#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Horrific TX School Shooting, Houston PD release Jalen Randle Bodycam video, 1-on-1 w/Cheri Beasley

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

5.24.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Horrific TX School Shooting, Houston PD release Jalen Randle Bodycam video, 1-on-1 w/Cheri Beasley Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com 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. Martin! Să facem o pătrunjelă. Să ne urmăm. I'm out. Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now. Black power! Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. Hey, 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? Martin! Să ne urmăm. Thank you. Să ne urmăm. Today is Tuesday, May 24, 2022. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network.

14 students, one teacher killed in a mass shooting in Texas, in Uvalde, Texas. The community there is shocked and horrified by this incident will give you the latest from Texas on another mass shooting also members of Congress are already reacting when it comes to this. Will this country finally deal with its infatuations with guns and violence? Also, primaries are happening all

across the country today, including Texas and Georgia. We'll talk with Cliff Albright, the co-founder of Black Voters Matter, about these primary elections that are taking place. We continue to see a focus on what happened in Buffalo. We'll talk more about that also on today's show. We'll cover other news of the day. We'll also, in our Marketplace segment, talk to a black fashion designer who is doing some great things as well. Lots of things to cover on today's show.

We'll also hear from Sherri Beasley, who is the Senate candidate, U.S. Senate candidate in North Carolina. All of that, it's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, it's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it.

Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks he's rolling it's uncle ro-royal it's rolling martin yeah

rolling with rolling now he's funky fresh he's real the best You know he's rolling, Martel Now Martel Folks, this is a live look in Uvalde, Texas where earlier today, a 19-year-old man walked into a school in Uvalde, Texas, where earlier today, a 19-year-old man walked into a school in Uvalde, Texas, opened fire on students there.

He killed one teacher, 14 students. He was shot and killed by police who responded to the scene. Another tragic shooting happening here in the United States. Our children are not safe at all, even when it comes to here in the United States. Our children are not safe at all even when it comes to sitting in the classroom. Here is Texas Governor Greg Abbott at a news conference sharing details about what happened today. The shooter was Salvador Ramos, an 18 year old male who resided in Uvalde. It's believed that he abandoned his vehicle and entered

into the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde with a handgun, and he may have also had a rifle, but that is not yet confirmed according to my most recent report. 14 students and killed a teacher. Mr. Ramos, the shooter, he is he he himself is deceased and is believed that responding officers killed him. Well, I'm kind of quite, it's interesting that Texas Governor Greg Abbott would call this incomprehensible, considering we have seen this happen over and over in this country. We can talk about, of course, years ago, Columbine, 10 years ago, Sandy Hook, where 20 kids were shot and killed, Parkland in Florida, Santa Fe, Texas, about four years ago where students were killed there. Mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. Mass shooting in Sutherland, Texas. These things have been happening all across this country. In fact, since the mass shooting in Sandy Hook,

where those 20 kids were killed, there have been, listen, there have been 3,500 mass shootings in the United States. Senator Chris Murphy was on the floor of the U.S. Senate, and at one point he kneels down and says to his GOP colleagues, when are y'all going to do something about this? this. There are 14 kids dead in an elementary school in Texas right now. What are we doing? What are we doing? Days after a shooter walked into a grocery store to gun down African-American patrons, we have another Sandy Hook on our hands.

What are we doing? There have been more mass shootings than days in the year. Our kids are living in fear every single time they set foot in a classroom because they think they're going to be next. What are we doing? Why do you spend all this time running for the United States Senate? Why do you go through all the hassle of getting this job, of putting yourself in a position of authority, if your answer is that as this slaughter increases, as our kids run for their

lives, we do nothing? What are we doing? Why are you here? Folks, not only that, just to understand again again this infatuation with guns in this country, this is a tweet that Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent out in 2015. Yeah, this is what he put. I'm embarrassed. Texas number two in the nation for new gun purchases behind California.

Let's pick up the pace. Texans NRA again. Look at the date there. That was on October 28, 2015. Folks, tell that to these people right here. You see the tears as a mother, as a woman there just on next to this fire hydrant who is just in tears by what took place. Folks are trying to console her with this tragic shooting. Uvalde, a city of 15,000 people, and here you have 15 people who are dead as a result of a gunman. To also understand what has been happening in this state and in this nation. Just last year, the Republicans in Texas led to actually relax the gun laws,

lowered the age for someone to buy a gun to the age of 18. In fact, they got rid of the concealed carry permit, allowing people to carry a concealed gun without a permit. Georgia did the exact same thing. And so the answer in America to more mass shootings from the right is more guns. Tell her that. There are 14 children who will not be coming home tonight. There is a teacher. In Ubaldi, Texas. Who will not be coming home

tonight. And all we keep hearing from elected officials is thoughts and prayers. Earlier today, Brian Tyler Cohen sent this tweet out. This is Tony Gonzalez, who represents the district that contains the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that just got shot up. This is a tweet that he sent out. I voted no on two gun control measures in the House today. I am a proud supporter of the Second Amendment and will do everything I can to oppose gun grabs from the far left.

He also tweeted, the far left will never stop trying to take Americans' guns. I am proud to fight for the number 2A, the Second Amendment in Washington. there is a difference between somebody saying, I support the Second Amendment, and then someone who says, we should have no gun control whatsoever. That literally is what we are dealing with here now in the United States. And so the question then becomes, how many more shootings?

How many more kids getting killed? How many more funerals? When exactly do folks realize that we have more gun deaths in this country than anywhere else. I saw one stat that America represents 5% of the world's population, yet owns 42% of the world's guns. Panel, Mustafa Santiago Ali, former senior advisor for the Environmental Protection Agency, Lauren Victoria Burke, writes for the GRIO, as well as NNPA, Robert Portillo, executive director, Rainbow Push Coalition, Peachtree Street Project. Glad to have all three of you here. Robert, you often talk about the guns that you own. But the point that I said earlier,

there's a difference between folks who support the Second Amendment but who also understand that you have to have some controls in the country when it comes to guns, and then those who say, what the hell, it's a free-for-all. Well, look, I think if you look at the text of the Second Amendment,

even for a strong Second Amendment person, it says a well-regulated militia being necessary. It doesn't say everybody should get what you want to go out there and have fun. It says a well-regulated militia. So I think Congress needs to take up that mantle and have to start putting in place some safeguards. For example, you can be younger and buy an AR-15 in this country than you can be to buy a wine cooler, because you have to be 21 to purchase alcohol, but only 18 to purchase an AR-15. I think that's something we can handle on the federal level. In order to get your driving driver's license or your permit to be able to drive, you have to take a safety class, well-regulated militia. I think that's completely reasonable to require a training and safety class, well-regulated militia. I think that's completely reasonable to require

a safe training and safety class when someone purchases a firearm. I also think it's completely valid to have background checks. I think there are definitely some things that we can come together on and agree on. But I think because the gun lobby in this country basically controls one political party, you can't even have the most basic of compromises take place, which makes it so difficult to have anything except for executive action in order to address the drastic shootings we've had. And then that one party, then Brands, oh, the far left, they're trying to steal our guns, trying to take our guns. No, they're actually trying to make sure that our kids are coming home safe. Lauren, this is a tweet that Congresswoman Jackie Spires posted six minutes ago.

She tweeted, I refuse to participate in another moment of silence on the House floor. I want a moment of action. No guns for anyone under 21. All guns must have trigger locks that require fingerprint to be discharged. Felony charges for anyone who doesn't safely lock their gun. Does that sound sensible to you? Of course it does. But unfortunately, Robert Petillo is absolutely correct. One political party is owned by the NRA.

It's as simple as that. It's about money. And as you said earlier, Roland, the answer on the right from Republicans with regard to guns is always more guns and more guns and more guns. And I'm sure you know that the state of Texas has a lot of guns, and that didn't stop anything today. I mean, the idea that, oh, but if we have more guns, we can protect ourselves against the guns is completely ridiculous. It just goes on and on and around and around and around.

Donald Trump is talking to the NRA, I believe, this weekend. He'll get up there and say absolutely nothing. He'll get up there and pretend that nothing happened today, that nothing happened in Buffalo. And that's how this works. We just, they wait it out, they wait it out. This goes on and on and on, around and around and around, and more guns get sold. Of course, they lowered the ages because they want to sell more firearms. I mean, I grew up around guns, because I had a law enforcement officer as a father. He was also a hunter safety instructor, whatever. The point is, nobody needs to have the type of weaponry that this idiot had in Buffalo

that murdered all these people, absolutely nothing. The incident at Virginia Tech, the guy had a bulk loader. He had a handgun, but he had a bulk loader, so he didn't have to change magazines. There's no reason for anybody to have that. There's just no reason. You're not hunting with that. Everybody knows it. We keep going around and around. Nothing changes. Chris Murphy out on the floor of the Senate is absolutely right. The question is, what are we going to do about it? What exact action are we going to take? And I would suspect the action will be absolutely nothing if I had to guess. Again, it's the live look of Uvalde, Texas, a little bit earlier. It's a little bit earlier. Again, moments after the shooting

took place, law enforcement descended upon this elementary school in Uvalde. Here's a tweet from one of these black gun-loving NRA people, Mustafa Kalinuar, who's actually based there in Texas. So he tweeted, the gun community can't be the only people who see that mass shooters always target soft targets where there's a low chance of anyone else having a gun. What a dumbass. I mean, he literally tweeted that about 20 minutes ago. I mean, they come up with, oh, so, hey,

folks with the guns, are they going to do a mass shooting. They're going to go to a gun range. Right. You know, there's so much to unpack here. You know, we have over 300 million guns in our country. Think about that. Over 300 million. It goes back to something you mentioned earlier, Roland, about us being the leading country across the whole planet with the amount of guns that we have. But it goes so much deeper than that because we're literally creating these killing fields across our country.

And we know that schools are one of the locations that that is becoming a reality where kids don't want to go to school. They're afraid to go to school. Parents are afraid if they drop their child off that they may not be able to pick them back up because their life may have been taken. We've got 3 million kids who are exposed every year to gun violence in our country. And we've got 18,000 kids who are shot or killed or wounded each year in our country. The question becomes, when is enough enough? It's not like we haven't had pieces of legislation, well-thought-out pieces of legislation that have been put forward, and you can't get it through the House or you can't get it through the Senate. You can never get it to a president to actually have it signed. Years ago, I was with an organization called Reaching Out to Others Together. It was called

Root Inc. Kenny Barnes founded it. His son was killed, and he started the organization. I worked with Bobby Rush, and we wrote a piece of legislation called the Can Do Bill to begin to address some of these issues, not taking people's guns away, but actually focusing on all these components that were a part of it. And you can't even get the most common sense piece of legislation to pass, let alone the additional hard work that needs to happen. We literally are sacrificing our children and we're sacrificing others. And people refuse to do anything because big money has gotten into the lobbying game to actually stop anything from going forward. So we're going to continue to lose our children

until somebody, somebodies, are willing to stand up and do the right thing. This has nothing to do with the Second Amendment. You know, I grew up as a hunter in a family that hunted and all these other types of things. You know, we no longer need a militia. So for folks who lean on that, I'm always confused. We have a military. We have a National Guard. We have a number of other entities to make sure that

we are protected, you know, if there is a force, an external force that comes into our country. The real entity that is causing the damage are folks who live inside of our country. So we put huge amounts of money to defend our country from external forces. It's time for us to put the same amount of attention to these internal forces that are literally taking our children's lives away and destabilizing our country in both the urban and rural areas. Indeed, indeed. So let me show you this here. Here's a graphic here where you can understand. This is countries with the most firearms in civilian hands.

