#RolandMartinUnfiltered - GA Dist. Maps, State of Labor Unions, Hollywood & Black Storytellers,Race-Based Scholarships Attacks

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

11.29.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: GA Dist. Maps, State of Labor Unions, Hollywood & Black Storytellers,Race-Based Scholarships Attacks Georgia lawmakers head to a special session to deliver district maps that do not violate a judge's order by the December 8 deadline. Co-founder of Black Voters Matter, Cliff Albright, is here as we look at some proposed maps and how the new districts can shift the power in the Peach State.  The president of The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Lee Saunders, will be in the studio to discuss the state of labor unions.  How hard is it to get black stories told in Hollywood? I'll talk to a filmmaker who says he's facing huge hurdles in creating a film series about the popular black book, the Bluford High series, that comes with millions of followers. The Supreme Court's decision to gut affirmative actions killing race-based scholarships. Two Colorado schools are now facing federal complaints. I'll talk to an education expert about how these lawsuits hinder our students.  Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. to, yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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. Today is Wednesday, November 29, 2023, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network, Georgia Lawmakers, here to a special session to deliver

district maps that do not violate a judge's order by the December 8th deadline. Co-founder of Black Voters Matter, Cliff Albright, will join us to talk about these maps and the impact on the power of black voters. The president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Lee Saunders, alpha man, will be in the studio to talk about the state of labor unions and also the dramatic gains they have made over the past couple of years. How hard is it to get black stories told in Hollywood? I'll talk to a filmmaker who says he's facing huge hurdles

in creating a film series about the popular black book series, The Bluford High. That comes, of course, millions of followers. So what's the problem? Supreme Court's decision to gut affirmative action is killing race-based scholarships. Two Colorado schools are now facing federal complaints. I'll talk to an education expert about how these lawsuits are hindering the advancement of black students. And also, y'all know I just love when folk get petty.

Vice President Kamala Harris threw some serious shade at former speaker Kevin McCarthy and that idiot out of Colorado, Lauren Boebert. Well, she got taught a really important lesson, y'all, about what happens when you don't have your facts together. It's time to bring the funk on Rolling Mark, done and filtered. Streaming live on the Black Star Network. Let's go.

He's got whatever the piss he's on it Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine And when it blips, he's right on time And it's rolling, best believe he's knowing putting it down from sports to news to politics with entertainment just for kicks he's rolling it's all go-go-go y'all it's rolling martin yeah rolling with rolling now It's Rollin' Martin, yeah.

Rollin' with Rollin' now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Rollin' Martin now. Martin! Martel! Să ne urmăm în următoarea mea rețetă. The battle over black power continues. In Georgia, lawmakers begin a special session to redraw the state's political maps after a federal judge ruled that the current district lines illegally dilute the power of black voters. The new maps could affect the balance of power in the state legislature as well as Congress. Republicans are fighting to hold on to a very narrow U.S. House majority. Georgia lawmakers have until December 8th to approve maps that comply with the Federal Voting Rights Act.

In October, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Jones ordered the Georgia General Assembly to draw an additional majority black congressional district and several majority black state House and Senate seats. Joining me from Atlanta is co-founder of Black Voters Matter, Cliff Albright. Cliff, glad to have you here. So people need to understand that the Supreme Court ruled that they cannot have any role in partisan gerrymandering. Today, in New Hampshire, after Republicans took control of the Supreme Court, they ruled that no courts could have any say in gerrymandering in the state, which means Republicans could do whatever they want as long as they have the power. But this is where Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is so important, is that by hanging on to a thread, because they invalidated Section 4,

Section 2 has been used in Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, other places, to protect the rights of African Americans. In the case of Georgia, we're seeing how Republicans were basically diluting black power, not allowing black folks to be able to maximize the power. And these new maps could very well create the additional districts that it could break the supermajority control Republicans have in the legislature, in the state, but also impact what happens in D.C. Right, exactly, Roland. And what we're seeing in Georgia is the Georgia Republicans basically taking the page right out of what the Alabama Republicans had tried to do previously,

which is almost ignoring the court. I mean, they're being a little bit more sophisticated, a little bit more surgical in Georgia than what they did in Alabama, which is basically just, you know, just continue to try to do their own thing. But essentially it's the same thing. You know, what we've seen them do, you know, today started a special session where they're supposed to go back and obey the court order, creating these extra majority black districts. And what they're doing, and it's the traditional, you know, within

these circles, we talk about, you know, cracking and packing, right? And what they're doing is they're literally using black folks as chess pieces. You know, they're literally using black folks as pieces on a board and just kind of shifting and moving it around. So kind of trying to act like they're obeying the court order by saying, oh, okay, we'll get you a couple more districts. But at the same time, literally weakening and further diluting. I mean, they're actually doubling down on the vote dilution. They're further diluting the black vote in some of the other districts.

And so we wind up in the same place, still not having the representation that we're supposed to have, still not having the representation that the court ordered. It's both a violation of, at best, the spirit of the court order, and at worst, just an outright refusal to obey the court's rules. But it's also important for black people to learn not to get played. So one of the things that they try to do is, oh, we're going to create these black districts, but let's dilute black voters

to hurt white Democrats that have been elected. And so what ends up happening is Republicans still maintain power, knowing full well that black folks vote 90% for Democrats. Yeah, exactly. They actually kill two birds with one stone. They maintain their power, and they also create this dynamic, you know, because if this is allowed to stand, what you're sure to have is some amount of jockeying

or, you know, dissension amongst the Democratic ranks. You know, white Democrats say, oh, you oh, I'm losing power because we had to create these extra districts for black folks. And so, yes, it's a lesson in black folks not being played and also white folks not falling for the okey-doke, white Democrats even not falling for the okey-doke.

But at the end of the day, it's too early for us to concede this ground, right? We are still in the fight. We had people testifying today at these hearings. We're going to have some more people testifying. We're trying to bring folks up from different parts of the state so that they can testify at these hearings. You know, at the end of the day, what this points out, it points out several things, but one of the things we've got to keep in mind, even as we roll into 24, the second year of

this Republican control of Congress, what this reminds us of is we've got to have, you referred to it, the Voting Rights Act has got to be strengthened. We need the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. We need H.R. 1, which is the Freedom to Vote Act, which deals with other aspects of voter suppression. We need both of those things so that we don't wind up in these situations. And so that if we do wind up in these situations, then we've got to restore it and strengthen Voting Rights Act, like you said, Section 2 and more, to be able to deal with this situation.

We can't give up on this fight for voting rights just because there's a Congress that we know is hostile to it. We still got to keep that issue on the table and make these demands even in this current Congress. And again, for people out there who are watching and listening, what I need them to understand, when we talk about black power, we literally are talking about economics. We're talking about the ability to impact legislation. All of those things people keep saying, clamoring, say they're clamoring for, this is what happens. And so the battle in the courts, the battle by lawyers, suing is hugely important, but this is also, but the flip side is our turnout is also critical to then maximize the wins in the courtroom. Exactly. Our turnout is important for a couple of reasons. In some cases, it's directly

important for some of these judge races. You've got all kinds of judge positions all across the country, many of which are actually elected positions. So turnout is important directly for these judges. But our turnout is also important for these positions like the presidency that appoints many of these judges. Let's keep in mind that this Georgia case was decided by a federal judge. This administration, I've had my critiques, had critiques around voting rights and some other issues. But let's be clear. This administration has appointed a record number of judges, judges of color, you know, including black women, including a Supreme Court justice named Katonji. These are not matters of just, and it's not just that they've appointed

black folks. They've appointed black folks from different perspectives than the usual, public defenders, defense attorneys, civil rights attorneys, right? And so who is in this administration, who is in the presidency matters. If the orange man gets to go back and remember, 95% of the people he appointed were old white males or young white males, but were white males. These appointments to these courts, to these judge positions matter. They decide on issues like voting rights, like police accountability and immunity, qualified immunity, like affirmative action that you talked about in your intro.

Who's in these positions matter. Who we elect to make these appointments matters. That's why that we have got to come out and vote in these elections up and down the ballot. Absolutely. Cliff Albright, man, we certainly appreciate it. Keep up the good fight. Thank you, Roland.

All right, folks, going to break. We'll come back. We'll chat about this with my panel also. We'll talk about so many of the aspects, again, of public policy, how we need to understand the chess pieces that are being moved all across this country. And they are particularly moving Black people on the board to try to negate us as much as possible. You're watching Roller Mark, not unfiltered right here. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways.

Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business,

taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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,

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Next on The Black Table, with me, Greg Carr, working under the constant threat of violence. Nearly 50 bomb threats over dozens of HBCU campuses. The stress, the strain, the frustrating lack of answers, and real community-grounded solutions to the threat of violence we face at HBCUs today. Join us for The Black Table, only on the Black Star Network. Hi, I am Tommy Davidson. I played Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. I don't say, I don't play Sammy, but I could. Or I don't play Obama, but I could. Or I don't play Obama,

but I could. I don't do Stallone, but I could do all that. And I am here with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. All right, folks, introducing our panel for today, Robert Petillo, host, People Passion Politics, News & Talk 1380, WALK out of Atlanta, Rebecca Carruthers, vice president, Fair Election Center, Washington, D.C., Scott Bolton, attorney, former chair of the National Bar Association, D.C. Chamber of Commerce's Political Action Committee is also out of D.C. Glad to have all three of you here. Robert, I'll start with you.

Georgia, again, latest state. We look at Louisiana, Mississippi. We look at Georgia. Also, you've got lawsuits happening in Florida as well. So you talk about multiple, multiple states here where lawsuits are happening to fight for the interests of black voters. You know, I find it interesting that every single election cycle, Republicans try to convince us that there's no such thing as voter suppression. They're not trying to play around with the votes. And then the courts come back

and say the exact opposite. This is why we have to have the right, the freedom to vote at. We have seen the dissecting, the diluting of the voting rights over the course of the last two decades. We knocked it out section by section. And now we're basically down to section two, protecting these districts from being rewritten by these conservative judges and by these conservative legislators. But remember, this is dependent on the federal court and the federal judiciary. Republicans have been packing the federal bench over the course of the last 15 years or so with their justices. We have a 6-3 majority for conservatives on the Supreme Court.

We need new legislation to reset that clock, and that has to be the kind of resonant answer of Democrats in 2024 because regardless of what you do, if you do not have a protected right to vote, all other rights flow from that. If the votes aren't going to be counted correctly, if we're not going to have any integrity in the way that our electoral process happens, we can use these electoral schemes, as Reverend Jetson calls them, to take away the franchise from individuals, then you end up in a non-representative democracy, which is

exactly what they want. And until the Democrats take this seriously and start putting real money and voter education on this issue of voter suppression, messaging to candidates on the state, local, and national level on voter suppression, taking out of those weeds of only being something that black folks and civil rights people care about, this being a quote-unquote black issue, they're going to find themselves missing a few million votes on election day. It's time for them to take some serious steps towards putting money behind this and ensuring that we're fighting against voter suppression on the state, local, and national level. It has to be done with this election cycle. Next time will be too late. You know, I suppression on the state, local, and national level. It has to be done with this election cycle.

