#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Dowd for Lt. Gov in TX; George Floyd's brother says Sen. Scott, Graham lied; Ozy Media shuts down

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

10.01.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Matthew Dowd runs for Lt. Governor in Texas; George Floyd, John Lewis, Breonna Taylor statues unveiled in NYC; Texas redistricting favors Repubs; Afghan withdrawal and refugee update; Black & Missing: Na'Siyah McPhaul; GA man uses the "Stand Your Ground" law to justify the killing of a 17-year-old girl; OK Gov. Kevin Stitt says he won't decide whether to spare Julius Jones from execution until after clemency hearing; White Oregon man faces charges for killing an unarmed Black man; Study reveals police killings undercounted over the last 40 years; Education Matters: A look at Doris L. Morrow Academy is a Private School Satellite program Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfilteredDownload the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox#RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today is Friday, October 1st, 2021. Roland Martin Unfiltered broadcasted live from Dallas on the Black Star Network. He was a chief strategist for the re-election of President George W. Bush in 2004. Now he's running for lieutenant governor of Texas as a Democrat. Matthew Dow joins us to talk about why he abandoned the Republican Party

because of the craziness happening in this state. We'll break it down next. Journalist Rula Jabril, she's going to join us as well, talking about Afghanistan, ending war in the United States, and the impact of the last 20 years of the so-called war on terror. You don't want to miss that conversation. Also on today's show, he was hoping to get his death sentence commuted

by Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt, but he's decided to stay out of it and allow clemency here to take place for Julius Jones. We'll have an update on that particular story. Also, we'll talk with Thelonious Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, to talk about the failed efforts of the United States Senate when it comes to the George Floyd Justice Act. Also, a black man in Georgia asserts his stand your ground defense of the death of a white teenager he claims was in a group threatening his life.

Now, how's education matters segment? A mother's love for education and created a school to help students in need. We will talk to the founder of the Doris L. Morrow Academy. Also, OZ Media, company founded by Carlos Watson, exposed by the New York Times on Sunday for fudging numbers and also impersonating a YouTube executive. They've been under assault all week,

shutting down the announcement made moments ago. We'll talk about that and what that means for black-owned media. It's a conversation you do not want to miss. It is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the miss, he's on it. the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Let's go. Sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all

Yeah, yeah It's Roland Martin Yeah, yeah Rolling with Roland now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's fresh, he's real, the best you know He's rolling Martel Martel

Hey folks, I'm here in my native state of Texas, Dallas in particular And Republicans are frankly destroying this state. They have run all statewide. They've held all statewide offices for more than two decades. Last time Democrats held a statewide office, folks, literally it was more than 20 years ago. With them controlling the governor's mansion, the Texas House and the Texas State Senate. They've been run amok, running, passing all kinds of crazy laws, including this year's voter suppression law. You see what Governor Greg Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick are doing when it comes to fighting school districts, when it comes to mask mandates. As a result,

Matthew Dowd, longtime Republican who switched his status to independent, says enough is enough. He is running for lieutenant governor as a Democrat. Here's a video he dropped this week. Three sons and a daughter and buried a son and daughter far too young in Texas soil. For their sake and for all Texans, I'm angry. The GOP politicians have failed us, especially the cruel and craven Lieutenant Governor. Dan Patrick has been lying and deceiving, fracturing the bonds we share and endangering all our lives.

He does not believe in the common good. He seeks only to represent himself and the 5% of the state that goes along with all this. He puts his me over our we. With COVID-19 taking thousands of Texans' lives, Dan Patrick didn't respond to it based on science and prevented local officials from doing the things they needed to do to keep their community safe. And in the aftermath of mass shootings in Texas, he pushed through a bill to make it easier for people to openly carry handguns without a permit or training.

And when the electric grid failed here in Texas, he didn't protect us. He shifted the burden of fixing the system on each of us. And with health care costs out of control, the Texas lieutenant governor waged a culture war, decimating Roe versus Wade and attacking the diversity of our state. And after more Texans voted than ever before, in the most secure election in our history,

the Lieutenant Governor attacked voting rights and has made it harder for all Texans to vote. Enough is enough. We need more officials who tell the truth, who believe in public service and common sense with common decency for the common good and the idea of servant leadership. We need to expect more from our politicians and demand those politicians align with our values. Dan Patrick believes in none of those. And that is why I am running for the powerful office of Lieutenant Governor of this great state. It's time we all stood up to Dan Patrick. I hope you'll join with me in this fight. Thank you.

Joining us right now is Matthew Dodd, a former ABC News contributor, analyst there. Also, again, longtime Republican strategist. Matthew, what was it in particular that caused you to say, as somebody who was a behind-the-scenes guy, somebody who staffed and worked for politicians to get them elected. What caused you to say, I've got to get in this fight and go after these guys? Well, Roland, I think that's a great question. And I think we all are in this moment asking us the same question. I know you ask yourself the same question about what can we do to actually save our country and save our state. I would say, I mean, obviously the last five years were awful. And as you and I both have spoken out against it

and what's happened to it. But January 6th was the moment. I was an independent and became an independent. But January 6th was a moment that was a telling moment to me in the insurrection at the Capitol and then the Republican response to it. And so that combined with the legislative session, this legislative session and the special sessions that just went at an unrelenting attack on the most vulnerable, on all Tex that, I came to the place, what can I do? How can I do this? And I thought that one of the biggest problems in this today is Dan Patrick. And though Greg Abbott has been an awful governor, Dan Patrick, to me, has been the center of a lot of this stuff that's happened, both on guns, on choice, on voting rights, on not doing actions on things we need. And so it, to me, was a combination of January 6th and then watching what they're doing to our beloved state.

You know, the thing that you're seeing, you talk about Dan Patrick. I was the managing editor of the Houston Defender, and that was a public affairs show, a Sunday political show that we taped on Fridays that aired on KPRC, Channel 2, the NBC affiliate. And I often would appear on that show as representative of the Houston Defender when our publisher, Sonny Messiah Giles, couldn't do it. And one of the people who I was debating constantly was Dan Patrick. Now, he used to be a sports anchor in Houston, left the CBS affiliate, then became a conservative radio talk show host, then owned the station. And we would have some big rich debates, but I will even say then,

the Dan Patrick today doesn't even resemble that Dan Patrick. this man is, there's no other word I can think of than obscene to describe his thinking and his approach to politics in Texas. Well, I mean, Roland, I think you nailed it. And there's many, as you've watched, many of these politicians who we thought we knew or we thought they had a center in some place have completely abandoned it in this moment. And I actually think one of the great things about Donald Trump or one of the only great things about Donald Trump is that he's revealed a lot of people's true character.

And in times like this, people's characters are revealed, whether that's for the good or for the bad. And I think Dan Patrick has been revealed for who he is and what he cares about. And it's none of us. It's not you. It's not me. It's not the average person walking down the street. It's a tiny segment of Texas that votes in the Republican primary or that funds him through special interests. And every single response to a major issue that he's had, every single response to a major issue, has been the exact wrong thing to do. As I mentioned, his response to COVID has been wrong. His response to the electric grid failing has been wrong. His response to a very successful election has been

wrong. Every single thing has been wrong. And he consistently, consistently goes out of his way to bash folks, bash many different folks, as I said before, the most vulnerable in all state and the people that actually have the least power in the system. He goes out of his way. And I think, I mean, it's time. And as I said in the video, enough's enough. We've reached the point. You love Texas and I love Texas, but I hate what they're doing to our state. And I hope everybody understands that, not only in Texas, but around the country. This has become, which is why it's great to have this conversation, Texas has become the sort of center of what's happening in our country. And if we can beat this back in Texas, then I think it changes the country.

But I think Texas is bigger than, as we always claim, bigger than anywhere else. But the fight here is the most centered, biggest fight of all in what they've done. They've taken Donald Trump and taken it to a whole other extreme in what they've done. You could, a lot of people, some would say, well, Matthew, you were Republican. I'm quite sure you heard people say you helped contribute to this by electing Republicans. Why don't you run as a Republican? Why run as a Democrat? What caused you to first say, I have to leave this party and then to say, you know what? I could run as Republican against him in the primary, but I'm going to run as a Democrat. So I think I appreciate the question. Great question. And so give people a little history.

I ran the last Democratic campaign statewide that won in Texas. Bob Bullock for lieutenant governor. He was the last Democratic lieutenant governor. I ran his campaign. I actually helped the last Democratic governor, Ann Richards, in 1990. And in the course of that time, I met George W. Bush, met him, became friends with him, went to work for him. And then in 2007, for a variety of reasons that have been very public, I came out publicly, very critical, left the Republican Party, blasted George W. Bush over the war and over many other things. And I was done then in 2007 with the Republican Party. Fourteen years ago, I was done then because I sensed the direction they were going. I became an independent in the course of that. But the last year or last year and a half, I've come to the conclusion that the only vehicle today that's available

that is a Democratic small d entity is the Democratic Party, because the Republican Party has become an autocratic entity. It is gone. It is done as a constitutional small d Democratic Party. That is over. It is who they are. And so anybody that claims otherwise is either deluded or is fooling themselves in the course of this. And so in my view, the only vehicle to sort of enunciate a program of what you want to do to return our state and our country to a place that we all love is through the Democratic Party in this. And as I said, they're the only vehicle to save our republic. I think in anybody's case, no matter who it is, Liz Cheney or all of these other folks

that think somehow they're going to speak truth and somehow it's going to change it, it's not. In my view, Roland, the only way the Republican Party changes, and I wish there was an enlightened Republican Party that had conservative principles that believed in the same values that you and I do, there's not. But the only way they may get back to reality is if they lose up and down the ballot resoundingly. They lose up and down, and maybe, just maybe, it's a chance, maybe, just maybe by losing, they'll return to some sense of decency and common sense. Other than that, they're not going to return to decency and common sense. And when you say lose, I've seen your tweets.

