vice president digital for the National Association of Black Journalists. We hear the exact same thing from our chapters. This is what happens when you have organizations and we have to recognize that. But the key, the key here is transparency. I think the key here is, is constantly being transparent with what is going on so people know. And then you don't have people just with misinformation, disinformation,

making up stuff, spreading lies. That's the most important thing. Absolutely. Which is why we issued the impact report. So people could see where did that $21 million that we gave in 2020, where did it go? Who, what organizations were funded through that money? Right. And then you're right about being able to hire and being able to have staff. I'm very fortunate that my day job that pays me gives me flexibility. I have flexibility in being able to dedicate so much time to Black Lives Matter without being paid. But it shouldn't just be that because I'm a professor and can kind of merge my paid job with my life's work, that that's why I can contribute. Right. It should be that people who work retail can also say, you know what, maybe I can do some work here and be compensated for that work. So we're beginning to think about how to build infrastructure, how to make sure that we have the things that we need,

that we're not constantly begging for free photocopies and water and signs and people to print stuff for us for free, right? That we can use the dollars that we've generated to again, build institution that's enduring. And that's what, you know, really this last kind of moment of uprising, this watershed moment that did bring tremendous resources to Black Lives Matter is. And then finally, and I'll break after this is, you know, we need people to be a little patient. This is our first real money.

We didn't have money before six or eight months ago, right? Black Lives Matter was funded out of the pockets of people like me and Baba Akili and Sister Jan who are just, you know, I'm a professor, but I'm also a single mom and I'm also a working class person. People can Google what my salary is, right? And so it's because I cook instead of going out that we were able to fund Black Lives Matter for the last seven years. And so this is our first bit of money and we want it to be righteous and deliberate

with how that money is used so that we can make sure that there is a Black Lives Matter going forward for many, many years and prayerfully generations to come. Melina Abdulaziz, really appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Look forward to having you back. Thank you so much. All right. You've been frozen out. Facing an extinction level event. We don't fight this fight right now. You're not going to have black on you.

In an effort to close this diversity gap, Netflix released its first of a kind announcement. Were they going to invest a hundred million bucks over the next five years to diversity across the board. And I talked a little bit about this last night and I want to really, really unpack this because this obviously is focused on content. It's focused on the folks who are going to be with their shows and they're going to be staff and then those things. But Rob, I really think that when we see these announcements, I really think that we have to be more deliberate. We have to be more focused when people see this and go, oh my God, this is great. YouTube, they announced this $100 million content creator

initiative. And what I said last night is, we've got to be asking different questions of these various entities. Same thing. All these companies that gave money to Black Lives Matter, all these companies that have given money to the NAACP, all these companies that have given money to the National Urban League,

and trust me, black organizations have gotten lots of money in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Yeah. Okay? But what we have to be doing is we have to be saying okay you're creating these initiatives so if you're netflix you're creating this initiative because frankly you want more black eyeballs you want to produce black content to get more black people to watch for longer so they don't watch other platforms. Totally get it. Totally support it. Earlier, I mentioned Netflix, Reed Hastings, their CEO announced

they were placing $100 billion in black banks. Totally get it. But this is what I mean by how we must be having a 360 degree view and asking when these stories come up and asking the next thing, which I which really for me is is is why I've been talking about this is the third reconstruction. And let's just be real clear. White mainstream reporters are not going to ask these questions. And yes, I did reach out to Netflix to get someone to come on this show. To discuss this initiative. And I wanted to talk about this. to Netflix to get someone to come on this show to discuss this initiative. And I wanted to talk about this. I want to be able to know.

Go back to the panel, please. I want to be able to ask them, Rob. OK. You're going to spend one hundred million dollars over five years to create the content. But I have a series of questions. Are you using black advertising agencies? Are you investing in black media? Are you requiring on your productions that diverse caterers and limousine drivers and IT experts be used as well? See, it's real easy for us to just talk about, OK, just the content.