So the United States, 393.3 million, Robert. India, 71 million. China, Pakistan, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, Germany, Yemen, Saudi Arabia. If you literally add up the other nine countries, they don't even equal the United States. I mean, this is a flat-out, gun-loving country. You're absolutely correct, and I think that that's why it's important that we try to institute the types of reforms that can actually be effective. I know often in situations like this, people try to go for the fences and get very hyperbolic, and then they get to places where you can't actually get things done. I think that even the most strident NRA person or gun nut out there would

agree that you probably should be older than 18 to buy a semi-automatic rifle. I think that's something most people can agree on. I think that people can agree that we should make sure we dangerously mentally ill people who previously had encounters with mental health professionals and law enforcement, they probably shouldn't have guns. I think that's something that we can agree on. So I think if we can come to the table and actually try to pass something for once and have a real national conversation on it, something can get done. But we know within minutes, it's probably happening already, the demagogues and the lobbyists and the financial special interests are going to get a hold of this issue. It's probably happening already. The demagogues and the lobbyists and the financial special interests are going to get a hold of this issue. It'll become so polarized that nothing can

get done yet again. Indeed, indeed. And it's just, and the thing here, when you look at the polling numbers, Lauren, the polling numbers are there when it comes to gun control. But you have politicians who don't have any courage. And I'm sorry. The only way this changes is for those people who keep voting Republican to vote those people out to get their attention. That's it. That's the only way this changes. Otherwise, they're going to keep just ignoring this. And, again, thoughts and prayers.

I mean, when I say thoughts and prayers, I'll show you, you know, I don't give a damn what he has to say. But this is one of the two senators from Texas posting about this here. And as you can expect, here it is. Heidi and I are fervently lifting up in prayer the children and families in the horrific shooting in Uvalde. We were in close contact with local officials, but the precise details are still unfolding. Thank you to heroic law enforcement and first responders for acting so swiftly. Oh, thank you very much. Do nothing, Senator Ted Cruz. Yeah, it's not just do nothing. I mean, he is

on the side of more guns, more guns, more guns, and more guns. So he's part of this. So when people say that these people have blood on their hands, they're actually accurate. So, I mean, this idea that, oh, let's not politicize it, let's not get hyperbolic. No, let's get hyperbolic. I mean, there's 14 kids

are dead. I mean, it's a big deal. It's a huge deal. And the fact that we act like, you know, there's 14 kids are dead. I mean, it's a big deal. That's a huge deal. And the fact that we act like, you know, it's just another day in America and it's no big deal is incredible. I mean, we're used to it now because it keeps happening and we keep going through this cycle of putting out statements and now, you know, obviously putting out tweets. And really what the strategy is on the Republican side is just wait it out so it gets quiet and then we move on to something else. But as we all know, if you can watch Sandy Hook happen and nothing really changed, that was really the moment where you knew that nothing would ever change. And, Roland, as you just said, the way it changes is that people have to go after these politicians who are fined with more guns and being funded by the NRA and controlled by the NRA. The same politicians, by the wayRA and controlled by the NRA.

The same politicians, by the way, that talk about pro-life, right? We're talking about pro-life all the time. Talking about getting into the business of people's lives when it comes to one of the most private decisions between two people, which is whether to have children. They want to talk pro-life about that, but they don't want to talk pro-life when it comes to guns. They want all the guns in the world. That makes no sense. This is Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz will play

his PR games, and then he'll disappear. And here's the other senator from Texas, John Cornyn, Mustafa. Today, the entire state of Texas is in mourning. Earlier today, a gunman entered an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and opened fire. The shooting at Robb Elementary School is every parent

and teacher's worst nightmare. No parent, child, or teacher should ever have to wonder whether it's safe to go to school. This is an excruciatingly painful time for the tight-knit Uvalde community and for all Texans. My heart goes out to those in the hospital receiving care and to the loved ones of those who lost their lives. As a parent, I cannot imagine the pain they must be feeling. I am in touch with local officials in Uvalde and plan to travel there as soon as I can get there. I'm grateful to law enforcement and everyone who worked to stop the shooter as well as the medical staff working now to prevent further loss of life.

I join my fellow Texans in lifting up the entire Uvalde community during this unimaginable tragedy. It's not fucking unimaginable. Right. Unimaginable? It's not fucking unimaginable. Unimaginable is if it didn't happen before. We can imagine because it did. Again, in Texas.

In Texas. I'll show you the links. So this is what is unimaginable. No, we can imagine it because we've seen it. It ain't new. You're talking about right here. El Paso, Texas. Here's right here, y'all.

Boom. Two years after Walmart mass shooting, El Paso leaders see inaction and betrayal by Texas officials. Yep, y'all remember that? Guy walked into a Walmart, shot 23 people, killed, no, he killed 23 people, left dozens more injured. Oh, I'm not done, I'm not done.

Santa Fe, Texas, not far from Houston. Hmm, 2018, mass shooting, 10 killed in Santa Fe. Unimaginable? Unimaginable? Unimaginable, Senator Cornyn? That happened in Texas. Last one. Oh, what about Sutherland, Texas in 2017? Hmm. a church there in Sutherland. Yep, guy walked in, shut out the joints. He killed 26, injured 22 in 2017. But John Cornyn says unimaginable. I mean, I just don't know what world he lives in. If you've got close to 400 million guns in a country, what do you think is going to happen?

If you have no laws on the book, what do you think is going to happen? If you have no regulations, no real enforcement happening, what do you think is going to happen? And all those things go back to the ability for them to actually do something about it. So yeah, it's unimaginable because you don't want to imagine because you don't want to have to actually take any actions. You know, prayers without action is hypocrisy. Words without action is hypocrisy. And that's exactly what we continue to see from those elected officials that refuse to move forward on common sense gun reform. It is just, again, it is shocking and it is stunning. And it is what we consistently see over and over and over again. Folks, we'll give you more details as they come in regarding this mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas. 14 children, 14 children are dead.

Parents there are grieving. One teacher is dead. The suspect was shot and killed by law enforcement. Prior to going there, he shot and killed his grandmother. So today, 16 people are dead because a 19-year-old with a gun went on a rampage. Go into a break. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered with Blackstar Network. Hey, can you give Brian the keys to the car? I grabbed the wrong one.

I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach and host of Get Wealthy. Let me ask you a question. Are your financial affairs in order? Or are you like Prince Aretha Franklin and Chadwick Boseman's celebrities that passed away with no will? Well, that's the topic we're covering on our next get wealthy program do you have the proper strategies in place to make sure that your assets and everything that you've worked so hard for pass on to the next generation and you create legacy wealth so i encourage people to be thinking about what is the long-term plan as opposed to just for today or just right after I pass away.

That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. Pull up a chair, take your seat at the Black Table with me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network. Folks, around the country, voters went to the polls today for runoff elections in Texas, primaries in other states like Georgia. Of course, we are in the middle of the election season, a number of local, state, and national races.

And so in Georgia, people are looking at the governor's race, where you have Brian Kemp, the incumbent, who is running against former U.S. Senator David Perdue, backed by Donald Trump. You also, of course, have Hershel Walker, who is trying to get the Republican nomination to face U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock. On the Democratic side, Stacey Abrams is running unopposed, setting up a potential rematch with her and Kemp, where they opposed each other in 2018. So we're looking at all of those races. As I said, runoff races other in 2018. So we're looking at all of those races. As I said, a lot of races happening in Texas. You also have campaigns happening in Alabama. Let's talk about both with Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter from Atlanta. And on the Campbell, the president and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation here in D.C.

Glad to have both of you. There are so many different issues that are on the table. We already see, Cliff and Melody, the focus on the impending decision by the Supreme Court regarding Roe v. Wade, but also voter suppression. We've seen thousands of folks, potential voters or ballots being tossed out, not having the right signature. And frankly, what Republicans in Georgia did, what they did in Texas, Cliff, was exactly by design what they wanted to achieve. And that is to keep folks from being able to vote, making it even more difficult for them to cast ballots,

especially mail-in voting. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, Roland. You know, we saw that in Texas. We saw that in Georgia, you know, last election cycle. You know, we've actually been through one election cycle here in Georgia with the voter suppression law in place. And we saw what happened during the 2021 elections, which were, you know, largely local elections, what some people call an off year. But still, we saw what the blueprint is, or at least part of it. We know that it's going to get worse this year, particularly when we get to November. But what we have seen, even on today's election day, now, mind you, today's not going to be the worst of the voter suppression, right, because this is

the primary day. They're dealing with their battles over in their primary. But what we have seen is that we've seen the secretary of state's office, that same secretary of state, Roffensperger, that you had mainstream media trying to act like with some kind of profiling courage. But we've seen his office sending out investigators to various polling places, largely in metro Atlanta, but in other places as well, randomly questioning and intimidating voters, right? And we believe that this is a dry run for what's in store for November, or more importantly, it's part of setting a chilling effect, a chilling climate that's going to be used to intimidate voters from now, between now and November. So we already see them and some of the tactics that they're going to be using.

Absolutely, Melanie. And the bottom line is, to Cliff's point, they are running people for Secretary of State, for Attorney General, who believe Trump's big lie. They are trying to set it up to literally steal future elections. Most definitely.

I totally agree. Great to see my brother Cliff today. And in Georgia, one of the narratives I think that's really important, and we've all been pushing back on this, oh, well, I guess people are showing up, so

there must not be any voter suppression. Cliff just laid it out. Oh, yes, it is. And then things like polling places open late and people having to wait and see if they can leave the polling places open longer. And it's just it's all smaller things. It seems small. But when you get a collective group of them and you see where those polling places are, you know who is being suppressed, which vote is being suppressed. And it may seem small, but by November, it'll be a big, big deal. The other thing is when you look at people not using absentee ballots. And so that, so you say, well, why is that? Because all of the new rules and

laws in Georgia, as an example, where it makes it harder for people to use absentee. We're still in a pandemic. So there's still the concern about folks being able to have access to the ballot in ways that will address those kinds of things. So I'm concerned that there's a narrative of a foot that says, oh, we really don't need voting rights protections because, look, nothing's really happening. You know, so it's like bait and switch. But come November, we'll see the real impact. And so we have to be ready for

that. People are paying attention. Yeah, we're voting, but there are votes that are going to be left on the table because of some of those things that in a cumulative effect is what we've all been fighting about. There was a tweet I saw yesterday, Cliff. There was a voting rights lawyer who said he followed all the directions and even he missed a step. He's a part of the lawyers committee's lawsuit against voting rights.

He said, I am a lawyer. This is literally what I lawsuit against voting rights. He said, I am a lawyer. This is literally what I do, voting rights. He said, I methodically went through everything and I missed one step. He said, and my ballot was rejected. Yeah, no, you're right, Roland. And Melanie's exactly right. I said, that's why she's my leader, right?

But Melanie's exactly right where she points out, people are talking about this shift or this increase in voter turnout in Georgia. But what we've largely seen is people shifting from voting by mail to coming out and voting in person during the early vote. And with that said, a lot of that increase has been on the Republican side. There's been increases, you know, amongst Black voters as well. But that's been a shift. And what people are not talking about is the same thing that you just raised and the same thing that Melanie raised, which is how much of that shift hasn't been from vote by mail to in person early voting. How much of that shift has gone from vote by mail to I'm not voting, right?

Because this is too difficult, whether the person decided to not engage or whether, like the person that you raised, who's somebody who does this for a living but still had their ballot rejected, that goes to show how difficult some of these limitations and restrictions that were put in place by SB 202, the voter suppression bill here in Georgia. We've already seen the impact. This isn't speculation. We saw the impact last cycle. We're seeing the same thing this election cycle. And just because there's been a large number of people who did manage to make that shift to the in-person early voting doesn't mean that there's also not a significant block of people who have not made that shift, either by choice or by rejection. And in a state where we know the

elections are going to be closed, like 11,700 during the presidential, that percentage of folks who get their ballots rejected or who are turned off because of the suppression or who are turned off because of the intimidation at the polls, those margins can be the difference between who gets the win come November. Not to mention, last thing, real quick, Roland, not to mention that we still aren't even talking about the election subversion piece, which is even if everything goes okay and we get the votes, that they can still come back and knock out a county or knock out a couple of polling places within particular counties and just discount certain votes. That's literally

what the Pennsylvania candidate for governor has promised that he is going to do. With a stroke of a pen, he can decide which votes get cast. The same thing can happen in Georgia because of the voter suppression bill that was passed. And again, that's how dire this is. Melanie, y'all are going to be in the Supreme Court tomorrow for an event that, again, one of the critical issues that's on the ballot this November. Yes, thank you, Roland,

and thank you, Black Voters Matter, my friend Cliff, and Latasha will be there with us tomorrow. We are really continuing to lift up voting rights, and we also know the attack on reproductive rights right there within both of those bills were not passed in the Senate. And so we we want we have to keep the fight up. So we're coming together in a coalition of over 50 organizations to say we want voting rights and we need our reproductive rights protected tomorrow. We're connecting the vote, voting rights.

