#RolandMartinUnfiltered - GA Runoff, Dept. of Veterans Affairs Lawsuit, Atatiana Jefferson Murder Trial, Road to the SWAC

Episode Date: November 30, 2022

11.29.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: GA Runoff, Dept. of Veterans Affairs Lawsuit, Atatiana Jefferson Murder Trial, Road to the SWAC  Three days left for early voting in the Senate race between Warnock and Walker in Georgia A federal lawsuit claims Veterans Affairs has denied benefits to Black people at higher rates for years.  I'll talk with a couple of Yale Law School's Veterans Legal Services Clinic interns who filed the case.  The trial for the Texas cop who killed Atatiana Jefferson has begun.  Brett Farve is begging a judge to remove him from that Mississippi welfare fraud lawsuit. We are on the Road to the SWAC Championship.  All week will feature Southern and Jackson State.  Tonight, my interview with Eric Dooley, Southern University's head Football Coach. Support RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Folks, Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches! A real revolutionary right now. Black crowd. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roland. Stay Black. I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going.

The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scape. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? We'll be right back. have an early voting all across this state. More than 300,000 folks have already voted earlier today. We were with the folks with Jordan to stand up.

We'll show you some of that as they were circumventing the rules, if you will. The Thank you. All right, folks. We'll be right back on the Black Star Network. Let's go. We'll be right back on the Black Star Network. Let's go. We'll be right back. He's got it.

Whatever the mess, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the spook, the fact, the find 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. Yeah, yeah.

It's Uncle Roro, y'all. Yeah, yeah, it's Uncle Roro, yo. Yeah, yeah, it's Roland Martin. Yeah, yeah, rolling with Roland now. Yeah, he's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best, you know he's Roland Martin now. Go. All right, folks. Georgia has broken the early voting records on Monday. The Senate runoff between, of course, Democratic U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock and Hershel Walker have seen unprecedented voting numbers thus far.

Voting locations open in all 159 locations all across this state. Of course, it started early on Saturday after Democrats filed a successful lawsuit. Republicans actually challenged 301,545 people have already voted in person. Now, during the weekend, you saw some polling locations with long waits, more than an hour long, Fulton, DeKalb, Gwinnett County. We also, of course, did saw the exact same thing today when we were actually traveling around. We're going to have some of that video for you a little bit later. And so again, there is significant enthusiasm all across this state as people are voting. And also a lot of people who did not vote in the general election are voting in this runoff as well. Remember, Republicans in

this state changed the law after they lost in 2020, where they actually shrank the runoff period from two months to one month. And the deadline to actually register to vote in the runoff was the Monday, the day before the general election, which was the next day, because they wanted to keep folks, again, from being able to vote in the runoff. But individuals are very enthused about this, very much engaged. And also, a new poll, first of all, polls come out. You all know how I feel about these polls. AARP had a poll that dropped a few days ago showing Senator Warnock, the four-point lead against Hershel Walker.

Now a new poll shows that they are actually tied. This survey was done by Frederick Poll, Compete Digital, AAM Political. It includes 939 likely voters, showing both candidates at 50%. Again, folks, when it comes to these polls, understand when you start breaking down the numbers in terms of how is it weighted, and so that's what you're dealing with. But you all know how we feel about it i don't care about any polls because no poll has ever elected anybody it's really all about uh the question is who uh has to turn out and that's what this boils down to Tasha Cobb-Leonard, Israel Houghton, also Bishop Vashti McKenzie, numerous other pastors

will be coming in, other entertainers as well. Aki Dule-Hill, a number of folks will be traveling to this state and not just going to Atlanta, but really going to a number of different places all across the state, hitting many of the rural areas where there are African-American voters trying to reach them to turn out. As I said, early voting ends on Friday. The election is on Tuesday, December 6th. And again, there's so much focus and attention on that. Now, the ads you're seeing all around that have been running as well, nonstop on television, also on radio. There was a new one that the Warnock campaign has released that shows how people are absolutely

confused when they listen to Hershel Walker talk about anything. So if you have not seen this, trust me, this is not an SNL skit. This is not from Comedy Central. It's actual voters listening to Hershel Walker try to put cynicism together. Watch. You ever watch a stupid movie late at night, hoping it's gonna get better, don't get better, but you keep watching it anyway? Because the other night, the other night I was watching this movie, I was watching this movie called Fr night freak night or some type of night but it was about vampires i don't know if you know cool people what the hell is he talking about is he serious is he for real but i'm gonna

tell you something that i found out a werewolf can kill a vampire did you know what is he talking about so i don't want to be a vampire anymore i I wanted to be a werewolf. Oh my gosh. He's talking about vampires and werewolves right now. Yeah, you're serious about this, right? So I've been telling this little story about this bull out in the field. What on earth? And three of them are pregnant. There's no substance. There's nothing.

So you know you got something going on. It makes me want to laugh, and then it makes me think we're in trouble. But all he cared about is kept his nose against the fence, looking at three other cows that had been blown to him. Now all he had to do is eat grass. This video is ridiculous. That's 35 seconds of my life I'll never get back.

Why would I want someone like that leading the state of Georgia? Our good heir decided to float over to Chana's bad heir. Unbelievable. So when Chana gets our good heir, their bad heir got to move. the state of Georgia. Our good air decided to flow over to China's bad air. Unbelievable. So when China gets our good air, their bad air gotta move. It's all the same air.

Not only does it make no sense, I don't even understand what he thinks he's saying. So it moves over to our good air spaces. And now we gotta clean that back up. I sit and watch these on Twitter, and I'm like, what the heck is this guy talking about? Like, literally, what is he talking about? He's completely unqualified for this really,

really serious job. No one's watching this and being like, oh, man, that guy's got it together. And sometimes, like, I read through the comments, because I'm like, is anybody actually understanding? Or are we just sitting here wasting time? It is embarrassing. Let's call it what it is.

It is embarrassing. They just call it what it is. It is embarrassing. They just care about getting a yes man, somebody that had just punched the button. I think it's a risk to me and millions of Georgians to put this man in a position of power. Let's call it what it is. This is embarrassing as hell. At all.

Well, you know. Go. Go. OK, the sister, she just walked off at the end there. You know? Go. Go. Okay, the sister, she just walked off at the end there. Let me bring up my panel. Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali, founder and senior advisor, environmental justice at the EPA. Dr. Jason Nichols, senior lecturer, African American Studies Department, University of Maryland College Park.

Randy Bryan, diversity and inclusion strategist, speaker, trainer, and writer. Glad to have all three of you here Jason I want to start with you because Hershel Walker does not talk about issues at all in fact I have no idea what the hell is he been talking about and and this is somebody who wants to be one of 100 United States Senators in in the United States Senate we already have one of the dumbest people ever who also has ties to football, and that's Tommy Tuberville, former football coach who was a senator from Alabama. And we all know how dumb he is. But the man was talking about vampires and wolves and something about a bull. Jason, I don't know about you, but he shouldn't even visit the U.S. Senate,

much less be elected. Yeah, you know how I feel about this guy for many different reasons. Character, number one, we've had some unintelligent people in public office before, but unintelligent and of poor character is a terrible combination. I don't need to remind anybody about him pulling guns on women and beating people up and not raising his kids. But in addition to that, you know, he and Tommy Tuberville and, you know, Cindy Hyde Smith and all of these people, it's just ridiculous. It's ridiculous to me that you have a 50-50 race

involving Hershel Walker. That's an indictment of the United States of America right now. That really makes me really depressed about where we are as a country. But it's where we are, and we have to hope and pray and hope that everybody comes out and turns out in order to elect Senator

Raphael Warnock. The thing here, Randy, and the reason why I mean, it is laughable when you watch the video, but when you start talking about the kind of issues that are facing the country, the Land Journal Constitution, I mentioned this yesterday, did a story how he refuses to answer any questions about Ukraine, Russia, the billions of dollars that we have spent, clearly what's happening, the unrest in Haiti. When you talk about the issue of inflation and gas prices, when you begin to talk about Medicaid expansion, you begin to talk about health care. I mean, we can go on and on and on. I mean, this is somebody who literally his answer to the issue of capping insulin at $35 is people should eat better.

Okay. And we could easily say he should speak better. But clearly he's not going back to school. And it's no laughing matter because this is who Republicans have put up. They do not care. They have no problem with him being there because they know that they will be leading him around like somebody who's blind. And he's just going to go, OK, OK, OK. We know this. We do know it. I mean, it's absolutely obvious that everyone knows that he is unqualified.

He can't help lead this country. He couldn't help lead me downstairs to buy a soda. This man is absolutely incompetent. And it's embarrassing that we are a country that we would consider someone like this to lead us. It also shows that the Republicans have no bottom. They just don't care about this country as they, you know, in a way that they should. They have simply gotten a puppet to move about. And I'm just almost speechless. I saw today, you know, speak of his character. Now his another daughter is speaking out about how cruel he was to her mother and how he has been absent in her life. And people are saying,

you're just saying that because you're against Republicans. This is his daughter. When your own flesh and blood says that you are the scum of the earth, what else do you need? What else needs to be said? And I am flabbergasted that people are voting for him, that we are sitting here on the edge of our seats, having to pay attention to this extremely tight race. It does speak a lot about who we are as Americans, how we've fallen,

and how we have lost what's important. You know, Mustafa, I was sitting here thinking about when that idiot Lindsey Graham was on Fox News saying the reason they're attacking Hershel because they don't want young Black kids growing up being Republicans. And I'm like, no, I know a lot of black Republicans. Uh, and a lot, I know a lot of them, they are sane. They can talk. They don't pull guns on their wives. They don't lie about working for the FBI and they sure they don't pull out a fake badge at a debate. But, but, but the, so this has nothing to do with that. But what Republicans in this state have done, they, they've said in order for us to beat a black man, let's go get another black man.

