#RolandMartinUnfiltered - HU student protest; Jones Clemency postponed, White deputies mistrial; Black man in GA shot 59 times

Episode Date: October 28, 2021

10.27.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Howard University's president is demanding the weeks-long occupation of the student center must end, but the students have demands of their own. We have the Rolling Stone reporter who penned the article where organizers of the January 6th insurrection say some top Republicans helped them plan the violent attack. A clemency hearing for Oklahoma death row inmate Julius Jones was postponed while his legal challenge is pending in federal court. Julius' sister is here to tell us how he's holding up as his time is running out. Stacey Abrams' political organization donates over a million dollars to help pay off their medical debts. Five years ago, a Georgia man was shot 59 times. A grand jury just indicted the officers responsible for his death. Also, in Georgia, a judge declares a mistrial in the murder trial of three former white Washington County Sheriff's officers accused of tasing a black man to death. We'll talk to the family's attorney. In our Tech Talk segment, it's a one-stop-shop for all of your technical needs. We'll have the founder of the Fixt App here to tell us how simple it is to get someone to fix your devices. And there's a new show that is putting a 21st-century twist on stories and characters of the Bible. We'll have the actress and the creator of "Covenant" here to tell us about this new series. #RolandMartinUnfiltered partners:Nissan | Check out the ALL NEW 2022 Nissan Frontier! As Efficient As It Is Powerful! 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3FqR7bPAmazon | Get 2-hour grocery delivery, set up you Amazon Day deliveries, watch Amazon Originals with Prime Video and save up to 80% on meds with Amazon Prime 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3ArwxEh+ Don’t miss Epic Daily Deals that rival Black Friday blockbuster sales 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3iP9zkvBuick | It's ALL about you! The 2022 Envision has more than enough style, power and technology to make every day an occasion. 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3iJ6ouPSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfilteredDownload 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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Today is Wednesday, October 27, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, broadcasted live from the campus of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Of course, we're streaming on the Black Star Network. The president of Howard University is demanding that students end their occupation of Blackburn Hall. His center has been going on now on its third week. We'll tell you what he had to say also, but the student's response is to his demand. Also on today's show, we'll talk with the Rolling Stone reporter who penned the article

about the insurrection on January 6th and how Republicans in the House are very much involved in that. Also on today's show, a clemency hearing for Oklahoma death row inmate Julius Jones was postponed while his legal challenge is pending in federal court. We'll talk with the sister of Julius Jones about his case. Stacey Abrams, a political organization, donated more than a million dollars to pay off medical debts. Also, family paid family leave removed out of the bill in Congress because Senator Joe Manchin objected to it. Progressives not happy as well. Plus, five years ago, a Georgia man was shot 59 times. A grand jury finally indiced the officers responsible for his death.

Also in Georgia, a judge declares a mistrial and a murder trial of three former white Washington County Sheriff's officers accused of tasing a black man to death. We'll talk with the family attorney. Also in our Tech Talk segment, it's a one-stop shop for all of your tech needs. We'll have the founder of the Fix It app to tell us how simple it is to get someone to fix your devices. Plus, as a new show, putting a 21st century twist on stories and characters of the Bible,

we'll talk with Kay Singleton, who is the creator of The Covenant. Folks, it is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered with Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the biz, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the smooth, the fat, the fine. network. Let's go. Just for kicks he's rollin' Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, yo Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah

Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Rollin' Martin Now You know he's rolling, Martel. Martel. The protests at Howard University's Blackburn Center now in its third week. Students have been occupying the center, also staying, living in there, sleeping in tents on the inside as well of Blackburn Center. They're demanding better

housing conditions, also other changes to the university. Now, President Wayne Frederick, in an email sent across the campus demanding that students in the city in protest, he says, and this is what he wrote in part, there may be areas where we agree to disagree. That's the nature of a vibrant community. However, Howard University's proud tradition of student protest has never been and can never be invoked as a justification for tactics that harm our students. The current occupation of the Armour J. Blackburn Center is a departure from past norms. There's a distinct difference between peaceful protest and freedom of expression and the occupation of a university building that impedes operations and access to essential services

and creates health and safety risk. The provost and university's general counsel met with leaders of the student protest and their legal counsel and engaged in a discussion regarding the path forward. As conveyed at that meeting, the university is willing to continue engaging in substantive conversations with student protesters and leaders regarding their expressed concerns. The occupation of the Blackburn Center must end.

Now, the students responded with their own letter. They are asking for community support in this battle. They say at this time, we are still calling on President Frederick to do the right thing. He refuses to give us amnesty. And because of this, we are in fear of retaliation. We're asking parents, alumni, faculty, the media, community and national leaders to make sure students who have participated in this protest for the betterment of Howard University are protected and respected, not harmed. We want amnesty and honest negotiations, not retaliation. As I said, students are protesting living conditions and lack of support,

basically from the university's administration. They're also demanding the following, an in-person town hall with President Frederick and the administration to be scheduled before the end of this month. The students want the reinstatement of all affiliate trustee positions on the Board of Trustees with voting power, and they want the president and chairman of the board to propose a meeting with student leadership outlining their housing plan to protect the incoming classes of Howard's immediate future. Now, again, they've occupied the university's largest cafeteria and home of student life

office since October 12th. On Monday, we talked to university leaders and students involved in the protest. Of course, this is, again, continuing, and they're getting support from different people around the country. I saw it before we came on the air, Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, sent out a tweet calling for the support of these students. Let's talk to this with our panel. Robert Petillo, he is the executive director of the Rainbow Push Coalition Peachtree

Street Project. Xavier Pope, host of Suit Up, news owner of the Pope Law Firm, Lon Victoria Burke, writer with NNPA and the Griot. Okay, all right, glad to have all three of you here. Lauren, when you look at what's going on there, you look at the people who have actually gone by there, again, offering their support to these students. The university, again, Frederick comes out making his comment really for the first time. And so this has also been a very contentious battle, saying he has not been responsive enough to these students. Yeah, and I don't know that the dictatorial approach that he's taking is going to work.

I'm not sure we've ever seen that work with students on campus that have taken over a building or had a protest. And talking to the students for the Griot, a piece I did for the Griot maybe about two weeks ago, they were talking about retaliation at that time. The students were very reluctant to speak and use their names. They had referred to instances of retaliation that they had undergone. I'm not sure why it's that difficult to have a town hall with students. You know, I mean, we have presidents of the United States that have town halls on national media all the time. Why can't the president of Howard University have a town hall with his students?

And I think, you know, having that type of town hall, letting them air whatever it is their grievances are in public or in private, I mean, however they want to do it, I think would probably go a long way because they keep saying that they feel like they're not being heard. And quite frankly, I don't see any evidence that they are being heard. I mean, I'm not seeing anything where the president is having meetings either with a smaller group of students directly or a large group of students at a town hall. So, I mean, I know that it's not easy to get publicly criticized. It's not easy to be criticized in the media. It's not easy to run a college or university in this moment when we had COVID and all these other difficulties that higher ed administrators have. So I'm not saying that President, that Dr. Frederick's job is easy. It's not a job I've ever done, so I can't speak to some of the complications that I'm sure he has.

But I'm not seeing a lot of outreach and a lot of basic communication that I think would take a lot of the pressure off. And frankly, I think this moment is happening because they're embarrassed and they've been embarrassed in the media and the story is starting to go more national. Robert, somebody sent me a tweet and I commented about this and I actually said that I am more than willing to moderate that town hall for us to also stream it on Roland Martin Unfiltered and the Black Star Network. That way you sort of have someone, look, I didn't graduate from Howard University. I have a niece who goes there, but I don't have any relationship with them. But really what is required here are some honest brokers who both sides can at least respect that they're going to be fair when it comes to trying to resolve this because, again, in the conversations that I had with those students,

they made it clear they're not going anywhere. And I love to see this revolutionary spirit going through these students. This is exactly what got me expelled from college back in 2005. I was a junior at Clark Atlanta. We were organizing campus workers with regards to campus conditions. And I actually ended up getting expelled. So when these students say that they want amnesty, that's why it's important to have this conversation, because if there's no one there sticking up for you, I had in my situation Reverend Jackson stepped in, which resulted in everything being okay.

But for these students, it's important to have that type of public support behind them, because at the end of the day, if they did not bring this level of attention to it, they would have already suffered repercussions. And that statement that the president released sounded damn near Trumpian in its tone when you're talking about you need to get the building back up and running. It's starting to sound a whole lot like law and order presidency that we heard last year. So we cannot be encouraging these students to stand up and fight for their rights when it comes to the political sphere or when it comes to elections, but didn't say, you know, shut up and dribble when it comes to issues on campus. So I stand in complete solidarity with those students. Anything that we can do to help them, we are

100 percent behind them. I think that we need to have more people speaking out on the issue because, as I said, as somebody who's gone through the process before, I understand what they mean when they say that amnesty and a honest conversation is absolutely necessary before you even begin to start breaking the occupation. You don't break the occupation first and then start talking. You start talking while you still have the leverage which they have right now. Xavier, when we talk about again where we are with these protests and the students, I mean, look, you have a university of several thousand students. At best, you're talking about, and again, this is from the students, at best you're talking about 150 students who are involved in this. You don't even have you don't even have, you know, five percent or 10 percent of the students who are involved.

But you are seeing where they are. They're killing the university on controlling the narrative, on driving social media as well. And so how do you see how this should be resolved where, you know, if you're the students, their focus is really on going to college and getting their studies taken care of as opposed to having to be engaged in this type of protest? Great question, Roland. What you're seeing is the advantage that a younger generation has over an older generation when it comes to social media and spreading a message. Their issue is about fair housing, some of the issues with mice and some of the things that are happening on campus. If you have an older generation that is seeking to tell them to be quiet and basically only some of you all have some issues. Well, they don't have necessarily the same tools that the younger generation has to be able to spread those issues.

And that is one of the main reasons. No, no, no. They have the tools. They have the tools, Xavier. They don't know how to use them right. There you go, Roland. You know that better than anyone in terms of being able to use the tools that are that that are there in front of them and i think that what attempting to shut

down those conversations and like my brother said it sounds trumpian and the more you tell them to shut up the louder their voices get and the more the story goes national that you're you i know it may be a small amount of students but if no student on your campus feels comfortable where they are living to be able to get a decent education, then no student is getting a good education on that campus. Look, it is a matter of, I think, when you look at tactics, style, control of the narrative, Lauren. And look, if I'm howard university first of all uh i am being very much on the offensive i'm dropping statements every single day i'm posting videos of crews cleaning up i'm giving a daily rundown it's just sort of it's sort of like right like the the the the to me the way you counter that is you say we brought in additional 300 personnel who are going door to door.