Nothing can sustain itself without voting rights. And so we started this in July, and we said we were going to continue to fight, continue to put the pressure on the Congress as well as the administration to focus in on voting rights in real time. We know we're going to have a problem. Texas showed the problems anyhow rolling with the election in Texas. And as Cliff pointed out, Pennsylvania, we're seeing it. So when you look at all of that, it's setting up for 2024

and also to set up to make sure that the power shift could happen in the Congress, as well as in state legislatures and governors races across the country. So a lot is riding on it. And so we said we could keep fighting and we meant that. And so we're just starting again tomorrow. And, you know, Cliff, it is interesting. I've been seeing all of these different people. In fact, I've been commenting on different people. I saw where LaTosha's responded to

Luther Campbell for some comments that he made about voting. I've been going back and forth with these folks on the page of comedian Eddie Griffin. I mentioned this yesterday where he posted this on his page. Trump may have hurt your feelings, but Biden is hurting you, hurting your family finances and your freedom.

The Democrat, the demon crats are not working for you. They're working for the devil. So look at that, you know, 2,000, you know, 16,000, almost 17,000 likes, almost 3,000 comments. And of course I had to go on there and I said, really? So do y'all want to talk about the gas price gouging bill where no Republicans voted for it? Do y'all want to talk about the baby formula bill where only one Republican voted for it? I said, you want to talk about the baby formula bill where only one Republican voted for?

I said, you want to talk about out of Galveston County, where Republicans control the county commission by four to one, but they then split up the only black seat into three different pieces. And so now every single county commissioner's district or precinct, 62% of all the voters are white. I said, oh, I guess y'all don't want to talk about that. So, you know, you've got black people out here who, again, we all, all three of us have been critical of Democrats. We also are very clear about the policies that are being passed by Republicans that have a detrimental impact on black people. Yeah, you know, you're exactly right, Roland. I mean, here you have a party, and I'm not out here just carrying water for the Democrats, right? Like you

said, all three of us. Yeah, no, we carry water for black people. That's right, exactly. That's the point. We carry water for black folks, and whoever it is that's pushing policies that are going to benefit our community, then we can be for that. At the end of the day, you can't say that you're about, you know're about honoring life and supporting children, but then you vote against formula for babies. You can't say that you're for freedoms, but then when it comes to a woman's body, then all of a sudden you believe that you don't believe in small government anymore. You believe that the government can play a role in what choices women make.

And speaking of which, you know, we got to take this issue, and I'm glad you and Mellie talked about the demonstration going on tomorrow in regards to voting rights and reproductive justice and abortion rights. You've got politicians out here talking about, oh, you know, maternal mortality ain't bad as long as you discount the black women. Like, is that where we at now? Were we going to be okay with Eddie Griffin? Were we going to be okay with these folks literally trying to discount the death of black women, of black mamas, of black sisters, of Black aunties. And I know that Black women are taking this issue serious, but I really need some more brothers

to really get involved in this battle. Like, you can't have this issue of abortion rights. And it's going to be Black women that are going to be hurt disproportionately. Not going to be. It's happening right now in places like Mississippi and other places. Because white women and women of certain wealth, they'll be able to travel, right? I mean, I don't wish it on them either, but they have more options. But many in our community aren't going to have those same options.

And when it gets criminalized, we know what happens when they criminalize anything, whether it's weed or abortions or whatever it is, or voting, it's going to be used disproportionately against Black women, against our families, against our communities. This is not just an issue that Black women need to be motivated around. We need brothers to be just as motivated and to recognize that you've got one group that

is anti our lives, that literally had said the quiet part out loud, that they can literally discount our loss of life. lives that literally had said the quiet part out loud that they can literally discount our loss of life. And then we got some other folks that are at least in some regards trying to defend that and do something about that. It's not about supporting a party.

It's about supporting us and whoever is speaking most closely, not perfectly, not where we want them to be on all issues, but most closely with the issues that are impacting our lives on a daily basis. Mel, only final comment. Yes.

And at the end of the day, when they come for your rights and they come for you, they come for me, they're coming for you next. And that's why it's important. We have sisters tomorrow, Ronitas, that are on the front lines, Sister Song and many others who are leading the reproductive justice movement, reproductive rights movement, and us bringing together civil rights organizations, women's organizations. Folks, show up. We have to show up. We have to keep the heat on and connect the dots to why this election is so very, very important. As we struggle with our daily issues that are

going on in our community, you were talking about it right before we came on, about gun...the gun violence and how out of control it is, the racism, the white nationalism. So many things. But at the end of the day, if we lose the right to control who gets elected, who speaks for us, who fights for us, we have to continue that fight, and we have to join together in coalition.

So thank you for the opportunity to talk about it tonight. All right, we have to continue that fight and we have to join together in coalition. So thank you for the opportunity to talk about it tonight. All right. We appreciate it. Thanks so very much. Thank you. All right, folks. Tomorrow we'll have details on who won and who lost in these various primary

races across the country. Folks, a little bit earlier today I got a chance to talk with Sherry Beasley. She's the former North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice, who is a Democratic nominee for the United States Senate. We've been waiting to get her on for quite some time. We finally got a chance to chat with her. Here is our conversation. All right, Sherry Beasley, finally got you on the show. I've been waiting to talk to you for quite some time, so let's not waste any time. Let's get

right into it. You lost your race for Supreme Court justice in North Carolina 2020 by 400 votes. What did you learn in that race that is helping you when it comes to now running for the United States Senate? What are you focused on? Roland, thanks so much for having me. I did. I was running for the office of chief justice. And in North Carolina, judges are elected statewide in contested races. And with 5.5 million votes cast, I fell short by 401 votes, but performed well in rural communities and urban communities and outperformed almost every statewide elected official other than the governor.

I'm really excited about this race, and it is awesome to be the Democratic nominee. Very thankful for voters for coming out and supporting my candidacy. You know, I know we have been working really hard in this election. I've had two successful statewide elections, a local election as a young mom when people doubted that I could win, and we won that race by 30 points. And in 08, I was successful in a statewide election in 2014. What we know is that we must work hard for every single vote. We are traveling across the state,

meeting voters in backyards and places of worship and everywhere else. And we're investing in voters now. And so we know it's gonna be important. I've been in tough fights before. I've never backed down and I won't back down now. But we have an opportunity to really reach voters and let them know

the magnitude of this election and that we really can win it. So I saw a piece the other day in Politico that just had me totally befuddled. And it talked about how Democrats were trying to figure out whether to go all in North Carolina because they hadn't won a Senate race in 2008. And I'm sitting here going, correct me if I'm wrong. Democrats have a majority on the state Supreme Court. You have a democratically elected governor right here, right now. You've had successful challenges against the law, against gerrymandering, racial gerrymandering, political gerrymandering, people fighting back against voter suppression. How in the world would these folks in D.C. not go full in when you have a potential to actually win the U.S. Senate seat if you put

the resources and the boots on the ground to do it? You know, Roland, I'm really excited about where we are. I've been in public service in North Carolina for nearly 30 years as a public defender, a judge, and chief justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina. And I have been working hard to uphold the law and the Constitution and to make sure that laws are applied equally to all people. We really do have an amazing opportunity. I know that Washington has failed people here in North Carolina, and so many people are struggling. We do have an opportunity, and the other side knows we have an opportunity. We know that the

NRSC is running ads to distort my judicial record, And they're committed to spending millions of dollars to do that. They know that they can lose and that we can win. So I'm excited about where we are in this race. I've taken an oath to uphold the Constitution and respect the rule of law and really thankful for the sheriffs who stepped up condemning the ads against me and really understand that we really can win this race and they're very supportive. But in order to win the race, you've got to have folks who believe in it and you've got to hit those rural parts of the state. When I examined the 2020 race, when Tillis was running, I saw some numbers anywhere from 16 to 18 percent among African

Americans. And I was talking to folks there, trying to explain to folks, I was asking, Tillis was running. I saw some numbers anywhere from 16 to 18 percent among African-Americans. And I was talking to folks there, trying to explain to folks, I was asking, you know, what was going on when you were talking about one of the people who's the architects of the voter suppression laws? You still have a Republican Party in your state that is doing all it can to suppress Black voters. You've had all these groups fighting like crazy over the last decade. So North Carolina literally has an opportunity to be like Georgia if you're maximizing that turnout. We do have an amazing opportunity to really win this race. And I'm very thankful that I've always performed well in rural communities and urban communities. If you look at a map of the last election, you'll see that I was able to outperform President Biden and and and Tom Tillis.

And so we've been able to do well in these communities. We also know that there is a national interest. We've seen the Senate Majority PAC invest in North Carolina on my behalf. This race is winnable. My campaign is certainly making investments of voters all across this state. And we are excited about the energy and responses that we're seeing from voters here in North Carolina. The East Carolina University released a poll showing that your opponent, Representative Ted Budd, holds an eight-point lead. When it comes to the issues, how are you going to differentiate yourself? And what are you saying to the voters as to where you stand on why they should be electing you over Budd for the United States Senate? There's actually additional external

polling that shows us actually neck and neck. And that's what Republicans know. That's why they're investing in this race, working hard to distort my record. But, you know, I'm really excited about where we are in this race. And there is a real distinction. I'm a mom who has raised her twin sons along with my husband with shared values of hard work and faith and integrity. And I didn't raise my children in Washington. I raised them in North Carolina. And what we know about Ted Budd is that he is not good for North Carolina. He does not speak for the people in North Carolina. We know that here we are in a shortage with baby formula,

and he just voted against the legislation to increase the supply of baby formula for people in North Carolina. We know that he's not good for North Carolina because he voted against increasing veterans pay. He voted against infrastructure legislation, which would have brought good paying jobs to North Carolina. He voted against increasing and making access, healthcare more accessible to people here in North Carolina. So actions speak louder than words. And he does not speak for the people here in North Carolina. He will not put North Carolina first. He will put special interests first. We need somebody in the Senate who's going to fight hard for the people of the state. And that's exactly why I'm running. And when we look at, I mean, obviously, you've been focused on even the issue once the Supreme Court rules on Roe v. Wade

and that particular issue and how it affects voters there in North Carolina. You know, I'm a former judge for 22 years and chief justice of the Supreme Court. And Roe told us that a woman's right to privacy to make her own reproductive health choices are grounded in the 14th Amendment and other constitutional amendments and really without government interference. And so to roll back constitutional rights granted by Roe is disheartening. In fact, there's never been a time, we've seen certainly over the course of history, that rights are granted, but the fact that they've been rolled back is deeply disturbing. We know that my opponent, Ted Budd, is open to absolute ban for abortion, even in the instance of rape, incest, or risk to health of a mother. That's just absolutely unacceptable. People and women in North Carolina know and

remember a time before Roe. We need to fight to secure this constitutional right. Certainly, if I remember the Senate now, I would have voted to support the Women's Health Protection Act. And people in North Carolina are incensed by by this recent draft leak draft opinion and they're incensed by the Senate's failure to act. Now, when we talk about the concerns of black voters in particular, you talked about outperforming President Biden in 2020. When you look at polling data now, his numbers are down across the to get Democratic voters, to independent voters, to get young voters, to get African-American voters to understand that sitting this election out is not an option? said about voter suppression laws not being passed. Well, if Democrats expand their majority in the United States Senate, you can actually overcome the obstacles put in place by Senator Joe Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema. You know, I think people really do get it. We are seeing excitement among Democrats, independents, and Republicans about my candidacy. And people really do understand the magnitude of this race. But we are reaching out to everybody, young people, college students, and people in urban and rural counties who cares, who's a mother, who's raising children in North Carolina, who is invested in North Carolina, who's been in service to the people

of North Carolina for nearly 30 years. It matters that there's a real opportunity to excite voters in a way that we've not had for quite some time, frankly, since President Obama ran and did well in North Carolina. So we are excited about working with people across the state, really energizing people and helping to really see what's at stake, that our constitutional rights are at stake. And even with this leaked opinion, which is about the constitutional right to privacy, when you look at the language of this opinion, it really does make us all concerned that really civil rights are at stake. And people really must understand the magnitude of this election, the opportunity to expand the Democratic majority, but the opportunity to also have a senator who's going to commit to passing legislation that's really grounded in humanity and in justice. But here's what's strange to me. Ten black people gunned down in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.