You say they must lose everywhere. They can't lose a few races. They need to be brought to their knees. Yes. From governor to sheriff, from every office, from U.S. Senate all the way down to county commissioner, whether it's in Dallas or Houston or Hayes County, where I live here in Wimberley, they need to lose every single office because they need to be held single office because they need to be held accountable. And even these people that you've talked to and I've talked to that say, well, that's not really me, but I'm going to run as a Republican. Every single person that stands up right now and runs as a Republican is facilitating the problem, is facilitating

the problem that exists. They enable the problem that exists because that's who the Republican Party is. They need to lose resoundingly and they need to lose everywhere, not just in blue states or purple states. They need to lose in red states. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

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One of the things that also just jumps out in terms of what we are seeing, I mean, here was a state that Donald Trump won, and it still called for an audit. And then you have Governor Greg Abbott, as opposed to saying, we're not going to waste taxpayer dollars. No, he said, sure, we're going to audit, not the state, the four largest counties that happen to be blue. Yeah, he's he's out in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and Collin County, three of which Biden won

and one of which Biden did overwhelmingly well because the changing diversity of the county, where they're auditing is the pockets of the state with the largest amount of peoples of color and the largest amount of states that diversity is fundamentally changing over time. And that's where they're auditing. And to me, Greg Abbott has become completely craven in this, completely craven in this. In many ways, Greg Abbott is a very weak person because Donald Trump, you know, says bark, he barks, and Greg Abbott just says, how high should I jump every time he does that? And it shows you where the Republican Party has come from. And to me, they're not leaders. And I always sometimes call them GOP leaders. They're not leaders because what leaders do is leaders speak truth to their supporters. When their supporters are off on

the wrong track or people that you're friends with are going the wrong direction, what a leader does is say, wait a sec, that's not right. What we need to do is X, Y, and Z. Greg Abbott doesn't do that at all. And the fact, as I said, that we had the most successful election, the highest turnout in our history in a state that is the hardest state to vote in in the country. We ranked 50th, 50th in ease of voting. In the 90s, when I was doing Democratic campaigns in Texas, we ranked 14th. We ranked 50th in ease of voting today. Just a couple more questions for you. In terms of looking at the outlook next year, I just saw a recent poll that showed how President Joe Biden has lost some support

among all major Democratic groups. People are frustrated the George Floyd Justice Act hasn't passed before the People Act. They're frustrated by Arizona Senator Christian Sinema, Democrat, frustrated by West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin. Are you concerned that in Texas, because there's frustration that Democrats have not done more, that you're going to see the press turn out? Because again, also Republicans, they control the entire state. What is the key? First of all, you've got to win the primary. You do have competition in that. But what do you see as the key for Democrats to actually break the Republican death grip on this state and actually win? What has to happen? So I think the first thing, and this is something I'm going to do as a strategy, is I'm only going to talk about the Republicans.

I have a Democratic primary. I'm not going to talk about my Democratic opponent at all. I'm going to say this race is about Dan Patrick and removing this pariah from office that has so badly damaged our state and so badly hurt people. So, one, a singular focus. People need to have a singular focus and understand this. Two, we have to be passionate and unrelenting about this. Passionate and unrelenting about this.

This idea that you're going to sort of be nuanced and moderate on certain things and I'm going to be calm and I don't want to affect somebody. We have to be exceedingly passionate. And we can be passionate on things and we can be unrelenting on things, but the way to win is do all of that, but also have Texans understand that you're culturally aligned with them, that you root for the same teams as them, that you go to the same places as them, that you love the cafe, that you love this food that they love, that we have to be culturally aligned with folks. And in that way, all of the major issues I'm going to talk about,

raising the minimum wage, ensuring that Roe versus Wade is enforced and not underwritten, making sure people can vote, all of those, expanding Medicaid so the most vulnerable and people that are without health insurance have some access to health insurance, all of those things are exceedingly popular among Texans. But it has to be done in a way that people see who I am, see my values. And I'm going to be very passionate about this. I don't believe in the term moderate and all of that. I think those are gone out the window. What we have to do is stand up for who we are, be authentic to it, be passionate about it, and give people a sense of hope of a possible. Give people the sense that we're going to take this fight to them. I think Democrats for too long have not fought and fought and fought hard enough in order to achieve what

they need to achieve. They have the legacy that we honor of all the people that came before us that were beaten on bridges, that were killed, that were all of that. Those are the people that we should be mirroring, not the people that said, well, I was able to reach a deal in subcommittee or whatever it happens to be. We have to mirror the people before us that fought for all of the rights that we enjoy today. Matthew Dow, joining us live from Wembley, Texas. Matthew, I appreciate it. Certainly good luck. I'm here. I spoke to the University of Texas at Arlington on Wednesday. Been hanging out with family. I was with the former Dallas mayor and trade ambassador, Ron Kirk. We were playing golf today and he definitely said he's happy to see you and others get in the race. He said because he wants to see folks do exactly what you said, that is be passionate and lead and help this state out and get away from the crazy folks who are leading it right now.

So we certainly appreciate it. And I'm sure we'll be talking more in the future. Thanks, Roland. Take care, man. Thanks a lot. Want to bring my panel right now. Roger Muhammad, radio and TV host. Michael Imhotep, host of the African History Network show. Kelly Bethea, communications strategist. Glad to have all three of you here. Kelly, here's why I think it's very interesting. Matthew spent all those years as a Republican. Here he's running as a Democrat. When you heard him describing the weakness of Democrats when they run, he kind of knows because he actually ran against them. Right. I mean, and we've been talking about this on your show for a very long time,

just the way that Democrats have kind of botched outreach and communications and campaign strategy when it comes to, you know, bringing it home and making sure that people are not on their side just because the other side sucks, but they're on their side because they believe in the policies and the initiatives of the party because the message is that strong and pointed. Democrats have lost that for years now. And for Dow to make note of that and still come on to this side just shows you just how messed up the Republican Party in Texas is. Not only that, Michael, what we're really talking about here is what Matthew was saying is you've got to fight.

You've got to swing. And the reality is, for a long time, I'm telling you in this state here, Democrats, they were scared to run for office. The best way for you to lose is never to run anybody. You've got to run people. Howard Dean talked about building a 50-state strategy, talking about how do you win. And the reality is this year, too many Democrats focus on national races, and they ignored state races. They ignored DAs. They ignored school board races. They ignored the State Board of Education. They ignored those positions. And Republicans all across the South were able to come in and lock the positions up. Now you control redistricting. Now you control gerrymandering.

Now you control all the laws. You've got numerous states where Republicans don't even have to listen to Democrats because they have a super majority. This is how you fight back, but you've got to have a message that speaks, and this is where Democrats make a mistake. Democrats speak to the minds of people.

Republicans speak to the hearts of people. And you know what? Voting is an emotional thing. Yeah, you know, that's a lot there, Roland. I've said before, I said before here on this show, dude, you know, you got to be more like Mopumpy Johnson. I'm serious. You've got to fight. And, you know, I'm all caught up on season two of Godfather Harlem. But Bumpy Johnson said to be a politician, you got to have a little gangsta in you. I agree. I think in Texas, you need to have a lot of gangsta in you. You deal with some of those dumbass Republicans in Texas. But, yeah, he's correct. The other thing is he's helped Democrats win back in the 90s, and he's also helped Republicans defeat Democrats as well. So, you know, I saw him a couple days ago and saw his announcement, Matthew Dow.

So, you know, this is really important. But, yeah, now I think in the past maybe two years or so, or maybe four years, I think some because of social protests and things like this, I think some people, many African Americans are starting to realize, OK, look, it's not just about the president. It's also about the district attorney. OK, it's also about these local races, but you're right. Republicans focus on down ballot, especially federal judges and U.S. Supreme Court judges, which is something that Democrats usually don't talk about except maybe in the last year or so. So we see the results of a 6-3 Supreme Court. Okay. So yeah, this is why all these positions are important,

top ballot and down ballot. You know, Faraji, when I talk about in terms of how you have to approach this, I go back, and let's be real clear. I've never in my career self-identified as a Democrat or Republican. I'm going to kick somebody's ass on anything. So let's just be real clear. Black folks who I think are wrong,

yeah, I'm coming after you. And I'm going to hold you accountable because my philosophy has always been, if you do good, I'll talk about you. If you do bad, I'll talk about you. At the end of the day, I'll talk about you. But I'll tell you, when I was on CNN, it was very interesting when, and I'll never forget, it was a State of the Union night, and CNN made this big old deal about hiring Eric Erickson, who was the editor of redstate.com. Far right-wing, white conservative evangelical.

And so, man, we're sitting there, and we're on the set, and so he comes on, and I like Eric. He's a nice guy, but Eric came on cocky. He came on arrogant. And here's the whole deal, as Joe Namath said. He said, it ain't bragging if you can do it. So he comes on and then he goes, you know, that speech Obama just gave, he didn't even mention small businesses. He didn't mention, he went on and I was sitting there next to David Gergen and I went, what did he just say?

I said, that's a lie. Now everybody else was just, you know, nodding their head. And I'm going, hell no. That's a lie. And I'm not going to let you sit here and lie on TV. And so my whole body was like, oh, hell no. And so I think it was Campbell Brown goes, well, Eric, I think Roland takes exception to your speech. I said, I sure do. I said, I'm sorry.

What speech were you just looking at? Did you not hear when he specifically mentioned this business in Arizona? I pulled a speech out. This business? This business? I said, so how are you going to come sit here and say he never talked about small businesses? I said, so how you gonna come sit here and say, he never talked about small businesses. I said, now hell it up. When right here, he mentioned several.

And let it sit there. All the rest of them progressives who on CNN, they were like, you know, I said, hell no. When I come for debate, I come to kill and destroy. I want to kill and destroy all of your arguments. I want to put your ass in the rhetorical body bag and ship your body on and bury you. Now, that's the attitude Democrats got to have. Because if you're going to swing, then swing.

You know why Democrats don't have that same attitude, Brother Roland? It's very simple. It's because they still believe that the old school way of doing politics is the best way. And at this point, we're seeing it day by day. I mean, look at the condition of this country. We're seeing that you got to take the gloves off. I have been frustrated with Democrats, even when, and I think that we take Madam First Lady Michelle Obama's words really out of context because we use her words in so many different situations. When they go low, we go high.

That's in some cases. This, when you're talking about politics, you need to look at Sun Tzu's art of war. You need to figure out what's the landscape, what's the best route to take, how should you move the men or how should you move the followers? You know, how aggressive should your tactics be?

When do you pull back on certain things? But it just seems like the strategy for a lot of Democrats and when we see, and this is one of the big frustrations I see with President Biden right now, it's like, dude, you never can use, I mean, when is somebody going to say, man, hell with all this other stuff, we're going to do it just like this. It's always talking about building coalitions, you know, stretching hands across the aisle. And so this is the type of slow, ineffective, and in a lot of ways, an approach that really doesn't garner any real benefit for the American people that we're constantly seeing.

So basic things like, you know, I was disturbed by the conversation that you were having, uh, Brother Roland, in regards to the-the failed talks around the George Floyd policing bill. And then it's like, that is a very simple thing. We... This whole country was shaken up in the summer of 2020 around the pre... the premise of policing in America.

And you mean to tell me you couldn't get a damn bill like this to go through? Like, you couldn't use your bully pulpit? You couldn't just come out swinging? I mean, that is a failed opportunity that the Democrats had right there in the lab. You got the consensus from the people. You got black people, white people, brown folks. You got everybody that's saying we need to change this. And then it gets into the halls of Congress. It gets into the House and it gets into the Senate. And it just slows down the momentum. And then we get nothing at the end of all of this stuff. And this is why, you know, as I was listening to Mr. Dow, you know, I'm going to be interested to see how he's going to be able to move forward in his campaign. First, he's got to build the trust among progressive Democrats because he sounds like he's a white man that's come to some level of an awakening.

