#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Covid Surges & CDC guidelines, RI Lawmaker Loses Black Friend She Never Met, Good News for Fanbase

Episode Date: December 30, 2021

12.29.2021 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Covid Surges & CDC guidelines, RI Lawmaker Loses Black Friend She Never Met, Good News for FanbaseCovid cases are rising, spiking huge daily numbers across the country. And the CDC director went on morning new programs today to say the decision to cut isolation days in half wasn't solely based on science. We'll have a microbiologist to break down what that actually means.A Rhode Island Republican lawmaker didn't think before posting on Twitter that she lost a black friend because of her stance on Critical Race Theory. State Representative Patricia Morgan had no idea the fury she unleashed when she decided to talk about her relationship with fellow Senator Tiara Mack, who says she's never met the woman.A 13-year-old Florida boy riding a dirt bike dies after an attempted traffic stop. Now his family wants to know why the police decided to chase the kid to his death.A Mississippi police officer must go to anger management for kneeling in the back of a man he was trying to arrest.An Indiana teen who says she's been subject to racial abuse from her classmates is offered counseling from the school administration.We'll tell you about Stacy Abrams' latest announcement.And in our Tech Talk segment, Isaac Hayes, III has some good news about his app, Fanbase.#RolandMartinUnfiltered partners: Verizon | Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, now available in 50+ cities, is the fastest 5G in the world.* That means that downloads that used to take minutes now take seconds. 👉🏾https://bit.ly/30j6z9INissan | Check out the ALL NEW 2022 Nissan Frontier! As Efficient As It Is Powerful! 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3FqR7bPAmazon | Get 2-hour grocery delivery, set up you Amazon Day deliveries, watch Amazon Originals with Prime Video and save up to 80% on meds with Amazon Prime 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3ArwxEh+ Don’t miss Epic Daily Deals that rival Black Friday blockbuster sales 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3iP9zkv👀 Manage your calendar, follow along with recipes, catch up on news and more with Alexa smart displays + Stream music, order a pizza, control your smart home and more with Alexa smart speakers 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3ked4liBuick | It's ALL about you! The 2022 Envision has more than enough style, power and technology to make every day an occasion. 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3iJ6ouPSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfilteredDownload 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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. it slam it wham it strawberry jam it we upgrade it get a 5g phone on us with select plans every customer current new or business because everyone deserves better and with plans starting at just 35 better cost less than you think today is wednesday december 29 2021 coming up on roland martin unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Long time U.S. Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Harry Reid has passed away at the age of 82. We'll talk about his lasting legacy, especially when it came to some of the most signature issues of President Barack Obama's tenure. Also on today's show, COVID cases are rising. We're seeing a spike in daily numbers,

and the CDC director went on a morning news program to say today's decision to cut isolation days was not solely based on science. Really? Okay, we'll talk to a microbiologist about that decision. Also, a Rhode Island lawmaker posted a tweet about how she had a black friend, but she doesn't know why she lost her black friend. Well, that black friend is a fellow lawmaker. We'll talk with her right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Also, a 13-year-old Florida boy riding a dirt bike dies after an attempted traffic stop. Now, his family wants to know why police decided to chase the kid and ended up in his death.

Also, attorney Ben Krupp has represented the family. A 14-year-old girl was shot and killed in a Burlington store in a dressing room while they were pursuing another suspect. Also, Indiana teen says he's been subjected to racial abuse from his classmates and was offered counseling from the school administration. That's it. That's it.

And also the latest announcements from Stacey Abrams. Folks, it is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the biz, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the food, 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, yeah, yeah With Uncle Robo, yo Yeah, yeah, yeah It's rolling, Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martell Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah He's broke, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martell Now Martell folks we'll shatter another daily covid record the two highly infectious variants of the virus the delta and the omicron are causing a massive surge the cd cdc recorded 441,278 infections on Tuesday, as almost 150,000 more than last year's winter high. The CDC noted that the number might be misleading as it could include a backlog of cases due to the Christmas holiday. Now, total number of COVID cases since this whole international

pandemic began, 54,249,128, resulting in 842,714 deaths. Now, according to Johns Hopkins University, D.C. now has the highest rate of infections in the country with an average of 1,192 new COVID cases per day over the past week. Now, D.C. does have an 85 percent vaccination rate and 50 percent of those new cases are people ages 20 to 49. Mayor Muriel Bowser, the state of emergency is still in effect with mask and vaccine mandates. Now, again, the CDC announced earlier this week about the changing of the number of isolation days from 10 to 5 has caused great confusion. Here's the CDC Director Rochelle Walensky on the morning shows talking about that decision. Dr. Walensky, thank you for being here with us

this morning. And I want to start with the change in the CDC guidance that cuts the isolation period in half if you're asymptomatic. So how did the CDC settle on five days for everyone? Good morning, Caitlin. Thanks for having me. So we looked at several areas of science here. First, the science of how much transmission happens in the period of time after you're infected. We know that the most amount of transmission occurs in those one to two days before you develop symptoms, those two to three days after you develop symptoms. And if you map that out, those five days account for somewhere between 85 to 90% of all transmission that occurs. So we really wanted to make sure that during those first five days you were spent in isolation. That's when most of it occurs. And then there

is of course this tail end, a period of time in those last five days, which were, which were, we're asking you to mask. But the other things that we were looking at is the epidemiology here. We are seeing and expecting even more cases of this Omicron variant. Many of those cases are mildly symptomatic, if not asymptomatic, and especially among those who are vaccinated and unvaccinated. And then finally, the behavioral science. What will people actually do when people need to get back to work? What is it that they will actually do? And if we can get them to isolate, we do want to make sure that they're isolating in those first five days when they're maximally infectious. So from what you're saying, it sounds like this decision had just as much to do with business as it did with the science. Well, so it really had a lot to do with what we thought people would

be able to tolerate. We have seen relatively low rates of isolation for all of this pandemic. Some science has demonstrated less than a third of people are isolating when they need to. And so we really want to make sure that we had guidance in this moment where we were going to have a lot of disease that could be adhered to, that people were willing to adhere to, and that spoke specifically to when people were maximally infectious. So it really spoke to both behaviors as well as what people were able to do. Well so then I guess the question if this is based on science that you already had at the CDC, why didn't you make this change sooner than this week? Well so our guidance was conservative before. It has said 10 days of isolation. But in the context of the fact that we were going to have so many more cases, many of those would be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic.

People would feel well enough to be at work. They would not necessarily tolerate being home and that they may not comply with being home. This was the moment that we needed to make that decision and those changes. If you are confused, so am I. Joining us right now is Dr. Christy McDowell, CEO and founder of Baby Scientist, Inc. She is out of Woodbridge, Virginia. Glad to have you on the show. You're a microbiologist. Do you understand the rationale from the CDC? To be honest, I don't. Not at all. Not at all. And I think this is one of the first mistakes that they've made a few. You know, I don't think this guidance should have been released to the vast majority, to the public. You know, if they wanted to reduce, you know, the days for isolation, then they should have just submitted that to the states and the local counties and let them handle it from there.

Because it's just breeding more confusion to everyone. You know, they don't understand that the lay person does not understand how science works on a daily basis and the gathering of data and execution of it. And so it just causes more confusion to the everyday person. And I understand what they're saying. However, she did not clarify between vaccinated and unvaccinated. And as we know, people who are vaccinated can recover faster than those who are not. So, you know, a vaccinated person may be okay in five days, but an unvaccinated individual may not. They will still be possibly spreading the virus. And then she goes on to say, you know, after those five days wearing masks, we're already supposed to be wearing masks, you know? So it's just confusing. And it's something that they

should have just kept in house. And it was unnecessary, you know, because, you know, in every statistic you have an error, you know, plus or minus, and we need a plus or minus for knuckleheads because with the 10 days, as she said herself, a lot of people are not following that. So just think if they weren't following the 10, they were probably doing five. So now they say five, now they probably do one or two. So it's just putting us more at risk, especially when numbers are going up. Infections are high. It's not a time to get lax. It's a time to get more strict with the guidelines. And I just disagree with this release of this guidance. I mean, it's a perfect example. So I came out of covid isolation on Sunday.

I was in for 10 days after my symptoms first showed up. I had I had someone in my office tested positive for covid. So what? Of course, the folks who were in the office, they were all exposed. We then isolated the entire office, shut the office down, went completely virtual. We're still virtual. We're virtual last week, virtual this week. Now I've tested negative for covid. Don't have it. Have the home kit. Yet, I still have stuffy nose, still have some congestion. We are still in isolation this week. It didn't make any sense for us to come back this week. So I said, fine, we'll be back in person

on Monday, January 3rd. Now, I have the luxury of doing that, but it's also smart business because you don't want your folks to get sick. You take the precautions. And so I just don't understand going from 10 to five. And to be perfectly honest, it's also dovetails with the Delta CEO asking the CDC to cut it from 10 to five days because they fear worker shortages. Well, not not now. We're in a situation where people are like, well, what the hell do we do? Right, right. Exactly. And I think that it was the pressure from the powers that be that made them push this forward, which I'm disappointed in because, you know, all along we've been putting health first because we are trying to get rid of and get out of this pandemic.

But this time they did not put health first. They put finances and money first, which is always dangerous. And I just don't understand why they why they made that turn this at this juncture in this infection. And what you're doing with your office is the best thing to do. And she's emphasizing allowing people to go back to work. You want people to go back to work who possibly can still transmit the virus? That's not good. And as we know, everyone doesn't keep their mask up 100% of the time when they're around people.

People get lax, they get comfortable, and they pull the mask down. And you just don't want that to happen. And you think that you're helping the industry, but you're not because it's still going to get people infected. And then other people are going to call out and it's still going to be an issue with the capacity of people at work. I mean, the NBA, for example, they're all wearing masks. The majority, 95% of them are vaccinated. But every day we're seeing players into the COVID protocol, you know, two, three, four or five players per team. And so that just goes to show that this is still an infectious, transmissible disease that needs to be. Oh, everyone needs to be overly cautious in home and work and at play.

