#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Domestic Terrorism, Rep. Demings' Greatest Rubio Hits, IN Cop Indicted, Ready Life Home buying App

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

10.19.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Domestic Terrorism, Rep. Demings' Greatest Rubio Hits, IN Cop Indicted, Ready Life Home buying App   the rise of domestic terrorism and how the FBI director has talked about it for years, yet it seems like the organizations are still growing.    Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings went on the attack Tuesday in her first debate against Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, calling him a serial liar and challenging his actions since being in office.  We'll show you Demings' greatest Rubio hits.    I'll have a one-on-one with Dr. Karen Green vying for Florida's 7th Congressional District seat up for grabs.    An Indiana cop gets indicted for kicking a black man in the head.    Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake says she thinks if Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, he'd an "America First Republican." Ya'll have to hear it to believe it.  European Union's top diplomat is backtracking his comments about Europe being a "garden" and the rest of the world a "jungle." Journalist Rula Jebreal will join us to explain the controversial remarks.    And in our Tech Talk segment, an app that helps people become homeowners without a credit score.  The creator of "Ready Life" will stop by to explain how it works. 10.19.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Domestic Terrorism, Rep. Demings' Greatest Rubio Hits, IN Cop Indicted, Ready Life Home buying App the rise of domestic terrorism and how the FBI director has talked about it for years, yet it seems like the organizations are still growing.  Democratic U.S. Rep. Val Demings went on the attack Tuesday in her first debate against Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, calling him a serial liar and challenging his actions since being in office.  We'll show you Demings' greatest Rubio hits.  I'll have a one-on-one with Dr. Karen Green vying for Florida's 7th Congressional District seat up for grabs.  An Indiana cop gets indicted for kicking a black man in the head.  Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake says she thinks if Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, he'd an "America First Republican." Ya'll have to hear it to believe it. European Union's top diplomat is backtracking his comments about Europe being a "garden" and the rest of the world a "jungle." Journalist Rula Jebreal will join us to explain the controversial remarks.  And in our Tech Talk segment, an app that helps people become homeowners without a credit score.  The creator of "Ready Life" will stop by to explain how it works.    #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you. The We'll be right back. And Black media, he makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Rollin'. Stay 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 scape. It's time to be smart.

Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Folks, today is Wednesday, October 19th, 2022, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Last night in Florida, Congressman Val Demings opened a can of whoop-ass on Senator Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio, folks,

wait until we show you the highlights of this debate. She just destroyed him, challenging him at every turn, and calling him a liar to his face. Also on today's show, in Indiana, first of all, we have a one-on-one,

speaking of Florida, a one-on-one with Karen Green, who's running for Congress in the Civil Congressional District. We chatted with her. Indiana cop gets indicted for kicking a black man in the head and law. And Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate,

Carrie Lake, who's a flat-out liar. This fool actually said if JFK and MLK were alive today, they would be America first back of Republicans. Girl, you need to be drug tested. And we'll talk about what's happening with fascism in Europe, how this vehement anti-immigration stance is fueling the right in Europe. Is that a pretext for what we're seeing here in America? Rula Jabeel will be with us, and she's been covering this.

And trust me, folks, you need to understand exactly what is happening there and how that could be impacting us here. Also, in our Tech Talks segment, we'll have an app that helps people become homeowners without a credit score. And so we'll talk with the creator of Ready Life. And I'm going to deconstruct a white conservative evangelical pastor, Ed Young of Houston.

He gave a sermon on Sunday that was just absolutely asinine. And I'm going to break this thing down to show you how these white evangelicals, how they tried to pimp the legacy of Dr. King in an effort to attack Black Lives Matter today

and woke people today. Oh, yeah. Y'all might want to buckle up for that one because I got something to say to Second Baptist Church's Ed Young. You do not want to miss that in the 7 o'clock hour. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it.

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 belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling

It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's Roland Martin Rolling with Roland now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's rolling, Martin. Now. Martin. Some folks say debates don't matter, that voters are not moved by these debates. But if you were watching last night's debate between Senator Marco Rubio of Florida

and his Democratic challenger, Congresswoman Val Demings, you could see exactly who is the one candidate who has the guts to stand up for voters. Demings was not trying to come in meek and silent. She came out hard-h hitting against Marco Rubio. And trust me, I can guarantee you today his ass is hurting because she put her foot, both feet firmly planted in his behind. Roll it. Of course, the senator who has never run anything at all but his mouth would know nothing about helping people and being there for people when they are in trouble. No one planned the pandemic, but our response to it is everything.

Individuals were hurting, families were hurting, businesses were hurting. We passed the CARES Act, which the senators supported. There were some problems in the CARES Act with the Paycheck Protection Program that you love to take credit for. Some say it was poorly written. Some say it didn't help the people that it was supposed to, didn't save the jobs that it was supposed to. There was a way to fix the problems in the PPP through the American Rescue Plan and help people that were in trouble.

But you played politics, Senator, and you did not do that. Your number one job as a United States Senator is to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the American people. You've been at it for 24 years. I know the Senator, look, and I'm really disappointed in you, Marco Rubio, because I think there was a time when you did not lie in order to win. I don't know what happened to you. You know that is not true. My first term in the United States House, I passed legislation to help law enforcement officers with mental health programs.

Your first term in the Senate, you voted to turn Medicare into, basically to abolish it, and then turn it into an underfunded voucher program. And then you gave the biggest tax break to the richest of the rich and said you'd pay for it with cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Why are these people going out there massacring people? This is the same argument you made. I understand, sir, but I want to go to Congresswoman Demings for 60 seconds. You know, people who are families of victims of gun violence just heard that, and they're asking themselves, what in the hell did he just say? Senator, you used the Pulse nightclub shooting as your inspiration to run again for the Senate in 2016.

Pulse is in my district. And yet you've done nothing, nothing to help address gun violence and get dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people. Florida, after Parkland, after you made promises that you had no intentions on keeping to the parents of Parkland, Florida passed legislation raising the age to have an assault weapon, passed red flag laws that we've seen 7,000 plus instances where they've been used now. Our primary responsibility is the safety of Floridians and Senator 24 years in elected office and you have not yet

risen to that occasion and then when asked about it you say something that makes no sense. Now as a police detective who investigated cases of rape and incest, no Senator I don't think it's okay for a 10-year-old girl to be raped and have to carry the seed of her rapist. No, I don't think it's okay for you to make decisions for women and girls. As a senator, I think those decisions are made between the woman, her family, her doctor, and her faith. I thought I wasn't going to start my closing arguments with the last couple of things the senator said were just not true.

And let me say this. I stand on this stage tonight as a daughter, the daughter of a maid and a janitor. Had the awesome honor of being the first in my family to graduate college, served at the police department, worked my way up through the ranks to become the chief of police, serving in the House and now running for the Senate. Only in America is my story possible. I just happen to believe that every person, regardless of who they are, deserves the opportunity to succeed, deserves the opportunity to make it.

The senator will pick and choose winners and losers based on their ability to pay to play. He talked about pharmaceuticals. He voted against legislation that would help reduce the cost of prescription drugs and help cap the cost of insulin. Damn. My panel, Robert Portillo, Executive Director, Rainbow Push Coalition, Peachtree Street Project, Joe Richardson, Civil Rights Attorney,

Monique Presley, Legal Analyst and Host, Make It Make Sense with Monique Presley. Glad to have all three of you here. Damn, Robert. Marco got smacked around by Trump when he ran for president and just got waylaid by Congresswoman Val Demings. And what I appreciated,

she didn't go into this, a lot of these analysts and these strategists, oh, you're a woman, so don't go in strong because don't go in as the angry black woman. No, her righteous indignation served her well in this debate. You're absolutely correct.

You know, we're right in the middle of the Rainbow Pulse Coalition Peachtree Street Project 23rd Annual Credit Opportunity Conference that started today. So earlier I had the pleasure of talking to Sherry Beasley, who's running in North Carolina, as well as Jamie Harrison, DNC chair. And this is the fire that we're talking about bringing to the midterms. This is the aggression that we're talking about bringing to the midterms. We can no longer keep running as if we're in the 1870s. The distinguished gentleman from Florida

takes the floor. You have to call out these lies in very plain and simple terms. Val Demings could have been more powerful if she was standing up there for Switch, because Marco Rubio looked like a little kid getting red after lying and getting caught red-handed. I'm starting trying to figure out why Val Demings wasn't the VP, but that's a personal thing. Well, if being her, I thought she would have been an outstanding chore to that. But I think people in Florida are seeing a very clear contrast between somebody who will kowtow and bow down and be a sequence before Trumpism, before Kansasism, before the far right wing of the party. And somebody like Val Demings, who's going to be a voice strictly for the people of her district, people of her district and

people of her state, understand that she's able to that you cannot do those attacks, but defund the police against Val Demings. You can't say Democrats are soft on crime against Val Demings. You can't talk about women's reproductive issues against Val Demings if you're not ready to get read. So I'll be surprised if Marco Rubio shares the stage again with her before the midterm elections. This race was already within the margin of error, two to- to three-point race. I'm hoping this gets those national Democratic figures to pour money into this race, pour money into the Sherri Beasley race, pour money into Mandela Barnes, into Charles Booker. We have a chance that we have not seen since Reconstruction in this country, where 10 percent

of the United States Senate could be African-American if we win these seats around the country. I think this is the time when we do a lot of debating on Twitter and Instagram and everything else about what would be the perfect political platform for African-Americans. Getting 10 percent of the Senate in the hands of African-Americans, I think, is the place that you start with it. The thing here, Monique, as I look at this, I think about the debate that Congressman Tim Ryan had against J.D. Vance when he went at his throat and was absolutely on point.

I remember watching these people saying, well, even on our show, well, you know, one knock shouldn't go too hard at Herschel because if he does, that's going to create sympathy for Herschel Walker, and so you don't want to do that. So what happened? They played expectations low. They go, oh, my goodness. I mean, Herschel Walker, and so you don't want to do that. So what happened? They played expectations low. They go, oh my goodness. I mean, Herschel exceeded expectations. Democrats have got to be willing to call lies out. The right ain't sitting here playing this nice, as Robert said, the distinguished gentleman, gentle lady or the gentleman. No, they are playing for power, and you have to go at people

and expose them for who they are. Yes, you do. And there are ways, obviously, none of the candidates on the Democratic side, at least, are going into these debates without being prepped

and being immersed in the material so that they can respond with knowledge and respond presenting themselves well. So I hear what you're saying. I said on Twitter last night that I thought that Congresswoman Demings put respect on her own name. And obviously, she is by far the better choice for this race and for Florida, and we need her for this country. I also, though, think that if someone is angry righteously and black and a woman, then yeah, they're an angry black woman. And being an angry black woman is not a wrong thing to be. But if you're going to be

an angry black woman, then you have to know that that buys into the tropes and that is the delicate balancing test that any of us, the tightrope that any of us who are women and black in leadership deal with. If we show no emotion at all, then we are emotionless. If we show too much emotion, then we can't handle ourselves and can't think logically and rationally and be calm and be decisive. If we show anger as an emotion, then obviously, you know, we're raging, we're angry, et cetera. So those that's just the dance. I personally think that Vice President Kamala Harris does a stellar job of walking that tightrope and not giving flashes that will buy into the stereotypes, not giving them food for it. And I think that Congresswoman Demings did a stellar job of challenging him last night. Would I have wanted her not pointing her finger if I had been her debate coach? Absolutely. Would I have wanted to try to get her to frown less because I knew that they would zero in on it and show it and that would be the only

pictures that they would show? They would never show her smiling? Absolutely. But she has to be her authentic self. And her authentic self, I hope, is what will connect with enough voters for them to understand that the reason why she's giving the emotion and the reason why she's got the hand gestures and the reason why he looked very, very scared is because these are serious times and a serious person is required and she's that person. Well, here's the thing, Joe. I mean, look, part of the part of the thing about anger and righteous indignation is being pissed off, is standing up for people. And when you have a weak, neat individual like Marco Rubio,

who has done nothing but kiss the ass of Donald Trump, you have got to show that contrast. And we hear all the time, folks, I want to see a fighter. I want to see a fighter, someone fighting for me. Well, hell, I kind of got to show you some fight in order to do so. And so I think she was just on point. Well, you know, I agree. And you know, when Donald Trump is a fighter,

Donald Trump doesn't even have to speak in complete sentences. And he gets credit for being a fighter, right? At the end of the day, Val Demmons came to scrap, okay? And she proved that she wasn't no punk. And the fact of the matter is Marco Rubio looked like a punk. He looked punk.