But he's going to have to figure it out how he's going to move forward with progressive Democrats. And then, more importantly, the Democrats are going to have to really see there's already a fracture within the party as it is, but the Democrats are going to have to see if Texas, and you know the big three states anything, anytime something happens in this country, California, Texas and Florida, if Texas starts to move in a different direction, if this man is able to become the lieutenant governor, then he's going to have to deal with the joke of Greg Abbott, the governor

there, and what is that going to be like? What is going to be the relationship? Well, you've got to remember. You've got to remember. First of all, let me help you out. A couple of things. One, Greg Abbott's numbers are way down, and Beto O'Rourke is probably going to announce he's running for governor. Two, this is the most important thing.

The most powerful person in Texas is not the governor. It's the lieutenant governor. Because the lieutenant governor in Texas controls the Texas Senate. That's the difference. So, literally, the power in Texas is in the lieutenant governor's hands, not the governor. That may sound crazy, but that's how it is. And so that's why this matters. But I'm telling you, the bottom line is here.

And what I'm saying, the same thing was happening in D.C. everywhere. If you're a Democrat, you need to get some guts and swing because the opposition, they don't apologize for exercising power. They exercise power and then look at you. This is how the Republicans do. They operate like back in the day, if you were a wide receiver and you came across the middle of the field and Ronnie Locke laid your ass out and then looked at you and the look said, don't bring they run across the middle of the field, and when they try to catch the ball, they see running lock coming, they get those crocodile arms, they get real short, and they only catch the ball because they're afraid to get hit.

You can't be in politics and afraid to get hit. But guess what? Instead of getting hit, learn they hit them first and knock them the hell out. That's all I'm saying. Real quick, real quick. I mean, just real quick, brother Roland, I'm wondering how long do you do the Democrats

truly believe that this approach of waiting and trying to build relationships and all of those things with the Republican party, how long do they think that's going to work until the American people say enough is enough. No, I'm telling you, no. No, no. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution.

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

Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at

Lava for Good Plus on Appleugs Podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players

all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Sh Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote

drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now

isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree.

It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. For Roger, here's the problem. This is the real problem right here. And this is real quick. We've got my next guest. The Republican Party party you're either

right or far right the problem but see let me really let me unpack this real quick for our people because this is the problem the democrats can't is a larger tent right you have centrists moderates progressive liberals far- liberals, much larger tent. You've got to you've got to satisfy a lot of constituencies in there. But his body had to do that because because Republicans have controlled control gerrymandering and they control the point of more Supreme Court justices, they are crafting districts that are more purple or even than Republican districts. So the reason the Republicans can be more hardcore is because they basically have crafted safe districts.

You have more Democrats. They've got they've got to be more middle of the road because of how their congressional districts are drawn. You take Pennsylvania outside of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and the suburbs. Pennsylvania is Alabama. So if you run for statewide office in Pennsylvania, you can't be, you know, uber liberal and only appeal to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh because you're going to get crushed. That's what Matthew was saying. Texas is the same way. If you only appeal to liberals in Harris County, Dallas County, Bexar County,

Collin County, Travis County, you're going to get crushed in West Texas. But what he's saying is, running with passion, what he's saying is, I'm going to make an argument that even talking to those people, that I'm appealing to them on policy that speaks to their hearts. That's what he's talking about, that Democrats play this nice, fine line. That's part of the problem. You have given Republicans an advantage to control the political apparatus to force you where you've got to be moderate, centrist and all of this, as opposed to being far more progressive the way you should. And so that's the delicate thing that's going on here. And so, again, for all these people watching, let me be real clear. OK, I vote Republican.

I vote Democrat. I vote independent. I voted nonpartisan. I vote Democrat. I vote independent. I vote nonpartisan. I vote based upon the issues. I will say this, as Matthew said, and I agree 100%. The current state of the Republican Party, I want every single one of them to lose in every race in America because they must be obliterated for what they are doing.

And if any of them stand with Donald Trump, they stand with the folks on January 6th, they must be taken out politically. And there ain't no other way around this. Now, folks, earlier, when I was talking to Matthew, I mentioned President Joe Biden's falling polling numbers. A lot of that really started with the, as some people call the debacle, when it came to getting, pulling out of Afghanistan.

Bottom line is this here. Afghanistan was never going to be a nice pullout. It was always going to be full of drama. But it hasn't had tremendous impact. And he did have the courage to say enough is enough when it comes to the war, in terms of how we're operating. Rula Jabeel, she is a phenomenal journalist. She is, you've seen her on many other networks and other shows as well, in terms of really dealing with this issue of Afghanistan,

the Middle East, what our foreign policy looks like. Rula, I've been trying to have you on the show for years. Finally glad to have you on. So let's talk about in terms of where we are. And I'm going to use that Democrat-Republican sort of deal here. Democrats, in many ways, try to operate Republican-lite. Either you're going to be a Democrat or you're going to be a Republican. Now we see when it comes to foreign policy how they they've done the go along to get along, how we've spent trillions of dollars, nothing to show for it. Your assessment on how the media went after Joe Biden caused a massive failure. going forward to get people to understand that, look, it may have been messy, but we needed to end that crazy war 20 years in Afghanistan. Roland, finally, good to meet you.

So let me start by saying it is astonishing. It's truly astonishing that we're talking about so-called progressive Democrat. We're talking about three trillion dollars, but no one. And it's another failure of top of failure of 20 years war on terror. Both chambers just approved seven point five trillion dollars in budget in defense budget for the United States over the next 10 years. Regardless the failure in Afghanistan, regardless the defeat and the failure and the catastrophic humanitarian catastrophe that was created as consequence of this war on terror, regardless the fact that our investment, trillions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq, basically was obliterated. We had a government in Afghanistan that ran off in two

seconds. The people who are holding the line are actually the women. And I'm saying this because people, progressives or so-called progressive, who don't want to invest in uplifting people from poverty in the United States. They don't want to basically fight against climate change that is literally killing 7 million people every year. They don't want to defend Americans against poverty, against all kind of issues here at home, but they're willing unanimously, unconditionally, give more trillions of dollars to an apparatus,

to the defense industry that produced nothing except desperation, radicalization, and nothing else. If we look at the war on terror and we look how everybody is jumping at the throat of President Biden for ending something that we knew was going from worse to worse, that was producing nothing, jumping at his throat is another failure of journalism and of our corporate media that wants to engage in these countries on one issue, how to bomb more. Instead of building schools or bridges overseas or give scholarships or building human infrastructure or investing in the next generation, we are willing to invest trillions of dollars, $7 trillion in bombs

and helicopters and uniforms and missiles. When is this going to be debated and discussed? When is this ever going to be questioned? Because so far, we keep repeating the same mistake, hoping in a different outcome, and we're becoming crazier and crazier. I mean, I understand why Republicans are crazy somehow. Obviously, I see that they create their own, you know, eco-chamber of narrative, and they have propaganda machine that brainwash them. But what about progressives and Democrats?

I mean, I cannot fathom why in the 21st century it is so hard to take from trillionaires and billionaires and give a little bit more to average Americans who don't want their children to die in these wars. By the way, these are the people that lost their children and fought in these wars. And now they are slipping into poverty. When is this going ever to be debated in mainstream media? You know, it's very interesting, Rula, when I ran the Dallas Weekly, there were some independent journalists who went to Iraq and they brought back these really haunting images of Iraqis who sustained so many lost lives. lives and um and i remember putting i think i did probably about a six or eight page spread and folks were calling me this is propaganda you're putting this out and i said whoa wait a

minute hold up i said so we are not to talk about the hundreds of thousands of iraqis who were killed? Even this drone strike. Okay, the United States lied. Oh, we took out someone who's about to do a car bomb. After reporting, they killed 10 innocent Afghans.

I listen to these Republicans, so-called pro-life, who don't give a damn that 10 Afghans were killed in a drone strike, seven children. And it's like, no big deal. greatest, one of the greatest mistakes that President Obama has not been fully held accountable for were the drone strikes that he also authorized that were killing innocent people. We cannot be so pro-America that we don't give a damn when thousands upon thousands of people, innocent people are being killed because under the guise of the war on terror. I listen, I agree with you totally. I think it is. It's one of the things

that I always wondered why somehow it is acceptable that brown and black people overseas can get bombed, live under military occupation, get tortured, killed. And it is okay somehow to depict that as, yeah, it is what it is, but in the name of national security and stability in the Middle East, how is that ever produced anything except insecurity, radicalization, et cetera? If we look at our foreign policy and our policies towards especially brown and black Muslims, it is no different than Jim Crow. It is no different than our racist policies here in the United States. When you deny people the right to vote here, but then you enable a dictator over there who basically not only deny the vote,

rule for 30, 40 years like Sisi, and you keep pumping money into his coffers. We are basically sending a message to all of these people, you deserve dictatorship. You deserve to live as slaves in your own countries. I will never forget, Ronald, I was in Cairo when President Obama gave a speech. One of my assistants, because I was working there at the time, kept listening to the speech. And I asked him at one moment, why are you listening to the speech? And he said, Rula, this guy is black like myself. This guy's father is a Muslim like me. He can be president of his country and I cannot vote. And I realized that our foreign policy is a consequence of our white nationalist policies, domestic policies that reigned and continue to reign and continue to be part of America's DNA.

Speak. Say that. I mean, that's just being real about our foreign policy. I want to bring in my panel here because I want each of them to ask a question of you, Rula. I'm going to start with Michael. Michael, go right ahead. Hello, Ruler. Hey, thanks for coming on today. You know, I was reading a statement from Senator Jeff Merkley about Afghan refugees and about aid being given to Afghan refugees coming to the U.S.

Can you, and then also at the same time, we look at how Haitians have been treated and Haitians being deported, even though about 12,000 have been allowed to stay here and apply for political asylum. Can you talk about the discrepancy in the way Afghans are treated, refugees coming here, and Haitians, and put that into context? Look, it's this continuation of the same policy that the United States enacted after 9-11. And if you look at it this way, in the 60s, people like you and me and Ronald and everybody that is on this panel

was treated as not only second-class citizens, as somehow as a foreigner in this country. Trump rose to power by delegitimizing the first African-American president in this nation, calling him. He couldn't be American. Guess what? Because he's black. He was saying that private lot with a private part loudly somehow. And he was, you know, camouflaging his language, using a different language. But this is no different than these people marching in Charlottesville saying Jews will will not replace us. Anybody that is different in this country is an illegitimate

somehow voter or is stealing something or somehow can't be an American. So our war on terror, which is our foreign policy, by the way, and our refugee policy are the same part that stems from the same doctrine. And the doctrine is called white supremacist. It's entrenched in the DNA. You know, every two years, Republicans find something to discuss, gay marriage, something to distract their base with. Today, what is it? Critical race theory. Exactly. Every two years, they find a boogeyman. And the boogeyman is always a black man or a black woman to rally against. It was the Afghans or it was the Iraqis. It was bin Laden. I mean, the failure of our media not to make people understand that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11 and Saddam Hussein,

as horrible as he was, had nothing to do with 9-11. And Saddam Hussein, as horrible as he was, had nothing to do with 9-11. But in order to sell that war, they need to sell lies after lies. Are we surprised that Trump is selling different lies? These lies started with a war on terror. We normalize the kind of lies that Trump decided to jump and decide to lie about the identity of the first African-American president. And now he's lying about the elections, about millions of people voting. Who is he talking about? He's talking about us, about you, me, Ronald, and every black man and woman in this country. In his eyes, in the eyes of the white supremacists, we are illegals, illegitimate invaders. This is no different than, and we

belong where? In his eyes, in these camps that he established on the border of Texas. The way they are treating the Haitian refugees, if we look at history books, there's no difference than what they treated our brothers and sisters in the South during slavery. It's no different. Thank you. Kelly. Sure. Thank you for coming on. My question originally was regarding Haiti, but another thing that I have been struggling to understand is how, like you said, almost $7 trillion, I believe, has been approved to spend on defense over the course of 10 years.

