#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Fmr DEI Dir Bashes Minneapolis City Council, Bragg Pushes Back On GOP Overreach, What CRT Should Be

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

3.23.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Fmr DEI Dir Bashes Minneapolis City Council, Bragg Pushes Back On GOP Overreach, What CRT Should Be A story is developing out of Minneapolis about the pervasive issue of systemic racism in the Minneapolis city government since  George Floyd's death. Roland will get exclusive details from Tyeastia Green, the former Director of Minneapolis' Division of Race, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging for the City of Minneapolis, who alleges city officials lack the commitment to address systemic racism under Minneapolis City Operations Officer Heather Johnston. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office tells three House GOP committee chairmen to stay in their lane regarding the Trump Hush money probe. Roland will show you what Alvin Bragg and general counsel Leslie B. Dubeck wrote to the representatives, saying the Republicans are out of their jurisdiction.  South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley decided to sport some history during the Gamecocks' second-round March Madness. Roland will show you what she wore to give HBCUs some love.  It's Time to Bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming live on the Black Star Network. Let's go. Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. 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'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war.

This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, folks. Today is Thursday, March 23, 2023. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Start Network. I am live in Chicago where I am doing several book signings for my book, White Fear, How

the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds. In the wake of George Floyd's death, many people all across the country, many corporations and cities focus on diversity, equity, inclusion. Well, in Minneapolis, there's a huge fight brewing where a sister says the city has been totally disregarded DEI. We're going to talk about what's going on there. We'll talk with her and the accusations she is leveling, showing a complete dismissal of the issue of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Manhattan DA

is simply saying no to the House GOP, who wants him to testify. Alvin Brad says they're too busy investigating Donald Trump as opposed to comply with Congress. And Jim Jordan will tell you what that drama is all about as well. Plus, chaos erupts during the California School District's workshop on critical race theory will show you the racism that unfolded. Folks, and also South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley decided the sports in history in the Gamecocks most recent game. She saluted HBCU Cheney State.

Folks, it's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Markdown Filcher of the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. Let's go. Just for kicks he's rollin' Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, yo Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah

Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Rollin' Martin Now The best you know, he's rolling. Martel. Martel. Death of George Floyd took place three years ago, folks, in the city of Minneapolis, and the person who was in charge of DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion there, says the city simply is ignoring the reality of racism there. Taisha Green, the former director of Minneapolis' Division of Race, Equity, and

Inclusion and Belonging for the City of Minneapolis, says city officials there lack the commitment to address systemic racism under Minneapolis City Operations Officer Heather Johnson. Now, Greene was hired in 2022, just 20 minutes before a news conference about Amir Locke, the black man who was killed by police attempting to serve a no-knock warrant. In a scathing 14-page memo, she highlighted the challenges she faced in her role and how her recommendations

were repeatedly ignored, intentionally misguided on assignments and had false claimants filed against her. She also called out two black council members, Latricia Vita and Andrea Jenkins, for lying about their lack of work and engaging in anti-black racism. Taishia Green joins us right now. I'm Roland Martin-Fulton. Ms. Green, glad to have you here on the show. And so when you talk about the lack of commitment, look, we've been very critical here about all of these corporations and cities and others

not being serious about diversity, equity, and inclusion. How long did it take for you to discover that clearly Minneapolis, in your estimation, was not serious about DEI? I think it only took the first day, Rowan. The first day that I was on the job, they sent me to my office, which was windowless and mouse infested. So the first day I knew that they weren't serious about racial justice. The first month was when the MDHR findings came out, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights findings.

And then after that was the same day was the CCO demand letter from the employees saying, hey, Minneapolis, y'all are racist towards black employees. And there were like 60 employees that went to the confirmation hearing of Heather Johnston to explain to city council that she was, in fact, racist towards them. So it didn't take long at all. So what was interesting to me in terms of what you just laid out there, when you wrote this memo, what was the reaction?

What did they say? Was there a meeting? Did they say, hey, let's address your concerns? They didn't respond. I sent that memo on March 6th. And on March 13th, I got a call from Heather Johnston, my direct supervisor, saying that I would have to be unappointed or I would have to resign. I didn't hear from anyone that I sent that memo to. I sent it out.

I'm sorry. What does unappointed mean? The position that I held in Minneapolis was an appointed position. So it's a city official position, and's appointed by the, by Mayor Fry. Okay. So were they saying, Hey, either you resign or we're going to fire you? Yes, that's exactly what they were saying. Either you resign or we're going to fire you exactly a week after I said that. And which option did you take? I took the option to let my resignation of February 21st stand. So February 21st, I did resign my position, citing the racism and toxic work environment and the sabotage of the Black Expo that I put on.

I was asked to reconsider that resignation. And about six hours after discussions with the city of Minneapolis officials, I rescinded that resignation. And about six hours after discussions with the city of Minneapolis officials, I rescinded that resignation. So when they called me on March 13th, they said, you can let your resignation stand from February 21st, or we have to fire you. You were very critical of the two black council members. So explain that. Well, Roland, all skin folk ain't kin folk. And that is the situation that's happening in Minneapolis with Council President Jenkins and Council Member Vito. Council Member Vito, excuse me, has been going around the city in the community, defaming my character with black groups in the community.

In regards to this all-black expo that I was trying to put on for the city, the very first one in 2023 for Black History Month. Minneapolis has never done anything for Black History Month for the black community. And the first one that we do, Latricia Vitow is out there discrediting the event, saying that I owned, you know, the event planning company, that I paid myself $242,000, that I'm stealing money from the city. She started all of those lies within the community and within my workplace. What happens now? I'm going to live my life, Roland, but I'm going to make sure that the city of Minneapolis is held accountable for their toxic toxicity and the racism in their enterprise. Do you believe that, I mean, this was again, ground zero for so many people out here

emphasizing and talking about DEI. Do you believe that this is indicative of other cities and corporations who we're already seeing some 36 percent of DEI jobs have been cut across the country? So it seems that a lot of people just three years after the fact are pulling back on all of those big pronouncements they made after the death of George Floyd. Absolutely. There is definitely a backlash happening right now. You know how the pendulum swings when there's something—racial justice, we get something, and then the pendulum swings so far back that we're wiped back to where we were or worse

than where we were before we started. And so that's definitely happening around the country, where people are taking back their commitment towards racial justice after the murder of George Floyd. And Minneapolis is no different. And with the leadership of Heather Johnston and Mayor Frey, I fear that Minneapolis will be worse off in racial justice than it was before George Floyd was even murdered. Hold tight one second. I've got to go to break. When we come back, I'm going to read to you the response the city of Minneapolis sent us with regards to your allegations. Folks, you're

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And so please send your check and money orders to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal, D.C. two zero zero three seven dash zero one nine six cash app dollar sign R.M. unfiltered. PayPal R. Martin unfiltered. Venmo R.M. unfiltered. Zill Roland at Roland S. Martin dot com. Roland at Roland Martin unfiltered dot com. We'll be right back. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence white people are losing their damn minds there's an angry pro-trump mob storm to the u.s capital we're about to see the rise of what i call white minority resistance we have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result

of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this.

Here's all the Proud Boys guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is Whitefield. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives, and we're

going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. You want me to do something crazy, but I don't know what to do. I'd rather just sit here. I'm Chrisette Michelle, and you're watching Roland Martin, unfiltered. I mean, could it be any other way? Really, it's Roland Martin.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 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. 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 Corps vet. 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. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves.

We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you've got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. So we reached out to the city of Minneapolis, and this is what they sent us with regards to the allegations of Taisha Green. The city disagrees with the characterization of the events outlined in

the memo you shared in the news article. Many city staff worked tirelessly to make this expo a success, and it's disappointing to see them publicly criticized for their hard work on behalf of Minneapolis and its residents. The city is deeply aware of the toll structural racism takes on our residents, businesses, and workforce. The mayor is deeply aware of the toll structural racism takes on our residents, businesses, and workforce. The mayor and city council took steps to advance racial equity during the 2022 budget cycle by elevating the former division into the racial equity inclusion and belonging department. In doing so, the city enhanced the influence and stature of this work in the city enterprise. The city backed up its department creation by investing nearly $800,000

more for the 2023 budget than the prior year in increasing staffing capacity. Over the last several years, city leadership has also worked to build a more inclusive workplace and embed equity in policy and practice. Just this year, the mayor allocated significant funding to develop anti-racist training curricula, and the city has already partnered with third-party experts to deliver anti-racist training sessions to city leadership. The city has also reformed its procurement processes in the last year to prioritize local vendors within the target market program. We have taken and will continue taking concrete steps to support the black community,

especially when planning large-scale community events. The city auditor is undertaking a review of procurement processes underpinning the production of major events. As stewards of public funds, it's important the city follow processes that ensure public funds have public benefit, even if those processes can be complex. Ms. Green's memo is under review, and professional staff will determine whether further investigation is required. The city is a process for assessing and investigating allegations of discrimination and harassment and is an equal opportunity employer that prohibits discrimination and harassment of any kind. All employment decisions are based on merit, performance, competence, qualifications, job requirements,

and departmental need without regard to race, color, sex, including pregnancy or gender identity, religion or belief, national origin, sexual orientation, marital or parental status, disability, age, political affiliation, membership in an employee organization, military service, genetic information, or any other legally protected status or characteristic. Ms. Green, how would you respond to that statement put out by the city of Minneapolis to your memo? I think it's funny that they are taking credit for the work that I put in. And I also think it's funny that they're claiming that they increased my budget by $800,000 when most of my projects on my staff are multimillion dollar projects.