Last week, the House passes a bill to deal with domestic terrorism. One Republican voted for it. Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. Representative Ted Budd voted against that. We're talking about in the aftermath of 10 Black people being shot, and this man would not support a bill that would beef up federal efforts to deal with domestic terrorism and white supremacy? That's another example of how Ted Budd doesn't serve North Carolina well, how he will not put North Carolina first, nor will he put this nation first. My heart goes out to the families and community of Buffalo who are dealing with just a horrendous tragedy. And we really must do more. And you're right. The people of North

Carolina should have expected Ted Budd to support this legislation, and he didn't. He fell short. Again, one of the issues, people are really concerned about voter suppression. Obviously, you know, all these laws are being passed. Your North Carolina legislature was right there with it as well. And so, you know, we see ballots being thrown out, thousands of ballots in Texas, in Georgia, how they're being impacted. And so what are you also doing on the voter education front to ensure that folks don't get caught up in this vortex of voter fraud, which is totally BS, and that their votes, their ballots are actually fully counted? Well, there's education around making sure that people understand how to cast a vote. There's also education around making sure that people understand that their

precinct might have moved, particularly on college campuses, where on some of the campuses, there's now a line drawn through the campus, and where there was one precinct, there are now two. So we're certainly being a part of those educational efforts, but we're also making sure that elections will be monitored. There will be lots of folks in the general election who are monitoring voting precincts so that if there are problems that arise, people will have someone to report those incidents to immediately so that they can be rectified? Obviously, we're seeing intense focus by a lot of Black women all across the country as well. And so what is it looking like for you there? Do you have an energetic base of black women who are really ready to go out and do all necessary to put you in the United States Senate?

You know, there is a lot of excitement around my candidacy. Black women, black people, but really all people. I mean, I've been an elected official for 22 years, and so we've been building upon relationships for over the last decade. And so we're really excited about where we are in this race. But I can also tell you this, Roland, the first time I ever saw an African-American woman presiding in a courtroom, I was a practicing lawyer, and it was then Judge Patricia Timmons-Gudson. So I certainly know that diversity and representation matter, and I know that our institutions are better when we are diverse and have voices from a lot of folks represented at the table. There are 24 women currently serving

in the Senate, and there are zero African-American women in the Senate. And it matters how the Senate looks, but it also matters how the Senate works. And so I'm really running to make sure that we're making changes to address access to health care and expanding the ACA with a public option, that we're expanding Medicaid here in North Carolina, that we're lowering prescription drug costs and protecting our constitutional rights and so much more. But I have to say that a lot of people really are excited. And I know it makes a difference to have the voice of an African-American woman on the Senate floor. Last question on that point about expanding Medicaid.

I talked to a few years ago with Reverend William Barber, and he talked about being at a parade. And he said a white man came up to him, he said with a Confederate flag draped around his neck with tears in his eyes, thanking him and NAACP for fighting to keep rural hospitals open. This is one of those issues where a lot of white voters, poor white voters, were initially resistant to Moral Mondays until they realized, wait a minute, the issues they're talking about impact us. And I actually met a group of white women who were in the hills of North Carolina who opened an NAACP chapter. And so that issue of closing rural hospitals has a direct impact on those voters. Is that one that also separates you and your opponent, Representative Butt? Well, it absolutely does. And we do know that so many people, because rural hospitals are closing, are traveling an hour and a half

to give birth, and other kinds of healthcare needs. And there's something deeply wrong with that. And so we know that access to healthcare is by cost, but it's also by proximity. I'm going to put North Carolina first. I think the other piece, too, that you just made the point is that so many of these issues really are not partisan. If you don't have clean air and clean water, it doesn't matter whether you're Democrat or Republican. If you don't have access to good quality health care or to be able to get to a health care facility, it doesn't matter whether you're Democrat or Republican. If you've been gerrymandered

and live in a rural community, it doesn't matter whether you're Democrat or Republican. And so, so many of these issues really do resonate. And people understand that these are issues and rights that people have here in this state that I'm going to fight for. And that does distinguish me between against Ted, but because he's not going to put North Carolina first. Well, I was there in 2020 talking to you and some other candidates who are running. So look forward to being on the road this summer and the fall as well, coming to North Carolina, some other states that we plan on hitting. And so look forward to seeing you out there on the campaign trail. I appreciate you, Roland. Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Good luck.

Thank you. All right. So I'm trying to understand, Lauren, what the hell are Democrats thinking about not fighting hard to try to win in North Carolina? We saw what happened in Georgia. Ain't like Democrats got a shot at winning a U.S. Senate seat in Alabama or Mississippi or Tennessee or Arkansas or South Carolina. And so I would think they should be saying we're going to go all in to try to win North Carolina. Well, that's what you would be thinking. But of course, when it comes to candidates, particularly candidates of color, they seem to be sort of lackadaisical about it, which they can't afford to be. I mean, these next two cycles are probably for all the marvels, quite frankly. And I'm not sure why the Democratic Party doesn't completely

and fully understand that. So not only the North Carolina race, but so many others, they really need to go all in like they've never gone all in before. I mean, if you're not doing it now, when are you doing it? We're talking, we're having open discussions about our democracy being at stake. The Capitol was attacked last year. I mean, when do you become urgent if you're not urgent now? So this race, though, to me, North Carolina being a closer state, certainly not a full-on red state, and a state that has shown that it can elect a Democrat statewide, one would think that they would be more energized about a state like North Carolina. So I'm very confused by that statement.

It's going to be really interesting to see how much the Democrats, exactly how much the Democrats invest in North Carolina. I'm not sure why this would be even a discussion with a 50-50 Senate. It is nonsensical, Robert, for any of these folks in Washington, D.C., who are Democrats, to not think you don't fight for North Carolina. First of all, the activists on the ground have fought for a very long time to fight those voter suppression laws, and that's why they've seen some success. The reality is they can win in North Carolina, but you've got to run hard in order to win in North Carolina, and you've got to commit the resources to a Sherry Beasley to actually do it. Well, you have to understand, National Democrats, for some reason, despite getting 81 million votes

in the last election, still run as if they're underdogs, still running as if they have such finite resources like they had during the OFA period that they can only get behind only the slam dunk, if you will, campaigns. They did the same thing here in Georgia for the longest period of time. It was local activists on the ground, people fighting the good fight in all 159 counties that flipped Georgia into being a purple state bordering on blue. And the same thing can happen in North Carolina. The same thing did happen in D during the Obama years in North Carolina. So I think that you have to get new and more innovative leadership into the DNC, into the DCCC, into the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, all the way down the line and make them understand that, look, the future of the party particularly is not going to be in the Rust Belt.

It's no longer going to be in Scranton and Cleveland and many of these upper Midwest states. It's going to be in the Sun Belt. It's going to be in the South where you're having massive population shifts. More people are moving to Charlotte every day because of corporate jobs coming from liberal states. And if you put the investment in now, you can hold those states for the next generation. How do you even expect to ever win, Mustafa, if you don't run and try to win? It's nonsensical. You know, it blows your mind some of the things that you see Democratic leadership not doing and not funding and expecting a different result. We know that black women are the heart of the Democratic ticket.

And if we know that, then protect the heart. And when you don't do that, it just makes absolutely no sense. North Carolina is very much in play. You have an extremely strong candidate. You should be pumping resources into the state of North Carolina to make sure that she has the ability, has the capacity to be able to win. And if you're not doing that, you're also sending a message across the country to other Black candidates in particular, but candidates of color,

that, you know, folks are not going to support you at the same level that they would, unfortunately, a white man. So you need to win Virginia. You need to win North Carolina. And you actually have a chance of winning Georgia also in a number of important seats. So get your act together, make the investments that are necessary, and it will yield positive results. Simple as that. All right, folks, got to go to a break. Hey, if you're on YouTube or Facebook, hit the like button. We should easily be about more than 1,000. Look, almost 3,000 of y'all are watching right now.

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You know, he brought his own sound. So when you have an artist that creates his own sound, like Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie, you know, they come in the Beatles. They create their own sound. He kept reinventing himself. He wasn't afraid to change instrumentations or not use drums or not use bass or use the Linn machine or use real drums or use pots and pans.

It didn't matter. He wasn't afraid to... The sound was different every time he did an album, completely different. And the things that he wrote about, it was things that he felt he needed to speak about. So a lot of honesty, you know? Whether he would admit to it or not, there was a lot of honesty and a lot of things

that were real to him. When he gave, he gave, you know? I think, for me, he is my favorite, my number one favorite guitar player in the world. He was. He played with, I mean, and especially, I loved times me playing drums with him, he and I playing together.

When I played drums, it was a whole nother thing. And I just think that he reached people in a way as an artist that he reached you because he was, again, honest in a way that he wasn't, he even, he said it a million times, but he wasn't trying to write the next Purple Rain, that was already what it was. I can write that, that was that one time, but it's never gonna happen again,

so why would I write that again? Then it's not special anymore. Hi, I'm Gavin Houston. Hi, I'm Carl Payne. Hey, what's up, you're artist your boy, Jacob Lattimore. And you're now watching Roland Martin right now. All right, y'all. Of course, our black and missing. Seth James Davenport has been missing from Cleveland, Ohio, since May 14th.

The 17-year-old is 6 feet 2 inches tall, weighs 170 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. He was last seen wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans. He left home without his medication and may need some medical attention. Anyone with information about Seth James Davenport should call the Cleveland, Ohio Police Department at 216-623-5262 216-623-5262 216-623-5262 Folks, you might recall when we had

the family of a young man in Houston, Texas who was shot and killed by police. They couldn't understand what happened to him and they were demanding that the body cam footage actually be released. Well, that body cam footage has now been released, and if you want to understand how it's nonsensical, how police are operating out here, this is another example of what happens. This is the video. And we're just warning you, if you want to turn away, that's fine.

Please do so. But this is the video of Jalen Randall. Okay? This took place a month ago. He was 29 years old. He was shot and killed by police officers in Houston, Texas. They finally released this body cam footage. If this is triggering for you,

or it's too graphic, please turn away. But again, if you want to see how these officers are behaving when somebody is running away, here's another example. Watch out on Josie. Hey, let me see your hands. Oh, shit. Hey, watch out behind me. Watch out behind me. You good? I'm good. Hey,.

We're good. We got one driver. Suspect can be taken into custody right now. Roll the window down. Yeah, give us a second. Roll the window down! Do it now! Roll the window!

Drag him back. Drag him back. Keep your hands up when you see him. All right, now, folks, Randall was shot and killed on April 27. Officers say they were trying to arrest him for three felony warrants. Here's the question. You saw the video there. We can stop it now. You saw the video there, and Mustafa, he's literally seconds, three seconds out of the car. They fire. He's running away.

The rationale for using deadly force at no point in the video. Do we see him shooting at officers that where was their life in imminent danger to use lethal force? From what we see, there was no, you know, danger from this individual. But we also know that there, as I mentioned earlier, there is this killing fields mentality that is going on across our country. And law enforcement plays a role where, because we are so dehumanized. They continue to react without provocation in many instances. And at the end of the day, we are the ones that continue to lose our lives. So things have to change. We continue to say that things have to change, but there's no

accountability in the process to actually to make change happen, which makes it extremely difficult and what causes the frustration that we find in our community that, you know, that they continue to take our lives. It just, again, utterly nonsensical. Lauren, again, you know, we hear law enforcement talk about how the difficulties that they face and things along those lines. Again, you see this video. I mean, in fact, guys, come back. Come back, actually.

