#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Ice Cube responds to critics; DCCC launches Black voter campaign; 2020 Power of the Sister Vote

Episode Date: October 16, 2020

10.15.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Ice Cube responds to critic and talks about his relationship with the Trump campaign; DCCC launches Black voter campaign; 2020 Power of the Sister Vote poll results unveiled; Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation to the Supreme Court is most likely a done deal. Should Dems expand to court? Voting rights for returned citizens examined; State Sen. Joyce Elliott of Little Rock, Arkansas on her run for Congress Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner: Ceek Whether you’re a music enthusiast or an ultra-base lover. CEEK’s newly released headphones hear sound above, below and from multiple directions unlike traditional headphones where users only hear sound from left and right speakers. Be the first to own the world's first 4D, 360 Audio Headphones and mobile VR Headset. Check it out on www.ceek.com and use the promo code RMVIP2020 #RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man.

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Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication.

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Today is Thursday, October 15, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, Ice Cube will join us to talk about his critics regarding talking with the Trump campaign and them including some of his contract with Black America Language in Donald Trump's so-called Platinum Plan. Also, Alicia Garza is going to be with Black Futures Lab.

She's going to be joining us as well. The House Democratic Campaign Committee has launched a black voters campaign targeting black men in key congressional districts. Nineteen days before the election. What the hell took so long? Essence and the Black Women's Roundtable released the results of the 2020 Power of a Sister Vote poll today. We'll share that with you. Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation to the Supreme Court is a done deal. Democrats also. Why do Republicans break the rules today when it came to even voting on her nomination to advance it to the Senate floor? I told y'all

they have no shame. In the years, half the states have changed their laws to expand voting access to people with felony convictions. But 5.2 million people remain disenfranchised. We'll discuss that with the folks who put that survey out. And State Senator Joyce Elliott of Little Rock, Arkansas, will join us to talk about her campaign for Congress. And Lorenz Tate will also be here with a preview of his new movie, Business Ethics. All that, the latest anti-Trump ads, including a banger for the Lincoln Project, dealing with Donald Trump Jr., also known as Fredo. It's time to bring the funk on Roller Mark Unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the mess, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the spook, the fact, the fine.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling, yeah. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. Yeah, yeah. It's rolling, Martin, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Rolling with rolling now.

Yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real. All right, folks, this week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee boosted its black outreach campaign with a new radio ad to match print and digital ads designed to reach black voters in key congressional districts. The company direct mail campaign, the DCCC, will make a seven figure investment in targeted advertising and pay communications to reach black voters in more than a dozen battleground states, including Arkansas, Georgia, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. Here is a sample. We've raised our voices. We've marched for justice. We've come so far. But to make this moment count, our power must be felt.

And our votes are that power. Our power to create police reform that answers our demand for justice. Our power to deliver the health care we need when our lives are on the line. Our power to raise wages, expand black home ownership, lift up black businesses. Democrats in Congress are ready to pass our agenda. Republicans are blocking it. They're even trying to pass our agenda. Republicans are blocking it. They're even trying to block our votes. But across America, we are refusing to be silenced.

We're showing up to vote in numbers never seen before. Go to IWillVote.com to make your plan to vote. That's IWillVote.com. Use your power. Vote. Paid for by DCCC. Not authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. DCCC is responsible for the content of this advertising. To conduct research for the campaign, the committee, in partnership with the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee,

hired black pollsters Ron Lester and Cornell Belcher. Let's talk about it with Eric Savage-Wilson, host of Savage Politics Podcast, Recy Colbert, Black Women Views. We'll be joined later by Greg Carr, chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. Recy, I'm sorry, what the hell took so long? I mean, seriously, they're dropping this 19 days out. Hello, this is the kind of stuff

you should have dropped two months ago to allow it to germinate for folks to be able to understand it. This is a criticism that black people keep having. It's like, yo, you don't wait to the last second. You need to be able to do this stuff early. That way it marinates. Yeah, I think there's validity to that critique. I think right now, you know, there should be more emphasis on voter education with over 12 million people having early voted. People are sending in absentee ballots

and making sure that counts rather than trying to focus on still trying to energize your base. I think people are very energized. I think obviously the Democrats have a far superior economic and all around political message to deliver to black voters. But, you know, you're fighting against all of the other things that are out there that are hindering that message, such as the disinformation, misinformation,

social media campaign, the algorithms and the Republican spending. Also, the media wants to make this a horse race. And so it does, to a certain degree, feel a little belated. But at the end of the day, a lot of people are very late to tune into politics. There are not people like me who follow it from December 2018, when the first candidates start to tease being primary candidates for the nomination. And so it's better late than never. I would like to see a large investment. We know that the Democrats are raising, have raised over a billion dollars in recent months. And so there's certainly money there to invest in reaching out to black voters. Um, again, uh, the, the, the issue, the issue for me, Erica, is that again, what has happened is this drops only because you begin to see polling data.

And they're specifically targeting black men because you see polling data in races in North Carolina where Tom Tillis is getting 14 percent of the black vote. The last time a Republican ran, they would get a black bill vote. They were getting 5%. The race in Detroit, in Michigan as well, with John James and Gary Peters. My problem is, this is why. Folks had to believe that you weren't talking to us. You were ignoring us. And so then, one of the things, and I keep saying this, I keep saying it over and over and over again. In fact, do this here. Do this here. I want y'all to play me that ad again. And I'm going to point out to y'all something that is seriously missing that makes no sense whatsoever. Play it.

We've raised our voices. We've marched for justice. We've come so far. But to make this moment count, our power must be felt. And our votes are that power. Our power to create police reform that answers our demand for justice. Our power to deliver the health care we need

when our lives are on the line. Our power to raise wages, expand Black home ownership, lift up Black businesses. Democrats in Congress are ready to pass our agenda. Republicans are blocking it. They're even trying to block our votes. But across America, we are refusing to be silenced. We're showing up to vote in numbers never seen before.

Go to IWillVote.com to make your plan to vote. That's IWillVote.com. Use your power to vote. That's IWillVote.com. Use your power. Vote. Paid for by DCCC. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. DCCC is responsible for the content of this advertising. What I don't understand, Erica,

is that Trump is running around the country taking all the credit for the First Step Act. I have said it repeatedly on this show. If you're a Democrat, what the hell are you doing? You passed it in the House. You strengthened it in the United States Senate. No mention in that. No mention in the ad that it was Democrats who wanted criminal justice reform under Obama

and then Republicans blocked it. And yet when Donald Trump became president, the Democrats still had bipartisanship, and it would not have passed without Democrats. Take credit for your own damn work. Yeah, Roland, and exactly what you're expressing is what many people express around the Democrat Party is that while they are playing checkers, Republicans have been playing chess and they've been playing it very, very dirty. When we kind of look at what we're seeing, this seven figure investment that was dropped by the DCCC, for me, it's really kind of what

I've seen over the years being involved in politics and following politics is that it's much of the same. It is the same get-out-the-vote effort, that kind of jumping in two weeks before an election, sitting in church pews. Now we're in the age of COVID, so unable to do that. And just largely saying to what is quoted in the NPR piece that you all said, as we are the most powerful voting bloc in the Democratic Party, that we still do not get that type of treatment. We are treated as, you know, the second date, the second person to consider to take to the prom, not the primary person. And so this is really kind of what we've today is October the 15th. This regime has successfully ensured that all data collection, all field operations around the 2020 decennial census will cease today. There are so many other issues that are extraordinarily important and do impact the black community, the Democrats' most important and powerful voting bloc,

that really just kind of don't go into the messaging. And so, again, this is something that we see more of, more of the same. But I would say to the citizens that, listen, there is a responsibility here that you actually make the Democrats court you, that if they are going to continue to rely on us to get them across the finish line, we saw it in 2018 around Doug Jones, that there then is a mandate that we have to put on folks who are elected to office by the might and the power of Black folks, where we continue to see these long lines of people sitting, bringing snacks and folding chairs, which is really nothing more than voter suppression, but it's more of what black people have been used to that we actually put a demand on this party

to say you owe us and you don't owe us at the last minute. You owe us year round. All I am trying to lay out is that this is one of the most fundamental problems when you talk about politics. We keep saying it, Recy, don't come to us late. Don't come to us to save your ass. Don't come to us when you think that you're in trouble. One of the issues that we're dealing with, and we have shown a significant number of these stories.

We've shown lots of them. And the stories that we've shown is that younger voters don't believe, 37%, don't believe that their vote really makes a difference. Which means you have to constantly put the work in to say, no, it does matter. And this is what it means. This is what happens when you protest it. And then folks hit the streets. This is what happens. This is what happened when you protested and the results that took place in Congress. This is what this is. And again, I appreciate the ad. But for me, what I want to

hear is and again, if I if I'm making the argument, if I am the D triple C and I'm making the argument to direct the voters, I say Democrats passed the George Floyd Act. Republicans in the Senate refused to vote on it. Democrats passed H.R. 4 to say the Voting Rights Act. Republicans would not touch it. Democrats passed. Republicans wouldn't touch it. Democrats passed.

Republicans wouldn't touch it. Democrats passed. Republicans ignored it. Democrats passed. Republicans wouldn't touch it. Democrats passed. Republicans ignored it. Democrats passed. Republicans ignored it. You have to say, no, no, this is what we've done. See, for the people out there who are listening, the problem is those, the individuals who are disaffected, the individuals who say, you know what? Well, y'all ain't done nothing. I mean, folks were hitting me today saying that this is what they were saying to me. They were saying to me today, you know, all the stuff in Cube's contract with Black America, the CBC has proposed.

I said, make it plain. I said, make it plain. I said, make it plain. I said, this is real simple. What you do is you say, ISQ's contract with Black America, CBC, fact, this is what we propose. I said, you can't think that folk already know when they actually don't know the type of things you propose.

You got to say it for them to go, wow, they did? Yes. Wow, they did? Yes. Versus these general, they're trying to take our right to vote. No, no, no, no. Be specific. I totally agree with you on that. I think that Democrats undeniably do the work. They undeniably have the agenda and the receipts that clearly show that they are the party that's going to help move the black community forward. organic content, meaning news media mentions and newspaper clippings and things like that. And they're losing the messaging word because we've moved past that in our society, unfortunately, with you have to have paid buys, you have to beat the algorithms, you have to beat the different campaigns that are trying to deflect and try to equivocate away from what the Democrats are actually doing. And you can't underestimate or overestimate how much people are willing to seek this information out themselves. I have people who come to my threads where I'm already giving them information and they want more.