His countenance changed. All of it changed. And one of the things that Democrats have to figure out is that the Republicans, you know, you can disagree with everything that they say, but they really go for theirs, right? And sometimes we have to decide not to be milquetoast because the truth is the truth. And I'm going to be plain spoken and I'm just going to lay it out. That way, you know where

I stand. And there's a difference between, you know, some people make a choice. Let's be kind of sort of the middle of the road and walk a line and toe a line. And some of us have to do that in our business. And when we're trying to get over in court or, you know, whatever it is that we're trying to do, some of us will walk that line or whatever else. And from a political standpoint, to draw more people in. But here's the thought. Why not go strong, be who you are, and excite the people that would come out and vote for you? See, because I think that the numbers are there for her to win, but she's got to drive the people out. And I think the best way to drive people out is to create the contrast, to show who she is,

being a fighter. She's got something to say about what officers ought to do and how they feel about guns. She's been one. She's got something to say as a woman and as a detective about what should happen with children that are raped. And there's actually a seed planted that will produce a baby. She should be talking about that, and she should be talking about that with passion because to the point that was made, she's damned if she does, and she's damned if she doesn't. So if it's in her heart to do it, she might as well do it.

Here's a perfect example. We would talk about how you fight. I look at what's happening with the economy right now. Look at the polling data where a lot of people say they're trusting Republicans more when it comes to fighting inflation and dealing with the economy. But the reality is I think Democrats have been quite weak in terms of how they have been framing this, what's going on. I'm going to show you this here. questioning someone in Congress, breaking down where we stand today when it comes to inflation

and how corporations are doing this. And Biden can't do a damn thing about this. Harris can't do anything. Democrats can't do anything. And what is actually driving inflation? Again, this is how I believe you have to actually establish a narrative and then go after folks.

Watch this. According to this chart, what is the biggest driver of inflation during the pandemic? The blue is the dark blue is the recent period. It would be corporate profits. And what is that percentage? It is 54 percent. And that number does stay that level of high if you update that number to more recent numbers as well. So over half of the increased prices people are paying are coming from increases in corporate profits.

Yes, the unit price index is reflected in corporate profits as opposed to other costs. And how does that compare to historically to other periods of inflation or over other periods of economic time? As reflected there in another analysis, it is significantly higher in this recovery. 11.5%. And what is it today? 53%. So I want to make sure everyone in America understands this chart. What is a unit labor cost? The cost of wages and associated work costs.

We could just wages. What is a non-labor input cost? A variety of things, including maintenance and investments. Okay. So I have to buy the stuff to make the widget. I have to have a factory. I have to keep the lights on. I have to hire someone to make the widget. That's this stuff. And this is what I add on, on top. Now, former Labor Secretary Robert Rice has consistently talked about why we are in the condition that we're in right now. In the UK, inflation is now is at 10.1%. The new prime minister, she came in and she says, oh, first thing we're going to do is cut taxes. Folks, that completely blew up the economy of the UK

and now they're scrambling and she might not be able to survive. You want an understanding of what's happening even when it comes to oil prices? Check this out. Oil companies made $70 billion profit just in the last quarter. Here's President Joe Biden. So my message to oil companies is this. You're sitting on record profits, and we're giving you more certainty. So you can act now to increase oil production now.

The third thing I'm doing is I'm calling on oil companies to pass the savings on to consumers. Consider this. In the second quarter of this year, profits at six of the largest publicly traded oil companies were more than $70 billion. That's $70 billion in just one quarter, 90 days, $70 billion. So far, American oil companies are using that windfall, the windfall of profits to buy back their own stock, passing that money on to their shareholders, not to consumers. In fact, in the first half of the year, those same companies spent $20 billion buying back their own stock

and, most importantly, buying back a buyback, the most significant buyback in the last almost a decade. That's great if you own a lot of stock in an oil company or if you're an executive in an oil company. You know, what I don't quite understand here, again, Monique, we see what's going on. We see the record profits. We're actually seeing how all of these companies have been announcing record profits, and they keep raising prices. The reality is this year, all of these companies are trying to make up for what happened the last two years in the pandemic. You've got folks on the right saying, oh, it's Biden, it's Harris, it's Democratic policies.

The policies literally have nothing to do with these companies raising it. And I just think that they, I just simply believe that Democrats have not been aggressive enough at telling the American people what the hell is going on. And the fact of the matter is, if the Democrats lose the House and the Senate because of the economy, because of gas prices going up, because of inflation, because of food going up, ain't a damn thing Republicans can do to stop it unless the companies stop raising prices. I mean, but what would you suggest?

Easy. What I would suggest is, on a consistent basis, actually articulating that over and over and over again. The problem is, what they often do is, they speak in terms of, you might mention it, but you don't hear for actually two weeks, oh, we're trying this.

No, you must use the bully pulpit to actually hammer that. When you look at the polling data, literally right now, you're seeing an 18 to 20 point gap where voters in these polls say they're trusting the Republicans more when it comes to the economy.

Who voted against capping insulin at $35? Who voted against the $1,500 going to households in this country? Who voted against infrastructure? Who voted against a number of these things? A lot of the economic items that the Biden administration has done, Republicans have actually opposed. And now they're sitting here, hey, can we get some of that infrastructure money? Can we get some electric vehicle money?

Can we get some of that? And they actually voted against it. You kind of got to, you have to control the narrative. And I just simply think they have not done that. I also haven't seen, maybe you've seen it, maybe Robert or Joe's seen it, I haven't seen the DNC put out a single commercial literally saying, folks, these corporations

are taking money from you, they're the ones who is driving inflation up, driving up food prices, driving up gas prices, you kind of got to make them the boogeyman. They haven't. They've soft-shooted. Right. Well,

I mean, that is said from the White House daily and... But damn sure ain't forceful enough. I mean, I don't even know what that means. Does that mean say it louder? Does that mean bite your finger?

You do know what it means. But, Monique, you know what that means. I got to actually answer because I disagree with you. So what I am saying to you is that to say that they're not doing it and say it needs to be more forceful, I translate as it is not being effective because people, whether they are hearing the message or not, are still siding with the Republicans. But I believe factually people are siding with the Republicans because they are siding against the people who are currently in power because what is happening hurts. Ouch. It's expensive. Everything is expensive. Everybody's wallet is empty. Everybody is

feeling the pinch in all different areas, trying to get to their jobs, trying to feed their kids, trying to pay for their gas, trying to do all of these things. And they're doing what our electorate has a history of doing, which is go with the other guy, even if the other guy doesn't have any better ideas and even if the other guy has been obstructionist. So that is one of the things that happens when times are tight and people want relief. It's not really a question of whether everything that can be done is being done or whose fault it is, though Republicans may want to blame the Biden administration for it. People don't give a damn whose fault it is. They want it to stop. And that is a very tough place to be in coming out of a pandemic, trying to stay out of a recession and trying to rescue an entire country with a democracy that is on the line. So I do see, I see the press secretary talking about it every day. I read the briefings that are coming out about it. I see the information that's on Twitter about it.

I hear the vice president talking about it. I hear the president talking about it. I hear responsible journalists pushing the information out. I see responsible organizations trying to inform the voters about why these issues matter and why they're blaming the wrong people. If there is another way that they can be doing it, I am saying I don't know what the other way or more forceful way looks like when you actually roll it out, unless you're talking about ad buys and ad dollars. You know what? And that's one thing, but it's not the black folks, right? It's not the black folks who aren't going to vote the right way. We have a history of getting this right.

Actually, no, actually, actually. And I don't know that there's an ad in the world. No, actually. I mean, I'm just going by the numbers. No, but you can also. The black women are voting the right way. The black men are right under them. No, but you can also be wrong, because when women are voting the right way. The black men are right under them. But you can also be wrong because when you say voting

the right way, it's not a question of who's voting. The question, Joe, is how many are voting? And so the issue is, so you can say black women and black men. And our numbers aren't low. But again, you can say black men. First of all, you have a lot of states that haven't even voted yet. Okay? The issue here, Joe, what

I'm talking about is, the issue, the issue, Joe, I'm not discussing past elections. I'm discussing the election right now because we're talking right now. No, no, no, but I'm talking right now. See, I can't talk past elections because past elections, you don't have the inflation being what it is right now. The thing here, Joe, is very simple, and that is when you talk about how do you control the narrative, how do you frame the narrative? Democrats love to present white papers. They want to sit here. Let me just get a long explanation.

That doesn't cut it. The reality is the right, even when they are in power, know how to better message. Go. You know, I tend to agree with you. I think that the point that was made is valid in that people are ultimately self-centered. We want to know, you know, listen, all I know is it cost me $6 a gallon for gas, right? You know, people are absolutely ultimately self-centered because they want their things to be better or whatever else. I had a conversation brief, you know, asked a question of Hakeem Jeffries about this whole thing.

And he talked about how, you know, the Democrats basically do their thing and they can often accomplish things. But the narrative is not very good. And so what happens is you have a situation where people will say, you know, because of what they're for and what they're against, they'll say, I'm against you. We all heard it. I'm against Obamacare, but I'll take ACA. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of things that we need to do better in terms of people understanding where we stand, understanding what actually has been accomplished. Even in the last two years, they accomplished a great deal. The Democrats actually did. But the problem is, among other things, of course, inflation is a thing, et cetera, and there needs to be a narrative. I like what Katie Porter said. That was even some additional

information for me in terms of the specific numbers. There are things that you can do very simply to give people simple messages about where things are. Now, if people aren't voting for you knowing what they ought to know, that's a horse of another color. But I do think that they are missing some information. Democrats do a poor job of circulating information as simply as they could for all of the attempts that they make, you know, to the point of a sister. But we have to take it, break it down, and let people know where it actually, we stand in simple language so that they're taking or leaving us based on actual information.

Robert, you can make the final comment here. Here's the deal. Democrats really spent a lot of time thinking that the Dobbs decision was going to be the key motivator. You're seeing right now what's the top two issue and that's actually number three. You still got to address the boogeyman and and that is the economy,

and you got to be able to do it in an effective way. I just think they have it. Well, you know, Roland, one of my professors at Clark Atlanta years ago, Professor Johnny Wilson, said the point of education and work is to be able to translate the OR to the OR for your community, trying to translate the original language to the ordinary language, the ability to break down these conceptualizations around international macroeconomics into a terminology that a normal person can understand. I'll give you an example of the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Let's take gas prices, for example. Democrats will say, and using your point about truce economics, that if you compare us to the economic markets of Europe

and the UK, they've had six years, basically, of Trumpian economics. Boris Johnson, Interlustruce, massive tax cuts for corporations. For the first time in history, we're seeing the British pound trading below the United States dollar. You're seeing 10.5 percent inflation in the U.K. The equivalent price of gas per gallon there would be around $12 a gallon compared to the $3 a gallon that we pay here. This is a result, of course, of the OPEC plus cartel cutting oil production by 2 million barrels a month. You're talking about Russia, the eighth largest oil producer in the world, being taken off the market.