And black folks are not smart enough to discern the difference between the two. And I say, show them on December 6th. Yeah, I agree with you 100 percent. You know, it's really interesting when we look at the candidate that Republicans chose. One, we know that he's a puppet in many instances. We see that when he does interviews, that there is someone to his right and his left in many of those larger sets of interviews that are going on. But then we have to dig a bit deeper, because we understand that the Republicans are not

serious about engaging with African Americans on the issues that are most pressing to us and putting up candidates who would actually give real strategic thought to addressing those issues. What we now have is an individual who is very dangerous for both the state of Georgia and dangerous for the country because of all the very significant issues that we have to be able to navigate, the issues that we're going to have to be able to address, whether it is climate change. There in Georgia, some of the top issues that folks are concerned about are health care, as you mentioned, or housing, jobs, inflation, education, crime, and, of course, democracy. And, of course, we also know that Herschel Walker has not been able to articulate any type of definitive policy on any of those issues. So that says, one, that Republicans don't care about those issues that are impacting our communities

and that they're willing to place anyone in Senate, you're not just representing Georgia. You're casting votes that have an impact on millions of Americans across the country. And you're casting votes that have an impact on millions of people around the world. Because United States senators, I mean, we're dealing with international foreign policy issues. You're talking about individuals who are going to be on committees, who are going to be, you know, whose responsibility is dealing with major decisions, voting on federal judges, sitting on the bench for a lifetime. And so when you talk about the United States Senate,

I mean, the Constitution was written as a way what that was supposed to sort of be that the House of the People's House, essentially, that's where the crazies are. And the sober folks, that's where they go for the United States Senate to be far more deliberate. That's one of the reasons why the House terms are two years. We vote on them every two years. But the U.S. Senate terms are staggered and there's six year terms. And this is, that's one of the things that I keep reiterating, Jason, is that this election is so crucial because whoever wins, they are in that position unless they, unless they resign or pass away, they're in this position for the next six years. Six years. That has to be on the minds of every person. Do I want that person representing me for the next six years in Washington, D.C.?

Absolutely. And this election is incredibly important for Democrats in particular, because the balance, even though there are people out there who say ridiculous things about us not needing Georgia because there's a 50-50 tie in the Senate and, you know, with Kamala Harris, that'll be 51. We have to remember that the party is basically at the whim of Kyrsten Sinema. And if you get Warnock reelected, that takes a little bit of pressure off, and we make her a little less important. And it makes it so that some Democratic agenda items can actually get through without obstruction. So this race is so incredibly important. And U.S. senators, as you just stated, with them in their six-year term and in particular for these next two years, we know after that, I personally believe that Manchin, even though a lot of people have issues with Manchin, I think he's the best you're going to do out of West Virginia. He could be gone, which means the balance of the Senate for these next two years is crucial, incredibly crucial, to block an out-of-control House, what could be an out-of-control Republican House majority right

now if they get past some of the hurdles that they have right now. The Senate is going to be the firewall. And so it's really important right now that Democrats get Raphael Warnock reelected. When you have someone who is as dangerous, not just as a senator, but just as a human being, if you know his story, he's a dangerous person. And why you would put that person who was mercurial in office is beyond me. This is a person who, again, said he wanted to have a shootout with police, put a gun to his wife's head, hasn't raised any of his kids, hasn't seen one of his children in seven years, you know, and yet wants to lecture black men about fatherhood. I haven't heard any of his children say anything good about him. Like, not even like he tucked me in at night or whatever. I haven't heard any of them, including Christian, who we know is pretty much a very far-right reactionary Republican.

Even he has disavowed his father. I think, as your other guest said, we need to listen to his family and what they're saying about him. They've already stated his character, and we know that he is not competent, and he doesn't even live in the state that he's trying to represent. All of this should be disqualifying, and I'm hoping that the state of Georgia steps up and makes it known that we actually want smart, sober-minded senators. Absolutely. All right, folks, got to go to a break. We come back. We're going to talk about Veterans Affairs. That's another one of those issues that House and Senate members vote on,

dealing with how do we take care of our veterans. And a study shows that the VA, how they have been doing a disservice to black veterans for a very very long time we'll discuss that next right here on roller martin unfiltered broadcasting live in Sandersville Georgia download the Black Star Network app apple phone android phone apple tv android tv roku amazon fire tv xbox one samsung smart tv you can also support us by joining our bring the funk fan club if that, we're going to have a video for you. Hopefully, I'm going to look it up. There was a sister who rolled up on me in Atlanta. She saw me, 76-year-old sister. She says, I got to support your show. I'm going to give you money right now.

And literally just handed me $100 to join the Bring the Funk fan club. So Sylvia Stevens, I appreciate that. We'll show you that video with her a little bit later. PO Box 57196, Washington, DC, 20037-0196. Cash, half dollar sign, RM Unfiltered. Paypal is rmartinunfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. Roland at rolandmartinunfiltered.com. And of course, get my book, White Fear,

How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds. Available at bookstores everywhere. Somebody tweeted me today. They said Barnes and Noble show one copy. They, they, she made them look for about 15 minutes to find that one copy before she took her flight to the Bahamas. And so I appreciate that as well. So get all bookstores, Amazon, Barnes and Noble order from your favorite black bookstore. Also download the audio version on Audible. We'll be right back from Sandersville. Y'all can clap.

Is it just me or does it feel like we've been here before? The whole country's finished voting and only us left. You'd think Herschel Walker would want to explain what he'd do in the Senate if he actually wants to represent Georgia. Instead, he repeats the same lies, trying to distract from what we all know is true about him. But I think Georgians will see his abs for what they are. Don't you?

I'm Rafael Warnock, and yes, we're doing this again. That's why I approve this message. On the next Get Wealthy, with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, inflation is on the rise. Interest rates are high. Can you still thrive during these uncertain times? On the next Get Wealthy, you're going to meet a woman who's done just that, living proof of what you need to do to flourish during these uncertain times.

These are times where you take advantage of what's going on. This is how people get rich or richer. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. Mama always said all skin folk ain't kin folk. Georgia, we don't need a senator who's against reparations. Reparations teach separation. Slavery ended over 130 years ago. We don't need this.

I am with many police officers. And we sure don't need this. I want to be a leader like him. Walker wants to be like Trump and will fight harder for him than he will for us. We don't need a Walker. Paid for by Black Voters Matter Action Pack, not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. We welcome the Black Star Network's very own Roland Martin, who joins us to talk about his new book, White

Fear, how the browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. The book explains so much about what we're going through in this country right now and how, as white people head toward becoming a racial minority, it's going to get, well, let's just say even more interesting. We are going to see more violence. We're going to see more vitriol. Because as each day passes, it is a nail in that coffin. The one and only Roland Martin on the next Black Table, right here on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Israel Houghton. Apparently the other message I did was not fun enough.

So this is fun. You are watching. Roland Martin, my man, unfiltered. Folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered here in Sandersville, Georgia. Glad to be here. We'll be chatting in a second with some panelists here about this election that was happening in this state. Glad to see you folks out here as well. Good to see you all on this Tuesday night. Folks, a black Vietnam veteran is suing the Department of Veteran Affairs for racial discrimination.

On behalf of Vietnam veteran Conley Monk Jr., Yale Law School's Veterans Legal Services filed a federal lawsuit alleging Monk was repeatedly denied benefits because he is black. The National Veterans Council for Legal Redress obtained records from veteran affairs and found the denial rate for disability compensation was 5.3 percent higher for black veterans the racial disparity for average acceptance rates was 6.8 percent. Joining us right now is Adam Henderson and Michelle Frayling from Yale Law School's Veterans Legal Services Clinic. Adam and Michelle, thanks a bunch. So this discrepancy, how does the VA explain why blacks are being denied at a higher rate than white veterans? Hi, good to see you tonight. So the VA hasn't really responded yet. They have

administered benefits in a racially discriminatory way for the past—we have data for the past 20 years. But prior to that, there have been widespread speculation that the VA was administering benefits in the VA system. So, we're trying to make Conley Monk, our client, whole for being repeatedly denied over the span of his entire life pretty much veterans' benefits. So this lawsuit is really important in making sure that he Black veterans talking about their experiences with the VA department? Yeah, so Michelle, unfortunately, can't join us tonight. Michelle, unfortunately, you just got me, unfortunately. Yes, we've actually had an outpouring of Black veterans who have reached out to us and who have said, this same sort of thing happened to me, and how can we make it right? And what we're hoping is that if Conley is successful in his lawsuit, that this will open up the legal pathway for more

Black veterans to file similar lawsuits. And in addition, we hope that the VA will make changes to their system so that more black veterans don't have to go through the same discriminatory system that Conley Monk went through. I mean, this sort of reminds me of the NFL concussion lawsuit, where they were using race norming and how black players were being denied. And so here's a perfect example of black folks who served in the military, supposedly fighting for the country in the country, not taking care of them after the fact. Yes, absolutely. So this is something that Mr. Monk talks about all the time. He served honorably in Vietnam and and he served bravely there. And he has been a hero to many other veterans after returning. But when he came back, he was treated differently than possibly his white counterparts. And this is something

that is hugely impactful for black veterans, because if black veterans are denied at a higher rate, that means that they can't build equity in a home. It means that they don't have the same sort of college degrees as white veterans do. So this is generational harm that the VA is causing on black veterans in a similar way to the NFL concussion thing that you mentioned. And I think that point there is important because when you're talking about the issue of generations, now we're talking about economics. And so we saw how African Americans were denied when it came to the GI Bill. And so here is someone where his family is now being impacted by the VA's decisions today. Absolutely. And so it's a multigenerational harm that the VA caused.

And Mr. Monk also filed an administrative claim on behalf of his father, Conley Sr., who served in World War II at the beaches of Normandy. The exact type of veteran who is, you know, maintaining our freedom. However, when Mr. Monk Sr. got back, he was again denied benefits by the VA. So, this is not just Conley Monk Jr., it's Conley Monk Sr., and it's also affecting Conley Monk III and now Conley Monk IV. There is a whole generational line of Black veterans who weren't able to reap the same benefits as their white counterparts were able to. So it's something that is really important. And we're hoping that the VA uses this as an opportunity to sit up, take notice, and really rectify the problems that are very apparent in the VA. So if folks want to reach out to you with this lawsuit, how do they do so?