Next time will be too late. You know, I'm really cracking up, Rebecca, at Republicans and the games they play. Go to my iPad. So the Republicans are responding to a voter suppression lawsuit. And I love this here. They go, despite laws, over the last decade, Georgia has seen an unprecedented surge in individuals and organizations seeking to accost voters waiting in the polling line. It started with organizations setting up tables within the 150-foot buffer zone, claiming they were nonpartisan or conducting research. Then they say, which led to Georgia to ban bat practice within the polling place and polling line zones. Oh, I love this one.

Then groups began to realize that the best way to approach voters as they waited in line was to provide the voters with small items like food, water bottles, or ponchos. Well, let's see. If Republicans were not shutting down voting locations, you wouldn't have the long-ass lines, Rebecca. So there will be no need for food and water because you wouldn't be waiting two, three, four hours to vote. Or rolling waiting nine, 10, 11, 12 hours to vote. That's what we've seen in Georgia. No group, no nonprofit, no political party, no community group actually wants to have to set up and get food and water and basic necessities for folks trying to vote,

especially when they could go out to the suburbs and it takes five minutes or less for those people to vote in the same election on the same day. This is about resources. You know, as we go into 2024, not only is Section 5 of the VRA not in effect, Section 5, Section 4, you know, Section 3. Now we have even Section 2 looking at the Eighth Circuit, which is Nebraska, it's Arkansas, it's Missouri, it's North Dakota, it's South Dakota, it's Iowa, it's Minnesota. So there are Native American groups who are actively suing in federal court because their rights are being denied. And now the Eighth Circuit is saying that they can no longer, now the Eighth Circuit is saying that they can no longer seek a private right of action to seek relief in North Dakota and South Dakota. We have black voters in Nebraska. We have black voters in CBC districts in Missouri. That's now going into election without proper protections.

So just like I've done on this show before, hey, Chuck Schumer, if Democrats are in the majority on January 2025 in the Senate, I need you to negotiate in that rules package that when it comes to closure rules, meaning in order to end debate on a particular subject or topic on a piece of legislation that's on the floor, I need you to allow for a simple majority on voting rights packages so we can make sure that the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act gets passed in the next Congress. You know, Scott, it is when I listen to a bunch of these yahoos out here and these people. I mean, if I hear another damn rapper trying to have a conversation about public policy, I I don't know what the hell they're talking about, I'm probably going to cut somebody out. And what I keep trying to explain to people is called big picture long term. Big picture long term.

If you're able to control the White House and you're able to control the U.S. Senate, then you keep getting to appoint and confirm federal judges. That means when these voting rights cases come up, when you have these death penalty appeals cases that come

up, when you have many other cases, you likely are a better chance of getting favorable judges. That matters. Trump appointed 234 federal judges. Biden has appointed 150 federal judges. 50 of those are African-American. You could say between now and election year next year, there probably will be another 25 to 50 federal judges. So he'll be up to 200. You win a second term, you're going to probably get another 200 plus judges. That means that's 400 judges in eight years. There are only 900, around 900 active federal judges. So that means you damn near appointed half of them. And so for the people out there yelling and screaming, saying they're going to sit the election out, understand what that means.

All of these things are connected. Who hears cases has a direct role in how these judicial decisions are coming down. Scott. Scott, you on mute? Yeah. See, you can't trust these capitals at all. Here we go. You got that out.

A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action, and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives.

But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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, It's really, really, really bad. Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. 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. I'm Tyler. 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. ...on up. It's confusing. It's not confusing. You know Alpha's your daddy? Plus, Founders Day is on Monday. He was an independent. Anyway.

Run your mouth, run your mouth. The point is, you're right, those 400 judges. And if you look at since 2015 or 16, when Trump was elected, the federal judiciary, while he appointed 200 or more, the federal judiciary has been pretty strong for us in regard to these Voting Rights Act cases. Supreme Court certainly hasn't been, but they have. You appoint another 200, right?

You got a shot because these courts are demanding that these states redraw these districts the right way. And for you listening to all this, let me be real clear. Adding black people, making a black majority when you have a lot of black people in one jurisdiction and adding more isn't expanding the voter pool or isn't creating new districts. The Supreme Court and many of the certain courts have said that. You have to create black districts where black people live versus shifting them to create already black districts. It makes absolutely no sense. So, for example, in Georgia, there are nine Republican

House of Representatives that are Republican. There are five that are Democrat. Well, Steve Jones, Judge Jones said, well, you've got to create at least two or three more. So you can't move black people from one of those five Democratic jurisdictions and put more people in there. You have to create three more that are going to be black and presumably Democratic. Republicans don't want to do that because they want to maintain a nine to five advantage in Georgia, by way of example. And the only way they do that under Judge Jones's order is you get rid of Lucy McBath's district, because that's not a majority black district, but she was able to cobble together enough Democrats and Republicans and independents to win. So watch Georgia, not so much what the legislature does, but what their plan is and how

Judge Jones reacts to it. It'll be very important because Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas and Alabama, they're watching what's going on in Georgia and listening to what the circuits are saying. And that'll be a model for the other Republican red states to not have to go back to the Supreme Court or not to defy what these circuit courts are telling these red states? Well, look, my goal is simple. I'm just trying to get black folks to be thinking strategic and understand, again, why we can't sit these elections out. Why it's bad. I said earlier, look, the Supreme Court has already decided, hey, we have no role in partisan gerrymandering.

Well, if conservatives still control state Supreme Courts, then they're going to be able to keep doing that. That's what was happening in Wisconsin that's so critical. That's why Republicans now have a 5-2 majority in the North Carolina Supreme Court. And so now the Republicans and the legislators can do whatever the hell they want to because they have a veto-proof majority there. So it doesn't matter if you have a Democratic governor in Roy Cooper. And so folk have to understand. This is why I keep saying Civics 101 is so crucial. The need for schoolhouse rock 2.0.

Why? When I post these things on social media, I'm trying to walk people through because I'm sick and tired of, and again, I'm going to say this again, Robert, I'm sick and tired of somebody who's a rapper running their mouth on social media or an entertainer who don't know a damn thing about politics,

who are speaking on emotion, and I get people saying, like, I had somebody, I had some fool today go, oh man, our pockets were full when Trump was president. Whose pockets? I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? And I'm sitting here, and they begin to walk these folks through, and I'm like, how do you think that happened? How do you think stimulus bills got passed? How do you think PPP got passed?

Democrats control the House. So what, like, oh, Trump was the reason. And then I'm trying to make clear to all these people that, guess what? Coat, that's in the past. That was a, we had not had a pandemic in 100 years. Ain't going to be like, oh, if Trump beats Biden, ooh, the chance is going to come flowing to the hood. That shit ain't happening. It's not going to happen. And in fact,

Republicans have made it clear they want massive cuts. Massive cuts in social programs, but not defense, Robert. Rolling two points I wanted to make. One, on the Supreme Court saying they're not going to be involved in partisan gerrymandering,

the Supreme Court has shown they don't give a damn about what the court has said previously. They do not care about precedents. They do not care about stare decisis. They do not care about anything that has happened before last Tuesday. And for that reason, there's nothing that leads me to believe they will not take up one of these voting rights cases for the express purpose of getting rid of Section 2 and effectively killing the voting rights set. Well, same thing happened with abortion because the Mississippi case,

Mississippi did not ask for Roe v. Wade to be overturned. They just went ahead and did it. And that's exactly my point. So this Supreme Court as it sits right now, don't think that we're just safe because they said something before. All the Supreme Court justices said during their confirmation hearing, their role is settled long.

And then they got rid of it. The same thing with affirmative action, same thing with everything else. So they will be more than happy to overturn Section 2 of the voting rights and strip all of this away. If you want to see the wild, wild west, see what happens when you don't even have Section 2 to protect us from the right to vote. And see how the congressional black caucus go from 60 members to about 15 over the course of a decade. And secondarily, on your point about educating the younger generation, we have to understand, we got to, instead of talking down to them, we got to bring them into the fold.

We got to have the conversation to them. Instead of telling them that they're wrong, we need to invite them over, have forums with them, to have discussions with them, to explain to them the differences between the political parties, because the inside baseball people have a hard time talking to the outside baseball people often, and this is where you get people like Sexy Red, who may or may not, you know,

understand politics the most. She don't. Well, hey, look, if she doesn't, we need to talk to her and help her to understand things better. And she's to understand things better. I'm not talking about a young pregnant lady. I'm hoping she has the best for her and her child and hope her career is prosperous. But let's help to educate people so they do a better job of being able to articulate to our community the needs that we have going forward. And that the people who just sent you the free check a few years ago, they not want to send you the free check, want to take the check back and have the reason that there's a hood in the first place to send the check to.

It becomes a policy they put in place over the course of the last century. I am not going to allow stuck on stupid people to keep lying. We're going to keep telling the truth, keep putting it out there. to these people like I did that Trump-loving brother from Rhode Island who went on Fox News and repeated his lies. And you know Lawrence B. Jones, that boy ain't the brightest bulb in a dark room. He didn't push back on nothing because they don't mind the folks lying. So we're just not going to allow the lies to move forward. All right, hold tight one second. When we come back, we're going to talk about how successful unions have been in 2023. Election is one year out and how people

are now going, you know what? Dem unions ain't bad. It's a complete reversal than what we've experienced really over the past 30 plus years, 30 to 40 years in American politics. Also, Vice President Kamala Harris threw some shade at former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy. I'm here for all of it. I can't wait to show it. And then also, Lauren Boebert, one of the dumbest people in the history of Congress, she got embarrassed again on television. And speaking of embarrassing, I've got something for Scott and his campus. I can't wait. You're watching Roller Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Be sure to support our Arena Funk fan club. Your dollars are critically important for us to do what we do. I told you, we out here fighting the good fight with these advertisers.

But I told you, they're spending 0.5% to 1% of an annual $322 billion with Black-owned media. And remember, 23 years ago, they were spending 1% with Black-owned media then. So it hasn't changed in the last two decades. And so your support is critical. We're about $230,000 short of our donor goal for this year. And so you can send your check and money orders to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C. 20037-0196. Again, our goal, we ask folks to give on average 50 bucks each for all the 19 cents a month, 13 cents a day. If you can't give that, we have people who've given us

$1, $5, $10. We appreciate that. We've had people giving us $100, $500, $1,000. We appreciate that as well. But again, your support is critical. There's a lot of things that we have planned in 2024 trying to go across this country. The things that Robert talked about, having those conversations, those town hall discussions in different places. And so please help us do so. Cash out, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, or Martin Unfiltered. VMO is RM Unfiltered, Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Then when I lay out to you, what have you paid for? For instance, we have our 24-hour, seven-day-a-week streaming channel.

We literally are on four different platforms as we speak. You can watch our streaming channel on Amazon News by going to Amazon Fire and go to Amazon News. Also, tell Alexa to play news from the Black Star Network. Check us out on Plex TV, Amazon Freebie. And also, we go to the live TV grid for Amazon Prime Video. We're right there with the other news networks as well. Plus, you can download the Black Star Network app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. We'll be right back. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene.

A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives.

But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

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

One. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 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.

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. A white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence.

On that soil, you will not be free. White people are losing their damn minds. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We've seen shouts. 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 every 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. 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 people. Bye bye, Coppola. Субтитры подогнал «Симон» I'm Dee Barnes, and this week on The Frequency, we talk about school-to-prison pipeline, book bans, and representing for women's rights.