And I just don't understand this. And I just hate that they cave to the to the capitalistic society, you know, people wanting to make money. And it's and it's sad, you know, when we are in a dire situation right now with numbers going up, hospitals being overrun with infections. And it's just it's just a bad move. And here's the problem with caving. Now, you can't make the argument, follow the science because you didn't follow the science here. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so it, you know, it just gives those who have disbelief and don't believe in the CDC and the government and what they're doing. It just gives them another notch in their belt, a strong notch to say, hey, they don't know what they're talking about because now you can't go back. There's no going back after saying this. And so it just gives those who do their own research, the Aaron Rodgers of the world who think they know more than the scientists and the other people who think they know more than

the scientists to just to say, hey, we're going to do what we want to do because they're always changing. And the thing that people must understand is that the government and the CDC is constantly changing because the science is changing because the virus is changing. No one can predict when a virus is going to mutate and when something like this is going to happen. So of course there has to be change. And people need to understand that, that the government cannot predict when a virus will mutate and when it will be more infectious and when it will not. And so they have to, you know, give give them some leeway there. But with this move, I just think it's a bad move and it doesn't look good for them. All right, then, Dr. Kristen McDowell, we certainly appreciate it.

Look, I'm just going to tell people, look, stick with the 10 days. Forget that five day crap. Get houlk's i can tell you right now um i was not i was not ready to come into isolation five days uh after the con and again that's five days after your symptoms so here's the problem here's the problem i my first symptom was on a wednesday we were in the celebration bowl in atlanta i tested negative on thursday okay which which was actually Thursday was day one. And then Friday's day two, Saturday's day three, I test positive. Then you have day four and then day five. Well, day five was Monday. I went in isolation on Sunday.

I was still contagious on Monday after five days. And so it would have been idiotic for me to be be out and about uh because my fifth day after symptoms was just two days after testing positive wow yeah yeah and and that and that's with most people well and what you experience is what most people are going to experience and you're vaccinated just imagine the person who's unvaccinated and how much more infectious they will be to the people around them, whereas a regular little cloth mask will not protect others around them. And so that's why it's, and who can accurately count the days? Oh, I'm infectious now. I'm not infectious. People don't know because you really don't know because you don't want to say you think you have COVID.

And so you're not going to necessarily pinpoint the actual day in which, oh, I need, you know, I'm infectious or I'm not infectious. Let me go into isolation, blah, blah, blah. Where. So during that time, you are infectious to people around you. And so that five days is just it's reckless. It's reckless and it's not good. And last last point. Forget those cloth masks. You got to have the N95, the K95 mask. You got to have masks with filters because, again, we know why people were saying go to the cloth mask last year when there was a shortage. You got to go to the filtered mask now. I totally agree. I was online buying my N95s and K95s today, buying more of them.

So I advise everyone to do the same because this virus is, is, it's not for play play, you know, it's not for play play. And, uh, I know so many people who have, who are very cautious, who've gotten infected. And, um, and so I just advise everyone to take precautions, get the correct mask, stay, um, you know, socially distance, wash your hands, use hand sanitizer and be careful you know of all be careful and be safe all right doc appreciate it thanks a lot oh thank you all right uh robert patillo uh and uh uh scott bolden joining me right now uh and gents uh look confusion from the cdc this is the last thing we need right now. You need to be straightforward with the communications and not just have this sort of this craziness.

Robert, you're there in Atlanta. So the CDC needs to deal with this problem. Look, I'm not saying we're doomed, but it's definitely starting to feel like we're doomed because Joe Biden ran on a platform of bringing competence, saying that we will follow the science. we will do what is in the best interest of the American people. We'll be getting away from the Trumpian aspect of doing what business and what popular opinion, taking Twitter polls to determine what the national policy was.

They started making missteps from the beginning. The minute they said that unvaccinated people could take off their mask and go about their regular lives, which was way premature, if you remember when they did it, every single person in the country just decided it was freaknik and they were about to go out there and just get it on like they wanted to do. And we saw the immediate Delta spike thereafter. Now with this guidance that they're putting out, look, you were just in Atlanta.

Everybody in Atlanta has COVID right now. If you're in Atlanta, you don't have COVID. You have COVID. Trust me. Everybody got it. Omicron is running wild down there because everyone is just acting as if there are no protocols. So when you put this misinformation out there, when you have conflicting messaging, when you don't have clear and concise

leadership and you don't have one voice speaking for the nation, what you end up with is people just saying, look, the CDC is making this stuff up as they go along. They're not following the science. So why do I even need to care about it? They're saying the symptoms are mild anyway, so I might as well just get it and be done with it and go on with my life. And that's the prevailing opinion among many of the American population. And that's why we're seeing the peach drop, the New Year's Eve celebration here at Lansing getting canceled. We're seeing, I think, 541 players have been used in in the NBA this season more than any other season in NBA history. And it is December. So this is not going anywhere anytime soon.

If the Biden administration can't get a grip on this, they can say goodbye to the midterm elections, let alone 2024. Because if you run on competence, you can't be competent. Then what the hell do we have you there for? And Scott, go ahead. Well, wait a minute now. What's the Biden administration to do with a country whose First Amendment is more stronger with half of the country than the science? Easy, easy. You stick with the science. Exactly. But if you can't get the other half of those anti-vaxxers. You don't know.

You don't worry about that. You're No, you don't worry about that. You're right. You don't worry about that. But you can't get to herd immunity without that other half or substantial number of that. Yeah, but yeah, but what you don't but what you don't do is cut the days from 10 to 5 and seeing infected people out in general population. You don't. I agree with you there wholeheartedly. I think you ought to stick with the 10. But the most important part of what your guest said, I think, is what we really need to be focusing on. When the CDC comes out with these inconsistent guidelines, whether it's based on business

or commerce or based on their ignorance, they feed into that narrative of the anti-vaxxers, if you will. And by the way, you can get COVID once, you can get COVID twice. I know someone who got COVID twice and still hadn't been vaccinated. We all know people have been vaccinated and boosted, Roland, and have gotten it. The other part of this-

Yeah, well, I'm not boosted yet. I'm vaccinated. I was supposed to get my boost actually yesterday. So now because I got the antibodies infusion, I can't get boosted for 90 days. Go ahead. But here's the other thing, though. What about the false negatives that are prevalent, too, with either the efficient testing where you wait 15 minutes or even the long-term testing that takes place?

Erica, my wife, got a false negative, changed her whole travel schedule, changed her whole where she was living because she couldn't, she went into quarantine. And yet two or three days later, she tested two more times and it was negative after she got a positive two or three days before and had zero symptoms and had certainly been vaccinated. My point in all of this is, is that I don't think we know what we know or don't know. And I think that essentially the herd immunity piece is so important because this is going to be COVID is going to be something I think we're just going to have to live with on an ongoing basis. There's not going to be about shutting down or not. It's going to be about being vaccinated

and boosted every year, if you will, and just living with the limited symptoms that look and sound like the cold or the flu, and that the reporting on this is just really going to be like the flu season more than anything, because I don't think anyone can get a grip on what the science is long-term on COVID-19 and its mutations. But Scott, that's my point, though. If we're saying that the CDC don't know what the hell they're talking about, the FDA don't know what they're talking about, Fauci doesn't know what he's talking about, the president doesn't know what he's talking about, then why wasn't Kyrie Irving right the whole time? Why wasn't Aaron Rodgers right the whole time?

They're pretty much saying the same thing that they are, which is these people have no idea what they're talking about. So why are we doing any of these protocols? Why are you blaming them for that? Well, again, no. No, no, Scott. Scott is blaming them because when you give conflicting information, then you actually muddy the waters. What you need is you need the folks who are the scientists to be consistent.

That's what you need. And so that's what the problem is. All right, gentlemen, hold tight one second. Got to go to break. We come back. Twitter has been laughing hilariously after a white Rhode Island lawmaker tweeted out how she used to have a black friend, but she doesn't know now. She doesn't know why her black friend is no longer a friend. Well, that black friend tweeted who she is. And she's next right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. I don't know. so so folks black star network is here We'll be right back. 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? so Hi, I'm Gavin Houston. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your boy, Jacob Lattimore, and you're now watching Roland Martin right now. Eee! Eee! I'm white. I got you. Illegally filling water with a permit on my property. Whoa. I'm uncomfortable.

All right, folks. So we were all quite amused when we saw this tweet on yesterday from a Patricia Morgan. She tweeted, I had a black friend. I liked her and I think she liked me, too. But now she is hostile and unpleasant. And I am sure I didn't do anything to her except be white. Is that what teachers and our political leaders really want for our society? Divide us because of our skin color? Hashtag CRT for critical race theory. Well, after a couple of hours, we saw this tweet.

