#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Ill. Educator Murder, Fearless Fund Setback, Ala. Congressional Map Approved, Tim Bowman, Jr.

Episode Date: October 6, 2023

10.5.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Ill. Educator Murder, Fearless Fund Setback, Ala. Congressional Map Approved, Tim Bowman, Jr.  A Chicago assistant principal is gunned down in his condo complex.  The man who shot him has not been charged.  Abnerd Joseph's family says they need answers.  They say the reports of what led up to his death don't sound like the man they knew.  I'll talk to his brother and sister about this bizarre case.  Atlanta's Fearless Fund gets hit with a minor setback as a federal appeals judge halts the processing of business grants for women of color.  The CEO of The Fearless Fund will be here to tell us what's the next step to continue to help black women.  Southern University is doing its part in Louisiana to ensure its students get to the polls early since election day falls on Homecoming.  Alabama's congressional map is finally approved with that second majority-black district. We'll take a look at which map was chosen.  Baltimore, Maryland, police are asking for help identifying persons of interest that may be connected to Morgan State University's mass shooting.  And I sat down with gospel artist Tim Bowman, Jr., who's a part of McDonald's Inspiration Celebration Gospel Tour.  You don't want to miss our conversation.  Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork 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.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

This is Absolute Season 1, 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 Lott. 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. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. live on the Black Star Network. All right, folks, today is Thursday, October 5th, 2023. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network, a Chicago family's asking questions. How did an assistant principal get gunned down in his own condo and the shooter has not been arrested? We'll talk to

his family right here on today's show. Atlanta's Fearless Fund has gotten a setback in their battle against conservative agitator Ed Bloom, who's trying to shut down black folks from being able to take advantage of economic opportunities in America. We'll talk to one of their leaders.

Also, Southern University is doing its part to get black folks voting in Louisiana. Early voting ends on Saturday. We'll talk about that. Also, Alabama's Black Congressional District, the second one finally approved by the special master, will show you what that looks like. Also, they have arrested this person in connection with a shooting at Morgan State. We'll give you those details. Also, folks, we have been working with McDonald's on their Inspiration Celebration Gospel Tour. We'll kick things off with gospel artist Tim Bowman right here on the Black Star Network.

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

Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. Yeah. It's Funko Royale. Yeah. With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin' Yeah, yeah It's a go-go-go, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin Yeah, yeah

Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin Now 32-year-old Abner Joseph is dead, shot and killed by a neighbor in his condo. It took place on September 14th, but why is the killer not in jail that's the question many people uh continue to ask police said they were called to the condo complex for a disturbance an argument involving joseph on the 48th floor his family says uh he says that he and

the shooter they live on the 29th floor they don't know why he was on the 48th floor. A 45-year-old man, also a resident, was taken into custody for the shooting, but later released without any charges. A police report revealed that the man is a concealed carry license holder. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office ruled the assistant principal's death a homicide, stating he died from multiple gunshot wounds. He was shot in the chest abdomen uh in the flank armpit and ring finger admiral's brother and sister jay charles and

gina joseph join me right now uh jay and gina sorry for uh your loss um i i gotta ask again i'm trying to understand how's a shooting take place in a condo in Chicago and shooter not arrested, not charged. It is as if police are allowing this case just to go away. Yeah. Thank you, Roland, for having us on the show. Your guess is as good as mine. We're seeking answers. We don't know how this could have happened and how my brother was murdered, like what led up to the timely death.

So that's what we're on the show. That's what we're asking the state's attorney. We're asking the detective, like what actually happened. But as of right now, they said the investigation is still ongoing. Okay, still ongoing. Okay. Investigation ongoing. Now, again, this has been three weeks since this took place.

How long had he lived in this complex? About 14 months. 14 months. So he lived there 14 months. The shooting took place on, again, was it the 48th floor? Correct. So in this building, what, again, so both of them lived on the 29th floor. Shooting took place on the 48th.

What's on the 48th? Is it like an open area? Is it a gym? Is it a club? Is it a pool up there? To your understanding, what's up there? That's a great question. We don't know. That's a great question. We don't know.

Okay. Gene, I'll start with you. Have y'all visited this complex before? No. Okay. Have y'all talked to building ownership management? Are there videotapes tracking the floor as well? Is there anything showing what

happened? To our knowledge, no. Meaning tapes don't exist or you don't know if they've been turned over to police? Me personally, I don't. Go ahead, Jay. Again, we don't know.

We've asked the detective. They said the investigation is still ongoing. So as of right now, your guess is as good as mine. That's why, you know, we're seeking out to the media. We're seeking out to, you know, the're seeking out to the media. We're seeking out to, you know, the state's attorney office, the detective to demand answers because we're just, yeah, we're in the loop. We don't know anything. Wow.

It's unfortunate that we have to go to these extreme lengths, like in order to get these answers. The answers that we're supposed to get from the police, we're not getting them. It is. It seems that it's a lot of stuff that's unanswered compared to what you do know. And obviously, there have been a lot of people talking on social media. The school where he worked at, Are they demanding answers as well? He's a member of Alpha Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. Are the brothers of Alpha there? Are they also, have y'all been in connection with them

for them to also be demanding answers from officials as well? They're here to support the family. And they have been here to support the family. So we've been working together on that. So we do have a Instagram page at Justice for Abner. So we've been in connection that way, like through the communities. Gotcha. Well, again, it is certainly strange in terms of these details and the lack of detail. So hopefully, hopefully we will get more information soon and y'all will get a better

handle on what's happening in the case of your brother. Thank you. Thank you. All right. We certainly appreciate y'all coming on the show. Again, this is just this is just very weird, folks, again, for with this. And again, I remember seeing the story when it took place. And and for this to be, again, three weeks later and again, having no answers makes no sense. And again, the shooter, he not arrested, not taken into custody, not charged, and is still at, he's still free. Alright, folks, gotta go to a break. We come back

more right here on Roller Martin Unfiltered. Lots to talk about, a lot of news to talk about today. If you're watching on YouTube, be sure to hit that button, folks. Hit that like button. Want to do that? Our goal is to get 2,000 likes every single show. Also, we want you to support us in what we do.

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And you can see us on the live TV grid of Amazon Prime Video. So you can check the Black Star Network out on all of those programs, all those platforms right there. We'll be right back. Hatred on the streets. A horrific scene. We'll be right back. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson

at every university calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear.

Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. An hour of living history with Dr. Richard Mariba Kelsey, thinker, builder, author, and one of the most important and impactful elders in the African-American community. He reflects on his full and rich life and shares his incomparable wisdom about our past, present, and future. The African genius is saying that. I'm a genius. It's saying that my uncle was a genius, my brother was a genius,

my neighbor was a genius. I think we ought to drill that in ourselves and move ahead rather than believing that I got it. That's next on The Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. Bruce Smith, creator and executive producer of The Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Alright, folks. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Today in Alabama, a map has been approved that is the creation of a second black congressional district in Alabama.

This has been a long, long legal battle that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund finally won. So the special master looked at several maps that were created. This is the map right here that was approved. And so you see how they are doing the congressional districts there in Alabama. Now I can tell you right now, folks, when we talk about racial gerrymandering or political gerrymandering, this is probably one of the most sensible political maps we have ever seen in terms of how they create these maps. Sometimes we've seen some maps that look like, you know, like squiggly lines or etch and sketch how they created it. And so this is created. Now, remember, African-Americans make

up 27 percent of this state. So many of them were packed into the one congressional district of Congresswoman Terry Sewell. The courts rule that African-Americans were not being treated fairly. And so what this is now going to do, so you look at the number of districts here, you can just count them, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So there are seven congressional seats in Alabama, six of them Republican, one Democrat. That one Democrat is Congressman Terry Sewell. So you now are going to get a second black district and the creation of an opportunity district where black voters could play a huge role in the election there. So you could potentially have four Republicans, three Democrats in the Alabama congressional district that has a direct impact on who controls the United States House. Let's bring in my panel right now. Today's panel,

of course, we have Dr. Greg Carr, Department of African American Studies at Howard University. Always glad to have Dr. Carr. Lauren Victoria Burke, Black Press USA out of Arlington. Nicole Porter, Senior Director of Advocacy for the Sentencing Project out of D.C. Glad to have all three of you here. Greg, I want to start with you. Again, we talk about political power. Well, folks have to understand this goes beyond just saying, oh, well, it'll be another black, a black member of Congress. We're talking about, again, that person who's in Congress bringing resources back. The people in that district being able to reach their member of Congress for advocacy for any number of issues.

This is about power. It's about resources. And so if you go from six Republicans to one Democrat, you now go from five to two, four to three. That has implications in the state. It has implications in the region and across the country. Yeah, absolutely. And as you've been covering in detail for quite some time now, Roland, this Alabama case, I think there are a couple of things at play in the overarching scheme of the legitimacy of the federal bench, particularly the Supreme Court, what we see is that the ploy to get Brett Kavanaugh back involved in this by the Alabama legislature seems to have failed.

And the legitimacy of the court, which should be a concern of this Supreme Court, is something that seems they're walking back a little bit, or at least being a little bit more hesitant. That's one thing. And in terms of political power, sure, absolutely. We see with the razor-thin majority of the Republicans in the federal legislature this could have huge impact. You've been saying this over and over again.

In Louisiana, we know the South Carolina case is going to come before the courts, North Carolina. This is a situation where the Republicans are arguing that these are political gerrymanders, and the Supreme Court has kind of conceded the field to these white nationalists and said if it's political, we can't do anything about it. But they're so obviously racial that if this trend continues, it could make it very difficult if folks just vote in the same percentages they've been voting before this coming election cycle. It could be difficult for the Republicans to hold the House.

And so this is a major, major decision today for the court to pick that third map and say, no, these two districts have to look this way. Nicole, I remember talking to Reverend Dr. William Barber. We were talking about North Carolina and when they were battling various groups there. And when they sued, they sued for racial gerrymandering. The courts agreed.

Other groups sued North Carolina for political gerrymandering. And remember, Barbara kept saying, guys, the path to victory is to look at racial gerrymandering. Well, these white progressives, their whole deal was like, well, but if we go big with political gerrymandering, and to Greg's point, what ended up happening? The U.S. Supreme Court said, hey, we don't deal with political issues. That goes up to the states.

Well, if you've got a Republican Supreme Court, we see what happens there. And so here's a perfect example of people talking about the South will rise again. This is where all of those black people who live in the South, who've been moving back in the South, how we can literally change the politics of the South if we're using the law, suing successfully, but also voting in significant numbers. These don't have to be hard red states.

It's true. You know, the states like Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, the demographics don't map on to the political power within the state. So the decision today was the right one. And the decision around racial gerrymandering in other states is the pathway to make sure that black political representation is genuinely reflected in the electorate in the state. And not just in Congress, but also in state legislatures, guaranteeing the vote for black residents in Alabama and throughout the South has got to be a priority for pro-democracy groups and to ensure

a true democracy in this country. You know, Lauren, again, I take Texas. 61% of Texas are people of color, yet 61% of the people who vote in elections are white. And, you know, we beat this drum constantly. We look at Louisiana, 900,000 eligible, 900,000 black people in that state who should be voting. Look at the voting numbers. They range anywhere from 20 to 32, 35 percent. And so when I hear people sit here and say, man, this voting stuff don't make no difference. Yes, you're absolutely correct. Voting doesn't make a difference when you're sitting on your ass and not doing it.

