#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Is Tik Tok racist; Pepsi pledges $10M for Black restaurants; actress Suzzanne Douglas dies

Episode Date: July 8, 2021

7.7.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Is Tik Tok racist; Pepsi pledges $10M for Black restaurants; actress Suzzanne Douglas diesPepsi announces $10M Black restaurant initiative; TX GOP backs down on restrictive voting measures; Sec. Pete Buttigieg addresses Republican plan to obstruct the Biden/Harris agenda; Haitian president assassinated; #ArrestTarraRoling has gone viral over Fort Wayne, IN's huge race problem #EssenceFest recap with Wale, India Arie, LisaRaye McCoy, Fat Joe, Busta Rhymes and DJ KhaledSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. 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 Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war.

This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded 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. Să ne vedem la următoarea mea rețetă! Today is Wednesday, July 7th, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the president of Haiti gunned down, assassinated in his home. We will talk with the Haitian U.S. ambassador to the United States. Also, Pepsi Cola and the National Urban League announced a $10 million initiative to help black restaurant owners over the

next five years. We'll discuss that in our Where's Our Money segment. Also, I sat down with President Pete Buttigieg, transportation secretary. We talked about racism in transportation, contracts, housing. You may say, racism? With roads?

Bridges? Freeways? Yes. Wait until you see this conversation. In Texas, after being pressured by Democrats, Republicans are backing down from, well, let's just say voter suppression, but not really. The governor of Texas announced his priorities for a special

session and it's a wish list of crazy stuff from the right. Folks, also, is TikTok racist when it comes to advertising? We'll show you with one TikToker how he literally provided the examples in real time of what happened in the middle of the to advertising. We'll show you with one TikToker how he literally provided the examples in real time of what happens when you put white supremacy and Black Lives Matter and what the actual response is. Plus the hashtag arrest Terra Rowling has gone viral.

You'll meet the creators of the hashtag who say Fort Wayne, Indiana has a huge race problem. Plus, we still have Essence throwbacks with Coca-Cola. And we'll show you Snoop Dogg, Sierra, and Ashante. Plus, a recap of this weekend's Essence Festival Virtual. And plus, we'll remember the actress Suzanne Douglas who passed away yesterday at the age of 64. It's time to bring the funk.

I'm Will Lamar, I'm Phil Chia the age of 64. It's time to bring the funk on Will and Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling Yeah, yeah With Uncle Roro, yo Yeah, yeah It's Roland Martin Yeah, yeah Rolling with Roland now

Yeah, yeah He's bunk, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's rollin' Martel now. Martel. Racism, deeply embedded in the DNA of the United States. Not just when it comes to slavery, but the DNA of the United States. Not just when it comes to slavery, but the aftermath of Jim Crow.

We're talking about economics, housing. We're talking about Wall Street. We're talking about every sector of America, including transportation. Pete Buttigieg, who President Joe Biden picked to be Secretary of Transportation, chatted with me today about one of the issues that he has been traveling around the country, discussing this very issue,

this very issue of racism in transportation and how the Biden administration wants to change the focus and restore the balance to various communities, the change how black communities have been impacted. Here's our conversation. Secretary Bujold, glad to have you back on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Last chat when you were running for president, now you're transportation secretary. And you've really been trying to educate a lot of clueless people in this country

on racism in transportation. I really love these conservatives who've been angry, saying, this makes no sense. There's no racism in American transportation. It's a story that I thought was well understood and pretty obvious. And it turns out, as you say, a lot of people are shocked, shocked to discover that racism has played a role in U.S. transportation policy. But of course it has.

I mean, you could go all the way back to Plessy versus Ferguson, which was about who gets to sit where on a train. You look at some of the most important chapters of the civil rights movement, which centered around transportation and transit, like access to buses. And what we've been really trying to make sure is better understood is the history

of how many of our highways were built, where many of our highways were built, often straight through black neighborhoods, and often that was by design. Cutting them in two, removing them entirely, or creating a new physical boundary, impossible to easily remove, between a white and a black area of town. Now, when I go out talking about this, it's not for the purpose of making people feel guilty. It's to create a sense of urgency about fixing it, which is what we have a chance to do right now

with some of the funding in the bipartisan infrastructure framework that the president has negotiated. Federal dollars helped create some of these problems. Federal dollars can help be part of the solution, too. We need to fix what was broken, and that means reconnecting places that were often divided by the very pieces of infrastructure that at their best should have been there to connect. MR. I'm glad you made that point.

A couple days ago, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sent this tweet out. If we teach that the founding of the United States of America was somehow flawed, it was corrupt, it was racist, that's really dangerous. It strikes at the very foundations of our country. And he was talking about how China could capitalize on American-U.S. race relations. And I guess for me, it's real simple. If America would confront its racism, confront its history, and actually end racism, China has nothing to confront, nothing to capitalize on. And that to me, I think is what you're talking

about here, that people don't seem to understand. If you don't deal with the result of what took place 30, 40, 50, 100, 200, 300 years ago, you're never going to be able to move forward. Right. And look, I think that part of what we have over some of these authoritarian regimes is that at our best, we are prepared to confront what is broken and what was wrong. I mean, look, a founding that included an approval of slavery by its very definition is flawed. That doesn't mean that the American project is doomed. It doesn't mean that there aren't so many blessings to being American. But one of those blessings is the ability to look critically upon our past and upon our present and to use those insights to hold ourselves to a higher standard each passing generation, each passing year, hold ourselves to a higher standard than the past as a country. To me, nothing could be more pro-American than demanding that America be better than it once was. I think

it was Lincoln who said, it's not my country right or wrong. It's my country where right to be kept right and where wrong to be put right. And it would be giving America very little credit to suppose that we have to pretend that everything here has been perfect from the beginning. That is what you see authoritarian regimes trying to do when they can't handle the complexities of their own society. I was in Tulsa for the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, and they talked about when the highway was built through the Greenwood community that separates that Greenwood, just where the cultural center is, Vernon AME Church is, and the other side of downtown, where you now have a baseball stadium and other businesses. And they said how that highway split the community. You were recently in Syracuse

where they have the same issue and where they're trying to actually fix that. Talk about that, what they're doing in Syracuse to repair the damage that we've seen in Chicago, in Houston, so many major cities in America where black communities were cut off from the rest of the city by virtue of highways? Well, as you say, Syracuse is a really dramatic example. You look at I-81, the way that it cut through, really tore through black neighborhoods when it was built. And now you have community leaders coming together around a vision to change all of that, to reconnect. And across our country, we're seeing examples, not only of the problem, but really creative and powerful solutions. Sometimes it's bridging over or under a highway. Sometimes it's capping the

highway. Sometimes the whole thing might have to move. But the point is that it's not one size fits all, but we can do something about it. And when we do, I think whole communities get stronger. You know, as you mentioned, this is true in so many different parts of the country. This is not just something that happened in the south or in any one region. North and south, east and west, we see examples of this harm and we see chances to do something about it. So I'm proud that this infrastructure plan the president put forward, yes, it's about a lot of things like just fixing up roads and bridges and improving our airports and getting everybody on the Internet

and fixing lead pipes, but also it's intentional about this, as well as the Justice 40 concept, which is that 40%, at least, of the benefit of the environmental investments needs to go to overburdened and underserved communities. If we get that right, then I think this is something we can be very proud of looking back one day on the 2020s and what we did about that complex legacy that we're inheriting. You know, if you have a discriminatory housing policy or discriminatory hiring policy, those can be hard to undo too, but they can be undone at the stroke of a pen.