And then combine that with corporate profits, that's how you get the gas prices. That's how Democrats would explain it away. Republicans would just say, drill, baby, drill, and keep it moving. So until you can condense that entire conversation on international macroeconomics into something along the lines of drill, baby, drill, energy independence, it's difficult to articulate what's really happening because Republicans speak on about a third grade level. Studies have been shown on this. Democrats have a bad habit of talking on a college freshman level, which makes it difficult to connect with voters. We saw this in the Warnock versus Walker debate, where Senator Warnock was making a point about reproductive rights. And then Herschel Walker just had to say,

but they have a baby up in death. And people understood what he was saying. So it's about translating that original language to the ordinary language that people can understand. And you're paying these consultants millions of dollars to be able to develop these ideas. And it's amazing they can't. When we come back after the break, folks, I'm going to talk about, I'm going to make this thing plain when it comes to immigration and fascism in Europe

and how what you're seeing there is happening here. And what's happening there the last 10, 15, 20 years, I keep warning y'all, and the immigration issue and how it's being weaponized, wait till my next guest breaks it down. Y'all need to pay attention because a lot of black folks have fallen for the same okey-doke here in the United States. Folks, support us by watching down on the Black Star Network

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I'm Coco. And I'm Lili. And we're SWB. What's up, y'all? It's Ryan Destiny. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. The European Union's Foreign Policy Chief, Joseph Borrell, is denying comments he made last week were racist.

Borrell called Europe, quote, a garden and most of the world a jungle that could invade the garden. OK, this is what he actually said. Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It's the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity, and social cohesion that humankind has been able to build. There's three things together. The rest of the world, and you know very well, Federica, is not exactly a garden. The rest of the world, most of the rest of the world, it's a jungle. And the jungle could invade the garden.

And the gardeners should take care of it. Should take care of the garden, but they will not protect the garden by walls, by building walls. A nice small garden surrounded by high walls in order to prevent the jungle coming in is not going to be a solution because the jungle has a strong growth capacity and the walls will never be high enough in order to protect the garden. The gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the

rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us. He came under intense criticism and issued this apology. The growth of this lawless world in disorder is what I meant when talking about the jungle. My reference to jungle has no racist, cultural, or geographical connotation. Indeed, and unfortunately, the jungle is everywhere, including in Ukraine. We must take this trend seriously, and that was my message to the students. Now, what's been happening in Italy, they've elected a fascist government there. You look at what's happening, the rise of the far right in France and other European countries. A lot of that is being fueled by their hatred of immigration.

Now, I told you all repeatedly that one of the issues that you're seeing is that the birth rates of, frankly, whites in Italy and Germany and France and other European countries has been dropping. Well, what happens for your society to continue? You need people. There is a resistance and an anger to immigrants who are coming into those countries. This has been happening for the last 10, 15 years. And what you're seeing happen in Europe, you're now seeing happen in the United States. My next guest is Rula Jabril, the award-winning journalist and visiting professor. She joins us now from New York. Rula, always glad to have

you. I mean, you've been, you know, I get your tweets, you hit me with the DMs and I see them, and you've been breaking this thing down, and too many people have been ignoring the language and ignoring what's happening here, and what you have is you have individuals who literally, on

the right, are yelling, oh, they're stealing our culture. They're taking our way of life. They're snatching our country back. You can literally look at Make America Great Again and the rhetoric of the right in America today and compare it to what you're hearing from the right in Europe, and it's the same. Absolutely. It's a global movement. And going back to Borrell and his terrible, sickening comments, which are racist, and let's be clear, they are racist. He doesn't even understand that they're racist. He wrote them down. They posted them on their website. It was part of his speech. He's not realizing he's using the same rhetoric that's been used in the past against anybody that

is different in Europe. He doesn't mention that Europe had two wars, two World War II, and they cracked down on their minorities. They oppressed them. They burned them alive. They put them in gas chambers. And they use the language that is being used today against Black people and against refugees and against immigrants and against minorities. And he's not even realizing that. When he talks about a paradise or the rest of the world is a jungle and he's talking about the garden. Eighty years ago, that garden, Bert Mussolini gave us Hitler, gave us a destruction that that and millions of people who had to die so he can build a prosperous Europe. People who are not only Europeans, Americans and others.

He forgetting his own history. Today, we have a fascist movement around Europe, especially in Italy. They just won the elections. And you know, the prime minister, the elect prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, the first thing she used is the conspiracy theory of the replacement, the great replacement theory. The first thing she said about President Obama, and it is echoing Donald Trump when she said he's the worst president in history. How dare he impose sanctions on Russia? That was 2016 when it was obvious that Russia interfered

in America's elections. She keeps continue saying that there's an invasion. She called people of color, she and her coalitions, all kind of names. She keeps insisting that we need to protect Christianity in Europe, in Italy, because those other people. I mean, they had just elected the president of the parliament, Fontana, who called people, different people or people of color, others, animals. They called people like me who appear on Italian television beasts, murderers. This is Berlusconi's own newspaper, not a far right. This is Berlusconi's own newspaper. So the issue of race, the issue of criminalization

of entire group of people is at the center of their identity politics. And they use fear, hate, paranoia to basically push the idea that people like us, like you and me, and even people like President Obama, anybody that is different is a threat, an existential threat that needs to be eradicated. And that is the essence of his speech.

And when you look at, go to my iPad, you look at Michael Flynn who was National Security Advisor for Trump, how Michael Flynn goes local to spread Christian nationalism. And when you listen to the rhetoric, what you're seeing in America right now, Rula, you are

seeing white folks who are angry about the browning of America, who are, it's driven by white fears, which is why I wrote my book, and what's happening is, it's driving the politics, and see, and I'm even having to deal with black folks who are like, oh, Roland,

you're supporting illegal immigration. No, I understand the reality of history. The fact of the matter is this. If anyone with a brain looks at the United States of America, and if you look at how in more than 12 states, the average white death rate is higher than the average white birth rate, you have to have people in the future in order for you to continue having a country. I've explained this before. In China, 30 years ago, they imposed a one-child-per-family rule.

What's happening today? China's going, oh, shit. What did we do? Why? Because the population is aging out. They have fewer people to replace them because they limited the number of children being born

and now they're having labor shortages in their manufacturing facilities because they don't have the people to replace the folks who are passing away. Folks, you don't have a why are small towns in America dying? Okay, companies are leaving. Young people leave those places. So it's largely older white people

in these middle of the country towns and states. This is what happens with demographic shifts. And so we have to understand when the politicians are pushing those buttons of fear and folks are responding, it's leading to them voting out of fear and voting based upon racism and bigotry. It's happening in Europe and we're seeing it in the United States. So, yes, I mean, the most powerful tool in politics has always been fear. You give the people enough fear, you're willing to take away their rights and their democracy, because the existential—in moments of deep fear for any nation, people are willing to relinquish anything to the government so the government can enact some measures to protect them. That

is their goal number one. But if you use that fear against minorities, against people who are different, and I, Roland, just to be clear, it's not only immigration. The first time we start hearing this critical race theory, and basically the conspiracy theories, is when Black folks like us became visible, became part of the media, and we start using our voices to start electing black folks. I mean,

the whole white nation and Sarah Palin and the threat that Obama somehow was a Muslim, was different, was not American, the birther movement, it's happening in Italy all over the world. I mean, it's not a coincidence that the first journalist to be threatened by this new prime minister of Italy was myself. She actually threatened to sue me

publicly over the fact that I point out to the fact that she's criminalizing all immigrants. I point out to her statement and I point out to the fact that her father was himself a criminal. He was a truck trafficker. This is a confirmed use that came out in the Spanish newspaper. And she's like, oh, my father, I never met my father. Well, guess what? It's not about her father. It's using that as electoral tool, as a campaign weapon to whip fear and racism and paranoia. One of her coalition partners is Salvini. They both actually endorsed torture. They both endorsed sinking rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea. They bought Salvini's own party, produced a candidate, Luca Traini, who became a terrorist and went in a shooting spree, and he shot people who look like me and you, people of color. So what we're seeing, that this rhetoric is becoming

violence and is being used to radicalize white people who are willing to kill and die. What happened on January 6th is not an aberration. What happens in Italy with these hate crimes are not an aberration. They are the extension of this strategy that make people so radicalized against democracy and against people of color and against minorities. They just elected in the Italian Senate, the president of the Senate is a notorious fascist. He was complaining yesterday when the portrait of Mussolini, a picture of Mussolini was was hanged on a wall of the minister of the economy in Italy. It was immediately taken out. It was immediately removed. He was complaining, saying, oh, that's canceled culture. How dare you cancel our heritage? Mussolini!

Mussolini! He goes on to say we're all the heirs of Mussolini. Fascism is not anymore an idea that lives on the fringes. Fascism is in government. Fascism is on the rise. And fascists want to take over democracies. it's not a coincidence they all support putin and their and his genocidal war and putin is about white nationalism he is about white nationalism so when you see trump and c-pac and these republicans saying oh if we take power we're gonna going to stop funding Ukraine against Putin.

They, Putin is about white nationalism. Precisely. And that's not a coincidence that all of these guys are allies. That's why the fight I call, this is a fight for the soul of democracies, not one democracy. And there's a huge coalition of these ethno-nationalists, fascists, let me explain it clearly, fascists who want to destroy democracy here at home and overseas. That's why they are willing to support Putin and all of his cronies around the world. And the thing that I fear the most, that most people are underestimating the threat. Most people don't realize because they think, oh, Italy's far away

or this. It's not. These ideas are becoming global. And these alliances are becoming even more obvious and more visible. They are aiding and abetting each other. The first appointment for Giorgio Meloni, the newly elected prime minister of Italy, and Donald Trump will be at the neo-fascist party in Spain that is called Vox. That is the first appointment together, together, where they will speak as a crowd of Spanish fascists about what? About their coalition and how they're supporting each other. After January 6th, Gior Georgia Maloney looked at the destruction,

looked at the death and the violence that was unleashed by Trump and his allies, and instead of distancing herself from him, she said, no, I prefer him to Biden. I prefer him. She's telling us who she is, and when people tell you who they are, listen to them. Questions. Joe, you're first. Your question for Rula. How do we get to the good people? And by that, I mean, you know, there are people that are well-intentioned, regular, everyday people, but they are absolutely driven by fear, right? And what has happened is we fear what's not familiar to us. And there are so many people in this world that are scared to death of being overrun by people that don't look like them or people that don't think like them, or at least they're being told that they are. So how do we get to those people, particularly when from government to government, there are some things that in America we take for granted, which frankly are in jeopardy as well from a democracy standpoint.