Yeah. And well, obviously, voter disenfranchisement has been a major strategy throughout history in the South to prevent black people from voting. I'm sure in Alabama it's no different. Certainly in Florida and Louisiana, Mississippi, that is effectively the policy. Funny thing, in Virginia, it was found out yesterday

that a bunch of folks are missing from voting rolls because the Republicans have figured out some way to also add parole violations as some sort of way to disenfranchise people. So that's being sorted out. But at any rate, in Alabama, you know, what it looks like it will mean is probably two or three African-American representatives from Alabama, which, of course, will extend the power of the Congressional Black Caucus, which is now at 59 with the swearing-in of LaFonza Butler this week and will be at 60 because there was a member who resigned, David Cicilline, in Rhode Island, and there is almost certainly going to be a black member of Congress coming

out of Rhode Island. So, anyway, the Black Caucus is going to be somewhere near 63 or 64 or 65, possibly, certainly the biggest in history and certainly the biggest caucus in Congress, with this thing today in Alabama, which, of course, should have already been reflected. Alabama is sort of like Maryland, a little bit like Virginia. Virginia might pick up another black member of Congress as well, third next year, but we'll see. So it is very interesting with the margin in the U.S. House. It's a very slim margin of about 10 seats.

It's two vacancies. You can see the crazy show going on in the U.S. House as run by the House Republicans. All of these things that happen are huge when it comes to two or three seats, because, of course, the entire control of the U.S. House can be decided by two or three seats. So, you know, when Speaker Pelosi was there, she had a four-seat margin and still was able to get certain things. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser

the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes

of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free

with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early.

Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position pregame to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at this is pre-tirement dot org, brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. So we'll see. We'll see what happens with this. This is definitely going to meet, obviously, a pickup of the Democrats. See, the thing from right here, Greg,

that is so ridiculously frustrating to me is when you deal with simple Simons who know nothing about chess. As I was driving in, I was talking with

a sister, and she was telling me that, oh, I was having a conversation, and these are some folks who are some folks from Caribbean folks and some folks from other places, and they're like, yeah, you know, Roland Martin, he boule, he

bougie. And like, you know, he's sitting here, you know, he be talking about the Democrats, and I said, I said, here's what they don't understand. Anybody who watches this show and thinks that I am caping for Democrats are stupid because I'm caping for black people. And what the people out there who are talking about I might vote for Trump or I'm not going to vote,

the reason they are some simple Simon idiots is because when I say that I'm caping for black people, I am making, I am using my brain. I'm sitting here going, okay, let me look at who is available. And so over here, I have individuals who are Democrats. Over here, I have individuals who are Democrats. Over here, I have individuals who are Republicans. So if I, Roland Martin, if I care about voting rights, I'm going to say which of these two individuals running

more than likely supports expanding voting rights. I don't have to flip a coin to know it's 99.8% going to support class action lawsuits, who likely is going to look at the evidence when black men have been being convicted unfairly. So now I'm going, hmm, which one of these candidates will lines up with those issues? 99.8% is probably going to be, no, in this case, that's going to be 99.99%. It's going to be the Democratic candidate.

So now that's two for the Democratic candidate and zero for the Republican candidate. And then I'm sitting here going, okay, if I'm looking at these issues here and I actually care about the education of our children who likely is going to support hmm adding more funding for those particular issues as opposed to trying to send that money to suburban white parents hmm it's probably going to be, oh, about 89 to 91% the D and about 9% the Republican. And then if I start asking the question about black maternal health care, I begin to ask the question about black paternal health care. I begin to ask those very questions. So now all of a sudden, I'm four and five issues in and ain't one point put on the board for the Republican candidate. So my, now again, these are no

candidates by name, not personality, not anybody, not anything else. I'm judging on issues. And so now all of a sudden I got 225 of them in the House and I've got, oh, let's say 52, 54 in the Senate and I got somebody like that who's in the White House. It's a good bet that the stuff that I care about as a black person is going

to be acted upon because I'm voting that way and who am I likely to get my phone call return and meet with if I am bringing black people to the U.S. Capitol? That's what the simple Simons don't understand when you have to make political calculations for the benefit of your community? Absolutely. At the local level and certainly where people live and where they want policy enacted. It reminds me of something I remember last year, we were having a conversation and some of us have a conversation on National Public Radio and they said that, you know, my mother is an immigrant and she often echoes the talking points of the white nationalists, even though she herself is not white. She says when it's time to deal with constituent services, she always goes to her Democratic congressperson and city council person.

So it's like when you start talking about constituent services, you start talking about benefits. I mean, clearly we know which party is for, or at least more for, the poor, the working class, the laboring classes, so to speak. I was in New York yesterday at the New York African Burial Ground. It was the 20th anniversary of the reinterment of our ancestors there. And several speakers, Reverend Herbert Daughtry, 92 years old now in New York, spoke about the influence of Congressman Gus Savage out of Chicago enforcing the GSA, the Government Services Administration, to stop construction on the site that is now the New York African Burial Ground National Park Service site.

Now, I remember that. Gus Savage isn't from Chicago, but because of his position and oversight in the committee of the GSA, he was able to wield outsized influence to have an impact in New York. Why am I saying that? When you look at Alabama and you look at this new district, which isn't quite 50 percent black—I think it's 48.7 percent black—it may very well be that the kind of representative that folk in that district want might not get elected if you don't go out and vote.

And if you don't flip that legislature, then you can worry about everything from a tax on the safety net, like Social Security, your health care. All of those things will come. And it's not going to just impact you locally. It's going to impact people who look like you, friends, relatives, other people you have class interests with nationwide. Finally, now, there's this kind of thinking among those who might consider themselves very politically astute, but more on the kind of radical left, that would say the whole

system has to implode and there's not much of a difference between the Democrats and Republicans. I embrace that thinking philosophically. However, it's always interesting to me that even people who say that are still looking for local services when they go and try to get their social security or worried about health care or elder care. And it's like, why are y'all okay? Philosophically, I absolutely get it. I understand. However, when

the rubber meets the road and you need somebody to intervene for you, it always seems to me that your interests line up with the Democrats. So the rhetoric, it's all fun and games until that security check don't come. Well, and the thing here, Nicole, again, I love these people. Like literally, there are people sitting here going, yeah, man, you know what? We were getting those checks under Trump.

They so stupid because they don't even realize who controlled the House when the bills were being passed. The Democrats did. You couldn't... Any appropriation bill comes out of the House. These fools... I saw that video.

I don't know who that dumbass rapper. I don't know what... Sexy red, dumb red, ignorant red, whatever the hell. And she like, oh, Trump was letting black folks out of jail. No, you dumbass. Let me say it loud, Democrat in the House. Even that bill, when it got passed, went to the Senate. And when it got to the Senate, Cory Booker, Senator Cory Booker, Senator Kamala Harris, and Republican on Iowa Grassley, they said it ain't good enough. Republican Tom Cotton was trying to stop it. Former Senator and Attorney General, that crazy fool Jeff Sessions,

was trying to stop it, but it got improved. Then it got passed and signed by Trump. So any fool giving Trump credit for checks and then fools, guess what? You ain't getting no damn stimulus checks anymore. That was during COVID. These fools trying to cut benefits. And so I'm listening to these fools who don't even understand they were House Republicans, literally tried to cut 80 percent of the money for women and children on nutrition and so i'm going so you gonna vote for this fool thinking you're gonna get some checks when his own maga folk trying to cut 80 percent of the checks more than likely to folks in your neighborhood.

That, to me, is dumb. And last point, how in the hell are you running around talking about, thank God that brother who got let out of prison, who didn't commit that robbery, and then you saluting that, but you're going to vote for the folk who don't want to retest DNA that got the brother out? Listen, you know, during the Trump administration, the fact that the First Step Act passed was good.

And there were also people who got out on clemency. But there are a lot of people who got disappeared into prison during his administration, too. And the reality is, is that the First Step Act didn't go far enough. There are people today who are still locked up who could be released tomorrow if the will was there. So what Rep. Jeffries did and Senator Booker did in their leadership, and they've been champions of criminal justice reform in a variety of ways, as has the Black Caucus. But there's so much work to do. And, you know, Trump did his thing with the goal of currying favor with the Black community, with certain folks that he could bring into his fold and who could stand behind him and cape for him during his administration.

The reality is that wasn't everybody. That didn't lift up the majority of people who needed to be helped. And anyone who was paying attention should have been following closely the real dynamics of the first act and the impact on black folks in the federal prison system and then how that impacted folks within the states and at the local level. There were initial steps taken, but there's also a lot more work needed to be done, given the nearly two million people who are locked up today, disproportionately Black, and how that's

impacted in Southern states, which have the highest rates of incarceration in the country. So we need to keep pushing. We've continued to partner with Senator Booker, Jeffries, and other members of the Black Caucus, and more work needs to be done in order to release people who don't need to be in prison today, who were disappeared over 30, 40 years ago. They could be released immediately from the federal prison system if changes were made. The thing

here that I always say, Lauren, is I don't want to hear your whining after the fact. I don't want to hear your whining after the fact. I don't want to hear any of your whining after the fact. I don't want to hear you running your mouth. I don't want to hear none of that because this is part of the deal.

If you look at, we're going to talk to the fearless fund next. Guess what? If you sat on your ass in 2016, then guess what? That's how Trump got to appoint three Supreme Court justices. So if you mad with their decision on affirmative action, which then Ed Bloom led,

and then you are then, they were emboldened with that decision to go after the fearless fund, well guess what? How did that happen? Because he was able to get in and appoint three Supreme Court justices. Yeah, it also happened, too, because of a great deal of misinfo and disinfo that was flooding the field in 2016. Yes. A great deal of lying to the electorate. Third party candidates, which looks looking like we're going to have that issue again on this cycle. People running independent, et cetera, and so on. It's really not helpful.

I'm not sure there's a whole big piece of evidence out there that people because some rapper is on Twitter, that people are going to be voting for Donald Trump. I mean, it has to do with her. I'm telling you right now, I spent enough time traveling this country. I hear what they are saying, but the sentiment being expressed, the lies that she actually spoke about other people repeat. And so therefore she, what she said,

I've literally heard non-rapper say, and I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? But they literally are buying a falsehood and are saying, oh, yeah, I'm going to vote for Trump because of this. But I'm like, but you're going to ignore the other 180,000 issues? Come on now. Well, we have an election in 33 days in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Let's see if it evidences out that some of this messaging is impacting that. 120 seats open in the state legislature. I just tend to doubt it. But with regard to Donald Trump, obviously, they will have to lean heavily on this info and disinfo to get any sizable piece of the black electorate to support them.

They did try with another rapper, if you remember, back in 2022. And, of course, nobody fell for that because it was ridiculous. No, no. Again, I don't want us to make the mistake. You're focusing on the rapper. I'm not focusing on the rapper. I'm focusing on the sentiment expressed by the rapper. And I'm saying there are there are significant number of people who are either saying, well, yeah, Biden ain't done nothing. He's trash. I'm a vote for Trump or I'm going to sit it out. What I'm saying is we have to also make the point sitting it out ain't a smart option if you care about these issues. And so

that's the thing that I. So it's two things. What are issues you care about these issues. And so that's the thing that I, so it's two things. What are issues you care about? I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1,

Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug

man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to it makes it real listen to new episodes of the war on drugs podcast season two on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content subscribe to lava for good no one could ignore me carve my path with data and drive but some people only see who I am on paper the paper ceiling the limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree.

