#RolandMartinUnfiltered - GA Gov's "reckless" reopening; COVID-19 a civil rights issue; Chuck D, Joe Torry talk live streaming

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

4.22.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: GA Gov. Brian Kemp's "reckless" reopening plan; Here's why COVID-19 is a civil rights issue; Georgia State Representative Vernon Jones has resigned after he endorsed Trump; Milwaukee council votes to mail absentee ballot applications to city's registered voters; Chuck D, Joe Torry talk live streaming + Comedian Jonathan Slocumb will join us for some laughs. Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Unfiltered. Well, you'll be joined by Texas Congressman Al Green, who wants to expand mobile testing in vulnerable communities. The mayor of Albany, Georgia, will join us. He says Governor Brian Kemp's plan to reopen the state is reckless. Civil rights leaders say that COVID-19 is a new civil rights frontier. We'll break it down with our panel. Also in Georgia, State Rep Vernon Jones has quit after he endorsed Donald Trump. And in Milwaukee, the city council votes to mail absentee ballot applications to the city's 300,000 registered voters. Plus, we'll continue our discussion about streaming and owning your content with Chuck D and Marcel,

a brother who has come up with a streaming app that he says will be better than Instagram and Periscope. Also, comedian Joe Torre and publicist turned producer Darren Dickerson announced a new multicultural box office video portal for content creators. And while it's not Wednesdays, it's back. Jonathan Slocum will join us. Wait till you hear him do Luther Vandross as a church praise leader. Luther didn't even like church.

It's time to bring the funk on Rolling Mark Unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling Best belief he's knowing

Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's rolling Martin Rolling with rolling now Yeah, yeah. It's Roland Martin. Yeah, yeah. Rolling with Roland now. Yeah, yeah.

He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Roland Martin now. Martin. All right, folks. As of today, we have 842,167 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States and three U.S. territories. 47,123 patients with the virus have died. 83,646 have recovered from the virus. Every day, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, one of many governors who gives an annual update,

a daily update of what's happening in the state. And today in his briefing, he reminds us that we are in day 53 of this international pandemic. And although we aren't where we want to be, we're certainly still in a much better place than we were before. When you look at the reality of the situation, we are actually in a much better place.

We're not home yet, but we're in a better place. The really bad news would have been if we concluded that we couldn't control the spread of the virus. That was a possibility. You looked at all those initial projections. How do you know that we could control the spread? We could have done all those close down measures and it didn't work. And the spread continued. That would have been bad news. So relatively, we're in a relatively good place. In downstate New York, the curve is on the descent. The question is now how long is that descent?

Is it a sudden drop off? Is it one week, two weeks, three weeks, six weeks? We don't know. But better to be going down than to be going up, right? Let's keep that in mind. And we are going down. How fast? We'll find out. But we're in a better place. Hospitalization numbers are coming down. Intubations are coming down. Number of new people going into the hospital every day is still troublingly high, but better than it was, but still problematic. Number of lives lost is still breathtakingly painful and the worst news that I have to deliver every day and the worst news that I've ever had to deal with as governor of New York.

Uh, but at least it's not going up anymore and it seems to be, uh, on a gentle decline. Now, what is a concern to so many people, again, is what happens when the issue of testing. Now, the Trump administration back in March, remember when early March they said there'll be four million tests available by the end of the week? That was a lie. Remember when they said we would have 27 million tests

by the end of April? That is a lie. We barely gotten close to 4 million people being tested completely. So the question now is, what happens when these states begin opening up? What happens when Georgia and Texas and Alabama and Mississippi, are we going to face a situation where we really don't know what's going on and coronavirus is going to expand? Joining us right now is Texas Congressman Al Green, of course, out of Houston. Congressman Green, always glad to have you on Roller Martin Unfiltered. Always an honor to be on with you. Thank you so very much for the opportunity.

The Senate passed the bill last night, which includes $25 billion for testing. It now goes over to the House, correct? What is in there to ensure that vulnerable communities, people who are most impacted, African Americans, are going to see expanded testing? If H.R. 266, and you're right, $25 billion for virus testing. There is language that indicates that mobile testing is a part of this package. I have contacted the governor and the administrator for FEMA about this and have received a response from the governor of the state of Texas indicating that they plan to do more mobile testing. Of course, that's not enough. We have to have commitments to do

more mobile testing because if people can't get to the testing site, and this is the case in many places around this country, and they're usually people of color, because people of color, unfortunately, in this country, have been the people who have not done as well as others. And because they can't get to the sites, we have to bring the sites to them. If we mobilize the sites, we can bring them into the community and people can be tested. The reason we have to do this is because any person with the virus is a threat to every person. Every person. We cannot allow any person to go untested or be put in a place such that a person who contracts it can't be

traced so we can at least get to the source. This is something we have to do and doesn't matter how you got in this country, we need to be able to provide you the same level of health care as we provide everybody else which means we have to do the testing. But we're in a situation where when you talk about this mobile testing, is the infrastructure there set up? And again, we watched Donald Trump lie in the Rose Garden when he brought out CVS and Walgreens and Walmart and talked about we were going to have drive-through testing,

utilizing their parking lots. None of that has happened. It was all a lie. Yes, and the unfortunate circumstance is I regret to say it this way the executive branch is charged with executing the legislative branch presents that which is to be executed and we have a president who refuses to allow himself to be investigated. He refuses to give us the transparency. When you have this kind of person to deal with, your remedy, we've been through already, but the Senate seems to not value the remedy. We tried the impeachment remedy. So this president, quite frankly,

you talk about being unfiltered. He literally now is above the law because he refuses to comply with the simplest congressional mandates. So I agree with you. We've got a problem. We have a problem. We have a president who sees himself as beyond the reach of the Congress. And when that happens, you've got a constitutional crisis. We're still in that crisis. We haven't extricated ourselves from it. It's only worsened because we now have a threat to humankind that we're having to cope with, and a president who's trying to get reelected and using a platform on a daily basis to spew his rhetoric associated with his campaign disguised as an effort to give us information about the pandemic. That obviously deals with testing. We've been constantly talking about PPP. Of course,

the loan program supposedly helps small businesses. When you start looking at this money, you look at the fact that even on the educational side, you had Congressman Matt Goetz who was criticizing Howard University getting money. Yet Howard University, sitting on $40 billion endowment, got $9 million for some reason. On the loan side, you've got Potbelly that refuses. They said they're not going to send the money back. You've got Shake Shack that refuses. They said they're not going to send the money back. You've got Shake Shack, who sent back $10 million. The National Restaurant Association was successful in lobbying to change the definition to ensure that these major restaurant chains

could qualify because they could base it on individual locations. How does that help an actual small business that has 5, 8, 10, 15 employees? When we voted on the legislation, rather hurriedly, I might admit, and we're about to do it again, you're put in a position to be very candid with you where you either vote for what we have now or you hold up the entire program and people can suffer. So right now, we're going to vote on 266. It's supposed to have in it $310 billion for the paycheck program. My hope is, and I can only say my hope is, that some of those problems have been remedied. I did not intend for this money

to be used by the greedy. It's supposed to go to the needy. And my hope is that this legislation that we're passing will cover those questions that you've just raised. I never intended for Shake Shack to get the money that it got. And it's very unfortunate that they did, but very fortunate that they're returning it. Some others, however, have decided that they're going to hold on to it. My hope is we can claw back that money, claw back meaning pass additional legislation to require them to return the money. That's the remedy if we can get that through Congress. All right, then. Congressman Al Green of Houston, Texas. I certainly appreciate it, sir. Thanks so very much, Frat.

Thank you, Frat. May I mention one other thing? Yes, sir. Go ahead. Okay. Please, if you think you qualify for this money, get in line now. Don't wait until you hear some announcement. Go and apply,

because this money is going to go fast. The $310 billion could be gone as quickly as a few days. So please, get yourself in line and try as best as you can to get some of this money. There's also $75 billion in there for hospitals. I think that's a good thing that we were able to accomplish. But I regret to say it, but we have a president who is literally above the law because we don't have the courage to take him on as we should. And I yield back to you and thank you again, Bill Brunson. I appreciate it, sir. Thank you so very much. All right, folks, we've been talking about what's happening in Georgia where Brian Kemp has said barbershops, salons, bowling alleys can open on Friday. On Monday, restaurants can open. This is angering

lots of businesses and also local officials in Georgia. They say it makes no sense whatsoever. He, of course, is one of the Republican governors who keeps listening to Trump talking about we need to reopen the economy, yet you're seeing still increases in coronavirus cases. One of the cities hardest hit in Georgia is Albany, Georgia. We talked about, we had the coroner on the show just a couple of weeks ago talking about the number of deaths there that took place. Joining us right now is the mayor of Albany, Bo Duro. Mayor Duro, glad to have you on Roller Martin Unfiltered.

Thank you all for having me. Yesterday, I had the mayor of Savannah on. The mayor of Atlanta has been out here talking as well. What in the hell is the governor doing? How is he not listening to chief executives of cities who are responsible for their citizens? Well, it really comes down to an interpretation of the Georgia Emergency Management Act. And there's a question as to whether or not the governor, essentially, with vested powers from the legislature, exercises martial law. And there's some reading of that statute that would allow

local governments to remain or to retain ultimate autonomy. But apparently that's not the way the governor reads it, because it was expressed earlier this week that no city or county could enact any order or ordinance which is any more strict than what the governor is enacting. And here's the deal. I thought Republicans believed in local control. I thought Republicans were all about, you know, local rule, local control, not big government

telling the little guy what to do. In this case here, it was happening in Georgia. Same thing happened where you had mayors in Mississippi who were trying to protect their towns. Governor Tate Reeves comes in and issues an order and pretty much wipes out all their action. I just don't understand how, if you're the governor of a state, you're not communicating with the county officials and city officials and getting feedback from them as opposed to making this sort of decision. Well, I want to first say that Governor Kemp,

like every governor in the country, has got tough decisions. They've got the accountants coming to them and showing them where the sales tax is plummeting, where you're going to get the finances to run the government. But that's not a reason to jeopardize people's lives and safety.

These decisions need to be guided by benchmarks and not dates. And unfortunately, I see that University of Washington study just came out, and I thought that has been the gold standard. It looks like the recommendation is that Georgia shouldn't open back up until mid-May. I see now that this needs to be a gradual process. You say, should the governor allow for local control? It's my opinion that a statewide order was appropriate. But if we're going forward, then the governor should allow local governments, cities and counties to make decisions, particularly places like Albany and Daugherty County that are hot spots.

We still have people on ventilators in our hospital. We're seeing new patients admitted to the hospital every day. We are simply not ready for this next phase of reopening the economy. We had the corridor on the show when this outbreak happened. There was a funeral in Albany, Georgia. Someone who was infected attended the funeral and this thing spread like wildfire. What has been the status? in Albany, Georgia, someone who was infected, attended the funeral and this thing spread like wildfire. What has been the status?

How devastating has it been on your city? 75,000 people, majority African American. How bad has it been? That's a question that doesn't need to be answered. I mean, we've got 104 dead. We've got over 1,500 people who have tested positive. And clearly, the number of people who have the virus are probably twice that, or the 1,500 is probably just a fraction of the people who are positive. We've had to shut the city down. We enacted an executive order on March 22nd, which was almost two weeks before the governor implemented the statewide executive order.

We are trying to deal with this as best we can. But, of course, the governor's decision really allow cities like Albany and counties like Doherty to make exception if the local leaders feel that that is appropriate. You said, was it 105 dead, 1,500 infected? 104. No, that's 1,500 positive results. And, of course, we hadn't tested, but a fraction, less than 10 percent of our population has been tested, which is a lot better than the national average and a lot better than the state average.

But we really have no idea. What the hospital staff told us is those people who are being admitted every day contracted the virus a week ago, 10 days ago. So we know people continue to be infected even as we speak. But then you listen to the White House. Then you listen to what's coming out of there when they say, when Trump's like, you know, we don't need more testing. We can't test everybody.

