#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Diddy trial bombshell, Biden prostate cancer diagnosis, St. Louis deadly tornados, New voter ID laws

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

5.19.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Diddy trial bombshell, Biden prostate cancer diagnosis, St. Louis deadly tornados, New voter ID laws The Diddy trial just took a jaw-dropping turn.... A Former Danity Kane member hit the stand with explosive testimony about shocking abuse and threats. We've got boots on the ground bringing you the latest from inside the courtroom. Voting rights are under attack. Louisiana's new voter ID law is sparking outrage. Critics say it's built to suppress, not protect. Danielle Lang from the Campaign Legal Center is here to explain. President Biden's cancer diagnosis is hitting home -- especially for Black men. We're talking with a top urologist about what metastatic prostate cancer means and why this is a major wake-up call for our health. Plus, deadly tornadoes ripped through the Midwest, devastating communities across Missouri. Former St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones joins us live to talk about the damage, the response, and what recovery looks like. #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjD) and Risks (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart podcast. I know a lot of cops, they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season One, Taser, Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Taser, Inc. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser, Inc.

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We met them at their homes, we met them at their recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs Podcast, Season 2, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Here's the deal. We gotta set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We gotta make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position.

Pre-game to greater them. Let's put ourselves in the right position, pregame to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org, brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. So Hello, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase. Listen to what I'm about to tell you. The window to invest in Fanbase is closing. We've raised over 10.6 million of our $17 million goal. That means there's room for less than 6,370 people

to invest in Fanbase for the average amount. The minimum to invest in Fanbase right now is $399. That makes you an owner in Fanbase today. Go to startengine.com slash fanbase to invest. Why? Cause current social apps have taken advantage of users for far too long, with content suppression, shadow banning, harmful racist content, and no real tools for monetization and equity.

Fanbase has over 1.4 million users and counting, allowing anyone to reach all their following and monetize their content from day one. Social media is the new TV, and whoever owns the apps that distribute that content have the opportunity to own potential billion dollar companies. While big platforms with uncertain futures are failing to serve their users, Fanbase is stepping up to fill the gap. Don't wait until it's too late. Invest now, invest for yourself and your future.

Go to StartEngine.com slash Fanbase and own the next generation of social media. Our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roland. Be Black, 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 scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig?

All right, it is Monday, May 19th, 2025, and I'm Candace Kelly sitting in for Roland Martin. Here is what's coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming live on the Black Star Network. The Diddy Trial just took a jaw-dropping turn. A former Dana Decay member hit the stand with explosive testimony about shocking abuse and threats. I was on the ground, and we have the latest of what happened inside of the courtroom. Voting rights are under attack. Louisiana's new voter ID law is sparking outrage.

Critics say it's built to suppress, not protect. Daniel Lang from TE Campaign Legal Center will explain. And President Biden's cancer diagnosis is hitting home, especially for black men. We're talking with the top neurologist about what metastatic prostate metastatic prostate cancer means and why it is a major wake up call for our health. Plus deadly tornadoes ripped through the Midwest devastating communities in Missouri. Former St. Louis Mayor Tashara Jones joins us live to talk about the damage, the response,

and what a recovery looks like. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin on filter streaming live on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss he's on it. Whatever it is he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks he's right on time. And it's rolling.

Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from spots to news to news. The scoop, the fact, the fine And when it breaks, he's right on time And it's rolling Best belief he's knowing Putting it down from Spots to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Roroyo

It's rolling Martin Rolling with rolling now. Yeah. He's funky, fresh, he's real, the best, you know, he's rolling. Martin! Now! Martin! All right, folks, a powerful storm in St. Louis has caused $1 billion in damages. The storm hit more than 4,400 buildings. At the height of the storm, over 100,000 residents lost power, five people have become have been

confirmed dead, and dozens more were hospitalized with injuries. As of noon this past Sunday, some 36,000 customers were still without electricity. Despite 1,900 workers on the ground, restoring power has been a huge challenge with nearly 300 power poles down. Joining us now is the former mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, Tashara Jones. Thank you so much for being with us tonight. Thank you for having me. So can you describe a little bit about what's going on on the ground right now?

What does it look like to you when you hit the streets? Yeah, so I have been out in community for the last three days since the storm hit. My neighborhood, it took a direct hit as well. I've been out without power up until last night, and there are still hundreds or thousands of people still without power. And what I have seen as I drive around the community

and as I am helping people dig out of this horrendous storm is that we still need more help and that the need is vast. And so the city is doing its coordination with other departments regionally and nationally. And where I have chosen to focus my efforts as the former mayor of this city is trying to make sure that no one falls through the cracks and what are those gap services that we can provide. So I have been working with Action St. Louis on the ground as we do resource distribution, as we raise money to help people get through

this because we know that most of the storm hit a majority black and brown communities, actually majority black communities. And a lot of those communities are not gonna have the resources they need to recover after this tornado. So what are you expecting something in terms of what the president can do and those with the executive powers can do at this time? What does that look like? Well, we had a tornado back in March

and President Trump still has not issued an emergency declaration from that. So, you know, we don't expect him to act with urgency to issue an emergency declaration for this storm. So we have to mobilize and organize and make sure that we have our communities back. And that's exactly why I tried, why I'm coming on here tonight to let people know

how they can help the black community in St. Louis recover from this deadly tornado. All right, let's talk about that a little bit more. What can people do? You said that you are, you know, that you already have a couple of thousand people on the ground, that is not enough. But what can people do? You said that you are, you know, they already have a couple of thousand people on the ground. That is not enough,

but what can people who are watching tonight do for your community? Well, first and foremost, they can contribute to Action St. Louis, and I will send you a link where people can contribute to Action St. Louis, and they are providing direct resources to communities. So we are collecting

all sorts of supplies, cleaning supplies, construction supplies, plywood, wheelbarrows, whatever we can get our hands on to make sure and then deploy that out into the community. We're working with AmeriCorps to make sure that we can put together a database of people that still need help. And then we will continue to call on our people who have expertise in construction to help rebuild roofs, to help tarp roofs. So we are boots on the ground, making sure that we are, that no one falls through the cracks.

And so we have been stationed at a local YMCA. If people are familiar with St. Louis, the O'Fallon Park YMCA on a daily basis, just to make sure that there is somewhere that people can come and let us know what they need. And then we will also deploy the resources within those communities. And what are you finding are the needs

that residents are coming to you the most? What are people saying on the ground when you talk to them? Well, a lot of people are still without power and we realize that our utilities are working around the clock to restore power. The biggest need is repairs to homes and what happens when you don't have access to power. So our seniors, our disabled will also need housing as we continue, as we try to rebuild their apartments, their homes, you know, in the black community and especially in St. Louis, we have old housing stock,

an old, beautiful housing stock, you know, four sides brick, three layers of brick in some of these homes. And so bricks are everywhere on the ground. And so we are picking up and salvaging what we can, but it also makes rebuilding very, very difficult and very expensive. So we are trying to make sure that we can shore up

the homes where we can. Again, there are other storms that are expected later on in the week. And so just making sure that people have what they need to ride this out. And then we'll also pivot to talk about other financial resources that we can raise money for to help them survive or recover from this storm. And what is your advice to people in your community? Because as you said, you just came, did not recover yet from the past storm. Now we are in a situation where more storms

potentially be coming. What do you tell your residents, your community in terms of preparing for what is possibly to come? What I'm telling everybody is to make sure that you have some people who will have your back and so you're not taken advantage of. We hope that everyone has insurance, but we realize that many may not and may need help rebuilding their homes.

And in some cases, those homes may not be able to be rebuilt. We are talking about a community that has been neglected for at least 70 plus years. And so rebuilding is going to be very difficult. But we want to be a part of the solution and provide as many resources as necessary. And that's why we are asking people Everywhere across the country to donate to action st Louis that way we know that resources will get directly to the people in need and need it most Action st. Louis when we talk about a timeline what you're doing to help people in terms of people going back to work in school. I Know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened

when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st,

and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Karamouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcast. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget

yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov, brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. And getting on their way, what's the outlook in terms of,

I know that possible recovery isn't going to happen fully for anytime soon, but what is the timeline for what your hopes are? We're probably gonna be in recovery mode for several months, because our public transportation system also took a hit, a direct hit. So just when I was picking my son up

from the airport last night, I saw our crews out trying to fix our train system or our MetroLink system. We're going people are people's cars were buried under trees and so they're going to need transportation to work. You're going to have people without work because their businesses were also decimated through the storm. So recovery is going to be very, very long and very arduous going to be very, very long and very arduous and very difficult for a lot of people. So anybody within the sound of my voice, we need all of the resources that we can

to help this community recover from this horrible once in a lifetime storm, because a tornado hasn't hit this part of our community since 1959. Now, in terms of the monies that you're asking for, where will it go directly? How will it serve the community? So Action St. Louis has been buying supplies

for people buying water, food, construction supplies, and literally we set up shop where people can come pick them up. We also work with other organizations to deploy them in communities for the construction materials, for example. We're working with a couple of organizations and labor unions to collecting addresses

to make sure that those who need construction on their homes or it needs some shoring up that we are deploying units or volunteers to help shore up these people's homes. So that's what the money's going for. When you donate to Action, that money goes directly into the community. I know that people can lose hope during these times. What is the sense from the people that you're talking about,

about their outlook, how they're feeling about St. Louis, Missouri, especially when more storms could potentially be coming? The one thing that I have seen as I have been in the community since the storm hit is the resiliency of our community. People are really pulling together and it's such a beautiful thing.

As I was on a street helping one of my former staffers with his home, people drove by or walked by with water, with food, with snacks, cause they realized that once you're working and you just don't stop to eat or to stay hydrated. So our community is really coming together and it's such a beautiful thing. And also, what I want people to know is that we will rebuild.

We are a resilient community and we are coming together during this storm to help each other, to help our neighbors, to help our friends and family. So I am very, very hopeful that we will rebuild our community after this horrible storm because we are going to come together and roll our sleeves up and help our neighbors and friends rebuild. All right, Tishara, I want you to one more time just mention how people can give you donations in order to help your community before we leave tonight.

So Action St. Louis is a nonprofit and you can find them on ActBlue. So if you go to ActBlue.com you can search for Action St. Louis for their 501c3. They're a nonprofit and donate there and we will welcome any size donation from a dollar to whatever you can afford. We realize that these are tough times for everybody but we are asking people to keep first keep us in your prayers but also if they can help us out help us recover and help us help our community recover we would greatly appreciate it. All right Tashaura Jones the former mayor former mayor of St. Louis, Missouri, thank you for letting us know. Our hopes and prayers are with you, and I'm certain that people will donate to help you

in what's to come. Thank you again, good to see you. Thank you, God bless. All right, folks, we're gonna be back after break, so stay with us. We've got the latest on all of the headlines that you want to hear about, including that Sean Holmes trial.