LOL, it me. I'm the black friend, Tiara Mack, who is a lawmaker in Rhode Island. She joins us now on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Tiara, you may have been you were watching that. You probably were like, what's that segment? We have a segment called Crazy Ass White People. And the segment usually is for the white folks who are accosting black people who just just try to deliver packages, trying to sell lemonade, trying to barbecue. But it certainly was fitting for this one here. People. I mean, you see what those numbers there. How many people responded to that? So what was your reaction when you saw Patricia Morgan's tweet about, I had a black friend, now I don't? I know for a fact that Patricia Morgan does not have any black friends. Just last week, Patricia Morgan and I are colleagues in the Rhode Island

State House. I am 28 years old. I am Black. I am queer. And last week I had tweeted that I would not be restarting my student loan payments shortly before President Biden extended the deferment of student loan payments until May of next year. And she retweeted me saying that I was arrogant and disgusting. And this is a colleague that I have not had the pleasure of meeting in the Rhode Island State House yet. But I do know that she is one of our more colorful colleagues known for her white supremacist ideas, including anti-immigrant sentiments, anti-refugee sentiments, anti-Black sentiments, anti-LGBQ sentiments. And so having just had this interaction with her as a Black woman last week,

I thought it would be funny to say that I was the Black friend, knowing full and well that because of who Rep. Patricia Morgan is and the ideas that she holds, that no black person is claiming her as a friend. The thing that she also apparently has sponsored a critical race theory bill. Yes, she has sponsored many pieces of harmful legislation in Rhode Island, to the point where many members of our of the Rhode Island GOP do not claim her and have also been seen to distance themselves from her, especially with this tweet. She was, I think, hoping to activate her base or sensationalize anti-CRT legislation. But as we can see, that really blew up back in her face. And as someone

who has been the target of many local Rhode Island attacks from white supremacist trolls, it's a little funny to see it kind of going back in her face because did she deserve it? Yes, she did. Especially when the day before my birthday, she fixed her finger to type that I was arrogant and disgusting on Twitter. So I think this is a wake up call to folks that Black Twitter will always come through for its homies. The thing that also is just curious, not only that, I have a Black friend. Okay, now look, I know Jeffrey Osborne. I know Claudia Jordan. I'm always messing with them, but the few number of black people in Rhode Island, they're natives of Rhode Island.

But my goodness, you know, I had a black friend clearly get the impression she'll know nobody else black. Yeah. I mean, Rhode Island does have some Black people. Like, we are here. I'm here. I'm not a native Rhode Islander. I am from, I grew up in Atlanta. And in South Carolina, I'm a transplant. But there we got some. How you get to Rhode Island?

You left the Black Mecca for Rhode Island? Yes, well, I came up here to go to Brown University. So yes, I did leave the Black Mecca to come up to Rhode Island. and it's been giving me a headache since, but I do love Rhode Island and I think it has a lot to offer. And we have some really great, aside from what you see Rep Patricia Morgan putting into the world, Rhode Island does have some really great progressive politicians and some really great work happening out of this small but mighty state. Look, we're seeing a whole bunch of crazy-ass white people across this country. And what I mean by that is, look, I got a book coming out in the first quarter of next year called White Fear, how the changing face of America is driving, making white folks lose their minds.

We're seeing an Oklahoma legislator put forth a bill that if one parent objects to a book in a library, it has to be removed. And if the librarian doesn't, they can't work for a school district for two or three years. I mean, these people are and I keep and I've been warning people to understand what's going on here. And it is the emerging majority. It is the browning of America that is driving them crazy and this desire to maintain control. And that is continuing to define America to the prism of whiteness. Yeah. White supremacy is rampant. White supremacy is rampant in our states. And I think it is up to each and every one of us to call it out and to acknowledge that we cannot let these systems be the truth or the things that are leading our communities and the ideas that really are shining through louder than

anything else. Like being the only queer Black woman in the Rhode Island legislature is hard as hell. And every day I, up until today, the most I had gotten on Twitter was white supremacist trolls were telling me every day that I'm a black supremacist, that I'm a racist, that I'm disgusting, that because I'm a queer person and I believe in comprehensive sexual health education, that I am a pedophile and that I'm disgusting

and all of these things that are just crazy and not true. But I get that on a daily basis as a young queer Black woman who's just trying to do the best for her communities, who is just trying to use her identities and her experiences as a formerly low income Black person from the South and to have policies that make sense for everyday people.

And I get called all these names and I can wipe it off and ignore it, but they are really threatened by how much blackness, brownness, and the oppressed communities in our states are really pushing back and saying, nah, no more y'all. Like it's over. Like I'm tired. I am 28 years old. I want to be retired by like 50 because y'all. Like it's it's it's it's over. I'm tired. I'm 28 years old. I want to be retired by like 50 because y'all got me working way too hard for this nonsense that I willingly do do. But I think it is definitely a testament to how tired we all are and how much nonsense we're no longer going to take. Like this tweet. This was the tweet here you were talking about. You sent five days ago. I won't be restarting payments.

Please drop the lower third, please. Keenan, thank you very much. I won't be restarting payments. And then she said the arrogance is stunning and disgusting. But here's what I find to be interesting here, Representative Mack. It's a whole bunch of banks that did not repay money. In fact, we forgave nearly $600 billion of PPP loans. And so

I'm just trying to understand. She called it arrogant because we have $1.36 trillion worth of... Keenan, you can go to Representative Mack. We got $1. six trillion dollars worth of Keenan. You could go to the representative. We got one point three six trillion dollars in student loan debt in this country. And you tweet that and she calls it arrogant. But I guarantee you we probably could go through the books of Rhode Island to see where they likely forgave money that was given to various companies in that state.

I'm sure there are tax breaks that have gone to companies in Rhode Island and other states. And I don't recall that being called arrogant and stunning as well. So it's amazing. It's amazing how one person wants to define something as being arrogant and stunning, but they call something else American investment. Yeah. I mean, as a Black person, I've been Black my whole life. I will be Black the rest of my life. It is not shocking to me that someone would see an educated Black woman who went to one of the top universities in our country, Brown University, has an Ivy League degree and is a young, accomplished official who is really just

trying to do best for communities that don't look like the majority of communities that are served in our state house, that they are threatened by that. It is a threat to see someone defy all odds and go against this notion of what success looks like. Because for folks like Patricia Morgan, success looks like whiteness. It looks like upholding the systems that oppress others so that you can get ahead. And seeing that I'm not down for that and that I am really trying to center the voices of the most oppressed is a threat to white people and to white supremacists. So we need everyone in our communities. We need more young elected Black officials. We need more young folks in office. We need more folks of varying different identities in office because we cannot just have

communities that are run by out of touch older white folks that are not ready to face the realities that we it's it's a new world and we need every single person to make each and every one of our states better and things like anti-CRT legislation just ain't it anymore. I know Robert and Scott have been chomping at the bit that you'd be a part of this conversation. Scott, I'll start with you. Yeah. It's a fascinating discussion, but to me, the most fascinating part is that you've never met this white legislature or legislator. Is that actually true? And you've had this dialogue and she's one of your colleagues? Yes. We have never had the pleasure of meeting in the Rhode Island

State House due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And she is in the lower chamber. She's in the House of Representatives and I'm in the upper chamber, the Rhode Island State Senate. So we do not collaborate. And as someone who is on a very different side of the spectrum, I do not plan on doing much work with someone like her. Good luck with building that relationship. Robert. So while you were speaking, I had to look up some Rhode Island facts because I realized I know nothing about Rhode Island outside of Family Guy, which is set in Quahog. But so there's only 78,000 black folks in Rhode Island. Why is she so afraid of critical race theory somehow polluting and making schools in Rhode Island too black? What exactly is motivating this fear among the white conservatives there?

Well, I wish I could tell you I don't really know. It's a whole bunch of white nonsense, as you can see. And it just continues to be white nonsense with no answers and fear. But Rhode Island, we've got really great food, the rest of the world, some of the best universities that are here, and we have a state coral. That's another fun fact. We just got a state coral. You know you can come back to Atlanta, right? We got space. You can come back.

You don't have to deal with all that. There were more black folks at the Celebration Bowl last week. Yeah, the way that these rent prices are looking up in Rhode Island, I might be moving back sooner than it looks like because we do not come back home. Come back. We got you. Come on back. You got to stay there for the fight. We need black

people. Why? No, come on. You got enough black people in Atlanta, man. We need her there. Okay, to carry on the fight. God bless you. You fight the good old fight. Rhode Island. I like to see Atlanta fighting for me. I will come back. Once these rates are

looking a little different, I might come back, but Atlanta's kind of popping off right now. Rhode Island's not doing any better. We got some of the worst rates in the nation right now. Actually, Rhode Island has been number one in COVID rates almost the entirety of this pandemic. We make national headlines because Rhode

Island also cannot get its shit together when it comes to COVID. Well, I will say this. Every year that Jeffrey Osborne has his golf tournament, we dramatically increase the Black population of Rhode Island. With all the brothers and sisters who comes in to play golf.

Jeffrey has assured me that his tournament is returning in 2022. And so let me, let me go ahead and extend the invitation to you now. So if you look at, if you're looking for a family reunion type, get together, come to the golf tournament is normally in late July and August. In fact, you can invite

Patricia on out if she wants to see some more Black people. I'm quite sure we can educate her on what Blackness is since she's so sad that she lost her A Black friend

in Europe. I'll leave that to y'all. Yeah, y'all can send her an invite if you want to, but I'll leave that to y'all. All right, then. Does she think that her black friend ran away or escaped? Because usually when they ran away, they went north.

She's already north, so can somebody inform her of that? We is free now. We can leave if we want to. She might want Tiara to go to Canada. She wants to go further north. I'm already as cold as it can be in Rhode Island. I don't know if I can go any further north, y'all.

Tiara, when you do get back in person or even by Zoom, you're going to meet and see this person for the first time. Tell me about that conversation or what you anticipate that conversation to be, if any. Probably

awkward for her, but for me as an unapologetically young Black queer woman, I do not have a mind to placate these white folks who will say anything and everything on line behind your backs, but never to your face. And as an unapologetically young Black queer person who's already had it, is already done with these systems that have continuously disrespected me and folks who look like me. It will it won't faze me none to continue to tell her who she is and who I am.