But we can't come to a number of $3 trillion for infrastructure and things happening in this country, specifically Manchin saying, quote, he doesn't want to change society to an entitlement mentality. It is frustrating to me on many fronts how he's the senator for, if not the poorest state in the country, certainly one of the top five poorest states in the country, for him to consider $3 trillion, the programs that would fund as entitlement, I can't imagine what his constituents are feeling right now regarding those statements, if they even understand them. But the dissociation from what is and what you want, especially when it comes to senators and congressmen

against raising the limit on the infrastructure bill number to $3 trillion. The dissociation with that is really, really jarring. So I just want to know what your thoughts are on about that and what can congressmen possibly do at this juncture to really hold strong to the $3 trillion number? Thank you for this question. Actually, Democrats' agenda and the progressive agenda is being derailed, derailed sadly. And I say this, and it's the continuation of U.S. policy since the 80s, since 1980s, whereby you have some politicians, Sinema and Manchin, some of them, somehow managed to put the positions themselves in a way where billionaires, corporations, their lobbyists

can actually buy off politicians. And it is called legal. And what they want to enshrine, consolidate inequality in this nation. At the expense of who? Working class Americans who are basically slipping into deep poverty. Think of this. And I always think of this and it's really coming from the Middle East especially where we are on the saving end of that expense budget, you know, where basically we use that expense budget to bomb to oblivion entire countries. I think of Yemen. It's being bombed now.

The poorest country in the Middle East is being bombed with American bombs that are being given to Saudi Arabia or sold or somehow we help them. There's so many countries that were destroyed. So we talk about life, but we don't care about that life. But I'm thinking about the sheer volume of that money. I mean, $7.5 trillion over 10 years, given unconditionally without any conditions to the defense, you know, basically industry that we know that a lot of them are deeply corrupt. But we're unwilling to invest in human infrastructure and to uplift people from poverty or even to pass saving people lives and save our planet. How is that hard? You know, I think of Senator Manchin and I think of the poverty of the people that elected him, voted for him, and how he doesn't care because Sinema, as we speak, is hosting a fundraising with these lobbyists who are,

and all of these industries that want to tank Biden agenda. What she is doing after tweeting for decades and telling progressives that she would fight for the poor and basically people who are marginalized, she arrives there and she starts cashing on the fact that she is derailing and tanking that agenda. I mean, how corrupt this person can be. And one of the reasons why I get so frustrated is who vet these people? There is no vetting process to understand who are we getting elected. Where's the Democratic Party? What are you doing? And believe me, it's not for me at this point. It's whether they pass the infrastructure bill. If tried that coup and he failed. But the next time they will not fail. And I'm telling you, it's not going to be about infrastructure or planet.

He's going to do exactly what every fascist dictator did around the world. He's going to be at this point, he's going to purge every, basically every agency and put his loyalists, and there will be no good people next time to stand up for the Constitution. So Sinema and Manchin are not only derailing the agenda, they are willing to gamble with our lives and basically destroy democracy. I will blame them for the rest of our lives, and history will not be kind to them, because if Trump and Republicans get elected, guess what? They have to say goodbye to democracy, to America's democracy and the American experiment.

And I believe the violence we've seen is nothing compared to the violence that is coming. I predicted Trump victory in 2015. I saw the language. I saw what he was trying to do. I predicted the violence of January 6th because the writings are on the wall and what's coming is even worse.

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

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the war on drugs. But we are back in a big way,

in a very big way, real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star studded a little bit, man. We got a Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman trophy winner.

It's just the compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org.

Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Faraji, your question for Rula. Yes, Rula, thank you so much for joining us here on the show. I just had a question in regards to a very interesting part of this infrastructure bill as it relates to Israel. Robert Wetzler, who is the president of the S. Daniel Abraham Center on the Middle East Peace in Washington, wrote an op-ed just a couple of days ago for The New York Times talking about the fact that progressive Democrats are now raising some real concerns about the relationship between the United States and Israel. They put it in as part of the country's infrastructure bill. And, Rula, tell me,

you know, what do you see as being, you know, what do you take from this? But they put it as part of this bill that is supposed to be for domestic issues, to give Israel $1 billion to fix and support the Iron Dome missile defense system right there in Israel as part of this unflinching, unwavering support for Israel. They didn't do this for any other country. There hasn't been any other monies allocated for any other part of the region or part of the world. But what do you make of this? What are you seeing as being the future of these relationships now that progressives are saying not just, hey, why are we giving this money, but why are we still continuing to support Israel in spite of the fact of the latest flare-up that happened back in May. What do you take from this, Rula?

Listen, again, it's incredible that Israel is more important than uplifting people from poverty, than pre-K, than dental care for the elderly, than basically anything in America. And again, what is Israel is about today? It is an ethno-nationalist state of purity and exclusion. It is a military occupying power that subjugates millions of people in the West Bank and Gaza who have no right whatsoever. Even Israeli organizations are calling it apartheid. We are funding an apartheid state, and we're unashamed about it.

The entire world voted at the United Nations General Assembly to make Palestine a state, voted for statehood, except the United States. And we're looking at the United States, the country that abolished slavery and elected an African-American man and elected the most multiracial, multiethnic democracy, is looking at an ethnocracy and basically a Jewish supremacist state and saying, yeah, we don't mind that. We will bankroll that. We don't mind that. We don't mind that you're caging people and stripping them of every right, killing them left and right, bombing them to oblivion.

Because basically, which is a continuation of the war on terror somehow, but in the name of the war on terror, we're enslaving people over and again. But it's no different than giving the dictator in Egypt the $2 billion, knowing every year, knowing that he torture, abduct, rape, and kill people. We don't care. 70,000 political prisoners live in his dungeons. We know they are being tortured and raped and assaulted. We know all of that. Regardless of that, Trump called him my favorite dictator, and we continue to give him

the money because we don't care about black and brown people overseas. We're willing to put these autocrats, but we don't want an autocrat or a dictator in America. So if you don't want a dictator in America, why do you think Palestinians want a dictator? Why do you keep emboldening other dictators and apartheid states overseas? And then we go after Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar and others. Surprise, surprise. The black people in the Senate, in Congress, and tell them that there are anti-Semites. Anti-Semitism is being weaponized to shut down any criticism of Israel. Guess what? Modern political ideology is not people and it's not a religion. These are two separate things. Every country, every government, every state should be criticized, should be scrutinized and should be transparent. And if you shut down a debate

in name of hatred against a religion group of people, you're basically conflating these two things and helping. I will never forget, and to your question, when Charlottesville happened, Trump defended these neo-Nazis who said Jews will not replace us. And he was praised by Jewish leadership saying, you know, he's the most pro-Israeli. Guess what? Because he gave money for the occupation. How can you reconcile these things? Democrats have to really start examining their policies overseas. And all of that money that's being given left and right, whether the $7 trillion to the defense industry, to the Pentagon, the billions of dollars given to dictators around the world,

while our people here at home are slipping more and more into poverty, mothers cannot go anymore. I mean, this pandemic wiped out millions of dollars, generational, basically, income, especially of black and brown people, and especially women. And they're unwilling to address this issue in the name of what? What security Israel guarantee for whom? When we know that from documents, from the Pentagon documents, or 9-11 Commission, we know that this is the number one issue that radicalized people historically across the Middle East. So they're lying to themselves. They're lying to us. And this is corruption on steroids. Rula Jabril, we certainly appreciate you joining us. Folks, Please follow her on social media.

You definitely want to get her analysis. Like I said, I've been trying to get her on our show for quite some time. So certainly glad we could make it happen. Rula, let's let's do it again. Yes. Any time. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks a lot. All right. Then, folks, got to go to break. We come back. Lots more on Roland Martin unfiltered here on the Black Star Network. We're going to talk with one of the brothers of George Floyd about the failure to get the Senate to act on the George Floyd Justice Act. Also, a black man stands his ground in Georgia and killing a white teen. We'll talk with the NAACP there. Plus, we'll also deal with another story out of Oklahoma. Julius Jones, the brother where they say this is a grand clemency.

Why is the governor acting on this? There's all kinds of drama there. We'll talk with a guest there as well. Lots to unpack, folks, right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered, broadcasting live from Dallas, Texas. Be sure to support us, folks. Download the Black Star Network app. We want to have 50,000 downloads

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Women have always been essential. So now how are you going to pay us like that? And it's not just the salary. I mean, there are a whole number of issues that have to support us as women. Yeah, but that's what we deserve. We shouldn't have to beg anybody for that. I think that we are trying to do our best as a generation to honor the fact that we didn't come here alone and we didn't come here by accident. I always say every generation has to define for itself

what it means to move the needle forward. It's time to be smart. We'll be right back. The video looks phenomenal, so I'm really excited to see it on my big screen. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. I got to defer to the brilliance of Dr. Carr and to the brilliance of the Black Star Network. I am rolling with rolling all the way.

I'm honored to be on a show that you own. A Black man owns the show. Folks, Black Star all the way. Honored to be on a show that you own. A black man owns the show. Folks, Black Star Network is here. I'm real revolutionary right now. Roland was amazing on that. Stay black. I love y'all. I can't commend you enough about this platform

that you've created for us to be able to share who we are, what we're doing in the world, and the impact that we're having. Let's be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You can't be black on media and be scared. You dig? Y'all know who Roland Martin is.

He got the ascot on. He do the news. It's fancy news. Keep it rolling. Right here. Rolling. Rolling Martin. Right now. You are watching Rolling Martin unfiltered. I mean, could it be any other way? Really. It's Rolling Martin. Let's go. August 29th, 2021 in Baltimore, Maryland.

She's around 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs about 145 pounds. She has natural hair and both of her ears are pierced. Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts is urged to contact the Baltimore Missing Person Unit at 443-984-7385. 443-984-7879. Again, sorry, give me one second. 443-984-7385. 443-984-7385. So please do that.