It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Here's the factual information so you're not walking around sounding stupid. Well, we're a community that rightfully does ask for a lot after 400 years of craziness, right?

And I think that what has happened is there's a high level of apathy. I think we have every right to be apathetic and ask what the deliverables will be on a constant basis. I do think that, generally speaking, Joe Biden has done a great job. He has delivered a few things and really pointed to the fence, particularly with his pick for the Supreme Court, really pointed to the fence and told everybody he was going to do it. And he did it. He put a black woman on Supreme Court. But I do think that when people do not see a measurable result in their lives economically, they are going to rightfully ask questions. Any any smart constituency should be doing that. I don't I don't mind asking questions.

Democrats have to get better at articulating of course what it is they're doing. They're getting a little bit better at that. I'm not going to leave this up to Democrats. What I'm saying is as black people, when you're engaged in a battle, you have to make decisions that ain't got nothing to do with a Democrat or Republican.

What I'm saying is we can see the effects of when we don't vote. So what I'm saying is I get you say, hey, we haven't seen things get apathetic. I can't be apathetic because what I do know is what can get worse, what can get cut, what can get eliminated. And all I'm saying is I don't want us pissed off after the fact. I'm saying be engaged on the front end. Hold on one second because we're going to talk about this a little bit more when we show you what the Southern University students are doing. We come back, though, we're going to talk about what's happened with the Fearless Fund because this is a perfect example. The attack on the Fearless Fund is not solely an attack on the fearless fund. It is literally a direct assault on all of black America.

Trust me, it is bigger than them. You're watching Roller Mark, unfiltered on the Black Sun Network. All change is not growth. Right. But thoughtful change is real good fertilizer. And that's what has been so beneficial to us. But you also were not afraid of the pivot.

Well, and I'm a black woman in business. Come on. I don't care how I dress up. I don't care who I'm speaking with. I don't care what part of the world I am in. I still am a black woman in business. Being afraid of the pivot, being fearful of change is not what got me here.

Respectful of change. Respectful of pivot. Yeah. Fearful? No. Uh-uh. No. No.

No. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, two facts that you need to be aware of. African-American women have the highest diagnosis of breast cancer than any other group in the U.S. And young African-American women are most likely to be diagnosed with one of the highest aggressive forms of breast cancer than all other groups. It is a disease that requires fast action, determination, and a whole lot of support. On our next show, we'll meet a young woman who's chosen an alternative path and approach to tackling this disease. And you'll hear from our medical and support experts on how to maintain balance through it all. We encourage exercise. We encourage, you know, changing diet

and making, you know, all those personal changes. That's on the next A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network. Next on The Frequency with me, Dee Barnes, the amazing Drew Dixon. She gives us the details behind the HBO documentary that shed light on the alleged sexual assaults by Russell Simmons. And we're talking about the Netflix documentary,

Ladies First, right here on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. Farquhar, executive producer, a proud family. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. The Atlanta-based Fearless Fund continues their battle against forces who want to shut them down. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in a two-to-one decision granted Ed Bloom's, the American Alliance for Equal Rights, the request to temporarily block the Fearless Fund from considering applications for grants only from businesses led by black women. Joining us right now is Arianne Simone.

She's the CEO of the Fearless Fund. Joining us from Atlanta. So let's be clear. We've had y'all on before. Y'all don't just support black women. You support an array of women. Go right ahead. That is correct, bro. We invest and we also deploy grants to women of color.

So black, brown, Hispanics, Asians. Yes, we do. Any minority female, we definitely do. But Ed Bloom is specifically targeting y'all for black women. That is correct. And so this appeal course decision, because what, your grant application, the deadline, was it supposed to start Saturday, was supposed to end Saturday. And because of this now, you can't move forward with a grant application correct? That is correct it was supposed to end on September 30th and we received the ruling from the appellate court on September 30th.

How many different people applied for this grant? Oh I'm not sure as far as demographic wise how many different people but we typically get get, on average, every application over 1,000. It's always over 1,000. Right, but that's my whole point. So you add more than 1,000 people apply, which shows you the need. We're talking about $20,000 grants. And what white conservatives like Ed Bloom don't care about, they don't care about the disenfranchisement of African-Americans and other women.

They don't care about the very few venture capital dollars that actually go to Black folks. They want to attack the economic lifeline of Black America. Yes, this is clearly an attack on our economic progress as a people, as well as the progress post-George Floyd. After then, there were a lot of corporations in their DEI programs that deployed money to many organizations such as ours, the Fearless Fund, as well as the Fearless Foundation. And they are trying to reverse that progress. That is correct. And look, y'all have done other media outlets. You've actually been speaking to various groups and have been sounding the alarm. Let's be clear.

This attack is the first, you know, if you will, bomb being thrown. They want to go after everything that has been beneficial for the betterment of African-Americans is not like it's been huge in terms of numbers. But the bottom line is they want to stop even that progress. Yes, that is correct. How should I put it? Because I'm on your unfiltered show, I normally wouldn't say this other places, but I guess white men feel so oppressed that they feel the need to do this. Even though when we talk about the numbers, the number of white men that control venture capital funds, we're talking about, and then you look at private equity, we're talking about what, 95, 97 percent? Oh, yes. It's about 92% in P.E. and V.C. The $62 trillion industry that we work in

is majority white men. And those majority white men then invest in majority white startups, which then recirculate that wealth amongst that community. That is correct. Even though the money that they get for their private equity comes from pension funds, and that's a whole lot of money representing black, Latino, Asian, Native American, and female workers. Oh, yes. Teachers, firefighters, police officers, you name it. So what's next? This holds you all in place. So what's next for the fearless fund? What is next? I can't get too much into legal strategy on here as well as what the plaintiffs are saying. But you're appealing this decision.

Of course. Yeah. That's what I'll say. We are carrying this on to victory. Now, how we plan to carry it on to victory, I can't fully get into that. But we are taking this to victory. We are not backing down with this. You don't have to ever worry about that. All right. Erin Simone was really appreciated. Keep up the fight. Thank you so much. And thank you for bringing awareness to this

because it is not about us. We are the lawsuit. We are not the focus. All right. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Lauren, I want to go to you again. You know, we spend time on this show sounding the alarm, and we talk about this election. I remember talking about just imploring our people, they're coming after school boards. This is what's going to happen when they come after school boards. They're going to be getting rid of black

teachers and black superintendents and changing the curriculum. And then what happened? A lot of people fell asleep. Moms for Liberty, they sat here and ran people. And Steve Bannon was saying, we're coming after the school boards. We're coming after the election boards. We're coming after all of that so we can control it.

Folks were like, yeah, we'll see. It's sort of like all these women who were sitting there going, well, you know, I know what they were saying about Roe v. Wade, but I never believed it. What are you talking about? They were telling you we're coming after it. So when somebody is telling you they're coming after it, believe them. Yeah. Well, it does seem like the entire, the entire Republican Party's ideology in this, in this era has been about who they can stop from doing something and who they can control

from doing something. And it's funny, when you ask members of Congress, particularly, again, in this moment of dysfunction with the Republican Party in the U.S. House, you know, these Republicans are like, what are you here for? What are you here for? They're always complaining about the swamp and being in D.C. and not wanting to be in D.C. I remember when Tim Scott first got into the House, that's all he would talk about. Finally, I said to him, well, why do you keep filing for reelection? Why are you here? But the entire ideology of the

party, as black people in particular start to take power, as we can see, particularly on the judicial level with these black prosecutors involved in these Trump indictments, they see that. They see the Black Caucus getting to 60 members. They see somebody like Don Scott on the precipice of being the first black speaker of the Commonwealth of Virginia. I mean, they see all of that. There's a record number of black folks, by the way, running in Virginia. And I think that, frankly, to go back to something that Dr. Carr said on the show, they'd rather blow the whole thing up than to see us in charge of anything. I mean, it's sort of like they're not looking to work together or looking for some agreement on issues. And that's a sad thing because there are a lot of things that can be agreed on that are just

sort of bread and butter type things that are not particularly ideological. But instead of doing that, they want to dismantle everything before more black folks get into power. That's what I see, and certainly that was touched off by Barack Obama's election. You know what, Dr. Nicole? I don't think they want to dismantle. I think what they're trying to stop is the dismantling.

I think what you're looking at here, and again, when you see the attack on affirmative action and then when you see the attack on economics, they are going after all of the programs that are being created in law firms, in corporate America, in the fellowships, in the scholarships.

Because if you cut off the financial lifeline, because then you say, guess what? These black folks can't afford to go to school. So if you have these programs that are paying for education, that are paying for internships, we target those, we can shut the access to them and makes it harder for them. They are trying to prolong the ability of their white children being able to ease into the opportunities because it's driving them crazy. They now have to compete. Yeah, I mean, it's all in protection, all in service to the white status quo.

And it's really trying to attack and undo any remedies in a post-civil rights America really triggered by Obama's election. You know, one of the most ridiculous examples of this is what's happening after marijuana reform in a handful of states, not just decriminalizing marijuana possession, but actually creating a regulatory system for legalized marijuana and allowing people to have licenses so they can sell it legally. There's all these restrictions on who can obtain those licenses, which disproportionately impact Black residents who want to get into the legal weed market. And the people who are advantaged by the current system are white men, white venture

capitalists and other white folks who want to get licenses to legally sell weed. And the fact that in some of these states that have had decriminalization around marijuana, there's been a lot of intentionality in trying to set up the system to repair the harm and address the disproportionate impact of blacks who've been targeted by the war on drugs, by marijuana enforcement, and allowing them to have access to the licenses. And any effort around that, that sort of reparative justice to address that has also been attacked under this white umbrella, this umbrella to protect whiteness in the system. So that's, in my opinion, one of the most egregious examples of the white status quo rising up to counter any efforts to repair

the harm for black people directly impacted by some of these policies that have driven racial inequality in the country. And then what happens, Greg, when people who don't understand connect the other dots, when they're sitting here saying, oh, man, the CBC ain't doing this, ain't doing that. Well, guess what? If you look at a lot of these states, it's the black caucuses in a lot of these states that have been stopping the legalization programs by saying, hold up, if you're not creating opportunities for the folk who are most impacted by arrest, then we're not moving forward with these programs. That's an economic argument. It's a multibillion-dollar industry.

And so what do you have? Oh, let the black folks get thrown in jail when it was illegal, but the white folks are going to make the billions when it's now legal in these various states. And so I just wish more people would stop being so one-dimensional and begin to understand that there is a connecting of the dots between voting, between who's running, between economics, between education. So I love when these people who say, I want the government out of my life, when I say that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in your life, because the moment your ass is born, guess what? That birth certificate is a government document. And then when you get your shots, government document. When you got to enroll in school, government document. Hell,

you got to pass state mandated tests to advance, government document. And when you decide to sit here and get married, government document. Divorce, government document. And when you decide to sit here and get married, government document. Divorce, government document. And when your ass pass on, government document, a death certificate. So this notion that I want government out of my life is pretty much dumb as hell. It is. It is. And, you know, there's a basic lack of understanding or not connecting the dots that I think can be remedied. This is where education comes in. It's very important.