If that hurts her feelings, then this maybe isn't the work for you, baby girl. Thank you for being there. Last question for you. How many other Black people are in the legislature there in Rhode Island? So in, that's a good question. So in the Rhode Island Senate chamber, I am the only woman that identifies as black. We do have-

Sorry, so you're in the Senate. My apologies, earlier I called you a representative. So you're a senator, you're a state senator, go ahead. So you're the only black state senator. Yes, the only black state senator in the Rhode Island Senate and in the house we have and on the House of in the House, we have maybe folks who identify as black. I think we have about five total. We have 21 black and brown folks who identify mostly as Latinx and some folks who are biracial. But I am one of two or three black women. All right, then. Well, Senator Max,

glad to have you on the show to talk about being the former black friend of Pat. Again, folks have really been going in. In fact, Michael Harriot, I don't know if you saw this. Let me see if I can pull it up. Michael Harriot started a hashtag here. Wait a minute. Where's the hashtag? Let me switch to it right here. He started this hashtag hashtag I had a white friend. Folks have been commenting, giving all their different examples of hashtag I had a white friend. So folks have been. Yeah. Black Twitter has been having a field day with this.

And so we appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your thoughts with us. Yeah. Thanks for having me. All right. Well, look, keep giving them hell up there in Rhode Island and we'll keep giving them hell here in Roland Martin Unfiltered. Thanks a bunch. All right, folks, got to go to break more. Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network

when we come back. Don't forget, download our app, folks. It's on all platforms, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Android TV, Apple TV, Roku's, Amazon Fire Stick, Samsung TV, Xbox as well. You can also join our Bring the Funk fan club with every dollar you give Gold to support this show. Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal is RMartinUnfiltered, Venmo is RMUnfiltered, Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMart Martin unfiltered dot com. We'll be right back. Thank you. white supremacists ain't just about hurting black folk right you got to deal with it it's injustice. It's wrong. I do feel like in this generation, we've got to do more around being intentional and resolving conflict. You and I have always agreed.

Yeah. But we agree on the big piece. Yeah. Our conflict is not about destruction. Conflict's going to happen. Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. Hi, I'm Eric Nolan. I'm Shantae Moore. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Thank you. All right, folks, 23-year-old Milana Thomas was last seen on December 18th in Decatur, Georgia.

Milana is 5 feet 2 inches tall, weighs about 127 pounds, with short black hair and brown eyes. She was last seen wearing a black jacket, black pants, and white and blue shoes. Milana has a tattoo of an uncolored rose on her right forearm and the phrase, until the pieces fit. Anyone who has any information about Milana Thomas should call the Atlanta Police Department at 404-546-4235, 404-546-4235. Folks, last night we got the sad news that former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada passed away at the age of 882. He'd been battling pancreatic cancer and other ailments for quite some time. He was a shrewd negotiator. He was a

tough leader. Someone who was not the most press-friendly guy, but he was someone who, again, knew how to fight and fight hard against his fellow Republican Mitch McConnell. They did not like each other. Harry Reid was a boxer in his past, and that was sort of the attitude that he brought when he led the United States Senate. As he was dying. His wife asked many of his friends and former political folks to write letters that she would read to him. This was a letter that President Barack Obama sent to him. Harry, I got the news that the health situation has taken a rough turn and that it's hard to talk on the phone, which, let's face it, is not that big of a change because you never like to talk on the phone anyway.

Here's what I want you to know. You were a great leader in the Senate and early on you were more generous to me than I had any right to expect. I wouldn't have been president had it not been for your encouragement and support. And I wouldn't have gotten and I wouldn't have got most of what I got done without your skill and determination. Most of all, you've been a good friend. As different as we are, I think we both saw something of ourselves in each other. A couple of outsiders who had defied the odds and knew how to take a punch and care about the little guy. And you know what we made for a pretty good team. Enjoy your family.

And you know you're loved by a lot of people, including me. The world is better because of what you've done. Not bad for a skinny poor kid from Searchlight. Signed, Barack. Again, folks, so many different people have been expressing their admiration for Senator Harry Reid. Robert and Scott, again, a seminal figure, some of the most major bills that were passed in Congress while President Barack Obama was in office took place under Harry Reid. And frankly, without his leadership and his understanding

of the Senate rules, it wouldn't have got done. And I think it's really important, Roland, for us to understand the importance of having a Senate majority leader who knows how to navigate those rules and knows how to bend and change those rules. Harry Reid is the one who changed the filibuster rule for Supreme Court justices that allowed President Obama to get his justices on the Supreme Court in the first place. that maybe this will inspire Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden, who was supposed to be a master of the Senate, to understand the power that they have to actually get things through and get things done. Stop being nice. Stop

playing patty cake with these people. Take a boxer's mentality to it the same way Harry Reid did. Hammer these bills through. If Joe Manchin and Christian Sinema don't want to get on board, then you either get them on board or you go around them. If you really want to have a legacy, if you want to craft the type of long-lasting change that President Obama was able to do with the help of Harry Reid, then take on that mentality and force these things through.

We have to have more lions in the Senate, as we did at one point in time, and less sheep as we have right now. So I'm hoping this inspires the American people to stand up, fight back against those people who are recalcitrant to change, and take on that same mentality of Hayer Reid of getting things done, no matter the cost. Look, he didn't care about the feelings of Republicans and things along those lines. He was somebody who understood the fight, who understood the battle.

In fact, I'm gonna go ahead, I wanna show you, this is one of the videos where you saw, as they say, the pugnaciousness of Senator Harry Reid. You're a bully. On the question of, you mentioned judges. Senator Wanky is going to be sending some D.C. Circuit nominees to the floor within the next couple of weeks. Why won't we be right back in a couple of weeks?

We're not. This is focused very concisely. Judges will do our best to get those done. We need the D.C. Circuit very much. We got one done. But this is not about judges. It's about presidential executive nominees. Senator Grassley said yesterday at the hearing we had on the first of those nominees,

we don't need any more judges on the d.c circuit they've already telegraphed they're going to block the next three judges on the d.c circuit and we thought that all along the press he said it yesterday now that particular point right there uh is important um because uh oh yeah did you know we gotta change the rules change the rules because republicans were doing all they could to block President Barack Obama. You hear people say now, oh, Harry Reid is the one who did the nuclear option. He said, look, you guys were blocking. He said you were blocking a Democratic president, the democratically controlled Senate. He said he had no choice.

And he goes to show you how Mitch McConnell changes the rules. Republicans are in power, he's like, hey, we'll change the rules to suit us. So Harry was like, fine, when we're in power, we're going to use power. Exactly. And everything that Robert said about Harry Reid was true. But you have to be fearless with your power in those positions and in that Senate majority leadership position. And Harry was fearless. He just was. And to use that power and to get it done in the Senate, whether it's the nuclear option or not, he felt very strongly that a Democratic president ought to be able to appoint judges and ought to be able to get the approval through the Senate.

And if the only way we're going to do that is the nuclear option, then so be it. And if the Republicans want to do it when they're in the majority, shame on us, because they should never be in the majority. But if they are, I'll be more than happy to run that risk, because we've got to get these Democratic judges not only nominated but approved and get them to the D.C. Circuit. Why did the Republicans not want to support any judges in the D.C. Circuit? It's the most important federal district court and federal circuit court in America, because it gets all of the cases and all of the litigation that occurs in regard to government's regulation,

oversight, the House, the Senate. And so that was a very important decision on his part to get that done. And it continued to be done and be illuminated at the other circuits around the country. And so just a huge loss, but a leader's leader who was fearless in using his power. We need that back right now. Yeah, it is absolutely needed. And again, hopefully Senator Chuck Schumer is looking at all of these different tributes that are coming in for former Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid and saying, you know what, I need to be a hell of a lot tougher in terms of what I am doing. Got to go to break.

We come back. We're going to talk about a cop kneeling on a black suspect in Mississippi. It will tell you what the outcome of that is. Before we do that, Scott, what the hell is around your neck? I mean, you can't figure out if you're going to wear a tie or an ascot. What the hell?

This is my new style. I thought you'd take notice. It is a scarf tied like a tie with an open collar. It's very comfortable. It's very fashionable.'s very it looks awful actually you dress it like a sigma and you look awful it's like it's like you couldn't make up your damn mind do Do I wear a tie? Do I wear ascots? Do I wear a cravat? You know you like it.

You know you like it. Take that damn thing off. Just put a pocket square in. Go open collar. That looks awful. I'm going to keep it on now. Let's show my dog. I mean, I was sitting here, and I was like, the hell?

I knew you liked that as an alpha man. No, no. It the hell? I knew you liked that as an alpha man. No, no, it's awful. I knew you liked that as an alpha man. And even your wife, Erica, is probably texting you saying, you look awful. No, I got her approval. She said, honey, you look hot. You look hot. I guarantee, we know you lying right now.

We know you lying right now. That's awful. But she didn't say it like that, but she said, it's fine. Let's just go. That's what she said. That's a damn lie. We know Erica didn't say nothing. I can't believe you don't like this. I just knew you would pick this style up. You look awful.

Make a decision. Wear a tie or an ascot. What, you think I look confused? Yeah, you do. Robert, does he look confused? Look, in the words of the in the words of the prophet

through his mafia, they say, take that monkey ass off. You embarrassing us. The same, Scott. Goddamn, unbelievable. No, I'm trying to tell you, that looked awful. I've had this on all day. I've had this on all day, and I've just been walking around thinking...

You know what? That means you ain't got no friends. Well, look, you got us to tell you, so it works out. That means you ain't got no... That means you ain't got no friends. In fact, you know what? As I watched that, all I

could think about was that scene from the movie Malcolm X. Where did you get them goddamn vines you got on? And them shoes? Now maybe we can do something with that. Yeah, but he's putting a

hurting on my vision, man. Yes, you are putting a hurting on my vision. Yes. Did you have that clip ready just in case? Hey, hey, dog. I'm always ready. I am always ready.