So $800,000 they know will not cover anything that I'm doing within the racial equity realm. The other thing though, there was another thing that you said about them elevating my department to, my division to a department. When I was working at the city of Burlington and they offered me this position 20 minutes before the Amir Locke presentation or press conference, I put in my counteroffer that this position had to be a department head. I had to be the leader of an actual department. That was already solidified before I even got on a plane to come back home to Minneapolis. So I just think it's funny that they're putting in that information into their response.

What is next for you? as the expert in this city to say what we are doing as an enterprise is wrong. And there are several examples of why it's wrong and how it's wrong. So I'm calling on Jacob Fry. I'm calling on Heather Johnston to do something, even though I called those people out within the memo. I attached to the HR director, hey, I need you to investigate this. So the investigations that they're talking about that's happening right now, I called for those a week before they fired me. So I feel like I'm still going to hold them accountable for what they're doing.

Minneapolis is a big machine. It's a big beast. And they're using their political and economic power to try to destroy me and try to silence me. but they won't. They will not. I will speak out about this. I will tell the world what they're doing in Minneapolis, the murder of George Floyd, and how they continue to perpetuate not only systemic racism, but outright blatant racism every single day for the Black employees inside of that enterprise. And then after that, Roland, I'm just going to live my life. We really appreciate it. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Well, we appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you, Roland. Thank you for having me. I'm going to bring in my car, bring in my pound, Dr. Greg Carr, Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University, host of the Black Table on the Black Star Network, Recy Colbert, founder of Black Women Views, also has her own show every Saturday on Sirius XM Radio, Lauren Victoria Burke, who writes for the NNPA.

Let me have all three of you here. Recy, I want to start with you. I mean, this, and look, people have heard, I'm sorry, my apologies, Erica Savage found out the reframed brain. My bad. I read that wrong. Sorry about that, Erica. So, Erica, I'll start with you. This is a thing that I have been focused on, and it has been sort of driving me crazy.

And I keep trying to explain to people that, and again, whether you believe what Ms. Green says or not, I'm speaking overall about this DEI thing. I literally was at a private luncheon here in Chicago where I was signing copies of the book, and I was talking about how most of DEI is bullshit. And if you look at the trajectory of the history to understand the whole deal, there were positions in the 70s, and if you read Ellis Coase's amazing book, The Rage of a Privileged Class, he talks about African-Americans who were stuck in vice president for community affairs jobs. These were the Negroes who were sent to black events to hold up large checks in small amounts. You go into the 80s and 90s, and then it became the chief global diversity officer

or the head of diversity. And then now all of a sudden with DEI, it's diversity, equity, and inclusion. And the reality is, even with the DEI jobs, 75% of all DEI jobs in America are white. So even in that job, which is supposed to be about diversifying corporate America, they're still white. And so what this is is it is a nationally, it is a, which is why, again,

while I'm here signing copies of my book, White Fear, it is white culture dominating, white viewpoints dominating, and they still are not serious about this idea of diversity, equity, inclusion, and making sure that we have a piece of the pie. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. And that's the way that they've always wanted it to be, right? And you were talking about that number. I was reading something closer to 80% that chief diversity officers are largely white men. So when we're now starting to hear more about diversity, equity, inclusion, we can just think back to a clip that you played a couple of weeks ago where we had a lawmaker from my home state of Georgia using DE&I in an inflammatory way to say that the train derailment that happened in Ohio was because of DE&I funding that was not

provided for the train, which absolutely makes no sense. But we see these terms, woke. We see the bastardization of these words in a way to really get the base riled up. It is a way to get those people who understand that the numbers are shrinking, that we're getting closer to 2040, 2050, when the demographics will shift, when there will be a white minority and a people of color majority. And so they are throwing as much gas, as much fuel as they can to the fire to make the shrinking base more upset and more aggressive towards any efforts that would actually make the country work better.

So what Ms. Green has shared, unfortunately, with regards to an appointed position at the local level, and this is why, again, people should be involved in what is happening in their city, I'm thinking that not knowing what happened during the proceedings of bringing up this event to let the community know that these things were happening, that if there were enough ears to the ground, that there could have been pushback to ensure that not only was the event held at a proper time, but that it was in fact successful. And this is what we mean by holding people accountable. So we have to pay attention to these hot button issues because these are things that flamethrowers continue to flow in order to make people more scared, but also bring the face out to vote. Lauren, Lauren Burke, Lauren Burke, the city recently released report, and they said that there was an investigation into all of this,

and they said that they could not substantiate the allegations she made against Heather Johnson. The city released a 22-page investigation report conducted by the Green-Espel Law Firm with regards to the allegations of the racist and toxic work environment. And then they said that some of the concerns were addressed. The thing that I keep, again, trying to tell people over and over and over again, that the problem that we have here is that if you want to truly confront and deal with this issue, you have to deal with what is structural and you have to deal with who is in power.

That's what it boils down to. Who is in power? Yeah. Well, yeah, you'd have to deal with structure and of course power, but also a lot of what was in that statement that was given to you with regard to Ms. Green, these are quantifiable things. You know, when you see in statements language like we have donated significant funding or we've done this or that with no numbers attached to it, you know something is probably wrong because obviously with the government,

everything is quantifiable. The amount of people hired, the amount of budget resources and money that goes to a specific department is all quantifiable. Obviously, Ms. Green correctly pointed out that if you're not the director of something, you know, it's effectively meaningless, which it is. And, of course, at most of these jobs in government, if you have no budget and you're not in charge of hiring and firing, then you're not really in charge of anything. So these DEI things are really just a PR move for the most part in a lot of these offices to be able to say that they can point to a certain office and say, we've hired this person. This is the DEI person. So we can't possibly be racist because we have the DEI person. Of course, none of that is true. We know that. We know the history of this country. We know how hard it is for the majority, the white majority in this country to deal with the history of this country when it comes to black people and discriminating against black people.

That all plays into this. And now politically on the political side, the Republicans are using DEI as a proxy for, hey, white people, you know, these black people are getting something or are going to get something, a job, a benefit or whatever, that are not qualified. So sort of a proxy for saying quota or that quota is about to happen. Of course, it doesn't matter that none of that is true. If you can message it and get it into a newspaper or get it into a media platform, it's true for whoever reads it. And that's the end of the story. Hold on one second. I'm going to break. We come back, Greg. I want to read for you. I made a comment on the LinkedIn page of the chief diversity officer for PepsiCo today that you might find interesting. And I want to get a comment on that and this issue as well. Folks, you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered live from Chicago right here on the Black Star Network. Back in a moment.

On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, re-entry anxiety. A lot of us are having trouble transitioning in this post-pandemic society and don't even realize it. We are literally stuck between two worlds in purgatory. How to get out of purgatory and regain your footing and balance. What emotions they're feeling and being able to label them because as soon as you label an emotion, it's easier to self-regulate. It's easier to manage that emotion.

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Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 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 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 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 are wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey.

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

and the Ad Council. PayPal is rmartinunfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. You want me to do something crazy, but I don't know what to do. I'd rather just sit here. Hi, this is Cheryl Lee Ralph, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. I mean, could it be any other way? Really, it's Roland Martin. Alright, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Star Network. So, folks, welcome back to Rolling Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Star Network. So, Greg, today, Tina Bogolke, actually it was yesterday, who was the chief diversity officer at PepsiCo, posted this item on LinkedIn that I've responded to.

It said, at PepsiCo, we're continuing to raise the bar on talent and diversity by being intentional. It was great to sit down with Simon Mainwaring to discuss our DEI strategy, partnerships, programs, and policies that help us build on our rich history. We are on a journey, and I'm hashtag PepsiCo proud of our work to advance this critical effort to ensure everyone at PepsiCo feels valued, heard, and supported. Read more on this great conversation with Simon in Forbes. this critical effort to ensure everyone at PepsiCo feels valued, heard, and supported. Read more on this great conversation with Simon and Forbes. Well, I mean, I saw that.

And the article's headline was, PepsiCo pours intentionality into its DEI efforts. And I responded, Greg, by saying, well, what is that strategy? I've had zero success in dealing with PepsiCo. This is the same company that signed on as a founding sponsor of Quibi, along with many others. And they had zero metrics, no proven track record. And they shut down six months after they launched. Quibi sold out their $150 million inventory and had no data to show.

PepsiCo would never give millions of ad dollars to a black-owned startup. All I've gotten is empty meetings with PepsiCo, and I have a proven track record, successful show, and the only black news and information digital channel. My frustration is echoed by me in the black-owned media space. We're tired of press releases, panel discussions, and social media posts. Success with DEI is judged by only one metric, direct deposits to help black-owned media scale up. I'll be happy to discuss this further with your team. See, see, Greg, I'm not into the performative. It's what are you doing? Where's our money?