If you have a highway that has a discriminatory effect, I think it's pretty hard to move. It's physical, it's concrete, literally it's right there, but we can do something about it. And that's what we're seeking to do right now, supporting the communities that have a vision for something better. But Secretary Mujad, we talk about these difficult conversations that are needed in this country. And there are a lot of people who, frankly, wanted to be real comfortable. That was a discussion just the other day on Morning Joe with one of the critics of critical race theory and Professor Eddie Glaude. And Eddie said, look, you can't have comfortable and feelgood discussions when you're trying to right wrongs. When you're having these conversations with mayors and lack of investment and redlining and all those things. Because I think what happens when we talk about wealth inequality in this country,

we don't want to deal with that it covers a number of different things that have gone into creating this unequal system. Well, it's a great point how all of these things are connected. And I would say, you know, some places are more prepared to understand this than others. But we work with a lot of state highway departments. They make a lot of the decisions, and some of them are really thinking forward. And there are others that we're really trying to bring along. As you say, everything is connected. Like you mentioned, the legacy of housing discrimination and redlining. You know, often when this happened, it wasn't necessarily planners sitting around saying, let's make sure that we run this highway through, you know, through a black neighborhood

specifically, although that sometimes happened. Other times they just said, let's find the cheapest route. And the cheapest route turned out to be a black or brown neighborhood. And the reason for that was that the property values were depressed. And the reason for that had to do with housing discrimination, redlining, and racism. So all of these things feed into each other. And I think the real challenge for us, especially federally, is we're designed to deal with this one department at a time. But people don't experience this issue one department at a time. People don't experience transportation in their lives one day and then experience housing the next. Of course, it's all connected. It's one of the reasons we're working with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, my counterpart there, Secretary Fudge, on things like transit

oriented development to make living more affordable on the housing side and the transportation side, because in a family budget, especially for low income families, those things can't be separated. We've got a couple of minutes left. I wish we had more time, but I totally understand your busy schedule. I had Secretary Walsh on yesterday, Secretary of Labor, and what I said to him was that I would hope that when we're talking about, I said that he'd be talking to these labor unions when it comes to making sure that they are opening their doors.

I can tell you on the transportation side, Black folks have been frozen out in many cities when it comes to these jobs. And so you've got Black voters and Black votes in Congress that are dependent upon passing an infrastructure bill. What about that? What discussions are you having to ensure that even when you go out and get these billions and billions of dollars, that then you have racial equity all top to bottom,

whether it's vertical and horizontal. And the unions are critical to ensuring that those doors be open for Black craftsmen and other jobs. It's a great point, and I've talked to Secretary Walsh specifically about this, and I know it's something he cares about a lot. We're about to create, if we get our way, if we get this infrastructure built through on a bipartisan basis, we're about to create $1.2 trillion of investment. That's a lot of business opportunity. There is a chance

for there to be more, for example, Black-owned small businesses growing in the construction field. And to your point, there's the business owner side. There's also the worker side. And look clearly building trades unions have a long way to go in terms of having their membership reflect the country reflect the taxpayer reflect the communities they serve. And so we really want to applaud and support those local labor organizations that are doing a good job in creating and opening those doors and make sure that there is more where that came from. You know, this is part of why we're also building out within the authorities that we have already our support for ideas like local hire. You know, often you'll hear stories in maybe a black or brown neighborhood where folks are looking at a construction project that comes right next to them. They're excited about the project, but they notice that the workers in those good-paying jobs on that project don't look like them.

They don't look like the neighborhood that the project is actually serving. That's part of what we think we can do something about with local hire programs that I'm working on right now that we're doing on a pilot basis at the department. But there could be more, and this is going to be a really important policy focus on the road ahead. So the opportunity really is felt by everybody. And the last point I would say, I do this with every cabinet member, same thing happens when it comes to for the federal government, when it comes to the advertising they do with Black-owned media. Studies were done three years ago, 1% of all dollars spent only went to black-owned media. So same thing. When we talk about race equity, talk about contracting opportunities, it's opening those doors up and down.

So whether it's in cities and states, but even in these federal departments. And, you know, it's a very difficult thing when you talk about how you want to close the wealth gap when you're only getting 1% of all contracts across the federal government. It's a good reminder and well taken. All right. Secretary Buttigieg, always a pleasure. I appreciate it. Look forward to chatting with you soon. Same here.

Thanks again for having me on. Appreciate it. All right. Have a good one. So what you heard there, again, was a short conversation there. But I need you to understand really the depths of this. There's a particular name that you want to look up. His name is Robert Moses.

Robert Moses, not African American, was one of the most influential political figures in the state of New York. He literally, he literally controlled public works in that particular state where all of the different, where all of the different products were built. There was a book that was done on him, it's called The Power Broker.

It was done by Robert Cairo. Now, Robert Cairo was the one who also has done the enormous books on President Lyndon Baines Johnson. He's won significant awards. He was called, again, Robert Moses was called America's greatest town planner. But the reality is Robert Moses also had a serious problem with race. He was one of the people who actually greatly impacted where products were built in New York City and the New York State and how they negatively impacted African Americans. As I said, when we were in Tulsa, they complained to this day about there not being an exit ramp off of the freeway for you to

be able to get to the Greenwood community there. Those things actually happen. We can go city by city. If you go to Chicago, the Dan Ryan Expressway was built, and literally it was to keep white folks in Bridgeport on this side, black folks on the south side of Chicago on that side. We can go city after city. And it really is fascinating when we begin to think about this and how cities were constructed and how race played a role. And not just that. The other day, I came across a video where this guy, he broke down inequality in housing with redlining in Oakland.

And it was a fascinating interview where he showed how there were no drainage areas. There literally no drainage areas in these black neighborhoods, which actually play the role in all of that. He put a video on TikTok. I just want to play this before I go to my panel, just so I can just give you an understanding, folks, how deep this is and how it impacts every single one of us today. So watch this. Oakland, California, to show you what systemic racism looks like in infrastructure. single one of us today. So watch this. see how poorly maintained the asphalt road is because there's no drains. The water sits here, chews it up, gets underneath, messes up the soil, and you have potholes. Instead of fixing the sub-base that would make sure there was no potholes or cracks, they continued

to pave over the pavement until they filled up the gutter. And instead of putting inlets in the ground, they put this pipe that takes the water from one side and dumps it on the other side of the street. So all the dirty water comes from here goes underground and dumps out right there And there's no street sweepings or trash and debris just sister The reason this is this way is from the very beginning the soil is messed up in the flatlands And it's been a struggle to build any infrastructure ever since fix the drainage Mr. Barricade here in East Oakland, California

That just small six second video says a whole lot. Bernarda Lallona, she's the Senior Trial Counsel with the Joy Jackson Law Firm. She joins us on our panel today. Kelly Bethea, J.D., Communications Strategist. Faraji Muhammad, Radio and TV host. Glad to have all of you here. So I'm getting some audio feedback, folks. I'm not sure whose all of you here. I'm getting some audio feedback, folks.

I'm not sure whose microphone that is from, so please let me know. Faraj, I want to start with you, and that is what we heard from Secretary Buttigieg, and what we heard there, even in that right there, it really speaks to the depravity, how we Americans have been mistreated in this country, and how these type of examples of just basic infrastructure, basic building, how it has impoverished us, how it has separated our communities, how it has led to plummeting of property values. And so, you know, you've got white folks in this country who would say, oh, if you just have a two-parent household, things would be a lot better, not understanding how all these things are interconnected.

No, I think you're absolutely right on that, Brother Bowling. And one of the big things that I saw and heard from Secretary Buttigieg, and I wish that he can come out and just say it, which is that there needs to be, I'm just getting a little feedback on my end. is there a way for us to have this conversation be the context of seeing this as not just I can't see if Raji can hear as well. All right, so we're going to sit here. So let's do this here. We're going to go to a commercial break. When we come back, we're going to try to have the audio problem fixed. We'll be back in a moment on Roll About Unfiltered. I believe that people our age have lost the ability to focus the discipline on the art of organizing. The challenges, there's so many of them and they're complex.

And we need to be moving to address them. But I'm able to say, watch out Tiffany. I know this road. That is so freaking dope. Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Racial injustice is a scourge on this nation, and the Black community has felt it for generations. We have an obligation to do something about it. Whether it's canceling student debt, increasing the minimum wage, or investing in Black-owned businesses, the Black community deserves so much better. I'm Nina Turner, and I'm running for Congress

to do something about it. George Floyd's death hopefully put another nail in the coffin of racism. You talk about awakening America, it led to a historic summer of protest. I hope our younger generation don't ever forget that nonviolence is soul force. Christ. don't ever forget that nonviolence is soul force. Right. That's true.

Hi, I'm Eric Nolan. I'm Shantae Moore. Hi, my name is LaToya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. I'm at Roland Martin Unfiltered. So hopefully we've got the audio issues sorted out. So let's go back to Faraji Muhammad. Let's see how his audio sounds.