Stay with us. This week on A Balanced Life, we are getting real about mother wounds. While May is the month that we shower mom with love, for some people, this time of year is a stark reminder of fractured relationships and feelings of abandonment. In this episode, we will be uncovering the trauma of mother wounds and sharing tips

on how we can begin to heal them. What we don't talk enough about in our community is giving ourselves permission to even heal. That's all next on A Balanced Life here, Black Star Network. Hey, what's up? Keith Toney in the place where we got cake touchin' Momma's University,

creator and executive producer of Fat Tuesdays, the air hip hop comedy. But right now I'm rollin' with Roland Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamn believable. You hear me? One, two. All right, I wanna welcome our panel tonight. I am joined by Dr. Julianne Melvaux,

economist and president emerita of Bennett College and author of Surviving and Thriving, 365 Facts in Black Economic History. She's out of Washington, DC. Also joining us tonight, former Georgia state representative, Renita Shannon out of Washington, D.C. Also joining us tonight, former Georgia State Representative Renita Shannon, out of Atlanta, Georgia, and finally, Dr. Omekongo Dabinga,

senior professional, excuse me, lecturer at the School of International Service at American University and author of Lies About Black People, How to Combat Racists. He is out of Washington, D.C. I want to start with the good doctor, Dr. Dabists. He is out of Washington, D.C. I want to start with the good doctor, Dr. Dabenga. How are you doing tonight?

I'm great. How are you? I am doing well. Listen, I just wanted to talk to you about the storms, your take on really what the president and his office should be doing at this time. It seems to me that he steps up in other places that need money, but some reason not St. Louis. Well, you know, whenever your citizens are struggling,

just go bring some so-called farmers in from South Africa and set them up with housing and jobs and everything else that they need. I mean, this is disgraceful. During the last Trump administration, I remember listening to Black mayors across the country who said, when Trump went to Atlanta and other places, when Trump was mayor, I mean, was president,

we were on our own. And it seems like that's repeating itself right now. And one of the things I'm wondering also is with the firings that they're doing in places like NOAA and the like, they're getting rid of, like, overnight forecasters. And were there signs that a hurricane that were coming that were missed because of what they were doing with Elon's places like Noah and the like, they're getting rid of like, you know, mid-overnight forecasters and, you know, were there signs that a hurricane that were coming

that were missed because of what they were doing with Elon's Musk department, that maybe some people could have got early warning signs and maybe evacuated and the like. So on some levels, their ignorance and budget cuts are making these storms worse. And then the people are not getting help on the other side of it.

And it's also sad that, to be quite honest, like I've heard stories about the hurricanes and the like, but I haven't seen this on any other network. I haven't seen anyone talk about it in March, except us. I haven't seen anyone talk about it in recent days in terms of the lack of assistance that these people are getting. People just talk about hurricane blew through town,

certain people die, people have no power, and that's about it. And this is how the president gets over. We expect Trump to do what he does, but Trump has been known to bow when the pressure becomes strong enough. And if people aren't reporting on these things, then there can't be any pressure. And so people need to get this word out. We need to spread that Web site to help people get the funds. But this is going to be the case for the next four years. How do I know that?

Because it was the case for the last four years. There's nobody coming to save us but us. It's tragic, more attention needs to be drawn to it. And his hands needs to be forced in order to help serve our people. We can't just give up, but we have to call it out. Yeah, Dr. Dabenga, you are so right. I spoke to a couple of people today.

I said, have you really heard about the storm? They said, no, I absolutely knew nothing about it, which is incredible because of the number of media outlets that we have that are out there, not traditional, but also online. Representative Shannon, I wanted to ask you this about the responsibility of the politicians to jump in here. I haven't heard a lot about that either. Yeah, sure. I mean, obviously it's the responsibility

of the elected officials to help lead folks through traumatic events and through events like this that really rock the foundation of the residents that live in the places that have voted for them, their constituents essentially. But this does, so that's kind of the role of the elected officials to speak up for their communities and say what their communities need as the, even though she's the former mayor, Mayor Jones just

told us what the community needs, she's still pretty much serving as an elected official, even though she's not currently in office. So she's doing what she needs to do. The folks who are currently active and elected need to be doing the same. But I would add the larger point is that this is really the place where the federal government really needs to step in with assistance. And so I would argue that Trump is not only just trying to screw black folks, he screws his own. Don't forget that Sarah Huckabee Sanders, governor of Arkansas, recently had to fight the Trump administration where her state needed help because of a climate disaster, and they

were denied. So all of the cuts that you hear about, whether it's cutting the national weather service, whether it's saying that they're gonna take down FEMA and cuts to FEMA and all of these services that collectively support the country and everyone and folks in different states, all of those services really,

you don't realize how much these things really matter until you need them. It's almost like insurance. You don't care about that support until you need that support. Dr. Malvaux, I'm sure, no surprise to you. You know, he's taking FEMA apart and FEMA would be the agency that will respond from this. So as Renita has said, you don't know what you need

until you don't need it. People don't know that we need FEMA until FEMA is there. I was in Grenada over the weekend celebrating Malcolm X's mother. And I was with a brother, Mike Rogers, who's a big corporate deal in St. Louis, and he is spending most of his time, he's supposed to be with us, on the phone trying to figure out what was going on. And one of the things one of the other brothers said is, this isn't on

the internet. You know, most of us get our news these days through, you know, CNN, PBS, da-da-da. This is not a big deal for those people who choose to ignore it. So while I'm not holding all media responsible, I'm wondering where your lens goes and why. And why that lens does not go. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. Good Plus on Apple podcasts. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug band. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Karamouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs Podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend.

I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend.

I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. I mean, he's like my best friend. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptUSkids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids,

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. To predominantly black communities, when we need is the right, it's not that this is not a racial thing, but basically the lens shifts. How do you get some motley white South Africans who people are saying, well, they were discriminated against because someone tried to take their land? Well, where, you know, what did they get the land from? It's not, you know, wasn't their land. Right, right, right. And there you have it.

You know, like you said, it is a problem bigger than we know. A lot of it does have to be due with the media because we just don't know what's going on. And our algorithms don't take us to these types of stories. I'm certain a lot of people will donate to the cause. All right, the people I wanna move on, wanna talk about Sean Combs, because today began the second week of testimony

in the Sean Combs Sex Trafficking Trial. Former Dandie Kane member, John Richare, was back on the stand facing defense attorneys who questioned her credibility, citing inconsistencies in her statements and her continued work with Combs after the alleged incident that she talked about. Rishar sued Combs last year, accusing him of groping, assaulting, and imprisoning her,

and threatening her life when she defended Binshore. She also sued him for unpaid wages. What also came out on Friday, on Rish Richard's first day of testifying was that Combs' lawyers filed to have her lawsuit dismissed. Finally on the witness stand today was Cassie Ventura's former best friend, Carrie Morgan.

She described instances of being allegedly abused by Combs. Dr. Malvaux, I wanna start with you. I know your feelings about this trial. I know you say, listen, we've got a lot more important things to think about than this trial. But I think that there is some importance in terms of having eyes on the justice system, especially when people of color are involved. Yeah, I know that people have been in your ear, even if you haven't been following it yourself. what is your take so far on what you think is happening? Well, I think that,

Oma Congo called me on my stuff the last time we were here together, because I said I don't care about it. And frankly, I still don't. What I care about is the misogynoir. I care about the fact that black women are too often, often sidelined and black men are too often excused. I would like to have 30 minutes,

maybe even 10 with that man in a small room with an ugly stick. So I could just, you know, that came into next week, asking, I know your mama didn't raise you like this boy. I know that you did, you know, anyway, neither here nor there. I can't deal with the particulars of this

because it's layered, but I can deal with the societal impact of this because it's important. How are black women and girls? Cause you know, some of these people are girls at 14. How are they introduced to the music business? Who gives them a pass? Who closes their eyes when they see a predator,

a predator hitting on a little girl and having sex with her in a room with all that baby oil and stuff. Ooh, I mean, don't get me started. Well, I think you're already started. I do want to say, listen, in this particular place, so far we are talking about adults, the question becomes Dr. Dabenga consenting adults. And that really is the

question on the table here, whether Cassie Ventura, whether the other victims actually consented to this? Or was this just as the defense attorneys and all the turn our painting that listen, these are two drug addicts in a bad relationship and people have all been there. What are your thoughts about this? Well, look, as somebody who's been in the game in terms of, you know,

rapping and putting out albums and touring and things like that, you know, I'm familiar with how cutthroat the industry is and how people have had to do incredible things to advance themselves. And I think that that's a big part of this. I think that this idea that these were just people who were just, you know, cold drug addicts

or whatever they said who just love parties, I think it's nonsense. R. Kelly is a R&B figure, right? So Diddy is really the first person in hip hop to really suffer the consequences of the Me Too movement. Me Too movement skipped over rappers. And it really bothered me that a lot of these guys were not called to task like some of these other guys, the Weinsteins, the Bill Cosbys and all of that.

This is a moment for us to really reflect. I personally, you know, do not believe that Cassie and these guys are lying and making up stuff and, you know, just trying to get attention. I don't believe in any of that. I believe at the end of the day that Diddy has always been a violent person. I believe that this is a person

who inside himself is a small person, and so has always had a need to dominate and control people. And he's not the only one in hip hop. We come out of a culture, particularly those of us who are part of that hip hop generation. If we go back and listen to the music, a lot of the stuff, a lot of it was about sex and relationships with underage people.

You know, BBD, Doomy Baby, backstage, underage, adolescent. How you doing? LL Cool J, Big old butt, I was down at the high school, whatever, like, we came out of this culture. And a lot of us were too young to understand what was going on, we danced to it. Now we're older, we're parents, aunties, uncles, and whatever, and now we need to be part of the group that's gonna hold our community accountable.

So I'm hoping that it all comes out. I hope that there's not any particular glitches or whatever that leads to some form of mistrial because this story needs to be told. And it's chilling hearing all of the stories, but at the same time, I'm glad that these stories are coming out so we can know so much of this behind the scenes stuff about the growth of hip hop that people just don't know about.

Dr. Dabinka, I want to stay with you for a long moment, especially because you have been in the industry. You know, in court, there were several, many, many emails where Cassie Ventura looks like she did want to participate. And I know that can be explained in many different ways. People get themselves in bad relationships and often do things for their partners

they don't want to do. Does it extend to this for the normal average person? Probably not, but for her, this was the threshold. And of course there were times where she said she was abused. I'm just wondering if you were on that jury, would that make a difference to you that there were in fact some texts where she said,

hey, I am ready for a freak off and I love you. Or she was doing drugs on her own or she would call male escorts after they left on her own. All of that did come out from her own mouth. And I'm wondering just how you feel about, especially again, being part of the industry. Well, look, people have to understand. I mean, look at the age difference between Cassie and Diddy. Look at her career trajectory as it relates to their relationship. And they're like, I hope that the people who are prosecuting Diddy are doing a good job. I

haven't watched every ounce of the trial. They're doing a good job of helping people understand the pressures that a lot of these young women particularly go through to be part of the industry. And so my hope is that these people on the jury will look at the scale, my hope of what he did vs. what she may have done afterwards. I hope that they will have people who are trauma and abuse experts who can speak about things like Stockholm syndrome and how people may feel attached, you know, to their captor.