And in this case, we certainly see that this is yet another step in, to quote Bill Fletcher, the attempt by the white nationalists to roll back the 20th century. Except this time they're even trying to roll back everything that happened since the Civil War. Right. And take a, you know, because, of course, the specific wedge they're trying to use here is the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which, of course, as we know, was passed two years before the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. And that, of course, is the law that Congress passed to ensure that African people in this country would be extended citizenship and have the right to, among other things, make

and enforce contracts the same as other people. And we know that since the major victories of civil rights legislation enabling those Reconstruction Amendments of the 1960s, particularly in this case, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is a different law than 1981, Section 1981, these white nationalists have been hard at work, including people like Ed Bloom, to roll back the progress. Now, in this case, you know, as we heard Sister Ariane speaking, it seems that they—one of the legal strategies is going to be they're going to say, we're not making contracts with these grantees, We're extending them grants. Now, will that be able to be enough to pass past

the 11th Circuit and the Supreme Court? We'll have to see. But ultimately, what they have done is engage in what Derrick Bell used to call in critical race theory, not to be confused with CRT, because people don't know what that is. Derrick Bell called it colorblind constitutionalism. In other words, you pretend like you don't know why these laws were passed. Right. They should apply to everybody equal to race. It is a legal fiction, and this is why, finally, as you're always reminding us, Roland, the federal bench matters.

All of this can be reversed depending on who is the judge interpreting the statute. That's it. Absolutely. They're trying to literally use laws that were passed to help us against us. That's right. That's what they're trying to do. Just like how John Roberts was so damn stupid trying to say, we can get rid of the Voting Rights Act, Section 4, because things have gone so well for black people who are voting. Fool.

The reason it's been going so well for black people who are voting. Fool. The reason it been going so well is because of the very act and what happened when they then ruled Section 4 unconstitutional, the white nationalists began to pass the very laws to roll back that very success.

That's why it was there. They were afraid to do those things because the law prevented them from doing so. And so to everybody who's watching, understand, and I'm telling y'all right now, if you are black and you're working in corporate America and you're working in mainstream media, if you're working in any company out there where they have created programs to increase the availability of African Americans and others in those spaces, they're coming after you.

And they're not apologizing. So you might want to buckle up and get ready for the fight. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on The Black Show. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and

it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug thing. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, we talk about the principles of mindset, strategy, and execution. This week, we're adding a fourth, faith. You're going to hear from a mother and daughter duo who are helping thousands of black women build wealth all through their

faith. You are more than you can ever imagine. Not just obtaining things to show that, but seeing yourself. Making your faith work for you. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture, you're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people powered movement. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting, you get it and you spread the word.

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20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. I'm Faraiji Muhammad, live from L.A., and this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation.

You and me, we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together, so let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Blackstar Network. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherry Shepard Talk Show.

You're watching Rolling Mark. Until tomorrow. All right, folks. Curl Prep Natural Hair Solutions is an amazing organic two-step curl-defining system for women, men, and children. If you look at this video, you can judge for yourself. People line up to see this product in action and hair shows when they take a seat to try it. They don't believe it is their hair.

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African-American women have the highest diagnosis of breast cancer than any other group in the U.S. And young African-American women are most likely to be diagnosed with one of the highest aggressive forms of breast cancer than all other groups. It is a disease that requires fast action, determination, and a whole lot of support. On our next show, we'll meet a young woman who's chosen an alternative path and approach to tackling this disease. And you'll hear from our medical and support experts

on how to maintain balance through it all. We encourage exercise. We encourage, you know, changing diet and making, you know, all those personal changes. That's on the next A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network. Hello, I'm Jamia Pugh. I am from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, just an hour right outside of Philadelphia. My name is Jasmine Pugh.

I'm also from Coatesville, Pennsylvania. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Stay right here. The Huntsville, Alabama Police Department issued an emergency missing child alert for Jamarius Logan, who was last seen on September 25th. The 15-year-old is 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighs 200 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Jamarius has a tattoo on his left arm that reads 9MM. He was last seen wearing gray sweatpants, a blue hoodie, and black and white Jordan shoes. Anyone with information about Jamarius Logan is urged to call the Huntsville, Alabama

Police Department at 256-924-1778. 256-924-1778. Folks, Morgan State University has canceled all homecoming activities this weekend, plus classes, as they continue to search for the individual or individuals responsible for

a shooting on campus that left five people injured. Of course, police have released a video asking the public to help identify these individuals of interest. Investigators believe there was a dispute between two groups when gunfire erupted near a university dorm. At least three people were believed to have been armed, four men and one woman between 18 and 22 were shot and hospitalized with non-life-threatening wounds. Classes are going to resume on Monday. Now, Bowie State, they are having their homecoming as well, and so what they have done is they have increased security on their campus as a result of the shooting at Morgan State.

Bowie State's police chief released a statement saying, Our hearts go out to the Morgan State University community. We understand that law enforcement is ongoing. There's going to be an event probably every day where we have to adjust and to change. They're going to be deploying armed and unarmed officers on campus. probably every day, where we have to adjust and to change. They're going to be deploying armed and unarmed officers on campus. Security teams at Bowie State also will be out on bikes and have walking beats, as well as have metal detectors and security wands at homecoming events. They're also going to be upgrading their security cameras,

and more lights are going to be installed in dark areas around campus. This right here clearly is the reality that our universities are going to have to deal with, Nicole. And look, this is not somehow unique to HBCUs. We've seen these shootings take place on other campuses. This is also the fact of life. We have a lot of these places where they have concealed carry and you don't even have to have permits to go to classes anymore. There's been such an expansion of guns in this country that you just simply literally assume guns are around you everywhere you go, including restaurants. I mean, that's it. That's the problem. The fact that so many people have guns and the access to guns.

You know, my line sister's son is a student at Morgan State, and I went to school in Baltimore right down the street from Morgan State. It's just outrageous that the violence has come to campus and that so many are impacted by it. I mean, kids should feel safe at the very least at school. And it is because there are too many guns accessible in this country. And so we have to deal with that. We have to restrict and limit the use of guns. We have to figure out how to create efforts to reduce gun violence at all levels, including on college campuses. But like you say, people could be anywhere at this point and know that in reality they are at risk of potentially coming in

contact or experiencing gun violence themselves. It's an outrageous state that we're in right now. It's horrible what happened at Morgan State. It's horrible that Morgan State's canceled its homecoming celebration and that this is impacting other campuses that are increasing security to protect the students on their campuses as well. Grant, you teach at Howard University. Congratulations on 23 years there. These used to be safe havens, but the bottom line is they're no longer safe havens. No, and thank you, Roland, but I have to agree with Nicole. I mean, and what you've said, this is symptomatic of a much larger problem. We all saw what happened at the University of North Carolina shortly after school started this year, which included the death of a faculty member, Zinzi Han, who was killed actually in his lab, and the shelters in place there.

How do you protect against something like this? You know, at the onset of COVID, it was the bomb threats at HBCUs. And quite frankly, many of our HBCUs, of course, are in big cities. And you know, the Republicans will say these are Democratic-controlled cities. Nah, Chief Rocker, what y'all won't do is pass sensible gun reform legislation. And so people, as Nicole said, it's too easy to get guns. And when you start talking about canceling homecoming, yeah, you've postponed the game, you've canceled the parade.

I mean, this is part of the heart of what makes HBCU is HBCUs. I know there's some silly people out there in Boulder, Colorado that somehow think some HBCU culture has been transplanted to the $300 million carnival machine called the Deion Sanders effect. That is not true, which leads me to the final point. Ohio State or University of Southern California or places like that, you know, yes, they're under threat, too. But let's be very clear. There's something very, very personal when you start talking about waging violence in HBCU communities, because that strikes not only at the heart of the campus, but the heart of our communities. Children line up for homecoming parades at Florida A&M and Tennessee State and Texas Southern and Paul Quinn and wherever you want to name. So when you cancel homecoming, you've done more than just shuttle some events. You've touched the living, beating heart of what these institutions mean to our larger community.

So this is something that is a tragic day for us. Lauren? Yeah, I mean, you know, at some point we have to figure out that if we don't fix things on the front end and invest in young people, invest in kids in a different way, we're going to just be dealing with these problems generation after generation. Obviously, our society has too many guns, and we are funding our police departments adequately and all that. Maryland has some very tough gun laws, as does Washington, D.C. In the DMV, the place that doesn't have particularly strict gun laws is actually

Virginia, but Maryland does. And now you're starting to see the cancellation of high school games because of gun threats. Obviously, we've seen, you know, we see the usual spate of mass shootings in this country one or every two weeks. We saw today in Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser announced yet another new initiative. You know, she has been there for eight years. She's doing the same policy. She's dealing with the same problems year after year. And without that investment on the front end, on your young people, you're going to get this on the back end. By the time you get to the back end, it's too late.

You're spending too much money on criminal activity. We had a member of Congress that was carjacked on Monday in Washington, D.C. and Southwest. It'll just go on and go on until people get smart. And if we can do $20 billion to Ukraine every two weeks, then we can sort of figure out how to fund something that keeps our young people occupied. Certainly, Marion Barry had a particularly good idea with his job initiative for young people in Washington, D.C. But for Maryland, Maryland has some very strict gun laws. So to what Greg said, yes, we're just sort of— I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott.

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Drifting into this thing of being a society that is sort of a permanent security state.

Everything is about security all the time. And there's no getting around it, particularly when you have an open campus that anybody can walk on. I'm not sure how you fix that problem. You can't fix it on the back end. You have to fix it on the front end. Absolutely. Folks, we've been talking about power of voting. You've got early voting ending in Louisiana on Saturday. You also have elections, as Lauren alluded to. All of these seats in Virginia are up for reelection there in the House in November. Also, critical election in Kentucky, where you have a Democratic governor trying to get reelected. Daniel Cameron, the black Republican who did nothing in the Breonna Taylor case, is running against him. Reverend Barbara and the Poor People's Campaign Repairs of the Breach, they are in Kentucky rallying the vote,

focusing on poor and low-income voters until freedom. They have actually opened an office there as well. They made it clear their goal is to stop Daniel Cameron. We are live streaming that Poor People's Campaign rally as this show goes on right now. So let's go live to Kentucky where Reverend Dr. William J. Barber is speaking. And we've got people viewing from all over the country. We are live streaming in all 50 states and around the world. So say hello to everybody out there.

Say hello, everybody. Hello, hello. Hello, everybody. And then say forward together. Forward together. Not one step back. Not one step back. I want to first of all just thank God for the privilege.

I heard the late young sister say, let me get out out of myself because you clearly can't do anything in yourself and Tana and Pam and to Kentucky and for a better Commonwealth and to all of you who gather few weeks ago I didn't know if I would even be here with you all. I was doing an event and had had some issues during the course of the year, very tired and very painful, and I was getting ready to preach a consecration service for some bishops and ministers, and I literally thought, this is going to be the last sermon I'm going to do. I'm going to preach this sermon, and I'm going to be out of here. I was that sick.

I didn't tell anybody because, like many of you all, I can mask stuff pretty good. Any of y'all good maskers? People don't really know how you feel. And long story short, they put me in the hospital afterwards. I don't remember the sermon and tested me for seven kinds of cancer. And but found out in the middle of it that I actually had something called gallstones. And, uh, you know, I wouldn't wish gallstones on my enemy. And I had a very severe case. One of them was the size of a golf ball. Uh, that we didn't know that though until we did the surgery, had some complications because of that what was supposed to be 45 minutes turned into a two hours and 45 minutes and they had to lower my breathing from to 50 once every 15 seconds

four times a minute in order to calm my body down and but you know what God is good. Mighty, mighty good. And we are here. I feel 110% better. I'm glad to be here. I'm here by the grace of God, because God will supply all your

need according to God's riches in glory. And then we were coming. I called Tana, I said, you know, I'm going to try to be there next week, but it's been a season. My nephew had a near fatal accident in Georgia, 12 broken ribs, contusions in the lung, punctured lung, broken vertebrae, broken cheekbone, broken eye socket,

went over in a ravine. But by the grace of God, somebody saw a little red light. And we don't know how long he was there. But by the grace of God, he went in that way Saturday before last and walked out this past Saturday. You hear what I'm saying? By the grace of God. And he's a young man.