Take it back. No, you're fast-forwarding through. Fast-forward. Go forward. I want to show people the number of police officers who were on the scene. So if you keep going forward, keep going it, keep going forward, keep going forward, keep going forward, keep going forward. You're going to see in a second here, stop right there. So one, look at the number of officers who are on the scene. Now let's fast forward again. I want

to take it through. I mean, folks, three felony, I get three felony warrants, but there's a lot of police officers. go right here. Look at this shot here. Okay. Look at the number of officers on the scene. I can count right here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. So you mean to tell me that if somebody's trying to run away, your first option is to use deadly force?

Yeah. So what I saw in that video was the car stopped, and then the cop put the gun in his hand, and I heard him say, oh, shit, as if he made a mistake, as if he pressed a lot of these guns. Heard a gunshot, then oh, shit. Right. Like, as in,, then oh, shit. Right. Like, as in, I just effed up.

That's what I thought I heard there. What it looked like to me was he exited the car, he pointed the gun. And, you know, what police are generally taught is that if you point your gun at somebody, you have to be ready to fire it. Like, you're not pointing the gun just to point the gun. You're pointing the gun in preparation to fire. A lot of these guns have very sensitive trigger mechanisms. And I think he, I think the adrenaline, it looked like to me, the adrenaline, you know, went through to the trigger and he shot that guy by accident. The, the, the, uh, Jalen Randall was actually looked to me like he was turned away, had his back to him. He was. Back to the officer.

So that to me is a, what I would define as a bad shoot, just looking at that video for the first time. I'd be interested to know what the three felony warrants are. Unless the three felony warrants are if he's a serial killer who, you know, killed 20 people, I don't understand how that happened. I mean, even if it did, I mean, the guy in Buffalo, as we've all observed, as we've seen a million times, these people in Buffalo, you know, the guy murders 10 people with an assault weapon and walks away unscratched, right? I mean, it's amazing. And this guy, Jalen Randall, I don't know what, again, I don't know what the three felony warrants are, but even so, right, he's got his back to the officer. So where's the threat?

Where's the, I fear for my life? He's got his back to the officer. Officer immediately comes out, points the firearm at him, and the firearm immediately goes off. And he says, oh, shit, on the video. If that's him, and that sounded like him on the video. So that's hugely problematic. Robert, I get it if

a guy is running away from the cops, and he's running, and he's firing back. Okay? I get that. You don't have that here. And there's just this natural reaction for these cops. Oh, how dare you run away? I'm gonna shoot you.

Well, you know, I think there's just certain professions you have where you can't have an oh shit moment. You never want to be in court and your lawyer says, oh shit, like right as the jury try to go back for their verdict. You don't want to be in surgery. And the doctor says, oh shit, like right in the middle of brain surgery, something along those lines. And when you're a police officer, you can't have an oh, shit moment that results in the death of another individual. We all heard what the officer said on the video. We saw that the Mr. Ramsey was unarmed, that he was not attacking officers, he was not proceeding towards them. It very much sounds as if this officer made a fatal and crucial mistake. And I would be interested to see what the statements from police were and what the police report said prior to the video coming out and whether or not there's inconsistencies there.

And for people who always oppose police reform, for example, when we say that there have to be other ways to do it, this is what we're talking about, the fact that there are other ways to bring an individual suspect in. Even if he is accused of being a serial killer or anything else, you still have your due process rights. You are still innocent until proven guilty. And we have to find another way to bring people into custody other than having to kill them and have an oh shit moment that cost somebody their life. Indeed, indeed.

All right, folks, got to go to break. We come back. We'll talk about the DOJ targeting Kentucky when it comes to civil rights violation in their mental locations. We'll tell you about that next. Jay targeting Kentucky when it comes to civil rights violation in their mental locations. We'll tell you about that next. And also we'll talk to in our marketplace a fashion designer who is trying to make

her way in the business. You're watching Worldwide Modern Unfiltered right here on the Blackstar Network. Next on A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, summertime when the living is easy, or is it? Summer vacations, class reunions, kids in summer camp, all fun but stressful. You need to get into a summer mindset and have a plan. Oh, yes. Our panel gives us their favorite summer planning hacks on a next A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie here at Black Star Network.

We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Hey, everybody. This is Sherri Shepherd. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. And while he's doing Unfiltered, I'm practicing the wobble.

Yes, I am. Because Roland Martin's the one, he will do it backwards, he will do it on the side. He messes everybody up when he gets into the wobble because he doesn't know how to do it, so he does it backwards. And it messes me up every single time. So, I'm working on it. I got it. You got

Roland Martin. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. What's going on everybody? It's your boy Mack Wiles and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. What's going on, everybody? It's your boy Mack Wilds, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. What's up, y'all? It's Ryan Destiny, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. What up, Lana Well,

and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. The Department of Justice has launched an investigation into Kentucky's treatment of the mentally ill in Louisville and Jefferson counties. The focus of the investigation is to determine if Kentucky isolates those who are severely mentally ill in psychiatric hospitals because of the lack of community-based mental health resources available. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clark of the Justice Department Civil Rights Division says she wants to make sure those who have mental illness are not unnecessarily coming into contact with police. The DOJ is currently investigating the Louisville and Louisville Metro Police Department's patterns and practices, including their treatment of those experiencing mental health crises. A Georgia prosecutor will not prosecute Atlanta police officers for their interaction with two college students in May of 2020.

The students were stunned with tasers and pulled from a car while sitting in traffic caused by protests over George Floyd's death. Monday, Cherokee District Attorney Samira Patel dismissed the warrants filed against the six officers involved. Patel released this statement. Not only was law enforcement acting within the scope of their legal authority in their actions to obtain compliance, their actions were also largely consistent with the Atlanta Police Department's own use of force policy. The DA added that he could not find probable cause to prosecute the officers involved for a crime

under Georgia law. What? Robert, what the hell? I mean, we all remember this video and these two students were just shocked and stunned and these cops just went ape shit,

hitting them with tasers, yanking them out of the car, and they were like, what is going on? And to District Attorney Patel's point, if the law does not make this type of conduct by police officers illegal, we need to change that damn law. Right. Or change the department's use of force. Exactly.

When we talk about criminal justice reform, there's a lot of discussion about what goes on in Washington, D.C., what is Biden doing, what the Justice Department doing. No, you can—this is a local election issue. This is what your state representative does. This is what your state senator does. So if it is not illegal in Georgia to tase people for no damn reason because you can't do your job as a police officer, that means that when the legislative session opens next year, that's the first thing that needs to be on the board, as well

as working with the city council and the new mayor, and also to talk to the police department to find out how you can change those policies, because if it ain't illegal, it needs to be. You know, it was crazy. I mean, it was crazy. I mean, I remember this video so vividly. They were Morehouse and Spelman students.

Again, they were, you know, yanked out of the car. Now, the video that we showed you, the video that we showed you was the, that's the body cam footage, okay? So this is the body cam footage. Turn it up and body cam video shows another officer hitting the car window with a baton then police confront the passenger taniya pilgrim who doesn't exit immediately because the car is moving the video shows officer mark gardner responding with his taser. This is a vicious act.

The tasing, it went on for some time. The person you're hearing is the previous DA who was defeated. Now, come to my iPhone video. Now, again, that's from the body cam footage. This is from another angle. And you will see, they're sitting here, and it's like he's sitting there. First of all, you're driving. You're surrounded by cops.

You're just trying to figure out what the hell is going on. And you're like, I don't know what's going on. If I'm them, Lauren, I'm acting the same way. Like, what in the hell is going on? You're on mute. Can you hear me? Yeah, now we got you. Okay. I think the key phrase that you said out there was acting within the scope of their legal authority.

Well, the question is, what is outside the scope of an officer's legal authority? I can't actually think of anything that's outside the scope of their legal authority. I mean, they, in fact, have a license to kill. They can use deadly force if they choose to use deadly force. You know, the scope of their legal authority, I have a feeling, is going to be pretty wide in that jurisdiction. So, as Robert Petillo once again very smartly said, I mean, you have to change the law.

And, you know, it amazes me that we sit here, we watch these videos every night like the one you had last night with the young lady, with the cop who got fired, I believe in Tennessee. You know, imagine what was going on previous to video. I mean, if they're doing this now and, you know, they've got sort of comical to watch the fact that they don't seem to think that there's a problem with their own cameras running and that they're filming this. I mean, at least the dummy in Tennessee turns camera off for some of it, right? But the key part was actually on camera. But it's amazing to me that they put this stuff on film and think nobody's going to have any reaction to it.

So imagine what was going on without the cameras for the most of American history, of course. It's crazy. And again, part of the problem that we have here, Mustafa, is cops get to do whatever they want with him, P.M.D. James Baldwin said to be black and conscious in America is to be in a rage all the time. There's a reason why we have this rage is because the laws are not protecting us. The enforcement individuals are not protecting us. The judicial system is not protecting us. And until we change that dynamic, you know, we are going to continue to

not only see these types of situations play out, but we're also going to see that, you know, folks are going to continue to not have any trust in the system, in law enforcement, or even in the fact that change can and should happen. So, you know, we've just got, we've got to do better. Yeah. And you absolutely, yeah, change the law. Folks, Illinois, the Supreme Court appoints the first black woman justice in the state's highest court history. Judge Lisa Holder-White, who currently sits on the 4th District Illinois Appellate Court,

will replace retiring Justice Rita B. Jarman. Judge Holder-White has served in the judiciary for more than 20 years, where she began her career as an assistant state's attorney for Macon County before moving into private practice. Judge Holder-White will fill the seat on July 8, 2022, and hold the position until December 2, 2024. Walmart thought it was wise to celebrate Juneteenth by selling specialty ice cream. The Great Value brand has removed the Juneteenth ice cream designed to celebrate African-American culture, emancipation, and enduring hope. The retail giant received tons of backlash from the ice cream on social media.

It has since responded to Juneteenth holiday marks the celebration of freedom and independence. However, we received feedback that a few items caused concern for some of our customers and we sincerely apologize. We're reviewing our assortment and will remove items as appropriate. Now, of course, Juneteenth was a day in 1865 when Union soldiers told the slaves and gallows in Texas that they were free. Two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth was a state holiday in Texas, and last year it became a federal holiday. I mean, Mustafa, you would swear these folk ain't got nobody black working there.

Like, nobody. And you think Juneteenth ice cream was going to fly? Walmart, what the hell is that? Well, you also got to look at Walmart senior management and their board as well. That would help you to have a better understanding of some of these just ridiculous missteps that they're doing. You know, my message to Walmart is,

if you want to truly support Juneteenth, then pay your Black workers a better wage. Make sure that they have the benefits that they deserve. You know, many of them were out there on the front lines during COVID because, you know, they had 24-hour stores and people continually coming in. So if you truly want to honor your Juneteenth, support our organizations and support your Black workers with better wages and better benefits. The thing that's hilarious to me,

I mean, Lauren, you're going to love this one. So me and my team with Urban Edge Network, we did a call with Publicis, this unit of Publicis that handles the multicultural account for Walmart. And we were told that the deadline had already passed for advertising and marketing around Juneteenth. Now, even though we've been trying to do business with them for two years, somehow we didn't get the phone call about it. We probably could have advised y'all, don't do some Juneteenth ice cream. Absolutely.

I mean, that-that-that right there, that's like the ice cream equivalent of, uh, Pat Boone singing Tutti Frutti. I mean, I don't know what they were thinking or what that was about. I-I don't know. They didn't even bother to, like, jazz up the font or anything. I mean, I-I don't know. Who didn't even bother to, like, jazz up the font or anything.

I mean, I don't know. Who knows what the hell this was about, other than just complete ignorance and having no diversity on your team? Uh, it's just odd, you know, that they thought they could throw that out there and make money off of it. I have no idea.

And, of course, now it's big, fat, and embarrassing. It's a big PR disaster. But I just find that story to be crazy. Well, but it goes to show you how these companies simply look to try to make money off of these holidays

and that without understanding that that ain't what Juneteenth is about. So this ain't like the holiday like we do the other holidays, Robert, where they got mattress sales and everything else. No, that one not going to fly. And also for the Walmart diversity team, I have some notes. One, a red velvet cake and cheesecake flavored ice cream, that doesn't taste like freedom.