Right. So right now, this claim is just on behalf of Conley Monk Jr., so it's not a class action or anything like that. However, we would encourage other Black veterans to take a look at Mr. Monk's lawsuit, which is on the Yale Veterans Clinic website. And they can file similar administrative suits and to keep an eye out for how this claim resolved itself. And if this goes as we'd like it to, then hopefully Mr. Monk will provide the legal pathway and other veterans can file similar claims to him. All right, then. Adam Henderson, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Folks, here's what Veterans Affairs Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said. This issue is unacceptable disparities in both VA benefit decisions and military discharge status due to racism. We're actively working to right these wrongs. We are ensuring that our claims process combats institutional racism rather than perpetuating it. Mustafa, I want to start with you. During the 2016 campaign, also 2020, you often heard Mike Pence decry and say, oh, institutional racism did not exist. Of course, we know Donald Trump said the exact same thing. This is also

a constant thing from Republicans as well. This is a perfect example of when we talk about institutional racism, and you literally have one party that believes it doesn't even exist, whereas you have Democrats who say, no, it is real. Yeah, well, we know Mike Pence and his party aren't going to think that racism exists because it hasn't impacted them in the same way that it's impacted communities of color. You know, it's interesting that sometimes we don't understand the significance and the scale of the impacts that are going on in relationship to what's happening with our veterans. We have over 2 million black veterans in our country. Going all the way back, there's still a few folks who are still around from World War II

all the way up to our latest sets of wars. So even if it was 10 percent of the folks, you know, then we're talking about 200,000 or 5 percent, 100,000. And, of course, as was stated, you know, it ties into the generational wealth, but it also ties into power and people being able to actually make the differences inside of their families and inside of their communities. Now, my question is, because when I worked on Capitol Hill, I actually worked on veterans issues and I heard some of the stories and then I had the stories in my family. Where has the inspector general been in making sure there's been real accountability? Because these issues have been raised for a number of years now. And I'm glad that Yale is stepping up and taking the mantle and moving forward. But we also have to ask why this hasn't been addressed in the past.

You know, Randy, you work, you work in DEI and just like, again, you have Republicans who cannot stand, they love, you know, disparaging woke, woke, blaming corporations and saying you've got all the other military being woke. They've criticized the first black secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, saying the exact same thing. But you notice you always, Republicans, love talking about the military, kind of quiet about these Black veterans.

Well, of course. Of course they're quiet. And of course they want us to be asleep. I mean, the opposite of woke is asleep. They don't want us to have this information. One thing that I found very troubling is that some of the statements that have come out have said that they're going to continue to research, you know, what's going on.

And I'm so sick of people doing research. They've had studies that have shown that black veterans have been treated poorly since the beginning of time, after every conflict, while they're in the military and when they get out. There have been reports that have been published by the Justice Department that have essentially talked about the lynching of Black veterans. And so why do we need to continue to look into it? Why don't we just own it, right? That's what wokeness is. Why don't we just own that there is an issue and fix it? And the reason why it's not being fixed is because so many people don't care. They don't care about the fact that Black veterans aren't getting

the same health benefits. They aren't, like you said, they're not getting the same loans. It affects generations. And it's particularly sad when joining the military has been such a vehicle for Black Americans to get out of poverty.

But it seems that many people are determined to keep us right there. And Jason, when we talk about, again, the notion of equality, that's really what folks are talking about. If you are standing next to somebody and both of y'all are taking bullets, I shouldn't come back home and not be compensated, but the person next to me is who's white. Right. This is an issue that really means something to me. My mother served. Her brother served. I have so many people in my family who have been in uniform

and some of my best friends have just come home from war just a few years ago. So this is something that I take very personally. And I've seen actually people who have told me that they tried to use a VA home loan and had it rejected and said it was a special loan. And they've come up with all these hoops where you can't even use your VA special loan. And they've come up with all these hoops where you can't even use your VA home loan. And some of these people are like, what did I get shot at before? What was I going through all this for if I can't even use this to benefit myself and benefit my family and put them in a different place? I hope that this moves forward into a class action suit, that they find other veterans. And that's why I'm grateful for this platform, for people to actually see that this is going on, see that Mr. Monk is actually filing a lawsuit.

And hopefully others will come forward and you will get groups and groups so that you can get. And here comes the word that I'm sure everybody's been waiting for, and that is reparations for these veterans, because they obviously were not getting what was due them. And what we know, one thing throughout American history, African Americans have served in every military conflict this country has ever had. Why is it that our country can't turn around and serve them back? And so we need to rectify that. Just like Hershel Walker said, well, it was 150 years ago that slavery ended. Well, in that case, we have all of these military conflicts and we have people who are serving the military right now who are still

not being made whole and done right by our federal government. And in terms of a woke military, I just want to say extremism in the military, as you talked about in your book, you know, there is extremism in the military. The people that you see on the cover of your book from January 6th, a lot of them are military veterans. So if the military doesn't get woke, then you're going to end up with all of the things you saw, the foundations of the Ku Klux Klan. Guess what they were? Confederate veterans. What was Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marine Corps veteran, the person who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church, a Marine Corps veteran, the person, Timothy McVeigh, a Army veteran with Ranger training. So if we don't actually get serious about extremism in the military and maybe get a little bit of that wokeness, then we are going to be in store for more of those kinds of events in the future. Well, absolutely.

And you got to focus in this country, in this state, who still are trying to hold on to that old past. As I was driving here, we were about 30 minutes away. I don't even know what city we were in. They had this war memorial. And what was interesting, as we were driving by, I said, oh, I guarantee that's a Confederate monument. And then we got to the front, and then I saw it, and it says, Our Confederate Dead. That was the statue. Now, they erected these other monuments. They said World War I, World War II, and Vietnam.

They were obviously newer, but clearly the largest one was a Confederate monument. And I said, those are domestic terrorists that this nation and this state is honoring. And that's just a fact. And when you talk about the criticism of the military today, you're right. And when a bill went before Congress to combat extremism and these white supremacists in the nation's law enforcement and military, Republicans voted against that bill, did not want that to be targeted. And so we have to understand that that's what you're dealing with. And so you have people who so-called say, oh, you're not an American. We should honor all veterans, but they don't necessarily love all veterans.

They look like us. And so that is a fact there. Going to go to a break. We come back. We got more headlines. And we're going to talk to our panel here in Sandersville, talk about this election. They got lots to say. We look forward to hearing what they have to say about the issues that are important

and what they want to see out of their United States senator. It's Warnock Walker here in Georgia, three days before early voting ends. The election is on Tuesday, December 6th. We'll be right back on Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Don't wait till November 8th. We can vote today. Your early vote started this week.

We're on Savannah State University's campus. We'll be dorm storming today, giving out treats for everyone. We hope to see everyone at the polls when it comes to November 8th. If you believe we've got power, let them know. Make some noise. Put a fist up. I need to see a fist in the air, because we've got power. Come on, you put it up.

Come get your shirt. We're out here in the streets of Savannah, Georgia. James, do not forget to go vote. I got you. If we vote, the right people in. We can make a change. We can get these resources in our community. I am a woman and it is important that we have the say-so

of what we want to do with our bodies. We're concentrating on entrepreneurism, providing young people with resources and training that they need in order to change their trajectories. We want black down. Democracy's on the ballot. Voting rights is on the ballot. Voting suppression is on the ballot.

I am most passionate about those three combined because they all impact each other. Savannah is my home. I care about my community, and I care about representation in my community. Our voices are still going to be heard no matter what kind of obstacles try to come up against us to stop us from voting.

We're still going to be standing our ground. I see the effort that's being made to keep our communities from voting. So that makes me realize it's even more important, because if it wasn't important, they would be fighting to make sure we could vote. This doesn't stop this year. This is a forever movement.

We're going to exert our power as a people, walk in our rightful place. We're going to change our communities, fight for our communities, and build our communities. On the next A Balanced Life, with me dr jackie tis the season tree trimming party going and gift giving and i don't know about you but for me sometimes it can be overwhelming and sometimes it's just downright exhausting surviving the holiday season we got tips for you for staying sane, solvent, striving, and thriving, and sometimes keeping a little money in your pocket.

Two things just out of the gate. Set boundaries and set a budget. On a next A Balanced Life right here on Blackstar Network with me, Dr. Jackie. Hi, I'm Teresa Griffin. Hi, my'm Teresa Griffin. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Iona McLean has been missing from Chesterfield, Virginia since August 6th. The 15-year-old may need medical attention.

She's 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs 123 pounds with black hair and gray eyes. Tyana has a hoop ring on one side of her nose and a stud ring on the other side. She's 5 feet 9 inches tall, weighs 123 pounds with black hair and gray eyes. Tiana has a hoop ring on one side of her nose and a stud ring on the other side. Anyone with information regarding Tiana McLean should call the Chesterfield County Virginia Police Department at 804-748-1251. 804-748-1251, 804-748-1251. The trial of former Fort Worth police officer Aaron Dean and the fatal shooting of Antiana Jefferson has started. Jury selection continued today after several delays. Dean is charged with murdering Jefferson, who was fatally shot inside her Fort Worth, Texas home in 2019. Body camera footage shows Dean approached the house without knocking or identifying himself as a police officer before he fired one shot killing

Jefferson. Dean's lawyers asked the judge to move the trial location to Monday due to its high-profile nature. The judge has yet to rule on that particular motion. Testimony will be expected to begin on Monday. Two Colorado police officers are indicted after the fatal shooting of a man who called 911 for help. A 5th Judicial District Court indicted former Clear Creek County Sheriff's deputies Andrew Bruin and Kyle Gold for the fatal shooting of Christian Glass in June. Glass was having a mental health emergency when he called 911 after his car became stuck on a mountain road. Glass was asked to exit his vehicle when he told officers he was scared to do so. The officers tried to forcibly remove him when Glass brandished a rock knife and cut himself with it. Officers then fired bean bags and bullets into the car, killing him.

Boyan is charged with second-degree murder, official misconduct, and reckless endangerment. Gould is charged with criminally negligent homicide and reckless endangerment. Let's go to Louisiana, where a federal civil lawsuit has been filed against the Louisiana city of Bogalusa following the in-custody death of Eric Nelson Sr. His family says law enforcement violated his civil rights. Now, officers took Nelson Sr. into custody in December for outstanding warrants for following a car crash. He was then tased when he attempted to run. Nelson died following the incident. The mayor-elect is urging Police Chief Kendall Bullen to resign in response to the federal lawsuit. Bullen declined to comment earlier on the particular lawsuit.