Then when you hear, oh, we don't need more testing. We can't test everybody. Then when you hear, oh, we have all this capacity for testing in these states, and they show the slides of all the machines that are available, yet every day on this show, I'm talking to mayors, I'm talking to county officials who are going, where are the tests? It's a disconnect. Well, fortunately, the state has agreed to open up a testing site

to be run by the National Guard here in Albany where people can be tested without being referred, without meeting any of the criteria that are required by the Department of Public Health. And so hopefully we will be able to get a better handle on this. But of course, that test site is not yet in operation. But that is a benefit we have that other communities throughout the state simply don't have. But is it stunning to you that here we are about to go into the month of May

and that still is not operational. Well, I mean, I think we all need to be fair about this. No one could anticipate this pandemic coming. However, I see experts say that once it hit Europe, we should have prepared. I do think the national government was taken aback, was not prepared. I don't think the White House fully understood or comprehended what was coming. And our country, similar to the city of Albany and Daugherty County, was consumed by the virus before we were really prepared for what was coming coming and and and and that's really i

i think what jumps out and look when it comes to these things when you talk about containment you have to be able to move fast you have to be able to marshal resources uh and i just think that federally the constant downplaying that well you know what look because you literally had people from the white house on television saying that we almost have this thing airtight contained. And I'm talking to people on the ground who were going, what the hell are they talking about? And normally what happens is, look, if this was a fire, you move the resources to the place where it's burning right now. And to your point, look, three weeks ago, your city was on fire and folks were saying, where are those resources? Any idea when that testing center is going to open?

Well, it was supposed to be open on Friday, but we've heard that's been postponed. And I do want to say, I think I'm obligated to say, the state government has provided substantial resources to us. Interestingly enough, some of the medical professionals are saying that is the one, if only, advantage of having been hit first and so hard, is that there was PPE, there were ventilators that could be accessed and provided, and some temporary nursing staff, National Guardsmen, had medic teams that have come here and helped us. We are appreciative of that. But if this was to break out simultaneously in Savannah, Columbus, and Macon, the state would not be able to handle it, and our health system would be overwhelmed.

Well, prayerfully, we hope with this reopening, that doesn't happen. But unfortunately, the experts are saying we are rolling the dice, and it is not a smart thing to be reopening the state when you still don't have a total control of what's happening, and even understanding how many people

are really impacted by coronavirus in Georgia. So certainly your thoughts and prayers go out to the folks in Albany. Stay safe, folks. Practice safe distancing. Wash your hands. Don't congregate. And look, Mayor, I've been telling my viewers who are from Georgia

or any one of these states, when your state reopens on Friday, look, you still do shelter in place. I would not be rushing out trying to get a haircut, trying to go get my nails done, trying to go to a bowling alley. Well, can I say? Yeah, go ahead. We're encouraging our citizens to continue to shelter in place. We're also hearing from many businesses, barbershops,

beauticians that are saying we're not opening up. Some restaurants are saying we're not ready. And but that is one thing that distinguishes Albany for the rest of the state. Like I say, as the death toll continues to mount and people continue to be admitted to the hospital, if I had a business or if I had a restaurant, I don't think I would expect to have many people come in in the climate that we're facing here in Albany. And so there is some apprehension that's probably convincing businesses that could otherwise open up to wait this thing out. Absolutely. It's all about safety. Albany, Georgia Mayor Bo Durrell, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. Thanks for having me. Y'all have a good night.

All right. Likewise. All right, folks, right now at the White House, they are having the coronavirus news briefing. The only reason I'm going to go to it, Trump is at the podium. But see, here's the deal. The lying has continued. The head of the CDC was quoted as saying that it could be even worse, the impact of coronavirus in the winter. Now, all of a sudden, they drag him out there. Now he's backtracking with his statements. Let's see what the... Let's see what the liar-in-chief is saying. Containment now.

Before, nobody knew about it. Nobody knew anything about it. We understand it. Now, if we have pockets, a little pocket here, then we're gonna have it put out. It goes out, and it's gonna go out fast. We're gonna be watching for it. But it's all possible.

It's also possible it doesn't come back at all. I understand the containment, but I don't understand how you know it won't come back on a big scale. I didn't say it's all possible, it's also possible, it doesn't come back at all. The Press I understand the containment, but I don't understand how you know it won't come back on a big scale. The President I didn't say it's not. I said, if it does, it's not going to come back on anything near what we went through. But you could have a mess where they come at the

same time. And if they come at the same time, the flu is not the greatest thing in the world, Jeff. It's not the greatest thing either. If they come at the same time, you have them both. But if we have embers of corona coupled with the flu, that's not going to be pleasant, but it's not going to be what we've gone through,

in any way, shape, or form. Yeah. The Press If you don't think that it's going to come back at the same severity as it is right now, why are you still directing that taxpayer dollars to spend on emergency procurement of ventilators? Tens of thousands of dollars. The President Because we have to have them for other reasons. Something else could come.

I mean, we didn't know about corona. Now we know about corona. But look at what happened. And now we did have the H1N1 swine flu. We had that. We have other things that have happened. We had various forms of flu, but nothing like what we we had that. We have other things that have happened. We had various forms of flu, but nothing like what we've had here. Nothing at all like what we've had here with the virus. But something could happen.

I think that the stockpiles, we're making hundreds of thousands of ventilators right now. Nobody writes about that. You know, at the one time, all they talked about was ventilators, right? Because you didn't think it was possible for me to solve that problem. Whatever. And I solved it right y'all he's up there he's up there just spinning line just just making a bullshit that's all he's doing right now uh let's bring in our panel right

now uh eugene craig ceo eugene craig organization robert patillo uh executive director of rainbow push coalition peach peach tree street project kelly bethea Strategist. Robert, I want to start with you. We were just talking there with, of course, the mayor of Albany, Georgia, with the mayor of Savannah, Georgia, on yesterday. And look, I mean, look, the bottom line is, here's the real deal. Idiots like Brian Kemp,

like idiots like Ron DeSantis, like Tate Reeves, they are taking their direction from the idiot in chief. That's what they're doing. And in Kentucky, on the same day these other fools had their guns and protesting, opened a state up, they had a dramatic increase in coronavirus cases.

These people pay no attention to actually what is going on. Well, one rolling guy get that South Georgia pronunciation, Albany, not Albany. That's some up north stuff. Albany. Albany? Albany. I ain't never heard Albany. I've never in my life heard Albany.

The mayor just said it about five times before we talked to you. I ain't never heard Albany. Man, that's Albany. Go ahead. I'm sorry. But also, what we have to understand is these governors aren't even taking their cues from President Trump because the guidelines that him, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Burke released last week said that they need to have two consecutive weeks of reductions in the number of cases. And these governors ran out in 48 hours and said we're opening up to hell with the recommendations made by the president, made by the CDC, and made by medical professionals.

So they're not following the lead of the president because what the president released on paper in regards to what he says during the press briefings and on Twitter was that you need to have two consecutive weeks of reductions in the number of cases. Georgia right now is over 20,000 cases, over 850 dead, with no cure, no vaccine, no treatment, no additional medical facilities, no additional beds available, no influx or surge of new treatment facilities. So it doesn't really make sense what the difference is between today and what happened two weeks ago. None of the facts on the grounds have changed. And what Rainbow Pus Coalition has done under Reverend Jesse Jackson and in conjunction with the National Medical

Association, it released a 12-point plan on what cities, municipalities, and individuals need to do to make sure that you're defending yourself, regardless of what the government is doing or telling you. You have to be responsible for your own well-being, your own safety. You cannot leave your safety and well-being in the hands of the government. You can find that information on rainbowpush.com, but it's completely essential for people to understand that these governors are not going to protect you. They have to protect their bottom line

and their economic well-being, and it has nothing to do with whether or not you live or die. But here's the issue, Eugene. The problem is you have businesses who may say, you got to come into work. Yeah. And the thing is this, if these governors and state governments are going to force and mandate people to go open up or want to open up their economies, they need to provide protections for workers. There needs to be some mandate that, hey, if you're going to open up early, you need to have some kind of catastrophic insurance policy.

There needs to be some protection there that, hey, if a business is opening up, but the worker doesn't want to go in, they shouldn't be allowed to be fired because it's malpractice. You're literally putting lives at risk. I mean, I say this is the craziest thing

in the world. It's almost a bizarre world risk. I mean, I say this is the craziest thing in the world. It's almost a bizarre world where the pro-life party is literally essentially putting lives at risk, and the small business party is literally putting small businesses at risk. Kelly. No, I agree with the panel here. This is just absolutely ridiculous. And it's really, really insulting to the American people, they're dying. Why? Because they're doing things in a light that does not reflect that they care. And that's the problem. So, you know, New York, it's clear that the governor cares. In Maryland, it's clear that the governor cares. But in Georgia, this is not reflective of a governor who cares. The government in Florida, that is not reflective of a government who cares about their constituents, who cares about American citizens, who cares about people in general, because point Kelly was making, if you go to rural parts of South Georgia, South Carolina, rural parts of Florida, you'll already have a shortage of medical facilities. You already have a shortage of doctors. You have a shortage of ventilators.

You have hours between where people live and where they have the ability to get treatment at. So the chances of overloading those medical systems by reopening too early, you're unleashing a level of hell on yourselves, which there's no reason to put yourself through because the medical systems in rural areas of America right now are not equipped to handle an outbreak. It is, again, it is stunning to watch what is going on. And these people are playing Russian roulette with the lives of so many people, vulnerable populations, and they have not provided them adequate protection and screening. Now, rallies and marches and other traditional forms of protest are out, given the social distancing restrictions now in place across the country.

But activists are still organizing campaigns aimed at what is emerging as the latest front in the country's civil rights struggle. The disproportionate impact of the coronavirus on communities of color. The Rainbow Push Coalition, the National Medical Association, and the National Bar Association issued a joint statement on the response to the pandemic saying that COVID-19 has emerged as a global threat,

but in the U.S., African Americans need to be specifically addressed. Okay, Robert, what does that mean? Okay, what does that look like? What does that mean? And so what do we do with that going from here? Well, what that looks like and what that means is you have three separate issues

that lead to the increased mortality rates in the black community. What we've seen places like Chicago and New Orleans have 70% African-American mortality, 70% of the mortalities have been African-American. Places like St. Louis, Missouri, you've had 90% of the people who have died be African-American. Even in South Carolina, preliminary information shows 57% of the people dying are African-Americans. Primarily because, one, you have the economic aspect of us being

those frontline workers, not being able to telework if you are a grocery store clerk or a janitor, not having the ability to take 14 days off to quarantine yourself from the population if you are sick. Secondarily, have the social aspect. Many of us live in packed-in urban environments where you don't have the opportunity to be acres away from other individuals. That leads to facilitate more of a spread in the community. Then finally, you have the systemic issues of a lack of access to health care, a lack of access to early treatment, a lack of access to the proper medical care when you are sick in ventilators, and therefore you have increased mortality rates. What we've done at the Rainbow Pus Coalition in conjunction with the National Bar Association, National Medical Association,

and the undersigned individuals, as I said, will issue a 12-point plan on what communities can do to ensure their health and safety, what individuals can do to try to quarantine and prevent themselves from being infected, and also what we need to be calling on our leadership to do to secure our communities and understand that we are being disproportionately affected. So you cannot simply, as Dr. Fauci said a couple weeks ago, simply wash your hands and say there's nothing we can do about it right now. There are absolutely things that can be done, and that's what we're calling on. Kelly, though, when you look at these numbers, when you look at this concern,

so national coronavirus outbreak concern by race based upon registered voters, all extremely to moderate concerns, 71 percent, little to to moderately concerned, 71%. Little to not at all concerned, 29%. Who are the dumbasses that 29%? African Americans, 89%. Who are extremely to moderately concerned, only 12% in little to no, not at all concerned. Latinos, 79%.