Hashtag where's our money? Hashtag black economic social justice. Roland, I mean, I think Lauren has framed this. This is all performance. When you say diversity, equity, inclusion, you're talking about performance. In fact, I don't know if we can find it in a split second, but the most recent issue of Forbes magazine has Melanie Hobson on the cover, and it's talking about diversity and equity inclusion in the C-suites, in the corporate suites. And she's got a project that she has launched to increase that. Hey,

that's great. Let me add very quickly, performance. How does that benefit the masses of Black folk? When you start talking about a Black-owned, Black-run, Black-content, progressive, liberation-grounded, Black media unit, that's not something they're going to fund without pressure. And so, you know, of course they're not going to respond to you. The only way they're going to respond to you is when we respond to you in enough numbers to scare them. They got scared three years ago.

They got scared two years ago when people were out in the streets. And we know that Andrea Jenkins, who was the council chair there in Minneapolis, she was one of the nine council members who voted to pledge to defund the police and use that money for public safety. Very quickly walked that back after, as Angela Porter, who's from that area, who's been on the black table many times, calls her crying Jacob Fry, the mayor of Minneapolis, who was so contrite in the wake of the George Floyd murder, vetoed a proposition to defund the police.

And those council members had to. There he is, crying, Jake. But again, they're not going to do anything you don't force them to do. Now, Sister Greene, I think, is a victim of several things. Number one is activists typically don't get DEI jobs. She, as she mentioned, was in Burlington, Vermont for two years before she came home to Minnesota to take this job. And she left that job and in the wake of that said, you know, she didn't feel supported

in that job. Well, guess what, sis? No, you weren't supported. You weren't going to be supported. And so these same two sisters, Andrea Jenkins and Svetlana Vital, who was on the board, on the council that she talked about in her memo, who voted to support that $435,000 investment in this festival, in this event, this Black History Month event that they had. Well, you're probably not going to get any staff support to put it on.

You're not going to get any support from the city because it's a window dressing job. But there are people in Minneapolis, small business owners who lost money, people in the community. My question would have been to her is, having been in a job like this in Vermont for two years, you know, don't you know when you go in, you're not going to have any support? What is your strategy to connect with the people who are swinging with both fists in Minneapolis and in St. Paul and have been doing it for years? You've got to have guerrilla warfare in these situations. You've given us the model. You're not waiting on these people to give you the advertising dollars, even as you implore us to support you so you can do that battle. Meanwhile, you do the work. You do the

work. I think we often miss in these diversity equities. To the point that Greg just made there, Erica, and it's simple. So it's very interesting. Pressure busts pipes. Pressure creates diamonds. The reality is none of this is going to change unless we understand we have to apply pressure. This is not about being nice. This is not about being wonderful. This is not about sitting here presenting resumes. It is going to be pressure. And I

would love for folks to say, oh, we did the right thing, and y'all followed the plans, everything like that. But my experience has been this is what is going to require. And the thing about this is this here. Just like I made about the woman at PepsiCo. Okay, you're the head of DEI. You say that it's an imperative, it's important from the CEO. Prove it. And what we're talking about here,

look at professional services. Again, John Rogers of Arrow Capital has been talking about this here. We talk about professional services. We talk about the studies that have been done showing the money these companies are spending on law firms, on bond firms, and on and on and on. Not just construction. They're spending millions upon millions, and we're getting locked out. And I keep saying to black people, we cannot be silent about it. And this is what I also keep saying to our black civil rights organizations, specifically the NAACP, National Urban League,

River Charters National Action Network, Rainbow Push Coalition, and all of them. I don't care who you are. When we are targeting corporations, business folk need to be leading the negotiations and the civil rights groups operate as the allies because the business folks, we think in terms of multiple millions and billions. So Wells Fargo recently announced a $50 million commitment or donation to the NAACP. If Wells Fargo is giving $50 million to the NAACP, Wells Fargo should be doing $5 billion in business with black businesses and black companies.

I'm not trying to play small ball here, Erica. I'm trying to deal with numbers that could dramatically change our community. Yeah, and to Greg and Lauren's point, I think the key word is not only performance, but window dressing. And I think that we've seen this story enough, we've read about it enough to know how this goes. We saw how tech companies made lofty pledges right after the George Floyd murder, and we saw that many of those pledges went unfulfilled, but that's not a surprise. You know, I've talked about this, this three-pronged effort, and you just touched on it, Roland. We have to have people that are on the ground. We have to have people that are in

the ear talking to people in the community. We have to have the power at the ballot box. And then as trillionaires, we have to exercise our economic power to drive the direction of what the change is that we want to see happen. And until we're operating and firing on all those three cylinders, we're going to see more of the same. The game of disappointment should really be over. We already know what is going to happen. And so to have people continue to play these games, to play with our emotions, so to speak, is really at a loss for us. And it makes bigger business for other communities and institutions. So at this point, we are at a place where we have to make a decision as a community, as a people, as institutions,

as enterprises, as Ms. Green put it, how are we going to go forward? Are we going to go forward bending to the almighty dollar or are we going to walk forward in the power that we absolutely have through that three-pronged effort. You know, Lauren, as I sit here and think about it, when I look at all these commitments, when I look at these announcements that folk made, I'm going, okay, what's the Wendy's commercial? Where's the beef? Because at the end of the day, I'm not interested in your grants. I want to know what are you doing? And for instance, I mean, I saw the Forbes article.

PepsiCo announced they're going to place, they're going to, over the next five years, put $570 million into black banks and Hispanic banks. Great. That's banks. Now. That's banks. Now, let's do all the other categories. And see, and I need our people. I need everybody, people who are watching, Lauren,

and I hear the folk. Oh, man, all you sitting here is caring about yourself. No, we got to be able to change the economic paradigm of existing dollars. Because guess what? Wells Fargo wants us banking there. PepsiCo wants us drinking their products. McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, they want us eating their products. PepsiCo wants us buying their chips and things along those lines. And so, what I'm saying to Black America, we are sitting here

investing in these companies with our purchasing power. We have got to switch the mentality and begin to understand that if we're sending money out and money is not coming back, then we ain't changing nothing.

Yeah, I mean, there's a few things there, Roland. One you already hit on, which is that when black leaders, in my case, what I've observed is usually black elected officials are sitting at a table doing any sort of negotiation that involves money coming in and out of the community. And that could be anything in the community. It could be a business. It could be a casino. It could be a lot of things. It really is important. Cannot say this enough. sitting at that table understands the details of business deals and the amounts of money that one can demand when some company wants to come into a specific community and do something. And a lot of times these are black communities. A recent example actually was Portsmouth, Virginia, and Petersburg, Virginia, where they're figuring out if they want to have a casino,

and Richmond, Virginia, all places where there are a lot of black leaders who are sitting at the table on city council, mayors, et cetera, and so on. And if you don't have somebody at that table when that negotiation happens that is specifically making specific demands about where that money is going to go when that money starts getting made at a place like a casino, but it could be another business as well. There are going to be big mistakes, multimillion-dollar-level mistakes, and it happens all the time, because typically people who come into elected office are not typically business people who deal with millions and millions of dollars. That type of mistake has happened in the black community a lot on big levels. And, you know, it can't be said enough that money and leverage that we have in the community

without buying power has got to be somewhere in the conversation. It all really comes down to who leads that conversation in the moment of truth in some meeting someplace. And I cannot tell you how many times these types of issues have been messed up by people who took poli-sci at some liberal arts school instead of taking the MBA class or a business class, and they end up in elected office as the mayor or somebody in the state senate or whatever it is, having absolutely no idea what they're doing in a business discussion. And that has cost the community,

that's cost the black community millions and millions of dollars. And people like Bernard Jackson and Marion Barry, I mean, people need to study some of these leaders who knew what they were doing at the table, particularly. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future

where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a

multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 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. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

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

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corps vet. 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. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you've got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth.

Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Maynard Jackson. And so that's been a huge issue on this. Hold on one second.

I'm going to go to a break. I want to come back and talk about this here. And I know folks who are watching, and somebody might be saying, man, it's a lot of other news to talk about. I'm going to say this again, and I want you all to understand this. If you are not having a money conversation, you're not having an American conversation. You're watching Rolling Modern Unfilard on the Blackstar Network. Coming up on the next Black Table, a conversation with Professor Howard

W. French on his new book, Born in Blackness, covering 600 years of global African history and helping us understand how the world we know today is a gift from Black people. There could have been no West without Africa and Africa.

That's on the next Black Table with me, Greg Carr, only on the Black Star Network. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, re-entry anxiety. A lot of us are having trouble transitioning in this post-pandemic society and don't even realize it. We are literally stuck between two worlds in purgatory.

How to get out of purgatory and regain your footing and balance. What emotions they're feeling and being able to label them. Because as soon as you label an emotion, it's easier to self-regulate. It's easier to manage that emotion. The next A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network.

I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show, Get Wealthy, focuses on the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you, but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Israel Houghton with Israel and New Breed. What's up, what's up?