And I'm like, well, what the hell do you want me? What more do you want me to do? At what point do you have a responsibility? But when you're trying to win elections, then you can't just throw your hands up and say, well, people got to Google it or people have to look it up on themselves. You have to brag on it. Like you said, the Democrats have already passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. I haven't heard them hardly mention that at all. And yet you have Donald Trump, who's out there taking credit for the First Step Act, which, as you said, was bipartisan, partially was obstructed while Obama was president. And Trump's plan, his quote-unquote platinum plan, he says that he's the first president in decades to pass criminal justice reform, which is flat-out false. President Obama passed the Fair Sentencing

Act in 2010. And as you mentioned, the Democrats have actually worked to improve on the First Step Act. And so these are just facts of what the Democrats have done. They've passed over 400 bills that are collecting dust on Mitch McConnell's desk. They passed a second CARES Act in May that has been obstructed and thrown out the window by Mitch McConnell. And we can go on and on and on. But the Democrats have to not only communicate it, but they have to communicate it in a number of ways, which, hello, means memes. I'm sorry, I keep saying that. I know some people get offended when I say people get their news for memes. But when you have something that's a bullet point, it's graphic, it's catchy,

more people are going to latch on to that than a PDF, which to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris' credit there, Lift Every Voice plan is 22 pages. It's over 10,000 words. It has over 120 mentions of Black or African American compared to Trump's Platinum plan, which is two pages. And one of the pages is just bullet points, and the second

page is elaborating slightly on the first page. Right, it's not even two pages. It's not really even two pages. No, it's really one page. The first one is just a graphic, yes. Yes, and so that is how, and yet you have a 22-page document that's on Joe Biden's website that's completely ignored,

and you have people who flat out say that the Biden-Harris campaign doesn't have a black agenda, and they say that Trump has a black agenda, well, at least he has something, even though it's complete bullshit propaganda. And so that is how the Republicans are winning the messaging war, despite being completely hostile towards the Black community, despite thwarting every single right that we have. With Amy Coney Barrett on the court, they're going to roll back the Voting Rights Act. They're going to roll back all of our civil rights and then some. And yet you still have a good swath, too far many Black people who believe

that there's no difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. And they actually, some even think that Republicans or Donald Trump specifically is going to do more for Black people than Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. That is a messaging failure. And I don't think that it's intentional. I don't think that it's neglectful. I just think that they have to understand that you need graphics. You need social media engagement. You need to be purchasing these things.

And you have to think even bigger than what you've been doing if you want to break through to these different communities. Like, for instance, so there's somebody named Jonathan Brown on my YouTube channel who's lying. You have to think even bigger than what you've been doing if you want to break through to these different communities. Like, for instance, so there's somebody named Jonathan Brown on my YouTube channel who's lying. He said Biden has a minority agenda, not a black agenda. No, it actually says black. Jonathan, you're a liar. You're a liar. It says black 122 times.

In Trump's Biden plan, it says Black 28 times. 122, 28. How do you get a plan that says Black 122 times, does not have a Black agenda, but a plan that's two pages barely, and says it 28 times, has a Black agenda? But this is where you also have a problem with people who refuse to accept

facts. And so that's another hindrance that the Democrats have. Unfortunately, that's a societal problem. That's how people was raised. That's how people are conditioned. I don't know if they can fix that with $100 million in ad buys, but we have a disconnect between reality and facts, and we live in a post-truth alternative facts society

where people have one set of criteria for the Democrat and one set of criteria for the Republican. We're going to get into this a little bit later, but I had some other fool who said, oh, so we're supposed to be against $500 billion for blacks because it's coming from Trump. Recy, that's a lie. Donald Trump's so-called platinum plan does not say $500 billion for blacks. That is a flat out undeniable lie. Right. There's a bullet point that says access to $500 billion in capital. When you actually

look at the plan, there are several numbers that are outlined in the plan. One number is $400 billion. You know what that refers to? That refers to the entire infrastructure budget. What Donald Trump is asserting is that, well, we're going to increase the infrastructure budget by $60 billion, and Black people are going to get all these jobs. That's not a Black agenda. That's not a set-aside. That's not any kind of thing that even amounts to $400 billion or $500 billion. If you actually look at the numbers outlined in the Lift Every Voice plan compared to the numbers outlined in the Platinum Plan, there is far more money for Black people and specifically Black communities

and things like HBCUs and things of that nature than there actually is in the Trump Plan. But because people don't look at the details, the devil's in the details, they get distracted by, again, the graphic. It says glaringly $500 billion. They get distracted by the bullet points. When you have 22 pages over

here, they just latch on to that. When the reality is it's propaganda and it's just a word that has no meat and no commitment behind it. Again, what you're dealing with here, Erica, you're dealing with a messaging battle. And I'm going to say it again, that if you're the Democratic Party, you better understand your messaging on these issues can't just exist within an election framework. Because when you don't, when you wait, what you do is you allow other things to set in, to lock in, and it's harder to get people out of the disinformation lies as opposed to you having a constant 24-7, 365 strategy. Right. And, you know, the platform that I launched three years ago, year, talking to people three days a week, talking to them specifically about their vote, how they can engage their vote, and making the connection that all politics is not only local, but it's also very personal.

Getting people engaged, getting people informed, because when people are informed, they engage and they stand in their power. And that is the formula that I preach, that I'm always imprinting on the people that do tune in and they do listen to that show. And that is what I said in the last statement that I made, that it is not about this two-week, what has generally been this two to three-week get out the vote campaign, specifically around Black voters. When you look at media and the way that they dissect voters, you hear terms like the working class, specifically the white working class. You hear terms like the suburban mob, where even though Black folks and people of color are heavily populated within those communities, they're talking specifically about white women.

You hear all the disaggregation of other groups that are not Black. But when it comes to the Black voter, it is just the Black voter. And what the Democratic Party has continued to fail on is really talking specifically to the black voter, as I said moments ago, year round, not the last two weeks, last three weeks of an election. And then in addition to that, what also needs to happen around black people in voting and messaging is also making sure that they are folded into the conversations that are not just about criminal justice reform. We are affected by climate change with the onset of COVID. And we look at the head of the secretary of the EPA and all of the rollbacks that happened right at the beginning of COVID. those rollbacks and waivers that companies were able to receive to continue to pollute communities disproportionately impacted Black and Brown communities.

And so when people are actually made aware of these different social determinants of health that continue to impact Black and Brown communities when they are talked to and not talked at. And then when there's not a labor of messaging that's put on people who aren't paid to do it, just thinking about people who have a sense of concern, a sense of urgency about their community that do launch platforms that do take the time to really dissect different pieces that may be kind of very broad on its not depending on unpaid labor of black people, specifically black women that really do care and carry communities, but really folding us into a year round, every year campaign. So talking and messaging to black voters. All right.

So for all y'all out there, OK, with that lying five hundred billion dollars for black people, this right here is the actual so-called platinum plan. This is it right here. OK, let me zoom in on the five hundred billion dollars for black people since y'all think we lying. This is the only reference to $500 billion. It says, seek infrastructure funding that will lead to widespread growth in the annual $500 billion federal contracting opportunities. Yes, exactly. Let me say it again.

Y'all, that ain't got nothing to do. That is not, we're going to invest $500 billion in black communities at all. Period. That has nothing. So for all y'all saying the plan has $500 billion for black people, That is a lie. Uh-uh.

Go back. Here's the other deal. This is what it says. Increase opportunities for small business lending and technical assistance through community development financial institutions in order to grow business and create generational wealth opportunities with over $400 billion in lending. Okay?

That does not say they are going to create $400 billion in lending. Y'all, that's not what that says. No. That's not what it says. In order to grow business and create generational wealth opportunities with over $40 billion

in lending. Who's actually getting that? See, that's the deal. See, so when y'all fall for the okey-doke, when you fall for the okey-doke, and same thing, and I broke it down in here, and we're going to deal with it in a minute when Ice Cube comes on. Champion federal policy reforms to advance home ownership initiatives. What the hell is

that? What the hell is that? That actually says nothing. What are your current housing plans right now? What did you do when black home ownership dropped to 40%? See,

this is why I call this the aluminum foil plan. This is why I painted because it's BS. And folks are, oh, Trump got a platinum plan. Because he think when y'all hear platinum, you thinking all of a sudden some bottles going to be popping and some women going to walk out with little sparkles, sparkly things all flying on top of it.

And it's like, oh, the platinum plan. Yeah. No, that's not what it is. No, it's not what it is. All right, folks. Yesterday, Essence of the Black Women's Roundtable actually released their sixth annual Power of the Sister Vote poll. The poll is conducted annually to gauge the political concerns, attitudes, and opinions of black women across the country and identify what black women want for their vote from presidential candidates in 2020. Joining us right now is Melanie Campbell, president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, and convener of the Black Women's Roundtable Plus, Dr. Avis Jones-Weaver,

senior analyst for Black Women's Roundtable Resource Development. All right, Melanie, exactly what does this survey say black women want? Can't hear you, Melanie. Can't hear you. Can't hear you. On mute. Apologize for that. There you go. Go ahead. First of all, I just want to say hear you. On mute. Apologize for that. There you go. Go ahead. First of all, I just want to say thank you. I was following you while you were in Texas and Dallas and Houston and all over the place and getting that vote out and sharing just how our folks would not be moved.

So I just wanted to say that to you. Appreciate it. All you're doing to make sure our people show up and show out and get our vote counted. Well, six years we've partnered with Essence. And so the number one issue, cross generations, again, three years in a row, racism, rise in hate crimes were number one. Number two, criminal justice and policing reform.

Number three, affordable health care and a couple of other things that were, and it was all about survival, safety, and stability were top black community concerns for black women. And when it came to what they want the candidates to address for our vote, and that's the question we asked them, one that has a plan to reduce structural

and systemic racism was 49%, policing and criminal justice reform, 45%, plans to eradicate COVID-19 was 30 percent. So the issues for these last three years under this administration went from the first three years, they were more aspirational, if you will. We were focused on affordable college, you know, college affordability and things that had to do with, that were, again, aspirational. But in these last three years, this is not a society these days that we're living in the United States that is not, it's not covert racism. It's outright racism.

It's outright white nationalism. And we're seeing that across the board and it's coming from the top. And so that's why we see this when it comes to what black women are thinking about what their concerns are. Supreme Court is on the top of the list as well. A concern, 63 percent of black women have a concern about what was going on with the Supreme Court. And then so those were some of the top lines that Avis may have, some others she definitely would share. Avis may have some others she definitely would share. Avis? Yeah, I think what was really, to me, really striking to us is that over and over and over again,

this issue of safety and survival kept coming up in the survey in various ways. So, for example, in past years, we might have seen a little bit of a difference between how more seasoned women respond in terms of their most critical priorities and how younger generations like millennials and Zs might respond. But that wasn't the case this year, by and large. All women across various different age demographics, their number one concern for them in terms of their communities, as well as their number one concern with regards to their specific families and their personal issues that impacted their lives was this issue of having to, of this

issue of the rise in hate crime and racism in America. We see that as a mortal threat for our community at large and for us personally. I think another key issue that I think that the Democrats need to take notes on is this issue of how Black women are feeling with regards to how well the democratic party is serving their interests we are seeing once again a bit of a a generational shift there where older women are more likely to say that than younger women however we are seeing that democrats have been able to improve a great deal from last year when we did this survey with regards to young women's perceptions of the party being able to represent their interests. So that to me tells me that a

lot of our younger women, our Gen Zs, our millennials, they really want to see policy change. You know, they are really about the substance. And at the end of the day, Black women really are very pragmatic voters. They want to make sure that the person that they vote for moves on those issues that they care about, like attacking systemic racism, like making sure that this COVID crisis is addressed with a cogent party, cogent policy, and also making sure that we are able to address this issue of criminal justice and policing reform. You know, these are key issues that are important for black women voters. And I would argue that they are important for the entire black community. Melanie, one of the things that, again, when we look at how folks vote, I mean, at the end of the day,

black women are no different from anybody else. If you speak to us and our issues, then we are going to vote accordingly. The argument that I was making even a little bit early with those DCCC ads they're dropping now in targeted congressional districts 19 days out is you need to be talking to and speaking to and messaging 24-7, 365, so you're not trying to play catch-up around election time. Of course. I will say that some of the sisters I know that are inside of the party have been working hard for the past year.