I'm somebody who's also worked internationally in the field of sex trafficking. And so I understand what it's like for somebody to feel like. And people say, well, she was a singer, she was famous. It doesn't matter. I know exactly, I've seen what it's like for people to feel like, and people say, well, she was a singer, she was famous, it doesn't matter. I know exactly, I've seen what it's like for people to feel like they have to be under the thumb of somebody, even when that person is not around. And so regardless of what she may have done here and there,

there's a larger network of issues that she, as far as I can tell, was a victim to. And so I'm hoping that the jury can indeed see through that, but it's up to the prosecution to make sure that that is happening. Representative Shannon, before I get to you, I just wanted to share with folks that, you know, going into the courtroom and seeing Sean Combs, all gray. I mean, the pictures about 20 pounds with his glasses. At times he reads the Bible. He's, you know, thanks to everybody who was in there and he watches everything and he takes notes. The public is overnight there at 3 p.m., 6 p.m., lining up, especially during the

time of Cassie. Today it wasn't that bad. But there's just a lot of talk in the courtroom, outside of it rather, about, you know, what could happen. And I think that a lot of this just has to do with who is telling the better story. And like Dr. Dominguez said, we need somebody to contextualize this because why did she stay in this relationship for 11 years? Representative Shannon, what are people talking about in your circles? Well, I think that people are really shocked that this is really such a complex case because it is really complicated.

I think a lot of people thought that this was gonna be a case very similar to the R. Kelly case where it was almost pretty clear what was happening that he was keeping folks, holding folks hostage for the purpose of sex and making people do things completely against their will almost the entire time. This case has become very complex because through testimony, we do know that Cassie said that in the beginning things were consensual. She did want to do these things because she did not want him to leave her. So that, I think the prosecutors have the job of

basically figuring out, okay, since everybody admits that at some point this was consensual, when did it become coercion? You got to establish that timeline. I've been keeping up with the case, and what I'm seeing is that they're doing a great job of outlining these state charges. I'm seeing almost every day, plenty of things where they're proving that he's guilty of state charges, but they haven't made the full link

for those federal sex trafficking charges and all of that. And I think that it's becoming complicated but they haven't made the full link for those federal sex trafficking charges and all of that. And I think that it's becoming complicated because of the text messages where they are, showing where she said that she wanted to do some of these things. And so it's just become a very, very complicated case, but overall I would say there's a lot

that can be learned from this. I think about how folks sort of push back on what they would call, you know, being woke and some of the newer values that have really entered our society and one of them is really conversations about consent, also push back about, you know, not that, you know, consent is woke. It's like, well, consent is a thing that you understanding

consent and how consent actually works is the thing that can keep consent and how consent actually works is the thing that can keep you out of jail. And I think that he's seeing that right now, which is that what you may cast aside is just what garbage or BS has nothing to do with you is actually a thing that separates you and being in jail. Yeah, so I want to give a little insight. Today I was in court, Dawn Rashad, she took the stand.

She was a former member of the band, Denity Kane, and was on the reality show, making the band. I was very interested because she was a corroborating witness to say, hey, I did see Cassie be put in these dangerous situations where she was beat, she was struck, and she did make her point to some of you. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser, Inc. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glodd. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. It's kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug band. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter, Liz Karamouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

I mean he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptUSkids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSkids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Extend in terms of her being punched at a table in front of different employees and ushers, you know, who was even out to dinner, being punched right there at the dinner table.

But you know, when Cross came, they really put a lot of holes in her story, asking about specificity. Did she see Sean Combs hitting Cassie with a pan, a frying pan, as she was making eggs one morning? And so she went back and forth, and I'm afraid that on Cross, you could look at the jury, and the jury was not having it. They did not take her as a credible witness.

And it was very difficult just to sit there and think, okay, wait, what was true? What wasn't true? Because she did seem to change her story. She said, she answered it to all the questions to the best of her ability, but it certainly didn't come out very well. All right, anybody want to give a final comment

on the Shawn Choms trial? Is that going to be you Dr. Malvo? It can be what you know one of the things I think is important here obviously the prosecution has proven that this man is a horrible human being who hits women who coerces people and the question is consent. The question is because he had had all this money, so he could manipulate people, but at what point were you complicit in your own oppression? And I think that's what the jury is going to have to grapple with.

I mean, did you choose to get your behind beat because you thought you were gonna get a record deal? Hmm. You know, I mean, as I said, I'm an elder. I look at this bit and I shake my head. But I also say that people should not be coerced. Their livelihood should not be placed on the line, which appears to have been done here.

And those like Omokongo, who know more about the music industry than me, are better qualified to talk about it. I would just say this stinks. I don't know if it was a federal case, but certainly it's a case of some sort. And black folks, yeah, we have, I was with a bunch of people, multi-generational,

and I had a couple of folks say, well, did she choose to do that? We have to start looking critically at the people we lift up. If nothing else, nobody ever, ever, ever, ever needs to buy another Diddy whatever, whatever, whatever. Again, record, boy, ever, ever, ever needs to buy another ditty, whatever, whatever, whatever again. Record, boy, just go sit by the small hole to sit in. Could be the jail, but it could be your mama's house.

You said your mama has a lesson. Listen, this was a federal case. I want to say that. You mentioned her record deal. She had a 10 record record deal. She had one record come out of that lengthy relationship, be it personal or professional. And I want to say this before I throw the break, that I do think they have made the case

that he did cross someone over state lines for the purposes of prostitution. That is the lowest charge. So in terms of the jail time he would get, you know, it's up to 10 years, but I do think that they are actually gonna say, and so far have proven prosecution and defense, all right, it's up to 10 years, but I do think that they are actually going to say, and so far have proven prosecution and defense, all right, we'll give that up. We are kind of

conceding to that. He did cross state lines for purposes of engaging sex and paying for that sex. All right, we're going to be keeping more up with more on that here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. And those of you who are watching, stay with us. We've got more of the headlining news after the break. We'll be right back. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, have you ever had a million dollar idea and wondered how to bring it to life? Well, it's all about turning problems into opportunities. On our next Get Wealthy,

you'll learn of a woman who identified the overload bag syndrome and now she's taking that money to the bank through global sales in major department stores. And I was just struggling with two or three bags on the train and I looked around on the train and I said, you know what, there are a lot of women that are carrying two or three bags. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. I'm Russell L. Honore,

Lieutenant General, United States Army Retired. And you're watching Roller Martin on Filth. All right. Louisiana is at the center of a voting rights fight. A new lawsuit is taking aim at a controversial new state law, Senate Bill 436, that now requires proof of citizenship just to register to vote. We're talking about birth certificates,

passports, other documents of proof, but the law doesn't clearly define what's acceptable or how voters are supposed to even submit it. Civil rights groups, including the NAACP and the League of Women Voters say, this is not just confusing, it's unconstitutional. They argue that the law creates unnecessary hurdles that will hit black voters, low income communities,

students and seniors the hardest. Joining us now is Danielle Lang. She's the Senior Director of Voting Rights at the Campaign Legal Center. Danielle, welcome to Roller Martin Unfiltered. And I wanna start with this. What exactly makes this law so dangerous? Thank you so much for having me and taking time to talk about this important case. So

you're absolutely right that Louisiana recently passed a law that says that you have to provide proof of citizenship when you register to vote. I think there are a few things that make this law so dangerous. It is essentially a copycat version of a federal bill that's being considered called the SAVE Act that has passed the House, but that has been enormously controversial because it would throw voter registration nationwide

into chaos. And that's exactly what this law in Louisiana threatens to do. Voter registration is designed to be a simple process, one where you can fill out a form and get on the rolls so you can show up and vote on election day. And now there's a new law that says that anytime you register to vote or even if you move county and you have to re-register, update your registration, you're gonna have to provide proof of citizenship. And that alone is enormously harmful. We know that when states have tried this out before,

and very few have, but the ones that have, tens of thousands of folks, largely students, low-income people, people of color, are disenfranchised because the burdens and hurdles that you face in trying to provide that documentation, make it difficult to get registered to vote. But what happens here in Louisiana

is that the legislature passed this law with absolutely no idea how it was gonna be implemented, no rules about who is going to collect this, how they're going to be implemented, no rules about who is going to collect this, how they're going to collect it, what counts as proof of citizenship, whether or not a copy is acceptable, do you have to submit it in person? Does this imply to online voter registration?

Does it apply when you use the federal form? We just don't know. And that makes our clients in a very difficult position, because they're trying to engage in voter registration drives. How can they do that under these circumstances? And let me just provide one example of how difficult it can be for proof of citizenship for individual voters, especially when there are no definitions about what counts. So many married women, of course, change their name when they get married.

And in order to provide proof of citizenship, your driver's license isn't going to be good enough because lots of people with immigration status other than citizenship can get driver's licenses. So you're going to need something more than a driver's license. You're going to need something like a birth certificate likely to provide proof of citizenship. Well, most married women, if they've changed their name, their birth certificate name is obviously not going to match the name on the voter registration rolls or the name on their

driver's license. So what is somebody in that circumstance supposed to do? This law makes it impossible to know what someone like that is supposed to do. Not a well thought out law. What are your thoughts about, people don't understand that while many people we may know have their birth certificates,

a lot of people just don't have them or they were born in a time where they weren't keeping track of them if they didn't need them. If you're 90 years old and you're down and you live in Alabama, and this is someone who I know, they did not have their birth certificate. They had to find someone that knew them

and had to go sign an affidavit to get the birth certificate to connect all of the dots. Some people don't even have birth certificates. That's absolutely true. So it was very common for elderly folks, especially black elderly folks in the South, to not ever get issued a birth certificate in the first instance. But even outside of that population, think about all the people who don't have that easily accessible to them.

Students are a perfect example. right? So if you're a student at LSU and you're trying to get registered to vote and you're on campus and there's a voter registration drive and you want to get registered and then they say, oh, in order to get registered and vote, you actually have to provide your birth certificate. You know, most students that I've encountered in this work, their birth certificate is somewhere with their parents in some files, maybe somewhere else in the state, maybe outside of the state. And getting that in a timely fashion, getting access to copiers and scanners, this is not an easy task. Folks in Louisiana are no stranger to natural disasters. Folks lose their records in those natural disasters. Sometimes those records themselves are lost

in the government offices that keep them. So there are many folks in many different circumstances that are gonna have trouble providing this type of documentation. In fact, a recent study suggested that something on the order of 9 million Americans don't have this kind of documentation. Again, in Louisiana, we're not even sure what we're talking about here and what might count.