Other, 76%. Other, 76%. White, 67%. So out of everybody, Kelly, Black folks have the most concern. Obviously, when you look at who the hell's dying. But it's not just because of COVID-19, right? We have a history in this country of Black people being ignored and neglected by our medical care system.

So it makes sense that Blacks and African-Americans are the most concerned about this pandemic because, frankly, we will be the ones most affected by this pandemic, specifically the population that will have the most amount of people dying. And that is unfortunate because it's not that we are the majority of this country as far as demographics and population goes, but we are the largest percentage in this country when it comes to diseases and our people succumbing to them. And it's not because we don't care about ourselves. It's not because we don't take care of ourselves. It's because when we go to the doctor, they don't believe us. When women go to the doctor and say we have a chest pain or a stomach ache or what have you,

they don't believe us. And they actually, I was actually told by a couple of medical friends, they are actually taught that black people have a higher tolerance for pain, a higher tolerance for agony, so that when they do go to the doctor, they are already at a disadvantage with their medical professional, such that they are already told that, oh, you can handle it. Because I was taught that you can handle more pain than your white counterpart, even though we're all human, even though we all have the same, you know, physiology and the like. But we have to literally take more pain in order to be seen equally. And that is very frustrating. And of course it's racist, but it's really going to come out and play as COVID-19 care starts rolling out. Eugene, it really, I mean, when you look at this concern, look at those numbers there, the fact that pull a chart back up for African-Americans, 89% of black folks,

pull the chart back up, 89% of black folks, extremely to moderate concern, white folks, 67%. That is a 22-point gap. Yeah, I mean, I think the critical thing is this, right? This is among registered voters. When I look at this chart, you know what that looks like to me? That looks like the breakdown of registered voters between Democrats, Republicans, and independents. You know, it looks like it's reflective of that, you know, Republican voters are listening to,

you know, the liar in chief, and Democrats and independents are, you know, taken this thing by facts, taken it by the science that's presented, taking it under the scope of medical professionals and the information that's being relayed. That 33 percent of white folk that aren't taking this thing seriously, those are conservatives. You know, those if you were to dig down a little deeper there, you know, you're going to find that those are conservatives, those are Republicans. That matches up with exactly, you know, what voter registration numbers look like right about now. I look at the 89-12, you know, you know what that 12% reminds me of? You know, the 8, 9, 10% of, you know, Black people that think Trump is doing something great when he's really hurting our community. But, you know, what we're seeing is that our community, our families

are being hurt by COVID-19 in ways that other communities aren't experiencing. And with that, we're taking it very seriously. You can't look at your timeline without seeing somebody that has somebody in their family that died from COVID-19 over the last couple weeks. I mean, it's real life, real impact, real impact. Well, and now the question then becomes, Robert, from a civil rights group standpoint, okay, what do you do to begin to impact public policy? Because guess what? You can't do protest. You can't do mass showing up at people's offices. And so you're reduced to phone calls, emails, social media. And look, the world now changes on social media. So let's not downplay the ability of that to make changes. We have the stimulus bill, I guess, 3.5 going into packets four

that's being argued right now. We have literally put $2 trillion in the last bill, another $500 billion in this bill. Let's demand that we have testing in our communities. Let's make sure that the Congressional Black Caucus, the largest caucus in the Congress right now, is carrying that flag, carrying that vanguard to ensure that we are not disproportionately impacted by this, that we are arguing the surge in medical supplies that are needed, that communities of color are not simply lumped in with everybody else. If we know that 70 percent of the folks in Chicago dying are Black folks and white, we. If we know that 70 percent of the folks in Chicago dying are Black folks and want, we need to make sure that 70 percent of the medical supplies are going to those communities. So we do have the ability to make those changes, to make those impacts.

And now that we have conservative groups who are rallying with guns at the Capitol, they should have no problem with us protesting, taking knees and everything else, because they understand the need of that First Amendment right to petition your government for the redress of grievances. And therefore, I think black folks need to be blowing up the telephone, blowing up social media, blowing up email and every other facet of power to make sure your elected officials know that your community matters and your community needs the help that it must have. All right, folks, let's go to a break. We come back. We're going to talk about... Vernon Jones, this Georgia state rep, he quit.

Why you like a little crybaby, dog? Because you endorse Donald Trump. Can't take that heat? Can't wait to discuss with my panel. Next, the Roland Martin Unfiltered. forward slash Roland S. Martin. And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. All right, so a lot of y'all are always asking me about some of the pocket squares that I wear. Now, I don't, and Robby don't have one on.

Now, I don't particularly like the white pocket squares. I don't like even the silk ones. And so I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here and it looks like a flower. This is called a shibori pocket square. This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my hand so you see what it looks like. man this is pretty cool and so i tracked down the it took me a year to find a company that did it and so uh they basically about 47 different colors and so i love them because again as men we don't have many accessories to wear so we don't have many options uh and so this is really a pretty cool uh pocket screen and what i love about this here is you saw uh when it's uh in in the pocket you know it gives you that flower effect like that. But if I wanted to also, unlike other, because if I flip it and turn it over, it actually gives me a different type of texture.

And so, therefore, it gives me a different look. So, there you go. So, if you actually want to get one of these shibori pocket squares, we have them in 47 different colors. All you got to do is go to rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. We have them in 47 different colors. All you got to do is go to rollingthismartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So it's rollingthismartin.com forward slash pocket squares. All you got to do is go to my website and you can actually get this. Now, for those of you who are members of our Bring the Funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a part of our Bring the Funk fan club. And so that's

what we want you to do. And so it's pretty cool. So if you want to jazz your look up, you can do that. In addition, y'all see me with some of the feather pocket squares. My sister was a designer. She actually makes these. They're all custom made. So when you also go to the website, you can also order one of the customized feather pocket squares right there at RolandSMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So please do so. And of course, that goes to support the show. And again, if you're a Bring the Funk fan club member, you get a discount.

This is why you should join the fan club. All right, y'all. And Betko Best, we're going to stay in Georgia a little more than a week ago after he announced that he was endorsing Donald Trump. Democratic State Rep Vernon Jones announced today that he would not complete his term. He would not run for re-election.

He resigned effective today. In a statement, Robert, he said, quote, turn the lights off. I have left the plantation. Someone else can occupy that suite. He also said that he's not leaving the Democratic Party because someone has to hold them accountable. Robert, what the hell is he talking about?

Well, one, Vernon is loving this amount of attention. I've known Vernon for over 20 years. Shout out to C.J. Pearson, his press person. But let's understand Vernon ran for sheriff. He was independent. Who's his press person? C.J. Pearson. The C.J.

who? Yeah, Lil' C.J. That's the press person. Hold on. The C.J. who? Yeah, Lil' C.J. That's the press person. Hold on, hold on, hold on. The C.J. who's always on this show? Lil' Young C.J.? What is he, about to go to college? Yeah. No, that's...

Oh, I'm sorry. We have a different C.J. Oh, I was about to say. I was about to say. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

But look, when Vernon ran for sheriff of DeKalb County, he was an independent. When he ran for county commissioner, he was a libertarian. He bragged in 2004 about his support for George W. Bush. He bragged in 2008 about his support for Obama and photoshopped himself into a flyer with Obama. But Vernon Jones is out for Vernon Jones. I don't think he needs to be running this much into it. He had a tough re-election race. He was probably gonna lose.

So you go out with a bang on it. So Vernon got all the attention he wanted. And that's the real deal. He's about to get his ass whooped. So it was like, you know what? Let me just go ahead and play this right. And then maybe I can try to score me a Trump appointment if he wins re-election.

Yeah, look, you're absolutely right. And I think by the media kind of running with this, both right-wing and left-wing media running with it, they're turning into something bigger than it is. Right-wing media is trying to make it this sea change where black folks are finally leaving the plantation, and then left-wing media is seeing that seeing it this is a great operation it's it's a local state representative who decided to endorse the president because he was about to lose a re-election campaign it's not the biggest thing on earth I think that he's really enjoying this amount of national attention here's what you're

looking at right here Robert first of all we also try to get him on, but he won't come on. I wonder why. Just like, what's your other guy from Georgia? He won't come on either. Bruce Lavelle. And Herman Cain been running for me for at least by a decade now.

What's a trip here, Eugene, is when you look at the talking points. So when you look at the talking points, uh, of Vernon Jones, it comes right out of the mouth of a Candace Owens and the rest of these people. Trump... Trump has let people out of jail. Joe Biden tried to put him in jail.

Uh, Trump has just really been so supportive of historically black colleges. And then, of course, the whole deal with the whole deal talking about the unemployment rate for African-Americans. And so it's been all of that, which totally ignores so many other issues. That's really what you got going on here. It's 100 percent what you got going on here. I think Rob, you know, Rob's spot on with the whole situation. I think there's one other caveat there.

I don't think he's waiting for Trump re-election. This guy's going to try to jump on the Trump campaign and become their Black Democrat spokesperson. But I think when, I mean, just look at judgment. When you hire C.J. Pearson as your press person, you're starting from negative 100 um so oh okay so it's you know you're starting from negative 100 i mean um it's i mean i mean you're hiring a high school kid as your press person let's just put it there frame it there take the

politics out of it right um but but this guy he's gonna look for you know opportunity and then look don't be shocked if team trump Team Trump offers and extends a hand. And you see him whenever Trump is able to do a rally, if he is before the election, you will see Vernon on stage with him. I guarantee it. Here's the thing you have here, Kelly, and that is what you're dealing with here are these individuals.

First of all, in the Trump campaign, they know they can't get black women, okay? Black women hate Republicans more than anybody else. But what they want to do is, they want to use Vernon Jones to peel off black men. The White House, that is flat out

their strategy. They want, in their mind, they think that they can get to 20% support among black men. They're not going to get it think that they can get to 20% support among black men. They're not going to get it, but they can try. No, I agree with you. Certainly not this black woman is going to get my vote. But that's kind of been what's been happening with the Trump administration altogether. Like, they have been doing their best to appeal to Black people in the worst possible way

because they're not even answering our issues thoroughly. So you say the word HBCU and you toss a couple million dollars our way, that won't make a dent in either or any HBCU's budget, and you think that's going to be okay. You release a couple people from prison who weren't supposed to be there, but there's still thousands more and you think that's going to be okay. No, you can try and use this guy as a token for black men's vote, but smart black men

are going to go for it and they haven't. They tried to do the same thing with Ben Carson. We see how that turned out. So in terms of black women, they tried to do the same thing with Ben Carson. We see how that turned out. So in terms of Black women, they tried to do it with Silk and Diamond. Of all people, we definitely see how that turned out. And even with Omarosa being on the administration, we see how that turned out. So again, their plight to try and bamboozle us

will always be fruitless because we know what's going on. We are not a monolith by any means, but we definitely know what's going on when it comes to these issues. And we also know who has our backs. And it's been clear over the past five years, really, that our president doesn't. So they can try as they might, but it's not going to work.