But there's other regimes that are more repressive now and already. So how do we get to and influence the good people to allow them space to breathe and to understand truth in a way that can keep us going in the right direction? That's a great question. And it takes me back to what Hannah Arendt did, the best scholar of authoritarianism, when she said the difference between, well, who are the perfect subject of these autocrats, of fascists, basically,

the people who cannot distinguish between truth and falsehood, between fictions and basically truth. And I think we need to tell people the truth. We need to talk to them. We need to engage with them. We need to invest more and more in educating them. Because the truth is, most of these people, once you explain to them the facts, they're reasonable people, they're thoughtful people. And it's not a coincidence that Donald Trump said, oh, my favorite people are the least educated and not educated because he is preying on their fear. Fascism is all about preying on people's fear and prejudice. So how do you dismantle that? You dismantle their fear

and prejudice by appealing to their common sense, by actually explaining to them and doing what we're doing now. Continue the conversation on every platform. Continue pushing this and educating people about what really fascism did to them. Many people in Italy think Mussolini was really not that bad, that he built nice buildings,

that he was actually, he brought law and order, that he brought prosperity. It's all was actually, he brought law and order, that he brought prosperity. It's all a lie. He brought destruction, death, genocide. He murdered his own people. He deported people. He unleashed all kind of thugs and destroyed democracy.

But you know what? When they start playing with what we need to read, history books, when they start banning certain books, when they start basically interfering in the educational programs, you know what they are trying to do. They're trying not only to whitewash their crimes of the past, they're trying to control the future. And we cannot allow to let them do that. So I'm actually pleading with all of you to continue contacting all of our colleagues on major news networks, continue doing these conversations on every platform, because this is the last weapon we have to continue creating awareness about the big threats, what they are doing, their crimes. It's not a coincidence that all of these forces supported the Iraq war and

basically led to the destruction of the economy in 2008. So you have major crisis. Then you have the handling of the pandemic. All of these crises were basically who were in charge of these and who caused all these crises. These are these forces, whether it's the Republicans here or the fascists in Europe, and now they are blaming all of us for their actions. They're blaming us for the destabilization of the Middle East, blaming us for destroying the economy after they did what they did in 2008. They're blaming us for the handling of the economy and the inflation. And they won't take responsibility.

So they're pivoting to identity politics. We need to explicitly call them out. Well, and that's precisely why they fake news. You attack the media because you discredit media. People say, oh, I can't believe you, even when it's true. Monique, go. Question, Monique, then Robert. No, I guess I was just wondering, with respect to the particular comments about the jungle of the rest of the world,

I have to admit, when I first listened to it, seeing it on its face, I kind of understood it, seeing it on its face, I kind of understood it in that I believe that some of what we see happening in the United States with police violence against civilians, with over-incarceration, with lawlessness, with insurrections is barbaric. And I just wondered whether you disagree with that as compared to the way that things are in other places that also consider themselves to be democracies and civilized, or if it's the fact that the particular phrase he used was offensive or just from the person because you know the history. Rula? So what he was saying precisely, and I want to quote him directly, he said, Europe is a garden and the outside world is a jungle that wants to invade us.

Okay. So I'm not, and if you think this is a chief, this is top diplomat, this is Europe's top diplomat that's supposed to be diplomatic in his statement. He's of a certain age, but I lived in Europe for a long time. The way they depict people who look like you and me, Monique, they call us animals. They call us monkeys. In parliament, in Italian parliament, the only woman of color that's ever been elected was called monkey, orangutan, in parliament by another minister. I was called on national television by the same guy who's part of the far-right government, by the same guy. His name is Calderoli.

He said, I refuse—I don't know what's her name, this woman. I refuse to answer her questions, because she is—and he used the N-word—on national television. There is racism in America, but you cannot compare it to racism in Europe. The racism in Europe is brazen, blatant, and widespread and normalized. I was the only woman of color appearing and still appearing on Italian television, the amount of racist attacks, xenophobic attacks, misogynistic attacks under my house, under my house. And one of the reasons why I moved to America, under my house, my child and I would go to school and would read this writing, Italy is for white people. That was not 30 years ago. That was just a few years back.

The amount of hatred towards people of color in Europe is astonishing. In France, recently, the French government decided to give back to the Algerian government basically the bones of people, Algerian people, who were beheaded by the French government. They gave back the skulls recently. Think of that. Just recently, they gave back the bones, the remains of these people who fought France during the era of colonialism.

They beheaded them. They brought back the bones and took them back home with them. And recently, they gave them back. People in Europe, especially minorities who are European, who are of color, considered not only is a threat. Last week, the main newspaper put my picture on, and that newspaper belonged to Berlusconi, coalition partner of this woman who just won the election. He's in government with her. They called me Islamist. In fact, they're calling me a terrorist. They called me a Taliban.

They called me, they said, intifada, MeToo Like, making all kind of misogynistic reference as well. But above all for them, I am always called the N-word. Because for them, I am not even human. Rula, didn't a black woman just quit the national team? Because they've been saying she's Italian. Thank you. And they've been saying, oh, she's not a real Italian. She's black because she's black. She is the most famous athlete. She won all kinds of awards. She was in tears, crying,

quit the national. Her name is Paola Agno. Her father is Nigerian and she is Italian, full Italian. In tears, she quit because they called her the N-word. After she won for Italy under Italian flag, she won for them. She quit the team. They called her the N-word and said, why are you even Italian? How come you're even Italian? She was born in Italy. She played for the team for a long time. I mean, I talked to her agent and they were telling me,

this woman is only 20 years old. She said she cannot take it anymore. She's on the brink of being broken as a human being. And we also- Because the kind of vicious attacks against especially women of color is more vicious than ever. And believe me, nobody,

few people express solidarity with her. And in the media, it was like a small story. The biggest story is what Berlusconi is doing with others. The people who expressed solidarity with her are the they never talked about or call out the politicians that for years demonized and criminalized people of color, like Meloni and Salvini and Berlusconi. And look, of course, how the soccer players are attacked because of their race.

Robert, real quick question, real quick answer, and then I've got to go to break. Robert, go. Absolutely. We've seen the rise of these far-right movements. When Liz Truss entered office in Great Britain, they called her cabinet a coconut cabinet. We've seen the rise of Lukashenko in Belarus. We've seen Viktor Orban in Hungary, who's become a hero of the right-wing movements here in the United States.

This very much reminds me of the 14 points of Woodrow Wilson when he talked about ethno-nationalism being one of the leading contributing factors to war. What will it take to bring Europe back from this pre-World War footing that they seem to be on, especially given the fact that now these same majority white nations that are slowly dying out and facing ethnic change are all the nations that also have nuclear weapons? What is the danger to the world of them losing power and not being able to accept the demographic changes that exist? I think we've never been, I mean, and I don't want to be hyperbole. I predicted Trump victory because I watched what happened with Brexit.

But also we live in a world where millions of people, if not billions, believe in alternative realities, believe in these big lies. These big lies open the door for Brexit. These big lies open the door for Trump to get elected. And these big lies and who is using the manipulation of disinformation and weaponizing disinformation propaganda, basically Russia for a long time and all these autocrats. So I think the more we push and the more we push against this narrative and we call out those people fiercely. I mean, I watch the debates in these nights between Republicans and Democrats, and I love how people are start to pushing back aggressively with a message. I mean, when the chief diplomat of Europe said these terrible remarks, and few people really called him out except journalists and minorities, because the fight is left to minorities at this point. But you know what? When minorities are the only one fighting for themselves, it's over. That means they can never win. So we need to create a larger bridge,

a bridge with all the progressives, American progressives, European progressives. We need actually together to build the wall of protection, but also to call out all of these abusers, whether they are our allies or they are our enemies. Because if you really believe in human rights, democracy, and dignity for all, you cannot give a pass to people because they're your allies, the Saudis or others. You need to be consistent. Well, trust me, folks, if y'all don't understand what's happening in Europe and the parallels what's happening in the United States, this is all driven by white fear. This is about demographic shifts. It is about power.

That's what this is all about. And so we better understand that and realize how white nationalists in America are aligning with white nationalists in Europe and other parts of the world because they do not want to see. Even though the world is two-thirds people of color, we know who controls the power and the resources. Rula, keep staying on the front line. We appreciate your great work. Thank you.

Thank you. Folks, going to a quick break. We come back. We're going to talk to a woman who's running for Congress in Florida. We'll chat with her and then also talk about Pastor Ed Young of Houston Second Baptist Church. Interesting sermon he gave them on how we on MLK and race

in America. But he took some shots at Black Lives Matter, 1619 Project, wokeness in terms of his idea. I got a few words to say to Ed Young. I'll break it down for you right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. If you're watching on YouTube, hit the like button.

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It's your boy, Jacob Lattimore, and you're now watching Roland Martin right now. Yee! What's up, y'all? It's your boy Jacob Lattimore, and you're now watching Roland Martin right now. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blew up the congressional districts there trying to limit black power in the 7th congressional district. My next guest, Reverend Dr. Karen Greene, she is running for the congressional seat. It is a competitive seat, but the question is, will Democrats going to put the resources in to try to actually win it. And so they run to fill the seat of former Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy. Green will face Republican nominee Corey Mills, again, in this newly redrawn district that leans more Republican. Green's campaign centers on religious freedom, women's rights, civil liberties, and access to universal health care. She joins us right now. has always been a swing state. This seat was held

by Stephanie Murphy, as you mentioned. In 2016, it was held for a long time by John Michael, almost 20 years. So it's fair to say that it was a Republican-held seat, but almost for the last two—since 2016, Congresswoman Murphy held this district. We won it by landslide two terms before. And then you just said it. The scientists did that, that draw the line for us here in the state, where this district went from being a four-plus Democrat to now seen as the opposite, a five-plus Republican. The demographic changed. We now went from having

the fraction of Orange County, which, as you know, has UCF. This is comparable to what they did with Valdenning's district. They literally tore the I-4 corridor up and pulled away the space. This is the first time, as you know, Stephanie Murphy is, in fact, an immigrant as well from, and myself, you can hear from my accent, I'm Jamaican. I currently serve as one of the vice chairs in the Florida Democratic Party. And the guests you just had a while ago who came on here, it is for those reasons, because of what happened on January 6th, that I decided to step up and run in this seat. So let me just say it is contrary to what people think right now, the polls in, we're now neck and neck. It's 44, 44%. I'm up against Corey Mills, a guy who was literally a Trump appointee. This guy, we know that here in Florida, let me just be clear, I was so moved by the guests you just had on. Because the reality is Florida is now the home of what we see to be the proud boys,

the oath keepers, the three percenters. 10% of the folks who led that insurgent on January 6th are from Florida. And so where we are right now in this district is it is doable. It is heldable. It is one of those areas where Democrats are going to get out. We cannot have these people go to Congress. And this is why I'm here, my brother. And in terms of the makeup of the district, what is the makeup of the district racially? The demographic is this. We have approximately 50 percent of white voters. We have double digits in Hispanics and our black voters. And there's a large Asian population.

It is one of the most diverse districts, but it is also one of the youngest districts. The average age in this majority age is 39 years old. And what that tells us is that the generation of what we know was the call in 2015 to make America great again, they don't have... Yeah, you know what that was about. Yeah, of course. We all know what that was about. This district is an educated voting district. The issues now has us voting, I believe, with a common sense approach. Just think for a minute.

This guy's a multimillionaire. I just got in this race. And because of the issues, we're now at 44-44, 20 days into an election cycle. Is the DCCC putting resources into your campaign? Let's talk about that for a minute. Let's talk about that. You said it when we got on this call. Initially, before we got into what looked like the gerrymandering, the DTRIP has not yet moved towards this district. The DTRIP initially, we went through the discussions looking at viability. I ran in a race that had four Democrats.

I was the most viable winning at 45% of this primary for people. And it's fair to say that I believe people have just given up a lot in Florida. I say this with experience. As a vice chair, one of the roles I've had is to make sure we show people that Florida was not a throwaway state, not because we housed Donald Trump. We have DeSantis as a dictator. We have Matt Rubio and Scott. But we have common sense educated people here who love democracy and freedom, right? And the bottom line is, is that I'm still waiting. I'm having discussions to this day. I have been in touch with them. I got the kits, you name it.