The group Moms Rising handles all of this. So join me in this conversation with my guest, Monifa Vandelli. This is white backlash. This is white fear that happens every time Black people in the United States help to walk the United States forward towards what is written on the paper. Right here on The Frequency on the Black Star Network.

I'm Faraiji Muhammad, live from L.A. And this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation, you and me. We talk about the stories politics the good the bad and the downright ugly so join our community every day at 3 p.m eastern and let your voice be heard hey we're all in this together so let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into it's the culture culture. Weekdays at 3, only 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 Blackstar 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. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney+. And I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. Union's have been in the news as of late. We saw two major strikes in the SAG-AFTRA. Actually, three. SAG-AFTRA, Writers Guild, plus the United Auto Workers. They averted a strike of the casino workers in Las Vegas by reaching a deal. What you're also seeing in 2023 really has been a continuation of research, if you will, in unions since that Supreme Court Janus decision

where many people thought that that was actually going to curtail unions in a huge way. So the question now is, what does 2024 look like? Joining us now is Lee Sorens. He's president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. Lee, glad to have you here. And happy Founders Day.

Sorry, Scott. It's another alpha. I know it's hard for you to get used to this. But when we typically talk about leaders, Scott, they're alphas. That's right. See, that's why you're covering your face right now. Oh, God. I'm sorry.

We didn't choose a youth group. You just don't have any leading cap of men on other than the house minority leader. You do that. But there are a lot of great cap of men out here. It's all love, dog. It's all love. Well, you said I don't have a lot of

great leading cap of men because there are a few cap of men leading. All right. Oh, yeah. I will be real petty. a great leading cap of men because there are a few cap of men leading. All right. Let's... Oh, yeah, I will be real petty. Lee, 2023 has been a significant year for labor unions. It's been a very powerful year.

It's been a year where workers understand the importance of having a seat at the table, to having collective bargaining rights, to being represented collectively by a union so they can fight that good battle every single day. And you're seeing a lot of victories in 2023. The auto workers, the huge victory there with the big three, won a huge, huge strike with huge benefits coming down to those workers who went on strike for a long time. As a matter of fact, Roland, I traveled to Toledo, Ohio, and stood with those workers

at a Jeep plant, outside that Jeep plant, where we brought in our AFSCME sisters and brothers, and CWA came, and other unions came. And we wanted to show support for that strike because this was not only their strike, it was our strike and it was working people's strike. And you've got that kind of energy that exists in this country today. And we've got to take complete advantage of it. People want to have a seat at the table. Make no mistake about it. One of the things the auto workers did, though, that I thought was important, they showed how much these CEOs were making. And what we're seeing, we're seeing, and these numbers just

simply don't lie, we have seen this massive gap in terms of pay, in terms of workers and executives. And I remember watching some of those they were they were not happy, but they were like, okay Let's show the 30 40 50 million dollars 75 million 100 million dollars

Then when you see these people that was an Australian we showed it on here Those are some dude in Australia who was complaining that workers have too much power and he was saying there They needed we needed unemployment to go up by five points, whatever, because workers were making too many demands. We saw the same thing happening here in this country

when inflation was high. People like Larry Summers and others were saying, oh, we need to have higher unemployment, which to me was the dumbest thing in the world, because they were mad that people were saying, I'm not getting paid enough money. Well, let me just throw out a couple of facts, okay? The average CEO makes 350 times more in this country than the average worker. Which was not the case in the early 70s.

In the 60s, it was 26 times. Twenty-six times the average worker versus 350 times right now in this country. Workers are pissed off, and they're angry, and they're mad. And they understand the importance of having that collective voice, and they're standing up and they're saying enough is enough. And if we've got to take it out on strike, that's exactly what we're going to do. You saw it with the UAW. You saw it with Kaiser, the Kaiser workers, the hospital chain.

You saw it with the actors. You saw it with the screen guild. You saw it with so many workers across the country, teachers in Portland, Oregon. People are saying enough is enough. This is not a fair system. And we've got to make our voices heard to fight back like never before. And that's exactly what's happening. And you're going to see that momentum continue in days and years down the road. I think one of the things that, I mean, again, and those of us who are old enough to understand when you talk about

Reagan comes in and then, I mean, you had this firing the air traffic controllers, this whole targeting of demonizing union workers, using examples, oh, this person barely working, getting paid. And people bought into this idea of, oh, that's what's hindering us from being able to be rich as well. Then all of a sudden, they start seeing people making more demands on work more, work more, work more

with less. Oh, but you're going to get paid less while these executives are getting paid more. This is from, go to my iPad, this is from Gallup. This is a poll that Gallup did, and it said that 67 percent of Americans now approve of labor unions. Y'all have not seen those numbers in a long time, probably before I was even born.

I mean, that's how much we've seen things change. Go back to the iPad, folks. And what you see here chart right here from the 1940s present day. So it went up to 71 percent. It dipped to 67. But the last time it was in the 70s were between 1940 and 1965. That just shows you that workers are ready to have that voice. They're ready to organize. They are searching for unions so they can have that voice. They're ready to organize. They are searching for unions so they can have that voice and that seat at the table. I'm going to give you another statistic that is extremely important.

88% of young people believe that unions are absolutely necessary in the economy of today. And they are leading the way in many cases with these organizing campaigns that we've got going on. And it's just not about the strikes that are taking place and the victories that we've had at the bargaining table, but it's the fact that there is growth within the union movement. Now, people are organizing.

They want to be a part of the union. Our union, the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees, we've had successful organizing campaigns in Nevada. We just organized 3,000 workers in New Orleans. We are organizing in the cultural sector, which means museums and art museums and zoos and libraries. We're having huge victories in those areas. Unions within the AFL-CIO and outside of the AFL-CIO are experiencing growth because people want to be a part of something that's bigger than themselves. Is it also because, we discussed this before,

is it also because after that Supreme Court decision in that Janus case, which was Janus versus Aspen, Unions stopped being lazy. I mean, they had to work. I mean, they had to go out and make the case and explain to people, because when you've been demonized for so long, I mean, the word labor unions essentially became a cuss word in a whole lot of places. Folk had to go, as you said before, go back to basics and explain to people what they do. Yeah, we had to do it within my own union. And other unions did the same thing. You know, the easiest thing that we can do, but sometimes it's very hard, is to hit the ground,

knock on those doors, meet those workers at the work sites, sit down, and not only just talk to them, but listen to what they've got to say. And then we can talk about the union advantage of being a part of a union and how that improves workers' lives all over the country. We did that. We had one million individual conversations, face-to-face conversations with our members and potential members after the Janus case to continue to grow our union and to make that kind of connection. And other unions have done the same kind of thing. It's about connecting with people.

And once you connect with folks and you listen to what their issues are and what they believe in and what they don't believe in, then you can craft a message around that. But they get the point, and they understand the importance of having that collective voice, and that's what we've got to continue to do in the future. And that decision came in October 2017. Guys, go to my iPad. You'll see that was a Supreme Court decision right there.

You have, obviously, the election is coming up next year. And again, I spend lots of time trying to explain to people how you have to connect the dots. And the reality is there's a direct correlation between support for unions and also who's in power. Historically, Republicans are against unions, except if you're the trade folks. And that's always been, especially you see in Ohio, how the game is played. In the past, how they've sort of gone after the Teamsters, but then also made other decisions.

You saw President Joe Biden go down to Michigan stand with the auto workers as well. People were ripping him when the railroad folks, when they went on strike, but they actually later negotiated a better deal. And so

the thing here is when I'm trying to explain to people how crucial next year is, I'm trying to get people to understand a lot of the policies, a lot I'm trying to explain to people how crucial Dexter is. I'm trying to get people to understand a lot of the policies, a lot of the things that you're seeing, many of them, if Trump and Project 2025 and all these people, if they take control of the White House,

take control of the United States Senate, it's a whole bunch of stuff that will not be happening because they are absolutely dead set against a lot of these games. There's no question about that. And one of the important things that we're doing is when we're knocking on those doors and when we're talking to our members and potential members and organizing new workers, we not only talk about the power of being in a union, but we talk about how we as working people can come together and fight for what we believe in.

And the only way that you do that is through the political process. And we've just got to really press on that. And it can't be two months, and you and I have talked about this, it can't be two months out of the year and then we disappear. It's got to be every single day

talking with folks. January to July should be on engagement and what you explain. I can't tell you to vote if you're not registered. I can't get you to register unless I

enlighten you and educate you on one, what has been done. Two, what needs to be done on, one, what has been done, two, what needs to be done, and three, what can be done if certain folk don't win. And you're exactly right. And one of the things that we must do to win and continue to win, we've got to talk about the victories that we've had, whether it was the relief plan, which moved billions of dollars

into local communities across the country, which provided jobs, especially for our members, provided wage increases when we were sitting at the table, the infrastructure bill, we've got to talk about that, the reduction in prescription drug prices. We've got to say these things are happening. This has happened. This has been done. But we can't make the mistake of saying, so, okay, we did a good job. Because the job ain't over, man. Right.

I mean, we've got a lot of work to do. And when you approach it in that manner saying we've been able to do good things and we've organized and mobilized and educated our communities, but guess what? We've still got a long way to go. But you've got to stick with us in order to take it to that next level. And we can't move off of that. When you talk about the economy being strong, that's the wrong approach because many people will say, are you nuts?

I mean, look at gas prices, look at food, okay? Look at apartment rents, look at mortgages, things of that nature. And they're right. They're feeling it. That's something they feel every single day. But you've got to identify the progress that we have made in saying that we've got to continue to deal with the issues that confront you. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one.

The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing.

So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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. 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. If, in fact, you sit out or you don't vote or if you vote the wrong way, those things that we won will be taken away from you,

and there will be no possibility of winning the things that you need. Yeah, I mean, I try to constantly explain to people, folk, stop acting as if we did not go through a worldwide pandemic. That shit happened. Coming out of that, it ain't like it's, all right, we're good, no more shots, take the mask off, everything go, but no. So the supply chain, we also, again, when

you talk about, when you start talking about what happened and how folks were price gouging things along those lines, I've said this, you know, Biden, Democrats should be hitting that thing constantly. Robert Reich posted this.

Here, go to my iPad. Reminder, corporations can get away with price gouging because they face little competition. If markets were competitive, companies would keep their prices down. Earlier he had tweeted something that, again, I think that that and it's hard for people who don't understand this, but I tell them all the time, you have to understand it. And that is, when you look at what happened, inflation went up

seven percent, but here's right here, this is what he posted. Inflation rose 14% between July 2020 and July 2022. But corporate profits rose 75% over those two

years, five times as fast as inflation. Connect the dots. That's all you've got to do is connect the dots. So when you complain today about food prices, housing prices, gas prices... Connect the dots. And when you do that, people get it.

And you'll see them. They'll start shaking their heads. But you've got to have that conversation with them because there's a lot of confusion. And there's a lot of anger still out there because people are still hurting. But you've got to talk about the successes that we've had and the challenges that we face and how we deal with those challenges

in a constructive way. Before we go on out to break, we talked about that UAW battle. They're not done. And so they made it clear what they actually want to get more in terms of those record profits. Going to break. This is one of the videos from UAW. Come back, panel. You got questions for Lee. So we'll have you all in just a second. I is one of the videos from UAW. Come back. You got questions for Lee. So we'll have you all in just a second. I'll be right back. So this is what UAW put out about three hours ago.