They announced this hyper care initiative. And my whole deal would be the moment a student lodges a complaint, we're telling Corbett's or whoever controls the dorms that must be dealt with not in 24 hours. It must be dealt with in 12 hours. I mean, so again, you have to, to me, you have to create the sense of urgency from the university standpoint to be able to say, we are fixing these problems, we're getting these things taken care of. And then you come out and say, if there's a student that has an issue with any one of their dorms, we want to know right now. And it's going to get fixed in the next 24 to 48 hours. Right. The point that the brother just brought up about social media is dead on, right? And the

point that you just made, Roland, in dovetailing with that, these students are beating them like a drum on social media because they're doing, Roland, what you just said, which is presenting, you know, they're not just complaining and their scene with a bullhorn standing outside of Blackburn. They're showing the problems visually on their social media accounts. So anyone can see that because, of course, there's no filter. I mean, it's just basic communications. And Howard University can't even get their act together to get their communications director to make basic statements to the press about some of the things they've done. I suspect, as you reported, Roland, that Howard has done some things to address their problems,

but the general public doesn't know anything about it, because Howard is not particularly good at communications. The other thing I would say is, some of these academics that have a lot of letters after their name that are Ph.D.s, they tend to get into this sort of arrogant, ego-driven mode of not wanting to listen to people who are not Ph.D.s. So I think one exercise that might be a good idea is for the president to sit there and listen to the students go on and on about their problems at a town hall. What are you going to do?

Are you going to die over that? Is the world going to end? You sit there for two hours, you listen to them, voice their concerns. Some of those things I suspect Dr. Frederick can fix, and some of those things I suspect Dr. Frederick cannot fix. You have a clear communication with them. Why is this difficult? People do this all the time. But that type of self-study, and it's interesting because the irony here is we're talking about an institution of higher education. You know, you're teaching people and encouraging people to be outspoken in the world and to have views and to go out and express themselves.

And then when it comes down to you doing it in your own real world life, now all of a sudden you have a problem with that when it comes to the students that are at the university. You know, and shout out to Dr. Greg Carr, who has been supporting the students on Twitter and adding some color to this. I mean, I just don't understand why they can't have a town hall. Why is that a big deal? You're not capitulating to a whole lot. You're agreeing to a conversation. You know, well, why is that a big deal? And optically, I think it would be a win for Dr. Frederick. But, you know, I mean, whether you've been to college or not, I sense I sense

some institutional arrogance. I'll say that. And rolling. I'll tell you, I'll tell you, Robert and Xavier, again, this is how I, this is how I would conduct their town hall. I would say university-wide. I would have all of my leaders sitting right there. And when a student says, hey, here's an issue, I will then go, so-and-so, write that down. See, not even wait. No, no. You come, give them your information right now, look into it. See, again, that's how I'm handling town hall. See, I'm not even sitting here getting into a debate, a conversation, into an argument. Now, if somebody says something that's demonstrably false, then I think you correct it. You allow them to vent and you simply say,

that's who's going to be taken care of. And so then what you're doing is you're showing transparency and public accountability saying, this is the person who's going to handle that issue. Oh, that's an academic issue. This is that person. That's a financial aid issue. That's that person. That's a housing issue. That's that person. As a housing issue, that's that person. And then what you do is you tell those companies that have the housing contracts, all of your top executives must be at this town hall.

That is how you do it. But, Roland, I think even before you get to that point, however, what is so hard about saying these students will have amnesty? They will not be prosecuted. They will not be negatively impacted academically. They will not be expelled as a result of this.

You can do that right now. Before you even have the town hall, before you do anything else, you can send out a tweet right now saying these students will be protected from any kind of reprisal as a result of their protest. As somebody who's been through it, I can tell you that's very important when you're trying to explain on a law school application why you got it spelled from a university. So these kids' futures are on the line. And I think that that's something they can do right now before you even get to the optics of the town hall, to the optics of trying to control the narrative on what's going on with students, to the social media lapses.

You know, it's almost like an 80s movie where you have these students who are protesting the overbearing dean or whatever it is. You never beat the students. The students always win. So I think the university has to understand that they're going to, unless you want to alienate what finances your university existing, without students, you do not have a university. I think unless they want to find themselves in that situation, they will come to the table and capitulate to much of what the students are asking for. And that begins with telling these students they will have amnesty, they will not face any consequences for exercising their rights, and as you push them for the change, we tell them they're going to college to learn how to change the world, and you cannot punish them for doing so. Xavier? Yeah, the more this becomes a

bigger issue, Roland, the more this becomes a tool for the right. I mean, we all know that Kamala Harris went to Howard University. I mean, you're setting yourself up for even more damage that are ancillary to the debating issues that are being brought for a small number of students. So you want to be able to get the issues out there, get someone out there to be able to hear those issues and move past this issue. All right, folks, got to go to a break. We come back more on Roland Martin. We talk about the case of Julia Jones out of Oklahoma. The clemency hearing has been postponed. Also paid family leave. Apparently it's out of the bill on Congress because Senator Joe Manchin doesn't want it in at all.

And look at social media right now. Progressives are pissed. A lot of plus to discuss right here as we broadcast live from the campus of Fisk University, Jubilee Hall here in Nashville, Tennessee. We'll be back on Roland Martin Unfiltered and the Black Star Network. Kjell Andersen, KJELL ANDERSEN ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА Betty is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now, she's free to become Bear Hug Betty. Settle in, kids. You'll be there a while. Ooh, where you going? Hi, everybody.

This is Jonathan Nelson. Hi, this is Cheryl Lee Ralph, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Alright folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Start Network. Earlier this week, we talked about a story out of Rolling Stone that detailed House Republicans who were very much involved in the planning of the insurrection on January 6th. It broke down their staff, what their involvement was, the kind of phone calls that were going back and forth. It's certainly an explosive story that detailed more than, frankly, we've heard from the House Committee investigating this. The reporter who wrote that story is Hunter Walker. He joins us right now on Roller Mark. I'm glad to have you here. It's interesting. Hunter,

I saw a story. I saw Eric Erickson, who's a conservative. He tweeted earlier today, critical of media coverage of January 6th. I responded by saying, frankly, I think what happened on January 6th is being underreported. You have Conley's rights who goes on The View talking about, oh, you know what? Americans have other things they want to care about. We should move on. No. As your story laid out, the individuals and their staffs that were very much involved in the planning of what took place on that day, they are still in power. If the Republicans take control of the House next year after the 2022 midterms, those individuals will be in the majority.

They will be wielding power. You know, I was there that day, Roland, and I absolutely agree with you that if anything, people are not paying enough attention to what happened. You know, watching it play out in front of my eyes, it was absolutely apparent that this was a violent attack on the very heart of our democracy that was, you know, perpetrated with, at the very least, support and encouragement from elected officials. And you don't need an investigation to know that. You know, Mo Brooks, a congressman, stood on that stage and told people to fight. President Trump also told them to fight and encouraged them to march to the Capitol. There were members of Congress billed as speakers participating in that wild protest

that was supposed to occur on the Capitol steps. It was also apparent to me just how violent this act was. The Capitol Police, who testified in July before the House Select Committee, have said they engaged in, quote-unquote, medieval fighting that day, as this crowd armed with weapons from clubs to axe handles that I saw in the crowd, you know, absolutely just brawled with them on the steps of the Capitol. And it was also apparent to me that it could have been so much worse. Those officers have talked about, you know, not being able to fire at the crowd. And I know at least part of that was because they were aware you would have had massive bloodshed, both with members of the crowd pulling their guns, which we know

through police records that they did have, and also through trampling that would have occurred with the massive crowds that had breached the barriers. So this was a very, very, very serious incident. I mean, I was talking to a member of the Capitol Police today who said there are members still out with their injuries from that day. And a question I often ask myself and people who I discuss this with, you know, what was the hashtag for January 6th? Was it capital strong? What is the ribbon color? How are we honoring those members of law enforcement who held the line that day under the worst conditions? Well, I think the difference you have here is that typically when you talk about who is fighting for law enforcement. Republicans love to talk about that.

In this case, they don't want to do a damn thing. Look at the Republicans who voted against honoring the police with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is abundantly clear that they knew exactly what took place. That's why House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has been fighting against this committee. They do not want, look how angrily he responded, threatening companies, saying, if you dare turn over our phone records, you're going to have a problem. They know what those records are going to show.

And it's been interesting to watch the feedback through my story. You know, I had Congressman Louie Gohmert of Texas, one of the members who I named as being, you know, allegedly involved in planning out these rallies. You know, today he was taking issue with the fact that in one of my emails to him, I accidentally wrote she instead of he at one point. And he was, you know, mocking the story as quote unquote vague gossip. And he never answered that email. And on Twitter today, he never answered any of my questions about what his specific objections are there. Members such as Lauren Boebert and the office of Marjorie Taylor Greene have responded by essentially saying they didn't plan violence. But that's not what my sources alleged. I should note they credibly alleged this because I independently verified that they were involved in the organization of the January 6th

protest and some of the related demonstrations against the election that occurred around the country. I also separately obtained documentary evidence that they were in touch with Boebert and Paul Gosar of Arizona on January 6th. And their allegation was not, you know, necessarily that these members, you know, specifically called for violence. What these members did was participate in, quote unquote, dozens of planning briefings with organizers where they strategized how to object to the election, both on the House floor and through these protests that occurred around the country, which were designed to pressure key senators to join them so they could have an

official objection on the House floor. So they were directly involved in that strategizing, which, frankly, Green and others have almost seemed to admit in their statements. But in the case of Paul Gosar, according to my sources, who, again, were in touch with him that day unquestionably, you know, he went a step further, allegedly. And they claim that he and members of his staff dangled a, quote-unquote, blanket pardon that he said he'd discussed, implied he'd discussed personally with Donald Trump as an encouragement to get them to host these events. And overall, they described all of this as sort of creating the condition for violence, because you had people who were very angry, you had a substantial militia presence. And somewhere along the line, and I think it's key for the investigation

to figure out who, how, and where, you know, this went from a planned sort of roadshow to go along with objections on the House floor and turned into a march on the Capitol. We already know that one key figure in that is President Trump, who encouraged the crowd to make that march while he was on the stage. My sources described being livid and literally cursing when they realized that's what he was doing, because as far as they knew, that wasn't part of the plan. But they also implicated Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff. And they said that, you know, concerns were raised to him about this, quote, quote, they weren't there to sing Kumbaya, and bringing them right to the side of the Capitol when they were fixated on the certification taking place on the House floor was reckless in even the view of some people who partook in planning these events. Before I go to my panel with questions, Mo Brooks, why on the hell are you wearing body armor if

the goal wasn't violence? And, you know, before we go to the panel with questions... I mean... Yeah, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, before we go to the panel with questions, if we're talking about wardrobe, Roland, I just want you to know this is my Yankee baseball collection back here.