This cameraman today, a lot of times, you ain't come up with this style. I am always ready. I am a lot of time. You ain't come up with this style. I am always ready. I am more than happy to rock the North Carolina A&T sweatshirt. Go Aggies. Alright, y'all. I got to go to a break. I got this in black and red

and blue and brown, too. That's a damn shame. We'll be back on Rolling By Non-Filtered on the Black Star Network. Are the stars of the night Alexa, play our favorite song again. Okay. I only have eyes for you. Folks, Black Star Network is the piece.

Hold no punches. I'm real revolutionary right now. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. I thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. Hey, buddy, 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? Alright folks, let's go to Mississippi where this is a pretty strange story here where a Mississippi cop who was kneeling on a black suspect gets to go to anger management classes. Yeah. The video showed him pushing a black man down during an arrest and forcefully

pressing his knee into the man's back. Watch this. Oh He was already down, bro. He was already down. Hey, hey, hey, man. Hey, hey. Come on, man. He was already down. Don't do that. Don't do that. Come on, man. Come on, man. He was already down now.

Come on, man. He was already down. I don't do what you do. I ain't got a damn to see no more. I ain't got a damn to see no more. He ain't got a damn to see no more. That's the shit we don't even like right there, man. God damn.

Vicksburg Police Officer Eddie Colbert attempted to arrest John Dooley after responding to a call about a disturbance early Sunday. Colbert was suspended for 15 days with pay and must take the class when he returns to work. Vicksburg Mayor George Flags Jr. says Colbert's behavior was indefensible but did not rise to the level of firing.

Robert? Look, this is exactly why we need federal standards and we need the passage of that George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, because we have to be able to be confident as a country that no matter where you're at, that you're going to be governed by the same set of laws. You should not be

jurisdiction by jurisdiction, state by state, city by city, whether or not black people have rights. We do not need to go back to the Green Book days of having to know what cities we can and can't get a knee on our neck from. And if this is not a fireable offense, then what the hell is there? Because let's understand,

if it wasn't for video evidence, then this would have just been swept under the rug, as we've mentioned many times before. That if it wasn't for everything now being videotaped, the Black folks effectively still are in the same position we were in the days of Emmett Till and everything else. So we have to get our Congress to hop on their hop on their horses and actually pass them with legislation,

because they're going to be right back in our faces this summer and this fall talking about how important it is to reelect Democrats in 2022 to protect the House and protect the Senate and this and the other. Well, what the hell for if y'all can't protect us because this is still happening every day. And for every video like this that we actually see is happening a thousand times that we don't see. Yeah. Yeah. But they see it as a black issue, Robert. That's the first thing. Second of all, if you look at that video, Roland, and I do this a lot on this show, is that that young man was not resisting. And the only violent narrative that was being perpetrated, and being driven was by the Vicksburg police officer. I think after the chief of police saw the video, I think that officer has been suspended without pay, I think for a week or two, and still has to go to these anger management classes. But after all we've been through with George Floyd, the police are still using negative and violent tactics to arrest Black

folks, Black men and women who are not being violent back. If you run that video, he's not resisting, and yet he's being yanked. He's been pushed to the ground. He's got a foot on his back. He's got a knee on his back. And it's like the police have learned nothing, and they certainly haven't. But it's just a dumb way of interacting with the public. Because remember, that young man, he's innocent until proven guilty. He's innocent until proven guilty. I don't care whether he gets arrested or not. And so just really problematic video that other police departments ought to be using to train their officers, but they won't. And that's why you have this inconsistent interaction with the police

departments and communities around the country. And so Robert's right about the federal piece, but it won't happen. The Democrats won't hold it until 2022. I don't understand about sending them to these magical classes. So there's a magical class that I can send you to to stop you from beating black people. Why didn't they send him

to that first? Before they hire you. Before they hire him. Why the hell are you waiting? You get to beat one black person first and then we send you to the class. It seems like that should be from the beginning if the classes are effective, that you should learn and be continuously educated

and re-evaluated to remind you every few weeks or few months, please don't go beat no black people. It should be a pretty simple calculus, but until we have federal legislation on this and actually are putting dollars on the line saying that if your police department does not meet federal standards, then we're not going to see that training happen on the local level. Yeah. And the other thing though, is if they won't, why not test them before you give them a gun in the back? Why don't you test them whether they have racist tendencies and better yet,

whether they're willing to carry out their racist tendencies if they are hired as police officers? There are several types of tests, as I understand it from experts I've talked to, that can pull that out of individuals, and they can't be police officers. You don't have a right to be a police officer, first and foremost, and you get this when you're hired badly. And so you want to transform police departments, as Ben Crump says, you don't just want to reform the police. Let's talk about this story here out of Florida where a police chase ended

in the death of a 13-year-old boy who was riding a dirt bike. The family says the young man is Stanley Davis Jr. Gas station footage revealed the moment leading up to the deadly chase. The teen lost control while riding a dirt bike on a highway during the chase when he hit a curb, throwing Davis from the bike into a street sign. The team was pronounced dead at the scene. Police are calling the crash an officer-involved traffic homicide. Now, Florida highway officials say an ongoing investigation is underway

and the officer involved will be placed on administrative leave as the investigation continues. One of the things that we've seen, Scott, a lot of places where they have told these cops, stop chasing people. We've seen these car chases that have resulted in the deaths of innocent bystanders, but folks have wrecked into cars as well. Yeah, they have to beg off in most jurisdictions if the car is stolen or if they're chasing someone through a neighborhood or downtown area, which covers most of these communities and stuff, the police have to beg off. You've got to let them go, hand it off to the next jurisdiction, if you will. him and he was illegally driving this motorcycle or scooter, he would have got a ticket, if you will. But they're chasing him. You saw the video.

He leaves this gas station. They immediately go after him. He's a big kid for 13. He plays football. But they immediately go after him. And they give chase. And shortly thereafter, he crashes, if you will. What was so pressing about using that amount of energy and force to stop a kid that's on a computer

that may have been driving erratically or not? We'll have to see what the toxicology reports say. But again, over-policing a simple situation because they're black. If he were white or a white woman and they wanted to stop him, whether they ran off or not, they would not have chased him like that. They simply would not have. And that's the biggest risk for black people when it comes to the police. They don't see us, as I say. But if they were white, they see us and treat us with courtesy and that we're innocent until we're proven guilty, not with black folks. Robert? And just rolling on that point, I think there's two things that are instructive here. One, to Scott's point, we have to have more of these anti-chase ordinances taking place because quite frankly, unless you're in hot pursuit of, let's say, a murderer or a rapist or

a bank robber, something along those lines, there's no reason really to chase people like this anymore. There was no exigent situation. But then secondarily, just from a community standard, we have to start as parents and as elders in the community regulating and training these young people before we give them dirt bikes. If you're in Baltimore, for example, you'll see these roaming groups of young teens on dirt bikes riding through urban areas. Same thing in Atlanta, Chicago, and many other cities where they have not gone through any training courses. All they did is hop on this bike and hit the streets and the roads and the highways and the byways. And it creates a very dangerous situation, both for the community and for the young people involved. So there can be multiple layers of liability and multiple layers of culpability when it comes to tragedies of this nature. And we need to change behavior on both

sides of it. The police officers don't need to be chasing people we also don't need to be putting 13 year olds just out here riding out willy-nilly about the ability to understand the vehicle that they're that they're in control of and what happens if he gets away what happens what does it matter if he gets away this isn't cops and robbers if they change if they don't chase him right if he gets away? This isn't cops and robbers. If they don't chase him, right, and he gets away, right, how is he a threat to the community? There's got to be some discretion here. There's got to be somebody thinking about, okay, he's running. Am I going to chase him? What are the dangers around me? If he gets away, how am I losing my grip on the community as a police officer? How is the community more dangerous? The answer to that is nothing.

Nothing happens. He's not a danger, and he just got away. If he's riding that bike in the community, you'll get him again. You'll get him again. But again, no discretionary thinking there, no real leadership on the street, and that's what we need police to be. We need police to be leaders on the street and use their discretion. Wasn't used here. And this kid is dead now in part or large part because he was chased by the police. Speaking of discretion, Valentina Orlana Peralta's

parents have hired attorney Ben Crump to represent them. She's a 14-year-old girl who was in a department store dressing room, just changing clothes when LAPD officers were pursuing the suspect and then shot at the suspect, but the bullet hit her instead, killing her. There was a news conference that took place in Los Angeles where Attorney Ben Crump spoke there with her i will read um some of the thoughts that her sister and her uh prepared um my name is soledad i am the mother of valentina my 14 year old daughter and i got dropped off by her sister so we could get gifts for Christmas. On the way to the Burlington factory store, we discussed her dreams of becoming an engineer, becoming an American citizen, citizen her making good grace that she loved her school and she wanted to go to college

while in the dressing room we heard commotion and screaming Valentina and I hugged each other. She went and locked the door to try to protect us. We started hugging each other tighter as more loud noises and commotion was being heard eyes closed we began praying praying for peace praying for safe sitting praying for everybody i was praying for my daughter as i believe she was praying for my safety all of a sudden we felt an explosion that threw us both to the ground. That's when I saw white powder coming out of Valentina's body as she started having convulsions. I had no idea she had her body went limp i tried to wake up by shaking her but she didn't wake up as i laid screaming for help the police did not come to help me or my daughter but i kept screaming when the police finally came they took me out of the dressing room and left my daughter laying there. I wanted them to help her, but they just left her laying there alone.