But then we looked at the race to see nine Republicans from out of Florida, millionaire funded, ran in this district. And so for some reason, folks didn't see it. Remember, Congresswoman Stephanie Murphy, who held the seat since 2016, decided not to seek re-election. So for some reason, it appeared to many people in this country as an unwinnable race. Now, within the last five days, we're seeing this because of all the endorsements. we're here. There's no question if there's anybody who could bring the unity in this district, that's why I'm here, brother.

Well, certainly I would hope that Democrats would understand that you've got to put money into the districts if you're running neck and neck, because if you don't run, you can't win. And I get this whole deal, how they look at the map. They want to sit here and protect seats.

But at the end of the day, they're facing a daunting challenge holding on to the House. And I think part of the problem that Democrats have had in Florida, they have not had the proper investment. That's one of the reasons why what used to be a blue state became a purple state and in many ways is a red state. Roland, let me say this. I'm used to winning races in battle-grown seats. I've long been one on the ground to make sure that we secure these races, Democrats abroad, the territories. I've been here. I know what it is to win races. But more importantly, what is happening is, you just said it, there is a misunderstanding, and this is why Florida, I can say it with all candor, that we cannot look for money to win races. We need to inject money to win races and not expect candidates to raise money. This is why so many people don't run these Congressional races.

Bottom line is that I believe now with the call and with what they're seeing in this race, that now the calls are coming. And I've been endorsed by our sister Stacey Plaskett, our brother Ted Lew in California. The issues are more critical. The congressional delegation is falling in line and stepping in. Most of the unions have endorsed me. All of the progressive groups, the young moderates, you can, you can, there's not a bridge that I haven't crossed here. But what needs to happen across this country this evening is that we need to look at how are we going to maintain,

protect democracy, and hold a congressional house. This is a race that is not five points, not ten points, not three. It is right here at a neck and neck race. There is no way we continue to let this kind of a movement happen. And let me just say it. I'm the first Black woman, because there's no question, I don't deny who I am. I was born in Jamaica. I'm an immigrant living the American dream. And I'm saying to you that there's no way we can allow my opponent, Cornelius. This is the guy who is a tear gas manufacturer. Not to say that it is not the least lethal of weapons, but this is the guy who is literally,

he manufactured tear gas, sold it to China to use on Hong Kong. And it is my understanding that he, the same guy, sold tear gas to be used on Black Lives Matter. We don't want this kind of collusion. This is the same person who is a Donald Trump appointee, literally agreeing with Putin over Ukraine. This is the same. Listen, we don't need another Margaret Greene in Congress.

And it is unfair. It is ridiculous. We cannot have. Let me just say this. They've used fear on us for the last 20 years. The reality is, is that we need to come to the light to have folks know that we cannot have, this is a, Martin and your guests, this is the same group of people who on January 6th, the fraction of the Republican Party had two assassination plots. This group of people were going into the House to not only exterminate, eradicate the House

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but they also had a noose to kill their Vice President Pence. We're not talking normal stuff. We're talking about a real pool, the possibility of these kind of people getting to Congress. It's beyond that. So I come with the experience of having lived the dream, the experience. More importantly, the district I'm intending to represent, the issues are real. Got it. We're talking about the Inflation Reduction Act. We're talking about the woman's right to choose. We're talking about pocketbook issues, housing or VAs or veterans,

the environment. We just went through EM. We're talking about climate deniers. The biggest thing to me, which is the funniest thing, is my sister, who just was on before, said it. How can people who are election deniers

choose to run for Congress, for office? Well, easy. First of all, they don't run for Congress. They run for Secretary of State, for Governor, for numerous positions, because that actually is the viewpoint of today's Republican Party. Dr. Karen Green, first of all, we appreciate it. Look, good luck with it. Hopefully, we'll see some support from the DCCC, and we'll be watching this race on election night to see what happens. Good luck with it. Yes, and I invite you all to go to KarenGreenForFlorida.com. Let's hold a seat. Let's secure democracy and make sure that we bring the

light to this country. All right. We appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. All right, folks. Coming up next, white conservative pastors like Houston's Ed Young, they love talking about Dr. King, Dr. King and how amazing he was, but you notice they never talk about the stuff Dr. King, Dr. King and how amazing he was, but you notice they never talk about the stuff

Dr. King actually fought for. I'ma deconstruct a recent sermon from Ed Young and show you the hypocrisy of pastors like Ed Young. That's next on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. When we invest in ourselves, we all shine. Together, we are Black beyond measure. Welcome to Atlanta,

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Creating. Making moves that move us all forward. Together, we are Black Beyond Measure. Hey, I'm Deion Cole from Blackest what's up i'm lance gross and you're watching roland Roland Martin Unfiltered. I really do get a kick out of every year around Dr. King's birthday, the federal holiday, and we get treated with all the quotes and all the laudatory comments about how amazing Dr. King was

and what he stood for and what he did for America. And then the same folk then turn around and literally vote against, speak against the very things that he actually fought for. And so Sunday night, I had some followers of mine who sent me a sermon by Houston's Ed Young Sr. who leads Second Baptist Church. And Ed Young is one of the most prominent white conservative preachers in the country. Second Baptist has several locations in Houston. His son has a massive church in North Texas.

And he's one of the biggest voices among the conservative Christian movement. And lately, he has been highly critical of progressive policies and the left and criticizing, lying about Houston, saying Houston has the highest crime rate in the country. That was a lie. Telling folks we should be opposing cash bail. I mean, all kind of BS from the pulpit.

Constantly lying. He's been checked by Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on several occasions as well. But he gave a sermon called Created Equal. And I listened to it, and I had to get a laugh out of it as I watched him go through it, and with the praise of Dr. King. And so I just wanted to just begin to break this thing down. So why don't you go ahead and play it, and I'm going to start it and stop it and walk y'all through some of the nonsense that we heard from him that we often hear from other white conservative preachers who make the same mistake in terms of trying to look all good with racial reconciliation and speaking against racism. But

it's amazing how they ignore a lot of other stuff that happens. But let's start it right now. back and I looked at 400 years of life in America for the African American who was brought over here as slaves. You know I sort of knew all that but I didn't have any concept of the length of the bigotry the prejudice the inhumane way Americans treated fellow human beings made in the image of God because if you know your history a slaves first came over here in in 1619 and I do not buy the 1619 phony history that's not what I'm saying but they came right there it's not right there it's not right there first of all a young y'all, is 86 years old. He was born in Mississippi. He pastored in South Carolina. How in the hell are you unaware of the treatment of African Americans

in the United States? You were born and raised in Mississippi. Really? Now, y'all notice right there how he mentioned the first slaves coming in 1619. I don't mean that phony 1619 history project. Notice how he slid that in. Okay. See, this is what they do.

See, their anger is at Nicole Hannah-Jones and all the other folks who participated in that because what folk like Ed Young don't like is the rest of the story. They don't want you to hear. And so maybe, Ed, the reason you didn't fully understand the depths and the treatment of Africa, how African Americans were being treated,

because the 1619 Project didn't exist. Maybe because you were presenting a white, whitewashed version of American history, so as opposed to trying to throw shade at it, maybe you should spend some time reading that. Press play. to throw shade at it maybe you should spend some time reading that press play with the settlement of jamestown the massachusetts bay company and they came primarily for for profit and for gold a little later we know about plymouth rock when pilgrims came because they loved Jesus and they wanted to worship freely and independently in a new land. So, a totally different ballgame. But in Jamestown, the secular invasion of our country, they brought with them slaves, listen, roughly 250 years.

Just hold on to that number. 250 years we treated fellow human beings made in the image of God as if they were animals and sometimes worse than we treat our own animals. Oh, I got to put a pause there, Ed, because, yes, slavery lasted about 243 years. You throw in the Civil War, then you've got the Reconstruction period. But you might want to add on another hundred years, Ed. Great Compromise of 1866, the election of 1876 leads to the Great Compromise of 1877, which leads to 92 years of Jim Crow. Black folks in Jim Crow were treated like animals,

were treated as less than human beings. Lynchings that took place in your home state of Mississippi, in South Carolina, where you were a pastor, in Alabama, in Tennessee, in Arkansas, in Texas, and on and on and on. So I'm trying to understand why you're only limiting this treatment of African Americans to that period of slavery when that treatment existed beyond slavery when it was over, or as Douglas Blackman called it, slavery without, first of all, slavery without shackles. Slavery continued, just weren't in shackles. Press play.

That's the truth. The Constitution was written by wealthy men, intelligent men, supposedly God-fearing men, but eight either for Constitution was not written by wealthy man. It was written by wealthy white men That distinction is kind of important to the conversation press play first 12 presidents of the United States were slave owners They were slave owners Now you can be build all kind of little anonymous how people treat their slaves like family and all that but is it is brutality and is evil any way you look at it and now we see dr king came stop

i i'm sorry i we I'm sorry. I... We... We went from slavery to Dr. King. Damn near 100 years. Dr. King does not come onto the national consciousness until the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. He literally went from the end of slavery

to Dr. King. How you skip 90 years? How do you skip Frederick Douglass how do you skip Martin Delaney how do you skip Booker T. Washington W.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph Ida B. Wells Barnett how do you skip 90 years of black

struggle for freedom and you just go, ooh, then we got Dr. King. Press play. And through prayer, he decided to bring about a revolution different from any other revolutions except maybe when Mahatma Gandhi, through pacifism,

liberated India from the British Empire through non-violence. Dr. King took that path. It was dangerous. It was deadly. And he began through those years to do things, to say things, always in a biblical Christian context. Don't miss that. He began to say things and do things. And can we name some of them? I mean, the way it sounds like Dr. King just prayed and gave sermons. No, that was policy. There were things behind that. He was arrested. There were things behind that. He was arrested.

There were protests, and it wasn't just him. It was Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. It was Dr. Dorothy Height. It was James Farmer. It was Corey. It was Snick. It was a plethora of individuals. It was, I mean, we can go, it was Ella Baker and others. It was Roy Wilkins. It was Whitney Young.

I mean, we can go on and on with the folks who were involved in this. Come on, Doc. Press play. Don't miss that. Don't miss that. I submit to you that along with Billy Graham and maybe internationally Winston Churchill, Dr. Martin Luther King was the most influential

individual in the 20th century. But Ed, tell your white congregants why. Go deeper. Ed, come on. If you're going to walk through Scripture, walk through the text

and the life of Dr. King. Sitting right here, Ed. Seven volumes of Dr. King's writings. The papers of Martin Luther King Jr. from Stanford University, Claiborne Carson, and others.

Seven volumes, and not even all of his papers. The books he read. Doc, you got to go a little bit deeper than that player. Go ahead, press play. Far. He saved America. He preached the gospel. He was indeed a great man.

Dr. King did not save America because he preached the gospel. Dr. King and others redefined America because they chose to stand up and fight for freedom and equality and fight against white supremacy, fight for the poor, fight for the folks who have been ignored. He didn't just preach the gospel. The Bible says faith without works is dead. You can't stand before your congregation and give a sermon about Dr. King's faith and ignore his works and not mention that.

But there's a reason why you don't want to mention his works because his works then contradicts what you believe today press play martin luther king speaking at southern methodist university two years before his assassination, 1966, he said, a doctrine of black supremacy is just as dangerous as a doctrine of white supremacy. God is not interested in freedom of black men or brown men or yellow men. God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where every man will respect the dignity and worth of personality. Dr. King, a couple years before his assassination at SMU.