You're watching Brooklyn. I'm talking to the Blacks. If you're an auto worker in this country, it's time to stand up. Everywhere you look in the auto industry, corporate profits are soaring and workers' wages are falling behind. We've shown the world that this industry is harming workers and consumers to the benefit of company executives and the rich. And it's time that the working class

did something about it. But it's not just a big three. It's across the auto industry. CEOs are raking in billions while auto workers' real wages are falling. Car prices are through the roof, but workers can't afford to buy the vehicles they make. Wall Street is making a killing, but our communities are being left behind. Tesla is set to announce their third quarter results, but that they still aim to keep annual target deliveries of 1.8 million vehicles for the full year. Rivian boosting its full year production. It's a company also second quarter revenue coming in better than the street was looking for. What about the other automakers?

Let's talk about Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, and Mazda. The Japanese and Korean six made nearly twice as much as the big three in the past decade. A whopping $470 billion in profits, a half a trillion dollars, with over 40% of their revenue coming from their North American operations. Don't auto workers at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Nissan, Subaru, and Mazda deserve a record cut of those record profits? And how about the German three, Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes? They've made almost the same as the Japanese and Korean companies, $460 billion in the past 10 years. Do Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes workers not deserve their fair share of this booming auto industry?

Big three auto workers at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis just won big raises, more job security, and cost of living adjustments for one simple reason. They're organized. Without a deal, automakers went on strike at midnight. With targeted strikes at three facilities, a Ford plant in Michigan, a GM plant in Missouri, and an Ohio plant for Chrysler owner Stellantis. The UAW was underestimated the whole way because when the game was over, it was just a real beat down. The workers, the workers win. To all the auto workers out there working without the benefits of a union, now it's your turn.

Since we began our stand-up strike, the response from auto workers at non-union companies has been overwhelming. Workers across the country, from the West to the Midwest, and especially in the South, are reaching out to join our movement and to join the UAW. So go to uaw.org slash join. The money is there, the time is right, and the answer is simple. UAW! UAW! You don't have to live paycheck to paycheck.

You don't have to worry about how you're gonna pay your rent or feed your family while the company makes billions. A better life is out there. It starts with you. UAW. UAW. UAW. Grow your business or career with Grow with Google's wide range of online courses, digital

training and tools. Gain in-demand job skills with flexible online training programs designed to put you on the fast track to jobs in high-growth fields. No experience is necessary. Learn at your own pace. Complete the online certificate program on your own terms. Stand out to employers, get on a path to in-demand jobs, and connect with top employers who are currently hiring.

Take one professional career certificate program, or all six. Earn a professional career certificate program or all six. Earn a Google career certificate to prepare for a job in a high growth field like data analytics, project management, UX design, cybersecurity, and more. All professional career certificate programs must be completed by December 31st, 2024. Scan the QR code to complete the application. There are 1,000 scholarships available. Grow with Google and J. Hood and Associates. Be job ready and qualify for in-demand jobs. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, have you ever had a million dollar idea

and wondered how to bring it to life? Well, it's all about turning problems into opportunities. On our next Get Wealthy, you'll learn of a woman who identified the overload bag syndrome, and now she's taking that money to the bank through global sales and major department stores. And I was just struggling with two or three bags on the train. And I looked around on the train and I said, you know what? There are a lot of women that are carrying two or three bags. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. My name is Lena Charles, and I'm from Opelousas, Louisiana.

Yes, that is Zydeco capital of the world. My name is Margaret Chappelle. I'm from Dallas, Texas, representing the Urban Trivia Games. It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you're watching. Roland Martin on Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back. We're chatting with Lisa Anders, President of the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees. Questions from the panel.

Rebecca, you're first. Hey, Lee. Thank you so much for being on the show tonight. I have very fond and warm memories about growing up in the union household. My dad was a teamster. And I oftentimes remember some of the holiday parties where they would let

all the kids show up, say hi to Santa, and pick out a toy. The reason why I bring that up is that union jobs are good middle-class jobs. And one thing that I've noticed, there are certain sectors that are racially diverse, but then there are other certain union sectors like some of the building trades that are still largely white male. What are unions collectively doing to make sure that they have diverse members within their unions,

diverse people actually getting these good, stable, middle-class jobs? Well, I want to challenge you just a little bit with the building trades because I have worked very closely with them. And they are doing quite a bit in the minority communities across the country as far as apprenticeship programs and going to the high schools and talking with potential building trades members to enter these apprenticeship programs to come and work with those employers that have relationships with the building trades so that they can go through and graduate from those apprenticeship programs and have meaningful jobs, good-paying jobs across the country. They are concentrating that effort in urban areas across the country.

So I think people really have got to take a closer look at what they are doing. I would not disagree with you that in the past there were problems with the building trades, but they are really breaking that mold right now, and they're trying to do the right thing as far as bringing in minority applicants through the apprenticeship program so they can be a part of the building trades union. Well, I've been hitting them for a long time, because what I've been saying is there was an over-reliance on apprenticeship programs, and I kept saying, but it's people right now who are already

skilled. So it's sort of like when we deal with corporate America, the folks want to come to us, they want to talk about internships. I'm like, no, no, no. I say, I get internships, but it's skilled people right now who need to be hired as well because that person, if they get an apprenticeship, it's going to take, you know, 5,

10, 15 years for them to matriculate up. And so that's a sort of, like I say, I've been, like I say, the trade folks ain't been happy with me for quite some time, but I've made it clear because we show, City College of Chicago did a big study, showed several billion dollars that

black Chicago was left out of because they were frozen out of those trade unions. But I think to Rebecca's point, what has to happen is, again, as our workforce is getting more diversified, by 2039, we're only talking about 16 years, the majority of the workforce in America is going to be black and brown. It's going to work, yeah.

So, you know, and those are again, those those are just critical. And so they have been they have been pushed and they have. And they should continue to be pushed. But I mean, you've also got to give credit where credit is due as far as them trying to make the necessary changes and recognizing that they've had issues that they've got to deal with. All unions, and I'll speak about my union, as far as organizing, and we organize mostly in the public service, in state government, non-profit, some privates that provide public services. But Roland is right. The potential job market and the future growth within the job market is going to come from people of color. And so we've got to concentrate on attracting them in ways in which we say that it's important for you to have a seat at the table. And they get it. Let me tell you, they understand it.

And so you have unions organizing like never before. And I come from a background such as yours. My dad was a bus driver in the city of Cleveland. He was a proud member of the Amalgamated Transit Union. My mom was a community organizer, and then she became a union member when she went back to school with the Association of University Women, and she became a union member there.

That is the way, in Cleveland, Ohio, where I was from, where the black middle class was able to flourish in those times. And you think about it, you think about it back in those days in the 1950s and 1960s. I guess I'm kind of telling you what my age is, but that's when I was growing up. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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. Add 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 Tman 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.

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. If you were living in Ohio and you had a lot of black migration from the south to the Midwest and to the north, the good jobs that a lot of black families had, it was either in the post office, it was driving a bus like my dad did, it was the UAW working at the plants, the many plants that were in Ohio, in northeastern Ohio and northwestern Ohio. It was steel and rubber.

Those were good paying jobs. And they were hiring black families and black people to perform those jobs. And that's the way that we were able to grow the middle class in that state. And it's not different than what happened in Michigan or in Indiana or other states across the country. And what we've got right now is we've got to, because of the victories that we've had and the activism that is being shown by workers wanting to be a part of the union because they understand that that will benefit them in a way of having better wages, higher benefits, better pensions, better health insurance, having safety on the job.

We've got to communicate that with them, the existing unions and our members, and using our members to talk to them about the importance of joining something bigger. And that's why we have the level of excitement that's existing right now across the country, because people see that if you do that, then you can win, that you can win this battle and you can turn the tide and you can have that seat at the table and you can receive fair wages and benefits. And that's what we've got to promote across the country. And we will be promoting it in communities of color as well

because that essentially, if you look forward, that's where the jobs are going to be going to people of color. I mean, that's just the nature of the population of this country right now. So we've got to adjust to it. Robert? Thank you so much for that answer. And similar to Rebecca, I kind of cut my teeth in civil rights, starting with union organizing. Organizing for the Student Labor Week of Action back in college, organized campus workers petitioning for better conditions and wages.

We'll let organizing rise throughout the South over the course of many years. And one of the consistent issues that I've heard from rank-and-file union members is that there's a schism between the workforce at the bottom, the black and brown laborers, who used to organize for Unite here, for example, versus the leadership of many unions. So when you get to the level, into D.C., the communications director, the director of public policy, the director of strategic planning, the legislative affairs directors, et cetera, on to the C-level of unions, you see very few black and brown faces. What is being done to help create a causeway by which young organizers, people who have put the blood, sweat, and tears in and have also gotten

the educational background, have also gotten the work experience, are able to break through and actually be part of union leadership so the leadership actually matches the membership? Well, I will say this, and I'll look at my own union and I look at other unions. There are more African-American presidents of major unions in this country than there have ever been. And major unions, I represent one, my union represents 1.4 million members across the country. So I bring that perspective to my job and the perspective that you were talking about, where I have a responsibility and the other folks who are presidents, people of color,

have a responsibility to help our communities and to provide those kinds of opportunities so somebody can take my place or somebody can take somebody else's place and we can continue to grow the involvement of people of color through every level of our unions. I've got a very diverse workforce. I mean, and we've got a diverse membership. Within AFSCME, we have, I guess, 60% white. It's 20% African-American, 20% Latino, Hispanic. I mean, and those are just general figures. But we've got to reflect who we represent as well. And we've got to pay attention to the fact that it's not business as usual.

And we've got to pay particular attention to promoting and bringing in people who look like the workforce, who will look like the future workforce. And that's a responsibility that all of us have. Scott? Hey, Scott Bolden here. You know, I think the greatest argument any of the unions have had this year is the inequities between corporate compensation by CEOs looking out for shareholders that 357 times more than what the average worker makes. That's a huge disparity. And my question is, I saw where some of the auto manufacturers were saying this is

going to cost us $9 billion more and the cost of a car is going to increase by $557. Well, okay, but there are other ways to make up those costs without passing it on to the consumer or without doing cost reductions or work reductions in the factories. And so I see this, you know, the union success as the beginning, not the end, that you've got to stay focused on these companies so that the consumer and your workers are still protected. Any thoughts along those lines? I agree with you 100 percent. I mean, when people say, uh-oh, they just got this huge settlement,

that means car prices are going to go through the roof. They're essentially blaming the worker for something that the corporations have really developed. And they've developed it into a science, and they have accelerated the amount of money that they're making meaning the top ceos in these companies to an amount that was never heard of before and we've got to start questioning that rather than saying workers deserve a piece of the pie and we've got to fight for that piece of the pie we've got to turn that argument to say how much is enough for these greedy ceos and then not provide the necessary wages and benefits

to their workers who are making the product. Well, the greedy CEOs. They're providing the services. And then the billions in stock buybacks. I'm sorry? And then the billions in stock buybacks, which are going to go to the investors and not to the workers. So we've got to put this in perspective,

and we've got to talk about what they are doing to increase the prices of products or cars in this country. And it is just not true. And it's not fair to blame a worker who is just trying to make ends meet every single day. And when they get an increase through the collective bargaining process at the table, and then people say, uh-oh, well, then the prices are going to go up. How come you aren't saying that when you look at the major corporations and with the CEOs who are making billions of dollars at the expense of working families across the country?