I'm Dr. Ricky Dillard, the choir master. Ayo, peace world. What's going on? It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devon, and you're watching Roland Roland Martin Unfiltered. So here's, I need people to listen. I need people to listen to what I'm about to tell you. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, black institutions across the board saw a dramatic increase of donations.

Black Lives Matter, $90 million. The NAACP, upwards of $150 million $100 million to the National Urban League NAACP Legal Defense Fund Lawrence Community for Civil Rights Under Law all these groups, HBCUs we could go on and on and on but I need people to listen to me when I give you some numbers

a lot of y'all got bent out of shape But I need people to listen to me when I give you some numbers. A lot of y'all got bent out of shape with the $90 million that was given to Black Lives Matter. Man, what they doing with the money? but y'all did not have that same fervor when corporate America actually committed anywhere from 50 to 60 billion in the wake of social justice. Let me repeat that. A lot of y'all have smoke for Black Lives Matter.

But y'all were silent about the $50-60 billion, but you had a lot of smoke for the $90 million. See, it's interesting to me, Greg, and this is to the point that Lauren just made there is a critical,

critical point. If we are going to change the paradigm, you've got to have people sitting at the table. You've heard me say this. Why keep saying to these HBCUs, damn it.

Stop letting people negotiate media rights deals. Stop letting them negotiate pouring rights deals. Stop letting people negotiate apparel deals and all you end up with is initiatives and dangle internships when what HBCUs should be doing is extracting millions of dollars in investment into their programs. We have got to have people to sit at the table who understand how to negotiate big numbers

as opposed to what we have is, in too many cases, big egos. Absolutely. I think that last part, what you just said there, really brings it all home. We have to be able to do that, but that means there has to be a we. There is no we, brother. Segregation forced us into a we. So, you know, it's interesting when you look at HBCU boards of directors, boards of trustees and so forth. Prior to the end of apartheid, many of these people were business people in black communities. Many of these people were people who knew how to build

a business, run a business, and deal with black people. They loved black people, but let's be quite frank, they were also relying on black people prior to the end of apartheid. What we see today is individual Negroes, many of them pets and successes in the white world. If you look at corporate America, according to this recent Forbes magazine article, the standards and poor top 500, maybe 85 percent of standards and poor top 500 companies in the United States have some black representation on their boards of directors. But about 3.2 percent of those companies have blacks in senior executive roles. So they sprinkle a little diversity, equity, inclusion, but it doesn't do anything for us. See, when you're looking at a Roland Martin, you're looking at somebody who is a successful businessman, but also has a mentality that you're trying to do something

for the race. We can't make the assumption that these individuals are trying to do something for the race. Even when they're trying to do something for the race, they're doing it in a capitalist system. You're absolutely right. You're talking about America, you're talking about the world system, you're talking about capitalism. And guess what capitalism doesn't do? It doesn't do charity for people who might be an actual competition for it. So, I mean, you're talking about the world system, you're talking about capitalism. And guess what capitalism doesn't do? It doesn't do charity for people who might be an actual competition for it.

So I mean, I was talking to my students today about the WNBA. They were saying, well, you know, the WNBA, why don't people support the WNBA? I said, have y'all ever heard of ABL? They said, no. I said, look it up. And in that room, what they found was there was a professional league where the owners were trying to make partners with the players and make them part owners and move this together. And David Stern and the criminal enterprise known as the National Basketball Association put the ABL out of business,

even though they subsidized the WNBA for years at a loss because they could not afford to have an independent entity take away from their captive market. See, the American Negro loves their master. And because you love your master, you won't turn around and support something like Black Star Network, which means the people have to support it. Woodson taught us this lesson. I'll end with this. This is the Forbes magazine I was talking

about with Melody Hobson on the cover. Capitalism for all. Well, guess what? That's an oxymoron. She says people talk about access to capital, but access to customers may be more important. Yeah, especially when you've got individual Negroes trying to create beautiful graphics and loss leaders to bring our people into the white capitalist structure. And where is Melody Hobson's check for Black Star Media?

Where is Robert Smith's check for Black Star Media? Where is, what's the boy's name that tried to flip the Civil Rights Act over? You know, the guy who's now bidding for BET with Diddy and Tyler Perry. What's his name? Oh, yeah, you're from Byron Allen. Where is his checkbook? These people are playing capitalism. There is no we. But when they get in trouble, that's when they come for the we. We got a we got a we. I don't give a damn if it's any black people in corporate America. If it's three of them there and nothing happens for us and all you're doing is creating shake your jingle leg jingles

so that a few more Negroes can give up the last three cents in their pocket to Pepsi and Target and everywhere else, then we don't need you. What we need to do is support our own. And if you're not supporting us in these diversity, equity positions you get yourself in, I agree with you, Lauren. Turn your back on them. We have

to organize. This is a very different kind of capitalism because capitalism is on the chair. And this is also why these black folks are sitting on these boards of directors. Why are you there? White! Black folks fought for you to get these positions, but what are you doing while

you are there? Why are we having to beat the door down to get black-owned media advertising when every single one of these boards has a black board member? They should say that is my mission sitting on this board. And let me address the point because John talks about this notion of access to capital versus access to consumers. Y'all, this is real simple. Roland doesn't need access to capital. Let me say that again.

I need everybody to listen to what I'm saying. We are in the black. We are profitable. I don't want a loan. Come on, brother. I want contracts. See, if I get contracts, I don't need loans. Loans, I got to pay back.

If I get contracts, then I'm still able to pay folk. Y'all, if we get more contracts, we don't need lines of credit. The lines of credit simply allows us to be able, if the company is going to be paying on a 180-day term, six months, well, the line of credit allows me to pay my expenses while the money is coming in. The problem contracts. And that's if y'all want to understand why we keep having all these other conversations happening in black America, it's because we are being frozen out of the economic pie. And so they want access to black consumers.

They want access to black pocketbooks. They want access to black minds. They want to hire black people to be creative, to produce the ad. Listen, I'm going to say this again. They want to hire black people to create the ads to get black people to buy more things, but they don't want to run the same ads that black people create on black owned media.

So please, you tell me what that is called. We call that sharecropping. My, my. They understand that. They understand who's in charge. I understand. But again, we have to have the courage to challenge them saying, where's the return on investment? Folks, I am. So here's the deal.

I am headed out. I'm headed to a meeting with my frat brother, Don Thompson, the former CEO of McDonald's, who is doing some amazing things with his wife, Liz, driving this issue as well. So I'm going to go meet with him. We've got a lot of other things that are happening. Greg Carr is going to take over the second hour of the show, folks. Don't leave. We've got lots more to talk about. Greg, Erica, and Lauren are going to be here holding down.

And so I'm doing double duty here. And so y'all keep watching the Black Star Network right here. We're going to keep educating. We're going to keep trying to tell y'all because everything I'm laying out to y'all ain't nothing but hard-cold truth. And the reason they don't want to fund Black-owned media is because they don't want this conversation

to be had to the masses. I'm going to see y'all tomorrow. Don't forget, my book signing is in Chicago, y'all. We are sold out. I'm going to have to come back to Chicago. Literally, there's no room.all. We are sold out. I'm going to have to come back to Chicago. Literally, there's no room. The restaurant is completely sold out. Can't wait to be at Chemistry Chicago tomorrow night.

Black-owned restaurant there in Hyde Park. I'll be back in a moment, y'all. A lot of these corporations or people that are running stuff push black people if they're doing a certain thing. What that does is it creates a butterfly effect of any young kid who, you know, wants to leave any situation they're in. And the only people they see are people that are doing this. So I got to be a gangster. I got to shoot. I got to sell. I got to do this in order to do it. And it just becomes a cycle. But when someone comes around and makes another, oh, we don't, you know, they don't want

to push it or put money into it, so that's definitely something I'm trying to fix, too, is just show there's other avenues. You don't gotta be a rapper, you don't gotta be a ballplayer. You can be a country singer, you can be an opera singer, you can be a damn whatever, you know? Showing the different avenues, and that is possible, and it's hard for people to realize that it's possible until someone does it. We're all impacted by the culture,

whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives, and we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood-Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is

teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie.

I'm Angie Stone. Hi, I'm Teresa Griffin. Oh, Roland. Hey Roland, I am so disappointed that you are not here, first of all. Where's our dance? It's like we get a dance in every time I see you. And so now you're not here for me to dance with, sir.

You and your ascot. I need it. I need that in my life right now. OK. I love you, Roland. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. In our Black and Missing segment tonight, we are talking about Tevin Powell.