Faraji, go ahead. Yeah, Brother Roland. One of the big things that I wanted to say is that we need to change the context in which we're having a conversation about infrastructure. The big context change is this. This is not about roads and bridges. This is an environmental justice issue. This is a human rights issue. Because just like you showed in that TikTok video,

when you have crumbling roads, when you have depleting infrastructure, it affects the resources, the natural resources. We've been talking about Flint for many years, but Flint has been happening in cities across the country, but not just in cities, specifically in black and brown communities. So when the pipes are bad, when the road is not well, and there is no real investment, that's a human rights issue. And just like you talked about, you know, I used to live in Chicago,

that big Dan Ryan, I mean, I can, I used to live in Chicago, that big Dan Ryan. I mean, I can tell you streets right here in Baltimore, Maryland, whether you're talking about Greenmount, whether you're talking about Charles Street, whether you're talking about North Avenue, you can just literally see the disparity, the separation, not just of homes, but the separation of resources, the separation of access to have a greater quality of life. So the infrastructure, I mean, we've been talking about it from a government standpoint, but I'm saying among us as civil rights activists, as community organizers and grassroots leaders, there needs to be a greater emphasis to put on that conversation, that infrastructure is everything. You want to improve people's lives, make sure you get them roads fixed. Make sure that they have access to electricity, to clean water,

to the resources they need to live. Bernarda, this is the type of thing that, again, unless people really play, I keep going back to we have to connect the dots. You've got to connect the dots constantly. And that's really what you have to do. And a lot of times we don't. In fact, earlier, some guy sent out a particular tweet. And he was like, well, the reason we have this rise in crime

right now in the country is really because the left, they've actually not emphasized two-parent households. My response was, so you're just going to completely overlook education.

You're going to completely overlook poverty. You're going to completely overlook poverty. You're going to completely overlook lack of investment. But again, but that's what we're dealing with here. And so when we are in communities, we have to be making a different, as far as I'm concerned, a different type of demand when it comes to infrastructure and services that are provided in our communities. So I actually have to laugh at the tweet. I started laughing even before you finished the sentence because I knew it was going to be some off-the-wall, off-the-chart type answer. But Roland, what I like, one, thank you for bringing this conversation to the people,

but also an emphasis to the community to be aware of what actually is going on. As you can see, Roland, the problem is that unless you live it, you don't understand it. You can't explain it. You can't move and cause some kind of reaction from someone in a positive way. You can't move the ball in terms of getting things better. So I have to applaud Pete Buttigieg,

I can never pronounce his last name. Buttigieg. Buttigieg, because he put his money where his mouth is. So he has noticed that in order to move someone to do work that they normally would not do or even think about, he's like, if you want this grant money, show me or tell me how is it that you can make the community better? How can you improve racial disparity? How can you improve the life,

the human life of the people in the community? So I do appreciate this new tactic of how to go around it. And I'm looking forward to see what's going to come out of it, because this is just the beginning. Kelly, you know, the thing here is I look at how these white folks in this country, how they are responding to a lot of these issues. And what I mean by that is when I look at the suing of the Biden administration when it comes to providing resources to black farmers. And you have folks who are responding that way. And this is unfair when they say, but we're trying to right past wrongs. The real issue that we have here is that we have a nation.

There are a lot of white folks here who don't want to confront the past. They don't want to deal with the past. They don't want to deal with the ramifications of the past. But they want to say, yeah, yeah, but right now we're all the same. So Faraji and Kelly and Bernarda and Roland, we are all in the same position. Actually, we're not. Because even if you are an African American and your family, your parents, actually had a better economic condition

before you were born, if you are still impacted generational-wise with health inequities, that money is not going to change your health status. and you're impacted generation-wise with health inequities, that money is not going to change your health status. Now, it might give you better health care, but genetically it doesn't help your lineage health status. And those are the things that I think

that we have to really understand, and I think we have to keep pressing this point because we are living right now in a space where white America does not want to confront our past. That's what Mike Pompeo said. When you watch, frankly, white national television every night on Fox News, that's literally what we now are dealing with. We're dealing what we're dealing with at the root of it all is a culture of white people and victimhood, because that's really all they know if they are not at the top of the food chain. So if they are not supreme, if they are not getting the benefits of the white supremacy, all of a sudden it's victimhood. There is no gray area.

There is no space for equitable movements to happen. So when you talk about infrastructure and when you talk about anything that could possibly benefit the people who have been disenfranchised for the past, you know, 100 to 400 years, if white people do not benefit from it as well, that's when you hear the what about me-isms.

So what I also noticed is that especially when it comes to infrastructure such as the TikTok that you previously showed, the only way I have seen anything like that being rectified in black and brown communities is through gentrification, which tells me that the only way your neighborhood is worth something is if a white person moves in. And I see that evidence in D.C. a lot. I live in D.C. I was born in Baltimore and I was raised here in D.C. And you see it in both cities such that I grew up in Northeast. Right. And just off of Benning Road, I don't know if you, I'm sure you heard about the Benning Road Bridge collapsing. Gentrification is happening over there as well.

And all of a sudden, now people are worried about that bridge, even though for three years people have been saying, hey, this bridge is rickety, you know? So that's what's happening in these areas, in D.C., in Baltimore, Chicago, Oakland. And it just shows you just how insidious and how pervasive white supremacy is. Because like you said, it's not just a singular issue when you talk about the problems that are in these communities. It is systemic throughout all the systems involved, including infrastructure, including economics,

including environmental justice. And you need a comprehensive plan in order to actually solve it. I applaud the Biden administration and Buttigieg for this initiative, but like Buttigieg said, he's working with Fudge and HUD. That is going to have to be a group team effort in order for something to be accomplished and get done.

Well, yeah, and I just think that, again, when we are sitting here from a community standpoint, Faraji, and again, as somebody whose parents were neighborhood civic co-founders, our civic club, when we are talking about these bond elections, and again, I know somebody who's watching go, okay, there he goes bringing up elections. But yes, cities have bond elections. And on those bond elections are these various things. I can remember growing up in Clinton Park in Houston and my parents and our Clinton Park Civic Club fighting for our items to be on the bond election, pushing the city council member to actually, Ernest McGowan, to actually get it done.

So what ended up happening? On the bond election, new sewer systems, new sidewalks, new streetlights, refurbished park, convert the senior citizen center, convert the old fire station from that to a senior citizen center. Those were bond items. We talk about the rebuilding of schools. Those are bond proposals. And so for the people who sit out here, who are always complaining and who are always talking about what we need, we need

a black agenda, stuff along those lines, and then they want to run their mouths about man, you're always talking about voting. Well, guess what? How in the hell do you think infrastructure is going to get funded to change the very nature of our neighborhoods

if you are not registered to vote and then pushing your elected officials to put these items on the bond election? You know what? You bring up an excellent point, Brother Roland. One of the big things that I think that we need to help people to connect dots with is understanding how government works. I mean, I know people have jammed you up about elections and all of that, but the reality is when you know how government works, when you know that in order to get something done in your local city, right? That civic organizations, community organizations, community associations, these associations,

these groups of folks have power. And if they put enough fire under the ass of their local representative, then that's how the ball gets rolling. And at the same time, you're also talking about making sure that you're educating people about the value of bond. In Baltimore and Maryland, when we have elections, you have all of these different bonds up and down the ballot. And then people are just like randomly, you know,

it's like, oh, let me just put like, it's like your ABC. Okay, let me do A on this one, B on this one. And it's like, I remember having a show that we did here, my radio show, and I literally went through each and every bond that was on the ballot box to discuss what that bond means, how much it would cost us as taxpayers, what impact it would make on the city and various neighborhoods. I mean, it's just that simple. And I know people might say, well, people should already know we are adults. We are not up on all of these things. But we have to remember one thing, that all resolutions, all major movements start on a local level. They don't start on a national level. It starts on a local level. And so if we're talking about getting certain things on the ballot, if we're talking about getting infrastructure,

you got to understand the connections. You got to connect the dots for folks to see that where you live, how you live is determined by the resources of that neighborhood. It's determined by the access that neighborhood has to goods and services. I mean, that's how that situation is. And as black folks, as my sisters have been saying, we have been dealing with this for so many years. This should be ingrained in every black child, every boy and girl in this country to understand that your community, the development of your community, the investment in your community starts with you. And if you don't understand the power of your voice to speak up and to see the value of your community, nobody else will. Well, absolutely. And that's and that's the thing that, again,

but it's walking people through and understanding exactly what is going on and how our communities are impacted. So we're going to continue to do this. I keep saying we don't have enough civics lessons, frankly, in this country. There's a lot of people who have no understanding of how politics works. They don't understand who is in charge of what. They think their member of Congress controls everything when in fact they don't. And so, you know, we're gonna keep doing this.