Sorry, I got the wrong hand. That's a team that won a couple real championships without trash cans. I just got to specify that. I'm sorry. Yeah, uh-huh. And y'all got that ass whooped this year and last year and the year before that. So I understand how rough it is to be a Yankees fan, to spend all that money, and you can't even get out of the first round.

I understand. It's all good. Let's go to my panel with questions. Ralph Portillo, you first. Well, I think it's very interesting the way the Republicans have decided to downplay the very nature of the insurrection on January the 6th, particularly when we put it in the historical context of angry mobs overthrowing governments at any of those democracies. But what exactly can be done to members of Congress who are found to have been complicit or who have been found to have, as Mo Brooks may have, specifically planned violence against their co-workers? What exactly can Congress do in order to punish them?

Well, first off, I think you're making an extremely important point. The historical analogs that we have for, you know, a ransacking of a government building, particularly, you know, in an effort to block or overturn an election, they are all extremely dark. And part of the reason I'm so adamant about continuing to investigate this, but also, you know, keeping the focus on it, encouraging people to pay more attention, is I truly fear that if we ignore the fact that we've now not had a peaceful transfer of power, we've now had an authoritarian attack on the Capitol, this can only metastasize within the society. Now, in terms of, you know, repercussions, frankly, Merrick Garland holds a lot of the cards here. And my understanding from talk, you know, an important thing to understand is there are two parallel investigations right now. There is this House Select Committee investigation and there's also the DOJ investigation being led by the FBI. Now, the DOJ investigation is the largest in the bureau's history.

Sources familiar with it have told me that they're really taking a traditional criminal investigation approach. And that means, you know, sort of operating with the target being a pyramid. And they're starting from the bottom and going up from there. And right now that means arrests of the people who actually entered the building. It's not clear how far up that pyramid the FBI will get or how long that will take. So, you know, these questions of what was the White House's involvement, what was member of Congress's involvement, what was the involvement of members of Congress, you know, it's not clear the FBI will get there or how long it will take. The House Select Committee is essentially taking the opposite approach and looking at the higher level organization. However, they do not have criminal authority. And as we saw when Steve Bannon tried to defy their subpoena, what they can do is make

criminal referrals to the DOJ. So when it comes to members of Congress, my understanding from sources is if they do find what they believe is criminality, such as, for example, in that pardon allegation, they would likely refer that matter also to the DOJ, just because they would prefer a nonpartisan body with criminal authority to investigate it. If they see that the DOJ is not acting or not acting quickly enough and they want to take action against members of Congress, frankly, the options are pretty weak. They begin with a reprimand, which is essentially a strongly worded letter. They then go to a censure, which is a louder, strongly worded letter. Then they involve stripping someone of committees. That's already happened to Marjorie Taylor Greene, so that couldn't happen to her again. The last step is expulsion from

Congress. And since my story was published, many Democrats have called for this for some of the people I named. However, expelling them would require the support of two-thirds of the House. So there's no way we can do that with Republicans. And as you just pointed out, Republicans have really been focused on downplaying this, protecting their allies, and trying to move on. Lauren. Yeah, so I was there when Congressman Bill Jefferson's office was raided by the FBI on Capitol Hill at the Rayburn House Office building. I was there when Charlie Rangel was censured for some obscure tax thing that nobody can explain. And, you know, my boyfriend of a long time is a U.S. Capitol Police officer.

He was he's on set chambers. And this was to say a scary thing would be a very, you know, would put it mildly. I've worked in the Capitol and I am having a great deal of trouble figuring out after reading your piece, Hunter, and after seeing so many other things, particularly from the right on back of the blue and all this other nonsense. My father was also a law enforcement officer. And to have the conservatives, you know, Mr. Brooks and Mr. Gosar and all these people say absolutely nothing. And really Merrick Garland has done absolutely nothing to this point. I mean, we've seen people, we've seen members of Congress get indicted.

We've seen them get arrested. We had a member get indicted last week for lying to the FBI. Right. So I don't understand what the problem with when the sedition suddenly become legal. There's enough there with just what we know through through the reporting that you've done and so many others. I understand that we're not to the complete bottom of this. But, you know, I don't know that I have a question other than I mean, aren't you a little surprised that we're sitting here talking about this as if, you know, somebody got hit with jaywalking? By the way, go Yankees. I was born in the Bronx.

So, yes, the Yankees are better than the Astros. So, anyway, Hunter, I'd just like you to comment on that if you want to. Well, if y'all so much better, why you been losing? Hunter, go ahead and answer. Well, look, the Braves ain't been losing nothing, so we're good over here. The trash can. But, anyway, the Braves ain't been losing nothing, so we're good over here. The trash can. But anyway, first off, let me just say I hope that you and your boyfriend are both doing well. Because I know for reporters like myself who were there that day, members of the Capitol Police, members of Congress and their staff, this was a legitimately traumatic experience. And for myself and many other people that I talked to,

part of what's made it more and more painful is in the aftermath, just seeing this not respected, not acknowledged, and frankly, by many of these same members who are allegedly involved, it's been denied. I mean, Gosar has implied that this was an FBI plot. You know, you've had people suggest this was a normal tourist visit. Several of the people I've named, including Green and Gosar and Gohmert, were all partaking in these quote-unquote justice for J6 rallies, actually standing up for the rioters and calling them political prisoners. So that's made it more painful. And one of the things that really stood out for me that day, as you just alluded to, was watching these Blue Lives Matter flags

flying over a crowd that was literally attacking and clawing at police officers. Notably, Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn has been absolutely outspoken in House hearings about the fact that this crowd hurled racist abuse at these officers. And I believe it was Officer Ronel Aquino. I may have his name wrong, but he made a really important point that hit me pretty hard because I covered the Black Lives Matter protests last summer extensively. And he said, quote, why the different response? The second those protests were happening, the next day, military, a slew of federal agencies, including DEA, the Bureau of Prisons was on the streets in D.C.

I was in that crowd that was tear gassed at Lafayette Park. Rubber bullets and flashbangs were flying. We just simply didn't see that kind of reaction here. And as you're noting, we didn't see we haven't seen really any universal or strong condemnation from Republicans. In fact, at every level, you know, including based on my reporting in the planning and in its aftermath, we see encouragement and defense. Xavier? Xavier? 33 hearings, seven investigations, and 11 reports about Benghazi and the Republicans rejecting, looking into an attack right here on American soil. What say you, Hunter, about the process in terms of the time it's taken to get to this point, including your reporting, and the change in the narrative in terms of how Republicans have basically propagandized against January 6th, the upcoming midterms that will maybe shape that timing. of an investigation in tying some members of Congress to some of the planning associated

with getting people to D.C., getting people involved in terms of hotels and all the different wranglings around that in order to look into it from another angle to be able to connect some of the causes of action? Well, you know, the structure I outlined with Congress not having criminal authority and frankly not having, you know, even much ability to, you know, expel their own members for clear wrongdoing, that structure existed prior to this. So, you know, if we're going to see reform on that front, it would be later down the line. When it comes to the FBI, you know, I would just say publicly it does not seem like there's a lot of activity. Privately, I do know they were talking about that sort of top-down structure, or sorry, bottom-up structure, not focusing on the organizers. It's unclear if after some of these revelations that we're seeing from my own reporting from the committee, whether or not that's going to change and whether we will see the DOJ take more aggressive action. I know, you know, from talking to members of the committee, talking to sources familiar, as I alluded to earlier, many of them were

personally deeply affected by what happened that day. And they are aware of sort of the clock, you know, going over their head with, you know, the potential of a Republican takeover in Congress, the potential of another presidency and a DOJ that, as we saw, you know, during the Trump years, kind of quashed legitimate investigations or allegedly quashed legitimate investigations. And I think what they're trying to do, and frankly, I'm trying to do something similar in my reporting, is present as many of the facts of what happened that day publicly as possible, both to potentially encourage the DOJ to act and also to encourage public awareness and

perhaps public concern. So far, based on multiple sources I have who've talked with the committee, their focus actually has been on the financing. You know, questions of sort of who bought the stages, figures such as Mike Lindell, the organization Women for America First. However, what I do wonder is whether in light of these witnesses who are now coming forward, these sources who spoke to me, whether in light of this information, they do start focusing on this question of members. Because I think that, you know, political figures, whether they be members of Congress or allies of the administration, people such as Jared Kushner, we've seen them be sort of the third rail in Trump-era criminal justice. And what I mean is,

you know, situations like clear violations of the Hatch Act that just completely went unprosecuted, the question of emoluments just completely going unprosecuted. You know, and as was alluded to earlier, there's a large contrast between that and some of the aggressive enforcement we've seen in earlier years with earlier administrations. In this case, along with what went on with the members of Congress, I think my sources in saying that Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, was a clear liaison between these activists and this political events and the White House, you know, that would seem to be a clear Hatch Act violation to me. So, you know, I think the fundamental question here is, will President Biden, his attorney general, and this committee focus on these things and demand

or take action? All right. Hunter Walker, Rolling Stone, we look forward to seeing more reporting here. It's critically important to get all the facts, and so we surely appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks so much for having me, guys. And just say it one time. Go Astros. Stay with the American League, Hunter, you and Lauren, you traitors. All right, y'all.

Got to go. We got to Atlanta. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, we're going to have, y'all. Gotta go to Atlanta. Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, we gonna have all y'all crying. All right, y'all. Gotta go to break. We come back. We're gonna talk about the case of Julius Jones out of Oklahoma. Wise Clemency hearing has been delayed.