And so I'm just coming here full of knowing what God can do and being so thankful and so gracious. You know, COVID, I'm going to get to what I want to talk about, but COVID should have taught us all that breath is something we ought not be wasting. I know what we have a person in this movement that lost 21 members of their family in a 30-mile radius because Mississippi wouldn't expand health care. And a lot of people died, Charles, not because COVID killed them, but because of the lack of health care.

I have a cousin who lost 38 members of her family in a community where they closed hospitals because that state would not expand health care. But all of that goes back to who we elect, right? I also want to say tonight to the young folk, you are a part of the leadership of today, not tomorrow. We don't need you tomorrow. We need you right now. And back in the day when the SNCC, many of the folk in SNCC were 18 and 19,

they couldn't vote because the law had not yet been changed to allow 21-year-olds to vote, but they still fought in the movement. So you may not be 18, but we need you. We need you knocking on doors. We need you encouraging folks, right? And I also want you to know, you don't have to throw away the music from the 60s

and pick up a new, just put it all together. Sing it all. That's right. Sing it all. Don't sing some of it, sing it all. Now, I'm going to do some teaching tonight because we got an audience all over the country. The first thing I want to teach tonight is that actually right now in this room we are not modeling what winning

looks like. Don't get mad with me. See you look at the room we got rows of all black folk and rows of all white folk. That ain't gonna get it. The only way you're gonna win is through moral fusion. So I'm going to ask the room to shift. I want folks to stand up. I want the organist to play a little bit. And I want you to find somebody. Be COVID safe if you feel like wearing your mask.

Go find somebody you don't know and shift this room and sit beside them so it looks black, white, Latino, Asian, gay, straight, young. Come away to my organist. Don't tell me he left on me. I need my organist. If he's not here, I'll make it myself. All right, come on, come on. Some of y'all go back there. Some of y'all come up here. I need folk with some placards, right? Young folk, just stand up and tell somebody, come sit beside me. Come sit beside me. On this side, we need some switching.

Because if you don't get to know some people you don't know, we're never going to win. Now, introduce yourself. Make sure you know who comes. Don't everybody get on the left side either. Some of y'all get to the left side. Some of y'all stay on my right side. Right.

Now, now. All right, some of, I need a few folk from the last, listen, the last three rows on this side, I need some of y'all to move back on this side. All of y'all went to the left. But we don't talk left and right. We talk right and wrong. So the last two rows, I need y'all to come back and mix it up. Yeah, you don't have to get too tight.

You can still be spread out. Now, there we go. Camera shots, I want y'all to stay with the crowd. Don't shoot the other places, okay? Just shoot up here. Now, look at the person and say, what up? Now, all right. I want to suggest tonight that if we ever needed to vote, we sure do need to vote now. In the testimony circle of my faith tradition, I come from the country of North Carolina. We had testimony service.

And every now and then, when things were going rough, one of the saints would get up and say, if we ever needed the Lord, we sure enough need him now. But those same saints recognized that faith without works is dead. So when they called on the Lord, they never called on the Lord thinking that they would not have to do something as well. They called on the Lord knowing that to call on the Lord means you're willing to take an assignment and do what you need to do and so I want to sample that tonight like the hip-hop artist if we ever needed to vote we sure do now you got to say it right. We sure do need to vote now.

For us, the right to vote is not just a constitutional matter, but a fight born out of struggle and sacrifice. It's a gift, actually. It's a gift from God. It's a gift of the God of justice. 2,600 years ago, God had his prophets to say to every nation, if you want to please God, you have to do justice and love mercy and walk humbly before God and that admonition was especially to those who hold office, who have power. And 2,000 years ago God had his son say that when it comes to politics and it comes to public policy the issue is what does a politician what does a government do for the least of these that really the truth is public policy must be judged from the bottom up Eric I

know I mess with your mic I'm sorry from the bottom up Tana and Pam judged from the bottom up. Eric, I know I'm messing with your mic. I'm sorry. From the bottom up, Tana and Pam, not from the top down. Now think about where we are in time for a moment. And you'll understand just by the history I'm getting ready to share with you why if

we ever needed to vote we sure do need we sure do need to vote now here we are today 404 years since the first ship landed in Virginia bringing slaves. Here we are, 233 years ago when Crispus Attucks was the first African American and one of the first people to die fighting for this country, while at the same time people who look like him were being considered slaves. Here we are tonight. Tonight we sit here 247 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence which says that everybody has an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And inalienable means it is God-given. It's a part of natural law.

It comes with the package of being born. But inalienable also means you can't give it away. Because if you give away life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then you are basically saying that you have decided that the oppressor is your God. Here we are, 230 years since the Constitution was drafted. Here we are 236 years, 236 years, excuse me, 236 years when people of Ebony Hill were fractionized in that Constitution and considered to be three-fifths of a person. Here we are.

194 years since Mexico outlawed slavery. And 138 years since Texas and America revolted against Mexico because they wanted to keep their slaves. Be careful how you talk about Latinos and folk coming from Mexico. You need to know the real history. California was Mexico. Texas was Mexico. New Mexico was Mexico. Arizona was Mexico. You got to know about the Louisiana purchase. You got to know about what was stolen because when the folk are trying to come here, they're not trying to come to our home, they're trying to come back home.

They are Americans. South Americans but still Americans. And much of the reason that they are fleeing is because of policies that America engaged in that made Guatemala and other places so bad. Here we are. 174 years since Harriet Tubman escaped slavery. And since Harriet Tubman went back to get people out of slavery, and when she did, a hundred and some odd years ago, Harriet Tubman said, now, if you go with me, you're going to be free. Either one way or the other, you're going to walk with me to Philadelphia, you're going to walk with me to Canada, or I'm going to use this.38 pistol and send you home, but you're not going to go back to slavery. That was Harriet.

Here we are, somebody say here we are. A hundred and seventy-one years since Frederick Douglass actually delivered a 4th of July speech where he said that the celebrating independence in America was fraud, bombast, and hypocrisy until America did right by the sons and daughters of slaves. Here we are. Tonight, 160 years since the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. They did not free the slaves. Freed all of the slaves in states of rebellion. So if the states had just stopped rebelling, they could have kept their slaves.

But they couldn't have it. Here we are, 158 years since the end of the Civil War. Here we are, 156 years since the end of the Civil War. Here we are 156 years since the 14th Amendment that declared that every person, not every American, but every person has a right to equal protection under the law. In other words, the 14th Amendment says if you are inside these borders, you don't have to be a quote unquote a citizen. If you are inside of these borders, you have a right to equal protection under the law. Here we are. 158 years since slavery was outlawed constitutionally, the 13th Amendment was passed December 6th, 1865, a day we ought to remember, December 6th, December 6th.

And slavery was outlawed, but all the states didn't ratify it. And we're the only people that have ever had to have the Constitution say we ought not be slaves. Here we are 153 years since the ratification of the 15th Amendment that protected voting rights for men, black men and white men, because originally when the Constitution was written if you were not a male who owned land, you couldn't vote. So women were left out. Indians were left out.

Black men were left out. Black women were left out. Here we are 125 years since the riots in Wilmington, North Carolina in 1898, where literally there was a coup d'etat that took over and declared that this is how we run people out of office. So when you see January 6th, you need to understand January 6th is not the first time that America has ever seen what we saw. Here we are 115 years after the Springfield riots. Here we are 114 years after the, since the Niagara Movement, which became the NAACP.

Now the sisters said I was the president of the NAACP. True, but what I'd like you to know is I am the graduate of 15 arrests. I'm a member of the Poor People's Campaign. I've been a pastor for 30 years. Right. But here we are 114 years since the Niagara Movement came together that became the NAACP and only seven of the members were black.

When NAACP was founded, it was a majority white organization, the descendants of former abolitionists who recognized that they had to stand against racism. Here we are 88 years since the New Deal. Things like minimum wage and social security and 88 years since corporate folks said we don't want that and they've been fighting it ever since and the number one way they've been fighting it is every time they can they cry about tax cuts. That's what they said to Roosevelt, we can't afford it. Here we are 85 years since the Fair Labor Standard

Act. Are y'all going with me? The Fair Labor Standards Act established a minimum wage of 25 cents an hour. It's purchasing in 1968 at $1.60 an hour, which if we had kept the minimum wage going with inflation, the minimum wage today would be almost $20 an hour. And yet the minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 since 2009. Here we are. 79 years since Prime Minister King was denied a right to vote in Georgia primary. Here we are 73 years since Ann Braden, a white woman from Kentucky. A white woman from Kentucky spearheaded the desegregation of hospitals in Kentucky.

She got arrested in 1951, and she led a delegation of southern white women to organize the civil rights congress to mississippi To protest the execution of willie mcgee Don't you ever think that the only folk that have ever fought for the release and freedom and deliverance of black folk have been black folk Here we are 69 years since brown versus board of Education overturned Plexi versus Ferguson. Folks, if you want to actually see the rest of that, we are live streaming this on the Black Star Network. It's a second feed we have on our YouTube channel. You can go to Black Star Network app to actually see this.

Those of you who are watching on Amazon News, Freebie, Prime Video, or Plex TV, again, go to the black start network app or go to our youtube channel to see that feed i want to go uh to our panel nicole i want to start with you one of the things that i think is critically important in you here reverend barbara does this all the time i know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of absolute season one taser incorporated on the

I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th,

ad free at lava for good. Plus on Apple podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper.

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brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. He walks folks through the history so folk can understand that it's not about hooping and hollering and just getting folks excited. What he's doing, he's trying to teach people to understand that there is a long history here when it comes to fighting for voting rights and fighting for the issues that matter to poor and low-income folk. Yeah, absolutely. And I think really that's at the root of the black community is fighting and fighting for our rights and then actually opening up the conversation so that everybody's liberation is included in that. And what's really important to think about in Kentucky is that if the wrong person wins, there are going to be real impacts on the electorate, particularly the Black

electorate, given the executive order that Governor Beshear issued when he got into office to expand voting rights to people with felony convictions who've completed their sentence in the state. So that's literally at risk if Cameron wins election. That's happened before in Kentucky, when a voter-suppressive governor followed a pro-democracy governor and rescinded an executive order stripping the voting rights of people living with felony convictions in the state. And that's literally at risk if the wrong outcome happens this fall. So the history that Reverend Barber walked his audience through and walks your audience through who are watching the live stream is a critical one. And we're actually in the midst of living history because if the wrong outcome happens this November, that's going to have real impact on not just Kentuckians,

but it's going to be moving the country in the wrong direction, given the voting rights expansions that we have to protect to sustain. You know, Lauren, there are some people who say, OK, look, and I've heard people say this, man, what Reverend Baldwin and those guys are doing, they're really wasting their time. Those poor white folks, they're not going to sit here and recognize that their interests economically are the same as ours.