We're gonna keep walking people through this here because there's a lot of stuff that's happening in our community that's being left on the table. And I think it's very difficult to sit here and again to hear people say voting solves nothing when I can show you example after example of how communities can be changed as a result of us, again, understanding the process,

understanding the difference between what the city does, what the county does, what the state does, what the federal government does, the county does, what the state does, what the federal government does. The difference between how we petition the federal government to actually get local funds, how we petition. See, it's all of this sort of stuff, and this is why, Bernard, I really,

I've been talking about this here. We really gotta have community groups going back to the 1960s and doing citizenship education training. Yeah. When people don't understand the Saturday morning workshop that Rainbow Push would do in Chicago,

Operation Breadbasket was born out of that. That was literally teaching people about politics, bringing political leaders, bringing speakers to walk folks through it. Again, I, because somebody asked me and they were like, man, you know, you know, how do you know about all this sort of stuff? Because I had parents who were in the civic club. My mom was one of the three citywide co-chairs of the Metropolitan Organization, a multi-faith coalition, nonpartisan group. And I would go to those town halls. I would go with her to the meetings. I would be sitting in the back doing my homework. I would go to the state capitol in Texas when they had rallies.

And so I saw it in real time in action. And I just think, and I'm just going to go ahead and say it, and there's no problem, I just think what we have is we got a bunch of people who love to bitch and moan, who love to talk about stuff on social media, who love to whine and complain,

who really don't want to put any skin in the game to change the condition of our people. Hello, Roland. And you know what? Something so simple as going back to basics on the civic clubs to see how is it that politics actually function.

What is the difference between city, county, state, and federal? I think that is so basic. But Roland, let me take a step further. What is also so demoralizing is that if you take into account, for example, I'm in Brooklyn. I was born and raised in Brooklyn. I was born and raised in East Flatbush,

the Caribbean part of New York City itself. So even in growing up in little Caribbean West Indies, there weren't those civic clubs. So we were we were left out of that information. We weren't given that information just because we were in an immigrant community. providing information, providing whether it's a one hour on YouTube or let's do some TikTok videos or do something just to educate our folks. Like I'm making my mission to break down

the differences and the power of the prosecutor and let people know that prosecutors are elected so they can know when they go and vote that if a prosecutor is not doing right by them, vote them out, Make the demands. What demands do you want? Are there exercises in fairness and justice straight across the board? And that's the

same thing that we need when we're talking about the infrastructure all around the country because all neighborhoods are different. And it's all about just equipping ourselves with the information that we need. But you don't know what you don't know. And again, you know, you always got stuck on stupid people who will say, I love the people, cut the check.

So just real quick, okay, before I go to the Haitian ambassador to the United States, I love the idiots who yell cut the check. Okay, let's unpack it. Who is going to cut the check? Elected officials. Yeah.

So, that means that you need 218 in the House and you need 60 in the Senate. So please explain to me how not voting is going to result in you cutting the check. They go together. But, Brother Rowland, let's look at that on a state level. Let's look at that on a city level.

You said that people don't want their skin in the game. They don't have the skin in the game. You know why? Because unfortunately, we have lost the sense of what I've heard from Minister Farrakhan, you know, long sacrifice. This level of, we put in sacrifice. You talked about your mother. You talked about your dad. They understood that change was not going to happen overnight. And in a culture like ours

where there's TikTok, social media, everything is quick, fast, and in the Harry, people expect you go to one rally and you're going to uproot a systemic issue in the course of a couple of hours or two days. I mean, none of that is even reasonable to think. We have to understand that we have to be long-suffering when you're

talking about fighting for freedom, justice, and equality, when you're talking about fighting for things that are equitable. Long-suffering, that is what has kept black people in this country to become, to get to the place that we're in, because we understood that. That has to be passed on. That's a skill that has to be taught and trained and passed on to the next generation. Well, you talk about

long-term suffering. That certainly can apply to our brothers and sisters in Haiti. That country is still under siege. It is in a state of siege. The international airport, as we speak, is shut down. Why? Because overnight, the president of Haiti,

Jovenel Moise, was assassinated early this morning in his home. His wife, Martin N., is recovering from the injuries she sustained in the attack. Claude Joseph, the interim prime minister, called the killing a, quote, hateful, inhumane, and barbaric act. There has been lots of drama in Haiti over the last several years. The Haitian president, some say he should have been removed, that he was operating illegally. The country has been in a, they've had protests and all kinds of things that have been happening in Haiti.

The people have been angered by what they have seen when it comes to lack of food, lack of opportunities, all of that. Of course, it was 11 years ago, an earthquake devastated Haiti. Billions of dollars poured into the country, and many say things have not changed for the better. But keep in mind also that one of the reasons that Haiti is in the condition that it is in

is because after they got their freedom, after they defeated the French when it came to slavery, they were forced to pay back. They were forced to pay the very people who they beat in the war. You haven't actually heard that happen before. And so you are dealing with a historical issue here as well. Joining us right now to discuss what's happening there

is Bakshith Edmond, the Haitian ambassador to the United States. Certainly glad to have you here, ambassador on Roland Martin Unfiltered. First of all, right now, who is in control? What is going on typically when you've had, let's say in the United States, if there's an assassination of a president, the vice president steps in, speaker of the house, you have a chain of command.

What actually is the situation as we speak in Haiti? The current situation is there is an entering government. So we can get a lot of feedback if you can actually bring your volume down because there's a loop going. We'll go right ahead. So there is an entering government in place, meaning that this entering government has the responsibility to step in and assure the health of the country. But we believe there has been also a prime minister named, but he was in the process of forming a new government. He didn't have the time to assume office yet. Therefore, the interim government is the caretaker government for now until we clear the path

to have a better discussion and to know who is going to lead the country. But so far, the entering prime minister is the chair of the council of ministers, which is according to the Constitution. That should be taking place any case, any situation would have occurred to the president. So the interim president, but correct me if I'm wrong, the assassination of the president last week, did he not ask for all of his prime ministers to resign? No, the president requested there was the ignition of the prime minister because he

wanted to have a national consensus government. He wanted to give the post of the prime minister to the opposition parties because that was one of the recommendations of the OAS delegation in Haiti, and that's what he wanted to do. And as a matter of fact, he did that on Monday. He named a new prime minister from the opposition parties so that prime minister could form a new government uh but unfortunately uh the the the event happened this morning and the prime minister didn't have the time to form the government yet but since there is a vacuum it is the most absolute necessity to have a government to have afforded to step in and the the entering government has a step in to be the caretaker until we clear the situation up. Obviously, today, President Joe Biden spoke on the issue there.

Others did as well. You also have, talking about how grave a situation this is, I'm going to play that a little bit later, but you also have what is being spread around who was behind this. I've seen some reports saying the assassins claimed to be with the United States Drug Enforcement Agency. They were speaking Spanish. They were speaking English. So what do you know right now? Who is leading this investigation? Has Haiti asked for international law enforcement help to lead the investigation to find out who killed the Haitian president? Of course. This morning in my conversation with the White House,

I did request that officially that the United States help in the conduct of the investigation, because they have expertise in that, because we're talking about the assassination of a head of state. And what I can tell you now, according to the information I have from the prime minister, it seems that the national police has caught some of those mysteries. Now they are being arrested, and they are going to be questioned, interrogated.

And we are still seeking for more for the rest, because we believe there are more than 30. But right now there are more than 20 under police arrest. We are going to interrogate them, to question them, and to know the motive, the real motive, or who sent them. But when it comes to the DEA, those people, they use the DEA name and things just to mask what they came to do to kill the president. They were not DEA agents. They were fake not the agents. They were fake agents.

Now, here's what I find to be interesting. And again, we're just trying to understand all of this here. He was living in his private residence. He's heavily guarded. Were any of his security detail injured in the shooting? That's why I believe I will leave it to the investigation because this New York Christian troubled me as well because we want to make sure that if the private residence of the president

is not a place you can go easily like this. So it's an outskirt of Port-au-Prince. It's a very well-secured area, and we just don't understand exactly what happened. And that's why I will leave to the investigation to reveal exactly what happened, why they didn't have any resistance whatsoever. So let us wait.

And the reason I'm raising that point, because this is simple. If you had individuals, and what we're showing right now is some video that was actually shot by folks who live near the compound. If you had assailants, mercenaries, whatever you want to call them, who stormed the facility to kill the president, that means that there would have been folks protecting him who were injured, which raises the question, was this an inside job? Were those who were charged with protecting the president, were they actually involved? So the question, so of his security detail. Are they being detained? Have they

been placed under arrest? Are they being questioned? Your question is a valid point. I have been asking myself as well. But as I told you before, I would prefer leaving that to the investigation because I don't want to make any speculation or confirm anything without having details from the National Police investigation. I did see here that, and this is from a source, this is from the inside paper, they actually have a video here that the first lady of Haiti, that she has been flown to Florida and is going to be treated in Miami. Is that correct? Yeah, she's been in Miami for the last four hours. She's at the hospital now being treated.