The Wakingas and the Clanton and other sisters that are inside of the party, because, you know, Roland, I know you had me on and other sisters that are inside of the party. Because, you know, Roland, I know you had me on when Glenda Carr and we all signed that letter. And I think that was two years ago. And so one of the things, and we had several meetings and seeing a lot more happen,

at least from the, I can't speak all for the DCCC because we know how it gets, depending on which committee, it gets in the weeds about it. But with the DNC, I can say that some of those sisters that are in there getting it have been grinding for well over a year, if not longer, to really try to make some changes inside the party. The sisters in the party have been grinding, but let's just be real clear.

The problem is that those who are in the decision-making positions who determine where the assets go, who determine those various things, that's the problem. Consistent problem. And I would say that I hope that some of that has improved. I stay on this nonpartisan side, especially this time of year, so I don't really say I have a handle on what's happening on the partisan side of politics. I keep my firewall up to make sure that we do what we need to do on the nonpartisan side. Well, I got one.

I got one. I ain't got to play nobody's side. I get to call out anybody and everybody, but the bottom line is this here, and what I'm saying is you have to let folks know what you're doing. Look, I've been telling the

CBC that. I have told the CBC, the CBC Foundation, the CBC PAC, the CBC Institute, don't nobody know what the hell y'all doing. If you don't message, if you don't communicate, folk just don't know. The average person really does not know what a member of Congress does. They just think, well, I ain't seen you pass no bills, not realizing that you can have a profound impact on policy and you won't put your name on nothing. I think, you know, I think you hit the nail on the head right there, Roland. You know, first of all, let me just say, putting on my independent entrepreneurial hat here, that definitely the Democratic Party needs a ton of help with messaging.

I completely agree with that. And I also agree with what you just said about, you know, oftentimes when people are busy in their everyday lives, they really have no idea, really, who's responsible for what's happening on Capitol Hill that ultimately trickles down to impact their lives. Like you will hear a lot of people, maybe someone who will be coming on your show in a few minutes, who will try to be saying things about how Barack Obama didn't do anything for black people. And I would want to ask him, what the hell does he think that Donald Trump has been deconstructing for his first three years in office? He's been going through every policy and every institute, every department of this government that you can imagine deconstructing all of the things that President Obama did. You know why? Because he was busy working. He wasn't busy on some basic sort of commercial acts in terms of marketing about everything that he was doing in the same way that this marketer-in-chief is doing right now

with his platinum slash 10-4 plan. So what I want people to understand is that oftentimes you're exactly right. A lot of things that go on, it's kind of invisible because we aren't really made aware of it at the time. And that's exactly why we're seeing this shift in our poll, because we saw that under the Obama administration, Black women's priorities were more aspirational. At that time, they prioritized things like making college more affordable, making public education a more quality experience for all children. But right now, under the Trump administration, they're just trying to live. Their priorities are now not

getting killed by racists. Their priorities now now not getting killed by racists. Their priorities now is not getting killed by the police. Their priority now is being able to go into the hospital if they happen to contract coronavirus. So when things are going well, sometimes we don't even see all the things that people are doing for us that are elected officials that are making a difference in our lives. So the final point, Melanie, in about 30 seconds, what more should people know about this particular survey? Well, I could

say to all those who need the Black women's vote, if you want to know what Black women want, go check us out at unitycampaign.org. But I can't leave this thing without saying part of this is not just to do this for exercise, but I can't leave this thing without saying part of this is not just to do this for exercise, but also to make sure that we have a roadmap on the things that we know we're going

to be focusing in on to hold elected officials accountable, whoever gets elected in 2021. And again, make sure that you have a vote plan. Stay in those lines. Don't we know they're trying to steal our vote. We're not going to have it on our watch. Have a plan. Make sure you have a plan. Know where you need to go vote and go vote early or get ready on Election Day. And that and that's a thank you all. And again, thank you for all you were doing and to continue to get the message out to our people. All right. So I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Melanie Campbell, Dr. Abish Jones-Weaver, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Going to a commercial break. When we come back, we'll talk with Ice Cube. We'll just talk about his contract with Black America, the Trump campaign, saying that he helped them with their platinum plan

and all of the criticism that he has been receiving. That is next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. And I think that's why what we're seeing so much, especially when you look at, you know, who's controlling the country and how the country is being controlled. It is because, you know, the powers that be and those that know how the system works are taking advantage of the system for their own interests. So part of it when it comes to this millennial generation is education. You got to understand why it's so important, understand what's really at stake. So the things that you're seeing that they may be seeing right now that make you angry, here's how you can affect change. All right. So a lot of y'all always asking me about some of the pocket squares that I

wear. Now, I don't know, Robby don't have one on. Now, I don't particularly like the white pocket squares. I don't like even the silk ones. And so, I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here and it looks like a flower. This is called a shibori pocket square. This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric

to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my hand so you see what it looks like. And I said, man, this is pretty cool. And so I tracked down, it took me a year to find a company that did it. And so they basically about 47 different colors. And so I love them because again, as men, we don't have many accessories to wear. So we don't have many options. And so this is really a pretty cool pocket screen. And what I love about this here is you saw when it's in the pocket, you know, it gives you that flower effect like that. But if I wanted to also, unlike other, because if I flip it and turn it over, it actually gives me a different type of texture so therefore it gives me a different look so there you go so if

you actually want to get one of these shibori pocket squares we have them in 47 different colors all you got to do is go to rolling this Martin comm for pocket squares so it's rolling this Martin comm for pocket squares all you got to do is go to my website, and you can actually get this. Now, for those of you who are members of our Bring the Funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a part of our Bring the Funk fan club. And so that's what we want you to do.

And so it's pretty cool. So if you want to jazz your look up, you can do that. In addition, y'all see me with some of the Feather Pocket Squares. My sister who's a designer, she actually makes these. They're all custom made. So when you also go to the website, you can also order one of the customized Feather Pocket Squares right there at RolandSMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So please do so. And, of course, that goes to support the show.

And, again, if you're a Bring the Funk fan club member, you get a discount. This is why you should join the fan club. Has been a busy 24 hours for Ice Cube since Republicans supporting Trump sent this tweet out yesterday. This went out from Deontay Johnson. So Ice Cube has officially given the Trump campaign permission to reveal that he has been helping us develop President Trump's groundbreaking black Trump platform, the Platinum Plan. Katrina Pearson, he also had this here. Shout out to Ice Cube for his willingness to step up and work with Donald Trump administration to help develop the platinum plan. That has caused a lot of people to be very critical of Ice Cube. Many call him a turncoat and all kinds of other names. And so as opposed to sitting here having people just talk about it, we said, we'll talk to him. He joins us now. Glad to have you back on Roller Mart Unfiltered Ice Cube. So let's start this way. When they say you worked with them to develop the platinum plan, what does that actually mean?

What did you do? Who did you talk to? Well, what they did, they had a plan. Their plan is the platinum plan. My plan is the contract with Black America. So they have their platinum plan and they saw things in the contract with Black America that were directed directly

to Black Americans and not just to all minorities and they asked to speak with us. I always told everybody, as soon as we finish the contract with Black America, or not finish because it's still a growing document,

I told everybody that I was going to meet with both sides and I don't know why they didn't believe me. This is not a partisan issue. It's actually a bipartisan issue. And we have to talk to people who have the power to make things happen.

Now, they asked to speak to me so I can explain some of my concepts of the contract with Black America. Who is they? Was it Donald Trump? Was it his campaign team? Was it officials in the White House? Who's they? I've never met Donald Trump a day in my life. Got it.

And I've never been to the White House. OK, so it was people on his campaign. This chick who put out the tweet, it wasn't her. I never met her either. I don't even know who she is. Katrina Pearson, you don't know who that is? You never met her? No, I've never met her.

But the thing is this. They looked at the contract with Black America, and they saw that their plan was lacking, and they wanted to implement some of the things from the contract with black america into their plan and i said you're welcome to do it and uh i would say the same thing to the biden campaign they're welcome to do it some great ideas i haven't you know seen too many people disputing the contract with black America. Everybody understands that it's needed and it's necessary. So I don't mind

anybody in the public sector or in the private sector using parts of it, asking me about it, asking me to understand what am I talking about when it comes to trying

to not count us as minorities, but to count us as, you know, pretty much a protected race. And so I think we're being buried under a lot of words like minority and people of color and things like that. Now, their plan is still their plan. It's not my plan. Their plan, like all of them, don't go far enough. All of them can be better. But these are just the facts of what happened. This is the Biden campaign basically said, you know, we love 85 percent of your plan, but we want to talk after the election. That's fine.

I'm willing to talk after the election. I just think both sides of the aisle need to take this serious. So what's in their plan that they actually took from yours? Because I've gone through their plan line by line. I'll be perfectly honest with you. I don't see even what's in the plan they release and even mirrors what's in yours well like i said you know both plans between both parties are lacking um so you know this is what they did um you know you have to look at the

contract with black america and see where the overlap is. But, you know, the thing that what I try to make them understand is, you know, they have programs and both parties have programs that are built for minorities and people of color and diversity and urban and these words that don't include us because they include us, but we only get a small portion most of the time of these programs. So we have to train all politicians that we are black people, black Americans, most of them. And I'm specifically talking about the descendants of slavery and we have to be dealt with or

our concerns have to be rectified as that. And not as a blanket thing with all other minorities. That puts us under 100% of the population here.

And I don't know if we can ever get up out of that. But with your contract, it lists these 13 different points here. And again, in their plan, what do you see in the platinum plan they released

that mirrors anything that's in yours? You know, you got, you know, if I'm looking at it, agreeing to direct VC money to black people in fact that's just actually the infrastructure funding program that that's not actually $500 billion going to black people. And then when they say... How many billion

is the other one giving to black people? No, no, no. That's not... They list this thing under black economic empowerment and access to capital. It says, seek infrastructure funding that will lead to widespread growth in the annual $500 billion federal contracting opportunities. Even that line

right there is not for black people. That's federal contract opportunities for everybody. So that's not, so they're trying to make it sound like, oh, 500 billion to black people. It's not. That's the actual annual program overall for everybody. Yeah, I understand what you see in that, but it's really up to us to try to direct that money to black people. Right, right, right. But that's a difference.

If we're not in contact or not talking to a certain administration because we're on another team and they win, then what do we do? Just sit back and wait? Oh, no, no, no, no. No, no, no.

I agree with you 100% on that because I'm just – All of them got flaws in their plan. All of them got holes in their plan. Like I said, they put out this stuff, not me. Right. I'm just trying to find... And told them what I think. And so from there,

you know, they ran with it and did what they wanted to do with it. That's not really my concern. My concern more is making sure that both of these candidates understand that this money has to be directed to Black people. It's a lot of language

in both plans that are iffy, tricky, and, you know, are there really to make sure we don't get the money. So it's really up to people to engage and make sure that that money go where it's supposed to go. But, you know, I agree, you know, we've been lied to for a long time, you know, for 400 years or more. And so, you know, one thing I know is we have to do something different. And, you know, one thing is never being too one-sided, hard-headed, proud to speak to whoever's in power. You know, every great man in the world has spoke to somebody in power at some point in time, whether they agree with him or not. But he...

But he... Right. So, for me, I told everybody what I was going to do, and I did. And, you know, they exploited it. But if I were to, you know, did something for Biden, they would have exploited it too. So that's just part of the game. The thing is this.

The thing is to give movement. The thing is to make sure that we move the needle no matter who's elected. I agree. Our program has to be pushed through. So non-dialogue to me is not how you do it. No, no, no. Here's the deal. Here's the deal, Cube.