We want justice for our angel. Our precious little angel, Valentina. This is the thing right here, Robert, we're talking about. I mean, here you have these cops who are pursuing someone and you're just firing and you end up hitting an innocent bystander. How many times have we seen these stories where the cops captured the person who committed a heinous crime without actually firing on somebody, dealing a roof, but took to a burger king? Now this 14-year-old girl is dead. And look, this part of police training is the weapons are not supposed to be there offensively. They're supposed

to be there to defend the officers' lives. So nobody is shooting at you. You're not supposed to be shooting at anybody. There are far more ways to take somebody into custody. And I think these officers who are armed with AR-15s and full assault gear are going after the suspect, not saying they weren't in a dangerous situation, but there was no reason to be firing at this point in time. So the fact that we still do not have police training in this country that avoids incidents of this nature, the fact that innocent lives have to be lost because of quote unquote accidents on the part of law enforcement, I think it puts us in another situation when we have to look at the need for federal legislation. I know I harp on that, but the things that changed

our rights to vote were federal legislation. The thing that got rid of segregated restaurants was federal legislation. The thing that will end this constant stream of police brutality and over-policing and killings in our communities, in Black and brown communities around the country, is going to be federal legislation. So we have to keep impressing and pushing the need going forward to make sure that we reform these things so that this does not continue to happen. Nothing's going to bring back these people who have died. But what we can do is change the laws on the books, change our priorities as a nation, change the way that we equip officers so that they are able to

bring people to justice in a nonviolent way, particularly that avoids quote-unquote collateral damage. I don't think any of us believe that our children or our brothers, our sisters, our neighbors should be called collateral damage in this situation. This is really a sad story, especially when you look at the fact that the video apparently has been released shows the suspect backing away

when they begin to fire. Roland, you've got to be kidding me about this story. They're in a department store chasing someone probably for shoplifting. He's backing away and they shoot, they fire on him

anyway. Is that the story? What? Are you serious? And this little girl, this young lady is in a changing room with her mama and she gets shot and killed by the LAPD?

You've got to be kidding. First of all, if they're chasing a nonviolent fleeing felon on a Tennessee v. Garner, they can't use deadly force. That's the first thing. But secondly, they can't fire their gun in a department store or in close quarters with other people around. That's not only a violation, that's illegal. That's criminal right there. That really is. Whether you call it manslaughter or what have you, I hope those officers have been put on leave because that is not in the training manual whatsoever.

That little girl is supposed to be walking home with her mother back to their car to go home to do her homework. That's just outrageous. I can't. There's got to be more to this. If there's not more to this, that is a damn shame. That is just a damn shame. And Roland, also, many, many police departments around the world that still carry deadly weapons,

they use what are called frangible bullets, which are compressed plastic bullets, which are still lethal. They are still lethal bullets, but when they hit any object, they shatter. They're training bullets. I have some downstairs that we use at the range. Of course we do. But the whole point is that if we decide to invest in those for police departments, then something like this could have been avoided while still allowing police to have deadly force when necessary. So we have to think about exactly what we are doing and exactly what we're trying to achieve. Do we want RoboCop? Do we want G.I. Joe out here in the streets?

Are we actually trying to protect the public and bring people to justice? But beyond the bullets, Robert, we're talking about using deadly force in close quarters with non-suspects around, a mall, a department store, people changing in changing rooms. How dangerous can it be to try on some clothes at a department store and this little girl winds up getting shot? That just makes no sense.

Did the suspect have a gun? Was it a shootout? I don't know. But even with a shootout, the police don't need to have a shootout in the department store. You've got to let that guy go. Get him in a way, get him away from people, then you can shoot it out with him. Running them to another part of the store or outside of the mall, right? Do something, but you cannot put other people at risk. You cannot with deadly force, even in the commission of a crime where you're trying to make an arrest.

Again, no discretion, no leadership. And we've got a dead young woman now. That's unbelievable. It's beyond what you're saying, Robert. I agree with you. No, that has been violated. That's reckless disregard on its face. It's not unbelievable when you unbelievable when we're talking about the LAPD. That's how they roll. All right, folks. Gotta go to break. We'll be back. I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network. so I'm sorry. so folks black star network is here a real uh revolutionary right now support this man black media he makes sure that our stories

are told i thank you for being the voice of black america rolling i love y'all all momentum we have now we have to keep this going the video looks phenomenal see 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 scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? All right, folks, let's talk about this story out of Indiana where a mother threw her child out of the classroom because of so taunting.

Gabby Portish at the International School of Indiana Students says she was sent a photo of a white hand holding a bouquet of stemmed cotton balls, the caption reading, when you ask a black girl to prom. However, the teen claims this isn't the first time she's been subjected to racial abuse. The mother says the school offered her child counseling. Here's what the head of the school said about the issue. Quote, the International School of Indiana is an inclusive, diverse, and respectful community. ISI does not tolerate racial intolerance or other discriminatory conduct and takes reports of alleged misconduct very seriously.

Such reports are investigated promptly and thoroughly in order to gain a complete understanding of what allegedly happened. After investigating, ISI takes firm and appropriate steps to remedy and address any misbehavior. The nature of those steps depend upon the severity of what occurred as ISI's policy is that matters concerning students are confidential. The school was unable to provide details of specific situations. Now, Portis wanted to complete the remaining year through the school's virtual learning courses

until a transfer was finalized. The administration denied the request because the reason was not COVID related. So I'm just saying a photo, a bouquet of STEM cotton balls. Look, look, Roland, it's funny that he say this isn't pandemic related because black folks have been in a pandemic of racism for 400 years in this country. Everyone else is just figuring out that it's a pandemic. We've been in this for a long time.

And when you're dealing with this level of violence and abuse, right now it starts with just a picture. Then it turns into a noose being left on someone's desk. Then it turns into actual harm and violence against this young person. So the school needs to take the appropriate action and let this person leave before it does escalate further. Because on the other hand, what if they decide that they don't feel safe and they want to take things into their own hands? It results in harm against these young white supremacists in training going forward. So I think that they have to take these issues for African-American students more seriously. While they're running around trying to stop critical race theory and they want to stop the curriculums and 1619 project. How about you work on stopping racism and get that done first

before you worry about all these fantasies that they run around chasing? Scott. Scott, you're on mute. No, I'm not. Now you're good. All right, go. Okay. Why is all the action? i think it's that damn tie that was talking no no no it's talking well and it feels so comfortable around my neck yeah why is all the action directed at the victim of racial bullying they won't let her leave school uh the other boys the the the young racists are in training, as Robert said, they've been suspended, right? Why did they

offer counseling to the victim and not the racists, the young racists? Why aren't they in racial sensitive training? Why aren't they being suspended or thrown out of school or required to be counseled in some way or some mediation or something like that. The story may be incomplete, but it seems like the action is focused on this young woman who's uncomfortable as opposed to making these young racists uncomfortable. Because if you look at the statement that you just read or you posted, it talks about they take it very seriously. They want a racially harmonious community of learning, blah, blah, blah.

But you can't have that with young white races using the N-word. You can't have any of that. Right. So it's not she's not driving that negative narrative. The young white races are driving the negative narrative. And that's where the attention and the pressure point needs to be. Well, that's what it means to be black in America. All right, y'all got to go to a short break. We come back. We're going to talk about the new app fan base, which allows you to actually make money with your content.

Unlike many other platforms, Isaac Hayes III is the founder of the app. They have a new crowdfunding round. We'll talk about that and why he's saying stop spending money on a pair of athletic shoes and actually invest in a tech startup. We'll break it all down in our tech talk segment brought to you by Verizon. That's next. Roland Martin unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Thank you. Hello, I'm Bishop T.D.J. Hi, how's it going? It's your favorite funny girl, Amanda Seals.

Hi, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapy. What up, Lana Well, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. You know how some carriers give you so little for your older busted phone you just end up living with it? I don't think so. Verizon lets you trade in your broken phone for a shiny new one. You break it, we upgrade it. You dunk it, doggy bone it. Slam it, wham it, strawberry break it, we upgrade it. You dunk it, doggy bone it. Slam it, wham it, strawberry jam it.

We upgrade it. Get a 5G phone on us with select plans. Every customer, current, new, or business. Because everyone deserves better. And with plans starting at just $35, better costs less than you think. All right, folks, we are firm believers on this show when it comes to African-Americans being involved in technology. And Isaac Hayes, the third, has created an app called Fanbase, which allows for tech creators to be able to create content creators to be able to get paid from their fans. That's Fanbase. And so they have had they're involved right now in a $2.5 million crowdfunding phase right

now. And this is the video that he actually dropped earlier today. They've only been live about 24 hours. Watch this. right now to pull up talk about this uh investment here uh but robert uh he's based out of Atlanta. And one of the things that he keeps saying to people is the need and the desire to actually be for us to be involved as funders, because unfortunately, black people, we're real good at using apps. We're real good at downloading them. But we're the ones who get paid from it. And look, I've actually known Isaac Hayes III for

years, going back to when I used to work on some music things back in the mid 2000s, so I'm glad to see him working on this project. And quite frankly, let's think back about a year or so. TikTok was a brand new app that nobody had really heard of, and then during the pandemic, Black people

started putting dance routines on there that white people picked up on, and they went viral. Did any of those Black creators get rich off of that? Now, TikTok has surpassed Google to be the most popular web application in the world, on the planet, on Earth. That is

driven by Black people setting these trends and creating content on these platforms. You can look at black Twitter, for example. How much money is Jack Dorsey getting from the creativity of the black hive mind on black Twitter? Why are we putting all this money and all this content on other people's platforms in order to make them rich when we're getting nothing out of it but likes and follows and some shares when we really should be working our way into the billionaire space on Moz. And on this point of crowdfunding and becoming investors in startups,

I think a lot of people don't quite understand how the process works, that a company like Facebook doesn't just appear out of nowhere. They have to go through an initial crowdfunding round in order to get off the ground. And then you get your money back by being one of those investors on the ground once you pick the right horse. And that there are angel investors out there who put money all over the place just to make sure that in case it does pop off, that they're in the advantageous situation to be able to take off with it. And once I think we get that mindset and get that level of education, that we understand the way

that money is made in the 21st century, that is when we start moving from just being rich to being wealthy and having generational wealth. As my friend Bruce says, black generational wealth has to be the goal that we're all working towards. And a big portion of that's going to be in that tech space. Isaac, Isaac joins us right now. Isaac, glad to have you back on the show. Look, I'm one of the folks who invested in a in fan base and one of the things that you did is you made it perfectly clear you were not trying to just uh go out and get institutional investors you want to regulate everyday people uh to be able to invest the minimum amount they can invest is 250 bucks uh you posted earlier today hey folks uh pass up buying that pair of

athletic shoes and actually buy uh shares in a tech company yes indeed i mean um we spend an exorbitant amount of money on a lot of things that we love and enjoy but um because of the jobs act um and wiping out that accredited investor rule that allows people to actually have equity in companies that normally you wouldn't have access to in the realm of social media. We understand the importance of youth culture and black culture mainly, but contributes to the rise and the growth of these platforms,

turning them into multi-billion dollar corporations, but we don't have any equity in them. So that's the reason why um fanbase exists why the platform exists um we just launched our second raise on start engine we're raising 2.6 million dollars in a new round you can go to startengine.com fanbase and actually have some shares in the company i encourage everybody to do that but yeah it's time to really have equity in infrastructures that we innovate um per se in the black community, especially in youth culture.