Speaking of lawsuits, Brett Favre is now asking to be removed from a lawsuit dealing with welfare fraud in Mississippi. Now, remember, the former Green Bay Packers quarterback is trying to get the judge to remove him from the state's most significant public corruption case. An attorney for Favre accused the Department of Human Services of improperly and unlawfully providing the funds. Mississippi Department of Human Services seeks to recover $77 million in misspent welfare funds from 38 defendants and nonprofits. Favre was not facing any criminal charges but is accused of receiving $1.1 million in welfare funds for speeches he allegedly never made. Involvement in the University of Southern Mississippi receiving $5 million of welfare aid for a new gym and misappropriating funds for investing them in a concussion drug company that actually overstated and lied about the results of their job. Now, Favre has repaid the money he received, but still owes $228,000 in interest. So this is where I'm sort of confused, Mustafa. How do you act like you did nothing wrong when you know you didn't give the speeches,

but you took the money? You know, that's that white privilege. It actually, you know, kind of changes the way that the folks see the world, especially the individuals who are being the ones who are receiving the benefits from that. You know, it's interesting. Brett Favre has, you know, top attorneys. He has top accountants. He has advisors. So when he says that he didn't know, I find it hard to understand and to believe that that's even possible when you have those types of individuals that are surrounding you. You know, my grandmother says when you know better, do better. Evidently, he's just now finding out what knowing better is. So a part of being able to do better is actually being held accountable for all the folks that you took resources away from when you received those when others who probably needed them so much more, especially in the state of Mississippi. It's amazing, Randy, to listen to all of these people provide all of these excuses

when they were knowingly using money meant for the poorest of the poor to help rich white folks like Brett Favre. And I don't think he's alarmed by it because I think that it's business as usual. I think that when you are in that network, the old boy network where you're used to making deals, it's just a way of life for them. He very much knew what was going on. He's not, just like you said, if you know you haven't made speeches that you're getting paid for, you're aware of that. And they did uncover some texts where he essentially said, you know, this is good, right? Like this is, we won't get caught essentially is

what the text suggests. So, I mean, he's a criminal. I mean, if we're honest about it, he's a criminal. And it really just, when you're, like you said, stealing from the poorest of poor, I mean, people in Mississippi do not have water. I mean, yes, there have been, there's been attention paid to it because of Deion Sanders, but this is the water crisis is nothing new. And here, this man who's already wealthy is stealing money. So it's not right. Jason, again, looking at this, it shows you just how nonsensical this is. But it also shows you how Mississippi actually feels about the poor. They have the highest, the highest turndown rate in any state.

They literally, they very rarely actually reward folks or award folks federal money. Yeah, I'll tell you what really frustrates me about this, Roland. Number one, I know that Brett Favre, with the connections that he has, he could pick up the phone call and make probably, pick up the phone and make probably three calls and raise a million dollars. He didn't need to do this. You know, he could, you know, for these gyms at Southern Mississippi. He really didn't need to do this. He could have made a couple phone calls and people would write him checks. He's Brett Favre. He's connected that way.

People want to be close to athletes. There's no question he could have raised that money really easily. The other thing is, I recall Jameis Winston sold stole allegedly something like twenty dollars worth of crab legs. And the media went after Jameis Winston like they had the knives out for that guy like he had stolen from welfare. But instead, Brett Favre has kind of crept under the radar. He still owes $200,000 and still won't pay. And, you know, is trying to get judges to drop, you know, any kind of lawsuit. So he has no accountability. But yet the sports media has moved on. But for months, they went after Jameis Winston

over some crab legs. Now, I'm not saying he should have taken the crab legs. Not sure that he actually took them or not. But the point is, the way we talk about black athletes for these small issues versus someone like Brett Favre, who, again, there's no talk about, you know, we see Barry Bonds is probably not going to make the Hall of Fame.

No one's talking about, hey, should Brett Favre be in the Hall of Fame after he took all of that money from the poorest citizens in the poorest state? I haven't heard anybody think about that. All of a sudden, it's all about what happened on the field. So, you know, all of this kind of frustrates me. But, you know, these are the things, as Mustafa said, you know, that people like Brett Favre seem to get away from. And, you know, I don't even know if we can call Brett Favre white. He looks pink to me. You know, he always looks flush. But whatever he is, he seems to get away with these things. Mr. Orange is he's a big Donald Trump supporter yes right exactly right there you go all right

Jason, Randy, Mustafa I appreciate y'all being on today's show thank you so very much uh folks when we come back from our break we're going to talk to our panel here uh in St. Louisville Georgia about this, what they're seeing, what they're hearing. And I definitely want to know how folks, are people in this city excited to vote and what is happening? Are folks really focused on this runoff election between incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock and Mushmouth? We'll be right back on Rollerball and Unfiltered on the black star network

is it just me or does it feel like we've been here before the whole country's finished voting and only us left you think herschel walker would want to explain what he'd do in the senate if he actually wants to represent Georgia. Instead, he repeats the same lies, trying to distract from what we all know is true about him. But I think Georgians will see his abs for what they are. Don't you? I'm Rafael Warnock, and yes, we're doing this again. I am on screen, and I am representing

what a black man is to the entire world that's going to see this. And this might be the only black man, a representation of a black man that they see. Right. So I am responsible. Right. For how they see black men.

And it's my responsibility to, if I am not playing an upstanding, honorable, someone with a strong principle of moral core, to make sure that this character is so specific... Right. ...that it is him, not black men. And I wish that more actors would realize how important their position is as an actor,

as an actor of color playing people of color on screen. Because there are people that see us all over the world Their position is as an actor, as an actor of color, playing people of color on screen. Because there are people that see us all over the world in these different images that we portray. And not everyone knows black people to know. Yes. That's not all. Carl Payne pretended to be Roland Martin. Holla!

Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Sandersville, Georgia. Glad to be here. Glad to see folks out here. They still out there waiting on their wings? All right, y'all, so all the seats were filled, and all of a sudden somebody came in, they said wings ready and half the folks left.

So there's a food truck outside where they're getting their hot wings and their french fries. And so I'll pass up on the fries. I had my salad earlier because, you know, when you're on the road, you can't be trying to sit here and you gain weight real quick. So I had the salad early, but I hit the protein later. So I do the wings, but we'll eat the fries. All right. So let's introduce our panel here. Let's see. First off on the far, far left over here, Quentin Howell, host of Love 103.7, chairman of the Baldwin County, Georgia Democratic Committee. Cassandra Warfin Jackson, community activist, owner, reliable transport, level up.

First of all, how many titles we got here? Okay, we got reliable transport, level up tax prep, and saucy seafood and more. What's more? We already got three different things right here. I just... Tabitha Johnson-Green, Democratic nominee for Georgia's 10th congressional district. Kristi Jenkins, Washington County Georgia school board, district 2 elect. David Lucas, Georgia center, district 26. Good to see him. We were down where we were?

Statesboro and Swainsboro. He was with us. Marion Warren, President, Hancock County, Georgia Democratic Club. Helen Butler, Executive Director of the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda. Lakeland Barnes, County Coordinator, Georgia Shift. All right. Glad to see everybody here. And I started with this last night, and I would love to get just y'all thoughts on this. Folks, let me know if y'all have that. Get that sound bite ready when Mush Mouth was talking about 18 to 30-year-old voters.

And it is still unbelievable to me to listen. I don't know who Hershel Walker was talking to, but to listen to them complain about voters born after 1990 and the man literally said that they have not earned the right to change this country. Do y'all have, y'all got the video ready? If y'all got the video ready, go ahead and press play. We got it. All right, press play. How do you feel about people that want to change America from when you and I were kids. I mean, there's, you know, we have, I guess it's 80 to 90 or 70 to 80 million people in America that were born after 1990.

So these are kids who, you know, who grew up, you know, when they were 10 years of age with the real beginning of the computers and the internet at home. So they don't know the world that we know pre-Internet. They don't know that the bullying was not really— we may have been bullied when we were kids, you know, in a class or teased and things like that, but not the type of culture that these kids have with the Internet today. What do you say to those kids and those young people that are voting? Well, first of all, they don't know that the grass is not green on the other side, that they think they're somewhere better.

And if they know another place is better than the United States of America, my thing is, why don't you go there or tell me, let me know who that is, because I can tell them right now that's not. I think our biggest problem is we've not shown our kids that most of the people today hadn't earned the right to change America. And what I mean by that, there are people that have died. I'm not giving their life up. There are people that have given their life up for this flag. They've given their life up for the national anthem. They've given their life up for our freedom and these liberties that we have in this country today. And we're taking it for granted. Well, I don't want that to happen. And I'm saying, and I'm not being tough. I'm saying, if you know a place better, you go there, but you lose your citizenship here in the United States of America.

And then when you come back, you got to come back legally, like we should be defending the border. We should be defending the border. Okay. I told y'all, this is like the third time I played it it and I have no idea what the hell he's talking about. Lately, I'll start with you because what I think what offends me the most, what offends me the most after hearing it again when he said people have died for our rights and freedom. And I'm sitting here going,

you mean like Jimmie Lee Jackson and Selma? You mean like Cheney Sharona Goodman? You mean like the folks who were beaten? You mean what Bloody Sunday? We can go on and on and on, and those were young people. When we talk about the children who were hit with the fire hoses and the dogs in Birmingham, we can talk about the Albany movement that took place here as well. We can talk about the Nashville movement.

We can talk about North Carolina A&T and the boycott started there of lunch counters by four college freshmen. Those were folks who were in the same age group. And so really what they are offended by, they are offended that there is a generation of people who do not like what has happened in this country and they have rejected largely republican policies hello can y'all hear me can y'all hear me now okay that's better that's better um i think the thing that upsets me is the

audacity of him to say you know that we don't have a right to change the country when we're the ones inheriting the country. So we're going to be the ones who live because he's 60 years old. The average lifespan for a male in America, especially a black man, is no longer than 80. So for you to say that we don't get to change this country when you're not going to be the one to see the repercussions of your actions is baffling to me. And I think that also speaks to how young people don't feel comfortable enough to vote now. When you tell us we don't have the authority to change our country, when you tell us that our voice doesn't matter, we take that and we run with it. Because if you're telling us our voice don't matter and then you suppress our votes, you're not just telling us, but you're showing us that we don't matter. And if you want to see a different America, you have to include young people because we're the

ones who are going to build the infrastructure. We're the ones who have the energy. We're the ones who can go and do the things that our older people cannot do. You know, you all give us the wisdom, but we put the power behind the wisdom. So when you neglect us, you're neglecting not just us, but the generation before us. And so for him to say what he said just lets me know that he's not a progressive person and that he's not even someone who actually cares about bettering America. He simply cares about pandering to people to get votes because Georgia has shown itself to be a progressive state. If we choose him, we'll be a regressive state. And I don't think that's what Georgia wants.

