#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Cop Named in Lyoya Killing, Biden Pardons 78, Xavier 1st HBCU To Win Nat'l Cheer Title, Aurora DC

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

4.26.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Cop Named in Lyoya Killing, Biden Pardons 78, Xavier 1st HBCU To Win Nat'l Cheer Title, Aurora DC  The name of the officer who killed a Congolese immigrant has been unofficially circulating since the fatal encounter.  Now it's been publicly acknowledged by Grand Rapid's Police Chief. We'll tell you who he is and show you his face. The first Black man to serve on a presidential security detail is among three people to receive a presidential pardon. We'll tell you the story about Abraham W. Bolden, Sr. The California ACLU files a lawsuit against a school district, claiming proposed school closures as discriminatory against black and browns students. Not only did Xavier University of Louisiana become the first HBCU cheer team to win a national competition, but they also received the highest point total ever in NAIA National Championship's history.  We'll talk to the coach and some of the championship team members.   In tonight's Marketplace, a black undergarment company that's ready to fit everyone. And some sad news, Andrew Woolfolk, Earth, Wind, and Fire’s Saxophonist has died.   Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now. Back up! Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roland. I love y'all.

All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scape. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? You dig? I hear the... Să ne urmăm. Să facem un pic de scăpire. I'm going to go ahead and get started. It's a March 26th, excuse me, April 26th, 2022.

Roland Martin on the filter, broadcasting live from Las Vegas for the National Association of Broadcasters. We're streaming live, of course, on the Black Star Network. The name of the officer who killed a Congolese immigrant in Grand Rapids, Michigan. His name has been released by the police department. We'll tell you who he is and show his face. Also, the first black man to serve in the presidential security detail has received a pardon, along with 70 plus others by President Joe Biden. The California ACLU, they have filed a lawsuit against a school district claiming proposed school closures are discriminatory against black and brown students. Folks, not only did Xavier University of Louisiana become the first HBCU cheer squad to win a national championship, they received the highest point

total ever in NAIA national championship history. We'll talk with the coach and some of the national champion members. Also, folks, in tonight's Marketplace segment, a black undergarment company that's ready to fit everyone. And in our memoriam, a longtime saxophonist for Earth, Wind & Fire has passed away. We'll tell you all of that. Folks, it's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the Black Star Network. Let's go. Let's go. to politics with entertainment just for kicks he's rolling with some go-go-royale it's rolling martin rolling with rolling now he's bulk, he's fresh, he's real

the best you know, he's rolling martin He's broke, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know, he's rolling Martel. Martel. Christopher Scher, that is the name of the officer in Grand Rapids, Michigan, who shot and killed Congolese immigrant Patrick Laiola three weeks ago in a traffic stop. Shot him in the back of the head. Grand Rapids Chief Eric Winstrom had declined to name the officer immediately after the incident, but changed his mind late Monday evening. Here's the statement explaining why. In the interest of transparency to reduce ongoing speculation and to avoid further confusion, I'm confirming the name already publicly circulating, Christopher Shura, as the officer involved in the April 4th officer-involved shooting. Beginning this week, as required by law, the Grand Rapids Police Department

will be releasing documents in response to requests made under the Freedom of Information Act relative to this incident. Any further requests for documents must also be made through a FOIA request and will be provided via the FOIA process as legally allowable. Officer Scher remains on administrative leave, stripped of his police powers until the conclusions of the Michigan State Police investigation into the potential criminal charges and the completion of GRPD's internal affairs investigation to determine whether all applicable departmental policies were followed. Now, Scherer has been a Grand Rapids police officer since 2015.

Let's bring in my panel, Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali, former senior advisor for environmental justice at the EPA, Lauren Victoria Burke, writer for the NNPA and the Griot, Demario Solomon Simmons, civil rights attorney and founder of Justice for Greenwood. Glad to have all three of you here. Lauren, I'm going to start with you first. I never understand this whole idea that an officer's name can't get released. I agree. Publicly paid by the taxpayers.

Right. Publicly paid by the taxpayer. And so this, oh, no, we can't release that. Oh, but they can release the records of the person involved. They can release how many times they've been arrested. They can release their whole entire history. But this is the kind of thing where police get protection from the system. No, that's absolutely right.

I agree with that. You know, it's a public, you're basically a part of the government. You know, we see it all the time where people's mugshots get released, right? This is before we know whether the person is guilty or innocent of anything. And that person's mugshot, is just out there in public view. So I'm not sure why. We do know why. The police are almost in a special class in the United States. They're treated like a special group that needs to be protected. But I would agree with you on that. I do think I'm not sure why, you know, all this protection, all this stress out over the name coming out.

Also, too, I mean, I think part of this is the sort of not wanting to have people looking into this officer's history, which is clearly going to be done now. And that can be done in a public way now because people know that officer's name, which you, of course, can't do when you don't know that officer's name. I suspect that's actually the real reason as to why some of these departments do not want to release the names of officers when they're involved in a shooting like this. It's just utterly crazy to me, Mustafa, that this happens and we give this level of protection to the police. Again, as if they're in this special class, they are paid by taxpayers. They are responsive to taxpayers. Exactly. They should actually be held to a higher standard.

So that means that when these types of incidents happen, the information should be automatically put out there, because if there's not transparency, then folks are automatically going to think that you're hiding something, that you're trying to protect someone in a different way than you would if it was someone who was not a part of law enforcement. So, you know, we have to change that dynamic. His name is out there, as Lauren shared, and now folks will be able to figure out if he's had previous infractions. One, two, three, four, five. Mustafa, go ahead.

Yeah. So, you know, with all that being said, once again, we've got to have more transparency. We also see for those who have been following this story in the news that you have, you know, they're now sort of sharing a narrative about his history, the work that he's done, whether in Africa or other places, to try and make sure that he's seen in the best light. And maybe so that folks may not dig as deeply, but we know that there are folks who are definitely going to make sure that the light of day and the truth about whom this individual is will be put out there, whether good or bad.

This is one of the things that we talked about last week, DeMario. Again, the level of protection that is provided to police officers, the fact that the shooting took place three weeks ago, and now we're now hearing and seeing who this officer is. It took three weeks for this to happen, and I like what you stated earlier. And what Mustafa stated, these people are not in a special class and they should be held to a higher level. They are public employees. And it does not matter what this individual's background is and how many Black babies he's adopted or how many times he's went to the inner city to give out free turkeys.

The fact of the matter is that he was on top of an unarmed individual and executed him, shot him in the back of the head, period, point blank. That is absolutely something that someone should go to prison for. There should be, he should be fired already immediately. It's a particular crime. And we need to dig deeper into that police department to understand what's going on when a person like that can actually be on the force. What type of background does he have in policing that this person can be on the force? So I'm looking forward to getting more information. The bad thing is, and this is what I tell all my clients and anytime I'm talking about this issue, regardless of what accountability that we bring towards that officer and that police department, that young 26-year-old man's life was taken, and that's the real tragedy here.

Indeed. That is constantly an issue. And again, I just keep telling people this goes in line with the kind of special protections that they provide to police officers, and that simply is a fundamental problem. Folks, let's talk about this here. Vice President Kamala Harris has tested positive for COVID. The White House announced that she has tested positive. It's not showing any symptoms. It's going to be working from the residents. This lets people know that COVID is still real. Remember, it was a few weeks ago that her husband, the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, that he contracted COVID. And now it is

Vice President Kamala Harris herself who is testing positive for COVID. And so again, I hope people realize that we can't play games with this. That is still real. Luckily, she is double vaccinated, got a booster as well, and has full protection. I tell you, it's interesting, Lauren, I posted a photo of me flying, goggles on, double mask, and all these crazy-ass right-wing white conservatives posted saying, oh, you're a hero. Oh, look at you. They have all these idiots. They've been tweeting me for a week. Oh, you've already had COVID once. So therefore you have natural immunity as if they never heard these breakthrough cases or people have actually gotten COVID twice. Yeah, everybody's a medical expert.