I mean, that's not what we fought and died for, for red velvet cake and cheesecake-flavored ice cream. So I'm going to recommend something along, maybe a peach cobbler flavor for next year's Juneteenth line, or maybe work with some Black designers and some Black cooks and some Black companies. So if you're going to be profiting off of Juneteenth, you actually put that money back into Black communities.

Also, maybe don't release it under your great value line, as if it's the cheapest, most cookie-cutter ice cream you can think of. And also, how would you put some black art on the cover instead of the generic high five? Because if you look at the wider picture, they have the June Teeth ice cream right next to the Pride Month ice cream, which is also June. And that's the exact same picture, the exact same font, just with a different color rainbow on it, a different flavor. So if you want to do it, actually work with the Black community.

Hire some Black people to help you design it. Put together an entire campaign around it. Use this as an opportunity to donate to some Black causes. There are ways that you can do this, but having great value Juneteenth cheesecake and red velvet ice cream probably was not the right way to do it.

Yeah, that's not really smart or wise. All right, y'all. I'm just, and again, I mean, and so, you know, we had a conversation. You know, I'm going to be, I was supposed to send last week, but Doug McMillan is the CEO of Walmart. I actually did the MLK Day speech at Walmart in Bentonville, Arkansas. There may have been, I think it was 2018 or 2019. And one of the things that I said to, and I was speaking to employees all across the world, what I said to them was, Walmart, because of its size, because of its scale, Mustafa, they have the ability to literally impact the rest of business.

I mean, look, there are multiple daily flights from New York City to Bentonville, Arkansas. Let's be real clear. The only reason that there are daily nonstop flights to Bentonville, Arkansas and New York City is because of Walmart. We understand that. We know that. And so this is one of those examples where you've got to have folk who are making decisions who go, hmm, that's not probably going to fly. And so I would say the Doug McMillan and the Walmart team examine your entire

infrastructure, your decision-making when it comes to things along those lines. And I was reaching out to him anyway, because again, you know, we've been making it clear to a lot of these companies, the importance of black owned media and advertising. And my team was not satisfied with the calls that we've had with the company handling their advertising. We've been telling these companies, you know what? Why don't you take this stuff out of the hands of your advertising agencies

and put it in the hands of the companies and deal direct with us Black-owned media because that ain't cutting it. Walmart makes a huge amount of money, a huge amount of money on black and brown folks. So, you know, whether we're talking about, you know, the supply chain and how they could do a much better job there around contracting and subcontracting opportunities. You know, the areas that you often highlight and we put a spotlight on on this show. You know, all the media sets of opportunities that

they could better support that could push others to do the same thing, because the reality is, you know, there are a lot of folks in the business world who follow what Walmart does and decisions that they make because they are such a huge, you know, huge part of what's happening in that space. But once again, if you're not willing to take a hard look at yourself, if you're not willing to also bring in the voices and those who have the tools that are in place to actually make sure that you have a stronger and more authentic process, if you're not going to support Black media, then you're going to continue to have huge gaps and you're going to continue to make, you know, these mistakes that hurt your brand. Indeed, indeed. And so, you know, this is just one of the things that we just keep making clear over and over and over again when it comes to these companies, when it comes to, again, the spending of resources.

And I got to tell you, it's amazing to me when we're talking about this stuff and we are and we're trying to walk people through how some folk really don't get it. They really don't understand the nuances of business. So let me give you a perfect example. So when we talk about these companies in terms of what they're doing and how they're operating with different things, is that you have these companies at a large scale. And so let's say they do business with an African-American.

Well, all of a sudden, if they want to put that product on the shelves and ramp up, a lot of our businesses don't have the ability to actually compete because these companies are paying 120 days, 180 days. So what's happening is they literally, Robert, we black-owned companies can't afford to literally float businesses for four to six months and not get paid. Well, then what happens is that sometimes these large companies like a Walmart, they may decide to then, you know,

oh, the product didn't sell like we thought it. So then all of a sudden they do less orders. So then what happens is you've ramped up. Now you've got to also scale back. So we're talking about this notion of where's our money. We're talking about resources. We're talking about how to build and how to build capacity with black-owned businesses. It also means these companies sitting down with people to understand the processes in terms of how they make decisions and how they impact us in a totally different and unique way. This is one of those examples where internally something seriously got screwed up, where some unit thought it was a great idea to slap some Juneteenth ice cream on the shelf. But the other deal is if I'm Walmart,

if I'm Doug McMillan and my team, you know what I'm doing? I'm sitting here saying, hey, you know a great way to actually celebrate Walmart? Let's highlight the black-owned products that are in our stores, items that we're carrying on the shelves. How about you start thinking about

what are the Juneteenth displays? Because if you want to talk about freedom and black people, economic freedom is something we can talk about, or what I call black economic social justice. You're absolutely right. And I think most of us remember just two years ago when you had almost every major corporation in the country pledging tens of millions, if not billions of dollars to black businesses, to black nonprofits, to black organizations, to social justice organizations. And here we are, two years out, the anniversary of George Floyd being killed is coming up. And absolutely almost none of that money has been distributed. These people talked a good game about what they were going to do to help bring black businesses in,

to help cultivate black innovation, to hold seminars and training classes, to teach people about ramping up, getting government contracts, all sorts of things that needed to happen. And those promises have gone unheralded. So when you talk about voting, you also talk about voting for your dollar. You need to look into exactly who these people support, where they are investing their resources, and if they're actually holding up their end of the bargain on these things before you decide to shop with them versus a competitor because there's no reason you should be financing people who are not willing to help your own community.

And, again, this is one of those things I keep saying over and over and over again. So hopefully the folks in Bentonville have figured out this really wasn't a wise idea. All right, y'all, we're going to and speaking of that, Robert, tomorrow, President Biden is going to be signing an executive order dealing with criminal justice reform. The George Floyd family is going to be there. Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the death of George Floyd. We have not gotten any details so far, Lauren, on what the executive order looks like. But I'll be perfectly honest. I mean, look, I get it why you're waiting for the anniversary. But me personally, the White House should have

been a hell of a lot more aggressive in December when Senator Tim Scott scuttled this whole thing. What they should have done, they should have actually said, we're calling all the families. We're calling Scott, Lindsey Graham, McConnell to the White House and say, said, we're calling all the families, we're calling Scott, Lindsey Graham, McCallum to the White House and say, no, we're going to sit here, sit them across from each other, try to hammer out this deal. I get trying to work on your executive order, but that was almost six months ago. There was a different way to actually do this. And sure, you may have still not resulted in a bill, but I frankly think the White House was way too passive on the George Floyd Justice Act. Yeah, there's no passion there for that.

And there's no, the White House doesn't seem to really care about this. We did watch the president at the State of the Union get up there and say that we don't need to defund police, we need to fund police, and we had Marjorie Taylor Greene cheering that on when he said it. It feels to me like James Carville is in there, is in the president's ear, the sort of idea that you're going to attract that mysterious unicorn, white, middle-of-the-road voter going into the midterms. That doesn't make any sense. Allowing Anita Dunn to apparently talk everybody out of working on voting rights when he first came into office doesn't make any sense. And none of this makes any sense, of course, too, right after Buffalo. And then you're going into the midterms.

And then the president's approval is in the tank. So one would think that he would be focused on the number one voting base in the Democratic Party. Of course not, right? It makes no sense. It makes no political sense. They're always trying to, the Democratic Party is always trying to please everybody, always trying to get everybody, instead of picking a part of their base that they definitely need to show up to win in a lot of these locations, these crucial states and congressional districts, instead of doing that, they're going to try to please everybody. So I don't get what the overall strategy is. I have no idea what this thing is. As you just said, I heard about it, and he's signing it tomorrow. I'll probably maybe even go to the White House and see what it is. I have no, I can't find any substance

with regard to what exactly it is that he's signing. So that's problematic. And particularly on the heels of Buffalo, it's problematic. That was a White House call, off the record call, a background call around 6 p.m. today, Mustafa, but I would think that if you were gonna be doing this, you would actually have reached out to many of us in Black-owned media and others, and sort of seeded the ground over the past week, leading up to it, as opposed to, frankly,

just having a call the day before. Well, you know, just some real talk. You know, if folks want to continue to take folks for granted, then folks not going to show up for you. And people just keep. I want to say this in the most respectful way. Folks continue to pimp almost every element that exists inside, you know, of our whole environment. But yet they continue to, you know, say, well, you know, I love you. You know, I love you. And just expect that that's going to be enough without there being any substance. So you just got to stop pimping folks. You know, you pimp people's pain and you pimp them in so many other ways. And then you just don't do the right thing. You never, ever, you know, have the authenticity that's necessary for folks to trust you, for folks to want to stand in a voting line for eight hours or 10 hours. Maybe it might be an extreme heat or it might be an extreme cold or it might be an

extreme rain that's going on. You got to show folks love. And when you don't show folks love, then there are going to be repercussions for that. And as I said earlier, you know, black women are the heart of the Democratic Party. And of course, hopefully there are plenty of brothers who are standing authentically with our sisters as well. So start to show some real love, because if you don't, it's going to play out. And it's going to play out in a way. Rob, I think the key that Alon and Mustafa said is passion. But I'm lying to them. You ain't got no passion? I'm sorry. The other

side is extremely passionate. Oh, they are fired up. And so you've got to actually show that. You've got to show that you actually give a damn. I mean, hell, at least fake it. Well, you know, there's a couple things that Republicans are really, really good at. I think you have to pay attention to it if you want to succeed. One, they play to their base.

I don't care what the base of the Republican Party believes. If it's in the QAnon conspiracy chat room, that becomes the official policy of the Republican Party. They listen to exactly what you say, and they're going to do it. Like, point blank, period. I don't care what it is. Like, if they say that there's a pizza restaurant where they're trafficking children as part of the Epstein plot,

you'll hear Ted Cruz say that during the Senate hearing. Secondarily, they don't give a damn about whether or not they got a majority. You saw what Trump did. I want to build a wall. We won't give you wall money. Okay, I'll take the wall money. Done. Oh, I want to do a Muslim ban. You can't do a wall money. Okay, I'll take the wall money. Done.

No, I want to do a Muslim ban. You can't do a Muslim ban. All right, I did a Muslim ban. See if you can do something about it. Done. And I think many people in the black community will love for Democrats to take that exact same approach when it comes to black people's people issues. You know, I don't care how crazy it is. At the end of the day, you're going to need the black vote. And quit trying to attract this mythical Sarah Palin hockey mom from Minnesota whose granddad voted Democrat because he was in the union and thinking that she's going to come back. Admit to the browning of America. Admit that brown and black people in the South are going to be the new power base of the Democratic Party, not cold white people in the upper Midwest as they were when your dad and granddad were

around, and actually push for them and fight for them just as hard as President Trump is fighting for his MAGA base. The same way that Trump is traveling city to city doing, putting in candidates, fundraising, doing rallies every single weekend. I would love to see President Obama or President Clinton or literally anybody else doing that same thing for Democrats right now. And there's no reason they can't be doing it. They just don't feel like doing it. And then we're going to get down to GOTV and they're going to blame black men again, saying, well, if you guys just turned out more for no apparent reason, then we would have won. And this is all on you. And I recognize the lack of groundwork they're putting in to actually encourage people to go vote for them. You can't simply say Trump is evil and make that your entire campaign strategy again.

Indeed. So we'll be there tomorrow. We'll see what they actually say. Got to go to a quick break. When we come back, we're going to have our marketplace segment talking with a fashion designer who is trying to make her way in the fashion industry. You're watching Roland Martin unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Next on A Balanced Life, we're talking everything from prayer to exercise to positive affirmations and everything that's needed to keep you strong and along your way. That's on a next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie on Blackstar Network. All right, my next guest is a college student who created her own lane of fashion

with stylish designs rooted in her West African culture. Hagoe Kapesu is a luxury brand with a global outlook. The brand uses only the most quality craftsmanship. It's one of the youngest brands invited out to New York Fashion Week in September. Well, she wants to make it,

make herself larger and bigger. You see the handbags, you see the other things that she makes. She joins us now from Jacksonville, Florida to tell us how she got this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. How you doing? Hi, how are you? Doing great. So you've been invited to Fashion Week.