But, Helen, what really, again, bothers me is that when you have that sentiment, so when you say you want to represent all Georgians, what you basically just said is if you're 18 or 32, I ain't talking about you. I'm talking about everybody else. But when that age group is actually now the largest demographic in America. Oh, Roland, you are so right about that. now the largest demographic in America. Oh, Roland, you are so right about that. And I'm talking about, and Herschel talked about, he was a part of the armed services. Well, I think we were recruiting people at... I don't know which armed services he was a part of. Am I right?

I don't know which, I don't know. Did he actually serve? No! According to... I don't know which, I don't know. Did he actually serve? That's right. He was an FBI agent. Oh, that's right. That's a lie. He was in law enforcement. Okay, that's right.

That's a lie. That's three lies right there. But he does so much for veterans. The idea is if you're going to talk about people, all people, and represent all people, you can't leave out anyone in this country. If you look at the voting statistics, I want all young people, I want to give them a big shout out because you showed up and you've done your job. They made the difference. because you showed up and you done your job. They made the difference. You named all the children in the Civil Rights Movement.

I worked with a lot of the civil rights giants, Dr. Lowry, C.T. Martin, John Lewis, all of those. But the idea was young people gave their lives for this country to make a difference. The little girls were bombed in Birmingham. So it's all of those, Jimmy Lee Jackson, all of those that have made a difference and you see young people now that are standing up and like Mary Pat Hector, these young people here that are standing up to make a difference for their country. Let's ask Herschel, is he going to stand up and make a difference?

Christy? I think for me, young people are needed. And I know for me, just growing up, all I've for me, young people are needed. And I know for me, just growing up, all I've ever seen, even in the history books that I've learned, all I've ever seen were young people in action. All I've ever seen, the images that stand out to me are images of children, 4, 5, and 6, all the way up to 16, 17, and 18. Like you have people taking walkouts during school or whatnot to stand up for what they believe in,

and for him to just sit up here and say that that particular age group does not matter, it again shows another level of his ignorance. The Bible speaks a lot of the strength of the young men, or the strength of the young, and to put down this particular age group that is absolutely necessary to what my sister was saying, to push forth our freedom, to push forth things that we believe in, to push forth our voting rights. You know, we have the wisdom that comes from the elders, but we have the strength that comes from this particular age group that he's putting down. So I think that this just shows one more time of his ignorance and his inability to do this job effectively.

You know, when we start talking about these issues, and folks, let me know know uh control room when y'all have that that soundbite of newt gingrich uh newt gingrich did an interview where he literally was talking about uh how herschel is the type of african-american needed i i'm lord have mercy lord have mercy but did but but look baby you know newt he's still stuck remember he's the same one left left the wife in the hospital left her for the for the side piece uh while the wife was in the hospital but that's how newt rolls uh and and and the thing for me the thing for me um again we talk about the issues, Mary, and I want to speak to this, again, you're not hearing, you're hearing one candidate literally talk about the issue like no attempt at all to speak to the issues of residents. What do you want to hear that you're not hearing?

Marion? Or Quentin, you can answer that too. And that is, again, you have one candidate, Warnock, who's actually talking about the issues. Another one who's really just focused on sort of the culture wars and who's purposely avoiding a lot of the industry. They're telling you the same thing over and over, and I hear it consistently. If you don't know it's right here, then you're over. If you don't know it's right here, then you're over. And they're going to say what you're going to say.

It's all of us. They're underpassing. So even at this point, I hear all these little gags and these horrific things they're saying, dispersion on young people. You know, we've got to remember there's one greatest speech's ever gave about Dr.

Martin Luther King. We know from 35, 35, I have a good speech. He didn't even make it before that. Young men's always done the work. I don't see him having the ability to speak. I don't see him having the ability to speak. Unfortunately. But he filled the role of doing what they wanted him to do.

I think throughout our history, we I had people in our community, there's been that new boy type of person, that will do whatever, that will do whatever Master said. Whatever Ball says, we're going to do. Well, what did he say first before we do it? And unfortunately, we're still seeing that carry on now. And the unfortunate part is, this is one of the first times in recent memory where that type of person could have a decision making over our lives as a united states senator and he's

running neck and neck with someone who's overly qualified for the position the sadder part to that for me is we didn't have more people who look like me who feel like this come out and keep us from being in the runoff a few weeks ago right i don't know if the problem is on hershel walker or his supporters or the problem because one i got was it 49.42 49 to 48 percent yeah well i'm gonna say it was 49.42 and he picked up again just another half a point he wins yes so where does the problem in the owners going i mean at some point i expect the dubor i expect mr walker i expect that side to do what they're doing. But I have to look and see what I expect from my side, what I expect from my people.

I'm looking for some roomfuls, some standing rooms only. What was the turnout here? Here in Washington County, the African Americans voted at 48 percent and the Caucasians voted at 49 percent. But Republicans won this county by 52%. Hold on, hold on. See, you went too fast. You went too fast. Oh, I'm sorry.

So, okay. So, I like to deal with numbers. Yes, sir. And so, how many people in this county? Mr. Bain? 25,000. 25,000. Is that eligible voters?

Citizens. Sandersville has 6,000. Hold on one second. Give the microphone so the folks at home can't hear you. I can hear you, but people that are watching at home can't hear you. So you said the county has 25,000. Yes. Sandersville has 6,000 residents. Around 6,000 residents. What's the black percentage in the county? The black percentage in the county is 51%. The city is 61%. So we're still begging for crumbs when we don't have to, when we own the whole pie. That's the problem. So of the eligible black voters in this county, only 48% voted.

Yes, sir. And I can give you a hard number. It was 4,000-some-odd whites voted, 4,000-some-odd blacks voted. The difference in whites and black vote was around 100 votes. So more whites voted in the general election than African Americans. Wow, there's more African Americans. But there are more African Americans who are registered in this county. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. See, that's the thing, David, right there that I keep harping on on my show,

and that is when we actually vote our numbers, we change elections. If we are voting at 65, 70, 75%, because the reality is every election, in terms of nationally, there are more white voters than everyone else. Last election, it was about 71% of the total electorate were white, which means that we have to over-index, meaning we can't vote the same as them. If we vote at 65%, 70%, 75%, we change elections.

And so, you know, what does it take to your thoughts to get us there? I mean, is it a matter of, again, just, you know, more grassroots action? But what is it to get us there? Because there's no way in the world you should have a majority. But then you don't have a majority of folks voting. Yeah, it's on. It's on. All right, let's switch. Let's take the second microphone right there.

Now, y'all test all these microphones? What we've got to do is turn out like we did back in the days when the dog was sick, don't you? We marched and said, we ain't going to let nobody turn us around. We were serious then. And black folks knew the dangers up even though it wasn't so-called all educated people. There were people who were maids and janitors that they couldn't afford to lose a job and were sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I always said, boots on the ground,

where you're knocking on doors and finding out whether John voted or whether Miss Jane voted, you get them and you haul them to the polls and sit down with them, go in there and vote, and if you need some help, I'll help. But more than that, Roland, we're looking at a person. I cringe every time I see him on television and he put a mic in his face. I play football, and I'm pretty good at it.

But I got a concussion But I got a concussion. I got a concussion. I got knocked out. It took me a while to get over that, about three or four days. What I think is wrong with Hershen, he's got a concussion and it's a lingering concussion. I want to stay on this point in terms of, again, mobilizing our folks. So what is happening? Okay, so those were the jury election numbers.

You know, what is happening right now in terms of what is happening here? Let's see here. First of all, let's see. Cassandra, you haven't spoken as well. And I think Tabitha, you haven't spoken. So I want to hear both of you. What is happening now? Are folks aggressively – you can pull the number up and see who didn't actually vote.

Is that happening, and how are folks responding? I think folks are aggressively voting, and they're excited about this runoff. So it's judging by the numbers and the record-breaking numbers we've had in early voting so far. So, people are excited, especially our 18 and 24 year olds. They're coming out in record numbers because they're realizing the importance of voting and they're realizing that the vote is our voice and that they can change the trajectory of future generations to come by voting? I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but I believe in saying what's true.

Young people are not excited. Let me take that back. Statewide, maybe they're excited about voting, but not here where I live. And I'm most concerned about what goes on where I live, because this is where my children live, and this is where they're going to be affected most. 2020, no, in May, there was 1,900 people between the ages of 18 and 41 or 42, I think, that did not vote. I had the list, and I went down the list. Most of those people, I think we probably counted about 30 that did not look like us. And so the rest of them, still 1,900 people that look like us that did not vote. I don't know what it's going to take to get our people to get excited about voting.

Yeah, I know that we have a lot of politicians who when they're running, when they put the name in the hat, you can't turn for them. They're offering to buy you lunch, they're offering to buy your dinner, but then as soon as they are voted in, you don't see them until it's time for them to be re-elected. But I want you to stay there, though, because the thing that I keep saying is that the election is the end of one process

at the beginning of another, which means that if we can't just be mobilized to vote, we have to stay mobilized to then put pressure on them after the election is over. And so that's where, to your point, what is required of us, and I've heard people say, well, other groups don't have to do that. Well, that's actually not true.

I mean, I've seen, I mean, I was talking to a brother, he just got elected mayor in North Carolina, a town that was 90% black with a white Republican mayor. And, yeah, and he beat him, got 75% of the vote. Small town, I think it was Enfield, North Carolina. And he literally said, he said, we never, he said, we didn't even show up to the city council meetings. And African-Americans, super majority in the city. And so I think that's a part of it, part of it as well, keeping people mobilized and say, no, we got to be at school board, got to be at city council meeting, county commissioners meeting, got to be going to the state Capitol as well.

And so if you saw that list of 1900, okay, well, who then is trying to reach them and give and give me an example of what those conversations are like because again it's sort of like you got people saying well things aren't changing yeah but you aren't doing anything to actually change it so you're complaining about it but you're doing nothing to actually fix the problem. Is that happening? Are these conversations happening? Is there an effort to reach them to talk to them? Yeah. Well, I can say.

She said yes. The one down here said no. Okay. So I can say that, yes, I am. I am actually a ‑‑ I serve right now with the Georgia Democratic Party, but that's as much as I can say on that. I organize with the NAACP, used to organize with NAACP, with our local Democratic Party, and we push heavily.