That and other news on Roland Martin Unfiltered, broadcasted live from Jubilee Hall here in the campus of Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, on the Black Star Network. Back in a moment. Oh, that spin class was brutal. Well, you can try using the Buick's massaging seat. Oh yeah, that's nice. Can I use Apple CarPlay to put some music on? Sure. It's wireless. Pick something we all like. Okay, hold on. What's your Buick's Wi-Fi password? Buick Envision 2021. Oh, you should pick something stronger. That's really predictable.

That's a really tight spot. Don't worry. I used to hate parallel parking. Me too. Hey. Really outdid yourself. Yes, we did. The all-new Buick Envision.

An SUV built around you. All of you. Once upon a time, there lived a princess with really long hair who was waiting for a prince to come save her. But really, who has time for that? She ordered herself a ladder with Prime one day delivery. And she was out of there. Now, her hairdressing empire is killing it.

And the prince? Well, who cares? Prime changes everything. The fight over the life of Julius Jones continues. His clemency hearing has been delayed while there's a legal challenge. Remember what the governor said. This is the brother who's made it clear that he did not commit a crime he was convicted of uh the board the parole board said that his case uh should be he should be switched to a life uh in prison uh without parole they said look that's their issues uh with uh this particular case well you have dsda's and others will be questioning that so you've all this battle going on and the governor said well let's simply allow for a clemency hearing now

execution date has already been set so he's on the clock uh so now the hearing is being delayed so we're going to talk with his sister she joins us right now there's been lots of activities going on she's actually on her way right now to a freedom vigil. Antoinette Jones, glad to have you here. So, first of all, last time you talked to your brother, how does he feel? What are his spirits? Just give us an update on what's going on there in Oklahoma. He is glad.

So, first, I talked to him for a couple of hours ago. He is glad for the stay of executions. He's glad that Mr. John Grant is not going to be executed so far that we know of tomorrow. He's glad that he doesn't have an execution date. But he still wants people to encourage our honorable Governor Kevin Stitt to commute his sentence to time served and a release and or a time, excuse me, life with the possibility of parole. That is still what we are asking Governor Stitt to do. I believe there's no, I don't think there's a limitation or anything. I think that there's a possibility that he could reverse his position. I'm not really for sure with the law, so I have to get back with the lawyers. And of course, you have this five-member parole board that weighed in.

And so there's been continuous action, continuous pressure. We've had Tiffany Lofton on the show. She's been down there in Oklahoma, other activists as well. And so all of that work has really kept the focus on this case. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Grassroots law has been a blessing. Grassroots law has been a blessing. We the people has been a blessing. I'm appreciative to Ms. Tiffany Lofton

for coming down here and just as soon as she dropped on the ground, getting to work and mobilizing and strategizing. It's been a blessing to have all walks of life tap in and fight for my brother's life, fight for his freedom. And I just thank God for everybody tapping in and helping. So where are you now with the legal challenge? So what exactly is the legal challenge, uh, which caused

the clemency hearing to be postponed? So from what I was, let me see, from what I was told is that there's a state of execution because of the protocol, like the drug usage. So the last, the last two executions, there were botched, they were botched, excuse me, from the drugs that were botched they were botched excuse me from the drugs that were used so that's that was my understanding i'm not real familiar with exactly what all that entitled so yes sir well uh it is uh certainly a case that we're going to continue to follow uh want you to be safe there as you guys as y'all are going down the road to this vigil. And, again, we will stay focused and continue to support this case and keep bringing in people and making them aware of what's going on there

in the state of Oklahoma regarding the Julius Jones case. Yes, sir. Thank you. All right. Appreciate it. Thank you so very much. All right. Let's talk about you so very much. All right. Let's talk about, folks, what's happening in Capitol Hill, in the nation's capital. This economic bill, this reconciliation bill, they've been going back and forth. You've got Democrats, Christian Sinema and Joe Manchin. They've been, hell, they are saying no more than Republicans.

Now we are hearing that Senator Joe Manchin has completely objected to any paid family leave, and therefore that has been dropped from the bill. Progressives are blasting this decision all on social media. Lauren, here's a guy who is from one of the brokest, sickest, poorest, most illiterate states in the country, and you swear he thinks he's representing billionaires and millionaires. Well, maybe he is, but they don't live in the country. And you swear he thinks he's representing billionaires and millionaires. Well, maybe he is, but they don't live in West Virginia. Right, right. And he's only representing like 0.5 percent of the population in the United States. And frankly, I just think that some of this is the result. Yes, it is Manchin. It is his fault.

We should focus on him. And there's no doubt about the saying that he and Schumer had this relationship, like they were like brothers, and sometimes it gets left. These people are friends. They're friends with each other. And most of them, particularly in the United States Senate, are millionaires. So I don't think that they have the sense of urgency that the average American has when these things happen. Even in the midst of a global pandemic that has taken the lives of over 700,000 Americans, if they don't have the sense of urgency now, when are they going to have it? When could it possibly be more urgent than what we've seen over the last year? So once again, I do think that you teach people how to treat you. People

get away with what you allow them to get away with. They have allowed Kyrsten Sinema, who is a relatively junior senator, and Joe Manchin to run the table. And I don't see any real, you know, ramifications. I don't see anything going on that would indicate to me a real sense of urgency from the White House, unless we're going to find out later in somebody's book five years from now that furniture was moving in some of these meetings, which I don't think is the case because we haven't heard that, then what exactly have they been doing to exert pressure on Cinnamon Manchin?

Xavier, bottom line is the Joe who's really running everything is Joe Manchin. Yeah, he is. And here's Joe Manchin objecting to billionaire attacks, saying that we shouldn't have a connotation of targeting different people when there isn't one billionaire in the state of West Virginia. But here he is wanting to get family paid leave off the books for this bill. Who does Joe Manchin really stand for? It definitely isn't the average American. And what are you standing for, people who don't actually live in your state in terms of the tax? I think it's ridiculous.

I think this man is grandstanding. He wants it all about himself. Reports come out about him maybe switching parties, and then he says he's just doing some branding. So clearly it's all about the Joe Manchin brand. Well, that is the case. We also have seen Kyrsten Sinema not give a damn at all about her constituents. She has been so dismissive of folks as well. And so what you're seeing is sheer arrogance.

And the reality is these two, they're not on the ballot in 2022. They're up for reelection in 2024. Trust me, there's a lot of Democrats, progressives, who are not going to forget what these two have said and done. All right, folks, got to go to break. When we come back, our black and missing for the day. We'll also talk about what's happening out of Georgia. A couple of cases that have legal implications as it relates to how African-Americans have been treated. That's next.

Roland Martin, Unfiltered, broadcasting live from Jubilee Hall, the campus of Fisk University, on the Black Star Network. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА Maureen is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Maureen the Marrier. Food is her love language. And she really loves her grandson. Like, really loves. Hey, everybody, it's your girl, Linnell. So what's up? This is your boy, Earthquake.

Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. 14-year-old Shantarika Robinson-Pike was last seen in Chicago, Illinois, on July 30, 2021. The 5'2", 140-pound teenager has black hair and brown eyes. If you have any information on Shantarika's whereabouts, please call the Chicago Police Department at 312-747-8274, 312-747-8274. During the judicial inquiry into the death of Eric Garner, one of the New York police officers involved in the incident admits to making two mistakes in filing the initial incident report. It's amazing how they always seem to do that. Arresting officer Justin D'Amico acknowledges two critical errors he made in filing the report on Garner's death,

writing that no physical force was used in the arrest and charging Garner with a tax avoidance felony. However, a top-ranking New York Police Department official testified there was no cover-up in the internal investigation into the officers. Of course, Garner was killed on July 17, 2014, after DiAmico's partner, Daniel Pantaleo, put Garner in a prohibited chokehold while arresting him. It's always amazing how they always say after the fact, oh, the information, I didn't get it right. Oh, hmm, hmm, kind of timely.

Let's go to Georgia, folks, where two officers, including a U.S. marshal, have been indicted on felony murder charges. The Fulton County Grand Jury indicted the officers for the 2016 death of Jamarian Robinson, who was shot during a law enforcement raid on his girlfriend's apartment. In addition to two counts of felony murder, Eric A. Hines and Christopher Hutchins were indicted on six other counts, aggravated assault, burglary, and two counts, each of making false statements in violation of oath by a public officer. Robinson was shot 59 times, leaving him with 76 gunshot wounds. That right there is unbelievable, Xavier.

And again, I keep telling people, and yes, indicted and charged is not the same as convicted, but the reality is, if it was not for the activism of Black Lives Matter over the last 8 to 10 years, you would

not see the increasing number of police officers who are being charged or indicted. Rolling 76 is just unbelievable. I mean, that's just numbers astronomical to put in someone's body. Uh, first with the, with, with Eric Garner, how can a police officer put in a report that 10,000 versus four packs of cigarettes? I mean, 10,004 don't even look alike, number one. And what we're seeing is increasingly the lying that is on the paperwork to be able to do this is because they are allowed to do it. No one is holding them accountable for this.

And only through activism are these records are becoming public knowledge. And I know that there's nothing that can be done with this inquiry in New York, but it still puts pressure and it still puts something on public record for something to be done in the future. And so that's the most important thing there.

The ball is still being moved forward. I know people want more action, but there's something being done. Then also, it's really important but there's something being done. Then also, it's really important that there's a focus on qualified immunity and things of that nature, but there really has to be a change in our laws that really focuses on the standard of conduct for police officers. And if you violate that certain standard of conduct, then it becomes criminal. We really have to put pressure on making sure that's the law that changes instead of relying on what laws exist.

We are currently. Lauren. You know, as the kid of somebody who was a member of the NYPD, I would say that the culture is that of not wanting to be questioned and really just running the table on everything. So when you see the sort of impunity and paperwork, we see this, the things that are written down in paperwork and nobody pays any price for it. Obviously, that's part of the culture, unfortunately, of lack of accountability. A lot of these big city police departments feel like they are above being questioned. And you're right, Black Lives Matter did change the calculus, at least opened the door to being questioned. It's still a very rare thing that a law enforcement officer is prosecuted for anything that happens during, while he's on duty, while he or she is on duty. But you can see that at least we're questioning these things. At least, you know, we're looking into these things. And I'm not sure why the profession of law enforcement is so sensitive about these issues, because everyone understands that these jobs are complex. It's a tough job.