Everybody's a doctor. It's amazing how, you know, we could have a million people die over a two and a half year period. And people get so crazy in their feelings about somebody else wearing a mask on an airplane, a big enclosed space that circulates the same air. I just can't understand that. Why are we having these debates? Why are we talking about this after a million people are dead? It's embarrassing. It's crazy. And it's amazing how, and then, you know, probably end up talking about Twitter later, but I think so much of what drives this is social media and people's endless narcissistic need to be commenting on everybody's life and

everything and every piece of synapse that comes to their head about everything. But why are you caring about what somebody else is doing on an airplane with their mask? You know, it's like, mind your business. Like, why is that a thing? It's amazing. And the thing here that I made clear to DeMario, and I said it, I said, if y'all don't like it, y'all all can kiss my ass. I mean, these people are utterly idiotic. I mean, they've been sending me nasty tweets. You know, what the hell is wrong with you?

It's about freedom. Why you should never leave the house. I'm like, y'all have got to be some of the dumbest people. And then I said and I'm talking about that Jack, you know, whatever the hell his name, the dude behind the whole Pizzagate deal or that dumbass Ben Shapiro, dumbass Tucker Carlson, and I could go on and on, dumbass Steve Deese. And I said, oh, did all y'all forget the five conservative radio talk show hosts who are dead of COVID? All those folks. And so, I keep, matter of fact, when I was flying from Dallas to Las Vegas,

there are 20 people in first class. 18 white, two black. It was two people wearing their face masks. The two black people. Me and this sister. Yeah, I mean, I'm not surprised everywhere I go. I'm in Oklahoma. They never wanted to wear masks anyway.

Usually I'm the only person, me and me and my wife, we're the only people with a mask on. But listen, I think we have to always remember what Dr. Nellie Fuller said, that if you don't understand white supremacy, Everything else will only confuse you. And why that's important in this discussion, we're talking about COVID, the sister stated, you know, why people, a million people can die and no one cares. I truly believe that once it became clear that black people were dying at the most, the fastest rate, that at that point, America said, we don't give a damn. We want these Negroes to be dead anyway. And at that point, it turned from being a true medical whatever to being a political issue. And these Negroes, we don't care if they die.

And so I believe that we must keep that in mind. This country truly does not want us to be successful, absolutely hates the fact that we are alive. And anything that's going to degrade us, they're okay with it. It's the same thing across not wanting health care for everyone. Well, black folks are going to get it. We don't want it. Same thing about reducing student loan debt. Well, black folks going to get it. We don't want it. Same thing about reducing student loan debt. Well, black folks going to benefit.

We don't want it. You go down the list one by one by one by one. And I think that's a big deal when it comes to COVID. Well, these are the same right wing nuts who deny climate change, who say it doesn't exist. And I'll be clear, I ain't listen to none of you fools about anything dealing with COVID. And if y'all white folks want to run out here and you want to get COVID and get sick, and the bottom line is we don't know how COVID, the long-term impacts on our brain, on our heart, I can't stand the fact that I got it in December, and I damn sure am not trying to get it again.

You know, Roland, I just want to say, too, you know, back when Trump came to Tulsa back in 2020, and Herman Cain came here, and I don't want to laugh, but Herman Cain came here, and they made a big deal of having all these black folks there not wearing a mask. And Herman Cain died from COVID, and they were tweeting out on his Twitter the same day talking against masks and talking against COVID. And not one conservative, one white person, one white Trump, nobody said anything about Herman

Cain sacrificing his life to be able to show that there is freedom in not wearing your mask. So you got to keep that in mind. These people don't care about life at all, and particularly this black life. So they want you not to have your mask on, Roland. They would love to see you get rid of and take off your great show that you have every day, informing and empowering our community. And you're absolutely right. They were sitting here, Herman Cain, dead, and Phil Ballantyne, dead, Mustafa. We can go online. And these folks still sitting here

being dumb, acting as if this is no big deal. And guess what? It's their families that regret it. How about that fool in Texas who was leading marches and protests against mandates, against masks. Three kids, wife pregnant. His dumb ass get COVID and he did. You know, we might be done with COVID, but COVID's not done with us. I've had two friends. They're both in their 30s, one's in their early 30s, one's in their mid 30s who got COVID in the last 24 hours or they got the, you know, that they found out that they had it in the last 24 hours.

So, I mean, it's still real and it still disproportionately impacts our communities, but it impacts all communities. And for folks not to continue to take it serious and do the basics, that's the thing that's most frustrating is that there are basic steps you can do to protect yourself or to at least, you know, do what you can to minimize the possibility of you getting, you know, impacted by it. And folks won't even do that. And as it was said before, you know, impacted by it. And folks won't even do that, as it was said before. You know, it's turned into a political issue instead of a health care issue. And we're going to continue to lose lives,

and we're going to continue to get folks sick until we get serious about what the science says and not what Twitter says or Instagram says or Facebook says. I mean, it's absolutely crazy. All right, folks, got to go to a break. We come back. We'll talk the first African-American Secret Service agent on the presidential detail, pardoned by President Joe Biden. We'll tell you about the other pardons as well.

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that not only here but ar of money is the leading p financial education for c to 18. We provide 120 onl hours of financial education. That's right here on Get Wealthy on Blackstar Network. This week on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. Reparations. Is it finally time?

Two of the country's foremost authorities on the subject will join me to try to answer that very question. A powerful installment of The Black Table with me, Greg Carr, right here, only on the Black Star Network. You want me to do something crazy, but I don't know what to do. I'd rather just sit here. Hi, this is Cheryl Lee Ralph, and you are watching Roland Martin, unfiltered.

I mean, could it be any other way? Really, it's Roland Martin. Let's go. All right, fellas, President Joe Biden grants clemency to 78 people today with three receiving pardons. One person receiving a presidential pardon is 86-year-old Abraham Bolgin. He lives in Chicago. He's the first black Secret Service agent to have a presidential detail to serve, to be on presidential detail. This took place, of course, during the Kennedy administration. In 1964, Bolton was convicted of attempting to sell a copy of a secret service file.

He has maintained his innocence for decades. The other two pardons and 75 commutations are for nonviolent drug offenders serving long sentences. President Joe Biden says there are new job training measures and grants to help people reenter society. Lauren, I need to understand, okay, you know, this is now 15th month of Biden presidencies. Why taking so long? Okay, I guess 78. I mean, Jesus, use your power.

Yeah, I think that he'll probably accelerate that. I really think that what happened with Joe Biden is that when he first came into office, he was hit with the COVID stuff. And the COVID thing, the American Rescue Act, all that stuff, they just were totally immersed in that.

I just think they're now getting around to figuring out, oh, that's right, he can pardon a bunch of people. I mean, even just doing this one set of pardons is better than the entire set that Trump had, because if you remember, it was all, you know, sort of celebrity and political signaling that Trump was doing with the pardon power. So I think you probably, if, you know, the pardon office is sort of a weird, mysterious thing a little bit. But I think once they get going, they're probably going to probably set some record and do a little bit of what we've seen with judges, which is really sort of set set a few records and set a few markers that we haven't seen before.