Hey, let's get out the vote. But unfortunately, and I'm just going to say it like it is, we can't get people out unless we order a plate of food. It's like we have to offer them an incentive. But when Herschel said, you know, young people don't have the right to vote, from where I'm sitting now, young people have never had to ask, can I have a drink of water? Can I come through the front door? So it's like, they don't have a reason. There's, there's nothing that they can see right now where they, I need to go vote. There's nothing. So I don't, I don't know. Quentin T. Howell and I, I don't know. We, I've just reached the point where I just don't know. Quentin T. Howell and I, I don't know.

I've just reached the point where I just don't know. Yeah, go ahead. I do want to speak on that as well. The young people that I've engaged with, they are excited. They want people to listen to their concerns and their needs. And so I am that listening ear. And also, they want people to feel like they care about their needs and their interests. So the young people that I've engaged are excited about voting, those 18 to 24 year olds, all the way up to 30. And actually, I've

talked to a lot of young people that are interested in the political process and want to start groups here in Washington County to encourage more Democratic voters. Well, and I think I think I think part of the thing is that we what we have to do is and this really is a piece. First of all, if you look at the numbers, more black voters, older black voters, 65 plus, self-identify as Democrats. If you go down the number, folks no longer self-identify. That's just a fact. But then when you also look at the same numbers, who votes the highest? 65 plus. As you go down, that number drops.

And so I think what has to happen is I think our conversation can't be young voters don't care. That also says to me that those who birthed them did not also do what they were supposed to do. And so now, which now means we now have to not have a they don't care about voting conversation, but have strategies on what we have to do to get them to care. You want to go ahead and speak? Yes, sir. You stole part of my thunder, because I think we forget what a young voter is. I think we completely forget that is.

And you just said that the average age of a voter is 65 years old. If you're 45, you're considered a young voter. I mean, you know, being realistic and no, if you look at the numbers in the state of Georgia, midterm election, if you look in the 2020 election and where we break it down from the democratic standpoint or political standpoint, 29 to 18 or 39 to 30, it's very, very low numbers across the board. We have multiple problems. I'm not saying we don't have pockets of young people. I'm not saying we don't have pockets of our seniors or other people who are engaged that get certain ones there. God bless their hearts.

But overall, no. You can't even expect a lot of politicians to put a lot of emphasis on a, I don't know, a group of 25-year-olds when he might get 10 people out of there in an hour, where he can get 35 out of there. Oh, very true. I remember I interviewed Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. And there were a group of young voters who came to him and they said, man, if you don't do this, this, this, we're going to put you out of office. He said, I don't give a damn what y'all think. He literally said, you see that building right there? And it was a high rise. He said, it's a bunch of old people in that building.

He said, all them vote. He said, y'all ain't going to do nothing. I listened to all of them. He said, because they're going to roll up in their walkers, in their scooters, in their oxygen tanks. He said, they're going to vote. in their walkers, in their scooters, in their oxygen tanks. He said, they're going to vote. And the young voters got upset, and he was trying to explain to them, he said, if you are not actually voting your numbers,

no one will actually listen to you. But I want to put it in context, and you want to jump in. So you mentioned 1900. So let me put this in context. Biden Harris wins Georgia by 11000 votes. That list that you gave represents almost 20 percent of their victory. And I think that's because I think what happens is, and I guarantee you somebody here is thinking, man, look, it's only 25,000 people in the county. It's only 6,000 in the city. Obama wins North Carolina in 2008 by 14,100 votes. Sherry Beasley loses the chief justice of the Supreme Court in North Carolina in 2020 by 401 votes. And so I think what we have to do is we have to literally, I think, have citizenship training classes. I think we have to go back to the

basics and we got to stop assuming that people learn civics in school because on my show every day I'm walking people through who have no idea how this is connected to this is connected to this i think i think the education piece is a part of that go right ahead um i think the conversation like you said it can't be that they don't vote or they're not energized to vote because if you pay attention to the political landscape, it's changing because people from my age demographic are actually going out to vote. So it's not that we're not excited. I think the conversation has to go from, um, why aren't you voting to what aren't we hearing? Because a lot of times we vote in our issues don't matter. When you say that we,

um, haven't experienced dogs being sicked on us or things like that, we haven't experienced physical violence on that level at all. But what we have experienced was the abortion ban in Georgia. That affected people like us, especially young black women who look like me. Gun violence. We've been affected by a lot of different things, so we don't have to get dogs to be sick on us for us to understand that there's a problem in Georgia. We know that there's a problem in Georgia. We know that there's a problem in

Georgia, but until we can figure out how to reach young people, because right now the education system is trash in Georgia. We are not, Georgia used to, when I was in school at least, my school used to be one of the top schools in Georgia. It has went down to one of the bottom. And that's because the education system in Georgia is lacking. We don't learn things in school. So when you fault us for not understanding what it means to vote, because we see our grandmas voting, we see our mothers voting, we see our fathers voting, our uncles and our cousins,

and nothing changes for our community. So now we're not saying that we don't want to vote. What we are saying is how can we make sure that our vote is impactful? And we have not been able to see that yet. So as we can, until we can understand what our impact is, then we'll really hit the post. But we're having those conversations. Those people that they talk about on the corner, you know, Peanut and them on the corner, they're having these conversations. They're talking about Warnock and Herschel.

They're doing these things. So it's not that peopleock and Herschel. They're doing these things. So it's not that people aren't talking about it. It's not that people aren't energized. It's just that we don't understand or we don't see the impact that we're trying to make. Hold tight one second. I'm going to go to a break. I'm going to come back to you. And you can come back from the break.

Folks, we're here in Sandersville, Georgia. We're going to take a break right now. Yeah, y'all get these microphones straight. And do me a favor. Y'all watching on YouTube, Twitch, Black Star Network, Instagram, hit that Like button, Share button. A lot of y'all comment on YouTube right now, but you ain't hitting the Like button.

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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. State University's campus. We will be dorm storming today, giving out treats for everyone. We hope to see everyone at the polls when it comes time to run. If you believe we got power, let them know. Make some noise. Put a fist up. I need to see a fist in the air because we got power. Come on, you put it up. Come get your shirt. We're out here in the streets of Savannah, Georgia. James, do not forget to go vote. I got you. If we vote, the right people in. We can make a change.

We can get these resources in our community. I am a woman, and it is important that we have the say-so of what we want to do with our bodies. We're concentrating on entrepreneurism, providing young people with resources and training that they need in order to change their trajectories. We want black down. Democracy is on the ballot.

Voting rights is on the ballot. Voting suppression is on the ballot. I am most passionate about those three combined because they all impact each other. Savannah is my home. I care about my community and I care about representation in my community. Our voices are still going to be heard no matter what kind of obstacles try to come up against us to stop us from voting, we're still going to be standing our ground. I see the effort that's being made to keep

our communities from voting. So that makes me realize it's even more important, because if it wasn't important, they wouldn't be fighting to make sure we could vote. This doesn't stop this year. This is a forever movement. We're going to exert our power as a people, walk in our rightful place. We're going to change our communities, fight for our communities, and build our communities. We're all impacted by the culture,

whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives, and we're going to talk about it every day, right here on The Culture, with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Mama always said all skinfolk ain't kinfolk. Georgia, we don't need a senator who's against reparations.

Reparations teach separation. Slavery ended over 130 years ago. We don't need this. I am with many police officers. ago. We don't need this. I am with many police officers. And we sure don't need this. I want to be a leader like him. Walker wants to be like Trump and will fight harder for him than he will for us. We don't need a Walker.

Paid for by Black Voters Matter Action Pack. Not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. So this is Roger Bob. I got a message for Roland Mascot. Oh, I'm sorry, Ascot Martin. Buddy, you're supposed to be hooking me up with some of these mascots. I'm sorry, ascots that you claim to wear.

Where's mine, buddy? Hey, yo, peace, world. What's going on? It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devon, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Sandersville, Georgia. We're talking about this runoff election going on. We were having a conversation before the break about, again, how do we engage engage african-american voters especially especially young voters walking them through the issues uh senator you want to

comment go right ahead and then i'm going to go to uh christy next right gotcha go ahead when we had surrogated school black history was taught in the school. You knew what happened during the Civil Rights Movement. You saw it on black and white television in Birmingham with Bull, Conner, and the German Shepherds being sick on the folks at the fire hole. You knew about the bombing in Birmingham. And then a lot of black parents took the hands of their kids when they voted and took them with them to vote. See these young kids don't know anything about black and white on the bathroom door.

They don't know nothing about Woolworth. You could go to the bank but you could go through the front door to get nothing to sit at the counter I remember that I remember that and so when we talk about it when they integrated school that's where they came up with this CRT critical race theory ain't no race theory. It's about history. What happened to your folks back during the day when they were trying to get the privilege to vote?

Because it is a privilege. You commit a felony, you can't vote. And so what happens is it's not being taught. You got young folks who have parents who might not be nine or eight years older than them. But OK, but OK, I get what someone hasn't gone through. But the fact of the matter is, I didn't. My nieces and nephews didn't. So what we can't do is say, well, well, they didn't go through. We have to deal with the reality what's today. And so what I'm saying is, how do we do that?

Because, again, I'm going by numbers. Black people are 51% of the county and only 48% of the folk who voted were black and whites voted at 49%. So blacks represent more of the county but voted less. Christy. So in reference to what Senator Lucas was saying, the first note that I just wrote down, I remember going voting with my father when there was a curtain, when there was a flip card, when you had to punch the holes in.

My father took me to vote with him. That's where I learned voting. And I learned the importance of voting, listening to conversations amongst my aunts and listening to conversations amongst my family members. And so that's where the seed was planted in me. Yes, it's true. A lot of the young people now do not know, they don't know about the dogs that were being sick because a lot of it isn't taught in schools. I agree with you with that. You know, a lot of stuff is being written out of our history and it's not being taught in schools. But I think that that's where as parents, we have the responsibility. If the school isn't going to teach them, then we have to teach them.

My children, my children know that every time I go to vote, they go to vote with me. They look at the ballot with me. And so we can't keep putting it on. You know, our kids don't know. Our kids don't know because the school isn't teaching them or whatever. We see that. So we have to be the ones to, we have to be the ones to direct our children and to let them know. And even though, like, I remember seeing the images. I remember seeing the marches in Forsyth County with, um, with, um, Jose and I remember Jose Williams. Thank you. I remember seeing those. I remember having family members go there. So those type of experiences register with me.