And we've seen different definitions, right? So some states or some kind of the federal legislation talks about tribal legies. Some draft legislation includes tribal legies, some does not. So what's gonna count is very unclear. There's been no guidance given by the secretary of state. This law, I couldn't, my jaw nearly dropped when I read it because it's about two sentences long.

So this is a law that's intended to kind of entirely disrupt how we do voter registration in Louisiana. Turn it from a simple fill out a form process into a kind of complicated DMV-esque documentation policy. And yet there's nothing to the text of the law. It seems to have been barely thought through. All right.

Before I go to my panel, one more question about this very vague law. What is your center going to be doing in terms of next steps in order to combat this? Yeah, so we represent, as you mentioned, the League of Women Voters, Power Coalition for Equity and Justice, the NAACP and Vote, the voice of the experienced in Louisiana.

And we're working with Southern Poverty Law Center and Lawyers Committee on this litigation. And so we filed the complaint. It's now on the state to kind of respond and explain itself and especially explain how they're planning to implement this fake law. But we're planning on following through on all of our legal claims, both constitutional claims

but also claims under the very important National Voter Registration Act, which the Supreme Court has already said that that law means that Louisiana has to accept what's called the federal form, which is a national voter registration form that does not require documentary proof of citizenship. All right, Dr. Malvaux, your question for Danielle.

Lifted up the students, but I think it's also important to lift up the elders. My mom died when she was 93. She was from Mississippi. We had to get her birth certificate for something. Her name was spelled wrong. Her race was listed as collared, as in collared greens. We had a good time teasing her about being collared.

So obviously some illiterate person had registered my mother's birth. And it took us almost a year to get that straight. We don't have a year with these midterm elections. What kind of emergency measures is your organization putting in so that people don't have to go to court and fight to make sure that they're eligible.

Thank you so much for telling that story. It's just one of many stories that we hear about the individuals who would be affected by these kinds of laws. And so our clients are prepared to take this to court to get whatever relief is necessary for upcoming elections and to stay in this fight for exactly the reason you said. It cannot be the case that individual voters all have to go to court to prove their eligibility.

It cannot be that they have to wait months long backlogs to get their birth certificate in order to be able to exercise their fundamental right to vote. All right. Dr. Dabinga, question for Danielle. Thank you so much, Danielle, for your work and your advocacy. My question is, what are you hearing from people who may be more on the MAGA sides of things, you know, on the Mike Johnson side of things? Is this an area of information where they're not even getting? Or are they receiving it and not caring because they feel like they'll be okay? Or are they starting to move towards your coalition as well to make sure that this

is something that does not affect them? Yeah, thank you so much for the question. I do think that there's a lot of misinformation out there. I think that, you know, a big concern for myself and my organization is that the Americans don't know a lot about all the safeguards we already have in our election system. And so when we have folks who should be in positions of trust kind of undermining trust in elections,

it's natural that some Americans might wonder about what changes do we need to make to our elections. But the fact is, I have the opportunity to work really closely with election officials all the time and know the really complex processes that already go into securing our elections. When you register to vote, you provide an identity number, that identity, you know, a social security number, a driver's license number. That's often matched up against a database

to show that you are who you say you are, and that you are, you know, that I am Danielle Lang from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and that that matches other databases. And I also have to affirm my citizenship, and we know that these systems and safeguards are working really well. You know, one thing I am hearing, though,

from the American public on for example, the SAVE legislation at the federal level is that ordinary Americans might have first heard a suggestion of, oh, proof of citizenship and say, oh, that might be a good idea. And then they hear the details and they hear about how this might affect people they know, married women, elders, students, their children. And they say, hey,

that doesn't really make any sense. We haven't been doing that. And why are these elected officials trying to upend the system by which we access our elections? And I think that there has really been popular support for this idea that we should not be making it harder to vote. We should be making voting more accessible. And there are lots of ways that we can not be making it harder to vote. We should be making voting more accessible. And there are lots of ways that we can modernize our election systems, make them work better and make them work better for voters. And those are the types of solutions

that voters wanna see, I think of all political stripes. All right, Representative Shannon. Yes, well, thank you for your work. I actually served six years in the Georgia House of Representatives and I served on the Governmental Affairs Committee which dealt with election law. So we would see plenty of these bills come up that were just meant to be voter suppression

bills that were sort of trying to lead people to believe that they were just trying to increase election integrity. But they were really just attempts to suppress the vote. Hearing what you're saying about this bill, I mean, I could say I'm surprised, but I'm not. This sounds particularly egregious, especially with it just being two sentences in the bill makes me kind of wonder if this bill is an attempt to pass it at the state level. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley, comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th, ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the We're on Drugs by Akai. on Apple podcasts. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug dance. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Caramouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey.

We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptUSkids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. We'll see what hurdles it goes through in reference to court fights so that they can really game out the fight at the federal level to pass the same act because we do see that a lot of times. So is

that something that you all have thought about as you take on this lawsuit? And obviously I don't know how the Louisiana courts work, but do you have any indication of when maybe your first time that you may go to court over this or what the court fight might look like? Yeah, thank you so much for the question. So what I'll say is that this Louisiana bill is definitely not a standalone matter, right? I have been working on issues around this new form of obstacles to voter registration for some time. I've been working on the issue in Arizona.

We saw Kansas try this before. So we know this is coming from a playbook. It's coming from a kind of known playbook. It's also coming from a playbook that's already lost in court and yet they're trying it again. And so it is definitely part of this broader strategy and we saw a number of other states still considering these types of bills right now in their state houses. And I think there's this kind of ecosystem between the federal legislation and state legislation. Yeah, some of it might be the state legislation feeding the federal, of it might be the state legislation

feeding the federal, but it's also, you know, by the House passing the SAVE Act, they're sending a message to state legislatures, hey, you should do this thing, even if we can't get it passed in the Senate, you should go about this at your state level. And so we're definitely thinking about this as part of a broader strategy to make it harder to vote and to make access to vote more difficult.

And as far as the kind of the timeline for the lawsuit, I think it's too early to tell. Like I said, in the ordinary course, after you file a complaint, the next move is kind of for the state to respond and we'll be looking to them to do that and you know, looking at all of our options for the right timeline for this case. And Danielle, before we go, I want to ask you, how can people get involved in your organization, especially down in Louisiana, to fight this good fight to make sure that voter suppression does not happen. Yeah, you can visit our website at campaignlegal.org and learn about this case and also all the other cases we have fighting for the freedom to vote across the South and across the United States. We have a very important lawsuit against an executive order issued by President Trump trying to upend various parts of our election system, including touching on this issue of documentary proof of citizenship. And I'd also encourage folks to look at the websites

of our clients as well that are doing the really important on the ground work in Louisiana. All right, a very vague, vague loss. So I'm sure more to come out of that. Danielle, thank you so much for being with us tonight. Thank you to all of you for the great questions. Thank you. All right, stay with us tonight. Thank you to all of you for the great questions. Thank you. All right.

Stay with us here on Roland Martin Unfiltered, live on the Black Star Network. We've got more headlines for you coming up right after the break. Hey y'all, welcome to The Other Side of Change, only on the Black Star Network and hosted by myself, Rhea Baker, and my good sis, Jamira Burley. We are just two millennial women tackling everything at the intersection of politics, gender, and pop culture. And we don't just settle for commentary. This is about solution-driven dialogue to get us to the world as it could be, and not just as it is. Watch us on The Black Star Network, so tune in to the episode of Change. Next on the Black Table with me, Greg Carr.

We featured the brand new work of Professor Angie Porter, which simply put is a revolutionary reframing of the African experience in this country. It's the one legal article everywhere, and I mean everywhere, should rule. Professor Porter and Dr. Vlithia Watkins, our legal roundtable team, join us to explore the paper that I guarantee is going to prompt a major aha moment in our culture. You crystallize it by saying, who are we to other people? Who are African people to others? Governance is our thing.

Who are we to each other? The structures we create for ourselves, how we order the universe as African people. That's next on the Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. Hey, what's up, y' on video I'm Dr. Robin B, pharmacist and fitness coach, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. [♪upbeat music playing on video

All right, Texas Congressman Al Green is trying to stop Trump, like a lot of other people, right? The longtime Democrat is once again calling for President Trump to be impeached. He filed new articles this week saying that flat out, Trump is unfit to occupy the Oval Office. You might remember, Green made headlines earlier this year when he was kicked out of Trump's State of the Union. The Congressman says Trump's behavior is authoritarian and dangerous, accusing him of ignoring court rulings,

disrespecting the separation of powers, and acting like the rules don't apply. He is waiting for a full blown crisis. His words, tanks rolling down the streets are not an option. Now, not everyone is on board, all right? But Green was recently censured by the House. Even some Democrats voted against him. But he says he would do it all again.

Dr. Malveaux, what are your thoughts about this impeachment? I mean, what he is saying is true. The letter of the law is not being followed. Separation of the powers, separation of all of these executive branch, a lot of what's in the constitution, just not being honored one amendment at a time. Yeah, I appreciate Reverend Conch and Green so much

for his work, for his advocacy and for his audacity. I'm happy that he's introducing these articles of impeachment, but we have to be honest. This is a foolhardy effort, but Congress is majority Republican. They might cross a line on Medicaid. They might cross a line on substance. They're not going to cross a line on impeachment, even though they know better. They know better, but they're not going to know better. They know better, but they're not gonna do better. Well, we have to do our job, you know, as African-American commentators,

African-American activists, artists who are activists. Our job is to continue to lift the brother up. It may be as a fool's errand because we know we don't have the numbers, but we can't let this nonsense go away. We can't let people think that it's normal for a person who's been elected president of the United States to overlook the courts,

overlook the people, just do whatever he wants to do. And he pretty much said, I'm gonna do what I wanna do. And nobody's prepared to check him. So bravo to Congressman Green for checking. So Representative Shannon, I am hearing the same thing that Dr. Melvaux is saying. Listen, this probably won't happen. So that people have to depend on themselves, create community,

do better, go out there, and fight for justice on your own. But is there something else that we should all be doing at this time because it seems as though, I'm not going to say nothing's being done, but we certainly want more to be done and we're not seeing what is being done in the way that we want. Sure, so there is a lot that can be done. I mean, I think you're right that, and Dr. Malvo sort of said this too, which is that Congressman Green is taking the right approach. What kind of frustrates me is that too often, black seniors in particular who have the lived life experience

to know when something is about to get bad, usually get cast aside as people who are blowing things up and not to be listened to, when that's just really not the case. He's absolutely right in what he filed in these papers, particularly the point where he hones in about that you, we're not far from seeing tanks coming down the street.