That's just wrong. And we're going to fight that tooth and nail every single day. Well, it is quite interesting. In fact, the folks at the AFL-CIO put this out. And so they put out a list of highest paid CEOs. You see Blackstone. And again, for all y'all people, keep it on there. For all y'all people, I know, Pierre, you're waiting for my next guest.

But I need y'all to understand when we talk about connecting the dots. Okay? So, the highest-paid CEO is Blackstone, Stephen Schwartzman. Last year, he made $253 million. Guess who controls the federal government's pension fund?

BlackRock. Same company. Guess who controls the federal government's pension fund? BlackRock. Same company. Guess who is one of the biggest Republican donors? Stephen Schwartzman. Then you go Alphabet. Then you go Hertz. Man, Hertz, global CEO, $182 million. Peloton.

Y'all love buying on Peloton bikes. That CEO made $168 million. Peloton. Y'all love buying those Peloton bikes. That CEO made $168 million. Live Nation. A lot of y'all complaining about those ticket prices and the fees at Live Nation. Live Nation's CEO made $139 million. Oracle, $138 million.

And then you keep going. Look, Apple, Tim Cook made $99.4 million. DocuSign. I know some of y'all are going, DocuSign? Really? I see your face, Rebecca. Rebecca, like, huh?

DocuSign? Yeah, the DocuSign CEO made $85 million. Yeah, the DocuSign CEO. All y'all who love Zoom, I love Zoom. Guess what? The Zoom CEO made $75.9 million. And you remember AIG, who the taxpayers bailed out and they gave them 100% of the money. Well, the AIG CEO, he makes $75.3 million.

Just saying. Let me just say this. Go ahead. That's their base salaries. You have other ways in which they're making money outside of their base salary that should be included in that amount. And those amounts skyrocket when you include

all of the packages and the benefits and all of those other kinds of things that should be included in that amount. And those amounts skyrocket when you include all of the packages and the benefits and all of those other kinds of things and their buyouts and everything that they get. That's just the base salary. Oh yeah, I remember that was a guy, Disney hired him to be their head of communications. So he had a house, I think it was in DC or somewhere.

So they bought his house, that had a house, I think it was in D.C. or somewhere. So they paid him for, they bought his house. That was $4 million. And then helped him buy the house in L.A. He wasn't there long, so then they paid that house off to move back. Oh, yeah. Don't you think that's income? I mean, that's money that they're deriving to their benefit. They get the hookup.

They get the hookup. Lee, always a pleasure. Appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thanks for having me, man. Always glad to have you here. And we talk about, I say this all the time. I said to y'all before.

So, you know, Ashley was the first sponsor of this show. That was when we launched in September 2018. And so we certainly appreciate that. So things look a little different, Lee, since we first started. Oh, no, you've done great, man. And we appreciate everything you're doing every single day. I appreciate it. Again, happy Founders Day.

Scott, you can't do this. Happy Founders Day. All right. You can't do this, Scott. Scott, you can't do this. You all right? Scott. Scott.

Scott. You do it. That's called hang loose. All right, y'all, we come back. How can this highly successful series of books with black characters? Major, 12 million copies in circulation. So why is Hollywood afraid to do a series on this book? Hmm, we'll talk about it next.

Also, a lot of shade from Vice President Kamala Harris to Kevin McCarthy. And Elon Musk spoke at a conference today, and he, I can't wait till I show y'all what he said to the advertisers who have problems with his anti-Semitic posts. Here's some choice words for them. Well, my message to those advertisers, why don't y'all come support Black-owned media

since he told y'all to F off. Oh yeah, that's what he said. I'm gonna show it to y'all. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action, and that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving

into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing.

So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. 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-stud 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 does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Dee Barnes, and this week on The Frequency, we talk about school-to-prison pipeline, book bans, and representing for women's rights. The group Moms Rising handles all of this, so join me in this conversation with my guest, Monifa Vandelli. This is white backlash. This is white fear that happens every time black people in the United States help to walk the United States forward towards what is written on the paper. Right here on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. I'm Faraiji Muhammad, live from L.A., and this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation.

You and me, we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together. So let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's the culture. Weekdays at three, 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. This is Essence Atkins. Mr. Love, King of R&B, Raheem Devon. Me, Sherri Sheppard, and you know what you watch. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, you would think that a book series that has sold nearly 12 million copies

would be an easy sell to Hollywood to produce film docuseries. Well, it's already built an audience when you move that many copies. Well, apparently that's not so for the famous black book series, Bluford High. Independent filmmaker Pierre Bagley says he's had a lot of difficulty convincing

Hollywood decision makers to buy into the project. Pierre joins us from Paris. Pierre, glad to have you here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Look, you've been in this game for a long time. And you've dealt with studios, you've done movies, and you've dealt with all, you've done movies, and you've dealt with all of this sort of stuff. And all of this talk about how Hollywood has changed and diverse and how we're now seeing more diverse people. And I kept telling people, go look at

the trades. When you keep seeing diverse, what they're talking about is, oh, directors and actors. But it all comes down to who are the decision makers and the ones who are green lighting projects. Hey, man. Roland, let me tell you something. First of all, man, I'm so, so very proud of you and so very honored to be on this show because I've known you for decades. And I was watching your show,

and I really could have been a part of Lee Saunders, who is the people who really are holding it up with us. But this is the same subject. This is really about control and power and overcompensation. And basically, we're not even part of the conversation. As Lee will tell you, that latest strike that they just solved around writing and actors,

they didn't deal with diversity at all. And while you guys are holding it up on your end, Roland, and brothers like Lee and sisters doing labor and goods and products, ideas and stories stop wars. Ideas and stories create whole movements like Me Too and George Floyd. And we're talking about the Middle East and whose babies matter the most. It's because they don't know us. And I have a saying, Roland, I say, when the world sees our children as their children, then they will stop the brutalization and the demonization and being afraid of them and shooting them and tasing them as soon as they see them because they look dangerous.

Well, that's what Bluford's about. It's really not about me. I know I look. I got my little Hollywood shit happening because that's what you guys expect. And I'm not talking about you, but you know what I'm saying. So when I could almost wish I could bring Lee back on here and say, brother, we need you in our side because, Roland, while you've always held it up, this is really an issue of the battle.

All the hard goods. What about our ideas? Hollywood spent a hundred years making us monkeys and buffoons and waiters and people who couldn't talk and all that shit. It was never true. And they never spent one second trying to rehabilitate us so that we could have a, like, for example, Roseanne, just a middle class trailer park family. But you know what? They had love. They cared about their children. They were trying to make dinner. Well But you know what? They had love. They cared about their children. They were trying to make dinner. Well, that's what we do too. That's what Bluford's

about. It's about people coming up. They love their families. They love their mom, their dads, their children. They're doing the best they can, driving buses, whatever they got to do. There's no single parent who will say, I won't do anything for my children. But yet those stories, man, we just, we're invisible. And I frankly am in France because I just got tired of it. It's why Baldwin and Simone and and Baker came here because it's you're leaning in this effing hurricane every day over the same issue. And by the way, this is a five year struggle. This isn't just started. I'm not complaining.

We've done everything Hollywood asked us to do. We brought in A-list showrunners that were not of color. We brought in, you know, Academy Award winning producers and David Dinerstein, who is a really proud partner and brother who's Jewish, who worked with me on my last film, but he won an Academy Award for Summer of Soul

that Questlove directed. We can't even get a phone call return, man. I'm not talking about we need money or we just want them to take us seriously. We can't even get a phone call return, man. I'm not talking about we need money. We just want them to take us seriously. And I know I'm going crazy because, frankly, this whole thing is about a battle of we don't have any control over our narrative. The thing that matters the most is what you're doing, Roland, except the fiction part, right? We want to be astronauts. I'm sorry.

Go ahead, brother. I'll give you a perfect example. So Deborah Denard, she's in our chat. She says middle school students love these books. The Bluford series are the books the kids steal from us. Amen. This is one of the most stolen books that never gets returned to libraries. You know? And what is that?

And you know what they were told with the publisher of Bluefoot was Townsend Press. They were told by everyone, basically, black kids don't read. So we don't want to support this book. So my partner, Paul Langan, who wrote the first few books, they said, basically, we're going to just take this on ourselves. This is a small little publishing house in New Jersey. So, you know, this is not about Pierre trying to be a director. I'm going to be all right, man. God has blessed me. And I'm, you know, I'm doing my thing. And I got free health care over here, by the way. And so it ain't about that, Roland. If we can't start being colonels and pilots, and it shouldn't be this like red tails that happens once every five decades. and many journalists now who got their passion reading about kids

who were being bullied or had a weight problem or were worried about teenage sex, all the same things. This could have easily been a white series, and we wouldn't be having this conversation. This shit would have been like Leave it to Beaver two decades ago. So y'all have been on this path and talking to streaming services, trying to talk to studios,

and you've gotten no interest? Well, so what happened, and I'm not going to name them, but a top studio, one of the top four, we got them in, man, and basically, they didn't want to stay with the books.

They brought in these people who did some other things and they got nothing to do with our community or our culture. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, well, when are we going to get to the Bluford books? And these people came in, man, and they just turned this shit into something that had nothing to do with us. And I actually said to the studio, well, don't you guys care about these millions of fans and all these books and great stories?

And they said, no, we don't really care to, what do they say, adapt the books. And I'm like, well, I mean, I thought that was the collateral for the deal. And we know how other book lovers, how they responded when storylines were changed in movies, in TV shows, and they reacted in a huge way. Thank you. It's like Harry Potter. Why don't you take this, not in, and make it in Hogwarts. Why don't you make this shit in like flint michigan or you know whatever whatever suburb you want to make man the harry potter people would have lost their

mind and we'd have never heard of that series but they could they just don't even give us any uh consideration and it's really offensive because it's not just about blueford as i say to paul the guy who who created it, said, man, shit, I am Bluford. Everything those kids went through. And same with you, Roland, and Carol, all your staff. We had to decide, are we going to go with the bullshit or okie-dokie?

Are we going to try to get through school and still be cool or whatever it took? The weight, people making fun of you, not making fun of you, drugs. That's what Bluford's about. So it's like, you know what? I've got to do this. My passion is about telling our stories. And if Bluford isn't our story, nothing is. But it's middle of the road. And you have, and one of the things, and I've got people in the chat, and they're throwing out, hey, what about Tyler?