Every day we're going to feature an African-American who is missing to make sure that they get the attention they deserve. And so hopefully somebody has information to help. All right, folks, let's go to Georgia, where Georgia brother is using the stay-in-your-ground law to justify the killing of a 17-year-old white teen. Marcus Wilson, a biracial man, was driving with his white girlfriend when they were accosted by a group of white teens in a truck. The group called Wilson a nigger and his girlfriend a nigger lover as they attempted to veer the couple off of the road. Now, fearing for his life, Wilson fired a warning shot, striking one of the occupants in the vehicle, 17-year-old Haley Hutchinson. Wilson was licensed to carry a firearm.

Now, Wilson was denied bond and has been held in jail for over a year. His attorneys believe he should have never been charged, citing the controversial stand-your-ground law, which allows a person in fear of their life to use a weapon legally. Joining us now from Decatur, Georgia, is James Woodall, president of Georgia NAACP. James, glad to have you. Okay, so I'm just trying to understand, have y'all looked at other stories of white people

who used to stand your ground law? Are they sitting in jail for a year? Yes, Roland, and thank you for having me. One, we know that there's a disparity all together. About 75 percent in Florida, in comparison, about 75 percent of black people who are, you know, killing white people and use this law, they end up in jail, right? But in comparison, only about 50 percent of white people who do the vaccine, they end up held accountable as well. And so the disparity is just outrageous. But even to make matters worse,

we talk about standards of ground. One of the things that's so important is to lift up this question of immunity. Here in Georgia, you have a pretrial motion in which a defendant who is charged with a crime, who has been indicted, and is alleged to have committed an act of felony murder, they get the opportunity to go through that pretrial motion. And this is where we are in this case. But what was so challenging for us is that we cannot trust that we would get a fair trial. The judge from the onset has been impartial. He has been very negative. He has shown a

bias towards these individuals who committed this act of aggression towards Mark and his girlfriend even so much as they stood on the bench back in August of last year, told us that they told law enforcement that they not only were underage, not only were they drunk while they were driving, not only were they drunk while they were driving with alcohol in their cars, but now they had also hanged out the window with doing all of these things and not once was even so much as cited for any kind of criminal act. And instead you have Mark who is charged with a crime and has been in jail for over 400 years. And so this is the standard of justice,

if you will, or how the legal process presents itself for us. And this is what we're fighting against. So again, what's crazy, first of all, was there any video? Was there anything along those lines? And what's the justification for holding him for a year? Well, one, there was no video of the incident itself. And for those who have been in Statesboro, this was on the bypass and there's no cameras, there's no lights, it's a very dark road. And so when you have a black truck

with a whole bunch of drunk teenagers driving down the road, trying to run you off the road, you don't have time to record, you don't have time to even call the police. All you have time is to either get off the road or protect yourself. And if people remember during the Trayvon Martin case, the stand your ground thing came out then. There is no duty to retreat here in Georgia. And so you can use force to defend yourself against acts of aggression and uses of force against you as well. That's what Mark did. But in this case, the judge has asked,

why did he have a gun? You know, if that was a white person, that would not even be a question. We hear things about Second Amendment and those kind of things. But when you think about this case, what was so outrageous is that the defense attorney, the lead counsel for Mark Wilson, was arrested last week. The judge held that man in contempt of court because the judge and the prosecutor were having ex parte communications. The judge took home evidence that had not been admissible to the court. He kept it overnight and then came back the next day. And once the defense was notified of it, they immediately objected. And instead of giving back that binder of evidence, the attorney

wanted to give it to the clerk to establish chain of custody, which is the proper procedure. The judge did not do the proper procedure and neither did the judge notify the court properly. And so this is one of many instances during this case that the judge has just acted totally impartial. There's no confidence that we can get a fair trial. Have y'all tried, first of all, have these lawyers tried to get the judge recused from this case? Yes. So there have been multiple motions for recusal right now. The courts have, the entire judicial circuit has recused themselves from this case to decide whether or not that this judge needs to recuse himself. We're calling on the judge to just do the ethical thing and recuse

himself, right? We shouldn't have to go through lengths and bounds to get him off of his case. But nevertheless, one of the most challenging things about this case, and I'm so glad that you're having us on to talk about it, is the fact that the judge has issued a gag order on the case. Nobody can talk about the case who's a party to the case. There's been no media attention around it outside of one local media station, and they have done a tremendous job, but there has been so many barriers to be able to lift up what is happening. And so again, Roland, just thank you for this because when we talk about black people being

lynched, when we talk about George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, what we're seeing is the legal system using the links that they go to to ensure that we lent somebody through state-sanctioned violence. This is exactly what it is. And so we're working to hopefully get this man off of this case and get it into the hands of someone who's going to at least hear the facts. The rule of law says if you are met with aggression or deadly force, you can meet that force with force. That is exactly what happened. And unfortunately,

Haley Hutchinson died. But the very fact that they are drunk driving, if you don't even have the whole racial part to it, they are drunk driving and trying to run this man off the road. Add the other facts to this case, it becomes very clear as day. But yet instead, this man is sitting 400-plus days in jail. I'll also add his dad was a former fire chief in one of the neighboring cities here in the state, in Atlanta. His brother-in-law is a deputy, a sheriff's deputy. Family lives nearby. The sheriff of his hometown committed to ensuring that Mark went back to the courtroom to ensure that he would not, you know, obfuscate of his responsibilities of being present. So there is no reason why this judge determined that he is a flight risk of any sort. But instead, this became very political. This became very,

you know, concentrated on, well, he's a black male and this is a white family. And because he killed a white person, then he should be held responsible. That's unacceptable. And that is not justice here in this state. James Wood, all president of the Georgia NAACP. We certainly appreciate it. Be sure to keep us updated on this case so we can follow it and it'll be great to see what happens next. Thank you, Roland. All right. Thank you so very much. Hey, folks, let's go to Oklahoma, where Governor Kevin Stitt says he will not decide whether to spare the life of Julius Jones from a lethal injection until after Jones has a clemency hearing.

The partner parole board recommended that Stitt commute Jones death sentence to life in prison. In a statement, the Republican governor explained why he believed a clemency hearing was appropriate for the case. Quote, I'm not accepting the pardon and parole board's recommendation to commute the sentence of Julius Jones because a clemency hearing, not a commutation hearing, is the appropriate venue for our state to consider death row cases. Clemency hearings are more intensive and thorough than a commutation hearing and include the option for the inmate to speak publicly before the pardon and parole board, as well as the victim's family and attorneys from both sides. The precedent in Oklahoma is for death row inmates to receive the clemency hearings to which they are entitled

prior to their execution date. Now, state law requires clemency hearings at least 21 days before a scheduled execution. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company

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That is certainly, again, unbelievable from the governor there. Pastor Keith Giselle, who is Julius' general spiritual advisor, glad to have you here. Just your reaction to what this governor has announced. Well, thank you for having me, Roland. I think there's some context for your viewers that's important that will help even frame the statement from the governor even better. In July 2020, Roland, July 2020, the Republican Attorney General Mike Hunter in this state said that Oklahoma death row inmates are eligible for commutation hearings and recommendations to the governor. That was July 2020. So to hear the governor say on September 28, 15 months later, that that is the wrong process to be considering

whether or not Julius Jones should be commuted from his death row sentence, it's a—honestly, it's a gut punch. In addition to that, to be able to say that you are wanting to be able to hear from Julius, keep in mind that Julius Jones goes on death watch October 15th. That means he's going to be in isolation. He is going to be in a row of four cells that are adjacent to the execution chamber. He's going to have lights on him 24 hours a day. He's going to be guarded by two guards 24 hours a day, every day. And then 11 days after he's on day, he'll be brought into video to the partner parole board for a clemency hearing where he will be expected to articulate as well as possible why he should be considered for commutation or in this this case, clemency, and be allowed to come home. It's interesting to listen to the governor try to say, oh, how a commutation hearing is so different from a clemency hearing.

How do you even make sense of that? Well, it's when you've had a commutation hearing and the evidence has already been considered and you've received a recommendation and then the recommendation is thrown out, it's like you're being asked to double down when you've already gotten the decision. Obviously, we were looking forward to hearing the governor review the information that the Pardon and Parole Board had provided him. The decision, now what we're expecting is that there's going to be a clemency hearing, and then a recommendation is still going to be made, and it's going to be back to the governor to be able to make a decision.

There's been a lot of game goalposts changing, if you will, in the middle of this game, and it hasn't stopped. The day after the governor denied the recommendation, the Oklahoma County DA convened a grand jury to investigate the Pardon and Parole Board with the possible outcome of removing or arresting board members in order to be able to tilt the board into his favor to get the kind of verdict that he wanted. And so all of this is still happening.

The goalposts are still changing while we're waiting on this clemency hearing October 26th. Man, that is crazy there. We're going to keep following this story as well. And we hope Oklahoma does the right thing when it comes to Julius Jones. We certainly appreciate Pastor, you being with us. Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. Folks, we've been talking all week about the failure of Republicans and Democrats to come to a resolution and agreement on the George Floyd Justice Act. We've been breaking down for you the weird discrepancies and the frankly hypocritical positions of South Carolina Senator Tim Scott.

Now, yesterday we talked on the show about how Senator Tim Scott previously agreed with withholding funds from police departments that did not make changes based upon federal law. What is a total opposite of what he said on Sunday on Face the Nation when he was criticizing Democrats for the exact same thing. Now, last night, I sent the text message to Senator Tim Scott asking him specifically about the contradiction. He's yet to respond. his position, specifically asking them about his prior position and his own deputy chief of staff telling Michael Herod of the route why they were doing it. I've gotten no response from his Senate staff.

How does a George Floyd family feel? Flonius Floyd is his brother. He joins us live right now from my home city, Houston, Texas. Flonius, glad to have you back on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Just share with us your feeling right now with the fact that when y'all were in D.C. in May for the one-year anniversary of the death of your brother, y'all came and sat with me on Black Lives Matter Plaza in D.C. The only interview y'all did that day. After you came from Capitol Hill, after you met with Senator Tim Scott, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Lindsey Graham, and others,

well, they promised you they were going to get this done. Just share with our audience your reaction to hearing Senator Tim Scott say, the Democrats want to defund the police, and that's why we can't move forward. Every time I spoke with them, I've never said anything about defunding the police. You need police because you have bad people. The problem is, with police, you shouldn't have to sort them out. Everybody should be equal and be good and do their job the right way. The problems that we are having, we're not having them because of them defunding the police.

The police are free to roam and do what they want to do. But they're killing innocent black African-American people who I love, people of color, period. My brother passed, but he didn't. He died because he was murdered. The man stayed on his neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds. Hell, I was a truck driver, Mr. Rowland. The day my brother died, I could have hit rock bottom, but I didn't. I chose to get up and help these families because I was in the fight.

Because when you lose someone that you love so much, it can change your entire life. And that's the reason I get up every day and I tell myself I'm going to speak. But speaking to Timothy Eugene Scott, speaking to Lindsey Graham multiple times, multiple times, and I have sat there and watched these people lie to me in my face. Not just me. You had other families in there. You had Bolton John. You had Terrence Crutcher. You had Eric Garner. These are moms and

sisters. I'm a brother. But the fact that you had moms in there and you lied to somebody's mom who lost their child, that's very painful. And Gianna was in there, too. They lied to Gianna. She's a child. You shouldn't lie to kids. You don't have to. She didn't ask for her dad to be

murdered. He was murdered by the police. And that is your job, to make sure you put laws in place intact to help other individuals be able to live and be free and have freedom. We don't have freedom. I don't care what people say. My brother, he walked to the store. That was a problem. He was murdered.