Oh, my God. I'm fascinated by Ed transitioning from Dr. King's work to a piece of his speech at Southern Methodist in 1966. So I decided to look up that particular speech, go to my iPad. This ladies and gentlemen is a transcript of that particular speech. Let me, Ed talked about the white supremacy, the black supremacy part. Let me scroll down. Let me keep going.

Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going.

Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Let me keep going. Oh, then I have arrived right there at the top of the screen, the one paragraph that Ed Young was speaking about. Ladies and gentlemen, the speech that Dr. King gave is 7,485 words. Let me say that again, just in case you missed what I just said. The speech that Dr. King gave at Southern Methodist University is 7,485 words. Ed Young skipped 6,345 words before he decided to cherry pick the segment of Dr. King's speech where he's talking about black supremacy.

Now, if anybody understands and actually has read the history of Dr. King, what they will know and understand is Dr. King, whenever you saw him talking about black supremacy, he was specifically talking about the nation of Islam. He was talking about, here's his book, Where We Go From Here, Chaos or Community. In this particular book, where he talked about there are four institutions that are primed to liberate black America, he lists the Negro church, the Negro press, Negro fraternities and sororities, Negro professional and business organizations. And then he talks about the nation of Islam.

And he says, while he praises them for the work that they have done to clean up black men and to be moral and upstanding, he disagrees with them about black supremacy. That's what he was talking about. In the same book, he talked about black power being an empty statement with nothing behind it. That's what King talked about. You can hear numerous speeches with him doing so. But see, but there's a reason why Ed mentioned, why he just cherry picks that part of King's speech at SMU for this. So I submit to you that we're proud to be American.

I'm proud to be American. But we can't overlook this disastrous history. At the same time, all important, the color of your face says all of those in the woke agenda. What does that mean? He said the woke agenda. Now you understand why he pulls out that segment on black supremacy because it is the set up for the attack on the woke agenda. He then tries to define the woke agenda. Press play. Means according to those in the left, left part of our United States,

that if you were born black or some other color that defines who you are. And you are, listen to me carefully, automatically a racist by being white. That is a fundamental and absolute lie. It is an absolute lie. That is not what being woke means. That is how white conservatives have redefined wokeness. They have used it as the attack against diversity, equity, and inclusion, the attack against multiculturalism, the attack against what we're trying to achieve. That's how they have redefined it in their own way that is not the definition.

Press play. It doesn't matter what you've done, what you believe, where you've been. You are a racist by virtue of your birth. And more than that, and this is hard to believe, there's not a thing in the world you can ever do to repent and to convince anybody anywhere but cause your wife that you're not a racist. We all know that's a flat out lie. We've had Jane Elliott on this show. We've had Tim

Wise on this show. We've had others on this show. We know that there are white brothers and sisters who are involved in the fight for equality. That is simply not true. We know for a fact James Reed was beaten to death. A pastor from Boston was beaten there in Selma,

standing up for voting rights. We know white woman Viola Laiuzzo from Michigan had her head blown off coming back from Montgomery back to Selma. We know, again, that other white folks who were killed during the Civil Rights Movement, and we know folk today who were involved in protests, who are on the front lines, who are involved in protests, who

are on the front lines, who are not black. Sorry, Ed, you simply are wrong, and that's a flat-out lie. But when you have your own definition of wokeness, now we understand why you were utterly confused. Hit play. There's no redemption. You can be anti-racist, but you'll never reach the goal until you're still categorized like that. A leader of Black Lives Matter said, a matter of public record, anyone who waves an American flag by definition, whomever you are, you're a racist. Now, it's amazing how you could go find Dr. King's

speech and go down 6,000 plus words and pluck out a paragraph, but you can't name who this so-called Black Lives Matter leader is. Do you have a name, Ed? Are they actually a Black Lives Matter leader? Who? Are they a local person? Are they a national leader? Who really is the person you're quoting, Ed, so we can have the context?

Oh, you just say a Black Lives Matter leader. It's a matter of public record. Nice try. We ain't falling for the banana in the tailpipe. Press play. Everything is tragically defined by racism. How different that is from Dr. Martin Luther King's understanding of the racial challenges we had in America then,

and we progressed a great deal, but we still have some ways to go. But how far that we have come? You see, he would tell us, as we know, the color of your face doesn't determine your character and who you are. And really, you'll discover, doesn't say much about you and me. Did you know that all of our physical assets, ears, nose, mouth, body, make up 0.012 of who we are? Is that any big deal about you or about me? That color is all important of your skin? Did he just

so Dr. King didn't understand color? Dr. King didn't understand color? Dr. King didn't have an appreciation of blackness? Really, Ed? I recall Dr. King talking about black is beautiful. Press play. Go to Korea. Play King. this for us. No document can do this for us. No Lincolnian emancipation proclamation can

do this for us. No Kennesonian or Johnsonian civil rights bill can do this for us. If the Negro is to be free, he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign with a pin and eek of self-assertive manhood his own emancipation document. Don't let anybody take your manhood. Be proud of our heritage. As somebody said earlier tonight, we don't have anything to be ashamed of. Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything black, ugly, and evil. Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word black. It's

always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word white. It's always something pure. High and clean. But I want to get the language right tonight. I want to get the language so right that everybody here will cry out, yes, I'm black, I'm proud of it, I'm black and beautiful. What MLK says right there absolutely contradicts Ed Young. But I need you to understand what Young is doing. Young wants to present this sanitized, this civil rights mascot view of King.

He wants to strip Dr. King of his radicalness. He wants to take it away and he wants to be somehow given credit for addressing the issue of race when no, what you're doing is you are actually ignoring what King's life was actually all about, the issues he actually confronted and dealt with. If y'all watch the rest of this sermon, what you'll hear, you will hear Ed Young continuing and going on, talking about different aspects, talking about different aspects,

talking about how God created one race. Absolutely. Oh, he'll mention how race is a construct, and he'll talk about that in a certain way. There's a certain point in his sermon where he talks about how the white supremacists are almost out of business mentioning the KKK. Really? FBI Director Christopher Wray

testified before Congress. Play it. This is the FBI Director talking in the last couple of years. Listen. The HVE threat, the homegrown violent extremist threat, is the new normal and it's created a new set of challenges. A much greater number of potential threats, each with far fewer dots to connect and much less time to prevent or disrupt an attack.

These folks are largely radicalized online by the global jihadist movement. We're also keeping our eye on domestic terrorism from people who've come up with their own customized belief systems and hope to advance them through violence. third quarter of this fiscal year had about, give or take, 100 arrests in the international terrorism side, which includes the homegrown violent extremism. This year. This year. But we've also had just about the same number, again, don't quote me to the exact digit, on the domestic terrorism side. And I will say that a majority of the um domestic terrorism uh cases that we've investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence but it includes other things as well a huge now look at now ed. This idea that somehow we've eliminated that simply flies out the window because it's simply not true. But when you're living in your own safe, protected cocoon,

and when you are standing with MAGA folk, you actually believe that utter nonsense when in fact that's simply not true. Play this part of his sermon. It's not biblical. Let me assure you of that because without grace, we're totally out of business. So, with that being said, I'm going to do something with great reticence, but I think it needs to be restated.

One of the greatest orations, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, two or three others, would be Martin Luther King's I Had a Dream speech. There in the Washington Mall, maybe a million people present, millions of people heard it around the world. And Martin Luther King dreamed of a certain kind of America. I think we were getting there with not fast enough. 350 years of bigotry by leadership across the board is too much, folks. We can't deny that. We can't run from that. But we were getting there. And we're getting there because a lot of churches, Christians,

that's how slavery got eliminated. In England, it was Wilberforce. In here, it was Uncle Tom's Cabin. In here, it was Henry Ward Beecher and others who stood against the evil and deadliness of racism. Oh yes, it was through the church when people awakened to see that in the Bible, we are one in Jesus Christ, period, Selah. When they began to preach that and see that, that's where racism was eliminated and still being healed. But thank God, there's only one kind of slave we want to be, and that's a slave to the Lord Jesus Christ where everybody... I got to freeze right there. Ed, do you deny the reality of how the white church

continued racism after slavery? How the Southern Baptist Convention, what they did, how, y'all, in his own sermon, he actually contradicts it by saying when he passed a church in South Carolina, they had a sign where everybody wasn't welcome, and he said, no, that's not how I'm going to be leading this church. Doc, come on. You can't sit here and talk about how the church was the one that led the end of slavery. No, it was white men like John Brown who stood up against other white pastors

who wanted to continue. Come on, Doc, we can't do that. And y'all, so you hear what he does. And so what he does is he continues in here and then he goes on and he closes his sermon by reciting King's I have a dream the portion I have a dream portion of King's speech and see this is the crux of what I'm talking about see this is what I'm talking about the game that these white conservative preachers play in terms of how they love to play around. See, as you want scripture, Proverbs 12, 17 said, a truthful witness gives honest testimony, but a false witness tells lies. Then it says, reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing. Truthful lips endure forever but a lying

tongue lasts only a moment. There is a deceit in the heart of those who plot evil but joy for those who promote peace. Ed, you can't stand in front of the people and then recite the I have a dream portion of Dr. King's speech but you ignore completely everything he said before that. You can't sit here and talk about, oh, how Dr. King wanted the racists to get along and his children and what, y'all, he quote, and he starts crying and his congregation begins to stand up and they begin to clap and cheer

and all that begins to happen. But how dare you as a Christian pastor give a 26-minute sermon extolling dr. King not one time do you talk about what he stood against not one time do you recite the same? Speech where he talked about police brutality. He talked about voter suppression He talked about the economic imbalance in this country. How can you sit here and even quote that particular speech that he gave at Southern Methodist University and totally look over the 6,000 other words he actually gave in the speech? Y'all, go to my iPad. If you actually look at the speech, now the

king in the speech, he talks about the poor. He talks about voter suppression still alive today. He talks about the economic imbalance when it comes to wages and jobs. He talks about all of those things. Yet I don't hear Ed Young talking about any of these issues. I don't hear him talking about what King was referencing. I don't hear him dealing with in all of these volumes the work King was talking about. Y'all go to YouTube. Ed Young has a speech called Socialism vs. Capitalism where he has some strong words

against socialism. The same man who he prays in this sermon, guess what he called himself? A socialist. This book right here is called The Guaranteed Income. It is by Robert Theobald. This is the book. Reverend Al Sampson, who was one of two pastors personally ordained by Dr. King. This was the economic theory that the king believed in when it came to a guaranteed income. King said he was a socialist, but the same Ed Young has harsh words for socialists, yet he stands before the congregation, strips King of all of that to praise him, to make it sound like, oh, we're all together. And if we could just love one another and just stand together, no, Ed, what it requires is for you to

put some skin in the game. What it requires for you, Ed, is to not be, not to drive your conservative theories when you at your church hosted Roy Moore Jr. when he was running against Doug Jones in the Alabama Senate. When you stood there and criticized the cash bail situation, blaming that for crime in the country, when you don't want to confront mass incarceration, where are you, Ed Young, with the Poor People's Campaign and Reverend Dr. William J. Barber fighting for the 140 million poor and low income folks in the country?

You can't stand before the people and praise Dr. King and never mention the poor. You can't stand before the people and praise Dr. King and never mention the poor. You can't stand there and talk about how great and wonderful he was when literally the things that that man was fighting for then still exist today. You can't sit here and strip this man of who he was and how he spoke against the reality of how white folks thought. But, you know, maybe I just ought to just share just a couple of things.