And the bottom line here, DeMario, I mean, this is the power of a president. And the reality is when you've got that power, use your power. Well, you know, I'm a broken record. I say it almost every week. You know, we need the people that we elect, the so-called Democrats who set a so-called three-dicent base, to do what they can do and do it quickly and do it as fast as possible in the most effective manner. So, yes, I'm glad to see these 78, glad to see this brother. I never heard of his case until I got the materials from you guys this morning. But we need so much more and so much faster. And, yeah, they're breaking records on the judges,

but they need to go faster. They need to go even and do more. We have to have tremendous gains when we put Democrats in office. That's the only choice we have, Democrat or Republican. Unfortunately, almost two sides of the same coin. But we do know Democrats can do a little bit more for us, but they don't do as much as they possibly can. They can do more. That's the issue. And so, yes, 78 is cool, but we have so many people rotting in jail. Right now, in my opinion, everyone that was put in federal prison on an unequal powder cocaine, a crack cocaine, that person, those people should be let out of jail. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not for dope dealing and flooding our community with poison, but we know these people were put in jail with disproportionate sentences. So if they have completed their sentence that it would have been if it was powder cocaine,

all those people should be let out of jail, in my opinion. Well, he makes a good point there, Mustafa, because when we look at exactly what happened here. I mean, this nation and its onerous drug laws hurt the black community in a significant way with this whole idea of just throw folks in jail and lock them up. Now, granted, the president only can issue pardons for federal crimes. Of course, only 10 percent of those who are in prison are on the federal level. Ninety percent are on the state and county level. Right. Well, you know, Trump gave what was 237 acts of clemency. You know, we should make sure that that record is shattered. And I agree with DeMario. You know, I'm one who believes that, you know, there are folks who are in federal prison

because of marijuana charges, and I don't smoke marijuana, but I also understand the disparities that have existed, you know, and folks being locked up. And now you've got law enforcement who actually got all the license for these new dispensaries, that we should make sure that those brothers and sisters receive this type of opportunity to be free. And then let's hook them up with those resources that President Biden has talked about, allowing people to reenter. So let's let them reenter by creating, you know, new businesses and entrepreneurial opportunities,

especially in the areas that actually, since they had expertise in that space, that got them in trouble in the first place. So I'm real clear that the president should be doing more in this way. But again, you know, this is one of those things that, you know, righting the wrongs of the past. That's important. One of the things that, again, we talk about the First Step Act. That implies it's supposed to be a second step. You have right now, Lauren, conservatives who don't have an appetite for making any changes. They're still some are still whining and

complaining about the First Step Act. Are you seeing anything or hearing anything on Capitol Hill where Democrats are going to try to make some kind of move in this election year before the midterms on a second criminal justice bill? No, I haven't heard that. I'll be on Capitol Hill tomorrow. What will sort of delay the day tomorrow's Madeline Albright's funeral is tomorrow at two o'clock. But at any rate, no, in answering your question, I have not heard that. And really, more broadly, I don't really see a strategy coming from the Democratic Party yet for the midterms. I'm trying to figure out exactly what exactly that is.

You know, there's a few candidates that seem to want to do the whole routine of finding the magic unicorn conservative voter that's going to somehow magically vote Democrat. We saw a little bit of that from Abigail Spanberger last week, who's in a new district in Virginia, a heavily minority district in Virginia, talking about how defund was a stupid message and effectively repeating what Joe Biden said at the State of the Union, which was to make this big point that, wow, that defund idea was really, really stupid. Well, I'm not sure in a 20 percent state like Virginia who you're trying to attract, but your number one voting bloc is black women. And at some point, Democratic Party needs to actually pretend that that matters when they want to win elections.

I mean, it's like, do you want to be right with your friends and Jim Carville and these people, or do you want to win an election? And I don't know that they've figured that out yet. So I don't see a strategy yet, but that's nothing new for the Democratic Party, quite frankly. And when it comes to justice reform, they're all over the place, because they want to be on the side of cops, but they don't want to really listen to their number one voting block and the concerns that they have around policing. So that's a huge problem that has to be figured out.

You know, and again, what you're dealing with is you're dealing with folks on the right, the Mario, oh my God, all the crime in America. And so you white Democrats get scared. Oh my goodness, we had to go hard, you know, on this whole issue. That's what this thing is all response to. When the fact of the matter is, this nation still needs to have a massive criminal justice reform because we are locking way too many people up in prison. And the answer to every one of our problems in America is not throw them in the jail and throw away the key. Once again, Dr. Nelly Fuller said, if we don't understand why subparities are confusing, you know, the 13th Amendment outlawed enslavement, the first section, but the

section allows enslavement for those who are convicted of felonies. This is part of the process. This is part of the re-enslavement of Black people, in particular here in America. So the Democrats have shown time and time again that they don't really care about Black folks. Black folks, unfortunately, we're pretty much held hostage. We don't have anywhere else to go. You can't go over to the Republicans. I mean, by the very nature of someone saying they're conservative, what are they trying to conserve? Conserve racism? Conserve Jim Crowism? Conserve enslavement? Conserve redlining? No, thank you. We're smart enough not to want to be over there. So it makes us have a very difficult time here. We have to spend all of our energy trying to force those who we elect to do what's right. It's not easy. It's not even fair. But

it's what we have to continue to do. And the last thing I will say about mass incarceration, you know, I think a lot of people don't realize how much money it is for people to make in mass incarceration. So it's not just that this is something that we're locking too many people up. There are people making millions and millions of dollars off of it. So I used to be a lobbyist for a think tank, a progressive think tank here in Oklahoma. And I got to see firsthand that the lobbyists for the private prisons, and look at their contracts. Do you understand that these prisons, these private prisons get contracts with states that say, you have to give us 95 percent occupancy, 10-plus years, 15-plus years, whatever may be the time, and they have to pay for that regardless if they bring down the prison population?

I mean, it's a really insidious thing that's built into this system that the Democrats do not, will not, and to this point have not done the necessary work to change the structure that's necessary to be changed. Mustafa. We got 2.2 million people who are in jails and prisons and detention centers across our country. We know that our current system does not work. There have been plenty of studies that have shown that we make investments into communities that help to make sure that folks never get into the prison pipeline. You get a bigger bang for that dollar than you do by locking folks up and taking away their gifts and their hope and a number of other positive dynamics. So we have a choice. We can continue to just pump dollars in.

And as has been shared, there are people who want us to do that because they make huge amounts of money off that. Or we can reframe our country and we can make sure we're making the investments that actually going to yield to positive results. All right, then, folks, I'm going to go to break results. All right, then, folks. Got to go to a break. When we come back, we'll talk HBCU Connect, our segment. Got some HBCU news. Xavier wins because the first HBCU to win the national championship in a cheer contest. Spellman names a new president.

That and more right here on Rolling Mark and Unfiltered. Don't forget, again, Facebook folks, YouTube folks, hit the like button, hit the share button. We should be at 1,000 likes by now, y'all. It ain't that hard. Stop asking, having a brother big. Again, support us by downloading the Black Star Network app. If you have not done so, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. And, of course, support us with our Bring the Funk fan club where every dollar you give goes to support this show.

PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMart RM unfiltered. PayPal is R Martin unfiltered. Venmo is RM unfiltered. Zelle is rolling at rollingismartin.com. Rolling at rollingmartinunfiltered.com. We'll be right back. I'm Dr. Jackie, and on a next A Balanced Life,

it takes a village to raise a child, and truer words have never been spoken. If you're raising a child, you know that it's a blessed challenge like no other, even more so if your child has a disability. We'll talk to parents and our expert panelists about the best way forward for your child to help you maintain your own sanity on a next A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie on Blackstar Network. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not.

From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Blackstar Network. Hey, everybody. It's your girl, Luenell. So what's up? This is your boy, Irv Quake. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks. Dr. Helene Gale, longtime CEO of the Chicago Trust, has resigned to become the 11th person to serve as president of Spelman College. She was picked by the Board of Trustees in a unanimous decision. The current president, Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, she is going to be retiring.

Dr. Gale, as I said, she resigned a couple days ago as president of the Chicago Community Trust, one of the largest community foundations in the country. Gail says she will focus on making Spelman more affordable while trying to build on Spelman's strength in sending students into careers in medicine, science, technology, engineering and the arts. And so certainly a congratulations to Dr. Helene Gale as the next president of Spelman College. All right, folks, Xavier University in New Orleans, they're more known for turning out students who go into science, becoming doctors and scientists. Well, this year they became the first HBCU ever to win a national championship in cheering. This took place, of course, in the NAIA competition. They also achieved the highest point total ever in the event's history. Joining us right now is head coach Glenn A. Kasten.