And again, that's important. It's easy for us to also talk about who your black board members. That's important. Who are your black senior execs? That's important. But we have got to start asking different questions and demanding answers with these initiatives say, no, no, no, no. How are you supporting black people holistically in all of your areas, not just you spending money for content? It's actually going to make you more money with your stock price. Yeah. I mean, you make the most relevant point on this role. Like this is not, uh, when they, when they talk about these efforts, this is not charity. This is an economic decision. This is is investing. She's a black female investor and entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley, but she's invested in a company called Encantos, who

she believes is going to take over Disney because they focus better than anybody else on diverse content. All this is about is not only America, the world is becoming more diverse, less non-white. That's where the money is. So the reason why Peloton joined with Beyonce wasn't because they love Beyonce, it's because my wife and a lot of Spelman people and people that went to HBCUs, all of them went to buy Pelotons. Why? Because Beyonce did it. Because black people and black artists create value, but that equity rarely goes through us. So I think, Roland, if you can give me a little time on this, I think we should think bigger is actually why I'm holding

an art and equity summit. And we need to look at our value in our art. And there are new opportunities now to invest in crypto art, which allows us to keep and make more money off of our digital art and keep that for the life of the whole contract. So when your art sells the next time for like $6 million, just like what happened to Dave Chappelle, luckily he was able to get his art back. Most people can't. But now there's new digital technology.

When you create art and you first do it, you get royalties for the life of it. And people are selling these crypto arts now just in 2020 and 2021 for $6 million, sometimes a pop. NBA Top Shot is doing this now with NBA players taking their likes and images, and people are buying them for $200,000. So there is an opportunity now for us to look outside of just these institutions. We can create our own value, and we should be looking towards that. The reason I'm going here, Candice, this and I really hope I can get this brother on the show. I really do. Because this is

a perfect example of how when you're in a corporate position, you actually change the paradigm. There's a brother who is the general counsel for Coca-Cola. And what happened was he came from Ford. And what he did, he said, you know what? This diversity stuff ain't working.

He said, this ain't working. And I'm not satisfied with what these law firms that we at Coca-Cola are paying folks millions of dollars, and they're making money from these companies,

making money off of us. Go to my iPad, please. Barely six months into his new position as Senior Vice President and General Counsel for the Coca-Cola Company, Bradley Gaten has taken dramatic action to increase diversity and inclusion among the company's outside counsel, telling firms that they must meet new minimum diversity commitments or face consequences ranging from fee reductions

to outright firing. He lays out here that, look, this is the only way these things are going to change. See, Candace, this is what I'm talking about. This is somebody who is sitting inside of a company who's going, I'm a black general counsel. I have the power to demand some changes. I have the power to push people to say, no, we got to do more. So all of a sudden this brother says, yeah, yeah, yeah. Y'all got to do more. And so if you don't do this, fees going to get reduced or we're going to replace y'all.

What I'm arguing, whether it's Netflix, I saw a story today, I saw a story today, Amazon Prime, the CMO, talking about what they're doing, and I'm saying the same thing.

Who are y'all doing? Who are your black vendors? Who are you doing business with not your content black vendors but even if your content black vendors are you telling them i don't want to just see black actors and black actresses i want to know that whole ecosystem of a production who are you using because if you sit back and say, we got a hundred different productions and I get the list and realize, man, y'all, y'all paid all this money to transportation, not one black limo company, not, not, not one black catering company. See, this to me is how you think beyond just your narrow lane and say, no, no, no, no, no.

We're trying to make sure that a whole collective of black folks get paid. Listen, all the way down to the makeup artists. Right. We do need to see that happening. Otherwise we get left out of the game. And what this man did at Coca-Cola was a boss move. And key to it was that there were consequences that he forced people to do or is forcing people to do what he thinks is right in the name of diversity and saying that if you don't do it, there are going to be consequences. So we get caught up in a $100 million number. That's a big number for constant. But like we already know, that's just a move because we know that the Latino population is one of the largest ticket buying populations and consumers in the world. So that's all about the finances. So you're right. We have to look at more than just the content.