And I'm almost done. And I'm going to let the panelists comment. Then I'm going to go to my next guest. But I just want you all to understand that, yeah, this is what King wrote. White Americans left the Negro on the ground and in devastating numbers walked off with the aggressor. It appeared that the white segregationists and the ordinary white citizen had more in common with one another than either had with the Negro.

Same M.O.K. The same M.O.K. This is what he said. Overwhelmingly, America is still struggling with irresolution and contradiction. It has been sincere and even ardent in welcoming some change. But too quickly, apathy and disinterest rise to the surface when the next logical steps are to be taken. Laws are passed in a crisis mood after a Birmingham or a Selma, but no substantial fervor survives the formal signing of legislation. The recording of the law in itself is treated as the reality of the reform.

Same M.O.K., Ed Young. M.O.K. writes, the real cost lies ahead. The stiffening of white resistance is a recognition of that fact. The discount education given Negroes will in the future have to be purchased at full price if quality education is to be realized. Jobs are harder and costlier to create than voting rolls. The eradication of slums, housing millions is complex far beyond integrating buses and lunch counters. Same M.O.K. Same M.O.K. He then says in here, Negroes have proceeded from a

premise that equality means what it says, and they have taken white Americans at their word when they talked of it as an objective, but most whites in America in 1967, including many persons of goodwill, proceed from a premise that equality is a loose expression for improvement. White America is not even psychologically organized to close the gap.

Essentially, it seeks only to make it less painful and less obvious, but in most respects to retain it. Most of the abrasions between Negroes and white liberals arise from this fact. Same in okay, Ed Young. Same one. Then he says, whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to re-educate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe

they have little to learn. Y'all, that's just in the first 10 pages of the book. I take exception to the sermon, because what Ed Young is doing is what white Christians and white Republicans often do. That is, they want to present a sanitized, clean, saccharine, G-rated version of Dr. King minus all of the stuff that he was fighting for in his 39 years. You can't stand before your congregation, Ed Young, and praise Dr. King and how wonderful he was and how he preached the gospel if you never even mentioned the word poor.

You can't stand there in your fine sanctuary and talk about how amazing he was and how he changed America if you're unwilling to commit yourself to the very things that he actually stood for. Because frankly, all you're doing, if you don't, is providing us with empty rhetoric that is meaningless. If Pastor Ed Young Sr. wants to impress me, I dare you to invite Reverend Dr. William J. Barber to your church. I dare you to invite the Poor People's Campaign and Repairs of the Breach. I dare you, Ed Young,

to hold a one- or two-day conference on your campus with regards to the real life of Dr. King. I dare you to bring Reverend Bernice King to your church and the King Center and have a real dialogue. I dare you, Ed Young, to invite Reverend William Lawson and Reverend Dr. Ralph West and other pastors in Houston, other black pastors in Houston, to come in and say how you, Ed Young, are willing to stand with them on the very issues that Dr. King talked about. Don't sit here and cherry pick out of a sole speech he gave at SMU if you're unwilling to address the other stuff he talked about in the very speech. Please, Ed Young, show me where you called out Senator Tommy Tuberville for his racist comments. Please show me where you have chastised

Donald Trump and other Republicans for their racist and xenophobic comments. Please show me where you have chastised Donald Trump and other Republicans for their racist and xenophobic comments. Please show me where you are willing at the age of 86 to stand in the same spot and say, I'm willing to lift up the same stuff Dr. King believed in. If not, all you did was give yourself a 26-minute pat on the back, shed some tears at the end, and got you an empty standing ovation from your audience, and they left that church just as uninformed as they were when you started.

It's simple as that. Monique, I'm gonna let you start. You sent me a text saying you heard the speech and you had views on it, you agreed with most of it. Now that you heard me lay this out, you can go ahead and comment. Yeah, I don't know that there's ever been a single topic about which we disagreed more. of white people in leadership to speak and galvanize in their own communities and thereby congregations. And I see someone like a Pastor Ed Young with roughly 85,000 people in his ministry who chose, didn't have to, ain't no special day, not MLK day or nothing like that, chose the topic of racism and the talked about slavery and the hundreds of years post-slavery and the hideous actions of the founders of this country and of those who led our country

for hundreds of years thereafter. He mentioned a part that was not included in what you covered, that he is not opposed to even legislation that promotes equality. He discussed the areas in which he thought personally he had been able to assist, such as going in and leading a church that had been led by racists and white supremacists and needing to reach agreement with leadership and the leadership voting and a little more than half of them agreeing so that he could continue there. But the governor who was the deacon being one who did not agree. All of these stories are documented. But to me, the thousands of people in that church that day

likely heard more about the plight of black people in this country from a leader they respect than they had heard in days and days and years and years. He made no mention about plight. He made no mention about plight. He didn't talk about... But why are you interrupting? I'm interrupting because he made no mention of plight. He didn't talk about economics. He didn't talk about education.

He didn't do present day. No, he didn't. He simply was a flyover. He spoke at 30,000 feet. He literally made no specific mention about the condition of African Americans then or now other than we were treated as animals. He simply did not.

Right. Except saying that we've come a long way, but we have further to go. Can you say what we might want to be doing? No, no, no. I'm not saying that he gave an anthology. I'm not saying that he gave an accurate history of slavery

in America and the vestiges of it. I'm not saying that he gave an accurate history of slavery in America and the vestiges of it. I'm not saying that he gave an accurate history of MLK. I'm not even focused on slavery. I'm not saying that he gave an accurate... He wouldn't even mention a single substantive issue Dr. King fought. All he said was he preached the gospel and changed the world.

That's it. As you say, it's your show. No, as I say, it's called Context. No, but you keep, I know, but you had 20 minutes. I'm only trying to take four. Well, actually, I got you, but first of all, you've had three and a half,

and so, but you had three and a half, so I'm going to go to Robert, then I'm going to go to Joe, but you did. Robert, go. Well, you know, I appreciate the effort. There's a meme going around, at least you tried. I think that for many of these white people, as Monique said, this may be their first introduction to even the concept, particularly when you can see nothing but white-winged media 24-7. And so maybe within 10 percent of the congregation will inspire them to go home and do a Google search and find out the full contest and find out the

deeper meaning, to dive deeper into it, to think of themselves differently. I think that any conversation on it has to be the beginning, but we have to keep it going thereafter. What we've seen in the last 50 years or so is I call the Disneyfication of Dr. King, where they've taken the Dr. King that actually existed and turned him into this cartoon character that they can kind of trot out whenever they need to. They usually take the I Have a Dream speech, for example, that was 1,667 words, and they just say, content of character, color of the skin, and that's all they know of the speech. So it's important for us, the people who do understand, who do know, to call these things out,

to make people understand that these individuals were more than just a tagline or a hashtag or a meme, that there was deeper work that was being done, and that the entire civil rights movement wasn't just Dr. King. As Chris Rock said, that that's all we learned about Luther King, that there were hundreds of thousands of people who fought and thousands who died and were imprisoned and lost everything for the journey that we are on. And those are going to be turned back in the upcoming years by the Supreme Court. So it's an important conversation to begin. Now that it has begun, maybe this is where we step in and partner in and walk in and say, well, let me give you some more context. Let's bring some Black ministers, Reverend Barber or Reverend Sharpton or Reverend Jackson

in his younger days to give the full context on what happened and start building those bridges between the two. So I will give him an A for effort. But I do think, as you said, Roland, there's a lot more context that needs to be put in there, a lot more education that needs to be had. But we need to at least begin the conversation. So many of these people are so recalcitrant to the idea of being even presented that they're storming school boards to talk critical race theory. Well, Joe, what you're not going to do is try to throw shade

at the 1619 Project, Black Lives Matter, and woke agenda. We don't know what the hell you're talking about, but then you want to cover it up by saying, well, I love Dr. King. Joe, go ahead. You know, I think one of the scriptures that is mentioned in that same speech by Dr. King is Amos 5 and 4. And a lot of people know the scripture. Us church folk know the scripture.

It says, but let justice roll down like a river and righteousness as an ever flowing stream. But there was a but. So what had happened before was the, what had happened was people had been making the sacrifices that they normally did. Oh, let's kill an animal. Let's do the things that we normally do, God, and it will pacify you. But what God was saying was what you used to do and what you're doing now isn't enough. So let justice roll down like a river. You know, if there was this hypocrisy and this selective memory and this self-righteousness, frankly, despite the effort, some may call it effort,

this is the reasons non-Christians won't become Christians. Got it. And I'm a Christian saying it. And so, really, Martin was called a militant. Ask him. Let's ask Pastor how he felt about Martin when he died. He's old enough to be around.

Was he actually reciting the words from I Have a Dream back in 1963? I bet you he wasn't. Does he have a picture of Jesus that is historically accurate visually today? Probably not. It might be that some people in his congregation, if they saw Jesus as Jesus was to be seen in the natural, they wouldn't even be followers. And so therefore, we are at a place where we have to be truthful. And even the Bible says, 2 Thessalonians 10, people have not a love of the truth. For that reason, they'll be sent strong delusion

to believe the lie. At the end of the day, regardless of his effort, regardless of his intention, and in fact, I don't have a heaven or hell to put him in, and he might get the same grace that I'm in need. I know he needs it. But at the end of the day, he was wrong. And he was wrong from the pulpit. And he's

aligned with Donald Trump, who calls 2 Corinthians 2 Corinthians. He's aligned with fascism. And he's aligned with a lack of truth. Going to truth will make people uncomfortable. Everybody celebrates Martin

as if he lived a long life and they didn't kill him, but they did. Well, and again, all I'm simply saying is if you're going to cherry pick the black supremacy part, don't ignore the other 6,000 plus words of what he laid out. But it's amazing how that's the only part of the speech he referenced. All right, y'all, it's time for our Marketplace segment. Turn it off.

Well, we talked about the history of white folks and black folks in the country. Home ownership and racism in the housing market is one of those issues. Black home ownership has never exceeded 50% in this country. There is a new app that's been put together by Ashley Bell, Dr. Bernice King. They want to level the playing field for black folks in America. They've joined the Four Sisters to shake up the traditional mortgage lending industry, what is called the Ready Life app. It's a platform that offers mortgage loans without a credit score. Ashley Bell joins us right now. Ashley from Atlanta. So no credit score? No credit score, brother. It's good to see you. Thank you for having us.

You know, it's so good to hear you go through everything you went through prior. And, you know, Dr. King and I, Bernice King, started with this concept that we must reimagine what homeownership looks like for the very reason that you said. We live in a country where the average age of the first Black homeowner is 48, but the average age of the Black person in our country lives to be 75, and they have a 30-year fix. So that doesn't add up. That means you're 78 before you pay it off, but you died at 75. We're trying to attack the very core of what's been, since 1991, the biggest barrier,

which is this three-digit number that is a game, a shell game, that we've been asked to play, when really it has no bearing on our ability to pay for a home. And it's new. This whole credit score, yeah. And in fact, I'm glad you said it, 1991, right? Right. Let me tell you how

much of a bullshit this is. 1991, I graduate from Texas A&M. The Birmingham News wants to hire me. 16 editors voted, man, we need to hire this brother. Alabama had a state law that allowed the HR department to deny someone a job because of their credit score.