You got Ahmaud Arbery. He ran down the street jogging. He was lynched. You have Botham Jean. He was in the comfort of his own home eating ice cream and was murdered by a police officer because she came into the wrong house.

Not only that, you have Breonna Taylor. She was murdered off a no-knock warrant and she was killed and she still don't even know she did because she was asleep. This is not a mistake. These are patterns. And Timothy, Eugene, Scott,

you need to wake up. Lindsey Graham, you're the one that said you was going to get this bill passed. You told us that. And we all sat there and believed because we can't make you do anything. All we know is you all can make laws for the elite and the

chosen, but we want you to make laws for the elite and the chosen, but we want you to make laws for the people, the people with no voices. And I'm one of the people that's going to stand up for these people. And I know, Mr. Rowland, you've been doing it for a long time, and I've been watching a lot of your shows. But the fact that I agree that we will have to fight and we will have to do it all over. The fact that my ancestors, they have passed away countless times for over 400 years. And all they wanted to do was just be free and live their life the way they should have been able to live countless times. I look up every day and I think about them being bitten, trying to vote, trying to think that, OK, if I vote, I can put the right president in and I can get things accomplished.

You know, we believe in Biden's administration. And what I can tell you, all we asking for the same thing we've been asking for for over 400 years. We just want to be treated fairly. That's all we want. And for me to sit there... You mentioned believing in the Biden administration. You mentioned believing in the Biden administration. What do you want President Biden to do right now?

I want him to call and call down to Eugene Scott and Lindsey Graham, everybody, because Sheila Jackson Lee, the Energizer Bunny, she's been running herself rapidly and crazy in circles trying to get things accomplished. You have Karen Bass, you have Pelosi, all of these people, they're looking because they know what's going on. The problem is, it's with Eugene Scott and with Lindsey Graham and probably more Republicans, because we don't want to defund the police. We want the police to respect us as human beings. We just want to be treated fairly. The things with Biden, you know, I know he's looking at everything right now,

but hey, we need your help. We need the vice president's help. We need anybody who can make an executive decision right now to pass this George Floyd Policing Act, because people are dying at a rate. I was in Minnesota, and I'm there for my brother at a case in court, and all of a sudden, Dante Wright has been murdered. And I went out and spoke about him. The problem is it happened in Minnesota again, five minutes away from where I was speaking and trying to get my brother's life on track because he was murdered.

You know, we don't want a watered-down bill. We want the George Floyd Policing Act passed just like it is. We want to end qualified immunity. We want to end a lot of different things. The no-knock warrants, we don't need to have that. The no-chokeholds, we don't need that. We need you all to have the police officers to have you all's dash cams on at all times, your body cams on at all times, your body cams on at all

times, because it's a problem if you don't, because it takes 20 to 30 seconds for it to come back on. And if you have something to hide, that's what I'm looking to find out. What are you doing behind closed doors? What kind of skeletons do you have? That's what I need to know, Mr. Roland. Questions for Raja Muhammad first for Philonius Floyd. Brother Philonius, thank you so much for joining us. First and foremost, my heart and prayers continue to go out to you and your family in this time. You know, as I'm listening to you brother, I'm just so disturbed.

And it's really unfortunate that you have to come on here and you have to be an advocate, that you got to continue to, you know, push people to just to do the simple right thing. And it's sad. And, you know, I guess I don't have any questions just because my heart is just broken because I'm hearing you and I'm reading some of our watches on Facebook. One of our watches said you should run for public office because at this point, there is, it's hard to have a belief in anything in the government just because there has been so many lies that have been told to our people about ensuring some level of justice. So I'm just wondering, dear brother, you know, what can the people do, the community, Black folks that are listening and Black folks across the country? Your brother's death galvanized a movement like we haven't seen. And I don't think it was just about him. It certainly it started with him, but it was really about the larger issue. So what can we do to help you,

dear brother? How can we be of a service and assistance? Do we, you know, I'm not even sure if we can get the bill back on the agenda at this point, but what do we need to do on a state level, city level to help you and your family, most importantly, helping the families of so many other folks that you have come across that have been victimized by police officers? First thing first, we can never give up hope. We always got to be able to work together because we're stronger in numbers. I say that all the time. The fact that... Yes, sir. We all... Sir?

No, I was just agreeing with what you did, brother. I said, yes, sir. Yes, sir. The fact that people got out in March during COVID, when it was a pandemic, people were losing their lives, going home to tables with empty chairs, and they still got out in March.

They didn't feel COVID. What they feel were police officers out there murdering people. And it wasn't just African American people out there marching. You had Caucasian people out there marching, people who went to school with African American people, people who played with us, people who grew up with us. You are not taught to be racist. You become racist because of who in your family. Because outside of that, people don't teach you that. People just tell you to go out and have fun. So I want everybody that's with us, you know, just period.

This is a movement, and we need to stick to it because right now they're sweeping it under the rug. And whatever we have to do to get out there and be team players. And when I say team players, get out there and get to marching and protesting. We got to do it peacefully because right now if you do anything wrong, they'll find a reason to kill you. And I want you always to remember this. If they can make federal laws to protect a bird, which is the bald eagle, they can make federal laws to protect people of color. And, you know, the thing that I never understood was how if you can see a black person killed, nobody says anything. But you see a white

person killed and there's an outrage. It's time for a change. And it's up to us as brothers and sisters. Dr. King said a long time ago, he had a dream that people all around the world would join hands together. And we close to doing that because the world has got behind George Floyd. The world has got behind this movement. And they're pushing behind Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Pamela Turner. I can keep naming them. There's so many of them. Anthony McClain, and it's a sad situation that we have to fight for what we're fighting for,

and we have to feel like we're second-class citizens because they're making laws for Asians and everybody else except people of color. Michael. Hey, Brother Philonise. Michael. Hey, Brother Philonise. Thanks for coming on today and sharing this information with us. Yes, sir. You know, I'm just, you know, I just, my heart goes out to you and your family, and you will keep persevering as well. So I see that also. Yesterday, the New York Times had a huge story that talked about more than half of

police killings are mislabeled. And they looked at a 40 year, they're looking at a 40 year period of time from 1980 to 2018. And about 55 percent of fatal encounters with police officers have been mislabeled. They have not properly been counted. So we're looking at about an undercount of about 17,000 people who have been killed by police from 1980 to 2018. With information like this, this just came out yesterday, with information like this, one, do you think this will help be able to push through the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act? Because one of the things that it would do is require accurate reporting when it comes to police fatalities.

And, two, there's some talk about a carve-out to the filibuster rule to be able to get this pushed through the Senate by 51 votes, 50 Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris being the tiebreaker. What are your thoughts on this and trying to get this pushed through a carve-out to the filibuster? Because we're not going to get any help from Republicans on this. They've just been stalling. My thoughts is we got to build. We got to build and we have to continue. Just like you said what you read in the Times,

we have to continue to gather that information and just apply it to people who need to hear it constantly. Because the problem is not us. It's clearly everybody else. Because we're not the one killing people. We are the ones being murdered. So for us to have the problems that we're having now, I pretty much think that we need to, not only us, anybody else who wants to relay the message, just like what you just said, we can. I'll even speak to them when I have the opportunity to, because right now, evidently, you can see what's going on. Nobody wants to speak to them when I have the opportunity to because right now, everything that you can see, what's going on, nobody wants to speak to me now because I'm in an outrage.

And the fact that, you know, I understand, but the problem that I'm going with now, it's not about like how much. The problem is basically it's like change doesn't come without cost and it's basically how much are you

willing to lose to win the fight that's it we're not going to war but we're not laying down either so I stand with you brother and every all the information that you're telling me, I'm going to use it and I'm going to make sure they understand that these

are facts. This is not fiction. Facts. You can't take away facts, just like you couldn't take away that video of our brother. Thank you. For long as last question for you. I said earlier this week that I believe that the George Floyd family, the Breonna Taylor family, others family, they should announce that they are coming to Washington, D.C., that they are demanding that Senator Tim Scott, Senator Lindsey Graham, Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Dick Durbin,

sit at the table to meet with them and look them in the eye and say, why have y'all failed? Is that something that y'all are considering, literally making that demand and say, we are going to come to Capitol Hill and we want that meeting and see who shows up? I'm willing to do it. I'm willing to do it because it's not just my brother's life that has been taken away. You have millions and billions of people living in this world where they are killing innocent people. I'm talking about police brutality on innocent people. I will go.

Just give me the time and the place. I will be there because somebody has to speak up. Somebody has to let them know that, hey, I'm still here. You're not going to just grab pliers and twist my teeth and make it hard for me to live. No, I'm here. I'm here to stay. I want to be able to make sure my kids be able to live in this world without telling them, hey, make sure when the police pull you over,

make sure you have all the windows down, for they won't be able to say, hey, I thought somebody was in the backseat. That's why I started shooting. No, I don't hate police. I think police are good people. But the fact that I have to get up out of my bed every day and tell people what reality is, this here is a big mess and we're not sleeping. We're wide awake. We can get the Capitol Hill, Mr. Rowland. We can do that. I'll be with them if they want to. I'm here. I'm here for them. Y'all let me know when you do that, and we'll be there to livestream y'all walking up the steps on Capitol Hill to that meeting.

And so I think they have to be challenged directly. And, yes, President Biden has to be challenged directly to actually do more as well, because, frankly, the White House has been silent this week on the collapse of these talks, and it's time for them to step the hell up. Philonise Floyd, I always appreciate having you on the show, brother. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. All right, then, folks, I want to talk about a couple of stories here before I go to my final guest, and that is a brother who was actually cleared.

This is out of Michigan. Murder charges dismissed against a man who spent 15 years in prison for the fire-related deaths of five children in Detroit. 50-year-old Jawan Deering walked out of court as a free man. Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald took a fresh look at Deering's case and found several issues with it. She was right. An investigation found misconduct by police and prosecutors. Deering is not going to face a second trial for that.

Michael, are these prosecutors going to be disbarred? Because that's what has to happen to me. When you see when you see misconduct in these cases, cops should be fired. They should be charged. Prosecutors should also have their law license snatched. You know, I agree with that, Roland. And this is why it's so important for these local elections as well, who the prosecutors are also. Because there are a lot of cases that need to have a second look. You know, a second look needs to be taken. And the prosecutors have the power to do that.