But here's the deal. If you don't actually make the effort to walk folk through, they'll never understand. You know, I used to always say to President Obama, look, man, stop going to always say to President Obama, look, man, stop going to the suburbs of Ohio and Maryland and Virginia, telling the Affordable Care Act. Go to the brokest, whitest, sickest,

reddest parts of this country and tell them I passed this law for y'all because y'all are broke and y'all sick. And then you should be asking your U.S. senators, where are you? You got a governor's race in Mississippi right now. And again, Democrats love to avoid these states. You know what?

To me, this is one of the opportunities where President Biden or send Vice President Kamala Harris down there and literally look them in the eyes and say, let's be real clear. Your Republican governor keeps ignoring Medicaid expansion. Y'all are dying. Y'all sitting here led that law

that led to the Dobbs decision, but guess what? You got OBGYNs who are leaving your state. See, if you don't explain to the folk how bad their situation is, they'll believe in the other side who are painting this rosy-ass picture when it's grim in a lot of these red states when it comes to their health, their education, and their money. Yeah. They're still getting them with the holy at-water.

They're really getting them with the sort of southern strategy attempt to make it seem as if anything that you're doing or anything related to any policy that helps anyone African-American, you should not be having anything to do with. The Republicans get everybody on that. And when you do look at some of these poor states, the other day I was on Capitol Hill and I ran into Hal Rogers, who represents Kentucky, one of the poorest districts in the United States. And Kentucky, of course, is also represented by Mitch McConnell. And it is amazing to me that that goes on just, you know, year after year, and nobody recognizes that a lot of these Republicans are representing a lot of poor people and that they're not advocating for anything that helps poor people.

One of the other things that is interesting about Reverend Barber is that, you know, the idea that he's trying to build a diverse ethnic coalition and trying to get black folks and white folks together politically. The last time I heard anyone consistently talk like that was actually John Lewis. Nobody really talks like that anymore. Nobody actually says, OK, well, let's build a coalition of black folks and white folks together working for the same thing, because there's a lot of commonality. But of course, the media makes money off of conflict oftentimes, and that we're sort

of always in disagreement and all that. But the on-the-ground reality is quite different. The day-to-day reality is quite different. But, yeah, there's a lot of poverty in the United States. Over 45 million people are under the poverty line. And there's not a lot of people talking about that, Republican or Democrat. There's not a lot of people talking consistently about poverty. And on the presidential level, and the president has, of course, the biggest bullhorn of anyone in the country in terms of anyone elected office, it amazes me that that doesn't happen. They don't go to a really poor district, particularly in a red state like Mississippi or Alabama,

and really have a really in-depth conversation about poverty. Why nobody does that, I have no idea. It was done in the 60s. You know, LBJ and RFK did it. I'm not sure why it doesn't happen today. It makes no political sense. I do. I mean, the reason that's the case, Greg, is because what these candidates always want to say is middle class, middle class, middle class, because if they talk about the poor in the minds of the middle class and upper middle class voters, oh, here you go with handouts. You're trying to help all those poor, broke people. That's why.

That's why they don't talk about them. And the thing that Reverend Barber is doing, he's not talking. They're actually doing. They are, so when they have these events, they literally are teaching people. They're organizing, mobilizing. They don't have,

the Poor People's Campaign, Repairs of the Breach, they don't have any events People's Campaign, Repairs of the Breach, they don't have any events where they are not collecting data. You heard when he said, we are live streaming this to all 50 states. They reached out to us. We're streaming it on the Black Star Network. But what they do is,

they are linking to other pages as well. They are all about how do we actually build a movement. One of the greatest mistakes that I've always had, I used to, every time black civil rights leaders would hit me about an event, I would go, y'all collecting data? Who's gonna be there?

Okay, so who's showing up? Are you getting names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, social media? What are you actually getting? And that's always the mistake. Having an event just to have an event doesn't do anything. So if 400 or 500 folks show up, then when you need people to move on City Hall and move on the school board and move on the county commission,

you now have a database to actually build from. And so that's why I think it's crucial that what they are doing, they are truly organizing and mobilizing. They are, Roland. And that's slow work. It's difficult work. It requires you to be human in the world with other human beings. It's not sexy.

And it takes full spectrum work. I mean, think about, you know, you've had Alicia Garza here on the program to talk about the Black Futures Lab and collecting data, and that's an important piece of it. But I think about all the people who are doing work and the fact that this is a space where everyone can have time to talk. Another reason, again, why supporting this platform is so important, because the Blast Our Network gives voice to this. And I'll tell you, it ain't on MSNBC, CNN, ABC, Fox, and they're not even showing on their digital platforms. That's right. Not

only is it not on there, when you do see a William Barber sneak in and maybe give a segment, it's five minutes. It's ten minutes. It's not long form. It's certainly not streaming like this. You're absolutely right. And then I put it on the streaming platforms, and I think it speaks to the underlying challenge

of movement work. You know, Lauren, when you mentioned John Lewis, as you were talking, you said, you know, I hadn't heard somebody speak like this since John Lewis. I thought for a minute, and at 58, I'm old enough to remember when Jesse Jackson talked like this during his presidential campaign. And I think, you know, we all remember

that. I was an 18-year-old freshman at Tennessee State when the Jackson campaign came through Nashville. And I'm sitting in the living room of a white hippie in Nashville, one of those Students for Democratic Society-type hippies, ponytails,

and here I am, a kid from South Nashville in North Nashville, a bunch of other black folk and white folk, man. And this kind of, you know, that rainbow coalition idea, of course, birth among other places in Chicago with the young Lords and the black

Panthers and the hillbillies from the North side of Chicago altogether, Fred Hampton. I think that, you know, we see that now a few years, but many years later, um, I did a turn as advisor for the NAACP chapter at Howard. And we went down to Morrill Mondays on a weekend. I'll never forget being there in Raleigh. And that's the first time I met William Barber and heard him.

And I think this is what Reverend Barber represents. And this isn't to say that John Lewis or Al Sharpton or anybody else doesn't represent this. There is a combination of erudition, of study, of mastery, rhetorical mastery. I mean, think about our brother Jeremiah Wright at the peak of his powers. And when you see that in combination with a single-minded determination not to abandon the poor, in fact, to be with folk and not in a drive-by speech or an auditorium, but literally day by day doing that work, that is terribly effective in the long run.

Because what that does is give people not only inspiration, but it restores their memory and it gives them instruction and it allows them to give themselves power. And so I'll end with this. The fact that we were sitting there watching this and the fact that all of us, I hope, certainly I will, after we get off today, will go back and continue to watch and then go back and see the whole thing in its entirety, that is only possible because of this platform. And we do not look to commercial news entertainment media to do that because it can't. As Lawrence said, they're not in that business.

Their business is profit. What we're watching in William Barber and all of his comrades, all those women and men, and of course, Roland, you correct me if I'm wrong, but in terms of major news media outlets, we were out there last summer. And I didn't see anybody else but you. No, in fact, that was June of last year. And they had a number of positions on the platform for those outlets and their cameras, and they didn't show up. And I do remember when I think Simone Sanders' show or one of the MSNBC shows, they wanted me to go live.

Well, we went live from the Poor People's Campaign event. So, yeah, they weren't there. And we've covered other events and they're not there. And all of these all of these loud mouth, so-called new black media Negroes who run their mouths, none of them were there as well. No, no. And that's all I was doing. I mean, you're sitting here, you know, Nicole and Lauren, I think about this. There are moments, inflection moments, that inspire you and can shape the rest of your life.

I know what listening to Reverend Jackson and working on that campaign did for me in 1984. That's right. And looking at Reverend Barber, it's not the same as Jesse Jackson, and it shouldn't be the same. It's a different time, but it's the same need, and he's meeting that moment. And it's a beautiful thing to listen to, to hear, and to

participate in, which is what we all need to do. And I'll tell you this here, the Poor People's Campaign and Reverend Barber, one of the few, and I mean few, civil rights groups that have actually been financial supporters of this show. It's a whole bunch of people wanting me to show up to their stuff

and cover their stuff, but it's a whole bunch of them who don't write a check. They want to do it for free. And so they actually put their money where their mouth is. Greg, I know you've been in and out of town, running everywhere. And so I told you I was going to get it to you, but I told you I was going to hook you up. So, y'all, I was at the Alpha Convention,

and they had a bunch of HBCU Alpha shirts, and I saw the Tennessee State one, so I text Greg. I was like, I mean, what size? And so, Greg, we got to get – so you can come by the office, and we got to figure out how to get it to you. It's so cool. I'll leave it with Carol. So this is your Tennessee State Alpha shirt.

Brad, thank you, Bob. Hey, man. Beto O'Macron. Well, I can't call it what he used to call it. Them is the ancient days. We don't do that kind of activity no more. But I appreciate it, man. Love you, man. I'm going to come down there and get it from your hand, man. I appreciate it. All right, then. Nicole, Lauren,

Greg, I certainly appreciate y'all. Thank you so very much for being on today's show. Folks, when we come back, my interview with gospel artist Tim Bowman. Y'all, he talks about how fiercely competitive he was in the Winans family. It's a great interview. And does Tim Bowman know who Jeffrey Osborne and LTD is, who the Commodores are, Atlanta or Richie.

Y'all, it's a great interview. We'll have that next right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. Coming up next on The Frequency, right here on the

Blackstar Network, Shanita Hubbard. We're talking about the ride or die chick. We're breaking it down. The stereotype of the strong black woman. Some of us are operating with it as if it's a badge of honor.

Like you even hear black women like aspiring to be this ride or die chick, aspiring to be this strong black woman. At their own expense. Next on The Frequency, right here on the Black Star Network. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture,

you're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people-powered movement. A lot of stuff that we're not getting, you get it, and you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is

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The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at Rolandsmartin.com. I'm Faraji Muhammad, live from L.A., and this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation. You and me,

we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together. So let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Black Star Network.

Hello, I'm Marissa Mitchell, a news anchor at Fox 5 DC. Hey, what's up? It's Sammy Roman and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Thank you. Folks, we are the Black Star Network. We are proud to partner with McDonald's and their Inspiration Celebration and Gospel. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change

a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Tour, six city tour. It kicked off in Chicago at the House of Hope, and then they were at the Fox Theater in Detroit. Tomorrow night in Philadelphia, they will have a concert there as well. It is an amazing lineup of artists. Hezekiah Walker, Anthony Brown, Sir the Baptist, Brie Babineau. You got the Walls family. You got Doe. You've got, who am I missing, y'all? You got Mike Teasy. You've got, I mean, just unbelievable. But also Tim Bowman Jr. He is a member of the Gospel Royalty, the Winans family. And so we went to Chicago.

We sat down and talked with all of the different artists. A great conversation with all of them. And so we're going to be running these interviews over the next couple of months. Again, they're going to be in Philadelphia Friday, October 6th. Then they're going to be in Atlanta October 20th and on to Dallas and end it in December in Jackson, Mississippi. And so you see tomorrow they're at the Mann Center at 5201 Parkside Avenue.

Tickets are free for this tour. All you got to do is go to blackandpositivelygolden.com, blackandpositivelygolden.com to get your tickets. And so we kick things off with gospel artist Tim Bowman Jr. Hope you enjoy. We are together for this Grammy Award nominee, Tim Bowman Jr. Can I go with you at? I'm telling you, praise us in the room tonight. I need about 3,000 praises

to jump to your feet. Tell your neighbor, we've been ready to come and reap off of this place. Somebody put your hands in the air and put your hands in the air. I believe in you. I don't care what you're doing. I'm going to scream. I believe in you.