What about Oprah? Not understanding that, again, I have to keep reminding people, Oprah no longer owns OWN. That was a 50-50 deal. I think she still has maybe 2%. That's Warner Brothers discovery. They own OWN Network, y'all tyler perry did not buy bet uh that story was a lie i told y'all that whole deal uh and and even he was said he was offended

by the process uh when paramount in terms of how they did that uh and so uh and the reality is when you look at out here in the space you you've got upstarts like Mansa. You've got all black out there. Even the streaming service Bob Johnson used to have. Well, that was actually sold to AMC. So part of the thing that people don't understand, we're having these conversations. They just automatically assume that again 50 cent he yeah he has these shows he's doing on a lot of different networks but they don't have the infrastructure of

a streaming service or a network and that's the piece i don't think people understand when they sort of just throw these names out and think well they can do it. But no, they actually are also pitching. And here's the deal. They are also telling some of them, no, Ava DuVernay has pitched projects and they've said no. And that's the whole point. It comes down to you need a yes. Thank you. And here's the deal. You know, Bluford is it's obvious, right? We don't have to pitch that to heart. We literally have 12 million books in circulation that are in schools and libraries. So if you just do the math and say this book started in 2001. So you literally have parents reading Bluford with their kids. And that's a true fact. Right. And so our pitch should be kind of simple because we're walking in there with the market. I'm telling you, Bluford, the nation, these young adults, these young professionals who grew up on it, they are there with us every day.

I mean, we can call them and I'm talking to them right now. And I guarantee you, when you look at your analytics, you're going to see a different market viewing this right now because they're saying, yo, what about us? And I'm like, you know what? That's the question. And let me say something, man. I'm not, I don't want to disparage anybody, but, you know, the pressure on us, Roland, is we're not doing a comedy or this shoot them up, you know, bad guy, bitches and hoes. They don't really want to hear it. And I get it. If I had a choice between being in the business or not,

then you really have to, you know, do that. I mean, you know that. I mean, you made your own platform, brother, because you got tired of the bullshit. And that's what I'm saying. I'm like, we finally have IP, this real talented actors, talented writers. And and we've got a multimillion base. It could be as many as 50, 60 million people who are aware of this content. And you guys are treating us like it doesn't matter. And it's offensive.

Like, honestly, if I come back on and I get a deal, I'll tell you exactly what my pay is because if I do good work, I'm going to get paid, just like Brother Sonder said. I mean, fuck it, whatever that is, I'll get my piece. This is about a cop pulling over your son or daughter and treating them different than they would treat their son or daughter, even if they're on drugs,

even if they're telling them to fuck off. They're not going to get slammed on the street and the face in the concrete and shit. Or if they try to fight back, they get shot. That's because they don't know our kids. And the reason why they don't know our kids, because enough people don't know about Bluford, which we know. Bluford is not an abomination in our world, but the mainstream doesn't know about it. So my passion is, like I say, people are dying right now, particularly in our community, because we don't have hope. And, you know, they're banning books. They're telling

us somehow slavery. I mean, it's bullshit, man. And here we have Bluford out there, and they're acting like, well, they're treating it like any other pitch. It's like, so it's not my idea. It's not even David Dennerstein. We're just trying to get a look at the basket. They put Bluford out there, I guarantee you it's going to carry itself. And I frankly think that's what they're afraid of. They're afraid that we're like you, we might get self-contained or like Tyler,

who basically didn't need Hollywood. Hollywood needed him. When he came, as you know, he had his community. And basically, Tyler ran his own deal from day one, just like Issa Rae. Just like Issa Rae. But the thing that,

but even with that, I always have to remind people that, somebody put in the chat, Tyler has a studio. Tyler has a physical studio. But what they figured out, and I need people to understand this, because they figured this out even with the music game,

was distribution. And that is if you control distribution, then you control the game. It was a whole bunch of record labels, but once they said, hold up, it's Motown, it's Stack, it's all different, but if we control the distribution,

now we control the access. That's to the theaters, and now you talk about to the streaming services, which is why you have, again, people are creating their own platforms. But here's the piece. It's very difficult when a Mansa, Nate Parker, David Yellowo, launches trying to compete against a Netflix when you're competing against somebody with a market cap of $300 billion. Disney, same thing. And look, and we all know how black people deal with it, but I got to remind people, when George Lucas did Red Tails,

the major seven Hollywood studios all told him no because they said there were no white heroes. George Lucas had to put $60 million of his own money to finish Red Tails. This is George Star Wars Lucas. Thank you, brother. Thank you. And, you know, when you talk about this, it's business is like I call it a three legged stool. Right.

It's about content. It's about distribution and it's about financing. So we've got two of the three. Right. We've got great content and really distribution with our audience. I mean, just like you should. I think we could put this on a YouTube channel if we could pay for it. We don't have the financing. So that's what we need. Like, I don't, I'm tired of trying to convince Hollywood. I mean, you, did you see in Sunday's paper, there's an article on the front page about how Netflix gave this guy $55 million to do a series. He went out and bought five Rolls Royces, a Ferrari, put $11 million into crypto, never delivered a thing. And they just marked it off and kept moving, right? So we're looking, the one thing our community doesn't have is access to capital and any

regular ways to finance. And I think if we could get a private equity fund to say, hey, give us a billion dollars. You know what, Roland? I'd come to you and say, brother, let's spread out. Because over here in France, they respect us. They understand our struggle. And they're very curious about African-American. That's what I'm talking about, us.

Well, and look, I get people, I get these trolls who yell, oh, man, you out here bigging. They holler do for self. And I'm like, yo, it's a $322 billion advertising industry. How do you think Disney and Warner Brothers and NBC Universal, how do you think they make money? That's how they make money. And we should be tapping into it as well.

And so when we have access to, yes, that financing, then we can do projects, and we know the artist is going to be there, but that's, again, that's how the game is being controlled. It's controlled two ways, financing and distribution. Well, what we're going to do, Pierre, look, we're going to put this segment out. We're going to share it on social media

and hope it strikes some interest in some people. Because, again, as you said, the audience is sitting there waiting to grab it. Folks just got to have the courage to actually do it. We appreciate it, my brother. Appreciate you, Roland. And continued success, brother. Thank you so much. All right.

Looking clean and ahead as well. All right, Pierre, and continued success, brother. Thank you so much. All right, looking clean in the hat as well. All right, Pierre, thanks a lot. Folks, when we come back, I keep telling y'all these white conservatives are going after everything black. Now they're going after some black scholarships in Colorado. Did I write a whole book called White Fear? Did I tell you this was about to happen? It's real. We'll talk about that next

on Roller Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Next on the Black Table with me, Greg Carr, working under the constant threat of violence, nearly 50 bomb threats over dozens of HBCU campuses. In 2022, we'll talk to our HBCU campuses in 2022. We'll talk to our HBCU Master Teacher Roundtable about the stress, the strain, the frustrating lack of answers and real community grounded solutions to the threat of violence. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone,

sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

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

This is Absolute Season One. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 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 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 face it, HBCUs today. Join us for the Black Table, only on the Black Star Network.

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. 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 wrath 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. Hello, I'm Paula J. Parker. Trudy Proud on The Proud Family. Louder and Prouder on Disney+. And you're watching Roland Mars Unfiltered.

All right, folks. I'm going to get to the Colorado story in a second, but I pulled up this story that Pierre was talking about, and this shows you the sheer insanity, Scott. So Carl Rentsch, R-I-N-S-C-H, so this guy directed one movie. I want you to listen to what I just said. Little known director. And so this is the lead of the New York Times story. Near the height of the streaming boom in the fall of 2018,

a half dozen studios and video platforms line up to woo a little known filmmaker named Carl Eric Rensch. He directed one movie, 47 Ronin. It was a commercial and critical dud. But all of these folks were throwing money and they threw $55

million at this dude to produce a series that never actually happened. That shit don't happen to black people, Scott. We gotta do 10 movies. We gotta do... I mean, but this is the game. This is what we... When you talk

about white privilege and how the game is rigged against us, this is what we're talking about. It gets worse. The case of Carlos Watson, who's being criminally prosecuted in the Eastern District of New York right now,

right? Allegedly, who had a streaming service or had a media company. Yeah, his media company was Ozzy. Ozzy, exactly. And he's being criminally prosecuted right now by the Eastern District of New York. And if they prosecute him, so regardless of his defenses, but how come they're not prosecuting this individual who literally walked away with $55 million? I don't know the story. I don't know the case per se. But that story is being written. It's not being written because the individual is being

criminally prosecuted. It's being written because it's a strange case of how Netflix lost $55 million. That's a lot of money they lose without being criminally investigated. So it's worse than not supporting black and brown projects in the media or financing them. It's about these other individuals who arguably do the same things as people of color, and yet they don't get prosecuted. Take your pick. A child born of the darker you shall see many dark days. And yet they don't get prosecuted. Take your pick. A child born of the dark are you shall see many dark days. I mean, this is the reality that when you talk about the creative space that people don't fully understand, Rebecca, and then what happens is our stories don't see the light of day.

Yeah. You know, Roland, I think it's even getting worse, especially when we think about how AI is going to be used for the rest of the century. And when I say that, I think about some of the blackfishing that we're seeing, where you have black-looking characters, artificial characters, but it's not necessarily black creatives that are generating or using it. Like I know before you've talked about the difference between black targeted media and black media, you know, it's the same thing within the creative space. You have black

creatives and then you have black targeted creations. And, you know, we see this across many industries. And so I was even thinking about the reference to Tyler Perry in the last segment. And I started thinking about Master P. You know, we live in a world now where Master P selling mixtapes out of the back of his trunk, it couldn't happen anymore in 2023. Or even Tyler Perry selling Madea movies. And I remember all the bootleg DVDs and then the real DVDs that he sold out of his trunk. That simply couldn't happen anymore because how we receive, how we receive creations and creativity, how it's delivered, the delivery model is different, you know, i.e.

how it's distributed. So as Black folks, as we're plotting our future for the next 50 years, 100 years, how do we stay innovative? How do we have access to these new technologies that make sure that our creativity, our business people are able to compete in these emerging new economies? And this right here, Robert, again, how I connect the dots, the nation's first black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, where it says in third paragraph, we wish to, damn, okay, another one and another one and another one. And guess what? Lionsgate and Starz are making tons of money. Their stock price is going up.

But this is what people don't understand. They don't understand the bowels that you go through. I mean, even what we do here, the stuff that we do here, this was all about because I refuse to be talking to a 32 year old white producer trying to explain to them why I want to cover something that black

people are interested in. That conversation with Lee Saunders is not going to happen at that length on MSNBC, on CNN. It's not. And so when I hear people say, we got to do for self, okay, but we also have to learn to fully support our stuff. Otherwise, it's not going to be here.

You're absolutely correct. And for Netflix, if you happen to have an extra 50 million dollars sitting around uh me roland scott and rebecca uh will be starring in a new made for tv series or drama called black people in media the show will be about black people in media i haven't finished the script quite yet but please forward the 50 million dollars uh me, and I will give some of it to Roland also. But look, you're completely correct. We have to be able to have a financial mechanism around this, because you and I and all of us have traveled many places around the world.

The number of places that me and my wife were in the sooks in Dubai one year, and the owners of the little shops, they start yelling out things to get your attention, trying to get you to buy trinkets and tourist junk. So they saw me, I was the only black dude around, so they started yelling out, Barack Obama, Barack Obama, because that's the most famous black person they could think of. My wife walked by.

They started yelling out, Nicki Minaj, Nicki Minaj, because that's the most famous black woman they could think of at the time. The reason I bring this up is our image around the world is dictated by what goes out in media, music, and the press. You know, you can go to Japan. There was a restaurant there the last time we went to Tokyo called N-Word Chicken. Not because they were being racist, just because that's what they thought we called it. They thought that we enjoyed being called that because all the music that they hear is us calling ourselves the N-word.