I'm not against dialogue. I sat in two meetings with Trump and with other television anchors as well. I've been challenging them. Why won't you come talk to black media? I know other African-Americans who've been meeting with them on PPP, otherors as well. I've been challenging them. Why won't you come talk to black media? I know other African-Americans who've been meeting with them on PPP, other issues as well. The thing for me is this here.

I judge folks on what you do. And what I look at is Donald Trump goes to Atlanta, makes this big old announcement about his platinum plan. And I'm sitting there going, so for instance, I'll pull it up. When I see this plan and then I see in here where he goes make Juneteenth a national holiday. Well, first of all, that could happen in July. But Senator Rob Johnson of Wisconsin still been blocked in the Senate. Donald Trump said nothing,

tweeted nothing, did nothing. He said in here also about the anti lynching bill. Same thing. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky stood up, blocked it in the Senate. Donald Trump said nothing, did nothing. He in here talks about prosecuting the KKK and Antifa. Hell, when they had the debate with Joe Biden, he tried to shut Joe Biden down

when he was quoting Christopher Wray, the FBI director, who said the greatest threat of terrorism in America is white domestic terrorism. But the thing is, when I was sitting here, and again, I spent, I looked in May.

No, no, no, hold on one second. But no, no, but here's my point. In May, in May, in May, when the Biden lift, and this is what it's called, the lift every voice, the Biden plan for black America, I went through the entire plan and broke it down. Then I went through the Trump platinum plan and broke it all down. The issue for me, the issue for me is that when it comes to Trump's plan, there's no specificity. There just simply isn't.

Even when you talk about programs, I will say when I go through Biden's program, when he's talking about state small business credit initiative, expand new markets tax credit, and expand the SBA program that most effectively supports black-owned businesses and laying things out that are specifics. That's the deal. I'm looking at a 22-page plan from Biden and a one-page plan for Trump,

and I'm sitting there going, and I went through Trump's plan. I'm like, there's nothing there. It's a lot of words. Not really, because it's only one page. But the deal is, I'm like, dude, you being the president, you want to make this whole deal It's a lot of words, not really, because it's only one page. But the deal is, I'm like, dude, you being the president, you want to make this whole deal how you ushered in economic prosperity, which really all started under Obama beginning in 2010.

But it is lacking. Do you believe that the Trump campaign greatly overstated your involvement for the purpose of them being able to say, we have attached ourselves to Ice Cube. Did you believe that you were used politically for their purposes as opposed to really what happened? Look, I knew whoever I engaged with would use that politically. I don't care about that

part. The part I care about is getting something done. Look, my plan is called the contract with Black America. So all of them lacking when it comes to that. So that's what I'm pushing. So anybody who's going to implement those plans into their plan, then I'm going to take a look at it. But both plans are lacking. And that's why we become educated voters for real. And then you pick who you want to pick. But at the end of the day, for us not to engage with both sides of the aisle to fix this, which I think is an American problem,

that to me ain't going to help us in the end. What's going to help us is once we, you know, realize how much power we have. Now, you said that of course Trump didn't stop all these things or didn't mention these things. Okay, maybe it was before he knew he needed to black vote as much as he do. You never know. This is what deals

are made of. So, I don't know what they're going to do. No, no, no, no. Actually, that's not the case. I can tell you personally. Hold up. You said before you knew the black vote. I just want to correct something. I'm going to let you finish. I just want to correct something. I met with the White House in 2018.

They told me directly in 2018, we think we can get 20% black male support in the 2020. So it didn't, they were fully aware of that. What did you meet with him? Huh? What did you meet with him?

I'm a journalist. What did you meet with him? I'm a journalist. What did you meet with him to talk about? I'm a journalist. I met with him to talk about public policy issues, to ask them those various questions. Okay, public policy issues,

and their thing was to get 20% of the vote. No, you're right. A court, a court, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not 20% of, no. Did they think they was going to get that for free? No, not 20% of the vote. Did they think they was going to get that for free? Right. No, this is what they said. They said they believed they could get 20% of the black male vote, and they specifically said they were going to use criminal justice reform and economic policies as they raised...

Why did they think they can get 20% of the black male vote? Why do they think that? Because they said they think that they can appeal to disaffected black men. Point blank, they know black women don't like them. Why can they appeal to that demographic? Who's not appealing

to that demographic? How can they swoop in and get it? Who? That should have been covered. What do you mean? This is what I'm asking. How can they swoop in and get something that's supposed to be covered? Well, first of all, that's not the case because in 2012, between Obama and Romney, there was a nine-point gap between black men and black women who voted for Obama and Romney. In 2013, with Trump and Hillary Clinton, that expanded to 13%. Now,

when you look at 2020, they believe that, oh, we think there's an opportunity here for us to be able to appeal to black men on economic policies because they say black women can't stand it. Well, it's not being done for black men in this country that the number's growing. Because, first of all, because the difference between black men and black women, black men are more likely to be. No, no, wait, wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold up. You ask the question. I'm answered because black. This is from focus groups from polling data.

Black men are more appealed by Trump's anti-immigration position than black women. That's one. That's one of the issues there. One of the issues that we also see is that we've seen where black men feel as if the Democrats have appealed more to black women. That's one. That's one of the issues there. One of the issues that we also see is that we've seen where black men feel as if the Democrats have appealed more to black women than black men. Thirdly, Donald Trump, by touting the first step act saying he got criminal justice reform done and Democrats didn't, which is actually a lie. The mistake that Democrats have made is they haven't taken credit for the First Step Act because if the Democrats don't pass it in the House, it actually don't get done. And so they see an opportunity to be able to target black men who are disaffected by both parties by peeling to their pocketbooks their 401ks by using tax policy, and that's what their strategy is.

So what's the Democrats' strategy to target black men? And that's one of the things that I've been challenging them on as well by saying, when you have a problem, when you see nine points in 2012 to go to 13 points in 2016, and it might go to 20, you got a problem. So you better focus on that and shore it up, which means you better speak to those issues, speak to those men, having those surrogates doing it, but also speaking to the policies. I've been covering this, this very issue when it comes to these black men, for months. Now, if Democrats haven't done it, now folks are sort of trying to pay attention now. But I actually was talking to Tom Perez and the DNC about this four years ago.

So I got to ask you this here, too, because on that particular point there. So I got an email from someone and they said, they said, why is Ice Cube only talking about this contract now? The person wanted me to ask, where was Ice Cube doing the primary? Where is he in 2018? How do you answer people who say that? I was doing, I was actually

just being an artist, rapping, thinking all this stuff was covered, thinking people that actually was in power was out doing their job, making sure they had something specifically for Black people to win. And when I looked up, I realized

all this stuff is not specifically for Black people. It's for minorities. It's for people of color. It's for everybody but us. So, you know, I had to kind of take it upon myself to do something that was strictly for black people and write something up with some very smart, educated people and come up with a plan. It all happened after George Floyd was killed. So that's where I've been.

And I wouldn't have to do it if it was being done. But actually— Where has this contract been? Since the 60s, we've had over 7,000— Hello? No, no, no, you're on. Go ahead. I'm listening. You're on. 60s, we've had over 7,000 black people elected in office in high positions throughout this country. Over 7,000.

And we haven't moved an inch. So don't ask me where have I been. The question is, where the hell are you at? Well, here's the deal, though. On that particular point, I want to bring in Alicia Garza, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. She also is with the Black Features Lab.

Q, you may not be aware of this. You may be aware. They put out this massive black census project. They surveyed, if I'm correct, Alicia, some 30,000 African-Americans. They put this whole thing together. How long are they taking? When did y'all release this, Alicia? We released it in 2019. So, so here was a here was this initiative that they put together. And I would love and again, when we had you on last time and Reese was talking about the lack of stuff when it comes to black women, you said, hey, you love to hear

from her. I would love for the two of you to actually talk about this because both of you want to really achieve the same thing, and that is achieve things for black people. And so, Alicia, go right ahead. If you have a question for Ice Cube, Cube, you've got a question for Alicia. Go ahead. Hey, Cube, how you doing?

Pretty good. Good. So, I mean, I guess my first question would be, you know, there is—we're in the midst of an incredible movement moment. Folks all over the country have been organizing for over seven years, if not longer, trying to turn Black Lives Matter into a movement that can impact not just protest but also policy. I did have a chance to read both versions of the contract with Black America.

And I'm just curious, are there activists or organizers in this movement that you've been connected to who have been doing some of this legislative advocacy and policy advocacy work? Yeah, we connected with ADOS, and, you know, we helped get a bill passed in California. Governor Gavin Newsom passed AB 3121, which starts the conversation about reparations in California. So we have been connected with, you know, a grassroots organization. We want to connect with as many grassroots organizations who are no arterial motives, who really just want to see money get in the hands of the people who built this country and the ancestors and family

of the people that built this country. Do you think that Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization? Because I know for the last year I've been getting death threats. I have security now 24-7 because Donald Trump and his administration has been targeting me and Patrice and Opal and thousands of other activists across the country. I understand what you're saying about trying to talk to the people in power. But I think there is a difference here in terms of who we align ourselves with. And I can't at all say that I take a neutral stance here. You haven't endorsed Donald Trump explicitly, but I am just curious about how, and literally daring and threatening to throw us in jail for the organizing that we've been doing? Well, you know, I mean, both candidates, you know, have their record of what they've done to Black people. You can look at them and see them out.

I don't think Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization. You know, so that's what I think. You know, what the president think about Black Lives Matter, you know, that's his personal problem. You know, right now, we feel that somebody's going to be the president. I would love to work with both parties. I'm not against the Biden campaign or nothing like that. Whoever becomes a president, I would definitely be pushing this program on them. And not only the presidents, but congresspeople, senators, private sector, you know, you name it.

If you go through the contract, you could probably come up with a list about 500 companies we can talk to about this situation. So the thing is, what I don't think is healthy for black people is to automatically jump on one side and if the other side loses we just wait for four years to engage and hope our side win it's time for us to let both sides understand this is a bipartisan issue like anything else going on in America okay but I actually want to ask you this here, because you talked about reaching out to people. Did you connect with the Congressional Black Caucus at all? Because they reached out. They reached out after they saw what happened yesterday.

They reached out to me, and they sent me this. They sent me this. They sent me. Go to my iPad, guys. Come on. Platinum plan versus. I can't see anything. I was talking to the control room.

Right. I'm going to read it to you. I can't see anything. The CBC says all of that is included in the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, but it hasn't been enacted by the folks there in Congress. I mentioned Juneteenth and Federal Holiday, the same thing about anti-lynching law. Your contract calls for baby bonds of $1,000 for all new babies. The CBC says that's in their CBC's Jobs and Justice Act. You proposed a plan for a neo-reconstruction. The CBC said, we gave President Trump a 125-page detailed plan to do this in 2017. Four years later, we've seen nothing. And according to the CBC, and I want you to respond to this here, according to the CBC, you proposed a one-time interest-free home loan for qualified black Americans.

The CBC says, quote, this plan only addresses access to home loan for qualified black Americans. The CBC says, quote, this plan only addresses access to a loan for certain black people. It does not address necessary relief provisions to prevent foreclosures and expand forbearance for homeowners, but the CBC Jobs and Justice Act does. And so what the correction of the Black Caucus says is the things that you're saying that these things have not been done, have not been focused on, they say it has been done. It's literally in our bills. They were passed by the House but ignored by the Senate.