Tevin Powell disappeared from his Louisville, Kentucky home on September the 18th, 2022. The 16-year-old is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 160 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Tevin Powell should call the Louisville, Kentucky Metro Police Department at 502-574-7111. Let's turn our attention to the state of New York, in fact, more specifically the Isle of Manhattan and a brother who is making headlines because he's just doing his job, Alvin Bragg, who is of course the district attorney in Manhattan. The Manhattan DA's office tells three house GOP committee chairman to stay in their lane. Let's see now that we have writing on Alvin Bragg. General Counsel Leslie B. Dubeck penned a letter to the representatives saying that the Republican chairman's request

in an unprecedented inquiry into pending local prosecution. You've probably been looking at Jim Jordan and others who are trying to get Alvin Bragg to testify before Congress. Apparently they don't understand how government works. Dubeck's letter is in response to a letter that the GOP chairman sent to Bragg earlier this week seeking information about the Trump case and federal funding for the DA offices that the DA office receives. She said that Bragg's office would not allow the congressional investigation to impede New York from them exercising, quote, New York's sovereign police

power. There we go. The right wing likes to talk about federalism, except when they want to use the federal government as a cudgel. She did inform them that they would prepare a letter describing its use of federal funds. Bragg's office wants to meet with committee staff to understand the precise information they see. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 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. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice

to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this

quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. 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. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you've got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth.

Never stop being a dad. That's Dadication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Which can be shared within, quote, constitutional obligations. Lauren, you've covered the Hill. You've covered a lot of political backs and forths in many different state houses and federal state houses. What the hell is Jim Jordan asking Alvin Bragg?

And how would you advise the Manhattan DA's office to respond to this? Well, I don't know that they need any advice there. Their, you know, their response was what I suspected it would be. As somebody who was born in the Bronx. It was not unfamiliar. I only wish that Robert Morgenthau was still alive. When I was a little kid, he was the DA of Manhattan in the 1970s. You know, I think he passed away just a few years ago in 2018, 2019. This is the type of outrageous, ridiculous, arrogant request that somebody like Robert Morgenthau would have really slammed down.

I think Alvin Bragg's office was being very polite. I know a lot of the media is like, ooh, it was a strong response. Well, I'll tell you what, if that was Cyrus Vance in there or Morgenthau, it would have been even stronger. There's this air with Jim Jordan and a lot of these Republicans that we have in Congress now of you cannot boss us. You cannot tell us what to do. We tell you what to do. We tell you how it's going to be. We dictate the pace.

Nobody can ever tell us anything. That was the same air that Donald Trump had, which is, you know, it is an arrogant vestige of white supremacy, this idea that how dare this black DA be telling us what to do? How dare we have to listen to his, you know, guidance in any way, shape or form? He's never going to boss us. So they're flexing to their supporters and they're sort of carrying this idea that nobody can ever tell us what to do. There is no authority over us. We get to tell Alvin Bragg to come hither. It is all complete nonsense, complete, unadulterated, clear nonsense. And they'll do it until somebody slaps them down,

you know, which is typically a court or another lawyer or somebody else in authority that understands this is all nonsense. But in fact, they do need to be slapped down or they just get bigger and more bold and more arrogant. And that's what you just saw. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it's interesting to hear you say that, Lauren. Certainly they could be slapped down. And the voters that keep returning these people to office, even though they're doing nothing for their constituents, nothing for their districts. Jim Jordan hadn't passed a piece of legislation yet, and yet he's got time to do all this. You know, I'm wondering, Erica, as somebody who has literally worn the uniform of the United States and has been threatened with being put in harm's way to defend this country, I wonder

if you have any thoughts about how this erodes the morale of people who have real needs in this country. And while they are waiting for people who they elected to return something to them by way of our tax dollars, they have to turn on the television, and sadly some of them watch Fox and other places where they're deluded and think these people are fighting for them. And they see this kind of shenanigans. Meanwhile, their lives continue to erode. I mean, you know, any thoughts on this back and forth and what it does to people who are just trying to live their lives and wondering why Congress never does anything in moments like this, except things like this? Sure. So to the first point, the question that you asked me, I think that this is kind of the really built into the fabric of this country in that it goes to show that white nationalism

is in fact global and that the notion that it is supreme is definitely laughable. But when you talk about the uniform, I think that, you know, one of the things that I've thought about with people that do serve in the military, most people that serve in the military are people that go to work. That's just a part of their job that they do serve sometimes in peacetime, but that in the event of war or active theater, that they are saying that they are available to go to whatever space that's necessary. But on the face of it, again, this is built into the fabric of the country. And I think that, you know, when we look at historically over the past couple of elections, this is what Republicans have not only said that they would do, but they actually published pieces to say that this is what they're going to do.

So it continues to go back to what, you know, what are we going to do in response to that? We can't just do anything that, you know, the son of a Klansman would go on to his social media channel of choice and use language like calling District Attorney Bragg an animal really is goes, you know, is par for the course. It goes back to what white nationalism is and that it continues to be dogged in its whole apparatus to make itself supreme, which it shall not, never will be, and won't, and it is, it isn't. So to people who are going about the business of working every day, a part of our work is to ensure that our present and our future has a better space than what we're facing right now. And it goes back to that three-prong attack. But it also does beg us to be more conscious about what we can do in some of the time that we do have available because Republicans did promise this level of chaos.

And so we've got another year and a half to go until at least on the congressional side, well, the House side, rather, to make a decision about who's going to see the same thing unless we actually exercise some of the power that we have if we don't have the ability to be on the ground, which is to go to the ballot box and ensure that unless in cases of gerrymandering, that we are able to have individuals in the office that do speak for us. Absolutely. Well, let's turn. Speaking of the ballot box, let's turn to elected officials in the extremely gerrymandered Magnolia State, Jackson, Mississippi. In Jackson right now, there has been a commission put together, which has only one black lawmaker and nine whites, to negotiate the final version of a bill that would expand the territory

of a state-run police department inside Mississippi's majority black capital city. Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hausman and House Speaker Philip Gunn, both Republicans, finished selecting the senators and representatives to work on the final versions of the bill. The committee has eight white Republicans, one white independent, and one black Democratic House rep, Representative Earl Banks, as a negotiator of Jackson. I may have a little bit of a voiceover, but Mississippi's Republican-controlled state house passed the bill to expand areas patrolled by the state-run Capitol Police in Jackson

and create a new court system with appointed rather than elected judges. Now, Banks, of course, voted against the bill. The negotiators face a deadline to finish their work by next week. The Senate voted to expand Capitol Police territory to the entire city, but the House voted for an expansion only into relatively affluent shopping and residential areas. When we come back from our break, we're going to ask Erica and Lauren their thoughts on this revived White Citizens Council in Mississippi as they try to take over the city of Jackson. So we'll be back in a moment here. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. 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 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. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg

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

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

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

adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Hold no punches. I'm real revolutionary right now. Black power. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roland. Be black. I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN.

You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Coming up on the next Black Table, a conversation with Professor Howard W. French on his new book, Born in Blackness, covering 600 years of global African history. I think that's understand how the world we know today.

It's a gift from black people there could have been no West without Africa. That's on the next black table with me Greg car only on the black start. Hello, I'm Bishop to the J high on the favorite funny girl, Amanda feel I'm Anthony T.D. James. Hi, how's it doing? It's your favorite funny girl, Amanda Seales. Hi, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapy. What's up? Lana Wells, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Welcome back to the Black Star Network.

Remember to support the Black Star Network across all your platforms. Tell your friends to get in here now. We've got to support each other as we do this work. We just left the state of Mississippi. You know, this has been the station in the network that has covered this story more than anywhere else. We've had the mayor of Jackson on, Chotway Lumumba, have had city council people on, have folk organizers who are on. Erica, thinking about this question of Jackson, and now they've put this commission together. Of course, they were trying to get at the federal dollars for the water, fix the water,

and now here they are trying to create their police force inside the borders. Any thoughts on the implications of this kind of extreme measure of creating an insular white police force to guard the white neighborhoods, and then a civil court where they can get involved in other things, perhaps even like taking land or whatever else they want to busy themselves with in Jackson, Mississippi. Yeah, white nationalism. I'm glad you mentioned the White Citizens Council, because I thought about that, you know, after the Lamar Brown v. Board of Education.

And so you saw segregation is becoming very active, white nationalists. But those types of councils didn't disappear. They just really kind of disseminated into other places. They're in our wells of Congress. They are executives of state. They're all around. They're billionaires and they're poor as well. And so in thinking about Mississippi, you know, we do have Ben Crump, who is also a friend of the show, young man Raheem Carter, who his remains were found in different places. His spinal cord was found in one place and other remains in another place. Attorney Crump was reporting that he was allegedly reportedly decapitated. And so when we see we've had another lawyer on to talk about two men that were essentially tortured for 90 minutes, one that had to have his tongue surgically removed.