He joins us right now along with two captains, Teddy Reed, Madison Clay, Yaa Agumon-Yaboa. Hope that's correct. How y'all doing? Oh, good. Thank you, Nick. Is that right? Is it Yaa? Yes, that's right.

Okay. Don't pronounce the rest. Oh. It's pronounced YAH, Ajumman Yeboah. Ajumman Yeboah. Got it. All right, cool. My folks did not give me the phonetic spelling like they were supposed to do. It's all good. So let's get right to it, folks.

First of all, how many folks were y'all competing against? Well, so we competed against 14 other teams at the competition, but there were about 85 teams throughout our season that we saw in some type of capacity. So you're going through this, and so take folks through these cheer competitions. Of course, a lot of people, of course, might have seen the movie Bring It On, but just give us a sense of what y'all had to go through and endure. Ooh.

Teddy? Well, at competitions, so for the most part, we would all walk in. You know, we would check in at first. And then as a team, we would get ready, put our last minute. You know, everybody would get taped up. We were all pretty much hurting at this point in the season. And then we would go into warm-ups, do our warm-up. We would go through our stunts, do our warm-up. We would have, go through our

stunts, go through tumbling, jumps, pyramid, and we would make sure, we always made sure we had dance so that we could get our energy up before we actually went on the mat. Then this is us like in the tunnel, and we would, that's when we would like prep each other, and we have this thing called day by day, and that's when I would get the team rallied up to make sure everybody was ready to go out there and kill it. We would make sure we uh gave each other our last minute like you got this i know you can do this i believe in you and then we would go out on the mat and kill it so that's kind of what we did every every competition oh yeah and our season uh madison what is the makeup of i'm sorry go ahead no we're just saying that our season starts really early we i mean while

we're on the mat for only two minutes and 30 seconds, I mean, we start preparing for this in August. So it is a long process to get to this point. While it's only a two-minute, 30-second routine, we're really prepping and using our full year to get us ready. So, Madison, first of all, what's the classification of this squad? Are they mostly juniors and seniors? Is it a young squad?

Very young right now. So we're only losing three seniors who were on the mat this year. So that's good for us. So hopefully next year we'll bring home another title. So, yeah, we're a very, very young team. Teddy's graduating. They're part of my first class of scholarship athletes for cheer. So we're excited to have all three of them.

Oh, my God. Don't make me cry on the camera. So all three of them are a part of our senior program for next year. So, yeah, we're going to lose a lot next year, but this year was still solid so uh madison y'all and teddy now were either of you on championship winning squads in high school uh no my we only had when i was in high school we only had um we only had one competition at the end of the year and we got like third so i actually went to a smaller cheer gym so we didn't have as much. We had resources, but we weren't to this level.

Yeah, I also cheered in high school and an all-star with Maddie. And we were competitive, but not as competitive as we were now. I feel like we've all seen growth since our freshman year with Coach Glade. And prior to this, what was the highest Xavier ever placed in a competition? So this year, Roland, I got to tell you, we went undefeated. We went undefeated this year in our preseason and at regionals. And last year we were also regional champions and also went undefeated throughout our season. So I guess, I mean, at nationals, previously we only scored, we were fifth place last year at nationals. So we knew what we needed to do this year to come in to take the title.

So we worked really, really hard, fine-tuning things. We worked really, really hard on our stunts to increase our difficulty. So we're used to winning, just not at this level. Questions for my panel? Lauren, I got a feeling you were not on the cheer squad in high school. Oh, no, not at all. I'm on the side watching. Don't worry about me competing with you, I'll tell you that.

You know, I was wondering the same thing that you had asked, Roland, about how well you guys had done in previous years. But also, who did you beat? Who did y'all beat this year? Who came in second and third? Indiana Westland was second and then saint ambrose um they were third um so the way that it works uh there's a day one score and a day two score so day one we're actually in second um and saint ambrose was in first um and

then next the next day we rose to the occasion so they could tell you what it took to get there. That night before, I made sure that we were at practice and fixing those small mistakes so that we knew that when we walked into the next day, we had a competitive edge. I mean, legit, we were supposed to go out to dinner. I was like, dinner's in the hotel. We are practicing tonight. That's great. That's great.

Thanks so much. Yeah. It's all really close. Demar, first of all, I'll go to Demario next. And Demario, you didn't actually play much on the football field, so you probably spent more time watching cheerleaders. So you probably have a question. What's a question.

See, DeMario, that's why you're muted. Can you hear me now? Yeah, we can. Yeah, now we can hear you. He was behaving on me because I'm an Omega and I went to play football at University of Oklahoma. We used to spank A&M all the time. So that's why he behaved on me.

No, y'all didn't. No, y'all didn't. Hey, what's wrong with watching cheerleaders? What's wrong with watching cheerleaders? I think that's a pretty good thing to do. Listen, this is an amazing story. It is. The point is you were not playing.

But go ahead and ask your question. Steve, my old reed. You're going to get this. Uh-oh, we have them too. We got two. Hey, hey, hey, DeMario, you see this ring? Alpha. Let me talk to the cheerleaders, man.

Let me talk to the champions. And DeMario, just so you know, tomorrow's my 35th Alphaversary. So you better don't ask no questions before it gets funky up in here. Let me talk to these championship women and this championship coach. I'm proud of all of y'all. Y'all bring it home to HBCU. That's what's up. And I like what you said, Coach.

Second place, you need to get your team together. I ain't going to ask you what you said because you may not even say it on TV. But I know you did what necessary so it could come out. I'm just proud of you all. And you know, as athletes, and my wife was a cheerleader, and as an athlete, do you guys

still find that people don't understand how much athleticism it takes to do what you do? And then you talked about your injury. Do people not understand, like, the type of injuries, the sprained ankles, the knee twist, ACLs? Talk a little bit about the sacrifice that you have to do, and it's not just about football and basketball players

dealing with those type of injuries. I would say I think a lot of people don't see it as much of a sport since it's so fun to watch, and we're smiling like other sports. I think a lot of people don't see it as much of a sport since it's so fun to watch. And we're smiling like other sports. Since it's also a performance. But we've had so many injuries. I've personally had three concussions.

So it's a dangerous sport as well. It's just also entertaining. Also, to add on to that, I feel like most people don't realize that cheer is never out of season so even though we might not be competing we're still cheering on basketball and volleyball and when basketball is over then we're showing up to the baseball games so when baseball is over then we're getting ready for our season so there's never really an off period and so when most people get that time to like recuperate and really rest their bodies we're still getting the routine together for the next showcase so I feel like that really also shows how athletic we are. Another thing is, like, when we're at practice, when you guys, well, when football practices, they have pads, they have shoulder pads, they have helmets.

We don't have any of that. Like, we're throwing these girls, like, 15 feet high in the air, and they're just praying that they come down and we catch them. So we're doing all of these things, like putting our bodies out there and just, like, trusting our teammates. So that's another thing that we have to have in this sport is trust because we don't have that much protection in terms of, like, equipment. So we're always in the trainer.

Like, before our practices, the whole team, it's like 20-plus people in the trainer getting taped. Like, by the end of the season, I had both my ankles taped, both my wrists taped, and my knee taped, and my back taped. So I'm like, I'm falling apart, but I'm gonna do it for the team. And they train really well. So they train like football players, actually. I mean, their weight training, Tuesdays and Thursdays at the same facility that the Saints train at, you know. So they're doing the work. So stuff that Roland, see, this is stuff Roland don't know anything about. Us athletes, we understand that.