You know, you'll see festivals in Southeast Asia where they'll dress up in blackface and run around with guns because they think that's what black society is because that's the image that we've been pumping out there for 30, 40, 50 years. And then we're not able to finance the counter-programming to that.

When you talk about black women traveling in Europe and people assuming they're prostitutes because that's the music they get pumped out there because all they see is sexy red and ice spice and Cardi B and Meg Nostalgia. When you see black men being detained at airports around the globe

because they assume they're trafficking drugs of some kind because that's everything that's in the music, every rap song is about trafficking drugs and killing people. When you see people who aren't served the same way in different parts of the world because that's everything that's in the music, every rap song is about trafficking drugs and killing people. When you see people who aren't served the same way in different parts of the world, because that's the image that we're allowed to put out there and we have to fight back against it. Folks, that's what has to happen.

And so we're going to continue to highlight these stories and making it known what's going on. We come back, we'll talk about what's happening in Colorado. Two Colorado universities, they are fighting a group over scholarships. This all because of that Supreme Court affirmative action decision. Folks, you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstone Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, have you ever had a million dollar idea

and wondered how to bring it to life? Well, it's all about turning problems into opportunities. On our next Get Wealthy, you'll learn of a woman who identified the overload bag syndrome and now she's taking that money to the bank through global sales in major department stores. And I was just struggling with two or three bags on the train, and I looked around on the train and I said,

you know what, there are a lot of women that are carrying two or three bags. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. Grow your business or career with Grow with Google's wide range of online courses, digital training, and tools. Gain in-demand job skills with flexible online training programs designed to put you on the fast track to jobs in high growth fields. No experience is necessary. Learn at your own pace. Complete the online certificate program on your own terms. Stand out to employers, get on a path to in-demand jobs, and connect with top employers who are currently hiring. Take one professional career certificate program, or all six.

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Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherry Shepard Talk Show. This is your boy, Irv Quaife. And you're tuned in to... Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Two Colorado universities are the targets of an anti-affirmative action conservative group that has filed federal complaints alleging its distribution of federal scholarships is race-based and discriminatory. The University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Colorado Denver participate in the federal Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program, also known as the McNair Scholars Program,

named after one of the astronauts who was killed on the space shuttle. The Equal Protection Project claims that white and Asian students face additional hurdles when being considered for scholarships. Colette Bowers-Zinn, the founder and executive director of AXIS, a nonprofit organization that helps underrepresented students thrive in education, joins me from L.A. to discuss this. Glad to have you on the show, Colette. This is, I I said to people in my book, White Fear, these things

were coming. These folks are mad, they're pissed off, they're angry, and this notion that somehow white and Asian kids are being exempted or they're not getting a fair share, I keep saying, they're going to go after any and everything that black folks

have been trying to advance, to marginally get ahead in this society. Indeed, but the fact of the matter is they are ahead. And that's why these programs, these things continue to happen and that they're using the exact system that provides systemic blocks to students of color, people of color, to prevent students of color and people of color from thriving, from getting at anywhere near equitable experiences. It's a problem. Well, and what's happening now is that, again, when you go after one of these programs, it becomes a chilling effect, just like when they went after the venture group that was in Atlanta that was there to help out black and other female entrepreneurs. And so what they hope, they want to force people to begin to change their programs on their own out of fear of them being sued. And that's exactly what's going to start to be the outcomes coming out of this.

Because, again, it's people who the system has worked for that then have the time and resources to perpetuate these silly lawsuits against people in because they don't want to deal with the potential of getting hit with lawsuits and anger and reactions and bad press and all of that that come with organizations like the Equal Protection Project. So how do we fight back? Again, it's just like what you guys were talking about in the entertainment industry. At some point, we have to get really behind For Us, By Us. And we have to not only be For Us, By Us and get the people in the black community who have the wherewithal and the money and the resources and the connections

to build up scholarship programs, support, et cetera, for our students of color to show up and help us and help our kids get to where they need to be. It's also that certain systems already exist, and we have to rally around our own once in these systems, like private school systems in our country, they exist. They get our kids to the universities that they need to be in, that ultimately lead to changes in life, lifestyle, generational change that our kids need. The fastest path to those places are private schools for our kids nowadays

because our public schools are so failing our kids of color at astronomical rates. So, organizations like mine exist for those kids that have the opportunity to support them in the process and in navigating opportunities. We have to do more for us by us to help open doors for our kids

and to support Black students and, you know, Black people in general across all walks of life, across all professions, to be able to thrive. Questions from our panel. Robert, you first. On this, you know,

I've thought of a most def lyric while you're talking. You start keeping pace, they start switching the tempo. And it's just interesting to me that the minute that we start making these advancements in education, advancements of corporate diversity, of leadership positions, all of a sudden they're starting to attack the fundamental underpinnings of what has helped to promote African-Americans and other groups to beyond a subservient position within the socioeconomic stratosphere that exists. Is there a way for universities or for other groups to structure scholarship programs that would not be something that could be attacked under equal protection grounds or that cannot

be attacked by these conservative groups in the court system are simply something we're going to have to fight out a case-by-case basis. I actually think that the way this trend is headed, we are going to have to fight it on a case-by-case basis. But this specific Colorado lawsuit, what you need to understand is, one, that these are for $2,800 scholarships, right? So we're grasping at straws to be opposed to grad students getting $2,800 to help them. What you also need to understand is that to qualify

for these scholarships, you have to be low income, first generation, or underrepresented. So that means you can be white and poor and qualify or Asian and first generation and qualify and a whole bunch of other things to qualify. This is just people simply whining that their lives are so privileged that they don't qualify and would have to have

other things that would allow them to be eligible for this program. That thank your lucky stars that you're not first generation in college or low income or underrepresented and keep it moving. It's these silly suits that are going to keep coming until we figure out how to, A, support our own and find, like you said, some language. Legally, we need our legal, our Black legal community to come together and help figure out the language that's necessary for these scholarships, et cetera, and programs to proceed without being attacked legally every step of the way. Rebecca.

Thank you so much, Colette, for being on the show tonight. In my opinion, America made up race and then codified it into all of our laws. So now there's a permanent black underclass. And until we undo that, we will always have these issues. But this is my specific question about this. So there are, these same universities have legacy admissions and it largely and over-index benefiting white folks. So when are black folks are going to start suing over legacy admissions, which is racial, based upon these universities' histories?

You know, that's such a legitimate, good question. That's another piece of the puzzle that we have to start talking about as a Black community. When are we going to stop playing likes? We are, this country was literally built on our backs. And as you said, systems then created coming out of slavery that gave us no shot at equity. And those have been perpetuated for many, many, many years. When are we going to get together as a people, pool our resources, and fight back in the systems that matter, legal and otherwise, with things exactly like what you're saying coming against legacy. Scott. Hi. I feel your frustration. A couple points of clarification. One, there's several groups who are fighting back. There's just a lot of different lawsuits out there. Many of us, the Harvard case, North Carolina case, UNC case, we knew that the scholarship piece was next.

But those decisions have no impact or do not cover specific scholarships, especially with a scholarship like these at issue in Colorado are race neutral, right? But we knew they were going to be attacked. And the legal pushback ought to be these allegations or this lawsuit or this administrative piece ought to be dismissed. Our enemies are looking for the next case like this. This may be it, where they can take to the U.S. Supreme Court to extend that decision, the Harvard decision, to make it apply to race-based scholarships, i.e. UNCF. But I think you're right. We've got to push back legally on all of these efforts to turn the clock back on us and to try to make America into this race-neutral society or that colorblind society that we know certainly does not exist.

So I'd love your reaction to that and love to support you as you continue to push forward against these attacks. Thank you. And well, thank you. And I agree with you. And you're absolutely right. What I will say to you is that this is simply a continuation of these groups' attempts to one, pit Asian students

against other students of color and to push, as you said, colorblindness in an education system that remains vastly inequitable in terms of racial disparities and is anything but colorblind. And they wanna eliminate programs that have successfully increased the educational attainment

of underrepresented segments of society. It's just, it's nonsensical. And we need to begin to attack. Pardon me? They're gonna continue to attack industries and all parts of our cultural reality. And it simply isn't going to stop, notwithstanding that Harvard decision that was limited to college admissions. It's not going to stop and trickle down. I do a lot of work with K-12s, kindergarten through 12th grade institutions. And without having legal precedents, they're already preparing for how they need to change things or what wording they need to use so that they don't potentially get sued.

It's a mess. And so we have to figure out what is the plan? What are we doing in defense of this? And that's what you're naming. Where are we going to come up with the counter attack for this so that it doesn't spread

further? All right. Colette, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me. All right, folks, we come back. Oh, I guess I think Rebecca Scott and Rob. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin.

And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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. 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 two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very 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 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. Well, I'm going to do this here, Scott, since you got to go. I'm going to go ahead and play this right now then. So, y'all, when I went by the Clark Atlanta homecoming, and one of the things that people at Atlanta kept saying, they kept telling me, could you please get P'Nadi

or whatever the hell your little name, they said, could you please keep him off the air? I said, I'm just letting you know. I mean, so I said, listen. I got fans out there. You got fans? Well, I was, the Alphas was stepping. I was going to all the different areas here, y'all.

And Scott's little youth group, the Cappers, they were out there. And, you know, Cappers, they were out there. And, you know, the young dudes, they shimmy. I don't even know what the hell that even is. So the older dudes, they still using canes. So I capture a little video out there of folks in action. And go to video now. Let's run it.

And I told y'all how often we would count how many times Kappa's would drop canes. So that was one. So I was going to show this a couple of weeks ago. Scott left early, so I had to save it. Y'all don't worry about it. He going to drop it again. It's coming. It it's going it's coming

it's coming it's coming so uh oh damn hell and so uh there we go and i told him i said i'm putting this on the show so you hear me just saying that's going on tv oh i ain't done scott oh no scott so then another brother uh they gave him the cane. And just turn the audio up. I need y'all got to roll his hair. Because I made it clear, Scott, I was going to show this just for you. So that's me handing these two sisters my camera. Because I wanted them to capture me in the video when they dropped the cane.

So you know that, so you, oh no, Scott, I had it for you. I had it for you. And so he gonna switch in a second. He gonna hand the cane to this other brother cause I was sitting here laughing at him. Oh, boom, he dropped it. There you see me handed it to him. I'm trying to hand it to him.

See, that's how y'all. Say it again. You ain't supposed to touch his cane. Well, don't drop the damn cane. Don't be saying. Don't be saying we can't. Now, this right here. Oh, yeah.

Leave Scott in the box right here. I need Scott to be seen when my man just start dropping. He didn't even last 10 seconds. Rebecca's over there counting the drops. Don't do it. Don't do it. No, he ain't done. Oh, oh, another drop. We ain't done. Why are they doing that?

Why? We ain't done. Oh! All right. We ain't done. Oh! All right. We done. Come on. So, Rebecca, how many drops did you count there, Rebecca?

Rebecca, don't do it. Don't take the bait, Rebecca. Don't take the bait, Rebecca. In 30 seconds, it was six. Scott, y'all be changed. Scott, why do you take the bait? See, when I... This is my learned experience. You don't take it with me, but you'll go with him in a minute.