Okay, now explain what a second round of funding means. Explain that. That just means it's a second opportunity to invest in the company at a higher, slightly higher valuation. We raised $3.5 million at a $20 million valuation. Since then, fan base's user base has grown a thousand percent. Our profits are 999%. And so now the valuation of the company is 50 million. You got to think about companies like Facebook that are worth 900 billion, right? They didn't start out at $900 billion companies, a company like Instagram that's worth $200 billion. They started out with half a million dollars in seed capital back in 2010.

So you got to understand that the people that got in on that company very, very early are now multimillionaires, if not billionaires, because they got along for the ride very, very early. And once the platform was acquired by Facebook, they saw an opportunity to exit. Or if they kept their stock and then joined along with Facebook, they're very wealthy people now. So that's what you need to consider. One of the points that I talked about when we opened this segment is that we are real good at using these apps and making other people successful. I'm going to use example Clubhouse. You and I talk about this all the time. It was folks. It was all the all the rage in 2020 in nine months from launch. Somebody offered them or traffic throughout three or four billion dollars. Black folks made the app sexy. They made it hot.

Those in those conversations continue to happen on Clubhouse. Right. And so from time to time, like, again, I think as people learn about Fanbase, which is the only platform, the audio platform currently that allows any user to actually receive revenue from people listening to you talk while you're on stage, the opportunity to actually accept revenue, people are learning about that. But yeah, Clubhouse went from a company that raised $10 million at $100 million valuation to a company that has raised in excess of $300 million at a $4 billion valuation in a year. And it mainly came off the conversation, the energy of Black people being on the platform. We had Kevin Hart come on the platform to go viral we had meek mill academics

takashi69 young boy young boy went on went on clubhouse maybe about three weeks ago and shot it all the way up to the top of the app store because his fans came on the platform just to hear him speak and again young boy doesn't have equity in clubhouse and so he increased the value of the company just by being there is what we do. We take our clapbacks to Twitter. We take our dances to TikTok. We take our skits to Instagram. We take our conversations to Clubhouse. And we don't own any of these platforms. So owning the infrastructure is extremely important. But for every user around the platform, you know, Fanbase is a Black-owned tech startup, but it it's not black only. We are in 170 countries worldwide.

I encourage everybody to make a page and a profile and start posting your content, but monetizing your content at the same time, which is the focus of the platform. So so walk us through exactly what is on fan base. I mean, so I mean, what is it you can post? I mean, you can post photos, you can post videos. What else can you do? you can post photos you can post videos um what what else can you do you can post photos and videos you can go live the live is monetized so those hearts that float up on the side on ig don't mean anything but when people tap that love icon on fanbase when you go live you make half a penny per love and those loves add up because you can like content and

love content we have audio rooms like i said like clubhouse and twitter spaces we have long form content up to one hour like youtube um and formerly igtv that allows you to put long form content behind paywalls so you in in essence are your own netflix you can monetize your content and people can subscribe directly to you um and we're building and launching our own version of short form video, similar to TikTok and Reels called Flix coming in January. We're rebuilding stories, which will have the exclusive functionality as well. So you can put your stories behind a paywall too and gain subscribers in that fashion, a new DMs and a new version of direct voice. And we're raising the price of subscription from 3.99

to 4.99 a month so that's more money in your pocket as a creator and a user on the platform so uh you talked about uh so when you talk about those audio chat rooms so twitter has spaces clubhouse that's what it is so essentially uh versus uh i forgot, the rapper you mentioned who took all of his fans over to Clubhouse. He did that. I don't know if he even got paid for that. What you're saying is guys like that, they could actually have those same conversations on Fanbase, bring all their fans over,

and actually get paid off of those discussions. Yes, and with this new version of direct voice that we have, we're opening up exclusive rooms as well. So your subscribers are the only ones that could join the conversation. And so, I mean, there's a value to the information that we give. I mean, I don't think that, you know, people that sit on Clubhouse and give away free game all day, it's great. You get a following. And I think that's what people buy into the fact that your following is not as important as your fan base. And that's the the thing about it that five percent of people that follow you are those people that will actually pay for the information that you have pay for your celebrity pay for your content

no matter what you do and that's what people focus on it just takes 50 000 people paying you two dollars a month for you to make 1.2 million dollars a year i know people with two and three million followers that can't pay their bills um So a following is insignificant if you don't have access to that. And on platforms like Instagram, you do not have access to your entire following. They are not going to give you full content visibility because if they did, these brands that pay them for ads would not pay the platform, they would pay you. And that goes against their business model. So they're actually in competition with their users to actually make revenue off the content explain that because you you do a lot of videos where you lay that out where you'll show

somebody with a million followers on Instagram and when they go live they barely get any interaction I mean it's just I mean I could tell you you know I've got let's see here if I go to Instagram you, I've got, let's see here, if I go to Instagram, you know, I've got 626,000 followers. If I go live, you know, I will allow the other day, I think it peaked at 248, which is actually a high number. But the reality is a lot of times you go live. after about you know five or different about five or ten minutes i think that they may go down to like 105 maybe 100 whatever so what people don't realize is they're controlling who they're notifying i can tell you

that right now we're live right now uh on um facebook instagram First of all, the Black Star Network, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. And right now, and I've been, trust me, I've been slanging and banging with Facebook on this for quite some time. Right now, on my Facebook page, why is it not showing the numbers right now? I doubt, seriously, Keenan, put it out is it not showing the numbers right now um I doubt seriously uh

Keenan put it I can't see it right now but put it in the chat tell me how many people it probably we probably do 230 235 people watching our Facebook page well I got 1.3 million Facebook followers we know for a fact that our followers are not getting notified when we go live because Kenan, who handles my digital stuff, he doesn't even get a live notification. And he's the one who presses the button when we go live. So they are purposely suppressing our numbers because they want us to pay Facebook to boost, to pay to boost people who already follow me. Yeah. Let me give a high level example of that. Ariana Grande has 280 million followers on Instagram. 5% of her following is 14 million people. At the same time, 14 million people watch Sunday Night Football on NBC every Sunday, and brands paid $500,000 for 30 seconds to be in front of 14 million people. What do you think a brand would pay Ariana Grande if she went live and 14 million people showed up to her live and she could talk about their product?

They pay her millions of dollars to do that. And so, again, Instagram and Facebook don't want the brands to go directly to the users. about their product they pay her millions of dollars to do that and so again uh instagram and facebook don't want the brands to go directly to the users they want the brands to go to them so they can rent ads and make money so what they tell you is to trick the algorithm post more content but what that does is it puts a sea of content that gives them more places to run ads in between and make more money so they're in competition with their user base because they're never going to Ariana Grande. I got 280 million followers. They're not sending out 280 million notifications when she goes live because if those people pull up to watch her, she can tell

them, buy my album, buy my concert ticket, go buy this product, go see this movie, whatever it is. And that goes against their business model. And so they're definitely not ever going to do anything like that so on fanbase when you build your fans so when you go live fanbase notifies all of your followers absolutely every single time yeah we want that because if you make money we make money we want the user to actually make money um we want you to be we want people to love your guy i went live on fanbase today for like a few minutes and i've gone live and made $230 in less than 30 minutes going live on fan base. And I think that's the difference. It's the ability for users to actually be able to receive revenue.

There is no mechanism to freely give money to people, every single user on Instagram or Facebook. Some people have badges. Some people don't. If you do something funny, they take away your monetization. They stop you from being able to go live. They do all these things that purposely limit your ability to reach your following. I have 108,000 followers. As a matter of fact, I did an exercise by using the platform for like two weeks, right? And I reached 482,000 accounts and between December 10th and December 16th and my my my reach went up seven hundred and twenty two percent but also my revenue on Instagram went up

three thousand five hundred and sixteen percent and I made a whopping 72 cents so they're not even paying you for your you know your fair value for the content you create. So it's just time to- And a lot of people don't understand how these things work. So for instance, I had somebody who just hit me up and people state, they say, Roland, we like live chatting on your show, on Facebook as well as on YouTube.

Well, we were working with Vimeo for our Blackstar Network app. They don't actually have a live chat function. You could post a comment, but I just got a notification, but it's not live chatting. And I just told her we're working with them to integrate that because we told them that our users like to be able to do that chat while the show is live.

And once and once we do that, then I'll be taking our show off of Facebook. We make way more money, frankly, from Roland Martin and the filter on YouTube than we do on Facebook. But it's but it's understanding the pros and cons of the platforms. And you've got to make a decision based upon getting your business model in terms of how you use it and so that's one of the reasons we do that let me go to um scott then robert their questions about fan base scott go ahead don't have me on okay you unmuted me all right you know i want to get back to the investor portion because african-americans young and old are are great consumers, almost a, sometimes, by some accounts a billion, sometimes trillions of dollars in consumerism.