But how did you forget that dynamic duo, Diamond and Silk? Robert, go ahead. Look, Rob, I do think Democrats do need to make sure they redouble their efforts to reach out to black men because that 20% number is absolutely reachable and attainable. I think the Democratic Party has not done a great deal

to reach out to black men or to cultivate black men. I think that if they do sleep on it, we call them, on my radio show, we call them secret MAGAs. These are the people, you're never going to be wearing a MAGA hat. They're never going to go to a rally. They're going to say they hate Trump. They're going to walk in, they're going to vote for them. They're going to walk back out and then go right back. They hate them. So I think the Democratic Party really needs to pay attention to this. Don't act as if it's a foregone conclusion that you can put no policy out there for black men and just expect black men to show up. Well, absolutely. And that, look, that's, that, that has been one of the issues that was, of course, that, look, there's been a nine,

there was a nine point gap between black men and black women when Obama ran against Romney in 2012. That went to a 13-point gap in 2016, Trump versus Clinton. So it is something that they better do. I made it clear when I, during 2016, I told Hillary Clinton directly. I told her, Huma, as well as Marlon Marshall. I don't understand how y'all don't have black male surrogates out here who are talking about Hillary Clinton. I said, you better understand that. And what Donald Trump is,

he's trying to appeal to black men with the First Step Act, and then, of course, from economics. And so he's really trying to go after these black men who have businesses, who have small businesses, and that's what he's trying to do. And so that's the strategy. Folks, when we talk about elections in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Common Council voted Tuesday to create a program which all of the city's registered voters would get an absentee ballot application in the mail. The program is called Safe Vote,

would also provide voters with a postage paid return envelope for them to participate in the election this fall. Kelly, we are seeing, of course, states, state officials, states where Republicans are in control making those determinations. We saw what happened in Wisconsin. Republicans fought, of course, to extend Millen Valley. I think you're going to see a lot more of this where you have these red states

where cities take their own actions as opposed to ignoring what is happening on the statewide level. I'm very concerned regarding voting for this election cycle, specifically because of the points that you just made. It is no secret that Republicans, you know, covert, so to speak, their covert mission is to suppress the vote because that's the only way they can win any seat at this point. And doing it in such a way that for, what am I saying? I don't know. You can't ask us. It's you. It's been a long day, Roland. Forgive me. What I'm saying is doing the votes in such a way as

mailing absentee ballots while it's a feasible method, especially during times like this, is not nearly as effective as people actually going to a poll. And that's my concern. And it's my concern. So for, for the, and it's even more of a concern in the Southern states where they have evidence and, and, and

history of suppressing the vote with ways such as this. So I'm, I'm concerned, but I don't know another alternative other than the absentee ballot. So we'll see what happens. Bottom line, Robert, again, I think this, you're going to see more of this. I think in these states where Republicans across who are in control in legislatures or governor's mansions, cities are going to say, fine, that's how y'all want to roll. We're going to take it upon ourselves because, again, Republicans are scared to death if more people vote, that increases their chance of losing.

Let's understand. Kelly said it was their covert objective. No. No, it's over. It ain't covert. It's a high objective. Yeah, President Trump has already come out and said that if you have this level of voting, Republicans will never win an election again. The Speaker of the House here in Georgia, Ralston, said that if you have this level of voting, Republicans will never win an election again. The Speaker of the House here in Georgia, Ralston, said that if you allow absentee voting

at those levels, no questions asked, then you'll have levels of voting and Republicans won't be able to win. The part of voter suppression has always been skimming off the top. It's not the wholesale putting dogs around the polls anymore. It's simply trying to skim off 2%, 3% here and there. And by making it more difficult for people to absentee vote, that is what they're trying to achieve. Understand, there are five states in this country that already have no questions as absentee voting. There will be absolutely no work and no issue to expand that to nationwide for this election in particular, where we have this public health crisis. The only reason people are fighting against it is because they fear the voice of the people. They want the voice that they can control, not the full-throated voice of the

American people. And we need to understand that and fight back against that now and not wait till the middle of October when it's hitting us in the face. We have six months right now, five or six months right now, to plan for it, to get state laws changed, to get executive orders issued. We're going to have no question asked, absentee ballots mailed to every individual with a barcode that matches up to your address, that matches up to your voting number. They can be sent in, scanned in, and tracked. And there will be no questions of voter fraud. There'll be no duplicate ballots sent out because there'll be a tracking number, which will go into a computer database. And you can get a bunch of high school students to code it in a weekend. The only reason

they're trying to make it seem like it's an issue is because they want to put artificial barriers in place to stop old people, poor people, and minorities from being able to vote in full numbers. There is no more important strategy for Republicans, Eugene, than to do exactly what Robert talked about. And that has been the case. And for all these Black Republicans who I've had them on, oh, you guys are making this up. No. This is Republican Party

strategy from the top on down. Absolutely. Look, the thing is this. You move the nationwide mail-in ballot where essentially your voting doesn't depend upon people starting with the polls, but just mailing Absolutely. Look, the thing is this, right? You move the nationwide mail-in ballot where essentially, you know, it's not your voting isn't dependent upon people showing up at the polls, but just mailing their ballot back in,

you're going to see Democrats super majorities in both houses of Congress. You're going to see 60, 65 votes in the Senate. You'll see, you know, 350-ish in the House. house. I think mail-in ballots or absentee ballots are foreign to Republicans. You know, it happens in Arizona and it happens in Florida on a very wide-scale basis. In the last two cycles, 2.2 million Republicans voted by mail in Florida. But what Ronna and folk at the RNC and folk at the Trump campaign have realized is that they cannot compete for votes.

They just can't. You know, they've maximized their vote count. So at this point, the only way they possibly can win is to increase the other side. That's exactly what it is. Exactly what it is. I mean, so it's no doubt about it. Robert, go ahead.

I was going to say, and on this issue of voter fraud, which they keep trying to shield themselves behind, at the California primary from this year, there were tens of millions of ballots cast. Right now, the secretary of state there is doing a recount because they have 15 duplicate absentee ballots. So this is the voter fraud they're talking about. There might be 15 out of tens of millions of ballots that were cast in the California primary. So this idea of this somehow being this dark empire that might overturn elections is completely fanciful. There is no evidence of wide-scale voter fraud for mail-in ballots. ...by the Democratic Coalition hard-hitting against

Donald Trump. Check this out. Alright, let's see if we get our audio straight. Alright, we're going to restart this from the top. So here we go. The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead. There'll be a lot of death, unfortunately. There will be death.

We have shown a lot of these ads, Robert, that folks are putting out, and I'm going to tell you something right now. People, there are people who say, ah, you know what, not effective. We're seeing in the polling data an increasing number of older voters are turning away from Donald Trump. That's huge.

Joe Biden is doing extremely well among older voters. He obviously has to do better among younger voters. But this notion that Democrats have not been successful at tagging him on this coronavirus pandemic. I think people need to understand it's having an impact. Well, I think the real time polling is going to be difficult to extrapolate out to actual votes for the fall. This is all going to determine how this plays out. If we keep the death toll to, you know, under projections and to less than 100,000, if the economy is able to open back up in midsummer, kick back up into gear, we have reasonable unemployment of maybe 3 to 5 percent come fall. I think there's very little the Democrats could do in that case to win. mismanagement. I was on Iranian TV earlier, and they were hammering us on ventilators, on PPE,

on medical supplies, on the fact that you have major corporations stealing, literally stealing money that was intended for small businesses. We have Shake Shack and Potbelly and Ruth's Chris stealing all the money from the Paycheck Protection Program. And we continue to have those issues. It's going to be difficult, if not impossible, for the president to win re-election. Henry, go to my iPad. Let's go to the White House. Anthony Fauci is talking. So the speed with which one can go from one to another at the point at which you can even begin to think about the phase is going to different. So the one thing that I know the urge we all have to get out there and get it over with, let's get back to normal for a lot of good reasons, because

there's a lot of suffering economic and otherwise in this country because of that. But again, as I pleaded early on weeks ago, I plead with the American public, with the governors, with the mayors, for the people with responsibility. Although I know one has the need to leapfrog over things, don't do that.

Do it in a measured way. This is a successful formula. The problem is, if we don't do that, there is a likelihood that we'll have a rebound. And the one way not to reopen the economy is to have a rebound that we can't take care of. So please, again, let me just close by pleading with the American public in general and those who are responsible leaders to carefully consider how we get back to normal. Thank you.

Can you talk a little bit about your expectations for the fall? We heard from Dr. Redfield and Dr. Birx. What do you see for the fall? Is it going to be embers or possibly no return of the virus at all? You know, as I've said before here, when you look at an outbreak, it's two dynamic forces opposing each other. If you leave the virus to its own devices, it will take off if you do nothing to stop it. If you put into place the kinds of things that we talk about, first containment, and then hopefully you never get to mitigation, but containment is important. Those two forces are going to determine whether you're going to have a big outbreak. So what Dr. Redfield was saying, first of all, is that we will have coronavirus in

the fall. I am convinced of that because of the degree of transmissibility that has the global nature. What happens with that will depend on how we're able to contain it when it occurs. And what we're saying is that in the fall, we will be much, much better prepared to do the kind of containment compared to what happened to us this winter. Now, the complicating issue is that, unlike the syndromic and influenza-like observances that we have, that you could pick it up by clinically what's happening, it's going to get complicated by influenza season.

And I believe that's what Dr. Redfield was saying, that it is going to be complicated. So whether or not it's going to be big or small is going to depend on our response. And that's what I think people sometimes have misunderstanding. Nobody can predict what is going to happen with an outbreak, but you can predict how you're going to respond to it. And that's really very important. So you would caution against people thinking that in the fall there's not going to be coronavirus anymore and we won't have to worry about it. Or if it is, it'll be spotty, and it won't be a big problem we have to worry about? There will be coronavirus in the fall.

If we do, which we won't, but let's take an imaginary period. We say, okay, coronavirus, forget about it. We're not going to do anything about it. It will take off. That's what viruses do. But that's not what's going to happen. We are going to respond to it to not allow it to do that. Dr. Shokshi, what happens when governors like Governor Kemp are not following this careful, measured plan and moving forward even without meeting the gating criteria?

Well, you know, if I were advising the governor, I would tell him that he should be careful. And I would advise him not to just turn the switch on and go because there is a danger of a rebound. And I know there's the desire to move ahead quickly. That's a natural human nature desire. But going ahead and leapfrogging into phases where you should not be, I would advise him as a health official and as a physician not to do that. Okay. Thank you, Mr. President. All right, come back. Trump's talks, we bail away because I ain't trying to listen to him lie. He's a liar in chief, so I don't want to hear all that crap. So, ain't gonna happen. We were talking about, of course,

these ads that are running. You know, I still think, even if you begin to see the economy come back, Eugene, I think this notion that Donald Trump is unbeatable, I think it's a crazy notion. Remember, he only won by 78,000 votes. He only won by the skin of his teeth

in those critical states. Folks, but you look at those numbers of people who turned out in the Democratic primaries before they got shut down. We're talking about massive numbers. Yeah, you're talking massive, massive numbers. Look, not only is the map expanded, it's

expanded beyond what some of us probably could imagine this time last year. Arizona's in play. Florida is probably going to go blue or stay blue for a while after this cycle. You know, Georgia is in play. Probably won't flip this cycle, but it's a cycle away.

North Carolina is probably going to look a lot like 2008 than it did 2016. And, of course, the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, where you have those narrow margins, you're seeing explosive turnout. You're seeing explosive enthusiasm. And you're seeing explosive voter activity, right? And there are things that have happened on the ground that have changed the game. For example, before all this happened, Pennsylvania now has 50 days of early voting, and within

those 50 days, there's 35 days in which a person can literally register to vote and then vote. You know, that right there alone can close the gap when it comes to how the slim margin that Trump won by. I don't think he's unbeatable. I think he's very beatable. I think he's probably the weakest Republican nominee we've had in a very, very, very long time. But on top of that, the reality is this, right? Economy can come back.

You can always get dollars back. But you know what you can't get back? Lives. And as it stands right now, you have 47,000 people that aren't here anymore because they died to a virus that we very well could have prepared for. Kelly, go ahead. Donald Trump is a liar,

honestly. When it comes to the economy, I'm not as concerned about it so much as I am about the people. Like Eugene said, the economy will bounce back. Dollars will be made. People will get their money back. But people cannot get their lives back. 42, I'm sorry, not 42, 47,000, I believe you said.

47,000 souls are gone. They're not coming back. They're not going to be able to spend the money that these Republicans are so desperate on making. You know, I'm concerned about making sure that number doesn't go any higher. Because it feels like there's no end in sight. I know there is one. But right now, it just doesn't feel like that, especially with the rise of this pandemic. So I just I want results in that regard.