I actually think what's at the root of a lot of these problems is that we ask our police to do too much. We have no policy really for mental illness in terms of handling people who are mentally ill. We expect the cops to handle everything, literally everything. And the profession of law enforcement needs to be, I think, a little bit more aggressive about trying to figure out how to get out of some of these calls that they are involved in that really don't require somebody with a firearm. So there's that. And I just also think, too, that the national, you know, the national fraternal Order of Police misses the boat every time on issues around gun control. You know, they're the ones that are at risk when we allow people to have any gun they want, any time, any place, particularly in certain states.

And they're the ones at risk, and yet they don't say anything when the issue of gun control comes up. So, you know, I don't get a lot of what goes on with leadership in these police departments because I do think that there are a lot of issues that they could really make better for themselves and society at large, and they choose not to do that, and we see the results. Let's talk about this case out of Georgia, where a Georgia judge declares a mistrial and a murder trial of three Washington County Sheriff's officers accused of taking, excuse me, tasing a black man to death. The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict on whether Henry Lee Copeland, Rhett Scott, and Michael Howell were guilty of felony murder, involuntary manslaughter, false imprisonment, and aggravated assault charges related to the death of Uri Martin. The trio tased Martin 15 times in four minutes after Martin refused to stop for them while walking to visit relatives on July 17, 2017.

The defendants remain free on bond while prosecutors decide if they will retry the case. That, that, man. Do we have the case. That, man. Do we have the family attorney ready, folks? I'm here. Joining me now is Muali Davis and Francis Johnson, the Martin family attorneys. Glad to have both of you here. For those who don't know, he was walking.

They stopped him. Was he committing a crime? Why was he even walking? They stopped him? Was he committing a crime? Why was he even stopped? There is no legal basis for him to have been stopped. He was literally walking from a town called Milledgeville to Sandersville

and at the time he was in a small town called Deep Step which is in between Milledgeville and Sandersville, just merely walking down the street. This is an incident of a black man being killed by law enforcement for walking while black, period, point blank. There is nothing more to it. He was this is in July. He asked one resident for some water. That resident shooed him away, said no.

He kept walking. So he didn't violate any law. But these officers, as so many have and continue to do, feel like they have this right over black bodies to be able to do what they will to our bodies, to our people. And that's what we're up against, not just in Sandersville, Georgia, but really all over the country as we continue to see black men and women and children brutalized by law enforcement. Jury did not come to a conclusion here. First of all, three white police, white sheriff's officers. What's the makeup of this jury? The makeup was about half and half.

One of the things that disturbed us, Roland, was that they... First of all, when you say half and half, half and half what? Black and white. So there were... Got it. Got it. They had 14 with two alternates, seven black, seven white. One of the issues was that during the course of the trial, they discovered that a distant relative,

but a relative of one of the defendants was on the jury and they didn't excuse him. And how he didn't realize that this was one of his relatives during jury selection still baffles and befuddles all of us. But yet and still, once he disclosed that he was a relative of the one of the defendants, we believe that he should have been dismissed. The law didn't require it, but we thought that when you're seeking justice and truth in a very volatile kind of situation such as this, you should make sure that the community feels as though this was done fairly, and the community does not feel that way as it relates to this juror being left on uh on this jury um man this is uh certainly first of all

it was revealed and he was left on was the judge asleep no it was he came to the judge he said our cousins or our grandfather were cousins and I realized that we're related. There was initially a motion by the district attorney for him to be excused. The defense opposed it and then the district attorney withdrew that motion and they left them on and they continued forward. And this, they deliberated, they started Friday deliberating, and then, you know, when yesterday the judge declared it a mistrial, they indicated that they were just deadlocked, and there was no hope of a unanimous decision either way.

And we don't know what the split was for conviction versus acquittal. But this was just, again, traumatizing for the family to watch and have to hear Mr. Martin begging for his life and begging them to stop as they jolted him with 50,000 volts of electricity 15 times in less than five minutes. And then they left him and didn't perform CPR on him. And the witnesses, their testimony, the lay people who were there and observed this said that they treated him like worse than a dead animal. Well, hopefully these prosecutors are going to retry these three sheriff's officers. It's sad. Attorney Davis, we certainly appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. We appreciate you. We appreciate you all focused some attention down here and really hope that we can finish his march from Milledgeville to Sandersville because he should and we all should be able to walk where we want without the threat of violence by police or others. So thank you. Certainly agree with that. Thank you so very much. Going to a break.

We come back. We'll give you an update on the Ahmaud Arbery case and cover some other news right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Oh, that spin class was brutal. Well, you can try using the Buick's massaging seat. Oh yeah, that's nice. Can I use Apple CarPlay to put some music on? Sure. It's wireless. Pick something we all like. Okay, hold on. What's your Buick's Wi-Fi password? Buick Envision 2021. Oh, you should pick something stronger. That's really predictable. That's a really tight spot. Don't worry. I used to hate parallel parking.

Me too. Hey. Really outdid yourself. Yes, we did. The all-new Buick Envision. An SUV built around you. All of you. Once upon a time, there lived a princess with really long hair

who was waiting for a prince to come save her. But really, who has time for that? Let's go. I'm spilling myself. She ordered herself a ladder with prime one-day delivery. for a prince to come save her. But really, who has time for that? She ordered herself a ladder with Prime one day delivery. And she was out of there. Now, her hairdressing empire is killing it. And the prince? Well, who cares?

Prime changes everything. Hi, I'm B.B. Winans. Hey, I'm Don prince. Well, who cares? Prime changes everything. Hi, I'm B.B. Winans. Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Here's an update on the trial of the three white men accused of killing a Marlboro. The goal is for the attorneys, they're trying to qualify 64 potential jurors to select a panel of 12 plus four alternates. Today, around 40 people have been qualified to advance since jury selection began a week ago. The defendants, Gregory and Travis McMichael and William Bryan Jr., they're charged with murder, aggravated assault and false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. Of course, remember, they chased and murdered Burrell on February 23rd, 2020, while he was jogging in a South Georgia neighborhood.

And so we're going to keep telling you exactly what's going on there as well. Let's talk about we'll come back to Capitol Hill and talk about this here. And that is this scramble to reach an agreement on the infrastructure bill of President Joe Biden. Earlier we talked about paid family leave being pulled out. Now this whole debate over this billionaire's tax. Democrats want to do that to pay for the stimulus package. It was proposed by Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.

The billionaire tax will only apply to people with at least $1 billion in assets or $100 million in income for three consecutive years. According to experts, that's roughly 700 taxpayers. Yet you have folks like Elon Musk who made $36 million just the other day whining and complaining how unfair it is. I'm trying to understand if you're a billionaire, trust me, you ain't got money problems, Lauren.

No, I mean, that's true. They were having some sort of discussion about whether or not it was constitutional to target a specific group of people for that tax. Obviously, they can pay it. That's not the issue. It's hard to argue this idea that you're going to be pro-billionaire, I mean billionaire, with a B, and have Mitt Romney come running out to defend them. If you tax them too much, it won't trickle down right, whatever.

I mean, no argument that you can come up with sounds sane in a nation where we have a wide income inequality gap. But I will say that it's amazing, isn't it, because there's no political price to be paid for defending billionaires, apparently, because several senators came out at a time we have more than 40 million people in poverty and nobody bats an eye. I mean, it's sort of amazing how that can happen. It was only like maybe 48 or 72 hours ago that we first heard about this tax idea from Senator Ron Wyden. And it's already gone. It's already come and gone in that short period of time. It's crazy to see the negotiations going on on Capitol Hill, Xavier. And if people want to see how the rich are easily protected by Congress, they're getting all they need to know right now. Joe Manchin, once again, wants parents to prove that they're working to get a child tax credit.

But billionaires, they get to do whatever they want, not pay taxes. If you want, get defended. But the sole reason that they get to show those who support them that one day you'll be rich. So support the billionaires. And once you get rich, you won't have to pay taxes either. I mean, it's amazing how the certain segment of our political population keeps selling the fantasy of one day you might get rich and to be able to protect billionaires, I think is absurd. It is certainly that. Let's stay in Georgia where Stacey Abrams, her group Fair Fight Political Action Committee, they're donating a million dollars to cover the medical debts of people in five states. They're working with a nonprofit group, RIP Medical Debt, which is dedicated to cleaning personal medical debt, which dedicated to cleaning personal medical debt. They will use a donation to clear the debts of more than 100,000 people in Georgia, Arizona,

Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. RIP Medical Debt says Fairfax donation is the third largest in its history. The group has wiped out more than $5.3 billion in medical debt since 2014. How about this, Elon Musk? If you want to do something, why don't you pay off the medical debt to, let's say, a million people in America? And guess what? You can get a tax write off by giving to a nonprofit. How about that, Lauren? Yeah, what an idea. Elon Musk is too busy, you know, going to movie openings and being an attention whore to care about something

with regard to anybody else other than Elon Musk. So that's unlikely to happen. It is good to see that Stacey Abrams is doing that. I'm pretty sure it's still true that medical debt is one of the biggest drivers of bankruptcy filings in the United States. And because this country has no health care program until Obamacare came along. Right. I mean, there was no way to really easily get health care without going bankrupt if something happened. It was like the only industrialized nation that has that problem. And it's ridiculous. I do get a kick, Xavier, out of people like Elon Musk bitching and moaning about the government when the reason he is the billionaire, government tax breaks. Right.

Yeah. Sweeten the pot. How about sweetening the pot for those who are in debt right now? This is the worst time in the country's recent history to be in debt, whether it's medical debt, whether it's personal financial debt, or whether you owe money in terms of your housing and rent. There are Americans that are struggling on a level that we cannot even comprehend right now. And we're sitting here battling over whether billionaires should be able to pay their fair share to be able to solve some of the issues in the country. I think that it's really interesting that they have the loudest say when they have the smallest amount of members in their group, 700,

and they have the ability to be able to do the things to be able to pay their fair share. All right, folks, I'm here in Tennessee on the campus of Fisk University in Nashville. In this state, they've been having lots of battles over the removing of Confederate statues. Well, what was born out of that in Franklin, Tennessee, was the adding of a statue acknowledging enslaved Union soldiers. Let's see there. Franklin unveiled the March to Freedom statue honoring the men who served in the United States Colored Troops, the segregated unit of the Union Army during the Civil War.