The Black Census Project that Alicia was working on, they dropped in 2019. She's saying they have been working on those things. And so just your response to that, especially with the CBC saying, no, it's actually in our bills that have been passed, but they were passed by the House, but ignored by the Senate. My thing is keep up the good work. Keep going at it. You know, we got to get it passed. There's going to be a lot of overlap because we got good ideas. So that's going to happen, but until things get passed, they're not passed. So we got to push to get them passed.

Alicia, I'm going to bring Alicia in here. Cube, I think one of the things that's important, if y'all can go to bring Alicia a three-shot of this, it'd be great. This is where and this is what I've heard from people. I've heard from people is man, Cube is out here with his contract

and he's dropping videos and saying things, but then you have folk like Alicia and others who are doing it. And one of the things that you said when I last interviewed you, you said that this is where collaboration is important. And so with that in mind, you're there on the West Coast.

Alicia's there on the West Coast. To me, this is an opportunity, I think, for the two of you to get together, for the other activists to get together. And so as opposed to Cube's contract and then the Black Census Project and then what the CBC is doing, this is how you take Black Collective and say, how do we take all of these plans and then begin to move and then get the policies that we want. Alicia and Q, what do y'all think about that? Alicia first.

Well, I think a few things, and I appreciate you raising that, Roland. I mean, to me, you can't have movement on an agenda without a movement. And there are so many incredible organizers and activists all over this country who are coming together and fighting back every single day. And that is what it actually takes to create this level of change. You know, I will say that, Cube, I agree with you in terms of your frustration. I've been frustrated, too. I took the Black Agenda 2020 to these campaigns, to the party, and I've had a hell of a time getting phone calls back. You know, I've had to do a lot of maneuvering even to get the smallest pieces of our plan inside any kind of platform.

And so that is to be criticized, and we need to keep holding their feet to the fire. But where I disagree with the conclusion here is that, A, I don't think justice is a business transaction. I think if we're going to change systems, policies and laws, we have to get in the game and stay in the game. And I don't think it's a simple you give me this, I get that back. I give you this, you get that back. We have to govern an entire country and we can't govern that way. Donald Trump is governing that way.

And that's what's not working. I also want to just offer here that for me, you know, I've heard Van Jones and others say that people need to go to the people in power. And I actually, you know, think I understand the premise behind that. But what it overshadows in my mind is it allows them to get off the hook for all of the other egregious things that they do to our communities. You know, I can't help but feel sick when I hear Donald Trump, you know, talking about the First Step Act, but then also telling the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by. And I don't get to actually look past that. That impacts my everyday life. I get death threats every single day from people who are listening to this president. And therefore, I don't have any confidence that even in the sense that he implements something like the First Step Act when it's convenient for him and talks mess about it when it's not.

I don't have any confidence that that the amount of power has been built actually to get these things done. I don't fault you for trying to move an agenda, but I don't think we can take any shortcuts here. And I certainly don't think we can jump the line. And, you know, it would be one thing if people actually weren't working on this every day. Imagine what we could do together, Cube, if I had access to a platform like this. Hold on, hold on, hold on. But I don't have access. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Alicia, I know Cube has to go, but Cube, go ahead. This contract has been out for months so there's been you know if anybody wanted to work with me i've been open uh open uh invitations from day one to work together uh make the platform better and you know nobody has uh or very few have come out to do that. So, you know, I'm not going to wait to get nobody's line. You know, if I feel like I could speak for black people, I'm going to go speak for black people to whoever. And, you know, you have a plan for Biden win, but what's your plan if Trump wins?

You know, you have to have a plan for either president and either administration. We can't just go dormant because this is the problem, I think, that's been happening with us. We go dormant. We don't push both parties hard to do what needs to be done, what's right. Some people got a whole country to run. We don't have a whole country to run. Black people in a bad situation, we don't have a pot to piss in. We ain't even really in the damn equation when you really look at it. We just get to show up and we get to go home still broke. And unless you have capital in America, you're not going to be really money in the hands of families in this country into businesses that went down.

We got to figure out how to get a lot of capital into those hands. So can we do this here then? Can we do this? You care about black people, Cube. I've known Alicia as well. She cares about black people. So can so can we, again, as opposed to different pieces here, this is where I think black folks come together and say,

look, we're going to sit down and talk. We're going to rap. Your number, my number, your email, my mail. Let's do that. More than welcome. Anytime. I'm willing and open. Anybody who's down to help Black people get what we're supposed to get in this country, through hell or high water, I'm with them. Alicia?

Listen, I'm always ready and have been working for 20 years to improve the conditions of black folks. And like I said, if we had access to a platform like you have, Cube, I bet you we could have gotten a lot farther. So I look forward to working with you. So here's what I'm going to do. Show's over. With both of y'all permission, I will send y' your respective information so we can do that. Because, again, I think where we are, first of all, Cube, what you said about when folks are in power, you are correct. I have long said that even if somebody we did not vote for wins, we are still constituents. We are still taxpayers. And so they still owe us. But to Alicia's point, it's also holding them accountable when they're doing things that, frankly, are hurting us as well. And so I think what is required of us is to put that level of pressure on all folks, yet not having permanent

friends, but we simply have a permanent interest. I do believe, though, that one of the great, and when you were on last time, you and I talked about this here, infrastructure is critically important. We know what your job is, what you're doing in terms of music, in terms of movies, and what your lane is, but when you have also organizations with people that also matters as well, and so I hope we can be able to lock that down. Final thoughts, Ice Cube, you first. You know, I let everybody know what I was going to do. And I don't understand the issue with it. One of these guys are going to be the president. And at the end of the day,

whoever that is, we got to go press him. Alicia. That this is it. Yeah, I think accountability requires a movement. It's not done over a boardroom table. It's done by bringing folks with you. And so I'm excited to be working with, you know, so many people across the country, the 30,000 people that we surveyed across all political ideologies, incomes, demographics, to really start to lock down not only what these policy issues look like, but also training people to be the people who are making the rules. And so, again, Cube, I look forward to working with you.

All right, then. Ice Cube, I appreciate it. This is also why it's important for us to have black platforms where we are able to have the conversation. I saw your tweet, Ice Cube, where you said that CNN booked you for Chris Cuomo and they and they they then cancel you. That's why I created this platform for that very reason. We don't have to depend on CNN or MSNBC. We also have to create our own media institutions where we don't just talk about this, where they talk about it for five or six minutes. We actually have been having this conversation for almost 40 minutes right here. And so I appreciate you taking the time to be with us.

Same with Alicia Garza as well. Thanks for having me on. All right. We'll do it again. Thank you very much. Folks, got to go to a break. When we come back, Greg Carr, Greg Carr, Reesey and Eric break down the conversation we just had on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Back in a moment. Our movement out of the 50s, 55, 59, 60, made them change their story, made them stop preaching and teaching racism. We did it not by talking to them,

but through the sit-in campaign, the bus campaign. Bus campaigns around the Southeastern, including Lynchburg, Virginia, in which the signs came down. So that stopped them. Now, one of my friends who was a gay man from way, way back, a theologian, evangelical, Mel White, started in that same period

to tell these people that they were... they had to stop preaching racism. They started preaching then against gay and lesbian people. Now you can see that in their broadcasts, in their sermons, in their books. So they were people who did not have the self-esteem that came up out of their very souls, out of their beings, out of their bones. They had the self-esteem that said, I'm superior than you are. I'm a man, therefore, woman, you're submissive.

So they had to have a religious teaching that gave them superiority over some of the people. Right. In the White House is a model, not a God. The members of the Congress, they are models, not God. Bowing down is not enough. We will stand up again. We will march again. We will preach again.

We will organize again. We are black. We are white. We are Latino. We are Native American. We are black. We are white. We are Latino. We are Native American. We are Democrat. We are Republican. We are independent. We are people of faith. We are people not of faith. We are natives and immigrants. We are business leaders and workers and unemployed. We are doctors and the uninsured. We are gay. We are straight. We are students. We are parents. We are retirees. We are America and we are here and we ain't going nowhere. All right. We certainly we certainly support the Poor People's Campaign. All the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber and Repairs of the Breach is doing.

All right, folks, let's go to our panel here. We have, of course, Recy Colbert, Black Women Views, Erica Savage-Wilson, host Savage Politics Podcast. Dr. Greg Carr, chair, Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. And also Ellie Mistel. He is with The Nation. So, Greg, you join us a little bit later than normal. I just want to just get your thoughts about what you just heard in that conversation there, all this controversy over Ice Cube, meeting with Trump campaign officials, folks saying

he sold out. He said, no, I told y'all I was going to be meeting with both sides. Your thoughts, your assessment. Well, thank you, Roland, for having that conversation, first of all. Second of all, it made my head hurt. And third of all, you know, I think what we're facing is two basic things going on here. There's an attempt to galvanize some momentum in terms of black people. Certainly the intent is there. But there's a fundamental disconnect between learning the lessons of previous black social movements in this country and where we are today. There's a disagreement in terms of cube.

As far as I can tell, it's really a disagreement about tactics, not really strategy. Tactics are the specific actions and steps you take to achieve a strategy, an ultimate objective. And I think, you know, when you're thinking about kind of getting everyone at the

table around an agenda, you know, what is your tactic in the short term? Just like we heard Alicia say, I mean, hey, our bodyguards out here, the white nationalist party is going to say anything it needs to do to stay in power. And I don't think Q doesn't understand that. I think what, but as you were trying to walk him through the lift every voice plan and do it, he's not into the details. He's, he's not hearing you because he's got a certain strategy that he is going to cling to.

Strategy is ultimately the force of confrontation with this system we're in. But his strategy, I think, is more intermediate and long-term than it is short-term. Alicia and I are talking about a short-term strategy. And as Linda Sarsour said on your show, you know, who is our best opponent in the White House? I mean, if you look at the policy platforms, if we can push this through, maybe we can get something else. Now, let me let me keep this short because I want to hear what Brother Mistal and certainly, you know, Eric and Recy had to say about this. But Brother Ely talked about this question of expanding the court to as many as 29 people.

And that gets us finally to the issue I think we're facing here. You know, Black Lives Matter emerged out of a kind of tapping into an energy that came in the wake of state violence. It then began external actors who have their own agenda. And it's trying to build an organization kind of on the fly to capture that moment and move forward.

God bless them. But when you hear Melanie Campbell and you hear Dr. Avison now, these are long-term organizers who are now prepared to continue that momentum going forward. But what we don't have is a coalition, like we saw in Gary in 1972, like the Black Radical Congress tried to do 20 years ago, that we've done periodically since we've been here. Go back to the 1830s and 40s with the Negro Convention Movement. What we don't have now is a big tent coalition to kind of get people together and galvanize that momentum. And we're in a country that's going to fall apart, which is why if this country doesn't commit to being a country,

I am completely with Ice Cube. Why? Because at that point, it's every group for themselves. And the Republican agenda, I would embrace that fully. Why? Because at that point, it's every group for themselves. And the Republican agenda, I would embrace that fully. Why? Complete individualism, Second Amendment, get your gun, and let's fight it out. That is a long-term future that some of the people that said they're not going to vote, that's really what they're talking about. Let's just drop all this stuff down and fight and stop all this bullshitting. And I think this is all the confusion that has to be settled by real conversations so that people can state where they are and then think it through. But what we just saw, not that conversation, brother. Recy Colbert. That conversation was incredibly offensive. It's

ahistorical. It completely diminishes and dismisses the work that is being done by organizations like, with Alicia Garza heads up the Black Futures Lab. There is evidence-based data behind the priorities of Black people. There are experts on what we need, on what has been done. And so that's offensive. But here is what I don't think that Ice Cube seems to want to take any accountability for or recognize. The Platinum Plan is a propaganda document.