You know, like I said, the economy is going to come back. We're going to have a president, whoever it is, we're going to have one. You know, I hope it's not Trump. Eugene said that he's the weakest candidate that we've had in a while. I agree. But what we haven't had in a very long time is a base as strong as his. His base is unwavering. They are determined to have him in office again. What's not happening right now is... is Trump... is... I'm sorry, is the Democrats' base being as strong as Trump's. Because right now, the Democrats are fragmented.

We need to come together to be even stronger than Donald Trump's base to make sure that he's not in office again. We got to stop saying Trump's base. Trump's base is the Republican Party, okay? I mean, that's just it, okay? There are people out there, they don't care. They don't care what he says about women.

They didn't care in 2016. They don't care how he treats female reporters. They don't care what his attitude, they don't care with how crass he is. They don't care about his lying. They don't care about his grifting. His base is the Republican Party. Mitch McConnell said today

on a radio show with Hugh Hewitt, when we get back into session, we're going right back to confirming judges. He's already said it. Leave no judge behind. That's all they care about. And so his base is the Republican Party. But again,

the metric is real clear. The way you beat Donald Trump is you turn out black people, you turn out young people, and you increase your support when it comes to women. It ain't hard, Eugene. It's not hard at all. And the thing is this. Biden has a natural advantage against Donald Trump. Young people aren't going to go in and vote for Trump. You know, we see it. We're rational folk, right?

It's just a matter of turning them out. Black folk are not going to go out and vote for Trump. But you need to increase that margin, increase that raw number. And women, you know, all right, you got to flip the 47 to 53 going from Biden. And I think that's very much doable. I think, yeah, I said before, I'll say it again. 2018 was a preliminary test for 2020. And if folk thought what they saw in 2018 was shocking, just wait and see

what happens in 2020 when Biden's able to turn out a lot of these folks. Because this is the thing. It's one thing to vote for somebody that's representative of the party of Trump. It's a whole different thing when you finally get the opportunity to vote against Trump himself. Kelly, Robert. Wait, me or Robert? Kelly, go ahead. himself. Kelly, Robert.

Wait, me or Robert? Kelly, go ahead. Okay, no, I agree with Jane. I think at this juncture, I'm just a little jaded, specifically because of what happened in 2016. And even now in 2020, what I'm seeing is a solidifying of Trump's backing. Even if you want to call Trump's backing the entire Republican Party or not, it's strong.

And it's a block that is just getting stronger. And they're not necessarily getting smaller either. They're just kind of maintaining their numbers. But you keep saying it's a block. That's Republicans. Look look let's just be clear donald trump got fewer votes in 2016 than mitt romney got in 2012 and that well may be but the reason he won is because there were fewer people fewer african-americans who voted there was voter suppression.

Young people as well. What I'm saying is so you keep saying his block is getting stronger. No, his block is what it is. They're not getting stronger. Their deal is they're going to vote for him. Got it. They were never going to vote

for anybody else. Democrats should stop even thinking about flipping. Stop trying to flip Trump people. What you do have to do, though, is you got to figure, and which is why Biden is supposedly one of the reasons, supposedly strength, you got to flip the white folks who voted for Obama twice who voted for Trump. They're not hardcore Trump people.

They're actually blue-collar Democrats. So you got to flip some of them, but you got to turn out the people over here. That's the model. No, I agree with you there. But at the same time, the Democratic Party is significantly more splintered than the Republican Party right now.

Because they're right, because you're coming off a primary. Yeah. Yes, because you're coming off a primary. You're always going to have, when you have a primary, you're going to be splintered because in this case,

you had 20 plus candidates. Now that Senator Bernie Sanders has dropped out, as you move closer to dealing with the summer, if you have your national convention, then you begin to see those constituencies then come together. You just still, Bernie

just dropped out. I get that, but what I'm saying is I want to believe that we will come together as a party to vote Biden in. I do. But what I am basing my opinion off of

is what happened in 2016. Now, are the circumstances the exact same? No. But what are you talking about? But Kelly, they came... In that everybody doesn't like Biden. Kelly, they came together... Democratic Party doesn't like Biden.

Kelly, here's the deal, though. They came together in 16. I'm just trying to understand. The difference is, you had a candidate who a lot of people hated. And you think that not a whole lot of people hate Biden. You cannot

remotely compare the hatred of Hillary Clinton to folks who don't like Biden. It ain't even close. Like, it's not even close. And don't forget, Hillary Clinton still won three million more votes than Donald Trump. What she didn't do was campaign in Wisconsin at all.

She never stepped foot in Wisconsin. We did too. She did not really campaign in Michigan, and they put more money in Ohio than they did Pennsylvania and they got their asses whooped in Ohio. They lost by 450,000

votes in Ohio. So you had a shitty campaign and you had a candidate who flat out already had her image locked in and there were people

who actually agreed with her on issues. I mean, I'll tell you the story. I'm in Chicago. I'm at a bar and this guy recognized me from television and we're sitting here talking and he's like, I'm just conflicted. I don't like Trump. I don't like Hillary. I said, okay, get a sheet of paper out.

I want you to put down the 10 issues you most care about and put a check next to Trump's name or Clinton's name who agrees with you. He said, okay. He did it. There were seven check marks by Hillary. Seven. There were seven check marks by Hillary. Seven. There were three by Trump. He goes, I just can't vote for her.

There were seven check marks. I get it. You don't have that same intent. You don't have the same intensity of hate towards Biden as you did with Clinton. I'm saying that's the difference. Maybe you don't have that same intensity

of hate towards Biden, but I know people who do. And we need those votes too. So my concern still stands that Biden might not appeal to everybody in the Democratic base. No one is going to appeal to everybody. Eugene, go ahead.

You want to jump in. There are two things here, all right? With Hillary Clinton, you literally had 30 years. I'll be 30 in September. You literally had 30 plus years of demonization, right? I mean, she could literally cure cancer and folk would hate her still. I mean, without reason, as you saw with the voter you were dealing with. And Biden just doesn't have that baggage.

He really doesn't have that baggage. I mean, you saw with Bernie himself, that he would jump right in and endorse him, you know, two days after getting out. He doesn't have that baggage. There is baggage that comes with being Hillary Clinton, you know, probably unrightfully so, but it's there. But it's not there for Biden.

I do think there's something else that probably also needs consideration, is that you may not necessarily see what you saw post the RNC convention, where, you know, folks just fell in line with Trump, if, you know, Justin Amash pulls the trigger on his presidential run. You'll see, you know, small L libertarians and, you know, folks that are starting to physical conservatives have an option where Trump isn't their only option against a fully demonized Hillary Clinton. You know, I think 2016 was an anomaly of that.

You have probably two of the most polarizing figures in American politics, you know, on a ballot against each other. And it was literally, okay, Hey, I know I hate her. Although I may hate him. And so I, so I think you're going to see something dramatically different here in 2020. I think, you know, Polish shows that Biden has been, you know, up five points plus, you know, for about, you know, for forever now. Um, but the thing is that, you know, the polarization that came with Hillary Clinton is not there with Joe Biden.

Yeah. I totally, I understand that Eugene, but came with Hillary Clinton is not there with Joe Biden. Yeah, maybe some of the folks... I understand that, Eugene, but what I'm saying is even though Biden doesn't have 30 years of demonization, it's not going to take 30 years of demonization for Biden to be disliked

because his record is out. His congressional record is out now. We have no things about him that weren't necessarily out there 30 years ago or even five years ago. Now that he's on the presidential stage, we are scrutinizing him a lot heavier.

But actually, I think so. I think, Kelly, you're mixing two things, which actually, when you look at polling data, it actually separates. You said, liking Biden. If you look at the likability numbers, his numbers are high. There's a difference between I don't like Joe Biden and I disagree with the policy positions that he has taken in the past. Those are two separate things. What you had in 16 was I don't like her

even when I agree with her. That's a difference. And so, what now happens is, what now happens is, you have people who are going, does he make me excited? No.

Do I disagree with these policies? Yes. But do I hate him? No. Do I disagree with these policies? Yes, but do I hate him? Absolutely. Trump was his unknown quantity. There's no doubt that if you're a Democratic Party, you have to reach out to the people who are disaffected, the people who are angry,

the people who don't like what has happened. Those things are going to happen. Those things do happen You've got the center the Bernie supporters out there the Sean kings of the world who are pissed off and angry Good guess what? Here's a dude your guy had a shot and you know what if you if you try to spend an inordinate amount of time Trying to convince them, you're wasting time. In politics, you say,

if I've got finite dollars and finite resources, I got a better chance of flipping you than flipping somebody who hates me. All I'm saying is, you don't spend your time on them. You spend your time on those who didn't vote. You spend your time on the people who are now first-time voters. And guess what? You drive as hard as you can on the people who hate Trump. That is going to be their, frankly, model to winning. One of the things I want to play for y'all, I want to play for y'all this year. Somebody sent me this video. I do love these videos that people send out

that I find to be absolutely hilarious. I do my best to share with you many of these as possible. This white woman and her husband put this video together tied to a Dionne Warwick song. And y'all, I just had to play it. Check this out. The moment he wakes up He puts on his orange makeup And tweets a lot that isn't true

While spraying his hairdo Deciding what mean things to do He tweets a little scare for you Forever and ever you'll still be a fool And we all hate you Forever and ever you'll never be cool Oh how we'll hate you Untethered, untethered

You don't know what's true. The lies you're selling will kill more of us than the food. He won't do care for you. He praises his cronies. He loves only crooks and phonies. He doesn't really care for you. Forever, he'll never take care of our needs, cause we're not wealthy. He'll never be clever. He thrives on his greed while we're unhealthy. Forever and ever, he don't need your bullshit today. Please go away. Promise you'll stay in your hotel. Just go to hell. Your hotel just gonna have hate your hair. I'm sorry, y'all.

When I saw my wife send me that video, I cracked up laughing. That was just, oh, my God, that was just too funny. That was just too funny. That was good. That was good. That was too funny. Bottom line, I think what's going to happen, despite all this sort of stuff,

I think you're going to see a massive increase in mail-in voting. I really believe, I believe that if you're, Republicans are going to try all they can to stop it. Democrats should be conditioning their supporters to be focused on voting by mail-in. All right, Eugene, Kelly, I appreciate y'all being on the panel. Robert has technical issues. He had to go, folks.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Of course. Thank you. All right, folks, got to go to a quick break. When we come back, we're going to talk live streaming. We got some great things happening. First and foremost, got a brother who says

he has come up with a live streaming app that's better than Instagram and Periscope. Also, Joe Torre launches a multimedia portal for content creators. And while I'm not Wednesday, we'll chat with comedian Jonathan Slocum. All that next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА We'll be right back. All right, y'all. Every Wednesday, we're going to be focused on

with a new segment on African Americans and tech. A lot of different things are happening out here in this space, and we want to be able to provide a platform for those folks. Yesterday, an announcement was made by comedian Joe Torre, as well as publicist turned producer Darren Dickerson, that they have launched a virtual box office and digital distribution service for multicultural creators during this quarantine. Joe and Darren, join us right now. Gentlemen, how y'all doing? Great. How you doing, Roland? All right. Y'all, I didn't hear

Joe. Joe, you there? Can you hear me? There we go. Joe, we got you. We got you, Joe. We got you. All right. So how did this idea originate? Well, hey, Darren, you want to start? I mean, you know me. Well, first of all, you know, Roland, you know, I'm always

trying to stay ahead of the game. I'm trying to always control my own destiny. I've always been you know, trying to stay ahead of the game. I'm trying to always control my own destiny. I've always been trying to, you know, make my own way and use, you know, black empowerment. I'm always somewhere in some city like you are, you know, reaching out, not to the little man, but trying to connect the dots between, you know, where I've come from and where I'm going. And now controlling, you know, your own destiny, coming straight to direct to consumership is what I've been always trying to do. Like, you know, build my own lane. And now this is, you know, joining forces with Darren Dickinson, who's been doing PR for over 20 years,

plus, you know, learning the business side, this new tech side, from blockchain all the way to cryptocurrency to right now direct-to-consumer, where we can bring you, you know, not out of the trunk, but straight to you, you know what I'm saying, entertainment in so many different ways and fashions. And, you know, Darren can tell you, you know, not out of the trunk, but straight to you, you know what I'm saying, entertainment in so many different ways and fashions. And, you know, Dan can tell you, you know, his side of it, but you know me, 30 years in the game, bringing you, you know, stuff that other people owned, but now, you know, the intellectual property that I create or creators find, this is, this is time for them now to find out, you know, how they can survive

or become their own Disney, Netflix, or own creator or own producer that they can do directly to consumers. So it's called Black Prime? Is that what it is, Darren? Yeah, it's BLK Prime is our partner. They've actually created a streaming portal with inside their streaming platform for pay-per-view or direct-to-consumer. We were, you know, Joe had an existing relationship with BLK Prime. And as you know, Roland, I've been working for quite a while to start helping content creators to own their content.