A Confederate statue stands in the middle of the town square. Instead of taking it down, an agreement was reached to create a new historical marker to tell a fuller story of the Civil War, one that included the horrors of slavery and the black people who fought to end it. Boy, but isn't it amazing people uh still want to uh keep uh their confederate statues because oh my goodness lauren what more can we do than to hurt the feelings of the white people who fought to ensure the three of us could never be able to have this conversation free. Yeah, the Confederate statue issue is, it's amazing how people wanna hold on to a history that was consequential against our country,

and yet they still want to commemorate people who lost the war to tear this country in half, which just doesn't make any sense to me. But, you know, as you know, in Virginia, they took down the Robert E. Lee statue, which I frankly thought would never fall in Richmond less than two months ago. And it's incredible to see what people hang on to the past, what part of the past people want to hang on to, what part of the president that they choose to ignore, which is that this country is becoming more diverse, and I think a lot of people are having a great deal of trouble confronting that reality.

No, they are, Xavier, and I keep telling people, you know what? I don't really give a damn about your feelings. You want to try to uphold and keep white supremacy? Yeah, I think we're going to have a problem. Yeah, I think it's interesting that we have a country where over half the states have attempted to pass legislation banning teaching critical race theory or teaching of the historical impact of slavery on modern times. But they want to hold on to Confederate statues. And that weren't even—that were based not on the actual history itself, but preserving some sort of terrorism for a marching equality for black people. And so I think that we have a narrative where people want to be able to sell a false story about what America is, what it has been, and what they want it to be. You know, We see this playing out right now in January 6th.

That was the opposition to black votes and 60 percent of Republicans being supporting the big lie because black people put Joe Biden in office. I think that as long as there's one group of America attempting to try to tell a story about what America was and what it is, we're going to continue to see issues like this. And it's really good that this has happened, especially in an area where black people weren't as welcome before. Well, I mean, on that particular point, again, it's understanding our histories, understanding how we got to this point.

You see this nonsense happening right now, Lauren, in the Virginia gubernatorial race where Glenn Youngkin is making a big deal out of a Toni Morrison novel because some white woman, oh, my God, my child is reading about these horrible things. And you're going, seriously, seriously, stop it. Yeah, that was an unforced error, actually a fairly rare unforced error in the campaign of Glenn Youngkin. And I have gone to a few of his events. The last one I went to was in Norfolk on Monday. And they're really running it on a presidential campaign level. But that was a big boneheaded mistake. He does have as one of his top advisers somebody who advised Ted Cruz. And as you

can see from this beloved thing, they just can't help themselves. They had to have, they just had to have the obligatory, hysterical white woman video as part of their campaign, which seems to be the staple of all Republican campaigns, particularly in the South. Four years ago, what they tried to do was vilify Hispanics with an MS-13-related campaign, trying to make Ralph Northam, country doctor from the Army, into an MS-13 member, which was one of the most ridiculous things you've ever seen. This is what Ed Gillespie lost on. He lost by eight points, I'm convinced, because of that stupidity at the end of his campaign.

Out and out, in-your-face racism. On this, Glenn Youngkin is not going quite that far. His consultants seem to be a little bit more savvy. They're running a George W. Bush, Bob McDonald-style campaign. But that was a mistake. They put some woman on whining about some book that traumatized her snowflake kid who's working for the NRCC. He's like a Republican operative, and she's a Republican operative, sitting in one of the richest counties in the United States. That would be Fairfax, Virginia, whining about, you know, my son has to read some book. It was a stupid ad. It was a huge mistake. And I don't think it actually moves the needle that much because the people who would care are voting blue and the people who don't care are voting red. But, I mean, this race is going to come down to a 5 percent. And now there's rumors that Trump might show up.

If he does show up, McAuliffe is definitely going to win because the undecideds are definitely going to go blue. But that's not confirmed. But that was a big unforced error by unnecessary distraction and a stupid commercial. And he's got it pinned to the top of his Twitter account. You know, the thing that, Xavier, yesterday on Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough did this commentary talking about Republicans and how they keep attacking blacks, focusing on race. And I'm sitting there going, you just figured that out, Joe? Joe said ever since Joe Biden was elected, the right wing media has focused their attention on black people. Listen, David, that's been the attention.

That's what that was. And it's like, no, Joe. First of all, it's so dumb. No, Joe. Ever since Nixon was elected. Yeah, I mean, it's almost like he just found out he had a calling to be able to to be woke. And when he finally maybe people are tuning in to watch the show, I mean, because I mean that it's clear as day what's going on. And it's clear as we go ahead going on. It's clear it's been going on for a while. When Republicans want to seize power, the boogeyman is the black man.

That's just, this is as old as this country has been around, as long as the, this has been since black folks have been free in this country. That's been the tool of weaponized racism since the Civil War. Lauren, I really did get a kick out of Joe Scarborough, this revelation. It was like, oh, my God, what Republicans are doing? They're attacking black people. Yeah. I mean, I don't understand.

Joe Scarborough is from Florida. He was a member of Congress from Florida, conservative. And from time to time, he does say things on the air which would, you know, obviously acknowledge that there's a racial component in so much of our politics and so much of our history. And then at other times, he says something boneheaded like that. I'm not sure what is so hard to remember about George Wallace's famous quote, which I won't completely say on the air, about not being out N-worded. And what is so hard to remember about Lee Atwater, who's – that's basically modern politics. We're not going back to the Civil War era. We're just talking about really the last 50, 55, 60 years. And so Joe Scarborough should be able to remember that history. It is Lee Atwater.

It's the Southern strategy. It's Barry Goldwater. They always do this in these campaigns. And, of course, with Donald Trump sitting around, it's getting more brazen, this idea of, I mean, really, ever since, if you go back, ever since George Wallace's run for the presidency, we can point to the specific moment in campaigns where Black people are used as the scare tactic to make white people vote Republican. Okay. So, I mean, obviously, Ronald Reagan had the welfare queen thing. And, I mean, we see it certainly on the state level all the time in these races.

We're going to see it. I was surprised, actually, we saw it in Virginia this round because Youngkin's people have been very careful about what they've been doing. But it's like they can't help themselves. They always think that they've got to get white people scared to come out and vote. And they're so not willing. They do. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's amazing that they just cannot do it. Just one cycle. They can't, they can't get away from it. And they run this ad with this woman, which I just thought it was ridiculous. This woman is not some housewife sitting around that they just happened to find. They did have another commercial of a white female Democrat who voted for McAuliffe the first

time when he was governor in 2013 to 2017 that's voting Republican. This is not some person from nowhere. This is a Republican operative. So the entire the entire thing is ridiculous. But it was meant to get us into the thing of scaring white people into the voting booth. And I am amazed at how stupid that move was. I don't know why I'm amazed, but I am for this particular. Well, that's driven by well, that's driven by the fact that, you know, they're targeting the improper narrative about children, scaring moms and kids. They're teaching kids to be afraid and not be uncomfortable. And that's the narrative of using the boogeyman of critical race theory being taught, which is taught in universities and higher education and not in schools,

instead of real education in terms of America's history, in terms of racism. But that's a whole other topic. And they're using that as a narrative to be able to push people and say, I don't want this to happen to my kids. I don't want my kids to think differently. I don't I don't want to be able to not have control over my children because of the narratives being taught. And it's just it's happening from state to state, the state and election to election. And that's happening from state to state to state and election to election. And that's now the tactic being used to be put in office now. But what doesn't make sense in Virginia specifically,

what makes no sense is you're competing for 6% of the vote in Virginia. That 6% is a moderate swing 6%. We're not Utah, it's not Oregon. So who you try to get with these extreme tactics, you already have. That voter is already voting for you. So I could never figure out why they think this type of politicking, which is obviously trying to drive fear into an electorate on race works with a swing voter. That makes no sense to me.

I want to pull Robert into this. Robert, he's back. We lost him a little bit earlier. Robert, I just laughed when I saw that Joe Scarborough commentary. Like, Republicans, they just insist on attacking black people. And I'm like, Joe, they were doing that when you were a Republican member of Congress. Well, it's a reflex. They can't help themselves.

I'll give you the perfect example. Two or three weeks ago when we had the issue of the migrants coming across the Texas border from Haiti, you had Democrats dead to rights. All you had to do was double down on the treatment of Haitian migrants coming across the border as Republicans. Say, look, this is exactly what we told you Joe Biden was. We told you about Jim Crow Joe and all that stuff. They couldn't even do that. They couldn't take the layup.

They decided to double down on the side of the Border Patrol agents whipping the Haitians crossing the border. That is how deeply entrenched racism is in the Republican Party. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Then you had Donald Trump going, they're bringing AIDS with them. You literally have Joe Biden dead to rights. Everything you said, now is your time to do your black voter outreach. You bring Candace Owens and Omarosa back in. You know, you get out there.

This is your time to shine all the stuff you said. And they blew the layup and then Donald Trump tripled down on the racism. It is part and parcel. There's to the point now for Republicans that any criticism of white supremacy is seen as being a criticism of Republicans and of America itself. So the point, the fact that as it was mentioned in the Virginia race, where the mother is saying she's afraid because her son read Beloved, or they're now claiming that a transgender student assaulted a girl in a bathroom at a school in Virginia. And this is proof that Terry McCullough's policies are too liberal, causing children. They're literally willing to take the sexual assault of a child

as a political issue in order to gain points because Republicans do not do voter registration. Republicans do not do ground game. They do not talk to young voters. They do not talk to minority voters. So all they can count on is maximum turnout from scared old white people because the blacks and the gays and the Mexicans are coming and they have to do something about it. But as Lindsey Graham said a long time ago, there are not enough old white men aren't being born day by day to keep the Republican Party afloat. And that's why it's so important to get that kind of federal legislation in place,

like the John Lewis voting rights that are for the people, because those things are needed to put these things to rest. All right, folks, hold tight one second. Got to go to a break. When we come back, we're going to talk about our TikTok segment

right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА 1. Skruva avgjørelsen av styrkepuffet. 2. Skruva av styrkepuffets styrkepuff. 3. Skruva av styrkepuffets styrkepuff. 4. Skruva av styrkepuffets styrkepuff. 5. Skruva av styrkepuffets styrkepuff. Maureen is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Maureen the Marrier. Food is her love language.

And she really loves her grandson, like really loves. Y'all know who Roland Martin is. He got the ascot on. He do the news. It's fancy news. Keep it rolling. Right here. Rolling.