I got a letter from the HR department at the Birmingham News saying, I would not be offered a job because of my credit score. Wow. And I ain't never let the Birmingham News forget that. So when I get inducted into the Side of Professional Journalists Hall of Fame next week, they ass probably going to get mentioned. But again, it's a perfect example of how this system is specifically how it targets

people of color, it targets folks low income, and it's keeping us from being able to build wealth. You're exactly right. 60% of black people go to bed every night in a home they don't own, but they should be able to because they pay rent that many times is higher than their neighbor's mortgage. And so this is exactly where we hit. We're a bank as a service. So you download our

app. You can go to readylife.com. You bank with us. You'll get a debit card. You'll be able to bank online, pay your bills, all that. We underwrite you based off of cash flow. And so the primary factor we use to underwrite you, you pay your rent through our system. If you're paying $3,000 a month in rent or $2,000 a month in rent in Birmingham, Alabama, and you pay it through our system, between six and nine months, we can look at that and say, all right, you can afford this $2,000 a month rent. So what we're going to do is give you a mortgage that does not exceed $2,000. So we take what we know what you're already doing and give you a mortgage to create generational wealth. Because to me, it means more to ask someone, what can you afford in the history of what you've been able to afford?

They go ask Experian or TransUnion, what's this three digits that we know has everything baked in it that has nothing to do with your ability on a home. One of the main things that hurts black folks from getting a high credit score many times is collections every now and then that have nothing to do with their ability to own a home. Think about how many times people get on their credit score, Planet Fitness, or you go to the gym, you forget to pay a gym membership. That can take your score down 80 points for an $80 bill, and an $80,000 collection can take it down 80 points.

It can't recognize the score. It can't even see the difference. And they won't even tell you what the algorithm is, how it's constructed. I mean, that's what you might be 750 over here, 630 over here, and 690 on another one. And then when you're dealing with the car folk or the house, they'll pick the lowest one. And let me tell you, this is the hard part we all got to understand. Your credit score is not based on your credit. It's your average versus everybody else. At any given moment in our country, 50% of the people have to have a credit score over 700. The other 50% have to have a score below 700.

Where do you think black and brown people sit? And explain. And what they're banking on, that below 50%, that 50% that's below 700, that's who's paying higher interest rates. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And so with our system, everybody's going to pay roughly the same interest rate. We get rid of this because you got a high credit score,

a low credit score, you pay more, pay less. All we care about is what is your history being able to pay for where you live right now. There's so many people that are paying rent every day and rents are going higher than mortgages. So if you can pay your rent, we rents are going higher than mortgages. Yep. So if you can pay your rent, we know you can pay a mortgage.

So Dr. King and I firmly believe that this is the quickest way for us to create generational wealth and get that age of 48 down to 28. So we're targeting really a lot of our college kids. You know, we sponsored the Orange Blossom Classic, Jackson State versus FAMU. We were the presenting sponsor, first NIL deal with a FAMU student. We have to educate the new generation that these credit scores are not the only way for us. All heads. It's hard to think of a world where credit score doesn't run your life. It's hard. And I know when people hear this today, they're like, I've been doing everything I can to work on these three digits, but they should not run your life. You are more than a credit score. Ready life.com. We can get you signed up to get you on a path to home ownership without dealing with these people.

Questions, real quick from our panel. I'm going to start with Robert, you first for Ashley. Hey, Ashley. What's with the romantic lighting over there? Look like you got something going on. What's up, brother?

Before you pull one of your guns out. Hey, look. Look, I think it's great. I got to get you on the radio show to talk about this in particular. When it comes to financial literacy, you've been doing great work, both of them. We were at the SBA and even before

that, on spreading the gospel, people understanding their finances. So you, Bruce Lavelle, some of the others who have been really big on Black generational wealth. What do you think is the biggest barrier for people to become more educated on these financial issues and not kind of finding out too late? Usually folks figure out about their credit score once they already ruined their credit. So what are the things people need to do to learn about these things on the front end as opposed to the back end?

Well, we have to hit at the heart of it. Black people as a whole have a big distrust of financial institutions as a whole for a lot of good reasons, right? When you go back to the core of this, and since we talked history today, the Freedmen's Bureau closed, and it wasn't a good thing. It was closed because Frederick Douglass asked for it to be closed because it was a Ponzi scheme. And it was W.E.B. Du Bois that said we would have been better off being slaves for 10 more years psychologically than have the Freedmen's Bureau closed, and we never trust banks again. We never trust financial institutions again. So it's baked in the cake so many times for us to not trust financial institutions. So we have to get off of bank rails. We're funding these mortgages not with bank money. This is private equity money. This is money coming from big tech balance sheets. So when you take banks out of the equation, you don't have to use that 620 hard marker about who's eligible and who's not.

So we have to educate people that that conditioning that has happened from being told that this three digits is your whole life and determines your worthiness. There's articles that talk about the mental health effects of people having to deal with the shame of these three digits when they are so much more than that. We just get rid of it altogether. And that's what Dr. King and I both believe in, that the future is telling people they're more than a credit score and getting beyond the system. Yes, indeed. Monique? Yes, no. Thank you for everything that you're doing.

It's gotten very loud here, so I'm not going to ask the question. But I appreciate your work. Joe? Thanks, Monique. I appreciate and commend you for what you're doing, brother. As I'm sitting here now, one of the things that we're looking at are lawsuits related to people that have played this credit score game that are black or of color, and because of their zip code, they still wind up with higher interest rates when they're buying cars and things like that. So what are some of the next frontiers that you think? I mean, obviously, I think homeownership is the most important because that is normally people's biggest asset. That's the best way to pass generational wealth. But have you thought

about other frontiers as well in terms of other things that people tend to buy with credit? Yeah, and the two things we're going to launch next year in the Q1 and Q2, first back on the homeowner side. So even if you're watching today and you are a homeowner, you can still sign up at ReadyLife.com because we're going to go and launch HELOCs at the end of Q1 because there's too much discrimination in appraisals. How many times do we see that black folks' houses and Hispanic folks' houses are totally have equity wiped away because somebody's either jealous that you live in there and they don't, or they look at your home and don't like the pictures that are in it and decrease the value of your home. At the end of Q1, we're dropping a 100% AI-driven HELOC where we can underwrite you in five minutes, we can fund you in 48 hours,

and nobody's coming by your house looking at the pictures or anything like that. We're going to have a complete race-free ability for you to get access to the equity that you created. And then Q2, we're going to dive into student loans. We're going to make sure that for half of our HBCUs, which many of them are private, and the school and education that we try to afford for our children, too many times the schools, we get the private loans to get our kids in school, but don't pay attention to that interest rate. That interest rate is what we have to think about later on when you're 35 trying to figure out, well, I'm going to be 75 when I pay this thing off. We have to attack that on the front end and find ways of getting access to educational loans for our students that go to private schools that can't afford or don't have the scholarships to get that interest rate down. And we're going to create a marketplace to drive those down to or don't have the scholarships to get that interest rate down.

And we're going to create a marketplace to drive those down, to make education, especially at our HBCUs, more affordable. Well, look, all of this is critically important. We spend a lot of time with a segment called Where's Our Money? And I get people coming to me saying, man, why are you always talking about money? If you ain't talking about money in America, you ain't having an American conversation. Absolutely. That's what it boils down to. That's exactly right, Roland. If you ain't talking about money in America, you ain't having an American conversation. Absolutely. That's what it boils down to.

That's exactly right, Roland. We always appreciate your time. Everybody can get more information about us at ReadyLife.com, ReadyLife tweets, ReadyLifeUS on Instagram. You can keep up with what we're doing. Dr. King and I have been just, and Van Jones, who's also on our advisory board. It's been incredible, but we need to spread the word. We are more than a credit score. Tell your neighbor, tell your friends. If you see people playing that game, paying people $49.99 to try to fix their credit, all these shell games to try to play with that system,

it's not worth it. We're more than this. We're better than this. Let's do something that is led by our people, but also not just, you know, we don't just advocate for economic justice. We're innovating for it. This is what we deserve, and we think we can get that done best together at ReadyLife.com. Indeed, indeed. Ashley Bell, thanks a lot. We appreciate it. All right, my brother. Talk to you soon.

All right, folks. That is it for us. That's some other stories I was going to do. And also, we had a bunch of fools out there I was dealing with yesterday on social media, lying, being stupid, talking about how I was wrong about the so-called Asian hate crime bill. Y'all, listen. If y'all want to listen to fools who know nothing, who read nothing, then go right ahead. But there is a crisis in our community where we got people who are these Twitter political

scientists, they Twitter economists, they Twitter politicians, they YouTube doctors who don't bother to read anything. And so we deal with that stuff all the time. We deal with truth and realness here. We're not going to sit here and spread BS. When somebody throws something out there, we're going to sit here and say, OK, where'd you get it from? Back it up with fact, as opposed to allowing stuff to continue.

And so you've got a bunch of folk out there calling themselves new black media who don't cover a damn thing. They hide behind curtains and all they do is just talk trash about other people and they're a disservice to our community. So if y'all follow them and you tweet me, I'm blocking your ass. I just am. Because see

what I'm not going to do is we're not going to engage in stupidity because we have enough of that right now. And there's way too much bad information that we are being fed on a consistent basis. And then when somebody black comes on and they say it emphatically, oh, man, that brother speaking truth. No, he's loud and wrong. And so we literally walk through the COVID-19 Hate Crime Act on this show. It is not specific to Asians.

We've said that. We've gone through it. The money allocated, not just for Asians. It's a lie. And so the lies keep coming back, and we're going to smack them down every single time. And if y'all tweet at me, guess what? Yeah, I'm going to go ahead. I even had one fool, y'all going to love this, she got mad.

I can't believe you talking bad about a sister like this here. This fool literally tweeted, well, why were there only Asians in the photo? That means that it only benefits them. And then somebody said, well, it was only men in the photo that signed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and didn't only apply to men. That's the dumb stuff that we have to deal with every day with people who just say stuff, and it's just utterly ridiculous and then people get mad we're rolling why you call them dumb because they dumb okay if

you open yourself up to be dumb i'ma call you dumb as simple as that okay what my man say your mama name is clay i'ma call him clay i'm just gonna call you dumb. I'm just going to call you dumb. If you act dumb, sound dumb, look dumb. Okay? But we need to operate in a state of truth and reality and not fiction. Ugh! It drives me crazy. All right. Robert, Monique, Joe, I appreciate it. Thanks for joining us. If y'all want, Monique, if you get a chance, why don't you send a gift card to Ed Young to pick up some of these MLK papers?

There's seven volumes. They're working on the eighth volume right now. I'm sure he would love to have some additional reading in his library. That'd be great. All right, folks, don't forget, download the Black Star Network app, available on all platforms, Apple Phone, Android Phone,

Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Support us at Bring the Funk Fan Club. Your dollars make it possible to do what we do. So you're checking money order, PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash chat, dollar sign, RM unfiltered. PayPal is rmartin unfiltered.

Venmo is rm unfiltered. Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. Roland at rolandmartinUnfiltered.com. And, of course, get your copy of my book, White Fear, How the Brown of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Mind. Ed Young, you should get that copy as well. I'll be happy to do a book signing at Second Baptist Church if you like. And I'll be in Houston on this Sunday for a GOTV rally.

So, Ed, why don't you drop on by? I wish I could get there early because I'd go to his church. I was last there when my Aunt Lurie died, and I spoke there. I knew there was a spirit in that church I didn't particularly like, but that's how it is. All right, y'all, get White Fear, all the little bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Landy White, shaking your head. What's wrong with you?

And then, of course, you can also get the book on Audible and order from your favorite black bookstore. Hey, y'all, I'm going to see y'all tomorrow right here, Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, Black-owned, unapologetic, Unfiltered. Ho! This is an iHeart Podcast.