So, you know, over the past, one of the things that's happened because of the Black Lives Matter movement is people have started realizing the power that local prosecutors have. And they started voting for local prosecutors and realizing a lot of these people, we need to vote out of office

and vote better prosecutors in the office who will prosecute officers, but will also take second looks at cases like this as well. So yeah, definitely, definitely. They need to lose their law license. They need to go out to the police officers who lied, et cetera. Farahi. Yeah, I would agree with you on that and with Michael on that as well. I mean, the fact is, is that when you got prosecutors that put a man behind bars and do all of those things, all right. And, you know, what I found in these type of cases, Brother Rowland and Brother Michael, is that there really isn't no strong criteria against prosecutors.

I mean, we often talk about defense attorneys who do those, you know, corruptive behavior. But when it comes to prosecutors, what is the consequence when a prosecutor wrongfully convicts an individual? And since there isn't any sort of punishment, then they're going to continue to see it, especially when you're talking about cases that relate to the welfare and well-being of Black men and women in this country. So, you know, and for a, like, oh, we just lost the case. But for the person that's wrongly convicted and locked up, they lost years. It's not just one thing. They lost years. They lost time away from their family. In some cases, they lose a sense of reality and sanity. So this needs to be something that, especially if the prosecutor has a pattern of locking people up based on, you know, without real evidence or

being wrong, you know, wrongfully convicted. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion- dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

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

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. The paper ceiling, the limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at TaylorPaperCeiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council.

All right, folks, got to go to a real quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about a charter school that is all about helping those in need. Next in our Education Matters segment, I'm Roland Martin-Filtrum, streaming on the Black Star Network. I believe that people our age have lost the ability to focus the discipline on the art of organizing. The challenges, there's so many of them and they're complex and we need to be moving to address them. But I'm able to say, watch out Tiffany, I know this road.

That is so freaking dope. Hello, I'm Bishop T.V.J. Hi, how y'all doing? It's your favorite funny girl, Amanda Seale. Hi, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapy. What up, I'm Manuel, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, Doris L. Morrow Academy is a private school satellite program that offers tutoring, summer camp, and activities for students in person and virtually. They're based in Baldwin Hills, California.

The school is named after the founder's mother, a social worker who profoundly valued education. Joining us now is Kimberly Morrow-Brock, founder and executive director of the Doris L. Morrow Academy. Glad to have you here, Kimberly. First of all, I call it a charter school. It's not a charter school. So sorry about that. And so you, when did you start this? When did you start this? And what was a specific thing that caused you to say, well, you know what? I got to do this? So I have been teaching and I had been an administrator in public school for over 20 years. And when the pandemic hit in June of 2020, I resigned from my position and I began tutoring students. And I noticed a lot of people were posting on Facebook that they were really having difficulty with the distant learning. And so I thought, you know, this will be a great opportunity

for me to help people during this time of their need. And I decided I was going to do tutoring services. Well, one of the parents that I met said, I would like for you to be my children's teacher. Can you homeschool them? And I was like, oh, okay. So I went online and I looked up at the California Department of Education to see what it is I needed to do. And I learned what I needed to do. I needed to file a private school affidavit and basically create the curriculum. And that's exactly what I did. So I started out in August 2020 with two students in my home school. And then I had, I think it was like four students that I was doing

distant learning tutoring with. So I started out with six students and it was wonderful. The parents loved it. They loved the fact that their children were getting this personalized attention. And the students at our homeschool, I really customized everything around their interests. Wow. That is pretty interesting there. How many students are you serving? Currently, I serve four students for homeschool. I haven't picked up any additional tutoring students this year, but I have a number of parents who have called and inquired. And four doesn't sound like a lot. It's like, oh, only four kids. But let me tell you, those four students that we are serving, they are getting one-to-one attention. I actually have a teacher assistant. She's actually a teacher, but she works with me three days a week, four hours a day to actually ensure that these students are getting that one-to-one attention because we work with them on all of the skills. And keep in mind, some of the students are struggling learners. So, and they really need that additional attention.

And some of our students actually have some diagnosed learning disabilities. And so we make sure that we are giving them the attention that they deserve. So, okay. So before I go to Faraji and Michael with a question, so how do you scale it? Obviously you took four students. So how do you make this larger? How do you bigger? How much, you know, what do you want to grow this to? Do you want to hire other people? Do you want to have other teachers? And so how are you going to grow this academy? And it's private. So are the parents are the parents also paying for this? And what are the services cost? Oh, yes. So that is the goal. The goal is to grow the program.

My goal would be to have at least 10 to 12 students that my site is serving because it's a PSP, which is a private school satellite program. My ultimate goal is to have different sites for this. So other educators who are committed to customizing education and to being given that personalized attention, I would like for them to then take on their site, but utilizing the program that I've created with the students. So I don't want to have 20 to 30 kids showing up at my home because this is done in my home. It's a homeschool program. So we do it in my home. And the goal would be for me to hire at least two to three more additional staff members. And yes. First of all, you say the students up in your home, but you're also doing virtually. And so if you do virtual again, so what would be your capacity? That's the real issue.

So the capacity for my home site would be 12, 12 students. But then I would want to get, see, my long-term goal, Roland, is to franchise this. So just like, you know, Sylvan has different centers. So I would like to have different Doris L. Morrow Academy satellite programs where other educators who are committed, just like me, are running the same program but from their place of residence. So that's my long-term goal. So I can service more students

than what I can personally service. So right now, this is just year two. I'm just getting started. I'm actually putting some things, procedures and processes together. So that's the long-term goal. But for my personal onsite, I would like to get at least six to eight additional students.

And if I can get some virtually, then that would be great, too, because then I'd be able to manage that. But I don't want to have too many students where then I'm taken away from the original purpose of the school, which is to make sure that these students are getting attention and that they're getting that personalized attention. I hope that answers your question. Well, it did, but look, but the bottom line is this here. I get in terms of what you're able to do, but I do think the ability to be able to broaden. Again, last question in terms of is there a cost and how much is it? Yes. So there is a tuition cost. It's $800 a month if a parent chooses to send their child five days a week.

And then the tuition diminishes depending on how many days they're going to send them. So if they're sending them three days a week, they're sending them two days a week, then the cost, it goes down. Now, some parents have opted that if their child is only coming three days a week, but they still need a little help, then they'll do virtual. So they'll attend the classes virtually. But that's happened in a few cases. And so I'm really just, I'm trying to put together something that parents can really be proud of, because here's the bottom line. The students that I currently serve, they would be lost in a public school classroom right now because their needs are so great. Their academic needs are so great and And they just would not be served properly. I've been in public school education. I know the game. I know students that are quiet,

students that don't make a fuss. They just get lost and they get pushed forward. When I was teaching high school, I taught 10th grade and 11th grade. I would have students that could barely read and forget writing a five paragraph essay. And my thing was always, how did you get past elementary and middle school? How are you in my classroom? And you're unable to do these basic skills. So that's why I'm doing what I'm doing. And if I'm having to impact right now 10 to 12 students, and hopefully as we grow, I'll be able to impact even more students. All right, then. Kimberly Brock, we appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Good luck.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You know, Faraji, what we're seeing here, and I think this is why this is important, which is also why we have this show and why we have this segment, why we have the marketplace segment featuring black business owners and why we have Tech Talk featuring black folks in technology, is African-Americans who take this example. Here's a woman who taught for 20 years, sees a gap, sees an opportunity.

You create a business to serve a particular need. And so it's important for us to be able to amplify these things, but also show people that you don't have to just be stuck working for somebody else. You could create something to serve your people and actually get paid doing it. Yeah, no doubt. And you know what, Brother Rowland, I really hope that people can see the value and the bigness of what Sister Kimberly is doing, because everything starts small. You know that. I know that. Brother Michael knows that. Everything starts small. And so when you go to the website, it's a very well

professional-looking website. I mean, you've got to hit all of the metrics of making sure that you bring people in. But I hope people understand that we're really in a space right now in this country where we are going to have to have a different conversation about the education of Black children in particular, because we're seeing it. I mean, you can go into the conversation around critical race theory. You can even go into the conversation around, you know, health care and what's happening with the COVID vaccinations and children and all of these things. But there has to be some legitimate alternatives to what we're seeing in the public school system, especially when we're seeing that

the public school system is not sufficient. It doesn't speak to us culturally. It's not empowering our Black students, our Black children to think differently and to think, to take their education more seriously. When you're dealing with a dropout rate as high as we're facing in the black community, you got to figure out some different alternatives. So like what Sister Kimberly is doing, and my, you know, my big question would be is what type of support are you getting, Sister Kimberly? Are you connecting with other, you know, smaller, you know, tutoring services and school initiatives like this

in other places to create a network to help give our people a picture of what independent education for our people really looks like. And I mean, Black, just education in general is under attack in this country. And, you know, if you're talking about changing the condition of a people,

you've got to start with what is being taught to the babies. And if you're not talking, and you know this like I know this, brothers, when you're talking about any great leader, the great leader always advocate for economics and education. They always talked about, from our great leaders, from Marcus Garvey to Elijah Muhammad, they always talking about there needs to be an emphasis on establishing institutions that's

going to raise the generation of new thinkers to break out of the old way and to break out of the old relationship between slave and slave master in the educational system. Final comment, Michael. Yeah, Roland, you know, it's very, I think it's a good thing that the sister's doing. Was that Doris or Kimberly? I just want to give it a name. Kimberly Morrow Brock is her name. Kimberly Morrow Brock. Okay, Doris L. Morrow Academy. No, the school is named after her mother, Doris L. Morrow Academy. Right, right, right, because I'm on that website right now.

You know, a lot of African-American parents have been choosing homeschooling even before COVID. They've been shipped no homeschooling even before COVID. They've been shifting over to homeschooling. And one of the reasons why is because they want their children to learn African-American history and African history. And a lot of the history that's being taught in these schools and some of the lessons have been damaging to our children. And on their website, she has a quote from Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the creator of Black History Month. So I think this is a good thing that she's doing.

You know, I would encourage her to connect with, if she hasn't, some Black homeschooling networks. Usually I speak at a conference in Atlanta, third weekend in Atlanta, of Black homeschoolers. But that can help her a lot and help her expand as well. But yeah, this is a good thing and we need more of this also. Absolutely, all right. Faraji, Michael, appreciate it. Kelly, thank you very much.

She left earlier. Folks, I wanna thank all of you for checking us out. Please support what we are doing. We are building something here. And actually, so, and this is why it's important. OZ Media, Carlos Watson, kill the music, please, founded OZ Media. They announced today that they are shutting down. The New York Times did a huge story on them where people were questioning their numbers.

Things were not adding up. They were sitting here how they were buying their numbers. They were busted by trying to impersonate a YouTube executive. But here's why I need you to understand something. Carlos Watson said last year the OZ did about $50 million in revenue. So while we've been out here fighting these companies, getting money, you know what these companies were doing? According to the wall street journal, they were like, Oh, to satisfy sending money to black on media, minority on media, we're going to give it to Ozzy because he's black. He's black. He's black on. He's a founder. Now we know that it was built

on fraud, meaning fraudulent numbers, meaning they could not justify it. So the real issue for all of those advertisers out there and all of those companies and all of those individuals who accepted their numbers, how the hell y'all been making us jump through hoops to justify our numbers, which are real, which are public, but you didn't do it for them. See, folks, this is truly black owned media. And what we have been doing is building something here. So let me just give y'all some numbers. All y'all sitting out there, all of you advertisers. OK, because I know what y'all also did.