He's right. I was talking in an interview last week about how the new executive order that Trump signed basically it says, and this is not a summary, these are the words in the executive order. It's calling for aggressive policing of communities. It's calling for lawyers who work for the government to do pro bono work, which means represent for free cops

who have been charged with misconduct, talks about jailing more elected officials who basically disagree with Trump, even including those who wanna move forward with DEI. So this is, so he's, you know, Congressman Green is not blowing anything out of proportion. This is like really what is in front of us. I would say what people can do is because we see that Democrats have too often sort of sat back and said, oh, you know, everybody's blowing things out of proportion.

It's not that bad. What everybody can do is reach out to their elected official to say, listen, I want you to take this seriously and you need to be following Congressman Green's lead. That is the thing that's going to make a difference because at the end of the day, elected officials worry about getting reelected and many of them, particularly when they don't come from an activist background, are gonna see to wherever the most pressure is from. So if they see, if their constituents are telling them,

you need to get behind Congressman Greene and take all of this seriously, and we believe that things are really at this level that something must be done and we are in dire circumstances, then that is something that is going to give Representative Green more energy, more fuel to really push this thing forward. Dr. Dabenga, how does the sound of impeachment strike you? It sounds great. It sounds great, very, but in terms of the real application of it, how does it really sit with you?

Well, it's not going to happen, but the fact of the matter is, today's the 100th birthday of Malcolm X. And this is a man who brought a case to the United Nations to argue for the rights of black people in America. I mean, he helped globalize the plight of our people and connected us with an international community of people. Did he believe in his heart

that he was gonna go to this trial and he was gonna win and that everything was gonna change? Probably not, but the effort matters, which is why we still celebrate him today. History is watching. What's gonna happen 30, 40, 50 years from now where our grandchildren or great grandchildren or whoever, our great nieces or whatever

are reading these books and seeing and see nothing. See no impeachment efforts were made, no new voting efforts were made. I believe honestly that what's going to happen is that he's going to keep overstepping and at the very least more Democrats are going to happen is that he's going to keep overstepping, and at the very least, more Democrats are going to join, even if it's not a lot more, are going to join what he's doing. And by the time we come to the midterms, there'll probably be a larger ground

swell of people calling for impeachment, even though it still won't happen under these Republicans. But this is the time for Democrats to show spine. This is for them to show backbones. So many of them are just focusing so much on their local communities, which I get it, all politics is local, but there are real things that are happening in this country and he's only expanding his dictatorial mentality even more. People have to stand up, people have to speak up.

And at the end of the day, I'd be calling him out if they didn't say something. So I applaud him for doing that and he needs to continue to do that so people can follow his example. Representative Shannon can we talk about the separation of powers for one moment? I mean this is why we have the constitution but you get a supreme court ruling nine zero it's ignored. How in your estimation do you think that is happening and is there anything that you think might be going on behind closed doors maybe we don't know about you know out here on these streets that's going on maybe something's being worked doors, maybe we don't know about, you know, out here on these streets that's going on.

Maybe something's being worked on that maybe we don't know about in order to stop this because this is just unprecedented all around. Right, so, you know, one other comment on Representative Green, people can't disregard him. He was the one, he doesn't get enough credit for it, but he was the one who laid the foundation for impeachment

the first time Trump served. And he did get impeached. He got impeached twice. And it was Representative Green who was the first person to realize the harm and say to everybody, I'm filing impeachment papers. So I wouldn't just chalk it up to, oh, this can't happen. It's a drumbeat that you have to beat. It's a conversation that you have to keep rolling, that you have to get more and more

people to understand why you're saying what you're saying as it relates to impeachment. And you know, more folks than what you thought may jump on. Trump's already having problems with the Republicans who are breaking ranks, even though we're trying to pass this budget bill. That was a fight. The first time that they tried to do it, they couldn't even get it done. Then they did get it done the second time, but hasn't cleared the Senate. So to answer your second question, yeah, like I think with the

separation of powers and him just ignoring the Constitution, this is literally what is the difference between having a democracy and having a dictatorship. It's very dangerous because I tell people this all the time. When you have a set of rules that people, and we know that things are not fair. There are many things, take the justice system for example, especially as it relates to black folks. The rules are not often followed. But when you have somebody who is president who is completely saying, I don't follow any of the rules, I am the final say so, the courts don't matter and nothing else matters, which is essentially what he's doing when he just decides to ignore court orders. What you have is if you don't have a system that people

are willing to adhere to, to make decisions as a society, you know what comes next? Making decisions by whoever has the most force in the streets. So I think that the issue here, and this is why Representative Green is waving the flag now to say, listen, something needs to be done, is that you don't want to wait until you have, you know,

decisions being made by force in the streets because that is what breaks apart countries. So we don't need to wait until you have, you know, decisions being made by force in the streets, because that is what breaks apart countries. So we don't need to wait to that point. Democrats don't need to wait to that point before they feel some urgency to do something. Now is the time to be having conversations with constituents. Now is the time for constituents to be having conversations with their elected officials and for Democrats to be publicly getting behind Representative Greene and talking about how we're in such a dangerous place. Because you may think only Democrats listen to those

who are in elected office if a Democrat is speaking, but it's not true. I mean, people even, just like we have to listen to people that we don't agree with all day long. And sometimes people realize what you may think is a broken clock is right twice a day. You got that right. Dr. Dabenga, I wanna close this segment out with you.

Listen, before the president was elected, I think that there were some things that we've been seeing, we could go through the gamut that people thought would never happen. And I'm wondering your estimation, what are some things to come that you think could possibly happen in terms of the extreme

that people need to open their eyes about and not think, oh, that just happens in some science fiction movie. Yeah, I mean, people have to be mindful of the fact that we are living in a dictatorship now. And the fact of the matter is dictatorships across the globe, they never had everybody under the thumb of the leader. It was the people who were the dissenters. There

were people who were walking around just fine in Nazi Germany, who were walking around fine in Rwanda and Congo and other places around the world. They're unaffected. But people have to understand that it's just a matter of time before it comes to you. So what I can envision happening when Representative Shannon was talking about that police order earlier, the language that he was using in there was to unleash them, right? You know, to set them loose. And so you also see that the DNI, Gabby Intelsi-Gabbert, you know, that she's having, trying to have her team rework intelligence reports to get them to say what they want to say. Because once you can put out an intelligence report that's saying we're under threat, we're under

invasion from any group, all the gloves are off. I mean, he's actually looking at putting out executive orders that can target nonprofits and call them terrorists. So like the Boys and Girls Club could be labeled a terrorist organization. And again, once the language is there, anything becomes possible. So I envision detention,

we're already seeing that of American citizens. I'm seeing people getting expelled from their communities, from their homes. We're seeing these things happening already on a small scale. They're just going to be enlarged. And so really at the end of the day, people are gonna have their incomes, you know,

targeted because he controls the IRS. Like everything that happens overseas can happen. And here's the last point I'll say, and this is that Trump is doing all of this and he has not fired a single shot yet. People need to be careful because what he's doing all of this now and what was happening with abductions and things of immigrants and are like, it is violent.

Don't get me wrong. But the bullets haven't started flying yet. And he's just setting and prime tuning it up for those things to start happening as well. People should not be surprised if he starts seeing blood in the streets, defying this man. All right, all right. Certainly something we're gonna be keeping up with

here on Roller Martin Unfiltered. You are watching Roller Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Star Network. Stay with us. This week on A Balanced Life, we are getting real. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glodd. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug band. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Karamouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them.

Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org, brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. You know about mother wounds. While May is the month that we shower mom with love, for some people, this time of year is a stark reminder of fractured relationships and feelings of

abandonment. In this episode, we will be uncovering the trauma of mother wounds and sharing tips on how we can begin to heal them. What we don't talk enough about in our community is giving ourselves permission to even heal. That's all next on A Balanced Life here, Black Star Network. This is Tamela May. And this is David Mann. And you're watching Roland Martin. I'm Philipsa.

All right. Now, a look at President Biden's deeply personal announcement. He is battling menostatic prostate cancer, a serious diagnosis that means the cancer has spread beyond the prostate. This is the kind of news that stops you in your tracks, not because he's the president, but because so many of us know this fight all too well. In the message to the nation, Biden said cancer touches us all. Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are the strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support. And for black men, this moment hits

a little differently because they are the most at risk. Black men face the highest rates of prostate cancer in the United States and are more likely to be diagnosed late and die from it. So tonight we are raising awareness and talking about it. To help us break this down and what this diagnosis means and what every black man and their families should know, we're joined by Dr. Leslie A. Dean, a leading neurologist with Howard University's Cancer Center. Dr. Dean, thank you for being here.

Thanks for the opportunity to join you tonight. Absolutely. Let's start with the president's diagnosis. What this type of prostate cancer he has, the metastatic, what exactly does that mean and why is the early screening so critical, especially in our community? First and foremost, I would like to extend well wishes to the former president and his family. You know, I think he's lucky to have the support that he has

and also the support of the nation and the globe at a whole. What metastatic prostate cancer means is that it has spread outside of the prostate, either to local areas, close to the prostate gland itself, to the lymph nodes, or in the former president's case, to the bone. That's very important because that means that it is an advanced stage of disease. And we talk about this advanced stage of disease

and we talk about black men, the awareness that they should have in and around this. They should be doing something different than people of other races in terms of checking for this and preventing this, that is the status in terms of what they should be doing? Yes, so black men need to screen earlier than the general population.

And from an age perspective, that is generally within the forties that it should start, especially if there's a family histo in a first degree relativ or um a brother. You know to know and I know that t my family when questions got prostate cancer, they

know, could I prevented t is it that I did in my youth? You know, they start tracking and what happened in their lives. What's your question to that when you get that from people who say, could I have prevented this? Can I prevent it from happening again? You know, if my PSA numbers go down? So the important thing to know is that there aren't really any specific factors that we

can incorporate to prevent us from getting prostate cancer. We have to live a generally healthy lifestyle. I think that's the most important part. Try to minimize stress, increase exercise, watch our diets and eat healthy. And all of those things will help to minimize the risk, but there isn't anything that we can hang our hats on to actually prevent prostate cancer from occurring. So I mentioned PSA, a number that I'm very familiar with in terms of the terminology because people in my family, but can you explain that and how you step a person

through the process of being checked, what that entails? We need to let people know and remind them. And also what this PSA number is. PSA stands for prostate specific antigen and this is a factor that we find in the blood that is associated with the risk of having prostate cancer. So the higher the number, the higher the risk. Generally speaking, a PSA number higher than four nanograms per ml is suspicious and concerning. But we have to really focus in on what the patient's age is. So the younger you are, a PSA of four may actually be very high for a 40-year-old. So we age adjust that PSA number down the younger you are. And then we accept higher numbers as you get older.