You know, I know it's great to have a distribution through a major studio or through a streaming portal. But the reality is that to be able to own the content for life and monetize it for life is something that we've never experienced, that most of the great projects and great films that were done, there are other powers that be that own them. And the money that it's making, you know, you've got Martin making new money every day. You've got I Love Lucy making new money every day.

But the people who created those pieces of content are not sharing in that in that revenue so after years of launching you know shows and launching movies you know obviously you know my my girl tasha whitney griggs got a shout out tasha all the time because we've done a lot of great things together i realized that in this digital era there was a tremendous opportunity for me to use the skill sets i've developed in the team up with, you know, content creators and people like Joe to develop a way for us to actually own this content and distribute it direct to consumer. So BLK has been amazing in helping us provide a platform for content creators to have like a box office experience. And then obviously COVID happened. This was something we

were working on for quite a while prior to the quarantine. And then when this happened, it allowed us to kind of fast track it. And we put our first movie up on Monday. It's called Pawn Shop. And I'm pretty sure you guys have some links to it. And you can go see it at ppv.blkprime. So pay-per-view. But ppv.blkprime will take you directly to a very funny movie that stars Garrett Morris and Joe Torre and Foolish and a lot of other really great comedians that

are in the film. So, and so if you go to my iPad, Henry, I have it up right now. And so, so the way this thing, things work is that if you go to that particular, it's ppb.blkprime.com. Yes. And so what you do is you're able to, if you want to watch this movie, you actually click it, and then it's $3.99 to rent. So essentially, just like when you're watching your cable system, last, my wife and I, we watched Bad Boys 3. And so this allows you to be able to watch the pay-per-view. And so, Joe, who are you reaching out to when you say creating it for multicultural creators with their content? Who are you hoping to reach?

Is it movies? Is it what, is it webisodes? Is it, you know, what type of content? Well, you know, all type of content that's not racist or derogatory or, you know, not to say nothing against Worldstar, but not against where it's not showing the best part of humanity right about now. So if you have good creative content,

because there's two platforms. There's also Ville Prime that is sort of like an Instagram, YouTube, Netflix to the 12 pop, where it's premium content that's on there that you can see. You can go there and you can see. It's almost like what Quibi is trying to be right now, but Ville Prime is already beating through that. So some creative can go, stuff can go on Viewer Prime, stuff is made for BL Kel Prime.

So you can see more features, you'll see animation projects. I mean, I've got like 20 projects of my own that I'm either producing, I'm in, or that people would be taking to, you know, film festivals right now. Getting ready for ABFF, getting ready to try to see if Netflix is going to see or see if they can have some type of screening.

And right now, that's not happening. You know what I'm saying? All these massive theaters or gathering points where you're able to show off your stuff, you know, to hopefully get it into a theater or get it in someone that's changing that. You know what I'm saying? So if I have the opportunity to bring your art to a platform, not next year, not, you know, three years from now, you know what I'm saying?

No, I can bring it to you next month. If it's quality, it's up to date, if it's we can show it, if it's got, you know, good awards for whatever it is, and have, you know, that quality stuff that we're looking for, man, you can be in rotation in the next couple months. And, you know, the Revity Share is going to be shared with you, the artist. And that's the kind of platform we're building where from animation to shorts to whatever you have in entertainment. You know, of course, you know, comedy is my stronghold.

But acting and, you know, drama, I'm doing animation stuff. So everything right there is available, you know, to do. And who am I reaching out to? People are already, you know, giving me stuff. So everything right there is available, you know, to do. And who am I reaching out to? People are already, you know, giving me stuff. I already have stuff that we're probably going to go to Netflix or Warner Brothers we're dealing with or, you know, we didn't get the right situation where, you know, we can not control our idea, but we can bring our ideas to life

without them being watered down or often being, you know, should I say, okay, we need to put this in or we want that voice. That day of Hollywood is gone for me. You know what I'm saying? My art is my art. I've been doing what I've been doing for 30 years, been successful, and I don't need no validation. And that's what some people just need, a chance to show their art. And right here, you can see it because so many communities from Peoria, Illinois, to Milwaukee, to, you know, Arkansas, those big people, they don't get a chance to come out here and swim in the same bowl that I do in Hollywood.

But if I know them by going through, you know, different, you know, tours or just throughout the different fraternities and people, you know, the Divine Nine alone, there's so much content that, you know, I want to bring to life right there. We'll talk about that later. But there's so much that's missing that we can show, you know, really how to go to college again,

how to be advanced in this new way, this new era, how black people can learn about financial literacy. And all those things that you can see powerful people doing in our communities that you don't see, I'm here to show you. Look, there are people at the end of the day, what we're seeing, Darren, is that folks don't want to be beholden to the existing system where you go through all of this, you raise money, you shoot a movie. As Joe said, you take it to the film festival, you hope an urban movie channel or Netflix or Hulu or Amazon Prime actually see it, and then you end up selling your movie.

But there are others who say, I want to be able to own, maintain, control the content. With this here, with this platform y'all are launching, creators will still be able to own their content. This is simply an opportunity for them to be able to put the content out and for them then to be able to drive people to be able to watch it and then to get a part of the revenue share, correct? Correct. That's exactly right.

The most important thing is the ownership piece. I think that, you know, we have always looked for validation through these other portals and other platforms, not realizing that the long-term ownership, there's far more revenue to be generated if you keep control of the content. And right now, again, like you said, there are people who are raising money, they're festivaling these films, and the sad reality of it all is there's a very small portion that actually make it to market. Now, some of these other portals that are out here have been coming along after the

fact and scooping these projects up for pennies on the dollar. When in reality the amount of money that they've been paying you to put your projects on another streaming portal you could make that within the first year or even shorter time period depending on how much publicity and promotions are able to put into it. And so that's where I realized where my value could really be leveraged with content creators. And so in addition to providing the streaming distribution portion, you know, what we're also providing is the publicity, marketing, and promotions, because we know that that's where a lot of projects lack, that, you know, the creatives, they're really good at putting together content and creating something that we know our communities will love. I mean, I think the movie we have up right now, Pawn Shop, is a great example. It's a film that we know speaks to the audiences that we target and that we know we will appreciate this film. We did a digital screening. We put the movie out on a digital platform for free for a couple of weeks just to allow people to give us the feedback. And the response was overwhelming.

You know, 145,000 people tuned in to view this movie and left some of the most comments from, we need more films like this. You know, how do we get to see more of this type of content? And it really validated what we were doing. And so now it allows the content creators to see the lion's share of the revenue and so if you if you have content and you've been looking for a distribution portal you didn't want

to just give it to a streaming platform and you felt like hey i think this movie has a chance to really compete here's the opportunity for you to take that movie direct to consumer you know it's almost like how tyler Tyler Perry started his career when he started taking his plays, you know, on the road himself. You know, it's Eazy-E. You know, it's Master P. It's all those people who were willing to bet on themselves because they knew the audience they were trying to reach.

We've just been able to, very fortunate, to find a platform and a partner that will allow us to help those people go to market with their content. All right. How can folks reach y'all if they're interested in working with you? Well, the name of our company is COD, stands for content ownership and distribution or content on demand. Darren, you want to lead them to the portal that tells us that, you know, besides all the other social programs that we have from IG to everything else. Darren, take it away.

Yeah, so you can email me, and I'm going to keep it simple. It's D as in dog, S as in Sam, D as in dog, PR at me.com. So that's DSDPR at ME.com. DPR at M-E dot com. And obviously you can follow me on IG at Darren D-P-R. All right. DM me. I'm looking forward to it. All right. Darren Dickerson, Joe Torres.

Certainly good luck with it. Glad to have you on the show. And it is all about being able to control our content and be able to own. Thanks a lot, gentlemen. Hey, man, thank you, man. We watch your show. And two films coming up, Who Is Gatsby Randolph and Trouble Waters, starring, you know, Harry Lennox.

Say it again, Joe. What are those two movies? Two movies next coming up. What we're going to feature is Who Is Gatsby Randolph, an amazing true story. And after that, we're going to Trouble Waters, starring Harry Lennox. OK. All right, we're going to Trouble Waters starring Harry Lentz. Okay. All right. We'll be looking for it.

All right. Thanks a lot. Thanks a bunch. Y'all take care. You too. Bye-bye. All right, folks. Many of us were talking about, of course, what took place on Saturday with all of the audio issues with Teddy Riley and Babyface in their versus battle. Then on Monday

when they finally, when they hit round two, they get all together, folks like me headed home, got finished the show. This came up. This is what we saw. If you were using certain devices, go to my iPad, please. We're having trouble loading this live video.

So many people were trying to get on and then, and, and then it began to cause people to say, well, Hey, is there anything else? Is there anything like, can we have our own, what about our own live streaming service? Uh, can we can truly control the product as opposed to, uh, hundreds of thousands of people signing up for Instagram, making them money. Uh, and that's really what was happening, uh, there. Well, my next guest says, the answer is yes, that we can actually do that. We can actually create our own, build our own. And so right now I want to talk to a couple of folks.

One of them, of course, you know, is the pioneer founder of Public Enemy, Chuck D. He has been in partnership and working in business with Marcel, who invented an app that actually, he says, you know what, will blow Periscope Instagram out of the water. Gentlemen, how we doing? Good, man. It was great coming on the heels of your last two guests. Well, that's great. It's along the same line, right? That's why we set it up that way.

Yeah, bro-ma. So first off, Chuck, how did you two connect? How did you and Marcel connect? I've been having Rap Station, and Rap Station is a 10-station channel portal in partnership with Live 365 that gets into the curation and the total eloquence narration of rap music and hip hop.

And I met Marcel through our general manager, Andrea. And Marcel is our app developer. And Marcel is one of those geniuses that when people look around, how come we don't have these people or how come we don't have these portals that actually get our content and our situation over? He's one of those geniuses that end up partnering up with a super mega company and keeps on making all these inventions and innovations. And he's one of those guys. So I'm blessed and fortunate to have some of my ideas since I've been swimming around in cyberspace since 1999

from prints and awarding. The other day I put up, yesterday I put up a picture of me and David Bowie, because I was awarding David Bowie the Yahoo Internet Man of the Year in the year 2000 or 99, one of those two years. So that's how long I've been doing it. Back in the day when you had to convince people that having an email

doesn't mean the government's on their back. So, Marcel is this one man, that's why he has one name, Marcel, just like Prince, formerly known as, you know, and he's on the line to speak for himself because he's been saying

for the longest period of time, man, if I'm in the area of distribution, content, music control, and stuff like that, and at the end of the day, I see that the people at Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Marcel says he has something,

and he's been saying this for the longest period of time. So here we are, Brother Romo. All right, Marcel, tell us what is it? It's, like you said, it's an app that will rival the majors that we deal with. And like I kind of mentioned to Chuck, I said, hey, Chuck, you know what, man? I'm like, I'm on Mars, and everybody on planet Earth, I keep hearing them say, hey, look, we we need this kind of app. But I don't have I don't have a voice. So I said, let's call Brother Roland and let's let them know that we do have this because I've been working with Chuck for a couple of years now with his app.