How does that actually happen? So I had submitted, one of my friends actually submitted the application for me. I, like, what's it called? I supplied the pictures and everything like that and I feel like I think it was about like a week or two later where they responded that there was a possibility of getting me on

but the positions were already kind of like getting taken up but recently I think it was about like a month or two back they recently messaged me and they were like okay we would love to have you at Fashion Week. And so that's how all of that kind of like came to be.

And just working through the needed designs, what needs to be done and all that. So it's been a lot. Cool, cool. Now, first of all, pronounce his, his Hogwe? Hogwe, Hogwe Capesu. Hogwe. Got it, Hogwe.

All right. So how long have you been doing, how long have you been making items, things along those lines? Okay, so I have been, it's been a little bit under a year. So about a year and, well, no, not a year, two years.

It's been about a year and eight months altogether, about a year and eight months since I started this brand in particular. What kind of led me here was just like the lack of ability for other brands rather. A lot of like these white owned brands, when they would reach out to me on Instagram, the payment that they would require or like the payment that I would require was not something that they were willing to work with. On top of that, school, COVID, everything was all over the place. And I kind of got the idea to start a luxury brand in particular, simply because I felt like what has been happening is over time,

you have a lot of generational businesses and brands of European descended names when it comes to luxury, and not so much when it comes to, um, like, other demographics, and specifically Black, uh, Black people. So that's where that kind of started in. So I started with the bags, and from there, now I'm getting into clothing and all these other different things. All right, then. And so, um, first of all, how...

So are you making these bags individually? How long does it take? Okay, so, so this, for example, right, it took about, like, three weeks to design everything, and then about 45 days for this individually to kind of, like, be done. This one is my most popular one. This one is my most popular one. This one is my most popular one, which is like the little brown saddle bag. And this one takes about like 30 days.

And as I've grown- Are you doing these individually? Well, the samples themselves, these samples, yes, I'll do individually. But when it comes to like stock and everything, those I will have like manufactured out. Got it, got it. to, like, stock and everything, those I will have, like, manufactured out. Got it, got it. Okay, cool. You have manufactured out. And where are you

manufacturing your bags? So, my bags are being manufactured in Italy, and then some of the, like, some of the, um, what's it called? Like, some of the pieces, like, some of the pieces of materials are being, uh, are being, like, taken out of Brazil.

All right, cool. All right. Uh, questions for my panel. Lauren, you're first. Uh, when you went to fashion week, like how many pieces did you bring with you? So I have not gone to fashion week yet. Fashion week will be in September of this year. Um, and I am going to have about 24 different actual outfits,

24 individual actual outfits. So that itself is going to take a lot because, well, I would show the designs, but they're not done yet. But clothing as well as bags, as well as some hair, like hair accessories and things of that nature. So that itself is taking a while, and the expenses for that itself is also a bit. But, yeah, no, it would be September this year,

September 11th this year in New York. And you've got to raise, what, $25,000 or so? Yes. To get you to Fashion Week? Yes, so I'm trying to raise about $25,000 or so. I keep telling myself either way I'm going to make it happen. But, yes, $25,000 or so. I keep telling myself either way I'm going to make it happen. But yes, $25,000 or so to get everything started in regards

of getting all of the items made, sourcing materials simply because I am going into luxury and because the audience of people there are going to be, it's going to be a lot of buyers, luxury brand owners, a lot of celebrities. That being the audience that I also

want to kind of like have to bring along with me, it's going to be a bit expensive because a lot of this stuff are going to be couture. So that's where I'm at with all of that. And being a college student does not necessarily make any of these things easier. So yeah. And you're a college student where? I am at FSCJ. It's our local college here. We're, like, in Jacksonville. I was originally starting nursing, and that's when I actually started the brand, the idea of the brand, because I wanted to make money

to help me pay for school, because there was a lot of issues with all of that. Yeah, it's a lot. But since then, I've kind of, like, transferred over to psychology. Psychology is something I always kind of wanted to do. I originally picked nursing simply because I thought it would be a quick way for me to finish college, get some money, and go about. But psychology itself has always kind of been something that I've been interested in. Because I do care about the mental health and the issues that are also like, uh, rampant within the community itself.

And I feel like there needs to be more people who are willing to understand, um, a lot of the sources of a lot of these like mental, uh, what's it called? Mental disparities rather. Um, so the, what I'm studying in school versus this is still for two different branches, but they're also both, uh, things that I'm very passionate about. All right. And again, this is the GoFundMe. Put it up again, folks, that you have placed up there. And you put this up not long ago, just a few days ago. And so, folks, it's H-O-G-O-E-K-P-E-S-S-O-U Fashion Week Funds. That's for those of you, of course, who are listening to our podcast as well.

Mustafa, your question. Sister Kapesu, I mean, just amazing, amazing brand that you have there. My mother's birthday is coming up, so I hope that I can afford some of the pieces that you're making. My question is the color palette. I'm attracted to colors. What inspired you? I know it's culturally inspired, but can you talk a little bit about the color palette? Okay, so the color palette itself, I am of the A-Way, as well as some Fulani tribe within me, right? So a lot of the colors that I chose are of like different tribes,

different tribal like garments and things of that nature. When it comes to the V itself on this bag in particular, the metaphor behind it being like being attracted to sweetness, life always attracting you to sweetness or sweet things around. Um, a lot of the designs, I love working with multi, like, uh, what's it called? I guess, like, asymmetrical designs when it comes to my clothing. Uh, that is just one thing that I do admire. For example, this, these shorts, for example.

The print itself is, like, it's an African-inspired print, um, but rather than just, like, wearing it this way, it can also be used and worn inside out where it is all just like white. So having something that is able to be used for multiple things, I think is a lot of what I want to bring into luxury rather than this idea that like the abundance of wealth is going to get this one time thing that you can only use once. I like my products to be able to have more use than just that in particular but yes when it comes back to the palette or the color inspirations a lot of it I take from tribal inspirations and things of that nature Robert all right I am NOT a luxury designer my sister was here for that part of it but I want to kind of have you articulate what your vision is, you know,

five years out, 10 years out, where do you see this growing? What are your goals for this endeavor? Okay. So actually within five or six years would be what the average like person of my situation would be able to actually reap any of these benefits. So what I've been doing thus far is part of like my mission statement. So the country that I'm from is Togo. The history of Togo itself, the history of the continent itself of Africa is very dynamic and also very cruel. But that being said, my country in particular, we've been under a 55-year dictatorship. And so some of the funding that I do use,

I do donate to my cousin who lives back home. It's called Destiny's Ladder. And basically we are able to take the money, give some money, give to orphanages because we don't have foster care systems back in my country. But give to orphanages and allow them to be able to actually have school and all of those things.

Now, what I also want to do as I build money is, well, like build money as well as like build my brand, is to be able to have a family thing here in the United States, simply for like Black American children that are within the foster care system. I feel like even despite having a foster care system here in the United States, it's not necessarily the best. No one's really looking after those students. And I feel like when we have these conversation of, oh, like this person could have been a president, this, that, and the third,

there's a lot of potential presidents and leaders that are already existing in society today that don't have the luxury to be able to do so. So when it comes to like five, six years for me, I want the brand itself to exist. I want the brand itself to prosper. I want the brand itself to prosper. This brand is what I'm using to be able to build awareness of myself, as well as build some type of authority when it comes to speaking to other people. Because one thing about it is that influence, money, and status is something that this world and America in particular always just

navigates with that's just an absolute truth and so building this brand is a way for me to be able to do that and that is one of my goals as well as being able to build strong enough where what I have been avoiding despite growing quickly is selling off my brand because I've had a few offers from a few a few brands a few like white unlike brands and things of that nature but I feel like that is not necessarily going to help me like what do I look like having a random white man own hook like a pesto doesn't make sense to me um so things of that nature holding power within my brand itself and allowing and exuding that power in a way that's actually beneficial to the people I care about.

Well, of course, I mean, being able to own is always better because you get to call the shots. And so that's what's what's most important there. And and so in terms of what is the pricing of your various bags and the items that you sell? So for the bags themselves, so this bag in particular, it's $400. $415, I promise is right there. This one is about $215. All the items are genuine leather. They're all genuine leather. They're all genuine leather. They're also ethically sourced, so it means that the items, or rather

the cows in particular, they're already going on that path. And also, as someone with a small business, something like that just matters to me, simply because I don't want to see the exploitation of my own items in particular. So I feel like starting off small as I have has been really helpful. But yes, 215, 400. The clothing ranges from 400, $400 to about 750 for my five-piece suit.

I have a five-piece suit. It's really pretty. So I do have that. Like that dress, for example, that just like the white one, for example, that one is about $515. Like the asymmetrical dress, the lining, like it's beautiful, chef's kiss. But yes, those are, and the range altogether is between about $200 to my highest item, which is my duffel bag, which is about $600. So $200 to $600 as of where I am right now. Well, considering I've seen the cost of a number of other handbags, that $1,000 to $5,000, $10,000, that is certainly quite reasonable. And so, again, hopefully folks will support you.

Now, where should they go take a look at and to purchase your bags? So they can go to the website, which-S-S-O-U.com or H-O-G-O-E-K-P-E-S-S-O-U.online, which provides pre-order items that are not in stock yet, but you can get it up front. Like you can get ahead of the line rather purchasing there, which is the one that ends in online. My Twitter handle is the H-K-P-E-S-S-O-U. My Instagram is the H-O-G-O-E-K-P-E-S-S-O-U. My Instagram is the H-O-G-O-E-K-P-E-S-S-O-U. So did you create a promo code for the folks who watch Roland Martin Unfiltered? You know, I got you.

I got you. I will create it right now. And it can just be Roland Martin. Like Roland Martin. What is today's code? No, no. Just do this here. Make it real easy.

Just do Roland06. OK, perfect. I got it. Roland06. I'm an alpha. So that's what you do. So, so we'll go ahead and do it. So if y'all, if y'all are, if y'all are watching the show and it's about 3000 y'all watching right now, if y'all go to her website, put in the promo code Roland 06, I don't know what the discount is, but, but look, you'll have it. And look, her goals raised $25,000. So you can buy product or you can actually contribute directly to the GoFundMe. And so, again, this is the GoFundMe right here. You can go check it out. Again, just put in there H-O-G-O-E-K-P-E-S-S-O-U.

Again, it's Fashion Week Funds. You know, we want to be able to certainly uh uh support her in that you know we are a big uh believer uh in and i see already uh you now actually you went up about 100 bucks uh so people are already watching so if y'all want to actually uh support uh her please do so uh this whole segment is about uh supporting uh black entrepreneurs uh And so it's great to have you on. She reached out to me, y'all, on Instagram about buying some space. And I was like, I said, no, we'll go ahead

and put you on the show in the Marketplace segment. So hopefully, and so do this here. Again, the promo code is ROLAND06. So send me a note tomorrow. Let me know how folks did with supporting you. So we certainly appreciate it. Ogwe, thanks a bunch and good luck. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me. All right. Thank you so very much. Folks, that is it for today's show. Don't forget, we opened the show talking about... Thank you. Talking about the... Kill the music, please.

We opened the show talking about the tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas. Fourteen students were gunned down in school today. You had one teacher who was shot and killed. According to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the shooter, who he also named, that particular shooter. He was killed on the scene by law enforcement. If you still have the live shot up of Uvalde, please go to it. And so we were, and now it has been updated.

Now it's been updated, 18 dead, 18 dead in Uvalde, Texas. This is 18 kids, three adults. So this shooting actually now surpasses the Sandy Hook shooting. Remember, it was 20 kids in Sandy Hook. And so now 18 kids, three adults, dead in Uvalde, Texas. It is just unbelievable that we are having this conversation again in this country.