We do hope, we pray that she will come out of this very tragic situation. We have discussed what has happened in Haiti for a number of times, and the country has been beset with significant issues ahead of the high court there, died of COVID-19 last month. You also have had all these different protests that have been going on in the country as well,

lots of unrest. And so what many folks are asking is, what is it going to take to have a stable government in Haiti, to have peaceful transfer of power, and for the people to feel confident that the country will be well run and won't be dealing with corruption, won't be dealing with things along those lines? First of all, it is primarily the responsibility of every Haitian politician to make sure that they do their best to contribute to the stability, political stability of the country. At the same time, while it is the responsibility of the Haitian

politicians to do their part, but I also understand, I also believe that some of our partners of the international community do have certain responsibilities as well, because we cannot give the blame entirely to the Haitian authorities or to the Haitian politicians, because we understand the way we've been working with most of the international partners, and we turn. We don't believe that necessary help and assistance have been given to the country. There is something you mentioned in your program when it comes to the after the earthquake, when it comes to the billion of dollars were poured into the country.

But unfortunately, those money was not managed by the government. They were managed by NGOs. That's why Haiti has a second name. They call it the Republic of NGOs. So this is to show you that there is a responsibility of the international community. Those NGOs, they are not accountable for the money they spent on our behalf.

They receive the money, they spend the money, and most of the time, if you take the example, on one dollar, you want U.S. dollars, most of the time, 95 cents come back to the country, either to the U.S. or to France or to other countries. 95 percent, 95 cents. I mean, five cents only are left in the country, and that's why you cannot see the U.S. or the France or two other countries, 95%, 95 cents. I mean, 5 cents only are left in the country, and that's why you cannot see the impacts. And while you know, the American taxpayers, when they know, they've been contributing a lot to help Haiti stand up. But unfortunately, those money were not channeled to the government.

They were channeled by NGOs, and they are the ones who manage those money were not channeled to the government. They were channeled by NGOs. And they are the ones who manage those money. And if we want to talk about co-options, that's where the co-options reside, within the NGOs, not only in the government and the private sector. But the NGOs have also responsibility because there is an opacity in the way they manage their money on our behalf. And we don't know anything. We don't want to give report. We don't know anything and everything that what they're doing.

So that's why it's very important to call in a new way, in a new paradigm when it comes to NGOs and Haiti. If you want to talk about development, if you want to talk about political stability, NGOs have also some responsibilities. They need to take the blame as well. Ambassador Bakhshid Edmond, the Haitian ambassador to the United States, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. We'll certainly be watching to see

what happens in this country in the wake of the assassination of your president. Thanks a lot. Thank you so very much. We appreciate it. I want to bring up Cleo Monago, a behavioral expert. We've had him on the show numerous times. He just returned from a visit to Haiti. Cleo, you heard the ambassador to the United States from Haiti speak there as well. Just your thoughts on, again, recently being in that country, what you saw, what you heard, and your assessment in the wake of the assassination of the Haitian president. Good evening, Roland.

I think it's important to understand that Haiti is under siege, and it's important to understand why it's under siege. But I wanna deconstruct just a few things. One is they keep reporting that the killers were speaking Spanish. Well, what people may not know if they're not familiar with the island of Haiti and its relationship to Dominican Republic is that there's a number of people in Haiti who speak Spanish, and that the Dominican Republic is predominantly Spanish-speaking, while many people speak Creole and French in Haiti,

though there's lots of people who are indigenous to Haiti in terms of being there all their life who also speak Spanish. So there's an attempt to export who might be responsible for this to another language and another nationality. And that really doesn't make sense necessarily if you're familiar with the landscape of the country language-wise. I think people need to understand that Haiti is only three hours from the U.S. shores, and that Haiti has a history that is beyond anyone else's history of African descent in terms of fighting against white supremacy, fighting against anti-slavery, and being successful at anti-slavery revolts as of 1884. Excuse me, 1804. Let me be clear.

And that the country, the brother that was just murdered, Moise, he was there with the support of the United States, similar to the DiValle. So these so-called dictators or people who are there by decree are also hand chosen in terms of being supported to be where they are, despite the chaos they cause in the country. So there's a lot of insight that the mainstream media is not bringing to this. But I want to reiterate that the bottom line is, particularly given how close Haiti is to the United States, this country, if it was interested, and of course it's not, it could help Haiti. There's a lot of European forces and people that have colonized and made money historically off of Haiti, who could help Haiti. But white people, Europe, and even in this country, back as far as Thomas Jefferson, are angry at the Haitians for their successful revolt against white supremacy, and that they won dependence, and they were involved in a war that they won.

And the reason why Haiti is constantly in turmoil, constantly provoked into chaos, constantly dealing with issues like unnecessary poverty, is because it's under attack for vindictive purposes. I have always said, at the risk of sounding outrageous, that people of African descent, particularly given Haiti's history of being the first independent country that fought to fight successfully against slavery, that should be our Israel, the equivalent of Black people's Israel. We should come together nationally as well as internationally and support that country and help to bring strong infrastructure

there, resources there, and make it more functional and less violent. People in Haiti are suffering. I go there all the time. And there's young people with brilliant minds who don't have much, because one thing that's often not talked about, and I think the ambassador kind of referenced it, is that one of the reasons why the country is impoverished, because they're not allowed to do trade. a lot of countries such as Tanzania and places in Africa and other places, they are trying to starve the country into chaos so anybody who's in leadership will be under attack. So I think it's important for people to know the backstory and people who have questions like why is Haiti always in such an uproar? Haiti is under attack based on vindication from typically European powers, both the United States and in Europe,

because of its success at fighting against white supremacy. One of my panel here, and Kelly, the point that you heard Cleo make, the proximity of Haiti to this country, really what, and also of course it being the first successful slave revolt in the Western Hemisphere, is how all of these countries, including the United States, have diminished Haiti, treated Haiti, tried to run Haiti, control Haiti. that's where colonialism comes in. And you've had even Congressional Black Caucus members who have taken it upon themselves

to be really focused on trying to help Haiti. And what I hear from a lot of people is, how do we get to the point of literally stabilizing a country? And that's just the one thing that it just cannot happen. It seems it cannot happen. I think it's not an issue of it can't happen. I think it's an issue of we don't want it to happen. Because like Cleo was saying, Haiti has successfully refuted and rebutted white supremacy.

America is rooted in white supremacy. Haiti is the antithesis of our culture as far as white supremacy goes. And to be an ally to the antithesis of our culture as far as white supremacy goes. And to be an ally to the antithesis of a culture, it's not conducive to the country of that culture. So until the U.S. actually, you know, abolishes white supremacy, actually changes the culture of systemic racism within this country, we're not even going to understand how and why Haiti wants to be, period. Because we as a country cannot fathom another political state in which white supremacy does not exist, in which white supremacy is not the controlling factor to the decision

making and the well-being of its citizens. That's not how it works in Haiti because they took it out of Haiti. America, that is our culture. So until we change our culture in America, I don't think we're going to be able to help Haiti to the extent that it actually needs help. But what we can do is provide the aid that we provide to other European countries and actually treat them as a neighbor, such as we treat Canada and even Mexico to a certain extent.

But to answer your question, we've got a long way to go. This is a video from the folks at the Haitian Info Project. I follow them on social media. They posted this video from RadioKaju.com, K-A-J-A-U.com, where they actually visited the scene where it took place. We're just going to talk over this video. But Faraji, it's really, I think it's important for our viewers to really, and listeners to understand

the depths of how America has had its hand on this country and trying to control its destiny and really not allowing for self-preservation. And you heard the ambassador complain about NGOs controlling all the resources, controlling all of the money. And so one of the things that, and that's been an issue, even in the aftermath, and yet the international community is saying, well, you know, we can't trust the Haitians. Let's go back to the video, please. Keep it on the video.

We can't control, you know, we can't let the Haitians control the money. But, well, hell, clearly these NGOs haven't done their job and you're still having some of the same problems. And Brother Roland, that was the exact point I was going to bring up as well. The big elephant in the room is U.S. control of Black independent sovereign nations, right? And when we're talking about Haiti, we can bring Cuba into the conversation.