And it's fine to work with both parties. He has been transparent about that. I encouraged him to actually meet with the Congressional Black Caucus, which it appears that he didn't do back in August. When I made that suggestion, I encouraged him to reach out to black women and include them in his contract for black America, which completely excludes Black women, Black children, the LGBTQ community, and so on and so forth. It has nothing in there about environmental justice. It has nothing in there about a whole slew of issues for Ice Cube to think that his contract for Black America is so far superior and so groundbreaking when it's really very pedestrian.

And a lot of his ideas are frankly unconstitutional and would never get past a 6-3 Amy Comey-Barrett majority court. Okay, so that's another thing. But this document is a propaganda document. What he did was not just meet with people we can't even seem to identify by name in the Trump campaign. What he did by allowing them to attach his name to their plan is he legitimized the Trump propaganda. He legitimized statements like what it says in the Platinum Plan that he has Trump has achieved historic employment levels for black Americans.

The reality is that he inherited 7.8 to 7.8 percent black unemployment from Biden and Obama. And it's now 13 percent, which is almost double that of white unemployment. We have lost 41% of small black businesses under Trump. Okay, so when he talks about he touts his work on criminal justice, you said it, Democrats should take credit for the first step back. But let's also keep in mind that Donald Trump, one of the first acts of justices, his first AG, who was less of a criminal than William Barr is,

was to actually roll back the Obama-era reforms in terms of drug sentencing. He wanted people to charge people as harshly as possible to inflict as long sentences as possible for drug crimes, including marijuana. He rolled back the Obama-era rollback on private prisons. Private prisons are booming under Donald Trump, not just in terms of the federal criminal population, but also in terms of the things that are just flat out lies. But Donald Trump has been hostile to the black community and by every single metric. But Donald Trump's platinum plan scam is a propaganda document that not only suggests that he will be so remarkably different in the next four years towards the black community, but that he has already done these things, things that are objectively false, things that are completely untrue. And with ISQ belligerently sitting up here and refusing to take accountability or acknowledge that he got played,

which is what it sounds like, it sounds like he got played. OK, or maybe he's just so cynical about the process that he thinks that you have to attach your name to something just to get a meeting, which isn't true. Okay. People decline to say, well, you can use my name or you can use a photo or whatever else situation may be, but it's irresponsible. It's offensive. And he needs to take accountability and he's not equipped, which he proved here. We couldn't even get through a conversation with Alicia Garza or answer any of the things that you pointed out. He is not equipped to be the spokesperson. Hey, I would give him D plus for effort just for the fact that he has a sentiment. But as Dr. Carr pointed out, it lacks an understanding of how we got here. It lacks the respect for people like Alicia Garza and Melanie Campbell and Dr. Avis and NAACP

who've been doing this work for decades. So the last thing I want to say is just that we have organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, like the National Urban League, etc., who are doing the work and not just talking the talk to their 8 million followers on Twitter. Those are the people that are leading the charge. Those are not the people that are full of shit the way that Ice Cube likes to characterize them.

And those are the people that speak for people like me. I think I'm going to go to Ellie next. Ellie, I do think that this is where a mistake is made. And I've seen a lot of the comments on social media. I'm looking at the comments on our YouTube channel. I'm looking at the comments on our Facebook channel. And I purposely don't use phrases like Uncle Tom, sellout, coon, things along those lines. Those are offensive to me.

I don't allow people to use those phrases to describe black Republicans because I can disagree with you vehemently and not use those terms because I'm not going to use the terms of white oppressors against black people I where I do agree with Q is that and I have said this I've said this is so anybody and I have said this, I've said this, and so anybody, y'all can go check it. I've said that even if we lose, we are still constituents. Robert Smith, America's wealthiest African-American, worth $7 billion, was having meetings with Steve Mnookin in the Treasury Department when it came to PPP.

I was saying on this show, black businesses, we are taxpayers. We need to, we deserve to get that money in those programs. You have to meet with those who empower to do so. I know of other African-Americans who have had meetings with the administration on various issues. The First Step Act, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries got a lot of criticism for working with Jared Kushner on that very bill. He got criticized by some of the Democrats in his house, even among the CBC. But he said the greater issue is ensuring that we get some of these folks get out of jail and we have to actually get it done. So so the question then becomes with all of that, how then do we as black people work with a Trump administration? Do we say, no, I ain't talking to you, I'm not looking at you, I'm not sitting down with you, or do we say, you know what, you're in,

I gotta deal with who is in power? Because that's the issue that we have to confront when Republicans control state legislatures all across the South. When Republicans control the United States Senate. We have to deal with that very issue. How do we do it?

We start by saying we will not be used by you, all right? So you have to negotiate with people. You have to fight for your rights, regardless of who happens to be the president or who happens to be the governor of your state, but you will not be used. You will not be made a token by these people. Alicia Garza said the most important thing in that interview. Justice is not transactional.

Just, you know, other black leaders have said, we have no permanent friends. We have no permanent enemies. We have permanent interests. All right. And those interests, that interest in justice cannot be thrown away on a transactional basis for some nebulous promise of cash considerations, all right? We're not the Mets. We've got actual issues that we need to push forward. And so Recy, I think, just did a great job of explaining some of the justice issues at stake in this election and at stake in this country that Ice Cube's program does not address and cannot address because he's trying to address it with a white supremacist organization that will never share the one thing we need, which is not cash. It is power. Let me say this. It is power that these people will never share. Let me ask.

No, no, no. Go ahead and finish. Go ahead and finish. Go ahead and finish. It is that power that we have to take back. We have to take it back in the streets. We have to take it back in our legislators. We have to take it back at the ballot box.

We have to take it back through court, in the courts. And if we don't try to take that power back, then all the money in the world isn't going to change our situation. Let me say this before I go to Erica. Any of y'all fools out there who are running your mouths talking about Cube was set up and ambushed. No, Cube and I communicated directly about him coming on the show today. He agreed to come on. He was on last time, and he took questions from Greg,

from Erica, Recy. So if you stuck on stupid, trying to spread that nonsense, that crap ain't going to fly because that's what we do on the show. We have a well-rounded conversation. Erica, your thoughts. Well, it was definitely disappointing. And one of the parts that's very disappointing is just that when we look at 2020 writ large and we look at the son of a Klansman's platinum plan for black America, which has included not having a national testing, no national strategy around COVID-19, which disproportionately impacts Black and brown people. When we look at the housing, the eviction and foreclosure crisis, that's disproportionately impacting the poor and also Black and brown folks. When we're looking at voter suppression, active voter suppression with 14 million votes that have been cast, and we're seeing how that's disproportionately impacting black and brown people. And the list continues to go on and on and on that he would so not just take any of that into consideration and dismiss that and that, dismiss the people that have been doing the work, the policy wonks, the activists, the grassroots organizers who have been entrenched in this work, to say to folks that

have been doing that work, well, you need to come and talk to me, is a complete dismissal of all of what they've been doing to uplift, to bring forth agendas that actually do envelop in not only Black people, but people of color. And I'll say this lastly, just really to talk about the American Descendant of Slaves movement and to really dismiss Black people where, you know, you're talking about those Cameroonians who are facing deportation and largely because the son of a Klansman considers anything off of the continent of Africa to be a shithole country. And that, you know, when a person opens up their mouth, whether they have an accent or not, what they look like on the outside, what black skin, they are determined to be black and they are treated accordingly, specifically when we're talking about police and ICE efforts. And so not considering everything that we working, wealthy,

black folks, brown folks are having to endure and the poor as well in this country under a regime who has no interest in dealing in black life, but continuing to suppress and oppress and make sure that there is apartheid rule after 2020 is really, and then not wanting to actually get a civics understanding that the 400 bills that are resting at the feet of the Grim Reaper and that there is a majority Republican Senate that is refusing to take up votes, that is refusing to offer relief to millions upon millions of America really speaks to a lack of this broad interest that he claims to have and seems to be more positioned to self-interest. But Greg, still, how do we how do we do this? And I'm going to take you back. I interviewed Bob Brown.

Bob Brown, here he was, someone who was on the board of SCLC, greatly helped Dr. King when Coretta Scott King asked him to accompany her to the airport to get his body. Bob Brown then gets asked by the Nixon administration to come work for them. A lot of black people said, Bob, what is wrong with you? How dare you? How dare you do this? How dare you go work for that man? But then Bob goes into the administration and Bob has this massive portfolio. And when you look at the programs that were created to help black businesses, the loan that Earl Graves, Earl Graves needed that last hundred thousand dollars to launch black enterprise. And there were there were folks in the Nixon administration who said absolutely not.

He's a Robert Kennedy Democrat. And Bob Brown said, hell no. The loan goes through a black four star general, any number of things. And there are people who were saying people who were saying, Bob, how dare you? Bob said, I could not on the outside talk about what black folks needed and pass up the opportunity that if I could help black people on the inside, achieve those things I had to. And so I do believe, Greg, that we as black people have got to grapple with this whole issue of how do we deal with and work with power when it's who we vote against? And it's a conversation we got to have because it's there. It's there, not just in Washington, D.C., but it's in state capitals all across the country. It's in county commissioners courts and city halls across the country. How do we even have the conversation to say, look, we can't sit out if we don't like the folks who in power because we still paying taxes and we still constituents?

How do we do that? Well, Roland, we are all beginning, regardless of what we've been said today by everyone, we're all beginning with a flawed, anchored in a flawed premise, a flawed assumption. The flawed assumption is that we live in a nation we do not. So, L.A. talks about justice claims. And again, his proposition of perhaps putting as many as 20 more judges on the Supreme Court, giving the Democrats 11 and the Republicans 9, makes perfect sense if you're talking about a nation. But we're not. We're talking about a group of settler colonies from Europe that convene themselves around

power and whiteness is at the center of this settler state project. But the people in the settler state come from many different nations, have very different ideologies, opinions, cultures. And the only thing holding it together is the economic system and some drip drop menial investments to stop people from just walking away from the whole thing. What Ice Cube is voicing is absolutely accurate in terms of what Black people are saying. See, there's really no—I would argue there's really no deep investment Black people have generally in this country. What Black people have is an investment in this larger justice claim, a human claim, that transcends the United States of America. But what we're facing,

what Erica just walked us through, is a political party that has been absolutely overtaken by a group of white nationalists that were to see this settler project destroyed before they concede power. That is what is animating their tactics and strategy. Their ultimate objective is to hold on to power. That's why they're going to put Amy Comey Barrett on this court, because they realize they will lose the demographic game, but they don't look at you, me, Risi, Erica, Ellie as Americans, because there is no American concept. There's only people negotiating for power.