And in effect that both of those men who were African-American men who are African-American men were found to be dating white women. So we continue to see these atrocities that seems like something that could have been out of the 19th, 20th century and times before that, that are still happening. And it is because of, Roland has laid out in his book, White Fear. We've been talking about this shrinking white minority. But, you know, one of the things that I'm thinking about in terms of the ongoing water crisis that is happening in Jackson, Mississippi, is also the students of an HBCU there, Jackson State University. And so when we think about police presence, understanding what that has looked like for Black people for centuries on end, as we have known them to be slave patrols,

thinking about that student population, you know, is that population going to begin to, you know, disintegrate? Are we going to see Jackson State not be what Jackson State has been in the past? Because parents are in fear of sending their children there. Raheem Carter was a 25-year-old young man who ran to the police for help in fear of white men that were following him. So, you know, as we look at Mississippi and looking at it and what it is doing, it is also spreading a message. It is telegraphing a message of what a lot of people are wanting to see across these United States of America. So I think that, you know, as we continue to report on these stories, talk about these stories, these are things that people should be, no matter where they're living,

what part of the country, as Malcolm X said, everything below the Canadian border is the South. No matter what area of the country that we find ourselves in, these are things that we should be looking at and being very, very concerned about seeing these things replicated in our specific areas. Absolutely. And it's funny you say that. I mean, people, parents worried about safety. We heard Mayor Lumumba say that, you know, Jackson State does not have its own water system, whereas they have created water systems for the hospital, for the district where the state house is in Mississippi, all this being apartheid. And then there's the class element, Lauren. You know, it's interesting, in the reports that we've been reading, Representative Banks,

who was on the commission, said, I've heard from doctors, I've heard from lawyers, I've heard from retired people, people want more protection than they have now. You know, how does class play a role in this? How does starving the city of resources, Jackson Police Department, is terribly burdened and short-staffed? I mean, how can we govern in a black city surrounded by these white legislators who have just decided they're just going to run amok until, as you said in the previous story, somebody stops them? How do we move through this and make some progress? It's really difficult, particularly in Mississippi, because Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the United States. It's like 20 percent of Mississippi is below the poverty line.

I'm really surprised that a lawsuit hasn't straightened some of this out over the years. That never seems to happen. The allocation of resources is obviously based on some sort of racist paradigm, and everybody can see it. You know, when you have in Mississippi, 38 percent, almost 40 percent of the population is black, but in Jackson, it's like 80 percent black. So it's a pretty amazing thing. I thought one of the most interesting things that you said in the read, in the open to the story that they're demanding demanding is this idea of appointed but not elected judges. Of course you would have to want appointed and not elected judges when you have a population

that's 80 percent black, because if the black people were making the decisions, which, of course, they're functioning in this world where that, of course, don't want that to happen, they would have, of course, all the functioning in this world where they, of course, don't want that to happen, they would have, of course, all the control over elected judges and any other elected officials, for that matter. So there really isn't anything new here. I mean, this is Mississippi. This is the Mississippi of the 1920s, the 1930s, the 1800s. I mean, it's the same Mississippi it's always been.

And other than the words from Nina Simone's song, Mississippi Goddamn, coming into my head, I really don't have that much of an answer for it. It just is. I've only been to Mississippi. I've been to is never completely faced, something that is never completely looked in the eye of. And the way it's going, we don't seem to be getting too much closer at getting them to look in the eye of their own history. So it just repeats itself. As I don't need to tell Dr. Carr, it repeats itself. No, no, no. I mean, I think you're right, Lorne. I mean, I've been to Mississippi many times.

I love flying into Mega-Evers Airport and sitting in the history you're surrounded by. And we know that their history isn't just books. The people fight. There's a new book, Jackson Rising Redux, Callie Acuno and Matt Meyer. We know that Mississippi is not going to take this land down, certainly not the black folk in the city and in the state. Another sister who has been on these airways many times, Rukia Lumumba, the sister of Chokwe Lumumba, the mayor. Of course, their parents, of course, Nubia and Chokwe Lumumba, the previous mayor. There will be lawsuits. There will be fights. In fact, both course, their parents, of course, Nubia and Chokwe Lumumba, the previous mayor,

there will be lawsuits. There will be fights. In fact, both of them are lawyers, in fact, Chokwe and Rukia. Let's move to another battleground for a few minutes. We're going to go out to California. This is actually, since we've been talking about Mississippi, the south in my tongue would pronounce this Temecula Valley, but it might be Temecula Valley. But at any rate, it's in California, and we're looking at critical race theory. We just saw what happens when black people speak publicly about critical race theory. And we also know that conservatives are trying their best to erase black history for the last few years. In fact, they've coined banned critical race theory, or as they might call

it CRT, which is not taught in grade schools, by the way, as they're rallying crime. Well, during this year's conservative political action conference, also known as CPAC and some other names we won't repeat here, one woman clarified what she thought should be taught in schools. Well, and I get very aggravated because I noticed the folks who push CRT do not seem to take the time to teach about Frederick Douglass, who was a great black founding father. They have erased the work of early black people in this country. Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, many of these things were not taught about them and their full capacity. So what we need to do

is we need to get rid of the CRT nonsense and start teaching more about what Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, the person who stole the Confederate ship, W.E.B. Dubois, Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Farrakhan. I mean, you know, the list goes on. The list goes on. It's crazy. It is a robbery of both black and white children to not teach that history because black children should be knowing that there were great black leaders that they can identify with. And it's like no one, none of these kids know who Marcus Garvey is. Yeah, exactly. Now, while we're letting that percolate, and our ally there doing the best he can, it's Du Bois, as Dr. Du Bois often reminded, not Du Bois. And the guy he couldn't name was Robert Smalls, who stole the ship, the Planter, in South

Carolina and sailed that confederate ship, of course, came back as a congressman. But while we're letting that percolate, and maybe we'll get both of your comments after the break, I want to put this one on the table in the spirit of that. That wasn't from California. That was from CPAC a couple of weeks ago here in the DMV. But in California, there was a brother who spoke up at a critical race workshop and was removed. Chaos and confusion, in fact, erupted during a California workshop about critical race theory. A Black man who attended the workshop decided to speak up during the event to share his dismay with the board's decision to ban CRT when it's not even taught in their classrooms.

Dear Temecula Valley School Board, I am writing to express my deep disappointment and disapproval of your recent decision to bring in a panel of so-called experts on critical race theory, CRT. It is widely recognized by the vast majority of experts that bringing CRT into the K-12 classroom is just as outlandish as bringing calculus to the first grade classroom. Neither idea is viable or credible. Therefore, it is asinine to ban CRT when it isn't even taught in any K-12 classroom in the United States of America. Your continued blatant, willful ignorance of the Black experience in this country is not only shameful, but also detrimental to the education and growth of our children. As Frederick Douglass once said, I say it with a sad sense of disparity

between us. I am not included within the pale of glorious anniversary. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers are shared by you, not me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This 4th of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, but I must mourn. It is a disappointing to see people who have a problem with history being taught. It is not Ruby Bridges who has a problem with history being taught accurately. It is the people who threw rocks at a six-year-old. It is for trying to simply go to school whose grandchildren might

learn and see their pictures and recognize their faces as they were throwing rocks at this little girl instead of taking progress. Thank you, Dean. And trustable, they want to suppress the truth. Thank you. Shortly after sharing his thoughts, the black man said a white woman told him to leave the country. That's when Joseph Komarowski, the school board president, gave him a warning instead of asking the woman to leave. The black man was escorted out of the building. His removal was set with booze, was met with booze, and many called for the white woman to be removed instead. Now, do we probably should go to a break and come back and maybe we'll watch the video and get some response, or should we? So what we'll do is right now is say that we're

watching Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Star Network. And sisters Lauren and sisters Erica will certainly have a lot to say. We're going to show this video of the man getting left out. And we're going to go to break. And when we come back, oh, we're going to have a hot time in the old town, as Malcolm would say. Back in a moment here on the Black Star Network. Coming up on the next Black Table, a conversation with Professor Howard W. French on his new book, Born in Blackness, covering 600 years of global African history and helping us understand how the world we know today is a gift from Black people. There could have been no West without Africa and Africa. That's on the next Black Table with me, Greg Carr, only on the Black Star Network.

We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day, right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Blackstar Network. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show, Get Wealthy, focuses on the things

that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you, but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Blackstar Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for a balanced life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, a balanced life with Dr. Jackie. What's up, y'all? I'm Will Packer.

Everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond. Hi, my name is Bresha Webb, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. And, well, I like a nice filter usually, but we can be unfiltered. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Star Network. When we left, we heard a very stirring excerpt from What to the Slave is the Fourth of July from Frederick Douglass, a brother who stood at the school board meeting and had some comments

on the attempt to ban something that isn't even taught, critical race theory, in the classroom out there in that California school district. And as we told you, the school board president, Joseph Komorowski, instead of asking the woman who told the brother to leave the country to leave, he gave a warning to the brother who stood up and bravely confronted this foolishness. Let's take a watch. Let's look at the video of that moment when the school board president warns the brother instead of asking the person who should have been asked to leave to leave. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 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. 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 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. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. Arapahoe, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a

better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. If I don't, if I feel that way, why don't I get out of the country? Sir, that's your first warning. The second warning, you'll be asked to leave. She said get out of the country. She told me to get out of the country. My family has been here since August 16, 1619.

Sir, that's enough. A dead town, here in. Sir, that's enough. A dead town, here in Virginia, my family was here. We've been slain for 400 years. Jason, please escort this man out of the building. Thank you. If you would like, the whole auditorium can leave. That's the way we're going to conduct.

Joe, that is... Joe. We need order in the building, or I'll let everybody leave. I object to that. If this woman said that to him, she needs to be excused. Take her away! Take her away! Take her away! Take her away! Take her away! Take her away! Take her away!

Take her away! Take her away! Take her away! Take her away! Take her away! Take her away! Get her out! Get her out! Get her out! Get her out!