But let's talk about Haiti. The fact is that you still have a country that has, and I'm with Dr. Cleo when he said there is still some bad blood, some ill sentiments because of hundreds of years ago. don't know or we want to believe or we even want to in some cases forget that slavery existed and that the revolt happened, this country of America will never forget those who wrote its imperialistic powers. They will never forget that. And so as a result of that, when we're talking about the number of sanctions to countries like Haiti. I remember when President Barack Obama, when he was trying to build new relationships with Cuba, there was talk about bringing Haiti into this. I mean, this is an ongoing pattern of what we're seeing. And I think that it's important that for those of us in America, we got to get past all of our small little views

of how we see ourselves, that Black people in America, we are part of a larger family of folks in the diaspora, in Haiti, in Cuba, along with Africa, of course. So when we start to see ourselves as a global people and not just a national people, I think it will help to open up the conversation. I was listening to you, Mr. Ambassador, and I'm thinking to myself, you know, what is stopping us from really extending our arms? What is stopping us from really providing support? Dr. Cleo said that Haiti should be our Israel. Well, what is the relationship that America has with Israel right now? It supports Israel at $3 billion a year. So what is stopping us from creating a support system for Haiti? What is

stopping us from creating an educational system based upon what we have seen and learned from Haiti? And more importantly, what is stopping us to helping to bring this country into a place where power is really back into the hands of the people and not NGOs? Bernard, again, go back to my iPad, the Haitian folks with the Haitian Info Project, this is what they said. Today would have been officially officially swearing-in ceremony

in installation of Ariel Henry as Haiti's newest. He needs to be a part of this here in that he gets killed on the very day where you're supposed to be swearing-in a new prime minister, and the guy who he has to leave, guess what? He's not the one in charge.

Roland, my heart goes out to the people of Haiti. Haiti is a beautiful country and a strong country and one with many resources. You know, Faraji said, what is stopping us from providing the support that Haiti actually needs? I think the number one issue is the narrative, the narrative that's been told about Haiti for years,

for years of what Haiti is supposed to be or how Haiti, a third world country, it is that asshole country heard from Trump himself, our prior president, unfortunately. So I think that is the number one problem, is the narrative that's been sold for the history of Haiti. That is what's been stopping Haiti from receiving the help that it needs. And in addition to that, is that countries that want to provide help and so-called

call themselves helping Haiti, what is it that they want in return? Do they want to overtake the country? Because that's exactly what the ambassador was saying about these NGOs, these non-government organizations, that yes, they're coming into Haiti, supposedly helping out, but they're making the situation much worse. So the problem is so big. I don't know how do you get a handle of the problem because it's just that it's a bad narrative for years. And then you're talking about everyone who wants to have their hand in a pot, but not for good intention. And what you have here, Cleo, people still demanding for free and fair elections while all of this is happening. You're dealing with the gangs, you're dealing with the kidnappings.

At the end of the day, what you're dealing with people who are starving, people who want peace, people who want a way forward. Cleo, final comment. Roland, let's put this in context. Way back during the presidency

of Thomas Jefferson, when the coup occurred or the revolution occurred in Haiti, he made sure and had his troops and his people make sure that Americans, Africans in the United States did not know about it, because they did not. They did not want Africans to know that black folks won somewhere. Even the American media and even Hollywood will not make a film unless it's a spaceship, which makes it clearly science fiction. There are some real facts of black triumph against

white supremacy mythology in the world, and they will not allow that to occur. For example, and I'm going to get to your question, but I want people to hear context. Danny Glover and Gibson, what's his first name? Mel Gibson. Yeah, Danny Glover. Mel Gibson. Danny Glover and Mel, what's his first name? Mel Gibson. Yeah, Danny Glover.

Mel Gibson. Danny Glover and Mel Gibson did a very successful franchise, Lethal Weapon. And they both had the same level of gravitas in theory in Hollywood. However, Gibson made a movie about a Scottish freedom fighter. I forgot the name of the movie now. Danny Glover tried to make an epic film about Toussaint's overture in the event in Haiti, and Hollywood would not support him because there are no white heroes in the story of Toussaint and Dessalines out in Haiti.

So we are still dealing with the legacy of Thomas Jefferson, who said, do not tell them Black folks about Haiti. Make sure they think that they're voodoo, crazy people, do not tell them black folks about Haiti. Make sure they think that they're voodoo, crazy people, that they're dirty, dumb, and they're stupid, and they're backwards. If they hear about them at all, make sure there's a negative perspective. Faraj, I just met your name.

I hope I got your name correct. Correct. That's Faraj, that's it. You said, what's stopping us? What's stopping us is that we're successfully trained in most cases to be white supremacy mythologists, not black people affirmationists.

So we don't even love Haiti. I love Haiti. That's why I go there all the time. I go to Port-au-Prince and to Cape Haitian and been to the Citadel. You black folks need to find out about the Citadel. You probably don't even know what I'm talking about. I don't mean to be presumptuous. When I mention the Citadel in northern Haiti, nobody even knows what I'm talking about. I don't mean to be presumptuous. When I mentioned the Citadel in northern Haiti,

nobody even knows what I'm talking about. And those Haitians had it going on. They understood the power of Black unity and Black people coming together for each other against white supremacy, and they were successful. It's a success story that this country does not want us to know about because they don't even want us to step up successfully

without their contamination against white supremacy. So what we have to do, Roland, is it's like everything else. It's like, frankly, your show is a show about the fact that we have to do it ourselves. No one's going to do it for us. White folks didn't give you no building blocks to build Roland Martin Unfiltered. You built it. And then Black people who you support and know got some sense have been involved in supporting the existence of your show because it's extremely important. Haiti needs the same kind of rescue.

It needs the Black nation, like Farage has said, in terms of global thinking, to come together and say, look, we have a lot of work to do, but Haiti is sacred. Haiti is our people who actually fought. When I was in high school, in junior high school, I was told that Napoleon was undefeated. I don't know if your high school

told that lie, but my junior high school, my high school said that Napoleon was so relevant in the history of the world because he was undefeated. That's not true. Two brothers, Dessalines and Toussaint L'Ouverture defeated him when he came over there with his troops to try to keep slavery going. But we don't know about that. We don't know about the citadel. We don't know about Henri Christopher, who was a king after the revolt. If we knew our history and fell back in love with ourselves and what we actually deserve to have, which is a unified, sane people, we would know who Haiti was, and we would be insulted by what's happening in Haiti. Because whether it's an assassination, just like with Malcolm X,

whether it's an assassinating at Black hands or not, the larger context of violence, dysfunction, and chaos is because of the infiltration of white supremacy in all these spaces to keep things unstable so it can never be powerful enough to successfully resist them. Them meaning the system of white supremacy. So I just hope that people watching this show

do their research, understand that Haiti is three hours from this country, and the United States is in a position to do some work there to help it, but there are two racists and white supremacists to do it. And that includes the current administration and all the previous administrations. All right. Cleo Monago.

And even the impotence of the Congressional Black Caucus to make potent decisions is a consequence of the invasion of white supremacy in the black psyche, and we've got to work on that. All right. Cleo Monago, we sure appreciate it. Thanks a lot. No problem. All right, folks, got to go to a break. When we come back, we'll talk about

Where's Our Money segment. TikTok. A black TikToker breaks down the economic racism on that particular app. Also, a white woman in Indiana terrorizes black schoolchildren. on that particular app. Also, a white woman in Indiana terrorizes black school children. Now, black and white folks are fighting back.

They want her arrested. We'll discuss all of that next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Black folk. Right. You've got to deal with it. It's injustice. It's wrong. I do feel like in this generation, we've got to do more around being intentional and resolving conflict. You and I have always agreed. Yeah. But we agree on the big piece. Yeah. Our conflict is not about destruction.

Conflict's going to happen. Hello, I'm Nina Turner. My grandmother used to say, all you need in life are three bones. The wishbone to keep you dreaming, the jawbone to help you speak truth to power, and the backbone to keep you standing through it all. I'm running for Congress because you deserve a leader

who will stand up fearlessly on your behalf. Together, we will deliver Medicare for all. Good jobs that pay a living wage and bold justice reform. I'm Nina Turner, and I approve this message. Before Till's murder, we saw struggle for civil rights as something grownups did. I feel that the generations before us have offered a lot of instruction. MUSIC Organizing is really one of the only things

that gives me the sanity and makes me feel purposeful. When Emmett Till was murdered, that's what attracted our attention. MUSIC until was murdered. Yeah. That's what attracted our attention. Hey, what's up? This is Marlon Wayans. No, it's not Kenan. No, or as some of y'all say, Klignan. No, it's not Damien.