But it's important to have a baseline of what your PSA is in your 40s so that that number can be tracked. And if it is increasing at a rate that is not acceptable then that needs to be investigated and evaluated further. All right, before we go to the panel with questions, the test itself, invasive. People should just understand

that they have to go through the process and you have to go through it if you wanna save your life potentially. Correct, so the PSA is a simple blood test and it takes a discussion with either your primary care physician or your urologist to understand the nuances of prostate specific antigen testing in regards to any risks that there may be from the downstream effect of the result of the test.

Sometimes we still do a digital rectal examination to examine the prostate. And if that's gonna be done, basically takes three or four seconds, uncomfortable, shouldn't be painful, and is something that you would want to consider having done. Absolutely, definitely worth it. All right, let me go to my panel. Representative Shannon, your question.

Yes, thank you for being here. Just have a very specific question. I know for, you mentioned before that black men should start getting screened in their 40s, but can you be more specific as far as like what age you personally recommend? Cause I know for women with getting mammograms, doctors will start telling you 38, 39,

get a baseline mammogram. And then when you hit 40, it's mandatory to every year get one. So what's your recommendation to be a little more specific about when in their 40s? For black men, I recommend starting at age 40 or as close to that as you can get. So if it's something that you hear about and you're 44,

go get screened. If it's something that you've been monitoring because of a family history of prostate cancer, then go at 40 if you're in your 30s. It doesn't really make a lot of, it doesn't really have a lot of impact to get tested in your 30s because it's really unusual to detect prostate cancer

in men in their 30s. All right, Dr. Dabinga. Thank you so much for this information that you're providing tonight. One of the things I've heard possibly about President Biden was that, because of his age, it is also possible that the doctors chose not to do a test because of whatever reasons, medical reasons, I can't understand.

My question is, we talk about the ages that people should start, but what about older men who are out there who may feel like, oh, I haven't had any screenings. I've been fine all of my life. Now I'm 67, 71. I don't really need to do this. Is this something that you should continually be doing yearly, basically for the rest of your life after the age of 40? Generally speaking, we tend to stop screening at about age 74, according to the American

Urological Association guidelines. There are some other guidelines, for example, by the American Cancer Society and the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force that suggest stopping screening at an even younger age, at around 69 or so. The issue comes when you've had a PSA done annually for the preceding 15 to 20 years, and it's been fine. And now all of a sudden you turn 74. I've found in my practice over the last two decades

that it's very difficult to suggest to a man, we're gonna stop this now, particularly to a healthy, an otherwise healthy man. We generally look at this disease in terms of people having greater than a 10-year life expectancy. So if the life expectancy is greater than 10 years, I would advocate for continuing the screening process. I think that things change in life when we develop different risk factors as we get older potentially in terms of the immune system being weakened, et cetera, just as a matter of aging. And that can change and cause a prostate cancer

to pop up where it hasn't been evident before. All right, Dr. Malbeau. Especially for brothers of a certain age. I want to ask you to unpack for me the reluctance that so many black men have to even get checked out at all. And we see that. I've got colleagues.

I've got a sibling. He's a mom. I'm not going to let anybody put their finger in my hind parts, which as you know, it's a three-second process. What can we do to ensure that black men not only are fully informed but also fully encouraged to be screened? So that's a really good question, a really important question. You're right that black men in particular have been reluctant to have rectal examinations. I think that in seeing the physician, it is very important to establish a relationship

based on trust so that the individual understands the reasons for doing these tests. Right now in my practice, I very rarely do erectile examination. I tend to do an MRI first. I tend to do the blood test first, followed by an MRI because I think we can get a lot more information based on a more advanced testing. There are many things that imaging is going to see in the prostate gland that's just in a location that I can't feel. And I think that this is, you know, really something that can be discussed over a few visits as opposed to I'm going to do the rectal examination on your first visit when I don't know you as a patient, etc. And I think that that's important in establishing that trust relationship

between the physician and the patient, the individual being screened and tested. And I really advocate for establishing that very early on. All right, Dr. Leslie Dean, thank you so much for being with us. Great information and great seeing you this evening. Thanks so much, you too. All right, you are watching Dean, thank you so much for being with us. Great information and great seeing you this evening. Thanks so much, you too. All right, you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered live here on the Black Star Network.

Stay with us. We'll be right back. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. We featured the brand new work of Professor Angie Porter, which simply put is a revolutionary reframing of the African experience in this country. It's the one legal article everywhere, and I mean everywhere, should read. Professor Porter and Dr. Vlithia Watkins,

our legal round table team, join us to explore the paper that I guarantee is going to prompt a major aha moment in our culture. You crystallize it by saying, who are we to other people? Who are African people to others? Governance is our thing. Who are we to each other?

The structures we create for ourselves, how we order the universe as African people. That's next on the Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. This week on A Balanced Life, we are getting real about mother wounds. While May is the month that we shower mom with love, for some people, this time of year is a stark reminder of fractured relationships and feelings of abandonment. In this episode, we will be uncovering the trauma of mother wounds and sharing tips on how we can begin to heal them. What we don't talk enough about in our community is giving ourselves permission to even heal.

That's all next on A Balanced Life here, Black Star Network. How you doing? My name is Mark Curry, and you're watching Roland Martin. Unfiltered, deep into it like pasteurized milk. Without the 2%, we getting deep. You wanna turn that shit off? We're doing an interview, motherfucker.

You want to turn that shit off? We're doing an interview, motherfucker. All right, Donald Trump's latest tax cut bill barely made it out of the House Budget Committee by one vote after days of Republican infighting over spending cuts and Medicaid reforms. The bill extends his 2017 tax cuts and adds new breaks for things like tips over time and even car loans. But here is the catch. It could gut Medicaid slash food assistance and blow a $5 trillion hole in the national debt over the next decade.

Some Republicans want even deeper cuts to social programs while others are nervous about hurting vulnerable communities. House Speaker Mike Johnson is now scrambling to unify Republicans before a final vote. They're calling it the one big, beautiful bill, but critics say it's beautiful just for billionaires and not the people, not everyone. That was a da bingga.

Not surprised, I'm sure, about this latest, but I can understand certainly why even Republicans are a little bit scared about the havoc that this could cause. Yeah, it never ceases to amaze me, the lengths that they will go to, to protect those who are at the top. And really, quite honestly, it's like, for what?

I mean, it's not like they're getting all of the benefits of of what these billionaires have, right? I mean, he has what? 12, 13, I don't know, billionaires who are in his cabinet. It's not, you know, these guys, but you don't forget that the Congress people, I'm thinking more about the constituents and a nonsense quotation about, you know, if you can convince the poorest white man that he's better than the best colored person, he won't realize you're picking his pocket.

Give him someone to empty his pocket, and someone to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you. Like, how long will these guys at the bottom deal, just tolerate this? Are they gonna keep allowing their representatives to screw them as long as they're getting rid of so-called, you know, illegal aliens, right? You know, undocumented human beings? Are they gonna allow, as long as they're getting rid of so-called illegal aliens, undocumented human beings?

Are they going to allow, as long as they continue to end quote unquote woke policies, not realizing that woke policies includes the resource assistant that they have in their schools, the occupational therapist that their child needs to get their needs met because they don't have the money through their insurance? How long are they going to tolerate this? Because Black people, it's like, we're in this country. We're looking to our first segment. We're used to the struggle. We've been born into it.

And we're not happy with it. We continue to fight for our rights and what we deserve. But these other folks, they keep going along, going along, going along. And I think that at the end of the day, misery loves company. And I think that many of these constituents are going to be happy to suffer as long as we're suffering too.

And that's the real shame of the American experiment. The American experiment. Dr. Malvaux, I mean, when we're talking about gutting Medicaid, I don't understand. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug bans. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamouche.

What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs Podcast Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptUSkids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids,

the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. How folks in Congress cannot see this would upend the whole system. You know, just the way that America works, it would disturb and trickle down so many different types of ways that we probably can't even imagine until it happens.

You know, but to understand this, Candace, we have to go back. So the fact that we've always had a bifurcated system, a bifurcated tax system that benefited some and not others, a bifurcated economic system that benefited some and not others. So while everything that is being said here, and Owekongo breaks it down so well, but everything that's being said here is correct, what is not pre-estate is the way that they have done much of this. So this big beautiful tax bill gives money to wealthy people and takes it from poor people. This big beautiful tax bill puts people who are vulnerable, hope-wise, puts them on the chopping block. This big, beautiful bill takes away rights from workers,

from children, those things about education. So what we have to look at, in my mind, and I keep talking about this and I'm people sick of it, but what is a long game here? What is a long game? This book that was elected to be president of the United States, the backup, I don't know how many times, he's backed by something.

He's not the evil. Well, he is evil. He's not the evil. He is being backed by those who want to reassert an oligarchical model of economic development in these United States. If you take education away, people don't know. They don't know what they don't know, but they don't know.

And so you can tell them some story about DEI and they believe it, not having looked at it. And I could just go on and on, but this, so we can, and I'm very, as many of my colleagues have, we all mad at the orange man. But he's not the bottom line. He's the tip of the iceberg. The bottom line is oligarchy.

What is this relationship with Russia? Come on. Why can he not pack that up in Cuba The bottom line is, Oleg Bakh. What is his relationship with Russia? Come on. Why can he not pack down on Putin and every other US president hat? Are we gonna see Trump Hotel? We will. In Russia? In five minutes?

Swank resorts? In Gaza? Will you move the people away? Again, I don't mean to sound like a paranoid lunatic, but I do need to say, let's take a look at the big picture, this so-called big, beautiful tax bill of a continuation of a way to deal with predatory capitalism to extract surplus value for working people,

many of whom are us. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You know, Representative Shannon, I was speaking to someone today and we were talking about this, value for working people, many who are us. Representative Shannon, I was speaking to someone today and we were talking about this. And ultimately when you touch Medicaid, when you touch food assistance, when you touch programs that help people of color, you really ultimately break down families at the end of the day.

You can't really have a strong base when you have families that because of the system, it prevents them from having things like food and having good health care. So all of it just kind of builds upon one another and eventually families get broken, which is the crux of how we live and exist in this world in terms of how we get started. Yeah, but I think the thing that's so dangerous about this bill that people need to understand is when you let's just take the cuts for Medicaid, for example, when you hear about Medicaid being cut, a lot of people tend to think that it is just people who are on Medicaid that

will be affected. And you think that these cuts are only going to affect low income people. That's not true. Medicaid, people don't realize it, but their average community hospital, basically not even say community hospital, just hospital, because that's, let's just keep the language plain. The hospitals that you see basically can only exist a lot of times because of Medicaid, because it gets dollars from the state

that get matched at the federal level. And so what that means is that your local hospital that you see, if you were to get in a car accident or something is literally only surviving because of Medicaid and they don't get enough dollars already, there have been at least for the last decade to get in a car accident or something is literally only surviving because of Medicaid and they don't get enough dollars already. There have been at least for the last decade or so many reports about how many hospitals are on the brink of going out of business because of Medicaid can't keep their doors

open because they're not getting enough money, not getting enough Medicaid funds to cover all of their expenses. And so when you're looking at a bill like this, this is something that will not only affect the people who are the most vulnerable, but it will affect every single one of us on this panel. all of their expenses. And so when you're looking at a bill like this, this is something that will not only affect the people who are the most vulnerable, but it will affect every single one of us on this panel. It will even affect Congress people. Because at the end of the day,

unless you have some emergency medical team ready to go at your beck and call when something happens to you, a personal concierge team, you would likely need to go to a hospital. So it's really not even about just folks who are on Medicaid. This affects all of us because hospitals serve entire communities. They serve

all of us and including the members of Congress. So that's why, you know, there was so much contention about this bill because the members who voted on it know and understand that when you touch Medicaid, you're touching a lot more than what people think when they hear about Medicaid, which is just poor people or low income people or people who are on Medicaid. That's just, that's not even the whole game, it's not. You know, and Representative, I have one question, and this is just for you.