Roland don't know anything about that. Well, actually, since you want to open your big old mouth, I worked for the video laboratory for the Texas A&M University football team. And so I was doing what I do. And then when I was in high school, we shot all the games. We won state championship. So what you got to understand, Mario, high school, we shot all the games. We won state championship. So what you got, so what you got to understand to Mario,

see somebody got to shoot the video for y'all to watch film. So you know how you screwed up. I didn't say you were not. Now, um, no, no, no. And second, I play, exactly. I play baseball. Oh, see, don't get yourself embarrassed. Mustafa, my alpha brother, ask your question. Congratulations for being a champion.

Nobody can ever take that away from you. You know, I'm curious about the challenges you all faced throughout the year to, you know, all that you put in to be able to get to this moment. So can you talk a little bit about how you navigate the challenges? I can talk from a from a high level point. And certainly they have their internal challenges. I mean, being the first black institution to even reach the NAIA nationals was a big feat, right? So not only are we facing the challenges of competition and the athleticism side of it, we also are facing the isms. And we have to talk about that, you know?

So a lot of what I do at that high level is changing people's perspective of what it means to be black in this space. As you all know, cheerleading, if you look on TV, it's not a black-dominated sport. And for many times and many opportunities have been stripped away from black teams, from black athletes. So my job really at that high level is to really sell their greatness and to tell their story at that higher level, right? We face, I'll tell you, there's lots of rules changes in cheerleading.

And if anyone knows anything about cheerleading, just think about it from this perspective. I'll give it to you like this. A touchdown might be worth, what, six points? And if you get that field goal, it's seven, right? Well, in our season um we had the highest um as it's playing on the field we're doing the highest level and degree of tumbling right that we could ever do um on the mat right and at that point um in the middle of the season the rules change right so um it was rule changing so they dummy down the score so that other teams

can kind of um reach what we we were doing so that other teams can kind of reach what we were doing. So that's a challenge in itself, just selling that. Like, hey, why would you do it if that concession was not made for other teams? Wait, wait, wait. You're trying to say they were grading them on the curve? You know, there was a curve that existed. And no disrespect to my colleagues throughout the NAIA, but the truth is the truth that we,

everyone knows that a layout is not the same as a full. And so that full, these athletes are working to get that highest degree. And so in our division, those layouts were weighted the same, and that was a challenge in itself. It was also a challenge to bring our institution up to speed, right? Because a lot of times when starting a new program, people don't know how great it can be. And so I have to go out and tell the story. I have to go out and say, this is our plan and people have to be on board. I have to get all of our alumni and our staff and our administration on it. So it takes a lot of work at this level for the coaching because it's not just going to practice and saying, OK, y'all, y'all are going to do this on this count. It's all these other components that make it work. I think some of the other challenges we face where everybody's not in Louisiana, but Hurricane Ida, we did have to go through that.

And a lot of people did have to go home and they had to evacuate. So we still had to try to work around that with our, with practice times and things like that and people coming back and forth. Again, the injuries, that was another challenge. And between us going back and forth, between, between us going back and forth with school and going home for Thanksgiving break. That was another challenge that we had. So we had to keep on pushing. Even if we didn't have all the main players that we wanted to put on the mat, we still had to make sure our alternatives could fill in for us

and make sure we could still get the job done, still get the routine put together so that we can execute it later. Going back to what Coach Glenn said, I always tell people this all the time. The competitive program at Xavier is only as old as the three of our college careers. It's only been three years. So everything is the first annual this, the first annual that. We're literally coming up with this as we go. We're learning as we go.

So a lot of programs have been established for years and years and they have protocol for everything. But there's been times where we're sitting at coach's office like, okay, so this is the first time this happened. What do we do? And we're like, we don't know. We don't have any examples. We don't know what to do. So we're just kind of like coming up with everything as we go. So I just also attest to like a lot of different things we've had to do. Yeah. In addition to that. that all right then yeah yeah go ahead for the final comment go ahead i was just gonna say there's a lot of pushback on us being national champions from the other teams they don't they weren't really expecting an all-black team like us to

take that and they they're not necessarily always happy with it that's all I had to say. And they're working, too. They're academics like that. Their finals, all of it. So, yes. Absolutely. Well, that's why I say hashtag team whip that ass. Yes, sir. It's the rolling bar. If you don't like the

fact that all Black Squad beats you, well, damn it. Go practice more and come back next year and see what you do. Absolutely, yes. I mean, to me, this ain't hard. So congratulations, and also, y'all got the right colors. That black and gold looks real good. Oh, jeez.

We know you would say that. You hear that, Demario? You hear that, Demario? Yeah, but you wish you looked half as good as they look at it, brother. So that's all. Remember that. Demario, Demario, Demario, we all look good in black and gold. Nobody look good in purple and gold.

All right. Coach, I appreciate it. I certainly appreciate it. Let me thank y'all, Teddy and Madison as well for joining us. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, folks. And speaking of Xavier, their president also announced that they are going to be opening a medical school. Of course, when you when you talk about right now,harry has the only black medical school in the country. But Xavier University, they send many students to black medical schools.

And so they are going to make that decision. I'm pulling it up now. Well, the announcement was recently made about Xavier doing that. And so their plan. And so what they say is Xavier wants to open their own medical school to to increase diversity in the health professions. And so this is a huge, huge decision here. It was announced on Thursday as Xavier is going to establish the Graduate School of Health Sciences and Medical School. And so it's in the planning stages as we speak. It's going to be several years before the medical school is ready to train future physicians.

And so certainly that is absolutely a great thing by Xavier there in Louisiana. All right, folks, going to a break. When we come back, we're going to talk, of course, about black and missing. We'll also we'll talk about some prison guards who have now been indicted. Again, folks, this is the kind of thing that you're seeing the Department of Justice is doing, going after these rogue correctional officers all across the country. Folks, don't forget, if you're on YouTube, you're on Facebook, hit the like and the share button. If you want to support us in what we do,

also download the Black Star Network app. Of course, we're trying to hit 50,000 downloads by May 1st. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Also, please, you can join us by supporting us at our Bring the Funk fan club, where every dollar you give goes to support this show. I'm in Las Vegas today for the National Association of Broadcasters,

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Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back. When I first moved to LA, me and Joe lived together, right? And that was a big blessing because I didn't have to worry about paying rent. I was just struggling, doing my thing. And that was a big, big help. And then I think when I moved out, I think that's when I saw the division. Because I think Joe, Joe felt like I didn't need him anymore. And I wasn't that.

I was like, I'm a grown-ass man. Two grown-ass men. But actually, that's, well, that is true. You don't need me anymore. When you grow up, first of all, when you grow up, it's like, hey, you helped, and this time you get your ass out of the house and go do your own thing. Right, he didn't want me to move out., it's like, hey, you help, and this time you get your ass out of the house and go do your own thing.

Right. He didn't want me to move out. But I'm like, you know what? At the time when I moved out. I mean, what? Were you paying the light bill? I was paying anything. And I said, you know what?

I need this responsibility. It's going to make me work harder in my career if I know I got rent to pay, I got bills to pay. I was paying the cell phone bill. That was it. But Joe was treating me like a little butler. So I'm telling you, I was like Benson. I bill, that was it. But Joe was treating me like a little butler. Like, because, I'm telling you, I was like Benson. I'm telling you, man.

Hey, please fetch me some water. He was using Jedi mind tricks. Yo, man, you still make them good grilled cheese sandwiches you made when you were little? No, you don't. Next thing you know, I'm at the stove. Flipping. And then it dawned on me, trick me.

You done tricked me again. Got me again. Got me again. You read about it in history. You talk about it. You see it on our side, on our side of the United States, but to actually come here and see where this story of slavery started and connecting the dots, it's just a wow factor for me right now.