Scott, do you have any... This is my learned experience. Scott, do you have any defense of what we just witnessed? Well, first of all, they shouldn't take the cane and they shouldn't do it on camera, especially with your shit-talking ass there and be dropping the cane.

I mean, that's just a disaster. Scott, what are our excuses, Scott? Scott, what are our excuses? It was my birthday party and you were talking major trash to them in a capper house. excuses, Scott. It was full of excuses. It was incompetent to build my unit to nothingness and those who choose to use them get a cap on.

They need their excuse. They should have known better as far as I'm concerned. But it is. Roland, as a CAU alumni,

I give them this defense that usually the cap is covering themselves in baby oil for some reason. So maybe their fingers are still

a little bit slick. Or it might be all them S curls. You know, that S curl. You were in school a long time ago. A long time ago. But here's the deal. You shouldn't take the cane and do that on camera unless you are what we call a cane master. And none of those cane masters,

they were 50 years and older, they shouldn't have been doing that. I will say that was one cane master, but I told him he's not going to make the show. That was one. That was one. I got the video,

but I told him that's not going to be shown. No, that's some shit. Now, see, that's wrong. That's what you know what? Dropping it six times is what was on the shit. That's where owning your own media, you can control what you put on. You are absolutely correct. I've been saving that for about a month.

So you can leave now, P-Naughty. Scott, just wish him happy Founders Day. Yeah, happy Founders Day. Rebecca, I'm very disappointed in you. Very. God damn. Oh, here we go. He about to start stepping.

He about to start stepping. He about to start stepping. Here we go. Look at him. Scott, always remember who your daddy is. Oh, gosh. All right, Scott, you go now. We going to a break. We'll be right back. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it. And you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it.

This is about covering us. Invest in black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month. Waits $100,000.

We're behind $100,000. So we want to hit that. Y'all money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle ismartinunfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered.

Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. Carl Payne pretended to be Roland Martin. Holla! You ain't got to wear black and gold every damn place, okay? Ooh, I'm an alpha, yay! All right, you're 58 years old. It's over. You are now watching... Roland Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamn believable. Y'all know I am absolutely king petty.

I like being petty, especially for those who deserve it. Well, at the Dealbook Conference, the New York Dealbook Summit, Vice President Kamala Harris was speaking today, and she was asked this question here. This was just, just perfect pettiness. Play it. Kevin McCarthy was here this morning and he was in very stark terms, effectively said that he did not believe that President Biden was the same President Biden that he used to talk to. Went so far as to say that when they were having the debt negotiations, that he didn't even think

he was negotiating with him, that he thought he was looking at cards and that if the information effectively wasn't on the cards, he wasn't able to do it. With all due respect, when anyone who has had the experience that he has most recently had, I don't think he's a judge of negotiations. Love it. That's how you got to respond, Rebecca. With shade.

I mean, with all due respect, Kevin McCarthy is the worst one right now. There's no one worse in Washington, D.C. that could actually talk about what negotiations looking like. Because, in fact, he negotiated the poison pill that actually kicked him out of the speakership. So she's right. So good for her. I want to see more of Vice President Harris out on the road and really touting what she and the rest of the administration has been doing for the

American people. That's what it's going to take in order for the Biden-Harris administration to retain the White House next fall. Now, this was a little different type? Um, now, um... This was a little different type of shade, Robert.

But, um, Lauren Boebert, you know, really, really dumb Lauren Boebert, was questioning somebody with the Social Security Administration. And... Sigh. Well, just watch. You all are allowing delinquent employees to sit on their sofas at home instead of actually getting to work and doing their jobs.

This is absolutely unacceptable. So our employees are working whether they are in the office or at home. Are you monitoring the work that they are doing the office or at home and they are expecting Are you monitoring the work that they are doing from home on a regular basis? Yes we are. Every employee, do you have the numbers of the hours that are submitted? Are you counting how many times they are logging into their computers and responding to case work?

So our employees are subject to the same performance management processes and oversight they are whether they are teleworking or working in the office and we have systems in place that our managers use to schedule assign and track workloads and that includes individual employee workloads in many cases so real-time understanding of what actions are being processed at any particular given time additionally our employees are required to be accessible to their supervisors clients colleagues and external parties during work hours, free of variety of means, including instant messaging, video platforms, and telephone.

They are connected to the workplace, whether they are in the office or at the home. Then why is the backlog for Social Security applicants increased from 41,000 to 100,000 and 700,000? Because we've been historically underfunded for a number of years now. I don't think you're underfunded. You're funded at the Nancy Pelosi levels at the Democrat levels. We just continued that same funding. So I would say pandemic level spending. So I'd say we have an increase of over eight million beneficiaries over the last 10 years. At the same time, we experienced our lowest work staffing levels at the end of FY22.

That's a math problem. I mean, that is a problem. If you have those workloads increasing and you don't have the staff to take care of those workloads, you're going to have the backlogs that you're talking about, Representative. Well, I would love to see. Rob, he said, that's a math problem, which you're too stupid to understand. That's basically what he was saying. Well, this often ends up being the problem with conservatives. They live in a silo. So when you're in a conservative media silo, no one ever actually has responses or

questions to the things you're saying. You can simply repeat the same talking points, and because you're in an echo chamber, it sounds like it's a good idea until you bring it to the light of day and actually have to respond to questions that are asked to you. Of course, the person who's in charge of the Social Security Administration is going to have the questions of the Social Security Administration. And now whatever staffer presented those questions for Lauren Boebert probably should put some stickers and some sticky faces and some smiley faces on there so she can understand how to get from point to point.

But it really is an embarrassment when you have a Congress right now that is so incompetent they can't carry out just simple direct examination, not even cross-examination. This, I believe, is exactly why Hunter Biden wants his testimony to be live and in public and on camera, not behind closed doors, because he wants to have those exact same moments that the Social Security Director had and everyone else has had in front of the world and not allow Republicans to try to sanitize it, clean it up, and flip it around in something that never happened. So I'm not quite sure why people keep saying Rebecca and Robert and Elon Musk

is this genius and brilliant. At the same deal book conference, he was asked about these advertisers who have been pulling out because of his anti-Semitic tweets. So this is what the fool said, the person who has a platform called ex-formerly Twitter, where 90% of your money comes from advertising. This is literally what this fool said.

Apology tour, if you will. That this had been said online, there was all of the criticism, there was advertisers leaving. We talked to Bob Iger today. I hope they stop. You hope? Don't advertise. You don't want them to advertise? No. What do you mean?

If somebody's going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go fuck yourself. But. Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey, Bob, if you're in the audience. Well, let me ask you then.

That's how I feel. Don't advertise. How do you think then about the apology tour, if you will? You saw Andrew Ross. You saw him go, did this fool just say what I think this fool just said? And then he said, hi, Bob. He was talking about Disney. And here's the deal, Rebecca.

Disney, NBCUniversal, Apple, Lionsgate, a bunch of these companies, they suspended advertising. And I've said, hey, send the money to black-owned media. Elon Musk just said, F off to all those major companies. All of the advertisers should immediately pull their money from Twitter. And then he later complained, he later complained that,

oh, that if they pull the advertising and the company fails, then the blame is going to be on them. Nope, the blame is going to be on you because you are the one who has allowed hate to return back to this platform Elon Musk so with all due

respect, someone who is a white South African who was raised with South African apartheid values, who then take over one of the largest platforms in the world, that has a large, great influence and footprint all around the world, impacts world affairs, and then decides that he's going to remove entire departments that regulate

hate rhetoric and racist rhetoric on its platform. He's letting you know what his values are. He's letting you know who he is. So for those corporations that are still flowing money to a platform with someone who has very racist ideology and values, they get what they get. But they're also showing where their values are. Because after all, I believe it was Dr. King who said that moral documents, sorry, said that budget and money and how we spend money, it shows where our morals are. And clearly, that's what some of these large corporations are showing by continuing to advertise on X? Robert, it's time for me to do my normal Elon soapbox.

So Bill Nelson, NASA administrator, pulled funding from Elon Musk and SpaceX. The money that Twitter or X or wherever it gets is just walking around money for Elon. He does not care about it. It is entertainment money. It is the money that he pays to be able to flip a bird

the entire world and say, I can do whatever I want, because he has signed a $4 billion contract with NASA in order to develop the human landing system for the Artemis missions. He also has some contracts with the United States Space Force to use Falcon Heavy to deliver geosynchronous satellites to Earth orbit. He also has additional contracts with the U.S. government to ferry astronauts back and forth to the International Space Station. He has Falcon 9 contracts with nearly every major broadband provider on Earth

to deliver rapidly reusable rockets to low Earth orbit and then return them and continue doing so. He has contracts with the FCC to his Starlink system in order to have low latency global internet that will in the near future put all broadband internet out of business. In addition to this, he also has contracts which he's trying to turn through the brand new deal

and to defleet vehicles from the United States government, meaning that all those Ford Explorers you should see will soon be Teslas if he gets his way. He has a gigafactory in Mexico City to build Teslas. He has a gigafactory in Shanghai. The only non-Chinese person to have a gigafactory in Shanghai as well as factories in Berlin and are now in Austin, Texas. He has a Neuralink program, which is a brain implant that he's now implanting into, I think it's in trial right now,

where you can use your brainwave to control computer mouses and prosthetics going forward. He has the Boring Company that has contracts in place that can dig tunnels or hyperlink tunnels between major cities. There were discussions to put one between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. There's a prototype one in Los Angeles. And those things, they never worked. None of them have worked yet, but he's still making billions and billions of dollars. The point is, the reason he can say fuck you to the advertisers is he doesn't need the advertisers because he has the government.

He is the biggest welfare queen on the planet. getting government money left and right from every government on this earth, including to provide satellite systems to Ukraine to fight their wars, which he can turn on and off at any given time. How much power does one man need? How much money does one man need? He effectively has his own fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles that are completely unregulated by any world government. He has his own internet satellite constellation. He has his own spaces government. He has his own internet satellite constellation. He has his own spaceships. He has his own electric vehicles. And we are not doing anything about it.

And we're worried about him saying F you to advertisers. Well, I would love him to lose all those government contracts too. That's it. Robert, Rebecca, I appreciate y'all being with us on today's panel. Thank you so very much. Folks, earlier today I did a master class at North Carolina A&T University. Had a very good time there with the journalism students. I was invited

by my longtime NABJ colleague, David Squires. And of course, the students, as they always do, wanted to share with us one of the favorite traditions at North Carolina A&T. One, two, three, pause. Can I get a Aggie pride?

Aggie pride! Yes! Glad to be there, glad to see Chancellor Martin, my alpha brother, and that was absolutely great to be with those students at North Carolina A&T. Hey folks, don't forget to support us in what we do. YouTube, folks, y'all watching right now. Hit that Like button.

We should easily be at 1,500 likes. So y'all got time to do it right now. Also, your support is critical to what we do. So send your check and money order to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash App is Dallas Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, or Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered.

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right here. Holla! Folks, Black Star Network is here. A real revolutionary right now. Black media, he makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being. We support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller.

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 black on media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home.

You dig? A lot of times, big economic forces show up in our lives in small ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. Small but important ways. Four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. Small but important ways from tech billionaires to the bond market to yeah, banana pudding. If it's happening in business, our new podcast is on it. I'm Max Chastain. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. So listen to everybody's business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 Glott. 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 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.