Roland Martin. Right now. You. Rolling Martin. Right now. You are watching Rolling Martin, unfiltered. I mean, could it be any other way? Really. It's Rolling Martin. All right, so a whole bunch of y'all ain't got no idea how in the hell to do, how to use these devices. Something goes wrong, you can't get it fixed, you don't know what to do.

Well, there's an app called the Fixed App. Joining us right now to talk about it is the CEO about this, Luke Cooper. Of course, they're out of Baltimore. So, Luke, how did you do this, this mobile on demand? So explain how it works because, trust me, there are a lot of people that don't want to go to the Apple store. They've got other people who've got Samsung phones. They don't know what in the hell to do. Something happens.

They don't know who to call. You call places now. You're talking to somebody in another country. And then, of course, you confuse. I mean, it's just drama. So exactly what is the fixed app? Great question. It's great to be with you today, too, Roland. Yeah, the fixed app came into inception when I dropped my phone on a bus in Boulder. I was there doing a Techstars program, and everyone around me had the same reaction. Fortunately, I was in Boulder, Colorado, where people are a little less biased, right? And I could walk around the bus and ask questions. And when I started to ask people why they had the same

reaction, it was all because of the complexity, the expense, the inconvenience of going to the Apple store. A lot of people don't know this, Roland, but there are 50,000 daily Genius Bar requests. But there are only like 400 Apple stores. So when I started to think about that math, it just made sense to offer this service to customers. Now the company is owned by Assurant and I'm excited about, you know, the next phase of growth with it, but it does exactly what you described it to do, which is get your phone back in your hands, you know, very, very quickly. Okay. So, so, so is it, so, so how does it work? Meaning, okay, if something happens right now, okay, do they come to me to fix it?

I mean, so what would be the process? Yeah, that's exactly right. So you sign up. So fixed doesn't serve individuals. We serve large-scale enterprises. When I started the company, we were initially going after consumers, and we saw that was a very expensive proposition. And so we pivoted and began to focus on big companies. And when we started to focus on big companies, we saw our success just scale, and we grew revenue 400% year over year.

I raised $7 million, including a $3.5 million Series A, hired roughly 80 people. A lot of them didn't look like me. And that was also a challenge, right? Showing up as your whole self, uh, in scenarios where people, you know, are, are just getting accustomed to the idea of having a black boss, black CEO, black manager or anything. Um, but, uh, the, the whole premise behind the, the mobile app and the, and the website that drives the service is essentially that we, you know, you give us a list of all your physical assets and we bring our technicians, one of our 1,500 technicians around the globe to you in four hours or less based on information that we're reading from the device. So when you break it, you are punching in, you know, several, you know, bits of information,

which automatically comes into our portal and pushes out a dispatch to one of our technicians. One of those technicians arrives at your door. They're friendly. You have all this information sent to you via email, website. You can track it on the website. You can track it in your phone if it's not severely damaged. And then when that technician gets on site, they're repairing your phone, replacing it in less than four hours. We're super excited about the growth of this company. And they're very near term. A lot of consumers are going to be able to have access to it as well. All right. Questions from our panel. Let's see. Who is the most, I would think, technically challenged person on the panel?

It's probably Robert. Thank you so much. So I did have a question. What do you think right-to-repair laws would have on the impact that have on consumers for people who may actually want to learn how to actually fix their own devices? Or do you think it's best to have a technician like yourself or someone trained like you before you mess up your actual device further than you can actually ever get own devices? Or do you think it's best to have a technician like yourself or someone trained like you before you mess up your actual device further than you can actually ever get it fixed? Yeah, it's a great question. We definitely dealt with that. And, you know, to be clear, I've never really repaired a phone. My background is a JD MBA lawyer. And, you know,

I sort of, you know, came out of that to become an entrepreneur. But yeah, we had to deal with that pretty consistently over the eight years that I was building and growing the company. I think right to repair laws will remediate to some extent. I think that we heard a lot of news right to repair laws in the last two or three years. And a lot of that was driven in the market by OEMs like Apple and others that wanted to, you know, sort of control the supply chain for, you know, physical assets around the devices and parts around the devices. What we've seen in the last year or so is that Apple sort of backed away from that because of all the pushback they've gotten in these individual states about

the right to repair laws. I mean, I think the other part of it, too, is that people have a right to work and create a life for themselves. And, you know, I'm proud of the fact that we were able to create such an incredible opportunity for so many people to support their families and their everyday lives with, you know, the work that they were able to get from us. So, you know, I think the right to repair laws will continue to subside over the coming near term. But, you know, we'll wait and see. All right, then, let's see. Lauren, how much of your business is impacted by the fact that, you know, typically when I have some sort of tech problem, I find myself on YouTube trying to fix it, trying to get the instructions on YouTube. And I would say probably 90% of the time that works, even if I don't know quite what I'm doing. So I was wondering how much of your business is impacted by the fact that so much of

the information to fix things is sort of free. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right, which is what we noticed in 2014 when we started the company. Individual consumers have lots of options. If the Apple store didn't have an option for you, you could go to YouTube, you could buy a part on eBay, you could try to fix it yourself. You could go into a retail establishment that does phone repair and get it repaired there. There are a lot of options. And so we chose intentionally not to focus on consumers after the first year, and we instead pivoted it to businesses. are one of 15,000 employees at a big company and you are moving throughout the day and your cell phone breaks or your smart device has some challenge, you taking 20, 30, 40 minutes out of your day to go figure that out on YouTube, multiplied across thousands of employees is

detrimental to business. It kills your productivity, has all kinds of negative consequences. And quite frankly, all the IT organization, the folks that work in the IT organization are tracked on these metrics. You know, they want to get you back up and running and productive as quickly as they can. And so when we saw that trend happening, we began to focus on large scale companies. large-scale companies and, you know, again, grew revenue 400% year-over-year, acquiring companies like Home Depot, Carlyle Group, T. Rowe Price, and others. Xavier? Yeah, Luke, I know you talked about the consumer side being more of an expensive proposition, but as you've been able to raise more and more money, I mean, what is Fixit eventually becoming the Uber of getting your phone fixed and becoming – and it will have to require more money? Yeah, no, in August of 2020. I'm one of three black founders to reach a nine-figure exit after raising more than a million dollars in the whole country. I'm the first black tech entrepreneur in the state of Maryland, the city of Baltimore, that's ever done that as well.

I mean, that alone speaks to the problem, right? And I raised, you're right, to the problem. Right. And I raise you're right. I raise six and a half million dollars and raising money, you know, certainly was a challenge for us over the eight years that we were hustling. But when you look at our cohort, right, the group of founders that were, you know, working on similar ideas or similar products that were indirectly competitive with us, they raised four450 million compared to my seven, right? And so fundraising is a big challenge, especially for black founders, which is why I do the work that I do to this day. But yeah, I think the way that we have evolved the company and the acquisition to a Fortune 300 assurance has allowed the company now to blossom in a different direction and its own path, you know, without, you know, needing like lots of additional resources.

And so, you know, it delights me to no end to now see the company sort of, you know, growing and doing things internationally, expanding across, you know, some of the largest carriers in the U.S., and just see the name everywhere. It is absolutely a badge of honor, one that I know is a pathway for a lot of other black founders that come from the same kind of circumstances, the same kind of mud that I come from. All right, then. Luke Cooper, CEO of Fix It App. We certainly appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. And keep up the great work. Thank you.

All right, folks, going to break. We come back. The actress, Kay Singleton, she talks about, not just acting, a show called Covenant that she created. That's next. Roland Martin, unfiltered right here on the black star network oh that spin class was brutal well you can try using the puig's massaging seat oh yeah that's

nice can i use apple carplay to put some music on? Sure. It's wireless. Pick something we all like. Okay, hold on. What's your Buick's Wi-Fi password? Buick Envision 2021. Oh, you should pick something stronger. That's really predictable. That's a really tight spot. Don't worry.

I used to hate parallel parking. Me too. Hey. Really outdid yourself. Yes, we did. The all-new Buick Envision. An SUV built around you. All of you.

Once upon a time, there lived a princess with really long hair who was waiting for a prince to come save her. But really, who has time for that? Let's go. I'm spilling myself. She ordered herself a ladder with prime one-day delivery, and she was out of there. I want some hood girls looking back at it

and a good girl in my tech brand. Now, her hairdressing empire is killing it. And the prince? Well, who cares? Prime changes everything. What's up, y'all? I'm Will Packer. I'm Chrisette Michelle. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Alright, folks. So, a lot of TV shows out here. How about one that talks about and deals with the Bible? There's a new show called Covenant, and it really brings it alive. Here is a peek into what the show is about.

I think we should get a surrogate. If God wants us to have a baby, we'll have a baby. Are you pushing to have this baby because you want to have one? Or are you scared to lose your husband? That was so long ago. Doesn't matter how long ago it was? Seems like you two have been dating for a while. I'm not used to moving this fast either.

Feels right. So right. To the Whitfields. To the Whitfields. To the Whitfields. I need someone who's going to take this company into the future. Everything's going to be OK.

I'm here for you. Your daddy had a bit of a scare. A scare? He had a heart attack. Here's the key. We have to keep moving forward. We cannot afford not to speak to discrimination and racism. Some guy did a hate speech that started a riot. A lot of the kids started fighting each other. What the fuck is going on at that school?

I'm wondering, Mr. McVeigh, do you take any responsibility for this? I'd like you to meet Malcolm and Serena Fuller. It's so nice to meet you both. I don't trust her. Do you trust her? I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her.

I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her.

I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her. I don't trust her. Do you take any responsibility for this? I'd like you to meet Malcolm and Serena Fuller. It's so nice to meet you both. I don't trust her. Do you love me, baby? Get her out of here, now! You are immensely loved, and you are responsible for that gift. I've decided to appoint an acting CEO, but I want Hayden to step into that spot. Dad, I...

Just for now. But it was supposed to be me to take over the company. Take her outside, drag her around the back, and use her for target practice. Oh, Just for now. It was supposed to be me to take over the company. Take her outside, drag her around back and use her for target practice. Oh, hey, man. How you doing? Me!

Are you all right? We're here to hold you accountable and you will be judged. All right. The founder of Kay Singleton. She dons us right now. Kay, how you doing? I'm good.