And even if we look at the content, who's making the content? Are we doing programs for third graders to expose them to opportunities in the field of television, film, and production? Because that's where we are going to grow more people to continue to have them in the field. Because the pot is very, very small. If you look at the things that we see on whatever platform that you are seeing right now, there's a lot of the same type of Black content. And for those of you who watch everything like I do, you know exactly what I'm talking about. And then there's some stuff that really is intellectual, but that is very far and few in between. So it's not only content, you know, because you can put a bunch of black content on there that is worthless,

or is this something that a lot of people just don't want to see? There's got to be a gamut of content, and there's got to be an understanding that we're going to train people to come up and be a part of these transactions, not just in front of the camera in terms of, you know, actresses. But like you said, all the way down to who is driving the person to the lot in order to to to service the food. It all makes a difference. Go to my iPad. Michael, today the Netflix stock closed at $538.85, down $7.85, and after hours it's up 17 cents. Why am I saying that?

You're talking about a company with a market cap in the billions. And I need everybody to understand, I'm not picking on Netflix because I'm going to sit here and mention another, let me go right here, Lionsgate. I'm going to look at their, I'm going to come back, I'm going to look at their stock. I'm going to pull their stock up as well because I need people to understand. I need folks to understand in terms of what we're talking about here, because all y'all out there who've been watching P-Valley, who watched Survivor's Remorse, who watched Power, and now Power 2 and all of these things. I want you to understand they are targeting you as a black consumer.

They're targeting you as a black consumer. Stahl is owned by Lionsgate. Go to my iPad. They are a publicly traded company. Their stock today closed up 21 cents at $14.52. So when Starz is running, when Starz is running their Black History Month promos, when Starz is promoting that, you should be sitting here going, again, I want y'all to think, we should be sitting here going, who produced the spot? What did their staff look like?

Was it internal? Was it an external company? If it was an external company, who works at that particular company? We should be then saying, hey, stars, did y'all run that commercial on MSNBC and CNN? Did y'all run ads in black newspapers, on black-owned websites, on black digital shows? In fact, stars, are y'all using a black ad agency?

Right. Or are you using a mainstream agency or a white ad agency? And the white agency that you're using, what's their diversity? How many blacks on their boards of directors? See, what I'm arguing, I spoke to Walmart,K. Day 2020. I said to this to Wal-Mart, y'all by yourself can change the entire paradigm. I said, if Wal-Mart says we're going to lay out race equity for every vendor we work with and it has to be vertical And it has to be vertical. It has to be horizontal. We want to see diversity in every aspect of your company.

Not just, okay, are you sending us a black rep? No, no. Are you a diverse company? So if y'all want to do business with Walmart, y'all got to be diverse. Do you understand every major company in America that does business with Walmart would have to change overnight? That's what the brother at Coca-Cola is doing. That's what I'm asking for when I'm saying to black actors who are doing deals with Netflix and Amazon Prime

and Hulu and HBO Max and Paramount, use your leverage and your influence to change the paradigm. Don't just get stuck on having diverse talent on the set. Ask holistically no, no, no, how y'all

doing it with every company doing business with y'all. I totally agree, Roland. And, you know, this is something I've been talking about for years. This is basically called renegotiating our relationship with corporate America. This is what this is dealing with. Renegotiating our relationship from being basically just consumers to understanding how corporate America has contracts with various businesses, various smaller businesses, like you just mentioned, the catering services, the limousine services, et cetera. And these are African-American owned businesses as well that can have a fundamental change on our conditions here in this country. If you look at back in about 1981, when Reverend Jesse Jackson and Rainbow Push had their economic

boycott of Coca-Cola. It lasted about a month. You look at what the result of that was. It was bottling companies for African-Americans. It was Coca-Cola putting a certain amount of money in African-American owned banks. It was understanding that this was bigger than just having African-Americans on a corporate board or diversity. This is dealing with the money and redirecting contracts and dollars to African-American-owned businesses. If we look at the movie Black Panther, came out in 2018, February 16, 2018.

A lot of people beat up and said, oh, well, we don't own Black Panther, it's owned by Disney, things like that. What they didn't talk about is that that was the first movie filmed at Tyler Perry's new studios in Atlanta that he owns. That was the first movie. Atlanta is like the real Wakanda. A lot of that movie was filmed at a studio owned by a Black man, but the other part of the film is that it pumped about $89 million into the Georgia economy. A lot of that money went to Black-owned businesses, hairstylists, nail techs, all different caterers,

all different types of things like that. So we have to really reorientate ourselves and understand, because a lot of people say we need to build our own, build our own. Okay, now after you build your own, okay now, where do you get the business from? And this is a reinvestment on dollars that we spend with these corporations. So this is extremely important. I did a lecture back in 2016 dealing with this called redistributing the pain. And we have to understand renegotiating our relationship with corporate America. Look, folks, I'm going to keep pressing this thing, Candace, because