And I've also built an app for like what I try to do is pull out the pipe, the radio pioneers. There's a guy named Paul Porter who practically started KISS FM in D.C., right? And other people like that. Mark Clark is another one. His wife, Allison Seymour, is a 20-year veteran of Fox 5 D.C. I built an app for them. So really, just

bringing them into the fold over the last five or six years, when this live streaming became popular, I just wanted to build like I had my own. I wanted, because I come from radio, I'm a 30-year radio veteran. I wanted to have an app, too, where I can kind of control it. So it's good to hear that everybody's on this, let's control it now. And it's time for me to say, hey, look, guys, I can help you with that.

But I built an app for people, just like you saw Teddy Riley and Babyface. They did their thing, but they're putting it out there where they're not getting paid for it. And there's a big thing called shadow banning. And I know you're familiar with that, Roland. But they're not even letting us get our content out. This is America, too. I'm a United States Marine Corps veteran.

And I fought for my country so we can have freedom of speech. And these people have the audacity to kill out freedom of speech while they get paid. So my app is about freedom of speech. It does what these others do and more. And we're not going to be curbing anybody's freedom of speech and

built into it, you should be getting paid and you can get paid for when you use it. So that's, that's just where I am with it. What's the app, what's the name of it, and then when will the public be able to access it? New Media TV is my brand. So that's it. And we're going to, we're going to hopefully with Apple approval, I just did an update. We've got, it was in beta testing. So I just did an update. Shout out to my beta testers. Appreciate you guys. And hopefully by

Friday, we'll be able to release this, if not the following week. So Apple, if you're watching, release our stuff. No, but really, so hopefully by Friday. So folks should be able to go to the Apple App Store as well as the Google Play.

Type in New Media TV, N-U Media TV, to be able to download the app. And then also people can go to rapstation.com forward slash app to be able to get the Rap Station app. And live streaming service will also be within conjunction with Marcel's company on the Rap Central Station. So it's live and popping. So from my aspect, it's taken since our music is bastardized as rap and hip hop, but it's around the world in 116 countries. It's a great opportunity for us to not only get involved, but people that have wanted to be startups and stuff like that, for them

to be engaged instead of ending up finding a dead-end road with Twitter or Instagram, which has a lot of... Instagram has a whole lot of roadblocks up, and you might have your stuff taken down on YouTube or whatever. So this is something that's necessary

for us, and the first ones that come along is going to be the bearers of the fruit. Like I said, I've been involved with this like 20, 25 years. But to run into a person like Marcel, he's a saving grace to actually put 10 more years into going and connecting around the world. Marcel, when you talk about this app, once it goes live, will it be open? Is it free sign-up like Instagram is, like Periscope is, like Facebook? How are you setting that up? Absolutely not.

I think one of the problems with these platforms right now is because it's free, it's a free-for-all, and unfortunately it skews a bunch of people who just, with nothing to lose, they come in, they want to just, you know, bring down the platform. I mean, we've all experienced that. But it's just a small fee one time. So what do you mean trolls? Trolls.

Got it. So how much will it cost? So you say it's a one-time fee? Yeah, it's just going to be a one-time, a small fee, too, and we're still actually up until probably time that we get the okay, because me and my team, we're still kind of

traveling a little bit with the price, but it's just going to be a small fee, so you'll be able to see it once the app comes out. Hey, listen, roll it. How many people out there, and I'm talking about creators, still got SoundCloud burns, they still got MySpace creators, still got SoundCloud burns. They still got MySpace burns.

They got all these burns, and everybody kind of offers you the cookie or the cracker, so to speak. They go bite it and find out all their content is loaded up in the middle of something that they could wipe away with a swipe of a hand. So, yeah, to do this at a clip of a dollar, whatever, you know what? You know that's separating the bitter from the sweet. And in fact, what you're talking about,

what you're talking about, that happened with MySpace, where all of that content got completely wiped and they were like, my bad. Yo, man, and I'm trying to tell you, putting all your stuff up on Facebook. Look, one thing Marcel had taught me,

he said all these systems that y'all putting on Twitter and all and Instagram, Periscope, YouTube, and especially Bookface, let me tell you, they won. They talk about virus now in real life. They won hack away from your stuff being wiped. And then a whole bunch of, oh, well, my bad. And in order, go ahead and tell them what you tell me, Marcel, all the time.

One hack away. That should be a name of a theme. One hack away from all your ish being wiped. Gone. That's like the next P.E. album. One hack away. Marcel, go ahead. P.E. album, One Hack Away. Marcel, go ahead. One Hack Away is going to happen one day.

Now, you know what, though? He's absolutely right. And I've been trying to drill us into everybody that I come in contact with because it's true. And, you know, just like we had the coronavirus, look, who would have thought, I live in Vegas,

who would have thought they would shut down Vegas and New York at the same time, right? And they did in California and everywhere else. And the same thing can happen. Wait till you – wait till you – and I don't know if they're going to do it on purpose or somebody will do it, you know, trying to bring down whatever. But wait till you can't get on to your favorite social media, right? And it's a week. And then it's two weeks.

And then it's three weeks. You're going to realize just how much you're dependent on it, and you're going to wish that you had had your own platform. So here's two things here, Roland and Chuck. We're not just talking about my platform that's going to rival these others, right? But we're also talking about get your own platform, okay? So that when you have a platform

and you're on a platform like mine that's going to totally allow you to have free speech and make money in it, right? But you're also going to be able to make sure that you bring those people that you meet in my platform over to the platform that you own, preferably an app, so you can send notifications

and do the same thing in your app, right? And then if something should happen to me, you've got your own. Do not rely on any of us to be your sole area that you're putting your content. Now, let me say this too about getting paid. I've made it so that, well, I can't say that because they may be listening. I've made it so that you can get paid instantly. No more of this, the I, the developer, get a percentage, and then Apple gets a percentage. I made it so you make that deal with your audience right inside the app when you go live and you decide if you want to charge for your content or not.

You made it. It's yours. I have no business getting any of your money. And nor do anybody else. And this is how it has to be. So that's where I am. All right. Yeah, bro, we're always on a year-and-a-half delay. You call it the 18-month delay

because 18 months is like the joke that you finally get 18 months later. It's too late, man. It's like, oh, whoa, whoa. I'm telling you. And right now, and I'm just saying my last point, it's like this whole scenario the last two months is the official ushering from citizens

into now being netizens. And now since they created cyberspace, more people are netizens than they really are citizens because their citizen rights are revoked. So they're netizens now. So if you're a netizen, that means you have to be net literate. And most people are not net literate. So when you're told something across the net

to tell you how to live in this world they created called the net, it behooves you to pay attention to what real estate you can own in this world they created called the net, it behooves you to pay attention to what real estate you can own in that world. I got one last piece I'd like to add if it's okay, Roland. Go ahead. One of the things that I also see on the horizon

is I want to build also within Chuck's app. I want Chuck to have his own portal for live streaming. I want him to have his own Periscope kind of app built right into where his app is. Also, let's just say, I don't know, if you're in the religious culture, whoever the big religious head would be, they need their own, right? And that pulls all of these people who would naturally go to one of these other big behemoths to use them and then have to encounter all this foolishness. Now, those people will go to that one and they'll go to the

hip hop one with Chuck. They'll go to the black one with mine or whoever's right. And and so forth. That's going to slowly pull those people off and dry up these people who never who just treat us poorly out there. and that's that's really that that has to happen so well i think at the end of the day what we're talking about here is not just just like the conversation we had with joe and darren and conversation with you is that at the end of the day um we we as african-americans we all too often, we have performed for everybody else. We're the tastemakers. We make everybody else money.

Black people over-index on PDAs. We are first users when it comes to these various apps. And then we love them and we're putting stuff up. When Nick Cannon said, I'm not putting anything on Instagram unless it's promoting something that I'm making money from. That's what he was talking about. And that's what that's what it boils down to. And I think what happens is when you look at the people, when you look at what's happening right now, you look at photos, you look at Corbis, you look at Getty and the billions that they're making off of photos from 30, 40, 50, 100 years ago because they went around snapping up, buying archives, buying up all the archives of the civil rights photographers. And now when people are now with their websites, they're just making all this money.

And for us and where there were people who came at me who were upset with the videos that I put out when I was talking about technology and what Teddy Riley's vision was and how he could have done it. They were like, look, man, this thing was for the culture. It was just for us having fun. I said, oh, let me be real clear. I said, while we were being entertained, Facebook was getting paid. Right. And I think that's the hardest part is to get a lot of black folks out of being the end user and out of the sharecropper mentality where we would just look. And it was phenomenal. It was phenomenal. Watching, listen, listen, listen to them. The backstories about the music. But the point is here, Babyface and Teddy Riley gave two and a half hours of their life and their talent on a platform that was free, that added thousands of users, that they now have their data, and they now can go out and cut bigger deals with advertising companies to get more money. That's just a fact.

And that's what you're dealing with here. And I think for too many of us, we had better stop thinking like sharecroppers or end users and realize, wait a minute, so if we're the influencers, why in the hell we don't influence the dollars ourselves? Final comment. There's no. Go ahead. Yeah, I'm sorry, Roland. Go ahead, though. Final comment. Go ahead. There's no reason. There's no reason for a baby face, Teddy Riley, Chuck D, for you to have your own platform. I don't care where you're going to get it. Get your own platform.

I mean, that's it. That's all I have to say. Chuck, final word. Go to rapstation.com forward slash app. Get the app. Then we have Rap Central Station as a live streaming source. And I keep it rap music and hip hop and try to service that. That's what I'm doing.

All right, folks. Be sure to check on Friday for new media TV, NU Media TV. Marcel, Chuck D., I appreciate both of you being on the show. Thanks a lot. All right, man. Thank you, sir.

All right, thank you very much. All right, folks. Many of you, of course, have been supportive of us on Roller Martin Unfiltered, joining our Bring the Funk fan club. As I told you, I was going to be reading the names of the people who have given to us,

who have given 50 bucks. Before I do that, here's a shout-out. Andre sent me a photo. This is him in his Roller Martin Unfiltered sweatshirt. I told y'all, if y'all get the gear, I'll also give you a shout-out as well. And so, he sent me this email showing him in his sweatshirt.

I certainly appreciate it. He is, I'll just give you his title, Andre's executive director of newyoungfathers.com, newyoungfathers.com, where they serve teen and young fathers. And so we certainly appreciate Andre for wearing the sweatshirt. All right, folks, real quick here, I'm going to go to my next guest. I told you I was bringing back Wild Knot Wednesdays. Look, people are at home, and we want levity. And so I had Wild Knot Wednesdays on my TV One show.

I'm bringing it back here, Roller Mark Unfiltered. To kick this thing off is my man Jonathan Slocum, who's joining us live from L.A. Jonathan, what's happening? What's going on, Roland? What's happening? I can't see you, brother. So normally you are super clean.

The coronavirus, man, has just totally thrown being clean, being dressed clean out the window. Or have you actually at times gotten dressed up while you've been at home? be thrown being clean being dressed clean out the window have you have or have you actually at times gotten dressed up why you've been at home. It is the best I can do I put a scarf on like for you could you do ask I just thought I thought. But the other part is it allows me to

you know what I just want to draw my drawers, man. I love my drawers. I got drawers made by a black company called Draws Brand. It's a black man. It's comfortable, you know. Ho, ho, ho, ho. It's called Draws Brand? Yes. G-R-A-W-L-Z brand dot com.