Oh, Carlos is safe because Cause see, that's what part of the problem here. None of these white execs, they, they, Oh, what's a safe black man or black woman to give to. I know the game that's being played in 2021. Roland Martin Unfiltered has done 73,700,138 views on YouTube alone. 680,925,126 minutes watched. 800,806 subscribers on YouTube. On Facebook, we have done 77,652,490 views. 93,009,135 views on Facebook, where we have 1.3 million followers. Twitter no longer uses Periscope, but there we've got 618,116 followers. Instagram, which live views. The reach has been 1.44 million. Instagram followers, 612,934. Blackstar Network, which we only launched it less than 30 days ago, we're close to 15,000 downloads total views since launch 82,526 minutes viewed 26,859

why am i walking y'all through this because we have a real black owned company. We are about to start announcing the show that we're going to have on Blackstar Network. It will be more than just this show. Do y'all understand what we could do if, if Roland Martin unfiltered and Blackstar Network got the 50 million OZ did. Do y'all understand how many people we could actually employ? How many journalists we could employ to finish to build out our website to have staff all across the country? And see, the Wall Street Journal, y'all, did an article talking about OZ. And who are some of the companies? Who are some of the companies that invested in OZ?

Who are some of the companies that gave them millions of dollars? General Motors and Chevrolet. Target. Ford Motor Company. Airbnb. Goldman Sachs. Group Inc. In fact, let me read this.

This is what the Wall Street Journal says. Ford Motor Company, Airbnb, Goldman Sachs, Group Inc., and Target are among the advertisers that have paused their campaigns according to people familiar with the matter. Together, the paused ad campaigns, which include other companies, amount to about $5 million in revenue for OZ.

That's the Paul's campaigns. Five million revenue is almost double what we did last year. So do you know what we could do with five million in revenue? What we, who we could employ, the kind of coverage that we could do. I'm telling you this is because this year, every single one of you advertisers that gave money to OZ,

you're going to be hearing from my sales team and you already are getting the call let me let me tell y'all this here because i told y'all i'm not sitting here playing okay um general motors paid ozzy to do a show called Real Talk, Real Change. The concept was conceived by Carol H. Williams at Agency. If you go to YouTube, you can see some of those shows. General Motors, Chevrolet. You want to do a show called Real Talk, Real Change, Black Star Network, Roland Martin Unfiltered, we have the assets to produce it. We have the assets to distribute it.

I'm about to send an email right now to Deborah Wall, who is the chief marketing officer for General Motors. I'm about to send an email right now to Heather Stewart, who is the executive with Carrot, their advertising agency, for us to do it. Our numbers are real. Our focus Are real. Our focus. Is real. And see when we are able.

To get. Additional advertising. Well hell. I can do the exact same thing that Carlos Watson did. I can have billboards. I can have commercials. I can have Blackstar Network. Network plastered all over the place. And then more people can see us and then our numbers can get bigger and we can actually grow.

But when black owned media is frozen out of the marketplace, when three hundred and twenty two billion dollars is spent on an annual basis and black owned media is receiving anywhere from 0.5 to 1% of that $322 billion. That's why we don't have black-owned media with scale. That's why we don't have the ability to have multiple reporters and staff everywhere. That's why we can't, and I would love to be able to say my panelists are contributors to Black Star Network, which means I'm paying them, but we actually can't afford that.

It is because this system, what they do is they go, oh, he's safe. She's safe. And let me go ahead and say this since we're talking about it. We, my salespeople, you know what happens when they're on calls? Someone will say,people, you know what happens when they're on calls? Someone will say, well,

you know, Roland is controversial. And do you know who typically is the person saying it? Somebody black, not the white folks on the call. Typically it's the black person saying, Oh, he's controversial. Do y'all know that Fox News does more than $1.5 billion in profit a year? Is Sean Hannity controversial? Tucker Carlson? Laura Ingram? Stuart Varney? Shall I go on? See, it's amazing how we're controversial, but they're provocative. Oh, brands, brands. In fact, let me do this here. Anna, bring me my laptop. See, since we're here, I really want y'all

to understand this. I wasn't planning to do this. Uh, but, uh, Zena or Anna, I need my laptop, please. Just the other day I recorded Fox news shows. Okay. Y'all, I'm about to do something like we do with your family. Anna! Zeta! Zeta! Daddy, right there. In my backpack. Give me my laptop. Right there. My backpack. Give me my laptop. Bring it here. I recorded I recorded, I recorded, I recorded a whole day of Fox news, primetime schedule.

I'm a read for y'all. Some of the advertisers that were on Fox news. This was between, and I had, I didn't write all of them down on Laura Ingram's show Nutrisystem NordicTrack Sandoz Resort Honeywell and Greg Gutfeld's show

Liberty Mutual Advil Honeywell, and Greg Gutfeld's show, Liberty Mutual, Advil, John Deere, University of Phoenix, NordicTrack, Nutrisystem, USAA, Planters, Samuel Adams, Weight Watchers, Flu Zone Drug, Samuel Adams, Weight Watchers, Flu Zone Drug, Citibank, T-Mobile, Grand Waggoner, Sandals,

Shannon Bream's show, NyQuil, University of Phoenix, Golden Corral Walmart. Now, if every single one of those brands ran ads on Fox News, then you cannot tell me you cannot support Roland Martin, Unfiltered, and the Black Star Network. To every single one of those companies and those ad agencies

that were showering money on OZ Media that is now shut down. And let me be clear with y'all. You don't shut down because the New York Times wrote a story five days ago. You shut down in five days because you know you cannot back up the assertions that you were making about the size of your audience and how many people were watching. signing up contracts saying they had videos on YouTube that had a million viewers. And if y'all go look it up, you'll see. You click Ozy.

You click them. You go to their channel. And you'll see, that is Carlos Watson's show. And you will see this Carlos Watson show and you will see these videos. I'm just going to reach out the top five videos. 68,000 views, 39,000 views, 51,000 views, 100,000 views, 196 views, 68 views, 66 views,

97,000 views. But hold hold up the video with 97 000 views y'all it literally only had 475 thumbs up can i unpack something for y'all? OZ Media only had 3,850 YouTube subscribers. Did y'all hear what I just said? 3,850 YouTube subscribers. Their YouTube channel started in May of 2014.

The total YouTube channel did 835,659 views. Total. Now, Carlos Watson had his own channel. And they had 95,500 subscribers. That's interesting. We have 800,000. So here's a perfect example. They had this interview on here with Kerry Champion and Jemele Hill.

It did 278,000 views, but it only had 22 comments. Really? 22? 22 comments? Okay. Carlos Watson had an interview with her. The singer. It had 1 million

views four months ago. But it only has 68 comments. He interviewed modeling star, Lena Bloom, three months ago, 1 million views, 338 comments. If you read the New York Times article, what you will discover is that they were accusing them of inflating their numbers. Just to put this thing in context,

when you have real audience, real engagement, I'm just going to show you a few comments. I'm just going to show you one of our pieces. Here's a perfect example. It's a perfect example when you talk about the difference with audience. Ellen Pompeo, the crazy ass white woman segment we had, white people segment from yesterday, in 19 hours has done 110,000 views.

Is Michael Farage still there? In 19 hours, in 19 hours, our Ellen Pompeo segment has done 110,000 views on our YouTube channel. There are 1,000 comments. They interviewed her, had a million views, and didn't even hit 100 comments. To the advertising community, this is a platform

that truly speaks to and reaches black America. Y'all should be signing multi-year partnerships and agreements with us control room. I need you to pull up a story group M and OZ Partner. Because this is important. This is my last point. Group M is one of the major advertising agencies in America. I believe that they control in excess of $40 billion in company advertising budget.

The CEO is black. His name is Kirk McDonald. Kirk used to work at Time Warner. I met Kirk a few times. In March, I believe, March or April, let me know when y'all pull the article up, please, and show it. Group M announced that they were doing a two-year deal with OZY as a part of their responsible spending initiative. This is a multi-year deal, and I guarantee you it is a multi-million dollar deal. The announcement in Ad Age says,

Group M takes a responsibility-focused approach to media buying. The media agency strikes a two-year deal with OZ to further its D, E, and I efforts. According to this deal, OZ, this its D E and I efforts. According to this deal, um, OZ, this is what it says. They struck a D two year deal with OZ, a multi-platform media and entertainment company that boasts a connection with a diverse audience of 75 million people.

Most of whom are millennial or Gen Z. We now know that we now know that as a lie. And this is what Kirk McDonald said. Inside of Group M, there's been a conscious awareness that as the media industry is evolving, you can't do investment like we had in the past, leveraging our scale and buying power. There needs to be more substance. The OZ partnership falls into Group M's responsible

investment buying framework, which focuses on brand safety, data ethics, diversity, equity, inclusion, responsible journalism, and sustainability. The goal, according to McDonald, is to make advertising work better for people and maximize media dollars through socially conscious buying to fund positive change. Hmm. We agree.

And it said McDonald points to OZ as a type of media company Group M will be looking to partner with more deeply moving forward. Those that support and expose fresh perspectives and audiences. What that means is Group M plan to spend more millions with OZ. Well, as of today, OZ is out of business. And so as a today, OZ is out of business. And so as a result, I am directing my sales team,

and I can text them myself, I'm directing my sales team, to communicate this weekend directly with Kirk McDonald, the CEO of Group M, and to say, the two-year deal that you signed with OZY, you should do that deal with Black Star Network and Roland Martin Unfiltered. The only way we are going to change this industry is when we leverage our power. And that means when I post something like this on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, I need you to like and share it. The advertisers, these companies, these agencies need to see you commenting as much about the lack of us getting dollars as you do about a Real Housewives show. Because when we are commenting on Ellen Pompeo and Denzel,

and yes, it was a very interesting story, that gets no money to us. That does not allow us to hire staff. But when we make it clear to these companies and these ad agencies that we mean business with our audience, then we were able to build and grow. And when Black Star Network and Roland Martin Unfiltered and the parent company, New Vision Media, when we were able to grow and hire staff and pay them more and employ more people. We are building black America. We are actually allowing people to buy homes,

to send their kids to college. That's how you talk about creating wealth. It is not through being an employee. It is about ownership. So, OZ Media is gone. Carlos Watson, his reputation is in tatters. We're still here. And we're not going away because we are building something here that is real, that is substantive, that is Black-owned, that is socially conscious, that cares for our community, the question is, are you actually going to support it? Folks, we always end the show on a Friday with our charter,

with our Brenda Funk Fan Club. I'm going to roll that right now. I'll see you guys on Monday from Los Angeles, from the George Lopez Golf Tournament in LA, Los Angeles, California. See you then. Howl! I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1.

Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper.

The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org, brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.