I've seen the struggles of my community and my aunts and my uncles and whatnot. But our children, this day, I've seen, and I was telling Ms. Tabitha and Ms. Cassandra, I've seen both sides of this. I've seen the young people that are gung-ho about it, and I've seen the young people that want to be far away from it. And we have got to find a way to bridge that gap. We have got to give them a buy-in. We have got to find things to show them, because even though they're not having dogs sicked on them,

they're having rules and regulations and rights taken away from them. And that's the that and that's the that's the thing. First of all, Helen, let's be real clear. Okay. When we talk about who doesn't vote, it is not young black people don't vote. It's young black people, it's middle age black people, and it's older black people. So, if you dissect that, if you dissect the 52% that didn't vote, I can guarantee you, you're going to find folk in there 18 and up all the way through the 60s and 70s who didn't vote.

I still, I still believe, I still believe that what is required is what I always call connecting the dots. When I, when I meet someone and they say, man, I don't care about voting. I don't go through, oh, somebody died, you're right to vote. I say, first of all, what do you care about? And then when they typically tell me that, I then walk them through, okay, this is how this race has an impact on what you care about. Again, the average person, we live and breathe this stuff, but the average person really has no clue how that state rep, state senator, county commissioner, city council member, school board member, congressional member, U.S. Senate member has an impact on their life. They like, man, look, they all the same.

And, Rowling, let's just talk about numbers. The people that didn't vote in 2021 who were black people in the state of Georgia were a million people. One million. And you said when? In the state of Georgia in 2021. So a million black people in Georgia

who were eligible. Who were registered and eligible didn't show up at the polls. In 2020? 2021. Wow a million. A million and that if you look at the numbers, they trend that way still. So it's not just young people. But my question is, how have we intentionally included young people in our work, in everything we do? How many of you have listened to what they say that is important to them, Roland? What issues matter to them. I can tell you they understood the connection in 2020 and 2021. Look at the Ahmaud Arbery situation. They saw that the criminal justice system doesn't work for them. But when Ahmaud Arbery was killed, the young people down in Brunswick

made a difference. They got out the elected district attorney, got a new district attorney that decided to prosecute the white people that murdered him. So they understand the connection. What I tried to do is I tried to intentionally do everything in my organization have young people, old learned the lingo in the street because I didn't know the street language. When they talked about being off paper, I go like, no, you just need to fill out this voter registration. But they go like, no, Ms. Butler, we don't mean that kind of off paper. We mean that we're convicted felons and we cannot register to vote. So it's teaching me something. But the critical part, what I've learned with most students that I've tried to get engaged in this process, not only do they not see the connection between the vote and their power, but they don't understand the process.

They hear primary. What does that mean? Okay. What does... And then also understanding what's a closed primary versus an open primary. And then most attention is actually on the presidential races, obviously good attention and money. And then what I'm constantly doing, of course, when our show is walking folks through presidential, senator, gubernatorial, state rep, state senate.

And I remember in 2016 that was it. And also getting folk to understand that you don't have to love a candidate. Let's be real clear. There are a lot of Republicans right now who think Hershel Walker's a fool. And they and they've said it, but they're going to vote for it. Now, there's somebody watching who will say that's dumb. Does it make sense? No, they are understanding power. They understand power and those who are in control have power those who don't don't have power

folk about to see this republicans now control the u.s house that means they are now committee chairs they now can pass bills without even talking to Democrats because they now have the numbers. In this legislature, Republicans control the state, House, and Senate. Wasn't always the case. That's power. Who controls the governor's mansion? Power. And so I think a part of this process, I go back to, again, the citizenship training, is walking people through. Yes, you may have voted in the presidential election.

There's election next year. This is about to go. But dang, it's another one next year. Yes. Well, that's it. Yes. Because, again, federal, state, local. We have to walk people through this to understand and i'm just saying i'm not interested because i

can't keep looking at these numbers and go you know if we take that up 25 percent 35 40 percent we can run the table when you see here that one million again you're now talking about if 20 if 25 percent of the million black folks do not who didn't vote you could run all statewide offices in the interstate you can literally throw out the entire republican leadership in the state if just 25 percent of those 1 million black people actually voted again it's i think that has to be taught to walk people through that go ahead microphone microphone baby microphone can't nobody hear you the one thing that i'm gathering from that it and it is not even about voting the one thing that they have that based on what you're saying that we don't have is the fact that they're united and we're not we like you said you don't have to like the candidate

until we understand like you said we're stronger in number number but you do have but you do have to paint the picture of issues yeah and that and that's that's what i'm saying. And if I know that somebody, if I know that somebody, actually, I'm going to use an example. When Reince Priebus was the Republican National Committee chair, he came to the Times Journal morning show. This is what I said. I said, Reince, don't come on the show waving your Republican flag. I said, it ain't going to go well. I said, my suggestion to you is when you come on, you should come on with four or five issues that will be appealing to African Americans and talk about those issues. I said, now listen, when Tom and Sybil ask you about voter suppression, take the L because you're going to get your ass whooped. I said, just letting you know. I said, take the L, because you're going to get your ass whooped. I said, just letting you know.

I said, take the L. Don't try to fight it. Take the L. That's what I told him. He come on the show. He start waving the flag. I'm sitting down. I'm like, I told this fool this ain't going to work.

And then when voter suppression came up, he tried to throw out voter fraud and just got destroyed. And when it was over, I remember Sean Spicer, he called me. I said, Sean, are y'all that dumb? I told you how to talk to black people, but y'all were too dumb and didn't listen. I said, I'm telling you. So the same thing today, you cannot go to a lot of black voters waving a Democratic flag. You must go talking about issues that they care about and then say, OK, of the candidates, how do they line up on your issue? Well, to actually highlight the truth of it, remember earlier we said the average voter is 65? It's not that you get so much smarter at 65 than you was when you were 64.

Your life changes. You get your retirement check. You look at your money as being tied with your vote. The issue of your financial stability is now tied to your vote, even though it always was. Now it's in your face. We know, I look at it a little deeper as a cultural issue. I always say, you know, we raise our kids a little differently. The white community, they raise their kids to swim, to hunt, and to vote from birth.

They get guns as gifts before they get teenagers. We teach our kids a little different. Don't mess with them guns, the cops are going to kill you. Don't jump in that water. You know, poo-poo them drowning. Nobody can swim. And don't worry about voting because they're gonna do what they wanna do anyway. We're the only ethnic group that says that and continuously perpetuates that and it comes

from a cultural background and stuff like this I think fights it. Well, but it also, let's be honest, it also comes from if you say, and I get this all the time, folk go, black I get this all the time, folk go, black people be voting this way and nothing changed. Well, first of all, that's a stupid comment when someone says nothing has changed. One, that's a lie.

I mean, you can literally start, I mean, I had one fool who said, can you name me one thing Democrats did in the last 20 years to help black people? And I went, Affordable Care Act. And then he goes, well, that wasn years to help black people and I went uh Affordable Care Act and then he goes well that wasn't just for black people I said fool there's nothing you can name it's going to be just for black people because ask any politicians you cannot pass a law just for black people or just for this group you can't I mean just I'm like you don't that. But I had to explain to him how the percentage of black people who were uninsured dramatically dropped as an Affordable Care Act.

I said, so you can't act as if nothing actually got passed. And so I get someone who says my grandmother been broke, my grandfather been broke, mom and daddy broke, I'm broke. But then you have to still walk folks through this notion of okay but this is how you can change things again this is where education matters so i just think that this is good this is going to be a huge thing for us and and i talked about my book white fear listen white folks are declining okay by 2043 uh people of color will be majority in this country. But we are not maximizing our power because by sitting at home and not voting, we're not putting our people in. And when I was in, I think it was Swainsboro, I was sitting with, was it Swainsboro or Statesboro, one of them. And I was, the second one I was at.

Right, I'm sitting with elected officials, and I said, which one never had a black mayor? Which one? Swainsboro. I said, what percent of black people in this city? 65%. I said, whoa, hold up. How y'all got 65% black people in this city, and y'all ain't never had a black mayor? And so, same... Hold up, same thing here?

What, in Sandersville? Hold up, hold up, stop, hold up. Hold up. Sandersville is 60... What, what? Sandersville is 57% black. 61% black. And y'all never had a black mayor?

How in the hell? I mean, the math ain't mathing. Go ahead. Y'all going to make me cuss. Go ahead. I mean, go ahead. I think the issue with when it comes out to people turning out to vote, I think we have to address certain things. Voter suppression is a real thing.

I don't know if people have read SB 202, but there are a lot of things in there that they change. One of the things that SB 202 that they changed is, one, the runoff period. It went from nine weeks to six weeks, nine weeks to four weeks. No, no, no, no, no. Hold on, hold on. I get all that. I'm talking about right now. No, I'm getting to that. No, I'm getting to that.

I'm still trying to understand. If you're 60 plus percent of the city, how ain't never been a black mayor? I just, I need somebody to actually answer that question for me. Because I'm confused. I'm sorry, go ahead. Hold on because i'm confused i'm sorry go ahead hold on go ahead go ahead go ahead go ahead go ahead so when it comes to like i said it does i think oppression does tie into that because a lot of people you were just talking about how villains felons can't vote that's not true

felons can vote in the state of georgia as long as you are off as off papers like you said and you're not paying any fees you can vote as long as you're in your first offense and you're doing like a first offense class or something like that, you can vote even if it is a felony. As a felon, you can vote. But if I don't know that. That's what I'm saying. We don't know that because one, we're not taught that. And then two, it doesn't explicitly, they don't explicitly come out and say that, but I guarantee you on the other side, they're talking about it. I guarantee you on the other side, they know that. So in the same way we are talking about people aren't showing up, voter suppression is real.