I'm checking. It's the most comfortable underwear you'll ever want to wear. So I walk around in my drawers. I got them in black, different colors. Well, obviously, if you got a black-owned drawers company, you got black underwear. Oh, yeah. And they got the letter D. It's situated right on top of,

you know, yeah. And you know what else, Roland? I want people to see I'm by myself. You got your wife with you. People got the family. When you're by yourself, you can do something else that you can't do. I am able to right now because I did it before I came on. But I just be passing gas.

I just pass all the gas I want to. Just me. I got the freedom to pass gas anytime I want. In my drawers, drawers. In your domain, in your domain. Understand, understand. Now, obviously, the coronavirus has affected everybody. You're a comedian. Folks can't hit comedy clubs.

They can't do events or whatever. And so how have you been trying to keep your comic game sharp when it's just you at the crib? Well, you know what? First of all, you know, people kind of reach out. I did something the other day for Delta Airlines. Shout out to Carmetria Burton. She did a happy hour for an organization that she's also part of.

Had me on to, you know, kind of do the fighting with them and just keep it light. So people reach out to me. It's hard to not have an audience, man. It's the hardest thing to do. But, you know, people need a little laughter and they know they can count on me, you know, to give them the best that I can.

But the benefit of social media is you got an audience and you can talk to them every single day. And I do. You know, I don't do as well as some of the others because I'm not used to the social media in the way that a lot of comedians. I'm getting better with it. In fact, you've already told me

through my one-on-one powerhouse session I had, I got to repurpose and rediscover my gift. Yeah, we had a conversation yesterday, and he was like, now I know you're going to be hard, but I know where it's coming from. And you came with it. He's like, y'all was like, now I know you're going to be hard,

but I know where it's coming from. Absolutely. What did you say? You said, I have prepared myself. I've covered myself in oil for what's coming. Yeah, but it's the skin thickening oil, because I knew you were going to, and you came with it. I'm telling you.

And if you want a one-on-one with Roland, y'all, I'm telling you, it's worth it. You know, he allowed me to pay him 75 cents. That's all I could afford. And we had a powwow. You know, you my man. So we were talking, and so this week, yesterday was the fourth anniversary

of the death of Prince, but on Monday was actually the 69th birthday of Luther Vandross, late Luther Vandross. Right. And man, and I was sitting there when I was on your YouTube channel, I saw this bit you did

where Luther Vandross leading a prayer service, leading a choir. Yeah, yeah. Well, here's the thing. I used to do this thing where certain churches, if they're progressive, and shout out to Dr. Tony Evans in Dallas, Texas. He's one of those people. And I always said

that if certain people came into this church, they would change their music. It would be automatic. So I do this thing with James Brown, Smokey Robinson, Luther Vandross, and one of their hit songs, once they come on the platform, it'll be automatic. So I do this thing with James Brown, Smokey Robinson, Luther Vandross, and one of their hit songs, once they come on the platform, it'll just suddenly change into what I guess you're gonna show now.

All right, y'all go, let's see, y'all go ahead, go to my iPad. This is Jonathan Slocum as Luther. Set the atmosphere. Yeah. Yes the atmosphere. Yeah. Yes, yes. A little reverb on the mic. Please welcome Mr. Luther Vandross. I do remember

You showed me you loved me, Jesus I do remember You said you were coming back love me jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus i want you to know that I love you I really do, do Long ago.

On a hill called Calvary. My, my, my brother. Hey, Amanda. Oh, man. That was way, that was, that is too funny. Not long ago on a hill called Calvary. Hey, man, it was way, that was, that is too funny. Not long ago on a hill called Calvary. Hey, man, it was just, you know, good times, man. Good times, Doc. Good times.

And of course, for you, you are, you've long been a clean comic. You don't cuss. You don't, you ain't doing sexual jokes. Go ahead. But I actually want to introduce something today that I might lose some fans, but through all that's going on, we as a people, I was watching myself from Deaf Comedy Jam on Amazon Prime back in the day. I have this way of being able to spell words

that we as black people say. Right. So many times we'll use two words, but it really should be one word. Right. And this one word is a word that you use regularly. And everybody in our culture is using it a lot. So I want to introduce the word.

It's spelled Y-O-W-A-Z-Z. Y-O-W-A-Z-Z. Y-O-W-A-Z-Z. And it's pronounced yo ass Yo ass That's how You know we have been using that word So much you're telling people

To do what at home Keep what Yo ass at home That's it The parents are telling their kids Who's running all around the house, sit your ass down. And I'm telling the people who,

if you are wanting to go to the barbershop and the beauty salon and the nail salon on Friday in my hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, Y-O-W-A-Z-Z, need to stay at home. Your, need to stay at home. Your ass need to stay at home. Yeah, and listen, if you don't, those that are going to get their hair done

and the nails done just go directly to the mortuary and just sit there and wait. Because your time is coming because your ass is going to be dead. There you go. Too much, too much. Jonathan Slocum, always glad to have you here. Man, shout out where people can reach you. Drop your cash app, give all your information.

Yes, sir. The cash app is dollar sign J. Slocum. I ain't mad at that. I was taught that in my session yesterday. Let me give a shout-out real quick to my man, Joe Torrey. Man, I love him. We go way back. Okay, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop right here.

See right here. Okay. Okay, you and I had a session yesterday. Oh, you're right. You're right. I know what you're going to say. I asked you. I just said.

See, y'all? I just sat here and asked you to give your information out including your cash app. I know. You gave your cash app out and you didn't spell it. Your cash... See, Jonathan, I gotta help you on this.

Your cash... My cash app is dollar sign. R-M unfiltered. You're right. So what's your cash app? My cash app is J-S-L-O, dollar sign, J-S-L-O-K-E. You can't leave the dollar sign out of the cash app. OK.

Cash app is dollar sign, J-S-L-O-K-E sign J-S-L-O-K-E, J. Slocum. Then I said, where can they reach you? And then I went to something else. You start shouting out Joe Torre. I know. Okay, you're right. You're right.

So what's your Twitter? My Twitter is IamJSlocum. My Instagram is IamJonathanSlocum. Jonathan? My Facebook is... I, I, I, I is two ways to spell Jonathan. Okay, IamJonathan, J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N-S-L-O-C-U-M-B. IamJonathanSlocum, that's Instagram,

and it's IamJSlocum. That's Instagram and it's I am J. Slocum the initial J on Twitter and comedian Jonathan Slocum on Facebook. I know what role I'm in. And your ass got a YouTube channel. Your ass got a YouTube channel. And the YouTube channel is

Jonathan Slocum. I'm going to update it, but there's some things there. Yes. I guess your ass is going to have to pay for a second session. All right, y'all. Jonathan Slocum. I appreciate. I'm going to update it, but there's some things there. Yes. I guess your ass is going to have to pay for a second session. All right, y'all. Jonathan Slocum. I appreciate it, bro. Thanks a lot. Hey, roll, roll.

Wait, wait, wait. One quick thing. Yep. Bro, keep the gray. You're doing it. Oh, first of all, but that's, you got to say, I wore a beard for 15 years. And then I'm like.

Did you? Dude, I wore a beard the whole time I was on CNN. Wow, bro. The gray is working for you. I ain't scared of it. I just wore it for 15 years. I was like, okay, I don't want to have a beard. So I let it grow back for three or four days,

then I shave it off. It's all good. Oh, man, but the platinum is in, brother, you know. I appreciate it, bro. Thanks a bunch. My man, appreciate you, Roland. Thanks a lot. All right, y'all, time for me to name. Okay, so the people who in, brother, you know. I appreciate it, bro. Thanks a bunch. My man, appreciate you, Roland. Thanks a lot. All right, y'all, time for me to name. Okay, so the people who supported our show, I told y'all, every day this week, those who join our Bring the Funk fan club, $50

or more, I'm going to shout their name out on the show. So let me go through it. So first of all, yesterday I shout out B Dizzle as well as Congress Thought on YouTube. Y'all are super givers. And so y'all get an extra shout out B Dizzle, as well as Conscious Thought on YouTube. Y'all are super givers. And so y'all get an extra shout out, B Dizzle and Conscious Thought.

Krista Butler, Christopher Williams, Clarence Oglesby, Clifford Sparks, Debbie Hall, Derek Moore, Derek Brown, DeJuana Shields, Danella Houston, Gail Bowens, Glynis Bryant, Gloria Williams, Gregory Mack, Harry Alexander, Ina St. Luce, Jackson Turman, Consulting LLC, Smart With The Business, Jadonna Sanders, Jermaine Wells, Jenna Seatfield, Joe Temple, John Colburn, Julian Wilson, Karen Mack, Kip Killebrew,

Keisha Manley, Leonard Green, Laurie Saunders, Malik Kafele, Marie Hammond, Maya, Melvin Sanders, Morris Jones. Y'all somebody type name. Y'all got to leave your name. Nina Riley, Otis Simmons, Pamela Whitfield, Phyllis Burgess, Randall Stubbs, Rosalie Hurst, Samantha Taylor, Selena Tamu, Shadrina Foster,

Sherry Ford, Shirley Williams, Teresa Gregory, Tonya Whitley, Valencia Garner, Vanita Washington, William Gorton Jr., Wincy Yolanda Garrett. So again, I want to thank everybody who has given. Some people can't give 50. Totally understand. People have given $45, $30, $25, $10, $5, $1. All goes

to support this show, to pay our staff, to pay our technical staff as well. Our goal here is to give you the best content. Y'all, what you just... You are not seeing black comedians, okay? You might see... They'll put D.L. on.

They'll put other big-name comedians. Our deal is we want to give a lot of folks an opportunity to be able to share with you. So thanks, Jonathan Slocum. Again, you're not seeing folks talk about what Joe Torre and Darren Dickerson is doing on those cable networks. You're not seeing them talk about what Joe Torre and Darren Dickerson is doing on those cable networks. You're not seeing them talk about what

Chuck D is doing with Marcel of the creation of this live streaming app. You're not seeing that on CNBC and CNN and Fox News and MSNBC and ABC and CBS and NBC. You ain't seeing that on those other channels as well. You're not seeing the conversation. Who do we have on the show today?

Congressman Al Green, the mayor of Albany, Georgia. Folks, we had great guests on today's show giving you the kind of information. That's why we do what we do every single day to give you the kind of content you're not seeing anywhere else, and we don't have to

ask anybody's permission to do so. Later this week, we got Chris Paul, Huggy Low Down, announcing the comedy thing that they're launching. There's a sister who also has created her own virtual reality device, her own headsets, and she's gonna be doing a virtual comedy concert.

So we're gonna have her on the show next Wednesday. In addition, Charlamagne Tha God's gonna be here. Y'all, this is why we do what we do. Roller Mark Unfiltered, support us. Cash app. Right there is why we do what we do roller Martin unfiltered support us cash app right there put up dollar sign RM unfiltered PayPal pull it up PayPal dot me for slash our Martin unfiltered you also can't you pay with a credit card go to go to roller Martin unfiltered comm you can use a square card address ourress, our company. We're, of course, headquartered company-wise

in Chicago. It's NuVision Media. N-U Vision. Vision Media. V-I-S-I-O-N 1327 West Washington Boulevard, Suite 102. B as in boy. Chicago, Illinois, 60607. And so, if you want to send in a payment, you can do that. Our goal is

real simple. We want 20,000 of our followers. Y'all, right now, it is the number of y'all who are watching, it was 2,600 of y'all watching on YouTube. Right now, we've got more than 700 who are on Facebook. We've got more than 100 on Periscope. Y'all, we don't sit here and have to hope and depend somebody else do something.

We can build our own platform, and that's what we're doing. So join our Bring the Funk fan club. Give the $50 bucks or more, you're gonna get a personal shout out tomorrow as well. All right, y'all, I got to go. I'll see y'all later. Ho! this is an iHeart podcast