It's really, and it's not Damien because I do not have a bald head. It's one of the Wayans, it's not Winans, because they have been coming up to me, hey, how you doing? I love the Winans. There's no Bebe and no Cece in this family. There's Kiki and Damon.

So I am one of the Wayans brothers, or as you may want to call fraternity population. There's the Chinese, and then there's the Wayans. There's so many of us. Seven Wayans was born during this drop. So you are watching my man, Roland Martin, who really is swagged out. I wanna give a big shout out to my man, Roland Martin,

because he inspired the generation. He's the one that got Al Sharpton in the gym doing selfies. He got a That Reverend Al was like, oh, I see Roland trying to look like he got a little Tupac. I'm going to get him one better. He's the one that got Al doing the one-handed almost pushup on the desk.

So Roland Martin is the inspiration behind that. on the desk. So, Roland Martin is the inspiration behind that. So, be sure to tune in and watch. Roland Martin, unfiltered. I'm out. uh I got me some sick of gin. Everybody got to come fucking get your team. Now you start to look at the last two weekends of the Essence Festival,

the virtual festival, simply go to Essence.com or EssenceStudios.com. We certainly appreciate Coca-Cola partnering with us on that. All right, folks, in Ohio, the state Supreme Court, they rejected an appeal from the white officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014. In April, the Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association filed the appeal on behalf of Timothy Lohman, requesting his job back. Lohman was a rookie in 2014 when he responded to a call of someone waving a gun around.

That someone was Rice, who Lohman shot within seconds of arriving on the scene. Lohman was fired in 2017 for submitting false information on his initial job application and not for his involvement in Rice's killing. Earlier this year, an Ohio appellate court dismissed Lohman's appeal. In December, a grand jury declined to indict Lohman for the shooting and declined to bring federal charges against him. Rice's family has requested the Department of Justice to reopen the investigation into Tamir Rice's death. All right, folks, we talk about, of course, our Where's Our Money segment,

and we should let's roll that. We've been frozen out. Facing an extinction level event. We don't fight this fight right now. You're not going to have Black Army. We've been telling you all about how we as African Americans are consistently screwed when it comes to the advertising industry. Well, that includes TikTok. Now, you also know that right now, you've got black TikTokers

are actually boycotting the app because they say they aren't being sufficiently paid for the dances that they create where other people are making lots of money. Well, one TikToker named Ziggy Tyler literally did a demonstration showing you how black people are getting screwed on TikTok economically.

He dropped two videos. Watch this. I'm not going to be overly dramatic. I'm going to cut to the chase because I am not feeling well today. So I was going to give you more about what was going on yesterday. And I'm very emotional because I lost a friend last night. So here's why I'm frustrated. If I go into the creator marketplace and I put supporting white supremacy and I hit accept, it's okay.

And it lets me have my asking rate at $500. White supremacy. But God forbid, let me put Black Lives Matter on there. Watch. It says it's a threat. Boom. Inappropriate content. Can't say that. I cannot say black people. This is my screen recording. And this is why I'm pissed the fuck off. We're tired. We're tired. Okay. Black success. Boom. Inappropriate content. Anything black related, inappropriate content. Anything Black-related is inappropriate content. But let me... Black can't say it.

Let's take that out of the equation. Supporting white success, the same adjectives I was using to describe us on this app, it's allowed. It's allowed. White Voices accepted $500. Pro-white accepted $500. But let me say pro-black, a threat. Y'all thought I was going to stop? Here's the next part. Yeah, I'm fed up. I'm tired. I am a neil. You can see it. Boom. Accepted. Fine. No issue.

Let me delete it. I can say I'm anti. I'm not even going to say the word out loud because it irks me. Anti, boom, right here. You see it? Accept it. God forbid I type this in. Let me get rid of that. Let me say word of the day. I'm a black man.

What you think it's going to say? Threat. I'm done. Hmm. We tried to get Ziggy Tyler on the show. Was unable to do so. But that shows you right there, Bernardo,

what's going on here. Your lawyer, I think TikTok might need to be sued. I mean, he literally shows you in real time how the app works. If you put this in, what immediately comes up. That's crazy. So TikTok, what you got to say?

What's the response? Are you getting that ready for us you know maybe tomorrow because obviously this is going viral and especially now that it's on your show roland thank you for bringing that up to us and bringing that out out to our community for us to know because i have been getting uh texts about it as well as notifications about it. But I didn't exactly see the video till now. So good for Ziggy. Good for Ziggy for putting himself out there and actually showing out TikTok for what it is. However, Roland, I'm going to tell you this. It's going to be kind of hard to sue TikTok. Why? Because TikTok is a private organization. I'm sorry, it's not a public

organization. So unfortunately, it's much easier when you're dealing with a public organization that is getting some kind of funding or operating in some kind of way from the federal government or the state government because the United States Constitution applies, right? So when you're talking about a private organization, though, that's receiving their own funding or bringing up their own funding, it is very difficult to sue a private organization for having parameters such as this. But here's the deal, though. But here's the deal, though. But here's the deal. We've seen racial discrimination lawsuits against other, even publicly traded companies or even private companies.

So what he's demonstrating is that even just the use of the word black and showing that if you put white supremacy in, you can get paid, but Black Lives Matter, objectionable content. What I'm curious to do, and now I'm thinking that a lot, is that what if you can do a lawsuit in terms of TikTok supporting language that can lead to a riot, lead to an uprise? Because when you're talking about

using the word of white supremacy, when you're talking about speaking about anti-Semitism, can we consider that and argue that TikTok is technically supporting some kind of riot? So does the First Amendment apply to it? Can we tie that, for example, similar to the riot and the overtake and the siege that took place at Washington, D.C. earlier this year? So now I'm like, wait, maybe we have something. We're going to have to be creative about it.

Do you think it's going to move in any way quickly? No. What makes companies change quickly is the rise in social media, how we start boycotting it. Unfortunately, the best penalty in a lot of these cases is not even taking it to court, but rather blasting these companies on social media and getting a rise out of the entire community and have them face the backlash. Kelly. So just to piggyback off her point as to whether there can be a lawsuit, I mean, and you know this being a lawyer, and I'm technically a lawyer, but I don't practice, anything can

be a lawsuit, right? But the fact of the matter is the threshold for hate speech or to prove that something was incited by way of speech, you know, that threshold is pretty high. It's damn near strict scrutiny. So for, I don't know how viable that case would be if brought to court just by way of, you know, proof that TikTok is allowing the word white instead of black. It would have to be very blatant that they helped incite the riot, right? But to your point about TikTok being racist, well, frankly, all of these social media apps and platforms have some level of racism to it. Like on Facebook, I know that they are going back years

to find content from creators that are, you know, on the rise who are either Black or brown or other people of color, going back years into their profiles just to pull out a word that has absolutely no context to it, but because all of a sudden that word is flagged, now they are not just flagged, but some of the people that I've seen go through this, they go to Facebook jail for 30 days or for three months because of something that happened

or was commented on three years ago. But you can, you see my white counterparts can say whatever they want and the algorithm passes them by, similar to what you just saw on the TikTok. I've personally gone through things on Instagram when I was trying to post things last year regarding the election

and bringing awareness to it. Instagram wasn't having it, but I was seeing a lot of conservative stuff getting slipped through the cracks. So it's not just a TikTok issue. It is a social media platform issue. But TikTokers are very vocal, a lot more vocal about it.

I don't know if anybody heard about the Black content creator faux boycott a couple weeks ago with Meg Thee Stallion's song and how they just refused to create any content to that song because white people were stealing it. It's because the algorithms are pushing white people to the front on content that black people created. So you'll see the white people's content first, even though the black creator made it first. And they go viral and they get the money from advertisers and the like,

and black people, their IP is just gone. So it's a larger issue than TikTok, for sure. Faraji. Real quick, Mutule Nkonde, she's the CEO of AI for the People. You can find her on Twitter. But essentially a nonprofit communications agency that's fighting for racial justice in tech. issues last year with black content creators and how black content creators were expressing themselves. We got to know and recognize, just like Kelly said, that there are power in numbers. There are thousands of black content creators on TikTok. You don't need to have thousands of people to make a change. You could just get a couple of voices. The issue becomes whether we want to move away from that platform to create new platforms. Now, I know that there's some folks

that are out there that say, look, yeah, let's do that, let's do that. But the issue is the general public. How much are we willing to get off of the mainstream and to create some alternative spaces that black folks will be seen as equitable and that we can get our voices out there? Same way we do here on RMU. You know what I mean? Instead of you just saying, oh, I'm still looking at CNN and everything, subscribe and make sure that you put your investment into spaces like Roland Martin, there has to be that same level of conversation. And I think that we need to bring those folks from AI for the people and other folks who are already involved in tech equity, that we bring them to the table and have those conversations and y'all tell us what do we need to do?