Counties can decide how long they want their polling locations open. For the most part, most of them do 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., but they can do 9 to 5 if they choose at any point. And they don't have to know by anyone. any point and they don't hold up hold up hold up but see all up but right there hold up wait wait wait wait see she said something again i don't want to run past that you said counties decide your board of elections in your county decide and who picks the board of elections the county commissioners who picks the county commissioners the voters but we but we don't also understand the process like we how you said earlier we don't understand how one is connected to the other right so it's easy to suppress people when they don't know so when we don't have the

info it's easy so so my so my question so then so hold up hold up hold up woosah so now my question, so then, so hold up, hold up, hold up. So now my question is, what is the apparatus? I don't want to hear nothing before today. What is the apparatus right now that's taking this mission on to say, by the next election, we want 48 to be 60. Who is doing it? I think we're all doing it collectively across the state. No, no. I think it's a collective thing because if you want to ask what apparatus or what one person or what one no no no no no no

no no actually actually you can because follow me here i'm not talking about the state see here's so because here's how i operate i operate going from macro to micro i always say you cannot have a strong country without strong states. Strong states need strong cities. Cities need strong neighborhoods. Neighborhoods need strong blocks, blocks, streets, streets, houses, individual in a house. So if you're talking about building something, then there's a starting point and so if you're talking about this city of 6,000 in a county of 25,000 what is the mobilizing entity that says again

looking you said you had a list 1900 looking at the numbers we know these people vote they're in the 48%. How do we get to 60? Who is targeting them on a regular basis, non-election? Because that's what we're talking about. Go ahead. That's what I want to know. I do want to answer that question. I am a member of organizations like the SCLC and about to join the NAACP here, but we've already started having meetings where we are

Actively looking at different African American members of the community so that we can find African Americans to run for these positions like mayor go ahead Commissioner Simmons, so you said that y'all are Recruiting recruiting training got it. and training people to run for office. That's what I wanted to hear. Yes. That's what I wanted to hear. So contact us. Any person that's interested in running for mayor,

city council, county commissioner, please contact us and contact Commissioner Simmons as well because we are actively recruiting and training members to run for all these different local offices. So, so, Helen, here's why II keep harping on this and and and because I'm trying to get people to understand. Amen. When you control the levers of power, you control the money. Yes. So, what happens is, we're over here going, we don't have the leverage of power, you control the money. So what happens is we're over here going, we don't have this, this, this.

Then I go, who's in control? If we're in control, okay, so this is real basic. How many city council members are there? Five. Hold up. Is one black female, is one black male? Of these single member districts? Yes.

Okay. All right. So that's two. It's five people, right? Now, is it five council members and a mayor? Okay. So four districts, mayor Pro Tem and the Mayor. Who votes?

Mayor doesn't vote. Mayor Pro Tem. How do you become Mayor Pro Tem? Is at large. Got it. So basically, if five people vote and two black right now, if you elect a mayor pro tem, you got majority, which means you control the money. That's what I'm talking about. And I think it's walking folks through. Christy, go ahead.

But I just think that, again, if you don't control the money and you don't have the power, you're just having an empty conversation. Go ahead. And that's pretty much what I'm going to say. And you said something about maximizing our power, especially with us having numbers here. But I think one of the things, and I didn't find this out, you know, until I ran, um, as far as us having the majority of the numbers, but a lot of times we aren't able to maximize our power because we don't realize the power that we actually have. And I think that one of the things that comes along with the voter suppression and oppression and different things like that is to keep us in this dark place to where we don't ask the questions and we don't fight for anything. We don't fight this law. We don't fight. We don't fight why this change is being made because we don't

realize we have the power but we have to put ourselves. We have to go to these trainings. We have to be more vocal. We have to do our own recording ourselves. There is still groundwork that we have to do to get people like us in elected positions. We still have responsibilities as community members, as aunties, as cousins, or whatever. And we have to show our community the power that we actually have.

I'm going to go to Helen and David. And Helen, the thing is that I keep also saying, this can't only be done before an election. You have to, but I can't get somebody to register until I enlighten and educate them. I got to enlighten, educate, then get them to register. And then even after they registered, I got to get them to the polls. So there's a process here. And I think what happens is when we rely on political parties, I ain't got no problem saying it, when we rely on candidates, we're sort of sitting here saying,

okay, what are they going to do? Okay, what are they going to do? When they're coming in, it's kind of like, if I'm a candidate, I'm actually going to spend more time on the people who I think are going to vote than the people I've got trying to persuade somebody. So this has to be an education process go right ahead that ain't gonna happen no no no no no follow me here let me explain Let me explain this. I need everybody to take that out of your vocabulary. No, no, listen to what I'm about to explain to you. I need you to take that concept. No, no,

no, no, no, no, no. Hold up, hold up, Helen. I'm going to help you out. I'm going to help you out. Here's why I want you to remove that out of your vocabulary. So here's how I look at this here. I don't, so let's, let's just like look at this room right here. So I count, if I count, no, I'm going to walk you through it. Just trust me. Okay. Somebody might say, man, this place should have been packed.

It should have been standing room only. No, I don't talk to empty chairs. I talk to chairs that are filled. If I focus on the chairs that are filled and not the empty chairs, then I can focus on building with the folk who show up. Now, if I counted the people in this room, I'm going to probably hit 80 to a hundred. If I have a meeting next month, all I'm going to say is I need each one of y'all to bring one person. Now the meeting next month is 200 people. And then I'm going to say, now I need each one of y'all to bring one person to the next meeting.

And that means the next meeting is 400 people. Okay, let's say we have a fourth meeting, and I just ask the 400 just to bring one. We're now at 800. If you pull the numbers, you probably will have more people at your fourth meeting than who voted in your last mayoral election. So what happens is when we say we need to unify, what happens is that often means we're waiting for group consensus to gather. I ain't waiting on group consensus. But what I'm doing is I'm just using, I'm just using the basic building model. And because what happens is a lot of times we get frustrated when folks like, if we could be on the same page, I know we're not going to be on the same page. And I'm cool with that. And I've seen it. Because what I've said is, when the train leaves and you ain't on it, you better hop on when we come back.

Because we're not going to slow down and wait on you. And so when I walk folks through there, they go, man, I ain't never thought about that. Because a lot of us do stop at we need unity. A lot of us stop there and they go, we don't have it. I'm like, well, what you waiting on? Work with who shows up. That's all I'm saying, because a lot of our people can freeze in place by saying, man, I invited 20 people and four showed up. I'm like, well, work with the four. You worried about the 16 who didn't show up. I have seen more black people stop, not even start something because they are so concerned

that I, I, I had somebody who was selling books. They were like, I only had, uh, uh, I only sold two books. I said, how many you brought with you? Well, I brought 50. You go home with 48. Is that less than you came with? They literally were like, what do you mean? I'm like, OK, you have 50. Now you got 48. Next time, maybe you're going to sell five. They literally were upset because they didn't sell more than that. I'm like, you got to focus on what you just did. That's that's really what I mean. A lot of us stop right there. That's what I mean. But, Helen, go on. Here's your point. And, Senator, you go, Senator.

Helen, hold up. Helen, the Senator. Because he over here being, he about to sit here. I got a question to ask. Okay. Are you giving us a concrete way to unify or a concrete way to build a coalition? I just gave it to you. Yeah.

It's just real. It's just, I like to it to you. This is this is it's just real. And it's just it's just I like to make it simple. And I just think one of our greatest mistakes is that after the election is over, we drop everything. We get the list. Everything goes away. And we then do not take those very same people and then say, okay, we need you showing up to the city council meeting this month, to the school board meeting next month, to the county commissioners meeting to now demand what we want. And so that's what I'm asking you to do when this election is over, stay mobile, stay organized and mobilized to now demand to get what we want because trust me if you should if the number of people in this room show up to the school board meeting and the city council meeting every month they're gonna be like i don't know what the hell going on but but i'm telling

y'all i'm telling you no no you're wrong no no you're wrong. No, no, you're wrong. Cause see, no, you say it's not going to help us. Here's why you're wrong. It's not going to help who? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Say no. I'm no, hold up. Stop. I'm never going to say it's not going to happen. The reason I'm not going to say it's happened because here's the deal. Some, there there's somebody today yesterday who did not want to vote until somebody talked to him and they're gonna vote today no no no no no say no here's what i would never do i will never ever put something in in in this in this world i will never even speak something that is counter to what I want to happen. And again, I'm gonna go back to my model. If only 10 people in this room consistently go to

the school board in a council meeting and those 10 bring one, now it's 20, now it's 40, now it's 80, now it's 160. So I'm never going to say it's not going to happen. What I'm going to always say is here are the possibilities if we're willing to actually do it. That's what I'm saying. Because if you're a black elected official, raise your hand. I know the senators here, you're on the council, county commissioner. They need your backup. They are the generals in the war. The problem is you can't win no war without soldiers. And the problem is we have generals who we've elected, and they're looking for the backup.

So they need you showing up at the school board meeting and the city council meeting and trust me there's no city council member there's no school board member there's no county commissioner there's no state senator there's no state rep did they see 50 or 100 folk walk through the door their first response is who the hell are these people what do they want and who they coming after and if you come back two three times do you know what they doing they counting votes they going and they came back three straight months my behind might be thrown out of office i might want to respond to what they got to say and here's what they gonna do i'm gonna tell what they gonna do they. And here's what they're going to do. I'm going to tell you what they're going to do. They're going to try to wait you out.

What they're going to do is say, I'm going to go ahead and mess with them about three, four months. Six months later, damn, they still here. Nine months later, they still here. You keep showing up and then, let's say after a year, election coming up. Then they start calculating. They've been coming here every single month for the last year.

I know they're going to throw my behind out. Trust me, you're going to see change. But it will not happen if we don't actually do it. Thanks to our panel here. I appreciate it. Thanks to all y'all for showing up. Give it up for the food truck and the wings. Tell them to have my wings. I want no sauce on. I want mine dry. I'm good.

Thanks everybody for coming out. Don't forget, call 5. Willing to take them to the polls because we can actually change this by ourselves. Just us, for us, by us. That's what it's all about. Sandersville, thanks a lot. Folks, I'm going to be in Tulsa tomorrow with Demario Solomon-Simmons. We'll be live streaming the rally taking place tomorrow in Tulsa. I'm back in Georgia on Thursday. President Obama is going to be with the rally

with Warnock on Thursday as well. And then, of course, we're going to be here on Friday as well. So y'all know we're on top of this thing. Let me thank everybody who's watched the show. We certainly appreciate it. Don't forget, download the Black Star Network app available on all platforms. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung, Smart TV.

I'll see you guys tomorrow right here. Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network, live from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Holla! This is an iHeart Podcast.