Dark inside. You might not see too much, but you're going to feel everything. Just imagine seeing prisons in the yard in the United States. A lot of us, if we're real blind, what is required in 2019, what is required in 2020, specifically for us to be reprogrammed, It just doesn't make sense that the richest continent in the world should be inhabited by the poorest people in the world. Part of that is by design. So... A very tragic part of our whole existence. And I'm not blaming anybody for it,

but if you look at most characterizations of being of African descent in the world, it's with these kind of tags. Always say, you're gonna do a lot of shopping. They go, oh, I don't think so. And then they come, so they brought limited reserves, and then they spend all their time running to the ATM because they see all these clothes they want

and fabric they want. It's overwhelming. I've been here for eight years, and I'm still taking pictures out of my car because it's just, it's a feast for the eyes on any given day. The kind of opportunities you have in Africa, you don't have those in America. The kind of money that you can make in Africa,

very few of you would have that opportunity to do that in America. Cordy, who was working for the Congress in the United States, she has started a waste management company. She's the number one here in Ghana now. She looked at... She's got a thousand trash. There it is.

Used to be jeans. Used to be jeans. Is now a huge... Huge. In Ghana alone, we have a 2 million unit deficit in housing. 2 million. 2 million. Two million. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you.

Seven of the 10 fastest growing economies right now are African nations. Why in the world would we not be trying to figure out how to connect? Because the Lebanese are. The Chinese are. Everybody else is doing it. We would be trying to figure out how to connect? Because the Lebanese are. The Chinese are. Everybody else is doing it.

We would be crazy to do it. And it's for people who look like us. We would be crazy to do it. Crazy to do it. Crazy to do it. What's up? What's up? I'm Dr. Ricky Dillon, the choir master.

Hi, I'm Amber Stevens-West from The Carmichael Show. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Aniga Hill Maynard has been missing from Kansas City, Missouri since April 18, 2022. She's 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 150 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Aniga Hill Maynard should call the Kansas City, Missouri Police Department at 816-234-5111. Again, that is 816-234-5111. So, again, Aniga Hill. Aniga Hill Maynard has been missing since April 18th.

All right, folks. A judge has thrown out 44 more convictions tied to a notorious Chicago sergeant who regularly framed people for drug crimes. They did not commit. More than 170 black defendants have seen their drug convictions in cases tied to former Sergeant Ronald Watts and his tactical unit get dismissed. Watts and another officer pleaded guilty in 2013 to stealing money from an FBI informant. Watts received a 22-month prison sentence. Now, here's what's funny, Mustafa.

We always hear these folks talk about, oh, respect the blue, blue lives matter. You look at this thuggish cop that was a police officer in Baltimore who was on the stand a few weeks ago who talked about how they were shaking folks down and stealing money from drug folks. Just notorious. So you notice you never hear the FOP.

All the folks are blue saying anything about the cops like this. Nothing but crickets after they ruin people's lives. Think about all those folks who are innocent, all those years that they lost with their families and being able to be in a job and being able to build wealth for both themselves and their families and their communities that was taken away by someone who told lies to garner their own wealth from individuals. So, you know, 22 months for doing all that damage. I mean, I don't care if you're black, white, whatever color you might be, you deserve to spend a significant amount of time for all the damage and trauma that you created by the actions that you intentionally did. Lauren, again, when we hear these cases uh all the people uh you know that's an aberration that this goes to the police mistrust to have this cop literally framing people

absolutely i can't imagine that there wouldn't be a massive class action of some type and people suing for civil damages on that. I mean, probably going on for obviously over a decade or so. It is a really amazing thing what these states get away with and what some of these jurisdictions get away with with regard to damaging an individual's life many years over and sometimes decades. We see a story, you know, every few weeks of somebody who's been in jail wrongfully convicted. And then many of these states have set up situations where they are under no obligation to in any way make any of those people whole. And it is outrageous. And of course, many of those individuals are black men. And so somehow or another they're able to get away with this. I have absolutely no idea how they're able to get away with it.

They should be sued. The department should be sued. The city should be sued and everybody else that was involved for damage. And those damages would be well into the millions. I'm sure DeMario can speak on this a lot better than I can, but it is outrageous. DeMario, I mean, it's crazy to read this story and see the kind of damage that this thug cop inflicted in his tactical unit inflicted on people. Yeah, and Sister Lauren, I'll tell you how they can continue to get away with it, because, again, the Department of Justice allows it.

As we talked about earlier and we talk about every week, the federal government is abrogating its responsibility to protect us from these type of police departments. And when I say these type of police departments, these are the this is the model from around the country. Believe me, this is not an aberration. This is not a bad apple. The system is bad. It's a corrupt system. It's built out of slave catchers, and it rewards this type of behavior. It rewards and protects these type of officers. I see it each and every day. People having their lives destroyed, people being put in jail, losing their jobs, all just complete BS. I would say something stronger, but I'm trying to be cool. And I want to say another thing. This is another example. I say this all the time. I'm a broken record on this. People say, oh, we need more black cops. We need more.

It does not matter. The color is not about colors, about culture. And the culture of police departments is corruption, discrimination, and racism. And most of the time, these black cops, they fall right into that culture. Either they start doing the same things as their white counterparts because they want to move up, or they're too weak to stop and fight hard against it and call these people out. This is a travesty.

22 months, that makes me sick to my stomach. This individual should be in jail for the cumulative amount of time he put individuals in jail. And yes, there will be lawsuits, but those lawsuits will be pennies on our dollar when you're talking about time in prison, time away from your family, time away from your career, and just time locked up. It's ridiculous. It's outrageous. And I'm, again, calling on the Biden administration and Department of Justice to do their job quicker, faster, more aggressively, more efficiently. Folks, let's now go to Alabama where a former Alabama prison officer has been indicted on federal charges of assaulting three inmates and then submitting a false statement after the incident.

Lorenzo Mills is accused of hitting inmates with a wooden baton in October 2020. Mills is also charged with making false written statements. He is facing a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for each civil rights charge and 20 years in prison for the obstruction of justice offense. This is the thing here, DeMario. We often talk about law enforcement and police abuse. And we are seeing now with Christian Clark leading the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, just so many cases of violence being committed against people by corrections officers. Yeah, again, I have a lot of I have a lot of experience in this, you know, representing individuals who've been killed in jail or their families and beaten in jail and also understanding from a state level of funding. So I'll say here in Oklahoma,

for example, you're talking about people in the jails who usually come from these small towns where they place these jails to prop up these small white towns, their economies by putting these jails in there, putting black folks and poor folks in these prisons. And then you can just have a high school, you know, basically 18 years old, 20 years old, and you become a prison guard in some of the worst locations in America. It's outrageous. And again, it's ridiculous. And the Department of Justice is doing some things, but again, they're not doing enough. You know, I think last week the Department of Justice announced that they were finding that that prison down in Mississippi, I think it's Parchment Prison, finally was going to say Parchment was a violation

of civil rights. Well, it took them three years to make that determination when three years ago, eight or nine people got killed in a span of like 10 days. It should not take that long for the Department of Justice to come in and do a proper investigation and shut these prisons down. It should not take years long for the Department of Justice to come in and do a proper investigation and shut these prisons down. It should not take years and years and years. It should take it should be much, much faster. They should ask for much more, more money.

They need more than double the staff at Department of Justice. And they need to do what they can do, what the law allows them to do. I am dealing with them right now on some cases, asking them to do some things that I'm with. They just dragging their feet. I have a call tomorrow, in fact, on the issue where it's just been dragging their feet. So they need to move faster. People's lives are at risk. People's liberty are at risk. And it's destroying, destroying, destroying black people. Mustafa? I mean, the physical abuse that happens inside of prisons and jails is just, there's an epidemic that goes on. You know, I've worked with some folks and I've talked to others, you know, and, you know, we don't do enough about it.