Get her out! Get her out! Get her out! Get her out! Get her out! Get her out! Get her out! Get her out! Get her out of here! Well, well, well, my friends, what did we see there?

Between that Instagram video and then looks like Joe there, Joe Komrowski, as he tucked in his manhood and began to stand, looks like he read the room. The sister on the end was like, hey, you need to put her out. Now, the five council members on the left seemed to sit there and pray for law enforcement. The sister showed up in there. But can somebody please, Lauren or Erica, just please, what were we looking at? And what is this climate? It looks like the audience was really with their brother. But then again, it was kind of hard to decipher.

Lauren, what do you think about it? Well, we're looking at a few things. We're looking at social hierarchy. He picked the white woman over the black male, no surprise, when he could have very easily have said, OK, both of you need to leave. You know, in fairness to him, he may not have heard what the woman said. Of course, the woman in the audience yells up at him and tells him what the woman said. He can clearly hear what the male, what the black male said, because black males yelling at him. Salute to that guy, by the way, who's from Virginia. My mother's from Virginia. We need more guys like

in Virginia. But anyway, there's some social hierarchy. I think we're also seeing, you know, in a more general sense, a sort of growing trend in this country of an inability for people to listen to people who they disagree with and be civil while they're listening to people they disagree with. In my line of works in the government, whether it was the federal government or the state government in New York or Virginia, I've had to be in many meetings where I was listening to people I did not agree with. I sat there. I listened. It was civil. I lived. They lived. The world didn't end. I'm sure, Erica and Greg, you probably saw in the news recently,

Stanford Law School had an incident with a conservative judge named Kyle Duncan. He came at the request of the Federalist Society, which is, of course, a very conservative group, whether it be the student group or the national group, a very conservative group. He was shouted down and kind of ran out of the, you know, he was run out of the room. He wasn't really allowed to talk. They shouted him down. I'm not a big, you know, fan of the Federalist Society. I thought it was totally wrong. I think you're in school to hear people's opinions. You know, you're in school to learn things. You shouldn't feel

so sensitive about somebody who may disagree or hearing somebody who may disagree vehemently with that you can't hear it. You know, you know, there's that famous scene, Eric and Greg and Malcolm X, where Malcolm X is coming out of the school. I don't know whether that's real or not, whether he probably did, I'm sure, address many colleges and universities. But I thought it was interesting. And the white woman comes up to him and says, you know, what can I do as a white woman who believes in justice? And Malcolm, you know, Denzel Washington playing Malcolm turns says nothing. I don't know if that ever actually happened, but I thought to myself looking at that scene and also thinking about the James Baldwin video. I think he's at Oxford and he has a famous argument with William F. Buckley.

You know, he basically, Baldwin basically beats Buckley at that argument. Everybody's listening. Everything's cool. We have a growing thing in this country now, though, of people not being able to listen to things they don't want to hear and shouting each other down. And that's primarily what I think we just saw there, what Jonathan Haidt refers to as the coddling of the American mind. I think it's a growing trend. I think it's a dangerous trend, quite frankly, even in cases where people are saying things I don't agree with. I do think it's dangerous, particularly in academia. But this is a school board meeting. We're seeing this level of contentiousness in these school board meetings.

I understand CRT. We understand that CRT is a fake convention. People understand that. At the same time, I think the way you beat people's ideas is with other ideas. notice that once he starts quoting Frederick Douglass is when, you know, everybody starts shifting in their seat, you know, because once you start getting closer to the truth, the truth has power. Those words have a lot of power. You see what the result is. I always know in an argument where I'm winning because people just start to shift. They start to interrupt. That's when you know you're ringing the bell and he rang it. And it's just a very interesting thing

to watch at this moment in our country we have these changing demographics that's very true yeah i mean we're in a state where i doubt of the two of them whether joseph kamarowski's ancestors or the guy he called to put him out have been in california longer than that man since you know so but but but it's very interesting er Erica, just listening to Lauren talk about this and think about how many things were going on in that moment. The escalation, the potential that it could have turned into something else. The crowd was seemed to back the brother and saying, put her out, put her out. And that white man threatened to put everybody out. But apparently in that moment he thought better of it. How do you interpret what we were looking at there and what it says about where we are in this country in terms of the ability to listen to each other or to try to exert some authority to just impose our will?

Yeah, well, you know, we talked about this before with kind of like flamethrower words. So, you know, there's been a significant portion of this country, 70 plus million that did vote for the son of a Klansman, that have really been taught to really respond to specific words. And so, you know, the latest one is woke. And so CRT has definitely been one that they have been trained to respond to. But, you know, be very clear that this has always been the path that the protection of Carolyn Bryant is at all costs. So it was no surprise that he was warned and then effectively thrown out. And then the woman who made the inflammatory response to him saying to get out of the country, which is laughable, was protected at all costs. But, you know, this really makes me think about the congressional hearings on gun violence.

And this was really a powder keg moment, particularly when we see school boards across the country that are becoming more and more partisan, that people are having to declare the party that they belong to, that these are people that are effectively supposed to be making decisions about the safety, about the protection and the education of our kids. And so I think that we are on the precipice of a very, very dangerous moment. Just thinking about, you know, if there could have been one person that would have been in that room, God forbid, that at, you know, hearing voices elevated, a black man and a white woman could have began to shoot. It would have been a much

worse situation than what has unfolded at this moment. So I think that, you know, as we see the Mississippis, the Temeculas, as we see flamethrowing from social media and look at gun violence, that these are things that people need to be very, very conscious of, you know, continuing turning points in the country where there's almost a point of no return. Absolutely. Yeah, it seemed like the audience, once the brother had been removed or threatened with removal, they wanted the white woman out too because she was still able to stay there.

It really does show that there are people who are willing to stand up. And it's funny, like you say, protect Carolyn Bryant at all costs. The white woman stands up from the end of the table and comes over to talk to this guy. I mean, it's a complicated kind of calculus. You know, I was looking at something yesterday,

Lauren. I was in a meeting. The National Council of Black Studies is meeting this weekend in Tallahassee. No, in Gainesville, University of Florida. That's where we have in our meeting. I'm going down there this weekend for the meeting. And there's some real angst there because the state of California, of course, has banned travel, state-supported travel to places like Florida and other places where this has been put on the agenda. But one of the things that's upsetting is young black kids in California schools who want to take HBCU tours, because the state is threatening not to reimburse them for these tours, and now they can't go to these campuses that they want to go.

Any thoughts on how this CRT war may impact even in terms of federalism and trap people who are in some of these states from being able to engage in the kind of face-to-face dialogue that might ultimately prove beneficial. Wow. I mean, that's where we get into a space where I think talking about boycotting and, you know, one of the languages that these people understand, I'm sure DeSantis will understand it, is money, you know. But Florida, of course, so dependent on tourism and people visiting the state that there's got to be a pathway in there.

There's got to be a discussion about, I mean, I think anybody just floating the discussion would probably do it, particularly if it was one of our major civil rights groups. And I understand that our civil rights groups, for the most part, are owned by corporate interests. I mean, we understand that. But at the same time, you know, any sort of rumor of discussion might get that going. But it all goes back to you have to you have to win at the ballot box. And, of course, the Florida Democratic Party currently is in shambles, but the pendulum always swings back. The demographics in Florida will allow them to at some point recover, at least on the left.

The right is doing very well at beating them now. But, you know, I think, frankly, the Andrew Gillum moment is what really scared them and got them galvanized. And it works both ways. What's happening right now in Florida will scare the Democrats, and then they'll work harder. So until you fix that political problem, we're going to be having these discussions. But fortunately, these things don't, power doesn't last forever. Four-year terms don't last forever.

Two-year terms don't last forever. It just takes planning and organization and some real tough talk about what has to get done. Absolutely. Wise words. When we come back, we're going to probably stay in the South for a couple more stories, but we're going to be back in a moment. Thank you, Lauren. Roland Martin,

Unfiltered, you're on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. Hatred on the streets. A horrific scene. be right back. Mod storms the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash.

This is the rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. There's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs,

they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 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 podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.

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

Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. 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 two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player,

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug 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. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you've got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth.

Never stop being a dad. That's Dadication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Hi, this is Shira Lee Ralph. Hello, everyone. It's Kiara Sheard. Hey, I'm Taj. I'm Coco.

And I'm Lili. And we're SWB. What's up, y'all? It's Ryan Destiny, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Welcome. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Star Network. Remember to support the Black Star Network. Tell your friends, your family, wherever you are in the world watching this old top streaming network. We're going to stay in the South. We're going to bring in Tennessee. We're going to bring in Georgia.

We're going to bring in by proxy Alabama. And we'll probably even name check South Carolina. Let's do these in rapid, rapidbing fashion, and then we'll get Erica and Lauren to comment on any of the stories that resonate with them. First, from Tennessee. From the state of Tennessee, a FAMU graduate who did her undergraduate at FAMU and did her doctorate, her MD in Ohio,

is about to become Vanderbilt's first Black woman neurosurgery resident. She's going to be in my hometown. Let's talk about some Black girl and Black boy magic that's happening. This sister will be the first in 148 years to put on the doctor's coat there since the opening of the medical school in 1874. Tamaya Potter matched for a spot in the neurosurgery position at the university's medical center in Nashville, Tennessee on March 17th, better known to medical students as National Match Day. Shout out to Meharry and Howard and the Morehouse School of Medicine and Charles Drew, where they matched as well.