And here's what's also very interesting. This is a tweet from the New York Times. And that is Governor Greg Abbott of Texas and Donald Trump plus Ted Cruz are all scheduled to speak Friday at the NRA convention in Houston. Let's see what they are going to have to say about this. Momentarily, President Joe Biden is going to be speaking to the nation. We are waiting for that to actually happen. He will be addressing the horrific shooting that took place in Uvalde. This, Lauren, is one of those days that, again, the president just had to deal with this in Buffalo, Texas, when he, excuse me, I'm sorry, Buffalo, New York,

when he went to Buffalo to speak to the nation where 10 black folks were gunned down in a grocery store by a white domestic terrorist. Now, not even two weeks later, he's now having to speak to the nation again about a mass shooting. Yeah. And I am really eager to see what he's going to say, because I really don't know what he's going to say that can top what President Obama said after the Sandy Hook massacre. You know, there's been all sorts of efforts in the past to try to pass some of the most basic and I would say common sense gun controls, particularly around, you know, AR-15s and things that are weapons of war. One would think that that would be fairly logical and fairly easy to do, and it has not been at all, because the NRA, once again, has a death grip on these elected officials,

particularly on the right and some on the left. And I suspect that there's going to be no appetite, particularly for the front-liners in the Democratic Party who are already showing all these signs of not wanting to deal with anything that they have to explain on the campaign trail. Explain, Lauren, explain to people who don't speak Washington, D.C. language

who the front-liners are. So the frontliners are the group of Democrats that are in very close districts and typically hard to win districts. Districts that we would refer to in politics as purple. So not leaning all red, not leaning all blue. Swing districts. Yeah. And but typically these districts do lean a little bit one way. And of course, one would think that they would be blue if you have a Democrat in office. But what's been happening in Congress is that the frontliners are keeping the Democratic leadership from bringing anything progressive up that has to be explained. They don't

really want to have to explain anything, quite frankly. This is one of the problems with the Democratic Party currently. They don't want to stand up for anything or explain anything or have any sort of backbone about what they say on the campaign trail, and that's been problematic. And when it comes to guns, this is one of the three issues that I think the Republican Party gets their voters on. You know, the traditional expression has been gun gods, guns, God, and gays. But it's true. They do get voters on guns.

Gun issue is huge. And what the Republicans typically tend to do is to say that, you know, the Democrats are coming to take your guns. But somebody's got to have this conversation. We can't have our kids getting slaughtered at their schools. You know, 20 people at a clip shouldn't have happened at Sandy Hook, and it shouldn't be happening now. We're sitting here years later after Sandy Hook having the exact same conversation. So I'm particularly eager to see what the president is going to say tonight.

Mustafa. You know, we just continue to chip away at our humanity by our lack of inaction. You know, my grandmother says that when you know better, do better. All the folks who are currently on Capitol Hill, whether in the Senate or the House or who are in these state houses, they know that they have to do better. They know the lives that are being lost, the children that continue to be sacrificed, and it could actually change. We could put laws in place that begins to minimize these impacts and hopefully one day to eliminate them. Maybe we will evolve into being full human beings, but that will never happen if we continue to not even be willing to do the basic steps. So we have a choice to make. You know, we can either continue to sacrifice our children.

And that's exactly what we're doing, along with other citizens, of course. Or we can step up and we can begin to do the right things. And, you know, it won't take much longer for us to figure out if we're going to completely go over the cliff or if we're going to begin to take the steps, you know, backwards in this instance and then move in the right direction to actually truly protect folks. You know, when you look at these responses and you're seeing many people already challenging, saying Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, Texas Senators Cornyn and Cruz, what the hell are you going to do?

As I said earlier, folks, you know, you had the church shooting in Texas five years ago. 23, 26 killed. The shooting in Santa Fe, the high school, 23 killed. Now you have the shooting in El Paso, 20-plus killed. Now you've got, of course, now what's happening in Uvalde. And having Republicans in the legislature relax gun laws. They are going to have to explain that. And here's the other deal.

Texans, Abbott is on the ballot. Beto O'Rourke is a Democratic nominee. Force this man to have to explain, oh, how are you so pro-life? But you do nothing about gun control, and you're seeing young Texans being gunned down in school. They are going to have to deal with that, and this is where people have got to mobilize and organize and force them to confront this very issue. I hope thousands are going to be outside of the NRA convention in Houston demanding these fools do something. Lauren? I mean, yeah, you would think that this would be a moment that the gun lobby could probably really rally around, given the location, given the incidents that you rattled off just in Texas alone.

We're not getting to Buffalo and obviously these other incidents. But something has got to happen, and it's got to be a grassroots effort. I think that other activism that we've seen in the last few years, certainly Black Lives Matter, has shown us what happens when you have a lot of street activism. It puts a lot of pressure on elected officials. And I'm not sure why it can't happen around this issue. It never seems to happen around this issue. I think there's such a deep cultural connection, quite frankly, with guns.

I mean, we've got guns in video games. We got members of Congress putting out Christmas cards with their entire family with a firearm in their arms. I mean, we have become completely transfixed by weapons of war and violence. And it's obviously it's in the culture. It's in the movies. It's in everything. And I think, frankly, we've gotten to the point where people don't want to admit how psychopathic this is. They feel like it's a weakness to say that guns, in fact, are dangerous. Our love of guns is dangerous. And we're watching people die right in front of our face and doing absolutely nothing about it, except going through this loop of this same like, same ritual every single time.

We're going to go through all the biographies of the people who just were murdered in Texas. We're going to have, you know, I don't know, a full page, whatever, in some of the papers. It's the same thing over and over, and then we're not doing anything to change it. But there's got to be some grassroots movement to really get to the people like the Cornens and Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott. It's not that anybody expects them to change,

but they've got to be at some point open to a conversation about specifically weapons of war. As Jackie Speier, as you put that graphic up earlier, noted, I'm not sure why that can't be a conversation. Well, uh, and here's a piece, Mustafa. Uh, Texas Governor Greg Abbott was so quick, uh, to call for special sessions dealing with voter suppression.

Let's see if he has the guts to call the Texas legislature into a special session to deal with guns. It was just last year in Texas where they relaxed the gun laws and lowered the age by which folks could buy guns. It has now been lowered to 18. And this shooter apparently bought his rifles on his birthday.

Right. His 18th birthday. Well, you know, Governor Abbott is going to have to, you know, he is going to have to deal with the choices that he has made. And as you said, calling the special session could show some leadership where he has lacked in leadership on so many other issues. So, you know, he can also play a role in helping to break the addiction that we have. We have an addiction to guns in this country. We have an addiction to violence. And by him showing some leadership in this moment, he can begin to, you know, change that dynamic to a degree.

The question is, does he have the will? Because, you know, unfortunately. And unfortunately, we've seen it a lot from the Republican Party, that lack of leadership, that lack of sort of moral clarity to do the right thing. So we'll see how it plays out. Well, it is, you know, one of the things that I also hope, I hope here, again, that the voters of Texas wake the hell up, Lauren. It is an election year. Right. And the people and folks are going to have the courage to make this a priority and say, where do you stand? For or against? Well, the thing about Texas in particular

is that the gun culture in Texas specifically runs deep. You know, that is a... Texas is a location where gun culture really runs deep. And like I said, I just think that gun culture and the culture of violence and the Wild West and all of that mythology, all that John Wayne mythology is wrapped into this. And I think this is very hard for people.

Our government is generally controlled by men. And, you know, part of the mythology of guns and manhood is having a gun and you shot a gun and you own a gun. We've got politicians, like I said, always bragging that they're gun owners and all of this whole thing is just wrapped into that. And we got to break that cycle of people thinking that somehow it's a positive thing to have an AR-15 around. I mean, you know, not just a revolver that was passed down. I mean, I happen to have a few items that were passed down by my father who was in law enforcement. But this idea of having weapons of war now has gotten completely out of control. It used to be that you had a revolver in the house or something like that. But people are bragging about, you know, devices that are specifically used to kill large numbers of people in one sitting.

And that somehow has become normalized, completely normalized. Yeah, I mean, this here, this was the Christmas card Lauren Boebert that Nut from Colorado sent out. This was it. I mean, you know, her and all her kids, I don't give a damn who you are. No

kid should have any of these guns. Right. Right. And I know the other... And I know the gun people are like, well, you can't call that an assault rifle because it has this and it has that. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Who cares? You know, they want to give us a lecture on the definition of what's an assault rifle and what's not an assault rifle when 20 kids are dead in Texas or at Sandy Hook. You know, we're going to get a lecture, I'm sure, on Twitter by some idiot a little later on what's an assault rifle and what's not an assault rifle. Who cares?

You know, I mean, but people want to play tough. They want to look like they're in some movie or in some video game at the expense of somebody's kids, which could be anybody's kids at this point. And I just think it's just so wrapped into the culture of America, and it's hard to break away from. It's really hard for us to break out of this,

but we got to figure something out because this is getting really scary. You saw, we all saw the attack on the Capitol, and thank God there wasn't weaponry involved in that. But, I mean, you could see sort of an escalating attitude in our country toward violence just in general. The Rittenhouse incident, I thought, was another big, incredible marker. You know, he was seen as some little folk hero. You've got to be kidding me. You know, and that's where we've gotten to. And it's become, and we are the, and Chris Murphy, the senator from Connecticut, is absolutely right. We are the only country that does this, and we are the only place on the planet that this type of thing keeps happening.

Well, I think what we're dealing with here, Mustafa, is, again, this is a violent country. This is a violent society. That is what we are dealing with right now. I mean, there's no mistaking, folks out here watching, that we would be normally ended by now, but we are waiting for President Joe Biden to give his remarks regarding Uvalde, Texas. He was supposed to speak at 8.15, about 14 minutes over that. So that's

what we've continued, waiting for him to speak. But the thing here, Mustafa, again, America has to deal with its just love affair, its sick and demented love affair with guns. Well, like you said, you know, we're founded on violence. I mean, the gun played, you know, a critical role in the genocide of indigenous brothers and sisters in this country, being able to move them from their traditional lands. They played a role also in the enslavement of African peoples and then trying to, you know, keep them located in certain locations. We've used lives, you know, our guns in so many different ways. And it just is a part of the culture.

But just because it is a part of the historical aspect of the culture does not mean that it has to continue to play that role in the future. As Lauren said, you know, my father was a hunter when he started teaching me about gun safety and other things when I was young in relationship to hunting. One of his things was if you needed to take more than two shots to be able to take down what your prey was, then you needed to spend more time on the gun range and you didn't need to be out there. So these magazines with multiple shots and all this other kind of stuff, all that, it's unnecessary. You know, it is, like Lauren said, it is a part of the mythology of making someone feel like they're more of a man than maybe they actually are. And once again, we just got to get back to holding people accountable,

making sure that we begin to actually make progress on common sense, gun-related laws, and then also make sure that there's real enforcement, and also making sure that folks have, you know, that there are the mental health checks that are also necessary before someone, you know, can get a gun. You know, it just doesn't make any sense for us to just be passing these things out like somebody's at McDonald's. You just walk up and say, I want a number seven or I want a number eight. There has to be so much more to that because you're literally dealing with life and death situations and life and death instruments. So once bills, multiple sets of bills that are out there, that we can get our folks around. Will Mitch McConnell do the right thing? And then, of course, you know, leadership in the House, which I know that they will be willing to move forward on.

But we'll see if folks are willing up to do the right thing. Indeed, indeed. So, folks, let's do this here. We already have Kenan, why don't you just simply go live with the feed for Biden. And so what we will do is to let me know, y'all let me know when that feed is live on the Black Star Network app, as well as on our YouTube channel. So, again, President Joe Biden was supposed to address the nation at 815. Right now it is 833. So about 18 minutes over. And so what I want to do is release our staff. And so let's go ahead and go live with our secondary video feed. And so that way, if you want to see the president's address, you can do so by just switching over to that second feed. Folks, if you want to support us in what we do, please join our Bring the Funk fan club. You can also download the Black Star Network app, Black Star Network. So if you want to see the rest of this, go to our Blackstar Network app. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV.

And also, you can join our Bring the Funk fan club. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. And that is, of course, PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash app is dollar sign RM unfiltered. RM unfiltered. Of course, the PayPals are Martin unfiltered. Venmo is RM unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinunfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zale is roland at rolandsmartin.com.

Roland at rolandmartinunfiltered.com. And certainly, our thoughts, prayers, condolences to those families in Uvalde, Texas today, 8-10-1.