There are over 390,000 correctional officers across our country. Imagine that. And yet we only hear about a handful of these types of egregious actions that happen every year. And it's because of great attorneys like the one that we have on the panel and others who are willing to lean in and continue to push and fight. But if we know we've got close to 400,000 officers that are out there in the correctional space, then we know there have to be even more folks who are dealing with this type of physical abuse, mental abuse, and a number of other things that happen inside of our prisons and jails. So we need, as has been said, you know, we've got to have a whole lot more folks who are

at the Department of Justice. And also on the state level, they need to build out more accountability in this process where folks are going to continue to have a silent voice. It's hard for them to get traction to be able to get people to pay attention to what's going on inside of these jail cells and these prison cells. Indeed. And so part of the problem that we have is that there's this whole idea for a lot of these people that, look, they're inmates. Who cares? They don't actually deserve to be treated with dignity. That's part of the problem, Lauren.

Yeah, that's a huge part of the problem. I've heard a lot about this as I was growing up because my father, in fact, was a CO at Rikers Island and the Brooklyn House of Detention. And his overtime put me through college. The stories he used to tell were fairly frightening, to say the least. He was a prison guard for 20 years. So it was what you would expect. I still cannot believe that from the time I was a little kid to right now that Rikers Island is still open. As was discussed earlier, the United States leads the world in the rate of incarceration.

We have, you know, over 2 million people who are in the system in some way, shape or form. And this is all about money at the end of the day, like most things that we can't get rid of that we should get rid of on a moral level. It's all about money. Incarceration is about money. Putting those people through the system is about money. And what upsets that apple cart of not having those people going through that system is the police salaries and somebody who's got a few relatives in the law enforcement space in New York and in Virginia. I can tell you that their pensions, all of that is just a round and round wheel of money and support base for everybody who's making that money, not just for small towns, but certainly for small towns, small white towns

in rural parts of the United States, but in big cities. And this thing that we have with incarceration, how we haven't been hit as a country with some sort of international human rights violation from The Hague, I have absolutely no idea. Because we hear these stories all the time. We know they're going on. We know that there's nobody looking into it. We know DOJ is not looking into it. And yes, there is in fact this attitude that these people are in jail, they don't matter.

But, see, if we were talking about some other country, you know, Russia or China, we would be acting holier than thou. But we have a massive problem in the United States with how we think about people we incarcerate and the fact that this is all about cash. You know, Lauren, that is so on point. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, bro. I'm sorry, bro. No, no, no. Go ahead. Go ahead. I was going to say, you know, I'm so, Lauren, you were so on point when you said we talk about other countries. You know, everybody's talking about, oh, our democracy and our human rights.

America doesn't believe in human rights, particularly of black people. America doesn't believe in democracy, particularly for black people. And this is a great example of it. You know, right here in Oklahoma, we lock up more people, more women, more women than any place else in the world in Oklahoma. And we do it each and every day. And again, it is all about money. And it's all about, you know, when I said a DOJ can do more, here in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County Jail is one of the most notorious.

It's like a Rikers Island. 10, 12, 15, 20 people die there every year. I had a case where a client of mine, the prison guards set him up to get beat up by a rival gang, and they killed him. And once we dug into that case, we found that since 1995, since 1995, the DOJ has been documenting the civil rights abuses in that jail, where the jails don't even lock, where they're eating, you know, feces is backing up into the jail cells, where they're eating, they don't have a functional kitchen. They have to feed them out of the, just transports. It's ridiculous. And guess what? That's a jail. These people are not convicted. These people have just been charged with a crime. And guess what? Most of those people are there because they're poor.

They can't pay the bill to get out of jail. So these individuals are being deprived of their civil rights. The Department of Justice has known this since 1995, yet they won't shut that jail down. That jail is still ongoing today. People are still dying in that jail today, just like Rikers Island. And it's a travesty. This is why I'm so hard on the Department of Justice and the federal government. It is the federal government that has to move in, utilize its awesome powers, stop sending

– well, I'm going to say stop sending. If you can send billions of dollars to Ukraine and you can jump to the forefront to protect Ukraine, well, damn it, we need you to spend billions of dollars on our communities right here because you're the one destroying them. Jump to the forefront for our people because we built this country and we deserve it and we're taxpayers today. That's my position. All right, folks, let's talk about this case out of California, where the ACLU of Northern California, they are filing a lawsuit against the Oakland Unified School District,

claiming the district's new school closure plan disproportionately discriminates against black and brown students. The school board intends to close seven schools and merge two others. At least at four of those schools, the population is over 50% black. The ACLU says the plan will harm black students with special needs and violates black students' fundamental right to equal educational opportunity under the California constitution and discriminates based upon race. And so we'll see what happens with that particular story. All right, folks.

And today's in memoriam, longtime saxophonist for folks, in today's In Memoriam, a longtime saxophonist for Earth, Wind & Fire, Andrew Woolfolk has passed away. He was one of the original members of Earth, Wind & Fire through the historic run. The veteran musician who joined Earth, Wind & Fire in 1972 passed away Sunday after battling a long illness. He was with Earth, Wind & Fire through their most formative and influential years in music and contributed to some of their biggest hits, including September. Andrew Woolfolk is an ancestor

at the age of 71. All right, folks, when we come back, we will have our Marketplace segment where we focus on black businesses, a black undergarment company. Oh, y'all wear underwear. Might as well support a black owned company that makes the undergarments. We'll talk to them next.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, financial literacy. Without it, wealth is just a pipe dream. And yet, half of our schools in this country don't even teach it to our kids. You're going to hear from a woman who's determined to change all that, not only here, but around the world. World of Money is the leading provider of immersive financial education for children ages 7 to 18. We provide 120 online and classroom hours of financ right here on get wealthi network. This week on the Greg Carr reparations. Is

of the country's foremost subject will join me to t very question. A powerful table with me, Greg Carr, right here, only on the Black Star Network. This is Judge Matthews. What's going on everybody? It's your boy, Mack Wilde. All right, folks. Every Tuesday, we focus on black-owned businesses in our Marketplace segment.

And today, we're talking about a black undergarment company called Aurora D.C. They are an athleisure brand that tells inclusivity for all genders, sizes and ages. Thomas Butler, he is the owner of Aurora D.C. and he joins us from Washington, D.C. Glad to have you on the show. So first of all, what is the name Aurora D.C.? Actually, it's called Aurora. The D.C., you know, back in the day,

you used to have D.K. and Y. And they have D.C. I mean, they used to have N.Y. in the corner. That's basically what the Aurora D.C.

stands for. So it's basically just Aurora was the meaning of the name of it. All right. Okay. Sounds good. just want to know that. And appreciate you having me on the show.

Were you in the business? Were you in the business? Were you on the retail side? What caused you to say, you know what? I think I can own my own athleisure company and make it undergarments. Basically, where I'm from, a lot of people have their own clothing line. Like, they have hoodies and stuff like that. And I noticed that as a black person, nobody, you know, ever, I don't see too many undergarments all around.

I see a lot of clothing lines and stuff like that. And I decided I always like to be different. So I decided to, you know, jump out there and start my own clothing, my undergarment line. How long you had it? Well, it took me actually six months. I had it for almost like a year and a half, but it took me six months to actually get the

right material, the right styles and stuff to each stuff. Because like when you brand an underwear, you got to make sure that it's comfortable for everybody, not just for yourself. So I had to do a lot of test runs and it took me about six months because I get it from over, I get it from over overseas.

And it takes a long time for, you know, to get all this stuff here on time. All right, Ben, how have your sales been since you launched? Good, good. I'm just looking for more sales. Because once they get a hold of it and they get the material, they always buy one. Then once they buy one, you see them, they're coming right back. They're buying two, they're buying three. So it's just all about just getting it out there to people.