So when you hear, when we hear Risi walk us through a very cogent critique and analysis of very fact-specific issues that Ice Cube hasn't considered, and when you talk about Hakeem Jeffries negotiating with Jerry Kushner, you're talking about people who are playing politics with an assumption, again, that there are some consensus things that people can work around if we have the same assumption that we have a country we share. But I would contend that's just rhetoric, Roland. So how do we solve it? The first thing is, we have got to determine who we is. For Ice Cube, it's Black people. And I don't even think it's just Black Americans, that Adolf's conversation notwithstanding For Ice Cube, it's Black people. And I don't even think it's just Black Americans, that Adolf's conversation notwithstanding. Ice Cube understands that if you're Black in this

country, Black in Africa, Black in the Caribbean, it's all going to be the same, which is why when you pressed him and when Alicia pressed him, he said, no, I ain't got no problem with that. I understand that. However, Alicia saying we got to organize, come together, Melanie, Dr. Avis, the NAACP, the Urban League, everybody thinking that we can make some kind of transcendent national claim based in a common American framework for power. That is the most flawed thinking in the experience of black people in this country. And finally, I would say this. That is thinking that has only emerged since the end of Jim Crow,

rhetoric notwithstanding. See, what happens is the farther we get away from the lash, the more confused we get about how to acquire power in a state framework where everybody's trying to avoid last place. There is no we now.

Individuals have class interests, whether it be Earl Graves or Hakeem Jeffries or the people who ain't got nowhere to sleep. People have international interests. And so we've got to decide, number one, who we is. And number two, if once we decide who we is on our common denominator, we've got to decide how we're then going to acquire power in a framework where everything and i like to know what you think about this but everything in a framework like that is transactional because there are no founding principles in this state really well i want to say a couple of things first of all i don't think that it's that hard to

distinguish between tokenism and having a seat at the table. When you said about Dr. Braden, what you were talking about was a portfolio given to a black person who was willing to work in the Nixon administration. If we were sitting, if Ice Cube was sitting there with a portfolio to work with in a Trump administration, I would hate it, but I would understand what he's doing. He's not talking about portfolio. He's talking, as Recy pointed out, about being used. And I don't think it's that hard to see the difference between somebody who is just supposed to be a black face on a white supremacist plan versus somebody who is empowered to actually bring justice and equality for the people. So that's number one. Number two, I mean, look, the larger issues that the doctor is talking about in terms of our nation state

and our polity and our ability to achieve justice within the structure of white supremacy, under which we were brought here against our will, is a difficult philosophical question for me to answer. As a person with legal training, I tend to think that the Constitution, not as written, but the Constitution as amended, is a decent document. Maybe not the best in the world.

I think the South African Constitution is actually better than ours in terms of just legal stuff. But it's a pretty decent starting point. And all I'm kind of focused on is bringing the treatment of black people and brown people in this country up to the level that white men have been given

since 1787. And if we could just get to where the white man started in 1787, I do think that there is enough justice and individual rights in that document to sustain a people. I do still believe that. And so my struggle and my fight is to try to get black people, brown people, women, people in the LGBTQ community to bring us all up to the level that a white man is born with. If I can get us there, then I think that we can have a real conversation about who we are and who we want to be.

Hey, Roll, I know you got to go, but you and me got to talk offline, brother, because remember the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which literally said in the statute, and it's still a good law, that we should be treated as a white man. And then they turned and eventually interpreted that through colorblind constitutionalism into the idea that even white people have the right to be treated as a white man. I will argue that the reason

they would never embrace your court plan is because they look at that constitution, which is basically, as you know, a basic contract document, and then they had to go put some bill of rights in to deal with individuals. They look at that constitution as a means to an end. And so they ever be treated as white has two, to me, fundamental problems.

Number one, whiteness itself is the fundamental problem with this nation state project, because it's resting the concept of citizenship. And in that regard, as far as a legal analysis, it sounds to me that it's that's disturbingly close to the ADAS position in terms of human rights and international rights. That's why the United States won't be a signatory to anything outside of the country. And number two, looking at judicial supremacy, which you very well, of course, understand better than most, because like you say, you have legal training. The analysis that we could somehow lean on that Constitution relies on the assumption that judicial supremacy,

in other words, that the court interpretation of the law will ultimately transcend any individual interest. It relies on the assumption that that is true. And what we've seen in this country is every time white people didn't like the court's decision, they just ignored it. Recy, the thing I think we're looking at here is I think the thing we're looking at here is. I think the visceral reaction to this is also because they just released it yesterday, 20 days out of the election.

The whole conversation around black men and the Trump folk, to your point, we know this plan isn't real. I mean, we know it's not real. I keep saying it ain't a platinum plan. It's the aluminum foil plan. But that's not what they desired. All they wanted was the hit to say that they met with

Ice Cube and he worked with them on the plan. That's what they wanted. But we do have to put this out there as well. Democrats also bear some responsibility here. You heard Alicia Garza say she laid out these things and basically got the cold shoulder from the Biden campaign and from the Democratic Party. Yeah, there was a meeting, or maybe there wasn't a meeting, but hey, we like 85% of what you have. We'll get to it after the election. I showed the analysis of how much is in Q's contract with Black America as the CBC has already put together. If you're the Biden folks and the Democrats, why in the hell didn't you say that? And so I also think this was also a mistake on the part of Democrats by basically saying, yeah, we'll get to you later and not surveying the land and seeing what's going on to preempt what actually happened here.

That was a political miscalculation on the part of Democrats. I do not disagree with that at all. I think that they, again, this goes back to messaging. I've said it many times, Democrats have the receipts, but they are vastly underestimating the messaging that's required and the way that that messaging pierces through, particularly to a very social media driven population. That's not to say Black people are more social media versus white people or whatever, but I'm just saying that social media does a lot in terms of pushing the conversations and the narratives that we're having. I will say in defense, I respect what Alicia Garza said, but I recall at Essence Festival in July, 2019, where Senator Kamala Harris actually referenced the Black Futures Lab

and the Black Census Project and laid out an agenda that is directly aligned with that. Yes, she did. So it's not all people are cruel. Not all candidates are crazy. I was sitting front row at Essence when that happened. I remember you were there. So wait a minute. That happened. But to your point, this is the thing. Like I said, Ice Cube is ill-equipped to present anything. His plan is inadequate. His plan is mostly unconstitutional. And I can go on and so forth. Like I said, I guess for the sentiment of deciding that you want to do something,

great, that's fantastic. But he is not a person that has any credibility, any kind of expertise, any kind of evidence-based data to where he should be a person they should meet with on the merits. But on the messaging part, and mind you, there will be people who are saying,

why are they meeting with Ice Cube? That's pandering, this, that, and the other. So it goes both ways, okay? Because there are people who are going to criticize either way. This was a missed opportunity. I still have not seen from the Biden-Harris campaign graphics, memes, videos that really articulate the 22 pages over 10,000 words of a very extensive,

comprehensive Black agenda that touches systemic racism in every single aspect of our society. And also ties that to the receipts that the Democrats have in this arena, 400 bills that are laying in the Senate. A lot of people don't know Senator Kamala Harris actually championed Black maternal mortality. She's championing uterine fibroids research, which is something that impacts 90 percent of Black women before they are the age of 50. And so the Democrats win on the merits. The Democrats win on the policy. The Democrats win on the receipts. But they are missing the political landscape that we're in where you have to win the messaging. Nothing else counts if you don't have the messaging because that's what people are

looking for. You have to make it easy. You have to make it something that they can share, that they can ingest, and that they can run with because people will take a 20, 280-character tweet, they'll take a headline, they'll take a caption, and all of a sudden they're experts. So you have to give them the headline. You have to give it to them and quit talking in these platitudes about how Black people are powerful and we appreciate you and rah-rah. Give people the specifics and let them make the decision

because you have a winning policy, you have a winning platform. People just got to hear about it. Erica, again, I think that the point I raised by saying what I said to Ice Cube here and when he was on last time, what I said to Diddy, what I said to Alicia as well. Like, look, it's one thing to take your celebrity, to take all of that and say, speak to your following and we should be doing these things here. But the reality is you still have to have infrastructure to see that through.

So, for instance, this is real simple. Let's say you look at the existing polling data, Biden-Harris wins. OK. Then if you're Ice Cube, are you walking into the White House by yourself? If you're Diddy, are you walking in by yourself? I ain't talking about your social media following as opposed to I'm walking in with infrastructure. I'm walking in with researchers. I'm walking in with people who are on the policy side, who are on the lobbying side, and I'm letting you know that I am prepared to mobilize my following to then back this thing up and drop folks on Capitol Hill and drop people on congressional offices around the state. That is what the most important thing that I've said to Diddy and the

Ice Cube. You got to have the infrastructure to back up the boasting demand that if I want this and I don't get it, you're going to pay the price. It can't be a rhetorical thing. It has to be a real thing that you're able to willing to execute your thoughts on that. And then, Ellen. Right, because then that requires interest and work in the land of celebrity. If you demand something, then you can have a team of people put something together and you can have them do the work. What you have just laid out, Roland, requires work. And just thinking about this platform that you've developed, every night, five days a week, there is a walking through of civics lesson. It forces people not just to have hot takes, but to actually wrestle with policy, to actually wrestle with the headlines, as Recy pointed out. And if there is no real interest in doing the work, then what it looks like is a photo op.

What it looks like is engaging in an opportunity, not actually following through and doing the work. When you look at organizations like Black Voters Matter, when you look at what they have done is they've looked very specifically at black voters in the south and said that we want to ensure that people not only understand that they do have the right to vote, but make sure that they get to their polling location. And if those polling locations have been closed down, if those polling locations are in jeopardy of being closed down, then we have infrastructure in place where we're going to actually rally and we're going to rally the hell out of a particular person in the county that is called for that to happen to make sure that they understand that there is a constituency of people that may not understand how to rage against that particular machine, but that we are going to partner with the constituency to make sure that that polling location either doesn't close or that there's some alternate polling location that's made available for this group of people. And so that's work, that's interest, that's intention. But all of those things have to line up because the other part about that is that, again, and I'll say it again,

I believe that particularly with the Democratic Party continually to chase this white phantom voter, as they continue to do over decades, the work has been left to unpaid black labor largely for us to be responsible to one another, to our communities, to actually inform people around us, to be involved in the political minutia and break it out in such a way that people, if this is not their world, for them to understand far before election time comes, this is what you are obligated to do to be an engaged citizenry. But then also, this is what you also have to be expecting. And if you don't expect it, then demand it. So I just believe that, you know, a lot of this lies in people not really wanting to be involved in the work, but definitely wanting some level of glory for it. Ellie, I believe it is a mistake for folks to say, I'm going to discard Ice Cube. I believe it's a mistake for people to say, I'm going to discard Alicia Gar. I believe it's a mistake for people to say I'm going to discard

Alicia Garza, Patrice Cullors. I'm going to discard the NAACP. I'm going to discard the Congressional Black Caucus. I'm going to discard NAACP. But what still has to happen, and I get all the competing interests, but what still has to happen is you got to move the ball forward. You got to actually achieve gains. Meeting is one thing. Saying, hey, I'll include something in our plan as another. But it has to get done. And that is the fundamental issue.

When you hear disaffected black voters say, I ain't seen nothing change in my community, it's because no one is saying, one, this is what we did. And we're going to remind you we did it and show you we did it. Your final thoughts. Yeah, well, the part of it is that people are looking too big and not looking small. People aren't looking at the incremental gains that are being made. And so I will close with the story of a Supreme Court case that's happening this term. It's called Torres v. Madrid. Torres, Roxana Torres, was in her car dropping off her friend. Now, Roxana Torres is a Latina woman. If that's not brown enough for you, bite me. But she was sitting in her car. She dropped off her friend.

The cops were staking out the apartment complex. They approached her car. She thought she was being car tracked. She tried to drive away. Cops shot her twice in the back. Roxana Torres got away. She got to the hospital. She got treatment.

She lived. The cops arrested her at the hospital. She sued the cops for excessive use of force, one of our Fourth Amendment rights. The court, Trump judges, threw that case out saying that it could not be a Fourth Amendment issue because she wasn't successfully captured. So when they shot her in the back, the fact that she got away meant that she didn't have her constitutional rights.