What is it that people do behind closed doors to get past this fine, common ground, meeting of the minds, to move past something like this that would be so destructive in the world of politics. How do you make that happen? I think that it really will come down to people reaching out to their elected officials. And I know everybody's tired of hearing about reaching out

to your elected officials, but listen to this point. Don't reach out to them to just say, vote no on a bill. Reach out to them and let them know that you understand what these cuts are about. Because too many times times elected officials, a lot of times will understand that the public that understand how complicated this stuff is. But when you let them know, it's like I said before,

putting that heat on elected officials, they respond to that. When you let them know that when they see their local hospital closed cause of a bill you pass, it's gonna be their ass. Let them know that. That is a type of stuff that a lot of times so much damage gets done because elected officials know and this is not the way

that I thought when I was in office. But I heard it too many times in the hallways elected officials believe and know that people don't understand how all complicated this is. So they know that they can kind of use a scapegoat later to say, Oh, it wasn't my actions of voting for this bill that did X, Y, Z. No, this needs to be clear and people need to understand that they need to understand what the ramifications are and they need to let their elected officials know in real time right now, before this advances any further

that you will be held accountable. We do understand what the ramifications are and you're not gonna be able to scapegoat it on something else. That's right, the power of the vote. All right, thank you for that great information. You are watching Roland Martin on Filter. Stay with us.

We'll be back right after this short break. ["The Other Side of Change"] Hey y'all, welcome to the other side of change only on the Black Star Network and hosted by myself, Rhea Baker, and my good sis, Jamira Burley. We are just two millennial women tackling everything at the intersection of politics, gender, and pop culture.

And we don't just settle for commentary. This is about solution-driven dialogue to get us to the world as it could be, and not just as it is. Watch us on the Black Star Network, so tune in to the other side of change. -♪ I'm all alone, I'm all alone, I'm alone, I'm alone, I'm alone... I'm alone... Now that Roland Martin is willing to give me the blueprint. Hey, Sauron.

I need to go to Talapeer and get another blueprint because I need some green money. The only way I can do what I'm doing, I need to make some money. So you'll see me working with Roland. Matter of fact, it's the Roland Martin and Sherlock and the Bishop. Well, it should be the Sherlock and the Roland Martin show. But whatever show it's going to be, it's going to be good. All right, let's go to the world of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration

to revoke legal protections for 350,000 Venezuelans, potentially making them vulnerable to deportation. The court's order temporarily blocks a lower court ruling from San Francisco that had extended temporary protected status, or TPS, for Venezuelans. This was set to expire last month. Now, the justices didn't give a reason, which is typical in emergency decisions, but TPS allows individuals already in the US to live and work legally if their home countries are considered

unsafe because of national disasters or conflict. The administration has moved to end similar protections for other groups, including 500,000 Haitians. Dr. Dabinga, I want to start with you. I mean, this tracks, I mean, what can we say? This tracks. We can say that this is just the beginning. We can say that all the black folks in this country who had no problems watching some of these people getting snatched off the street and kicked out, you know, to kill more Abrego Garcia's of the world, you know, when they start removing protective status of other groups,

like we talked about with Haitians here, hey, anybody on this panel can be a Haitian, it can be a Haitian as far as ICE is concerned. And again, Trump's ability to continually play on the visions in this country is one of the reasons why he's been so successful in his policies. And again, as I said at the beginning of the show, he's doing this voluntary deportations

or quote unquote deportations are happening or people are going back to places like Honduras and Columbia, some of them taking their US citizen children with them, people they're actively trying to flee the country so they don't end up in CICOT in El Salvador, while at the same time, because of great replacement theory, he's bringing in white people from South Africa,

and who I haven't even been able to verify yet, who are actually farmers in any way, shape or form. This is what, I haven't heard any journalists talk about who these guys are, what they were doing in South Africa, because really, since only like one white farmer has actually been killed and none of their land has been taken,

why would any white South African actually leave their land to come here? So that's just a story. But my point is, this is what he's doing to get more black and brown people out. And the Supreme Court just gave him another opportunity for him to continue to do that. Black folks, we're the Black Star Network, black folks, we got to wake up, we got to stick up for our brown family members, our black family members, we're wake up. We gotta stick up for our brown family members, our black family members, we're all in the same community. They're not getting rid of people in Ireland,

of the Irish in New York, people of Irish descent. They're not getting rid of people of German descent in Arizona, like they're getting rid of us. And it can stop if we wake up and fight back. Dr. Malveaux, the Supreme Court, once again, I mean, here's the thing. No matter what they said, Trump was going to do what he wanted. He would have figured out some way.

But I find it interesting that the Supreme Court did this, in addition to the fact that here we are again. And the point I was going to bring up was what Dr. Dabinga says. Here we are again talking about deporting people or making them more vulnerable, 350,000, yet we are bringing in people from other countries. And when we talk about Venezuela and what might be seen as safe, there might be some economic issue, that is a country where we have honored them. But here we are. What is your take on it?

Here we are. What is your take on it? Well, first of all, I wanted to concur fully with what Congo, regarding the South Africa situation, it's absurd. It is beyond absurd. The people are being, the so-called people are taking their land. Where do they get the land from in the first place? That's all I've got. Where do they get the land from?

They took it from black people. And the constitution of South Africa is very mild in terms of land refatiation. We have to deal with that. The Supreme Court is the Trump Supreme Court. We know that. Let's not, you know, he very carefully, and Mitch McConnell very carefully denied President Obama that domination.

They denied him the process, and then they backed it with these reprobates who all lied under oath, let's be clear, lied under oath about where they were coming from. And so, now you're giving this man supreme authority. You don't have to follow the Constitution. You don't have to deal with the 14th Amendment. You can do what you want to do. I was hoping that the Supreme Court, I mean, Rogers and Comey seemed to be more strict constructionists than the

little sexual predators. I won't call their names. Y'all know who I mean. But I was hoping, Roger said for me, seemed to be the Supreme Court head. They seemed to need more strict constructionists. Strict constructionists would say, go by the letter of the law. But they also have banked the Kool-Aid by the pitcher, and they're willing to give this president whatever he wants. It does not bode well for the next two years, and certainly not for the next four.

And it really talks about the downward slide to totalitarianism that we're experiencing right now. What we're experiencing is people having no confidence in law. And if I could just take a second, we can talk about all the civil libertarian issues, but we also have to talk about the economy at some level, because guess what? Nobody trusts us anymore.

We don't keep our word with our own people and we're not keeping our word with ourselves. And so when we have a deficit, a large deficit, which is that problematic until people don't trust us. And right now internationally, people don't trust us. And my question would be why do you think that? But you know, Representative Shannon, the irony of all this is that people came here

because of war-torn countries and it was unsafe and economic depression. Now we might be sending people back. I mean, the whole point of it was to keep them safe. That's why we are in this position. But like Dr. Malvo said, you lose a lot of trust in America when you switch up on your word like this. It makes you look like you're a liar. Yeah, Dr. Malvo hit the nail on the head talking about trust in a very specific way that I'm gonna kind of elaborate on. I'm not sure if this is what she meant,

but this is where I wanna take it, which is that, you know, what Trump is doing now, which essentially what they're doing is going and getting every single person who is not a citizen, who legally showed themselves to the United States government and said, listen, I am here. I'm a refugee. I need status because I can't be in my home country.

They are people who are following the letter of the law. And Trump is saying, even though you had legal status to be here, you are getting booted out. And so what that does is it goes back to trust. And it also is the reason why we have had a very tough time over the last decades or so trying to get an immigration system that will work and that will stick. Because under some presidents, you're

protected when they say come out of the shadows and just show yourself and let the government know that you are here and we can get you in a process so you can have legal status. But then you get somebody like Trump elected and because you did show yourself with the previous administration, now you're exactly who's being deported because guess what? The government has your address. The people they're not able to find are the people who never showed themselves to the government. So that goes to breaking trust, exactly what Dr. Malvo said. And I think that, you know, it's also important

for people to really understand what time it is because Trump enjoyed a lot of the Latino vote. And at the time people were saying, okay, well, he just wants to deport the people who didn't do it right and who didn't have legal status. No, now as Omekongo brought up with Trump bringing in white South African immigrants, you see now that this was all about race the entire time.

The only people who are getting put out of the country are black and brown immigrants and white immigrants are being imported in. So it definitely goes back to one of those things of like, it's like, hey, listen to black folks who've been here forever and know what the deal is and how the stuff works. And Dr. Dabenga, I'm gonna close out this segment

with you, this sets precedent. And the more he's able to do, the more precedent he has, and he's able to do anything that he wants, saying, well, I did it before, that's how this government is going to work. And he's not being stopped. Terrible precedent though. The same day that the folks arrived from South Africa, a family from Afghanistan got a notice

that they were having there. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st, and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes sir, we are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding

of what this quote unquote drug band. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette, MMA fighter Liz Caramouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things.

Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs Podcast, season two, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early

and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcast. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives.

Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptUSkids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Temporary protective status removed, and that they were going to have to leave the country. And a lot of these people who came here from Afghanistan come from families of men

who helped the United States during what happened after 9-11. So the fact of the matter is that, look, Candice, once this man got rid of a four-year-old cancer student, a child of cancer who was an American citizen, all bets were off. All bets were off. And one of the things that Stephen Miller said a few weeks ago that really surprised me was that he said that he is surprised that he has not seen more lawsuits and more pushback towards everything that they're doing.