And once they get it, they just gravitate to it. Sales doing good. Sales actually doing real good. They can do better. They doing good though. So, well, obviously we all want sales to do better. How many employees do you have in Aurora, D.C.? Me. I'm the only one. Just you? Just me. I'm doing everything. Actually, I just bought me a camera for like $1,500. I'm about to start doing a lot of my photography work for my company as well. So how are you handling your marketing? How are you handling your sales? How are you handling all of that?

I target a lot of people that's influenced into the community and stuff like that. I actually have a lot of friends that play in the NFL and the NBA, so I'm reaching out to them, get them just to do a lot of, you know, little quick little photos and put it on their pages or their social media. I'm also right now – I'm talking to a marketing team right now to help me boost up my sales and boost up my Instagram and my website as well. So I'm going to talk with them.

I'm also looking for just different marketing streams and strategies just to get it out there. Questions for my panel. Let me first go to Demario. I can't hear you. Demario, stop. Hit your mute button. I don't know why you hit it.

If you will make us learn how to use technology. Hey, brother. How you doing today? Where are you located? Washington, D.C. Okay, so you're in D.C. and when you said you were I was just kind of interested when you were saying

hey, it took me six months to figure it out were you like trying on different pairs of drawers and they were like this is too scratchy this ain't Nah, I got a lot of friends and what I did was I got a lot of samples from the vendors i got

you know i gave them out to my friends and you know i'm the type of person i love constructive criticism so like if you tell me you don't like it and it's this and that i'm gonna go back to the drawing board and make sure it's perfect so it took me actually six months to get you know the designs i it was nothing the designs was easy But it took me at least about six months just to get the proper branding, the stitching and all that stuff like that and material. But when I got it, it was good. It's good to go now. But was there anything in particular about like a pair of underwear? I'm being very serious here.

Yeah, because basically like guys like, you know, older guys, don't like the uh polyester spandex they like the cotton they used to the cotton so my brand i have both i have the cotton span that's kind that's good it's breathable because when you're wearing drawers and you're wearing it all day you want to be comfortable you don't want to be sweating and your jaw is too tight or it's too loose you want to be able to move around all day and with my underwear you can do that they breathable you can wear them all day. I have polyester spandex, and I also have cotton spandex. So you can take

your pick. If you don't like the smooth feel with it, old school, you can have the cotton ones. You want the fruit? So they want the old fruit and the little ones. They want the old tiny whiteys. I wear both. I wear the cotton ones. I wear my stuff now. I wear everything I ones. I wear, I wear my stuff now.

Like I'm not, I wear everything I have. I wear my own stuff, my socks, uh, and my undergarments. So everything I have is just, it's comfortable.

Like I, I, like I said, it took me six months to get everything right. And it was worth it though. I didn't rush it because I didn't want to have a product come out and I'm trying to target a certain area and a target, certain people. And my product is not good enough with the rest of the competitive that's out

there. So if I'm trying to come out there and take over, I got to make sure my stuff is good. Word up. Appreciate you, bro. Good love. In terms of your distribution, how are you handling that? Do you have a company that handles that in terms of when orders are placed and being shipped out? Yeah, I actually do that myself. If I turn it around a little bit, you can see I have orders right there that I have to put out right now. I actually have a website where everything comes on my website.

So when the orders come in, I just go in get the orders go to the post office and send it off all right next question for uh lauren lauren hey how are you how you doing today uh thomas it's very exciting uh i've got two uh i've got two t-shirt hoodie businesses both drop ship i know what you mean when you say you got to order the stuff to see how it is from specific vendors to check before you go forward because you just don't know until you get it.

But what really impresses me here is that the niche that you're in is like such a good one. It's such a good one because most people do t-shirts, they do hoodies, they do mugs. They're scared of this. They're scared of what I'm doing right now. They don't want to do what I'm doing. They don't like this. It takes time. It takes time. Yeah. Yeah. And so what you're doing is great, Nitch. And the designs that I saw were really cool, too.

So that's hot. That's really good. Thank you. You know, there's a Butler family in D.C. that goes way back. They're like the first. They owned something that was huge. Black butlers. I bet you're related to them. I need to look it up because they might owe me something. I need to look it up.

I'll send you a note to the website. Keep on trucking because that's good stuff. That's a really good niche. Very nice. Thank you. Mustafa. Thomas, thank you for representing for the home team really appreciate you i don't know what part of the city you're in i'm on the south side but i'm uptown i'm uptown but we all together we all together we all together there is one love most down i'm curious i'm curious two things real quick one what your vision is for the business so you know a year from now uh what do you hope to have been able to accomplish and then do you have top sellers

that you want to uh you know that you can kind of call out for folks what's like some of your number one sellers right now that's good um basically i never even told y'all the the meaning of a roar so i'm gonna give y'all the meaning and break it down basically the roar is like the colorful uh light in the sky that caused by the sun that's particles that causes a certain type of gas that interact with each other that basically caused the beautiful just you know the beautiful uh color of the greenish and uh and the basically the dc ones the ones that if they can see it is going up is green and like bluish. And those are the D.C. ones. Those are like the top selling ones because of, you know, where I'm from. Then I have the Phoenix ones, which are the red one. Yep. There you go. Right there.

Those are the those are the top selling ones because of where, you know, D.C. But everybody, you know, it's a district. So you got the capital, the White House on this. Everybody going to want that anyway. All of them are top sellers. The Flames is good. What's called the Phoenix. The Mythical ones. Those are my favorite ones. The Mythical ones

and the Phoenix ones are my favorite ones. And then you have the Blue Flames, which is the blue and black ones. Those are the female sets that's showing right now, and those are a high commodity as well those are the cheated print ones um the the there you go right there that's the raw print those are high selling ones as well i had to actually the crazy part is i already sold out i had to reorder more so i already sold out i had to reorder more. So basically, when I get back to what you were saying in the future, I want to start a program which is called Be A Light.

Basically, since the Aurora is a colorful light showing the sky that's caused by the sun, I want to be able to anytime I'm interacting with anybody or they interact with the underwear, I want them to share light with them, to share positive messages with them, to keep going, to keep thinking positive and

stuff like that. So I also already have something that I'm going on right now that I've been giving back to the community. I have a back-to-school program that I've already been doing, but now that I have the underwear line going on, I want to start doing things for the homeless and the less-needing. All right,

Ben. Well, look, I appreciate it. Tell Puppet where to go, where to shop. You got to shop at Shop Aroyd, www.shoparoyd.com, shoparoydc.com. If you don't have my Instagram, it's the same thing as shoparoydc. You can find me there. The website going crazy. It's going crazy right now while I'm on the phone. It's easy to shop.

It's not hard. Basically, the stuff fits. Everything fits. Everything fits. Everything fits. All right. I certainly appreciate it, man. Thank you so very much. Good luck.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate the opportunity. All right, folks. That is it for me. I've got to go back and hit the floor of the National Association of Broadcasters. I leave tomorrow from L.A., and so we're looking at a variety of things to improve with audio

stuff, teleprompter, video, lights, all kind of stuff at the National Association of Broadcasters exhibit floor. And so I appreciate it. Mustafa, my alpha brother, Lawn Victoria Burke, thanks a bunch. And, of course,

the poor soul, DeMario, who's with that youth group. You know the name of it that I shall not name. It's not going to happen. I don't even know. That's called the fly away signal.

That's what that is. I'll see you there this week talking to us. That's what that is. Tomorrow'll see you later this week talking justice for Greenwood. Tomorrow, y'all. What? I said, I'll see you later this week talking justice for Greenwood,

our upcoming loss. We'll talk about it later this week. No, we're not. I can only tolerate you once a week. All right, y'all. I will see y'all from Los Angeles tomorrow. Of course, tomorrow is my 35th Alphaversary, and so y'all know it's going to be all 06 tomorrow.

You know how we do it. All right, folks. Don't forget to support us with what we do. Download the Black Star Network app. Of course, available on all platforms, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, and Samsung Smart TV. And be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club,

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