How are you? Happy to be here. All right. So when you and I sat down out of the YouTube Black Summit in Atlanta, 2019, you were talking about writing, wanting to do your own show, not just acting, and the culmination of this,

getting the green light for Covenant. But what's interesting is that, again, I purposely set it up that way. When people talk about, you know, this is a biblical show, I know people were thinking, oh, my goodness, here come people wearing sackcloth uh and folks walking around folks walking around um uh africa but no so you so explain why you wanted to take these stories of the bible but give it a real life modern day twist and exactly what you said Roland, so many times we think we're going to see a show about a biblical backdrop, or if it's a faith-based show, we're going to see

the sandals and the sackcloth, and we're going to hear them really talking about Bible verses the whole time and not see anything that's really poignant to what's going on right now in 2021. And because I wanted to appeal to all kinds of audiences, whether you went to church or whether you don't go to church, whether you know the Bible or not, I wanted everybody to be able to enjoy something. And I wanted to appeal to millennials, generation X, Y, Z, everyone. And so in order to do that, I needed something that was timely,

that was thrilling, that was suspenseful. And I wanted to put it in a time and then things that we actually go through every single day, whether it's infertility, which was in the first story, The Promise, whether it's the virus that is going on in the second story, The Vow, generational curses is in the third story. And the fourth story, oh my goodness,

it touches on conspiracy theories and race issues and white supremacy so it's just if we go we get into it well if you remove the wonderful nice sweet perspective the churchy church view of bible i mean we talking about brother hating brother uh son turning on daddy uh let's be real clear lots of hoeing uh uh david basheba i mean look let's call it what it is uh i never forget i had a i had a preacher who's who's who did he's like now he said let's be clear david was a hoe and the whole church was like oh my god he was like uh it's biblical it was it was it was it was hilarious he talked about it but it's but it's just speaking truth like like yo it's in the book listen it was plenty of drama that went on in the book and that's why it was the

perfect premise to use to be inspired by because they went through a lot of stuff whether it was like you said cheating and infidelity and killing and all of these things. And because they went through so much to try to put that in today's time to me was simple, but it was also needed so that we could see ourselves in these people and put a new twist on it. And I think it's resonating because so many women, they walked up to me after they saw the promise. We did a screening for the promise in Atlanta and they were talking about how they went through infertility issues and in vitro and the sadness that it brought to them and how they blamed themselves. And, you know, how they really wanted to be able to give their husband a child. And then when I talked to men, they were conflicted, saying, yeah, I don't know if I would want to adopt.

I don't know if I would feel some kind of way if my wife couldn't have kids. So it really opens the door for conversation, and that's what I love about it. And then also, if you do know the Bible story, then you can say, oh, I know where this was derived from. And so it all plays, and I love that about it. Where's the show airing? So it's going gonna come every thursday we drop a new episode every thursday on all black you can get it on any streaming platform uh whether it's youtube

whether it's uh you got an iphone android or whatever you have a roku you can download the all black app we have a new episode every single Thursday. This Thursday, tomorrow, The Vow drops, which is a new story starring Rico Ball, Jasmine Burke, Dwayne Finley, Palmer Williams Jr., and Erica Page. And that drops tomorrow. I'm so excited to see that one and to hear what people think because we got some really great reviews from The Promise. All right. Questions from my panel. Let's see. Oh, let's see who's probably the most biblical uh on my panel xavier i guess i'll go with you hey hi i pay um shout out to

brett dismuke being associated with this show uh so uh we saw with uh i know this is you're talking about marvel they have a what if show where they had some of the different storylines that seemingly were on standalone, but eventually they got tied in together. So these episodes are standalone, but will we possibly see some tying together some of these stories and overarching narrative at some point? Let me tell you, when I said each of these stories can have their own spinoff, and because they're all set in Atlanta, Serena might know Sharif, and they might run into each other. There's so many places that these stories can go, and I'm so excited to see,

like, what's the next chapter? Do I want to do a spinoff? Do I want to focus on bringing them all together in the series or keeping them separate in something else? So I'm really excited about that prospect. And then in film, too. So do they need a standalone movie? What I do know is that after People Saw the Promise, they wanted to see Serena and Malcolm again. So I'm hoping that happens with every episode. Lauren? episode. Lauren.

What has been the toughest topic that you have had to address for the show? I'm sure there's been several, but what was the one that really maybe kept you up at night or almost didn't do it but did? What would that be? I'll tell you two

because I'm a Pisces. We're indecisisive but the first one i think in the promise because when serena talks about um she blames herself for waiting so long for pursuing a career and not having a child earlier and is it my fault because i could have went and had a baby but i decided to push for my. That was a real thing that I have a fear of because, you know, I've been putting that to the side to focus on. Let me build this career. Let me go after this dream. And what's going to happen if when I'm ready that I can't have a child? And so that to do that scene was crazy hard because it was something that I was going through or I have a real fear of

at the same time. And that's just me being super transparent about that. So that was one of the first things that was hard. And then the second thing that I would say is in episode four, the enemy, because we do touch on things that are so divisive and so polarizing when it comes to white supremacy, when it comes to race issues and Black Lives Matter and conspiracy theories and QAnon and what drives these people. I had to go into a deep dive about what makes people join these groups. Let's say like neo-Nazis, for instance. People aren't necessarily born with these kinds of ideals or beliefs, but what drives them to that? And so to get into that world, but to be able to tell a true story, but also understand their vulnerabilities and tell it in a way that I'm not, you know, demeaning one group or the other.

And so I think that that was difficult. But it's good. We go to the deep end of the pool for sure. Robert. You know, there's so many stories in the mystical land of Atlanta, but what are some bridges you're not willing to cross? Are there any topics you don't think you'll be covering? You know, a couple of years ago, we had a sheriff that showed up in Piedmont Park in a trench coat at midnight, things like that. Or, you know, just some of the random things that just happened in Atlanta that seemed too ridiculous, even for film and television. Are there any bridges you're not willing to cross? I don't think so, because I feel like I'm at a place where I don't mind jumping into those pools of this is a difficult conversation, but it needs to be had. And so, you know, depending on if I'm the right person to tell it, because I don't want to tell anyone's story that, you know, I don't do enough research on or I don't know about or I can't keep it in the right light.

If I can tell the story and I've done enough work on it, I feel like there's nothing that we can't explore. I think the black community needs to have more dialogue in many different areas. And this is the perfect way to kind of spark that. All right, then. Well, Covenant, as you say, it is on the streaming platform, all black. OK, we appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. Good luck with it. And like I say, I know you have been trying to make this a reality for quite some time. And so congratulations on getting it done. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And I want to hear your review later, but you can tell me at another time. I'll send you a text. I'll let you know. Please. All right. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

I appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. All right, folks. We got to get out of here. Game two of the World Series starts. My Astros, I was there in Thanks a bunch. All right, folks. We got to get out of here. Game two of the World Series starts. My Astros, I was there in Houston last night. We lost game one, but it's all good. We're going to come back and handle the business.

And so when the series goes to Atlanta on Friday, it'll be 1-1. Sorry for you Yankee fans. You Yankee fans, you know your team sucks. Y'all spent all that money. Say what? Let me tell you the best thing the best thing about the astros the best thing about the astros and the reason i do like the astros in this moment is that they beat the red socks okay that's what the astros did that is the best they

beat the red socks and they're no no no no we we beat that. We beat that ass. That's what we did. So absolutely. Xavier, who's your team? Oh, I'm from Chicago. Xavier, who's your team? Well, I'm from Chicago, Roland. You all took out the White Sox. So just so y'all know, just so y'all know, first of all, Chicago White Sox should never talk about anybody being cheaters. Hey, you got me on that one, Roland. There's only one team that has thrown a World Series.

The Black Sox. That is correct. That was 100 years ago, Roland. No, no, no, no. They weren't the Black Sox. They were the white socks. Look, I'm sorry y'all weren't good enough. So, yeah, we took care of y'all.

We took care of the Yankees' perennial opponent, and don't worry about it. Atlanta, we're going to give y'all the business as well. All right, y'all, that's it for me. I'll see y'all back at the studio tomorrow. I'm back in D.C. Friday. I'm going to be in Indianapolis for the Stewart Speaker Series. I'm going to be moderating conversational activism. Professor Eddie Glaude, also Alicia Garza will be live streaming that right here on the Black Star Network.

Also tomorrow, they've got, of course, protests taking place in D.C. dealing with voting rights legislation. We're going to be live streaming that. Poor People's Campaign, they're going to have their event. We're going to be streaming that. And, of course, Melanie Campbell, her organization, they're going to be having their event as well. We'll be live streaming that. So we always got stuff going, folks.

And that's how we keep it busy. And so we appreciate it. Again, great time today. If you missed my lecture at 5, simply go to Black Star Network, go to our YouTube channel. You can actually see where I talked about social media influencers. So quite the interesting conversation. So look forward to that.

And so let me also say this here. If y'all want to join our Bring the Funk, first of all, download the Black Star Network app, please. All the platforms we're on, Apple TV, Android TV, Android, Apple, Roku, Samsung, Xbox, you name it, Amazon Fire, all the platforms. So get the app. In addition to that, please, I want you to support our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar you give goes to support this show. Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered, Venmo is RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RMartin Unfiltered.

Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. I'll be back at Fisk on November 13th for a homecoming. The day before my brother's birthday. My brother's birthday is the 13th. Mine is the 14th, so looking forward to that. And so always good to be here, folks. I appreciate it.

I will see y'all tomorrow where the World Series will be tied 1-1 between the Astros and the Braves. Holla! I'm sorry. I am to be smart. Roland Martin's doing this every day. Oh, no punches! Thank you, Roland Martin, for always giving voice to the issues. Look for Roland Martin in the whirlwind, to quote Marcus Garvey again. The video looks phenomenal, so I'm really excited to see it on my big screen. Support this man, Black Media.

He makes sure that our stories are told. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. I got to defer to the brilliance of Dr. Carr and to the brilliance of the Black Star Network. I am rolling with rolling all the way. I'm honored to be on a show that you own. A Black man owns the show. Folks, Black Star Network. I am rolling. We're rolling all the way. I'm going to be on a show that you own. A black man owns the show.

Folks, Black Star Network is here. I'm real revolutionary right now. Rolling was amazing on that. Stay black. I love y'all. I can't commend you enough about this platform that you've created for us to be able to share who we are, what we're doing in the world, and the impact that we're having. Let's be smart.

Bring your eyeballs home. You can't be Black on media and be scared. You dig? This is an iHeart podcast