So there's this culture of consumerism. And yet you make the case that instead of buying these shoes, you could invest in fanbase through this crowdfunding process. And I completely agree with you. But given the culture of consumerism by so many of us in the communities of color, how do you get them to get really excited about investing in fan base now versus just picking up followers and putting on content and getting kind of the emotional satisfaction of having a lot of followers and putting on content and getting kind of the emotional satisfaction of having a lot of followers and putting out good content. I think it's a tough sell, not because you're not right,

but a tough sell because we are, so many of us are risk averse and we are just having this culture of consumerism. No, that's not what it is. No, it actually is not consumerism or risk averse, it's white validation. No, call it what you want. No, I'm going to callism or risk averse. It's white validation. No. Call it what you want. No, I'm going to call it what it is. I mean, because I'm going to tell you. I mean, and I'm going to tell you. I've had people go, oh, I try to use fan base.

It had this problem, that problem. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram all had glitches. Yeah. They would do updates. Isaac, you had to walk people through this year the reality is when when it's something that's when they find out if if isaac probably would be further along if he was if he didn't come out and show that he's black but there are people out there isaac rally who go yeah brother, his stuff ain't working. I'm like, but y'all still on Clubhouse still got glitches. Yeah. Yeah. How's it going? Yeah. No, I think the ice is colder, too.

To answer your question, you have to give them the information. I think the ability to invest in a startup only existed as a non-accredited investor since 2013. So we've only known about this. And then it took a while for platforms like StartEngine to actually become mechanisms that people could invest. And then you show people the value of what people have already been getting as accredited investors for years,

for 83 years that you haven't been. So I usually tell people all the time that there is an accredited investor that put $5,000 into Uber in 2010. And when it IPO in 2019, that $5,000 was worth 24 million. Now, you know how many people I know with 5G that spend $5,000 at a section of the nightclub or, you know, they'll spend $5,000 gambling in Vegas. Brad, I was about to say that.

I was about to say that. Or they'll buy lottery tickets, but you never have the opportunity to. So to know that there's a platform like StartEngine and a platform like Fanbase that you can go right now and invest in, and you don't have to put $5,000. $250 is a very low threshold to be able to invest in a platform that is a pair of Jordans, right? My phrase that I make, like I said, is don't buy shoes, buy shares. And I think you can take one week and say instead of going and buying a pair of tennis shoes or instead of going to spend you know hitting

ruth chris and getting steak and wine and i'm gonna chew it up and and poop it out i'm gonna i'm gonna put that and invest that into a startup and i mean there are benefits to that because you're creating we we can actually literally control the value of a startup like Fanbase by simply investing and moving our content there. And secondly, platforms like Instagram and Clubhouse were heavily funded from the beginning. Like the moment that Clubhouse was able to actually accept capital, they got $10 million with only about 2500 users right we're well over 100 160 000 users on fanbase um and we haven't i haven't gone to venture capital i went to the people because i know that the people are the only reason that we're going to be successful in the platform and offer that economic opportunity and the opportunity invest to them that's the that's the key yeah

yeah excellent you know the other thing they'll, Roland, the other thing they'll say is that, well, Roland, how much money are you making off of it? Or Isaac, how much money are you making off of it? They will count brother's money, even though they haven't invested in it whatsoever.

We got this self-hate thing going on, too, that we got to fight. Oh, look, look man i had somebody post on twitter i got some i got i got some fool who was always doing videos about me uh on youtube uh always criticizing talking about uh rolling me having begathons um no because guess what we don't actually and see here's the hilarious part. We don't charge anybody for our content. The people who join our Bring the Funk fan club, they

actually give on their own free volition. We don't even send hats and t-shirts and jackets and stuff because that swag costs money. The money goes back into the show. But here's the deal. It cracks me up. It's amazing the people who spend their time

whining about what i do i don't watch this i don't watch them i don't talk about them i don't care what they do if y'all want to watch them and listen to them and if they want to showcase their bad lace fronts or they want to hide behind a microphone go right ahead i don't care what they do i'm over here doing my thing. And I think that's the whole deal. We got to get out of that as well. And so for the people who say, well, fan base should be this, should be that. This is real simple.

You could either be real about supporting Black-owned or you could just talk about it. There's a whole bunch of folks fronting. Robert, go ahead. Thank you so much Roland so I think all of us who live are in even tangentially in content creation have understood the the tyranny of the algorithm that basically YouTube changes the formula whenever they feel like it for what actually makes it onto the front page and what things are prioritized and same thing with

Facebook now they have content tags and everything else where they can demonetize the video at any given point in time. How will fan base be different when it comes to allowing more freedom to content creators and not simply prioritizing what they want, when they want for actual promotion? I think first and foremost, the fact is that I don't like the word content creator because every single person on social media is a content creator. It's users. And so the first thing you do is give the ability for every single user on the platform to make money. That's first and foremost. So anybody can monetize on fan base. It doesn't matter if it's me, you, whoever.

You can sign up today, create a page on fan base, engage with the community, start creating content and charge for it as you should charge for your content. Because again, if you have a following, and I tell this all the time, it's the most efficient thing to do is to try to build a business off of following. You build a business off of fan base, off of customer base, right? If people had to give away their products for free, right? If McDonald's had to give away free hamburgers and french fries until somebody around the country said these are the best fries or hamburgers in the world. And then we have viral. They would have never been the company that they are. You have to sell your product from the moment that you put it out. So free is not the way that that works. Now, free is a marketing strategy to convert those people into paid subscribers. And I think an important stat that we that we recognize is, is that in 2020 2020, 53% of all in-app purchases were recurring. So we are in the subscription era, whether people know it or not. So that's like you subscribe to Netflix and Hulu. You subscribe to Spotify and Apple Music.

You subscribe to Microsoft Word. You subscribe to Adobe Premiere Pro. You subscribe to the apps that you edit your photos with. And so the last place that everybody gives away their content for free and are not using the subscription model is social media. Every other media on the planet, TV, movies, music, content development or organization are all free. But social media is a place where people are not. And they understand that the true economic engine of the platform is the user, right? And so when the user doesn't have an opportunity to monetize, the only person that does is the platform. And I

tell people that all the time. I say people complain on Clubhouse all the time that Clubhouse doesn't do anything to help the users monetize. I was like, Clubhouse took $300 billion. Clubhouse is not trying to figure out how to help you monetize. Clubhouse is trying to figure out how to monetize you. Once they figure that out, then they can say, now we can offer you the ability to monetize, but they're not gonna give that to everybody because once they figure out their method to monetize,

then they have to keep that mechanism going. And that might go against their business model to allow the user to monetize. So that's the long and short of it is we're not going to throttle down your content. We're not going to ban people because of content that they post that as long as it doesn't go against our guidelines, because we're not beholden to advertisers. Advertisers don't dictate how we run our platform. Advertisers dictate how Instagram is run, how Facebook is run, because they can pull their ad dollars at any time that they feel like they don't want anything on the platform that doesn't go against their brand.

So they say, turn it down, throttle it down, suppress it, run our ads. And when we're done running our ads, you can turn that stuff. We can turn the Black Lives Matter back up. You can turn the LGBTQ back up. You can turn the hip-hop back up, but for now, we want our ads to reach the audience that we want them to reach. Alright, so you've already raised $150,000. Tell

people where they can go to get more information about investing in Fanbase. Startengine.com slash Fanbase. I think we've raised a little over $160,000 in 24 hours. We're raising $2.6 million. I would say sooner than later because doing great programs like these spikes in investment and I think that's an opportunity that everybody should take advantage of

while the opportunity exists. Once the, reaches its max, we close, and there's no longer an opportunity to invest. If you have time to do so, go to startengine.com slash fanbase and grab some shares in an early seed tech startup that can grow and develop into a mega monster of a media company. And you said in the first round, the valuation was $20 million. This round, the valuation is $50 million, which means the next one,

it could be very well over $100 million. So folks, go there. Again, as I said, I got no problem saying it. I invested in the last round. I believe in supporting our own, building our own platforms. That's why we actually did this show. Same thing.

We created this tech segment. I appreciate Verizon coming on as a sponsor for us to be able to feature African-Americans who are in the tech space who otherwise couldn't get on Squawk Box, couldn't get on Bloomberg, and these other networks unless they became billion-dollar companies. And so we want to help them get there.

Everybody who's watching is 132 of y'all. It's a perfect example. There are 132 people on Facebook watching right now, and we have 1.3 million followers on Facebook. That shows you how they throttle our numbers. But, again, we've got nearly 1,600 on YouTube. We've probably got more than 1,000 on Blackstar Network app right now. Folks, download the Fanbase app. Follow me.

Follow Isaac. And I can't wait until they keep developing it where we can actually create the RTMP and send our feed over to the fan base app for y'all to watch over there. Isaac, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much for having me. I appreciate it guys. All right, Robert Scott. Thank you so very much. Thank you so very much, Scott. Please don't ever wear that neck thing again, ever. I'm going to wear it again because I want to invest in fan base. If you're going to wear it, you better wear a scarf that says fan base.

But that crap you got on right now, take it off. Folks, that's it. I'll see y'all tomorrow right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Please support us by downloading our app. Our goal is to get 50,000 downloads by the end of the year.

Kenan, send me a text. Tell me how many we're at right now. So please download all the platforms, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox, Samsung Smart TV. Also, join our Bring the Funk fan club. You can send us any amount we ask, $50 each from our fans for the course of the year. $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day. You can give more. You can give less.

All up to you. Cash app is RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RMartin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. All right, folks. That's it. I'll see you tomorrow right here.

Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Shout out North Carolina A&T Aggies. I'm repping y'all today. Holla! This is an iHeart podcast