Scream. You won't get what you put into it. I just want to make sure I'm in the right room tonight. Chicago, where you at? Now, look at your neighbor. Say neighbor., say neighbor. Say oh neighbor. Come on, get real church with him.

Say I don't know if you realize it yet. Or if you sense it yet. But you are standing next to a conqueror. Oh, that wasn't the right person. Look at somebody else who's been through something. And how God's his you on your side. And make my life a little deeper. And you are standing next to a walking, talking, moving mirror. Because if I can lift my hands and praise him,

after the last three years, that was the time to take my life. My question to you tonight, Chicago, is there anybody here that knows Jesus? Tim, how you doing? I am fantastic. Good to see you. First of all, you probably had no choice but to be doing music. You know, that's pretty much my story.

My family is, they're savages. Well, a lot of the black generation from that era, they just didn't play. Right. Like, I'm looking at, like, I got three babies. Right. And it's encouraged that, whether they sound good or whether they sound bad,

you just say, oh, they're so cute. When I grew up, now, I'm baking, Martin, Cece, my dad, it was like like if it wasn't good go back and I think the white anticipation people I can't In my family my mom all us is to saying the Catholic Church I grew up in the black Catholic Church the whole choir was our family. You couldn't sing you played instruments No straight up. It was and up. It was the same thing. It's a different generation though, but...

No, no, no. It's not a different generation. It's some weak adults who don't wanna sit here and speak truth. I'm sorry. If you cannot sing, baby, you can't sing. Get a tambourine. No, go play the trumpet, drums, guitar, saxophone, clarinet, flute, or you gonna be the notekeeper. Because if you can't play instrument, look, you could carry some bags or something.

No, I'm 100% I can't deal with that. But it built who this generation is now. Like, if it wasn't for that kind of teaching that I grew up, I promise you I wouldn't be sitting here right now. Yeah, if you bad, you bad. You bad. I'd like, I just, I don't, to me that, I'm telling you, that's everything.

Look, I hire, look, I gotta hire people. Man, I remember we had a show. When Colin Powell passed away. Okay. And I had a booker and she was like, oh my God, that was a great show. You should bring donuts in tomorrow. I was like, you know out of 15 people on the show,

you only booked two of them. The other 13, I gave you the phone numbers. So it ain't like you had a great show booking guests. I'm literally sitting in front of my uncle right now. And I said, I ain't bringing no donuts in tomorrow. Now, if we had 15 guests and you booked 13 of them. And I got them. Yo, great job.

But maybe she needed some encouragement. Buy your own cupcakes and donuts. I can't, no. That really does bother me because I fundamentally believe that when folk don't give you the hardcore truth, when you come up against a real situation, you have a false sense of belief. And it's like, I don't understand what's going on.

Because you really can't sing. That's good. No, and it'll make you. I'm telling you, self-awareness is so key in this business. And with the advent of social media, it's so many people I say that that are mile wide and an inch deep. Yeah. Kathy Hughes has a phrase, she call it, you ain't deeper than mustard on a hot dog.

What? I love it being your generation and me saying it. Hey, but you know exactly what that means. I know exactly what that means. You know exactly what that means. You ain't deeper than mustard on a hot dog. That's hilarious. But that, to me, when you look at,

like, when Get On Up came out. Okay. So that was the great scene when Maceo was talking to Bobby. Okay. And he's like, Bobby, man, what you doing? I mean, why don't you go out there and make some music? And the brother who played Bobby he's like, Bobby, man, what you doing? I mean, why don't you go out there and make some music?

And the brother who played Bobby, he said, man, listen. He said, from the moment I met James, he was meant to be out front. He said, there's nothing I could do that could put me out front. He understood. That's what it is.

Now, I remember calling my executive producer because he wanted me to pull back. He was like, man, you've been too hard on the staff. And I was like, as soon as it came, I called calling my executive producer, because he wanted me to pull back. He was like, man, you've been too hard on the staff. And I was like, as soon as I came, I called him, when I finished seeing the movie, I said, I said, I can't do what you want me to do. He was like, why? I said, because I said,

we wouldn't be talking about how tight James Brown's band was. Talk about it. And talking about the shows and how, and how Mr. Dynamite and all that. I said, if he didn't understand... The standard. ...we were here, Prince was the same way. I said, show me somebody, not the Black standard,

the standard. The standard. I said, and that's what makes them great. I said, now, in the moment, you don't like it. I said, but somebody has to be real to truly pull the best out of you. And I just think too many people today don't want to be pushed that hard. Absolutely.

I completely agree. So how do you deal with your folks when you're rehearsing, when you're taking people through, when you're having to hire people? Because you might be saying, man, my people were tough. But then all of a sudden you go,

dang, I sound just like they do. It is weird how much I resemble my Uncle Marvin Winans. And I grew up saying, shout out to you, Oak, I grew up saying, he don't have to be this hard. He does not have to be this desperate because I watched him work all day at his craft. Right.

Like we see him now, pastor. We see him now. But he worked. He will question you. Are you kidding me? He will. I'm sure. Hold up.

We spoke at Bethune-Cookman. And again, I grew up Catholic. Man, we didn't read the Bible. We didn't know how many books were in the Bible. We couldn't tell you what was new and old. Look, we had a miscellany. What is a miscellany?

It was a booklet that had all the readings for the month, the scripture for the month, and you... It's all in the miscellany. That's not like budget. No, it's all like... You got one book. Nope. It was a the miscellet. That's not like budget. No, it's all like... You got one book.

Nope, nope. It was a monthly miscellet, and every Catholic church around the country had the same miscellet. Catholic church don't play. Like, we gonna be all... Like, you ain't freelancing out there. And so, you could grow up.

You ain't... I be somewhere with classmates reciting scripture. I'm like, what y'all talking about? Like, I gotta go to the back, what's the page number of that book, and then get... He showed up in my miscellaneous book. So, I spoke

at Bethune-Cookman, and I said something, and I quoted a scripture, and so when I sat down, Marvin goes, I ain't lying, he goes, um, what scripture was that? I was like, man, I don't know.

That was like Judges 12. I don't know. He was like, there's no Judges 12 or whatever it was. And I was like, look, it's in there. Like, I know that I said it. I know the scripture I recited. It's in there. Now, I can give you chapter and verse, but I know it's in there. Now, I can't give you chapter and verse,

but I know it's in there. I can guarantee you. I didn't care. But that's him, though. He, and what I tell you, but what you see is what you get. When I tell you, I used to look at him rehearse for eight and nine hours. And don't take that.

And you like, we couldn't be out of here in three? Listen, you can get the same thing done if you had sent the music earlier, you would have come in here and get inspired, but it's the same thing and it produces and it builds something.

So now my team is watching me. Nobody outworks me. Right. Nobody outgrinds me. I believe in myself and I believe what God put in me and I walk it out. So it's like, I tell people all the time,

I'm the oldest, youngest. Look at me. I got the pop-pop leg cross. I'm the oldest, youngest guy, but it was that family that you talked about that brought that up. I think, see, that's interesting. We were coming back from dinner last night. You know, and I'm not going, I ain't going to say no names, Henry.

Come on, Carl. I ain't going to say no names, but he was like, how you know when you were the best? Like, I knew I was the best. Listen to me. Oh, I feel like I'm sitting across from my uncle, y'all. But here's the thing about that. How did you know you were the best?

Oh, because it was it. You know you the best when you in the room and you like, man, these fools can't hold a candle to me. You know that. You know that. You know that. You know you been there. You like, man, I'm about to out sing all these things. I'm cracking up.

It's just annoying. No, but you know. But you also know when you're not the best. You do. Which then means I know what I got to do to get there. Yes, you do. But see, here's the thing that bothers me. Talk about it.

If you are Black and you are a non-athlete, people got a problem when you say that. I want you to... If you are a Black boy... Okay. ...and you say you in the seventh grade, and he says, I wanna be the best that ever played football. That's great.

Oh, my God, LeBron said he wants to be the best that ever played basketball. But if a black boy says that seventh grade, I'm going to be the best journalist. I'm going to be the best lawyer. I'm going to be the best engineer. Look how cocky and arrogant he is. And so it's-

I have never noticed that. You take, if you take- But now that you're saying it- In sports, we literally hold up, oh, and they'll show, oh, the work he puts in. They will glorify that, but they, but if you have that conversation that has nothing to do with sports,

I'm gonna be the greatest Supreme Court justice. No. How dare you? Wow. How dare you? Wow. And we, black folks, will say the same thing. Because we're conditioned?

Conditioned. Conditioned. And that's the... So I think it's the hardest thing to try to talk to a young person to get them to say, no, no, no, you need to understand. Somebody I inducted to a Hall of Fame, somebody said,

did you ever just envision growing up all of this would happen? Yes. They were like, excuse me? Now, was it your parents? Was it like how? Because for me, it was definitely that family that you talked about. They made me know. They put a dog in me.

It's like a, so when I'm singing, when I'm in rehearsal, it's just an awe in me. Like, what? Well, I'm thinking back. First of all, grandfather and grandmother maternally were married like 44 years. Wow. Only lived eight blocks,

so I spent a lot of time with them. Grandmother only came in business. Parents, this year married 56 years. Wow. And they what? My parents never went to college. Congratulations. Never what?

They weren't. They weren't. Never made more than $50,000 combined. But it was like, you're absolutely going to get education. And it really even, I mean, when I think back, it wasn't even, no, you're going to be absolutely the best. I think what it really was is the foundation was laid, and then is, now what are you going to do with it?

And so then for me, when I decided I'm going to this school, it was like literally walking on the campus, I said, I'm going to be the best that ever come to this school. Now, now you got to do it. And so it's a mindset, it's attitude. It's just growing up in the conversations with relatives and where they affirm, but they also challenge hardcore. So, like, we had family debates.

They never treated us like archaeologists go to the kiddie table. It was like, oh, you want to get in this conversation? You can get in the conversation. But keep up. But you ain't going to get treated like no kid. Yeah. Understand?

Yeah. We will kick your behind and destroy your arguments and hurt your feelings. Yep. And then you're going to go lick your wounds. We ain't even going to hug you. Yep. So if you want to come in this debate, come on.

But you know what's going to happen if you can't keep up. Sit in this. So it's like children's church. My parents wouldn't let us go to children's church. No, no, no. You go sit in the main service and understand what's happening in here. And if you go to children's church, it's going to be the play in that front. Man, my grandfather told the priest,

man, I don't need to come to you and confess my confessions. I can go to God straight. Come on, pops. Dude, I saw my grandfather teaching a priest scripture. I was sitting there, and I was like, this Negro is crazy. He was a bad man. He was a bad man. So when you see that, I think what that does is it gives you...

Man, he told me something, tripped me out. He told me, my brother, y'all ain't got to tell people yes, sir, no, sir. He says, yes will suffice. He said, I had to sit here and tell white folks, yes, sir, no, sir. This was exactly what he told... I was like, to my brother, like, I said, man, where this come from? He's like, yes, we'll suffice. So I think growing up, he passed when I was 15.

I think growing up. But you're proving my point. Yeah. That's the village you came from. That's the building. So it wasn't necessarily you're going to be great at being a journalist. It's the building up of all the other stuff. And now you can go do whatever you want to do because you've been built.