Thousands of graduate medical students all over the country learned where they would go and do their residency training for the next several years. Tamaya didn't believe it, so she had to call and confirm. Vanderbilt trained its first neurosurgery resident in 1932, making Potter the first black woman to join in 91 years. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, only about 5.7 percent of physicians in the United States identify as black or African-American. The association found that there were only 33 black women in the neurosurgical field as of 2018. Let's go to Georgia, where a black editor was named to lead the Atlanta General Constitution.

The AJC named its first black editor, and it's a 155-year history. It's a shame. We're doing these breaking, still breaking barriers at this late date. Leroy Chapman Jr. was announced as the new editor-in-chief after 12 years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He's been serving as its managing editor since 2021. So as Lauren knows, he's been running the paper, so now he gets to be the editor. He will take charge of a new staff operating over 125,000 print and digital subscribers and about 6 million unique online monthly visitors. Before coming to Atlanta, Chapman worked in South Carolina as a government editor at the

state newspaper in Columbia and as a columnist and editorial writer at the Greenville News. The 30-year journalism veteran will succeed Kevin Riley, who plans to retire later this year. Our next story involving Amir Questlove Thompson, who is from Philly, but his people from Mobile, Alabama, as we found out as he helped work on the documentary on the Clotilda there in Mobile. One of the nation's most celebrated artists has found another creative outlet.

Grammy Award winning artist Questlove is launching his own book imprint at MCD Books, which is a subsidiary of Pharrell Strauss' guru, FSG. Named in honor of the late artist Prince, Awa Books, as in that bird called that Prince and Morris Day and him used to do, will feature a mix of fiction and nonfiction that ranges from memoirs to books about music, history, and business. The first book to be released will be a memoir of the man, funk music icon Sly Stone. Of course, the title of the book, as we can all imagine,

is about to be Thank You for Letting Me Be Myself Again, written with Ben Greenman. Next year, Questlove and Greenman will team up for another book, Hip Hop is History, an examination of hip hop's first 50 years. Questlove has already written several books on his own, including Mo' Better Blues, Creative Quest, and Music is History. He also has a children's book on the way. Sisters, we're going to put one more conversation in the rotation, and this is coming from the current coach of the champion South Carolina women's basketball program, Philly's finest, the great Dawn Staley.

We probably all saw her walking up and down the sidelines with a Cheney University jersey on last week. South Carolina women's basketball coach Dawn Staley decided to sport that jersey as some history in the Gamecocks' second round March Madness game against South Florida. Staley wore this white and blue. Number 44, Cheney University jersey. Of course,

not only is Cheney the nation's oldest historically black college and university, in 1982, its women's basketball team became the first and only HBCU to reach the final four of the NCAA tournament, ultimately falling to Louisiana Tech in a national championship game. Shout out to, of course, the great all-time coach of that team who went to Iowa and then Rutgers, Vivian Stringer. She was the women's basketball coach and next door, John Chaney was the men's basketball coach at Chaney at the time. During the post-game interview, Dawn Stead was asked to explain why she wore the jersey. I think we got some sound. I'd rather have her tell the story if y'all don't mind, if y'all got it teed up. Yes, ma'am.

Tell us a little bit about your Cheney jersey. Where you got that and why you decided to rep them today. I just got this jersey. Somebody texted me and said they wanted to send one of my friends texted me and asked me if I

wanted a jersey. They didn't really ask me to wear the jersey. And I was, of course, I mean, I like the jersey. I like what it stands for. I like that it's a Coach Stringer who just had her a birthday on March 17th. You know, the lady who wore this, not this jersey, but she's from Philly, grew up, you know, she actually started leagues for us.

Like when I was younger, we played in something called the DBL, and she was very much a part of creating that league to give younger players an opportunity to just come together and play in the summertime. So fond memories of that. I mean, Cheney State was the only HBCU to make it to a Final Four, and for them to be led by Coach Stringer, who opened doors that now I walk through, I mean, it was a truly honor to wear this jersey and to represent them.

Sisters, I'm going to ask you all to have, if you have any comments on any of those stories. I do want to mention, of course, as we know, that when South Carolina won the national championship a couple years ago, as we saw, Don Staley cut down the net and took a piece of that net and gave it to every black woman coach who was coaching right now, including that young sister at Ole Miss who just won her game, because she said Carolyn Peck, when she won, became the first black woman, of course, to win the national championship.

When they cut the net down, she sent her a string of it. And I should mention one other thing before I ask Eric. Maybe I ask you first and ask Lauren to comment on any of the stories. I want to mention, of course, congratulations to my friend and our sister, Yolanda Pierce, who is currently the dean of the Howard University School of Divinity. She will be also going to Vanderbilt. It was just announced yesterday. She's about to become dean of the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University. So they're going to get some good old black theology, my friend Yolanda Pierce.

So any thoughts on any of those stories, Eric? I'm so glad that we are ending the show in Black brilliance because that is exactly who we are. But we see, you know, it's been 91 years since there have been a neurosurgeon in Vanderbilt's history. When we look at, you know, the AJC's history and having their first Black editor, it is not because we have not qualified. We are, in fact, the blueprint. And that this is really more of a mark on the history of this country. And that through every level of oppression that our seeds still rise. When we see Dawn Staley, who I have so much respect and honor for, she is such an amazing human being. And really, the way that she carries herself and cares for her team is something to be spoken about. I would always think about, you know, if she maybe looked a different way,

that, you know, there would be wall-to-wall coverage up here. But, you know, I digress. We, I feel like, should know that in the culture that she is so important to see and that her influence will continue. She's really, and many other Black coaches, have really reshaped the way the game is looked at and the way that players play and really the way players empower themselves, at least at the collegiate level and beyond. So it is just so wonderful to see that through every lever of oppression that folks throw at us that still the seeds rise. So it's just wonderful to end the show

on such black brilliance. Absolutely, absolutely. And while you mentioned Don Staley, Erica, it reminded me as an adopted Philadelphian myself, we can't, I'd be remiss if I didn't shout out Dobbins High School, Dobbins Tech, which of course is her alma mater, also the alma mater of Hank Gathers, who we

also remember. Don Staley got nothing but love from Philadelphia. So, Lauren, I was thinking about, comment please on any of the stories. I was thinking about that AJC story because, you know, what are we talking about when you put somebody in as a

captain of a ship when the print media doesn't seem to have figured out where it's going? I mean, please, anything on any of the stories, but I just thought about you as we're thinking about that, because I know it's tough times out there for regional and local media. Very tough times because of Google and Facebook stealing all the ad money, basically, basically monopolizing all the ad money. But that Leroy Chapman story is a big thing. You know, 155 years, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is 155 years old. I think the Washington Post is 157 years old, never had a black editor.

They passed over Eugene Robinson and, in my view, passed over Kevin Merida, who's now the editor of the L.A. Times. So to see Leroy Chapman be at the top of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which is a storied paper, of course, in Atlanta, the Mecca, and that's a really amazing thing because it's rare, very rare, that a black person is controlling the content of what goes on one of these platforms. I mean, the Washington Post right now doesn't even have a black person on their editorial board. It's an eight-person, I think, editorial board at the Post. And the city that some have referred to as Chocolate City, still majority black, though barely. And so for Atlanta to do this is huge. I mean, it is huge.

I cannot tell you, as somebody who's been, you know, worked at USA Today and ABC News, you get into these bigger newsrooms and the higher you get, the whiter it gets and usually the mailer it gets. There is a woman who is a top editor at The Post and an Associated Press right now. But there's never been a black person in charge at the Associated Press or the Washington Post. The New York Times has actually done it, I think, twice, right? But even that isn't really, I mean, I think this guy, just looking at him, I don't know Leroy Chapman at all. I'll probably meet him at some convention or whatever. I don't know him at all,

but I got to tell you, I'm sure he put in the time there to get to that position because it ain't easy. It ain't easy at all. So that's great to see that. That's very interesting. Let's see what direction he goes with the paper and see if he's kinfolk. We'll find out pretty soon.

That's right. Well, we're going to wind ourselves to a close tonight. And, of course, as always, it's such an honor and a pleasure to be with both of you, with Lauren Victoria Burke and Erica Savage. And thank you all, everybody in the control room, everybody. So we're going to end here because you all made sure that nothing collapsed. And you are, as always, the backbone of the Black Star Network. So join us again tomorrow here on the Black Star Network for Roland Martin Unfiltered.

And we'll see everybody tomorrow. Everybody stay safe. Smoke's Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches. I'm real revolutionary right now. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black

America, Roller. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart.

Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? Pull up a chair, take your seat. The Black Tape with me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood-Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders?

Let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show, Get Wealthy, focuses on the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you, but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Blackstar Network.

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

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. 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'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Sure. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drugott. And this is Season 2 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 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart

podcast.