And to me, that tells me that even though we see protests and hear like more Americans are comfortable with what he's doing with these racist policies, then we may think. And that's the reason why he's getting away with this. If he was bringing more Asians in, or people they'd be an up for. If he was bringing more black people in,

they'd be an up for. He's actually bringing more black people in, they're being up for. He's actually bringing in more white people who are gonna compete. If they're farmers, they're gonna be compete for farming jobs. They're gonna be competing with other Americans for jobs, for housing, for schools. But people really don't care that much

because he's bringing in and helping them. And subconsciously, even some of these white liberals Dr. King talked about, right? you know, are, they kind of feel like we've gone a little bit too far with the DEI and the policies of inclusion and the like. And so I think people are more low-key comfortable with this. And Trump knows this. He ran on racism. He ran, he won on racism. And so he's low-key giving what a lot of people in this country want, because if they didn't, they would be a lot louder. And so there's not only shame on Trump,

but a shame on America as well. He's just revealed us for who we are. People are telling on themselves. All right, we're certainly gonna be following that story here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Stay with us. We'll be back after a break. This week on A Balanced Life, Stay with us. We'll be back after a break.

This week on A Balanced Life, we are getting real about mother wounds. While May is the month that we shower mom with love, for some people, this time of year is a stark reminder of fractured relationships and feelings of abandonment. In this episode, we will be uncovering the trauma of mother wounds and sharing tips on how we can begin to heal them. What we don't talk enough about in our community is giving ourselves permission to even heal.

That's all next on A Balanced Life here, Black Star Network. Hey, this is Motown recording artist Kim. You are watching Roland Martin unfiltered. Boy, he always unfiltered though. I ain't never known him to be filtered. Is there another way to experience Roland Martin than to be unfiltered? Of course he's unfiltered. Would you expect anything less?

Watch what happens next. All right. The MAGA-driven Congress is close to cutting much-needed programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP. Ohio Congresswoman Chantelle Brown delivered an emotional plea against these proposed cuts. Sharing on the program helped her family during challenging times in her childhood. As I think about this from a personal place, my mother was on food assistance when I was in school. My mother was on food assistance when I was in school. And I think about when I grew up as a child with epilepsy, petite mal seizures,

having to rely on food assistance. To this day, I hate cold cuts because I had so many bologna sandwiches growing up because that's all we could afford. Bologna sandwiches, pancakes for dinner, which I thought was a treat, but later learned, that's all we could afford for dinner. Because we depended on food stamps. I had epilepsy, seizures. My mother was afraid to go to work because she never knew when her daughter could have a seizure.

She did not drive. She was on public transportation. That was the assistance that she needed to help us survive. To help us survive. She didn't wake up wanting to be on food stamps. She didn't wake up wanting to have a daughter who had unpredictable medical conditions that prevented her from keeping a regular job. But thank God for those food stamps, thank God for those pancakes for dinner, thank God for those syrup sandwiches, thank God for those toasted cheese sandwiches that we got because we received the cheese to make toasted cheese sandwiches that I grew up on because of food assistance. And now you

want to take things like that away from people who need them, who depend on them, who are just trying to get by because of systemic, structural, institutional barriers that have put many people in impoverished conditions that they did not decide to be a part of, but because of the systems that we are still utilizing to oppress people are in place when we could be giving them a helping hand. But instead, we want to take money from poor people so we can give it to rich people. Make that make sense. Make it make sense.

People depend on this money. Not so they can get rich. Not so they can invest it. Not so they can get a jet. Not so they can invest it, not so they can get a jet, not so they can get a yacht, so they can have a meal, so they can eat. But we want to take it away from poor people and give it to rich people. Let it sink in.

That's what we're doing. We're talking about food, poor people, and hunger. The House committee voted along party lines to advance legislation to the House Budget Committee that would cut up to $300 billion from SNAP to help fund an upcoming tax and domestic policy bill. Dr. Dabinga, and in passion speech, certainly made a lot of sense. I mean, it is the system that's in place that's creating people who can't afford food in the first place.

You know, the inequality is built into this country. You know, it's built into this country. You know, it's built into this country. Anything that we've fought for in this country, whether it's child labor laws, you know, women being able to have the right to be in the workplace. I mean, inequality has been built into this country from the beginning. And there are too many people who have a vested interest

in keeping it that way. They don't want to compete. So they want, you know, families like how she was talking about, mother afraid to go to work because of her child potentially having a seizure. They want family, mother's not going to work because they have to raise kids. They wanna make sure that people

who may have various disabilities can get the services that they need. They have a vested interest in keeping people down. It is evil, it's savage, it's barbaric. And the sooner people understand this and rally around people like Reverend Barber and the like, we can start to make some change in this society and in this country.

But so many people are conditioned to believe that they're just supposed to suffer, that a little more suffering they feel like is not gonna hurt them. We need a larger uprising. We need more than the weekend demonstrations that are happening across the country to make people understand this,

because we shouldn't have, we should have enough knowledge of history to not have to hit rock bottom once again before people decide to rise up. Because by that time, it may be too late as this man continues to consolidate his power. And that's all he's doing right now is consolidating his power, biding his time right now

so that they can make the larger moves with these tax cuts and other things that are gonna permanently cripple too many Americans and basically destroy this country for years to come. Representative Shannon, listen, party lines as expected, this is why we are here. What's your take on this and what could potentially happen? Do you think that people will eventually come around in this?

You know, I'm hoping that this bill, you know, although it's a budget, so, you know, in the state of Georgia, the one duty you have as a house member or a Senator is to pass a budget. It's like, that's the only thing that your actual job is. If you don't do anything else, you do have to pass a budget. At the congressional level, I'm not sure of all the things that they are required to by law to do within their duty. But I'm bringing

that up because I'm really hoping that this budget bill does not get cloture in the Senate. I'm hoping that it does not see the light of day in the Senate. And because it's just going to be so disastrous. The snap cuts, what I can tell you is that it really is just taking food out of the mouths of people who literally this is their last leg of being able to sustain themselves. And the really terrible thing about it is that Republicans always talk about entitlements, which is the wrong thing to be calling these programs. But they make it seem like we spend so much money on social safety nets in this country, and we don't. More of our money is given to fund the military and tax cuts, which is what the president's

new budget is really the people who are winning in this are the wealthy getting tax cuts and then more money on defense spending. And I really think that it's very short-sighted. They also don't realize how this can be an issue of national security. I think that decisions like this will be the reasons, not the only reason, but it'll be the reasons why we won't win, for example, like this terror war that Trump is doing with China,

because a lot of the countries that you're going up against have a better social safety net. So if something happens to their country, their folks can go a lot longer, they can hold out a lot longer as it results as you when you get into things like trade wars and things like this, because they have consistent social safety nets. Here in America, well, you have the freedom to be homeless if you lose your job, you have freedom to die from lack of access to health care if you lose your job, and you have the freedom to, you know,

go hungry if, you know, snap gets cut. And so it's like the purpose of tax dollars is supposed to be money that is being put into a pot that will add to the betterment of the collective of society. That's the purpose of tax dollars. Giving our tax dollars to folks who, to rich people so that they can have tax cuts and overspending on military, that is just not sustainable.

It's not sustainable and pretty soon the bill is gonna come due. You know what, Dr. Malvo, what I've been seeing a lot of, and this has happened before, but it resonates more now, is black women especially giving impassioned speech about these things that matter to them

to try to get people to see the side of humanity that they just don't understand when you take cheese from someone. It sounds so basic, but it translates into somebody having a life. And I think that that's been very important. Even if the needle isn't moved, I think it's very important to hear these stories

just like we heard Chantelle Brown. So Chantelle Brown puts a face on it. My mom was a social worker. I remember back in the day, people that she brought home because they couldn't get their food stamps. Now called SNAP. And all kinds of excuses being made as to why people could not get their food stamps, now called SNAP. And all kinds of excuses being made as to why

people could not get their food stamps. But then the small picture is drilling down and putting faces on this misery. And that's what it is, it's misery. When I think about Malcolm X's mother, because I'm just there, and how she had to hustle after her husband was killed, rather than lynched,

they said he committed suicide on the railroad track, that's another story, but looking at how she scrambled to try to feed her children and then were institutionalized because they said she could not feed her children because they took away her food assistance. Let's take it back a step guys and talk a little bit about who benefits from low wage

workers. See, our country is subsidizing the workers who work in the big balance stores and are making the minimum wage. The main states, you know, it's less than $8 an hour. In some states, in nine states a bit more. But guess what's happening? So we're subsidizing oppression. When we say you can get food stamps because you don't make enough money, how come you

don't make enough money? Because people are not paying. So we can look at this in terms of staff. And I, for what they've done, and I'm hoping that at least three or four Republicans grow a pair and that the Senate also does some closure, but it's not just that, it's a bigger picture how we're allowing workers to be exploited and how we, all of us collectively,

are benefiting from that exploitation. It's a frightening situation and there are very few, there are people in city to city and state to state who are standing up, but we need folks to stand up far more nationally and globally to say, it is not okay to exploit people. Simple as that, we need to exploit people. So low wages are essentially exploitation and cutting snap subsidizes, let me call one

name out, somebody will come get me, for Walmart, that's what they have these low wage workers. These are punching above their weight. They're not getting their money. So we are subsidizing oppression. The United States of America is subsidizing oppression. So listen, Dr. Dabenga, I wanna close out this evening on you. We've had a theme tonight, exploitation and low wages and deportation. Do you have some good news that will leave us all

a little happier when we get out of our chairs tonight? Well, I think the good news is that we need to be mindful of the fact that look, today's Malcolm X's 100 year birthday. All right. You know, and- And there you go. And you know, Dr. Malvaux has talked about his mom

and her history and the like. This is a man that we get to celebrate. We don't have to worry about the United States, you know, creating any type of event for him, you know, to call out for him to be celebrated. He's ours. They can't take anything away from us as it relates to how we celebrate and love this man,

as well as Dr. Betty Shabazz as well, you know, but it's his birthday today, so, you know, talking about him more. And the fact that a matter is when I think about him, when I think about Betty Shabazz, and I think about his parents and the like, I always tell myself of everything we're going on with dealing with right now,

we have been through worse as a people. We have been through worse as a country. We have been through worse. And if. We have been through worse. And if our ancestors can fight and do what they did to get through what they had to go through, we can get through this. If we stay organized, if we learn our history, if we stay united, if we support each other, support Black Star Network, support our initiatives, just like we opened with, you know, with the hurricane and everything like that. And so that keeps me optimistic. What are so many And so that keeps me optimistic.

What are so many thoughts so that we could be here today? What are we gonna do today so that 10 years, 15 years, 30 years, 50 years, they're gonna say the work that other people on this panel and all of those watching made it possible for their lives to be better. It's an exciting time for us that we should embrace. All right, Dr. Dubeenga, thank you for that

and ending us on that note. And Dr. Malbeau, Representative Shannon, as always, good seeing you and having you. Thank you, sis. All right. Enjoying. Absolutely, everybody have a good evening. Folks, thanks for watching. You've been watching Roland Martin Unfiltered live

on the Black Star Network. We appreciate you tonight and have a good one. Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punch! A real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All the 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 beat Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home, ya dig? I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war this year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes, we met them at their recording studios.

Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves.

We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov.

Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.