A Trump judge said that that was okay. She appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. Most likely the Trump judge was going to lose until Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. And now we don't got the votes. So when I talk about what we're getting in a Democratic administration versus a Republican administration or what have you, I am talking about these incremental changes.

People like Roxana Torres. The fact is I cannot push the ball forward on anything that matters in terms of criminal justice reform or civil justice reform if I have to compete with Trump judges throughout the system. So we are getting something when we elect Democrats. It's small and it's hard to see all the time. But there are people like Roxana Torres who would have rights if Trump was not the president. Ellie Minister with The Nation, I certainly appreciate it, sir. Thank you so very much. I'm going to end the show with this, and this is critically important.

And Greg knows what I'm talking about. Reesha knows what I'm talking about. Erica as well. I posted this graphic last night. Go to my iPad, please. For the last two years, but definitely the last seven weeks, we have been asking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to come here on Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Every week, what I've gotten is she's not available. She's not available. She's not available. But when I look up on MSNBC, she's there. When I look up on CNN, she's there. I've made it clear to her staff that while you're not doing black media, I had a conversation with Joe Madison this morning. He told me he's been trying to get her on his show on Sirius XM for years. No luck. So I went ahead and put that thing out there to the public, telling people exactly what's going on. And I said, point blank, you need to do black media. You should be appearing, talking about public policy, talking about the CARES Act, talking about these bills. Joe got a call later today.

Guess who's going to be on his show next week? There are a lot of black people who will criticize me on Instagram and Twitter. Oh, this is not right. This ain't the right time. But here's what y'all don't understand. Show me what black people have gotten unless we had to call folk out. Show me where we got the interviews, where we got the resources, where we got the money because folk did the right thing. When Senator Amy Klobuchar wasn't meeting with us, she got called out with where's Amy. And I've said this.

I literally sent an email, Greg, to the staff of Nancy Pelosi, now multiple times, saying, do you have any time between now and November 3rd? All I got back was she's not available. So I want all y'all to understand, I'm going to post that graphic every single day. I'm going to post that graphic every single day until Nancy Pelosi comes to this show. Because here's why. You're going to treat us the same way you treat CNN and MSNBC. We are not going to be disrespected. I've had Congressman Clyburn on. But here's the deal.

This year I've had Senator Chuck Schumer on this show twice. He's a Senate minority leader. You can't tell me you don't have any time. And for all of y'all who are like, oh, you ain't doing this thing right. You ain't doing it. I told y'all what Dr. King wrote in his book Where Do We Go From here? Chaos or community? He said there are four institutions that are primed to move black people forward. The black church, the black press, Negro fraternities and sororities and black professional organizations.

And what Dr. King said about the Negro press, he wrote. You must maintain your militancy. He said, do not fall into the conservative position. Maintain your militancy. I need y'all to understand, two years ago, NNPA, they asked Congressman Eleanor Holmes Norton to commission a study on the spending of federal dollars for media. Over five years, five billion dollars was spent on the federal government on media. Fifty one million dollars over five years went to black media. So y'all might ask, well, why are you going to sit here and press the speaker of the house?

Because she needs to talk to black media. Her staff needs to understand that if you want black votes, you must talk to black media. You must let black people who watch black media see the Speaker of the House. It's the same reason why I want Joe Biden on this show before November 3rd. The same reason I want Kamala Harris on the show November 3rd. The same reason I want Kamala Harris on the show November 3rd. And do understand, I have asked the White House repeatedly

since 2017 for Donald Trump to sit down as well. But I need black people to learn to get some damn backbone. I need black people to stop saying, why you gotta do that now? It's too many things happening. We got the election going on. We don't need to mess up nothing.

If they not going to talk to you before the election, they not going to talk to you after. King said, maintain your militancy, which means somebody has to have the same guts as Frederick Douglass and the North Star, as Ida B. Wells Barnett, as Robert Abbott and the Chicago Defender, as Claude Burnett and the Negro Associated Press, and A.I. Scott with the Atlanta Daily World, and the folks who ran the Pittsburgh Courier and Freedom's Journal, and on and on and on. I am sick and tired of black people willing to accept less. Let me be clear. I told you I will challenge the Biden-Harris campaign. I will challenge the Democratic Party, the DCCC, the DSCC, the DOCC, Democratic Governors Associations, the Republican Party. I will challenge Alpha and Kappa and Omega and Sigma

and Iota and Zetas and Sigma Gamma Rose and the Deltas and the AKAs and the Lynx and the 100 Black men and the Boulay and Sigma Pi Phi. I can go on and on and on because if black media does not maintain its militancy, then what the hell do we have? So, yes, get used to it. And I would advise you, the folk who work with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, I would advise y'all to find some time to book her on this show. And Roland ain't just talking for Roland, to do round tables with black newspapers, to go on Ricky Smiley's show and Steve Harvey's show and Michael Bayston's show and do other black media because I am not just willing to talk about myself.

I'm willing to say, no, you got to talk to black media overall and treat us the same way you treat everybody else. But Greg is a whole bunch of us scared to be unapologetically black. You on mute. You on mute, Greg. Greg, you on mute. Greg, you on mute. I think I said you black as hell. So you probably, you know, you black. You may be black enough for all of them. You clearly were black enough to get Nancy on the Black Eagle. So, you know what?

She's got to do it. I mean, listen, we heard all night tonight, Reese has been laying it out. Erica put it very plain. Y'all got to deal with us. Cube is speaking from the heart. Now, yeah, he don't have all the place, the thing together. Alicia, we're all on the same team in terms of wanting to stop black suffering in the world.

But let's be very clear. We got to have some backbone to be able to do that because these are our open enemies. They don't give a damn. So we got to at least have enough self-love not to give a damn either. So you're right about that, Ro. I'm glad to see she's going. She's probably going to save you for last because she know when she come up in here,

she got to come correct. And again, all I want to do, Reesey, I want to talk to her about the CARES Act. I want to talk to her about negotiations on Capitol Hill. I want to talk to her about public policy. This is not about, man, you're going to call out. No, I want, but you got to respect us enough to schedule us. Right. I mean, I've, you know, I've always been touting the value of black media.

I think a big part of the Democrats messaging problem is they put out these Zooms and these meetings and these live streams expecting people to come to them. You got to come to where black people are. Black people watch Roland Martin unfiltered. I mean, this is a daily digital news show. So this is kind of a no-brainer. I know this week all on Twitter, it was trending boycott NBC. And then you have all these complaints about the mainstream media and how they treat different Democrats and they run with different things. And yet when it comes to Black media, Black media is treated like a second tier, even though Black media has wide distribution in terms of syndication nationally, or even as you pointed, I think you said 30 million views a month. These are just, these are no brainer things to do. And it's how you continue to engage with the black community so that you don't have

a sprint in two weeks to try to shore up your base or that you don't leave two cubes fine. I will acknowledge that, that wiggle room where people are disaffected and they feel like, well, these people are talking to me versus these people, even though these people are full of crap. So to me, there's no reason for Black media to have to fight as hard as it does, because Black media is not second tier in terms of the quality of content and certainly not second tier in terms of the audience because the audience is the base of the party. So I would encourage all elected officials, including Speaker Pelosi, to do the Roland Martin filter show and do black radio, do black media across the board, because these are valuable spaces talking to your constituents that you need. And Erica, they should say at least twice a year

that you're going to do a round with black media. And I said the same, let me be real clear, I said the same thing when Obama was president. Oh, I called him out when he was ignoring black radio for a long time after he first got in. So y'all, people need to understand, okay? And I had to check somebody, Erica, Greg, and Reesey. As a matter of fact, I put this graphic on my Instagram page. Let me go ahead and just show y'all because see, folk were trying to test me, Erica, and they didn't quite understand who they were dealing with. And so I had to let them know who they were dealing with. Let me show this before you make your closing comment right now. This was the graphic here that I had put up. I put in work

at the Houston Defender, the Dallas Weekly, the Dallas Examiner, Chicago Defender, Savoy Magazine, BlackAmericaWeb.com, KKDA-AM, WVON-AM, Major Broadcasting Cable Network, TV One, Essence, Ebony. Don't try and tell me what black media should do to get respect. That's right, Roland. You've been involved and engaged for quite some time. I'm just thinking about the Tom Joyner Morning Show and the work that you did. Oh, yeah. Damn. I left out the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Yeah, you did. Oh, yeah. Damn, I left out the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Yeah. I did. There were not enough characters. I knew I left something off,

but I included them in a tweet, but I forgot that one. I'm going to have to fix the graphic. Go ahead. Yeah, for sure. I mean, so you have put in the work. You do have the credentials. You have the receipts, as Reesey would say, right? And I think the other thing around that, too, is that we have to expect to have better. And that's where the demand comes from,

because when we think about the way that the speaker has that gavel in her hand, it was because we made sure in 2018 that there was a message sent, particularly for the House races, to say that, listen, we're not, there should be a check on the son of a Klansman. Right. And even though Senate Republicans largely rejected that, we were a part of that push to put the gavel in our hands. So the demand is there. There's nothing to be afraid of, because honestly, to use unfortunate words, you know, what, in fact, do we have to lose considering everything that we're facing right now in 2020? So rightfully so. And that this should be and I've said it and I'll continue to say it. This kind of get out the vote effort. This is really par for the course.

This should really be the end of that. And that the engagement with black voters and not the phantom white voters should pick up exponentially, particularly on the part of the Democratic Party. All right, folks. Look, we want y'all to support what we do at Roland Martin Unfiltered, and that's become members of our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar you give goes to support this show. We were in Houston and Dallas earlier this week. I plan on hitting the road in North Carolina,

which early voting began today. Next week, trying to go to Atlanta, Mississippi, all across the country. You can do that, folks. You can give. Look, there was 12,000 of y'all watching live, our highest number ever on YouTube. We broke the record tonight, 12,000. Folks, y'all can give right there on YouTube. You can go to Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered, PayPal.me forward slash RMartin Unfiltered, Venmo.com forward slash RM Unfiltered, paypal.me forward slash rmartin unfiltered, venmo.com forward slash

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2006. Every dollar you give goes to support this show. Folks, this is all about us having something that we own, we control. But look,

ain't no cable network or broadcast network going to have a 40-minute conversation with Ice Cube about these issues. They're not going to do it. They might do six, seven, eight, maybe 10. They ain't going to do 40. This is why we got to have our own. That's a real news show and not just some nonsense going on. Let me also shout out. Remember we had a Regina Bell on. She wore that shirt that said vote and the V was bloody. The brother, he's on Instagram, KD Knowledge Designs. KD Knowledge Designs. His website is knowledgedesigns.net. He actually sent me this shirt. He sent me the vote one to wear tomorrow. So let me just stand up. And so this is the full shirt right here, y'all. Vote like

your ancestors died for it. So I appreciate him sending me the shirt. So again, if you go to knowledgedesigns.net, you can check out the shirt. All right, y'all. I was supposed to have my man Lorenz Tate on as some other guests y'all we would but the ice cube conversation i it was too hot i could not let that just end and so we're gonna reschedule my homeboy lorenz so lorenz i'm gonna send you a text my bad to everybody else thank you for watching us folks we'll see y'all tomorrow uh we're gonna have of course um a recap of the joe biden town hall on abc and we might cover that fool on n. Alright, I'll see y'all tomorrow. Holla! ......... I know a lot of cops.

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