as I said last night, if we're trying to sit here and move this thing inch by inch, that's not happening. And it also means that we still have independent products. I support black streaming services, Qualate TV. There's some others that are going to be coming down the pipeline folks are announcing because I believe having more of those platforms. But this is just very basic for everybody who's watching. If we are going to reward companies with our eyeballs and with our dollars, Candace, we must have the guts to say what is being returned to us. It means nothing if we as black people continue to increase the value of companies and people who don't look like us are benefiting from financially from that i'm not i keep telling folk that scene from alchemix i'm not satisfied we we do have to ask for more we do have to ask for more.

We do have to ask for more accountability, too. We also can connect the dots. This weekend, we've got the Golden Globes coming up. If you look at the 87 voting members of the Golden Globe board, those journalists, none of them are people of color. Making decisions about the Golden Globes, which really dictate often what happens in the Oscars. This is what we do. We compare the two.

So we need to ask Netflix to say, hey, we're going to need you to put pressure on the Golden Globes, on organizations, too, that are doing us a disservice by not allowing us to be on a board and represent what we think should be the best picture or the best actress. No, no, no, no, no. I'm going to take this thing further, Candace. Yeah, yeah. No, no, no.

See, I'm going to take it. See, I'm going for the money. This was a graphic that Kerry Washington tweeted out. She tweeted out several times today. Go to my iPad, y'all. Come on. Okay, I need y'all to increase the graphic. This is what she sent out, okay?

Not a single, go full screen, please. Not a single black member out of 87. That's what she tweeted out. See, I'm going to the money, Candace. I don't want Netflix to do that. I want NBC that airs the Golden Globes.

See, I'm going to the money. The Golden Globes is funded from their TV contract. NBC, Comcast should be saying contract. NBC, Comcast should be saying

Hollywood Foreign Press Association, your contract will be in jeopardy if you don't add some black members. I have a lot to say about this, especially when we think about Byron Allen and Comcast and NBC and everything that they did. Listen, you are correct. Whatever this powers may be, they need to no sense that not one person sits on that board or that voting panel.

Eighty seven people, not one person of color, not one person of color in all of the universe could they find to be on this panel of voters? This makes no sense. And you're right. We do have to put the pressure on and not get caught up in the numbers. A hundred million dollars is a lot, but what are we going to do otherwise? Cause see Rob, here's the deal. I haven't heard a single black organization, Rob, not one say since the Los Angeles times report came out in mass, black people do not turn on the Golden Globes when it airs this weekend. Since they could not somehow nominate Delroy Lindo for the Five Bloods, could not nominate Judas Judas and the Black Messiah could not nominate. I mean, just a plethora of movies. Since y'all just couldn't overlook black folks,

we gonna overlook your little ward show. And trust me, NBC Comcast wouldn't like that because that means it drives the viewership down. It drives the dollars down, which means they've given guarantees to advertisers what the ratings are going to be. See, if you don't follow the money, you cannot change the dynamics. Final point. Go ahead. No, no, I agree.

And, you know, Judas and the Black Messiah should have been nominated. There should have been more nominations. But when nobody on the board is black, why are you surprised? And so there should be people speaking out because guess what? This is not only the right thing to do. This is economics. Like, so we control economics and it's time for us to take more control of our own destiny and really understand our value and start asserting it.

Simple as that, folks. Rob, Candice, Michael, I truly appreciate it. Thank you so very much, folks. We thank all of, Michael, I truly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Folks, we thank all of you for watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Please support what we do by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. We are going to continue demanding equity for our people. Why? Because if you do not pony up financially, then what are we doing?

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You can also send us a money order to New Vision Media, Inc., 1625 K Street, Northwest, Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 2006 Alright, folks We always end our show, of course With our Bring the Funk Fan Club members Also, after this, I'm going to be doing a speech To Middle Tennessee State University

I'll be on their Zoom Right now, so I gotta go I'll see you tomorrow I know a lot of cops They get asked all the time Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Right now. So I got to go. I'll see you tomorrow. Halt! I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

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