Take this foundation and fit it in whatever field you choose to go. There you go. I love it. There you go. There you go. I love it. There you go. So you said for your three kids.

For my three kids. So are there moments then when you sit here and go, I think I pushed a little too hard? No. Really? Well, my wife is a little more lenient, but I'm not. I'm the guy who, like you said, if you're going to stand here, make eye contact.

Like, I don't let kids walk in here and be speaking to me and looking down and looking away. No, no, stop. I do that with kids. And a couple people say, hey, son. I go, look me in the eye. Look me in the eye. I won't take a selfie with a young black boy who won't smile. I said, say, bro, this ain't no prison photos.

You can smile at a photo. Because we are teaching young black boys to be hard. Come on. You a man. A man don't smile. I was like, it's a photo, dog. Smile. I literally said, no, ain't going to be no photo of you

unless you smile. And the mama look at me, and I would go, no, I'm dead serious. I need to intern with you for like a month. No, no. I would be rafting for a month. Oh, no, you wouldn't be great. Wait, sign me. Hey, hey, hey.

Because I would be behind that camera or behind you, cracking up. Hold up, but we better not miss that shot, though. Get the shot. Antoine. Oh, it's always. OK, who is that? Antoine.

Me dancing on stage with Snoop Dogg at the Cincinnati Music Festival and somebody stop recording. No. And had the money angle and the money shot. Antoine? Not Antoine. But Antoine kept his job, though. No, barely.

When he kept his job? Barely. He on probation. So what did that look like? You come off the stage, whoo, Ben Stewart! Here we go! Whoo!

Did, did, did, did! No, no! OK, let me see you off the stage. I don't know. I think we had Woo, hey, did, did, did. No, no. OK, let me see you all. I think we had it. See, next morning, I'm flying to New York. Crack a video. I'm flying to New York, sending in a video.

Hey, send me the video. I look at the video on the plane. Why the video, Star? I'm trying. What happened? Send text. Say it all. Send me the rest.

Oh, I thought DeSean had it. DeSean the driver! You're too hard on Antoine. I don't like it. I don't like this line. I don't like this line. Missed the shot. The mini shot. And here's anybody else getting a money shot. Snoop had to send me another angle.

Okay, well, you got it then. No, because that one wasn't the one. It wasn't even shot vertically. It wasn't shot horizontal. Missed the money shot. But you got... This is the story. You're gonna have this story for the rest of you. And he gonna have it too?

He gonna have it too? That's it, Tom. Hey, I'm tired of that for this man's internship. He gonna have it too? Hey, I'm tired of that for this man. It does shit. You are hilarious. But, Dad, you know, but again, though, to me, and then it was like, well, you know, I got 19 out of 20 right. Yeah, but you got that one wrong.

I love it. Hey, I love it. I just think that, again, if you want to be great... Yes, sir. Somebody has to push you to greatness. I agree. Like, who's dropping a cap behind me right now in a live interview? See, I don't understand.

Because I know. No, you do like Prince and James Bond, turn around and go, absolutely. You hear them like... My team already know what this means. You hear them... What? They already know. And I... You hear that? What? They already know.

And I'm with my smile. You hear what that five? Yeah. They be like, oh, we played a lot. No, I just find them $20. Yes, sir. I'll never forget one time my MD hit the wrong song next. And we had the full band.

And I turned and I smiled at him. And he was. And I just stayed there. And it was about five seconds too long. And his smile went from. Like, yeah, you I just stayed there. And it was about five seconds too long. And his smile went from. Like, yeah, you know what you did. You know, when I lean on this smile too long, you know what it means. There you go.

So, but I think it builds something in you. Yes. My father told me one time, as long as the pain to remain. I want to get this right. As long as the pain to remain the same is less than the pain to change, you'll never change. Did I say it right? No, it's something about right.

Something about right. Something about right. As long as it is staying in this current... I mean, if it's mediocrity, if it's just less than, as long as that pain is less than the pain to change, you're never going to change.

Man, I worked with a Houston defender and Sonny Messiah Giles. She cussed out the head of sales. And I was an intern. I was typing my story and I was like, I ain't turn around. I was like, and that's summer. She cussed out the manager. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote.

Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback.

Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. The senior editor, the head of production, and I was like, let me tell you what my goal is this whole summer. I ain't getting cussed out.

You can get through the summer without checkouts. All my stuff, I was like, she ain't't getting cussed out. You can get through the summer without cussing. I would check all my stuff. I was like, she ain't gonna cuss me out. And folk be like, what? I said, no, no, no. I ain't getting cussed out. That to me is equivalent of, no, no. I'm gonna have my stuff together. Got you.

I'm not gonna be sloppy, even one time, even give her a thought about, she ain't cussed me out that whole summer. Not one cuss. But that's one of those things that, again, it builds you because you say, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to give somebody an opportunity

to jack me up. I'm going to make sure my stuff is tight. And I think you can apply that to anything. Yeah, universally. And I think the problem with my generation and the generation coming behind me is everyone seems to be comfortable. We, we want to be comfortable. We, we want, we want to be soothed.

We want to be set. We want to feel comfort in everything that we do. And no one is, and no one is a general statement, but we need more people taking big shots to get out of this pool and go swim over here by yourself. And when I say not... Somebody might say, watching, oh, yeah, but people make mistakes. People make mistakes, but I can accept a mistake

except when I told you to do something and then you did not fully do it. And now I can't accept the mistake because I told you in advance. That's the one that also gets me when you tell somebody, oh, I see what's coming. Do this to avoid this from happening,

but then you forget to do it. And then it's like, yeah, but I did it 19 out of the other 20 times. Yeah, but... That wasn't the instruction. This one is what's screwing us up. Come on, you're teaching. Anthony. You...

I don't get it. This is... What did Anthony do? Man, he hit me the other day. He hit me the other day. He hit me the other day. Hey, you got to back up to that interview. My drive crashed. You mean the interview that was December 2021? You mean when I told you to dump all interviews

onto another drive three months ago? But I dumped everything except that one. But right now we need that one. That one. See? Anthony had a lot on this. You gave Anthony a lot of things to do. And the thing is, Anthony is wonderful.

The interview was almost 24 months ago. I don't like it. Guess what? I don't like this at all. Uh-huh. I don't like this. Anthony works for a living legend. Can you imagine his workload?

And guess what? I bet he backing this interview up right now. I'm tired of it. Speak. He got redundancy going. If this go out, something's going to get back. Back, back. Oh, man. I don't know.

The thing is, when you need that thing at that moment, that's when you need it. That's when you need it. You talking. And that's just, so I just think the chat, I just fundamentally believe that... that when you talk about this generation... And people get caught up... Look, I was hard on my fellow folk when I was...

So they like, oh, you Gen X. I was killing folks at the same time. Like, man, what you doing? But I just think that... that builds you to be great. I'm sitting here listening to you tell me... how you became who you are. This is fascinating to me. When you laying out how your folk were like, um, you ain't gonna be sitting here mentioning my name

in interviews and your stuff's sloppy. But see, that's the common thread. There's a bar. I mean, and then if you talk about the Scripture, it's like when Christians make concession for living any kind of way, it's like we press towards the mark. What is the mark? The high calling, which is in Christ Jesus.

So I got to know how the standards that Jesus said. Now, not religious, you know, because people try to put religion on you. I'm talking about spirituality. Right. That's the mark. Right. I'm sitting here listening to you and the common thread that I'm hearing,

I promise you, I'm just meeting you for the first time and you feel like my uncle. But it's a common thread that all of the greats tend to have. And it's an insatiable appetite for greatness and to be above average. So it's like, this is fascinating to me. Okay, so you just mentioned greatness.

Someone said once, people remember those who are great, not those who are mediocre. I disagree. We remember those who are mediocre. Absolutely. Think about all the people who were first round draft picks who were bust. I re... Yes.

They will forever be associated with being bust. That's mediocrity. There's one from Duke that's coming to mind right now. Yeah, I know exactly who I'm talking about. But that's the... And I think people forget that, no, no, no, if you mediocre, they'll remember mediocre. Yeah. That is an amazing point. Absolutely.

And I just think that a lot of people don't think about that. But then you ask yourself the question, what do you want to be remembered for? And I think it then still goes back to what you talked about earlier, which is a standard, a bar. You have to have some level that you refuse to let people bring you under. I'm talking about because what makes people is how people live their lives when no one is watching.

Yep. That's the thing that... So I'm sitting here watching. I mean, you clean. You got the cocaine white on with the... I mean, you clean now that hell out of place. Got the jewelry. That didn't...

That's not for this. This is a reflection of what you do when nobody is watching you. Yeah. And you think about that. You literally think about it. When people, I kind of know what I think the answer is going to be. When somebody comes up to you and they say, Tim, I want you to be my mentor. What do you say?

It's probably a churchy answer. But I don't like people... We get into mentorship, and then you then start questioning if I'm your mentor, when you don't like what I say. So you need to get it clear under... First of all, I would have to know that I'm your mentor. But if I'm like, okay, I can kind of see, what did God say?

Okay. What did God say? Because I'm actually in a situation like that now, where I told somebody to go home, my assistant is in the corner cracking up because she was in that meeting. I said, go home because I gave them instructions. Right.

They keep saying they need to recheck with God every instruction I give. I said, that's not how this works. Right. God tell you I'm your mentor or I'm not. If he told you that up front, sit down and do what I told you to do. Right.

And trust that I'm not going to mismanage you. If I mismanage you, it ain't your bill. It's God's bill. So I tell most people no. They come to me, want you to be my mentor. No, I don't know you. I ain't done met you. But I do use the biblical model.

Moses picked Jonathan. Elijah, what did he say to Elisha? So what I explain to people is, mentees don't pick mentors. Mentors pick mentees. I need to see something in you that I'm willing to invest in. Somebody put this man in B-flat.

And I need an organ in here. I need to... Somebody get... That's good. I'm using it, and I will not be giving you credit for it. It's all good. It's all good. I'm not bringing... I'm not giving you credit the first time. It's all good. It's audio tape, so we good.

We got the footage. No, Anthony recorded it. We may not have this footage. Really? Oh, yeah! Oh! Well, straight up, that's what I do. That's good.

That's what I do because most people, and I'm like, I don't know you. I ain't never seen you work. That's good. I don't know your work ethic. I got to see something in you to want to put something in you. And so I think when you talk about your uncles and aunts, whatever, it's probably other folk in your family who was singing, but weren't really that, who didn't have

other stuff with it. When I tell you I'm talking about against, they would take a Ginsu knife and go up one side and come down the other. I'm talking about band-aids and all, because we used to have a Christmas competition, and the winner won $5,000. You had one, you had the singles competition

and the group competition. Are you serious? Yes, they gave $10,000. That's about $700 of y'all. Yeah, there's a lot of them. So,000. You had one... You had the singles competition and the group competition. Are you... Yes. They gave $10,000. That's about 700 of y'all. Yeah, there's a lot of them. So, yeah. But if you got up there voice cracking, mouth dry, what? Literally, you was contemplating going to run and drive. My pailo ain't got nothing.

What? Don't you ever get up here and sing again. Sound a mess. Now go on. Go heat me up some leftovers and bring it back for me. Go get me a drink. I wish you would cry. Wow. What did my childhood...

See? Did you win that 5,000? I did. Several times. Several times. I did. There you go. And that's why you're sitting here today. Yes, sir.

Appreciate it, man. You too. Great chat. You too, sir. We'll be right back. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, 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 Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We met them at the recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.