Because at this point, folks are just looking at TikTok for the latest dance trend and changing clothes, Craig. At this point, we need to make some changes. Well, and that's why one of the things that I have been saying to people is to download this app

right here, Fanbase. We had Isaac Hayes III on the show. This is a Black-owned, Black-created social media app that actually allows for you to get paid, meaning the people who watch your videos, they can pay you directly. And so, folks, if you go

to Fanbase, I'm actually on Fanbase. Support Fanbase as well. And so, you know, we should blow this up. We make me real clear. We make, go ahead and leave this up. We make, let me be real clear. We make, go ahead and leave it up. We make a lot of other people rich.

We make other people billionaires. We make other folks mega successful. Clubhouse, black folks made that thing hot. Within nine months, they had a $4 billion valuation on it. There's no reason Fanbase right now doesn't have a million, two million, five million users. That's what should be happening. And so every one of us should be doing that. And so I even posted, I said, hey, if you're a black TikToker, you know what?

Don't put your damn videos on TikTok. Put your videos on Fanbase and tell all of your followers to come to fan base as well. Black on black control. I'm saying so folks, be sure to download it. All right. Y'all know what time it is. Too hard. Illegally selling water without a permit. On my property. Whoa! Hey! Give me your ID. You don't live here. I'm uncomfortable.

All right, folks. This crazy-ass white lady had the nerve to threaten some black kids at a playground by using racial slurs and literally chasing them around with a knife. Come with me. I got hands, nigga. Come with me. I got hands. slurs and literally chasing them around with a knife. What the fuck is that? What the fuck is that? What the fuck is that? What the fuck is that? Y'all wanna fucking fuck with my kids? Did you call them niggas fucking niggas? Watch you got a whole fucking weapon. You sound fucking dumb as fuck.

You don't buy it. You little... Guys, get away from me. What's up? I'm gonna call the cops. Stay away from them! What's up? What's the thing that's gonna bitch out here? I can't handle this! What? I got it.

I can't handle this! She called me an N-word, though. Because you're being one! A nigger is an ignorant person! Doesn't mean you're black, dumbass! But you can't say it! You can't say it! I can say whatever I want.

It's freedom of speech. I see, I see saying the N-word! She called see something, it worked. Stop calling me a hittin'. You beat up three of my kids. Two of your kids. Who are the three? Landon, Kai, and McKenna. No, they almost did. That girl, I don't hit girls, I hit niggas though.

No, they almost did. It doesn't matter. My kids weren't fucking with you. Yo, he called me the B word four times. He hashtag called Arrest Tara Rollin. Check this out. Last week, I told you all about a woman named Tara rolling, terrorizing children by chasing them with a knife, yelling racial slurs on school property. That's all I knew then. That's changed. I couldn't catch these kids. She needed backup.

She calls 9- She calls 911. Guess it's a crime to be a black child in Fort Wayne because they took Tara's side of the story and they took one of those children and put them in the back of the cruise. Not that that was good enough for them. They decided to threaten him with detention center and they didn't record any of it. Fort Wayne Police Department has been telling the advocacy group, the change makers, that they've had someone on the case for a while now. That's true at all matter of fact nobody went on the case until the day after i posted my video the parents have come forward the tape has been seen the media is silent the school system won't make a statement and the police aren't doing shit about it i need y'all to make some noise the image above me is everything that you can do to make some noise and calling for the arrest immediately of Tara Rowling.

It feels like a damn good day to get some justice. Let's make some noise. Well, after that video went viral, the social media user who posted it released this follow-up video. All right, that was one there. So basically what they're trying to do is they really want people, they really pressure the Fort Wayne, Indiana folks to get involved. They released a call of action for the rest of Tara.

Joining us right now is Positive AF, Alicia Roush, and Delaina Sanders, co-founders of Changemakers Fort Wayne. How y'all doing? Good. How are you? All right. Glad to have all of you here. All right. So to have all of you here. So. All right. So. So. So what has happened? What has happened? What has been the response? Is the city of Fort Wayne responding? Fort Wayne is barely responding. Our friend down there, Positive AF, actually helped us engage the audience in Fort Wayne, Indiana. You know,

Fort Wayne has been known as a city to be sleek and very complacent. And we knew that when we found out about this case. And so we knew that we would have to gather the army and the community outside of the city. And that's exactly what we did. Several influencers, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, just to see who's like-minded and who is actually brave enough to tackle this issue and speak about this issue. And Positive AF answered the call. So when you put this video out calling for the call to action, you made it perfectly clear.

You said, hey, let's get this thing going. Have folks been blowing your phone up? How have people been stepping in? Yeah, absolutely. People have been blowing it up i think when we started the hashtag we were at two uses of the hashtag of arrest terror rolling and now i think we're over 1.2 1.3 million so when i said in the video make some noise people are definitely making the noise i've seen a i've seen uh fort wayne be tagged on twitter i've seen it reposted

on facebook instagram we're definitely making noise matter of fact on one of our call to action I've seen Fort Wayne be tagged on Twitter. I've seen it reposted on Facebook, Instagram. We're definitely making noise. Matter of fact, on one of our call-to-action promos, there was a phone number to call the lead detective on this case, and people blew up his phone number so much he actually had it disconnected. So I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but it definitely shows where Fort Wayne stands as far as Tara Rowling is concerned. Well, we have a replacement phone number for everyone, and we put that out as well. So that one is shut off, but we have a new one.

We're going to call the chief of police. So the fact that she terrorized these folks and nothing has been done so far is crazy to me. It's crazy, but it's not surprising. Go ahead. The thing is, from the protests in the summer, last summer

in this city, we're not surprised by the way that the police has responded. The mayor here actually put together a commission that was supposed to address the relationship between the Fort Wayne Police Department and the community, which was very volatile. It was a dangerous relationship just because there was no trust. And there was also a lot of implicit bias.

There's a racist culture on that department. And we're seeing that actually play out in this case because they are dragging their feet. They're saying that they need more and more and more. And we actually go out and go fishing for more, bring it back to them, and then they say they need something else. The prosecutor hasn't even touched the prosecutor's desk. I talked to the chief of police office today, and they said, well, we're going to need you all to give us more time. And we told them that we've given you guys two months already.

She should have been arrested as soon as they found out about this, which was May 29th. May 29th, and they have not done anything. And still, as of this morning, don't plan to do anything. What else do y'all want the public to do? Are you planning any public protests, anything along those lines? Well, yeah, we're definitely going to move forward with public protests. You know, if we don't see the results that we want. You know, we want her arrested. She needs to be charged with criminal recklessness, intent to harm a minor. You know, we can't let something like this go in our community. We just had a few months back,

we had three Black men, Black boys, actually, 19, 18-year-old boys shot, and two of them were killed by a white man. They were literally hunted down in this city. And then we have this happen. So it seems like there's a pattern, and they're getting comfortable with doing these things. And so we need to stand up and make sure that she's held accountable for her actions. It's not okay for an adult to chase a child in a public park or on school property with a knife. It doesn't matter what happened before. It doesn't matter what happened after. It's illegal.

It's a felony. If it had been Daylon Asanas or Alicia Roush that had that knife in their hands chasing little white kids, we would have been arrested. Matter of fact, if we were chasing little black kids, we would have been arrested as well. And so the system is actually protecting Tara Rowling. And she knew that she was going to be protected, which is why she was so comfortable doing that to black kids while calling them the N-word. So moving forward,

they have a limited amount of time to address this situation. We're not going to give them that date, Roland. We're not going to give them that date, but they have a limited amount of time, which we told them today. But we want to rally the troops. Everybody in Fort Wayne, Indiana, everyone in the surrounding cities in Fort Wayne, Indiana,

we want you all to be ready. Just like that video that you guys saw going around. I don't remember what city that was, Roland, but you just talked about it, where the city came out. And with that man's address, that's the energy that we need in Fort Wayne, Indiana. So we're putting everybody on notice that we want you all to be ready. But we put out that call to go to the police station or we got to go to the chief's house. We're going to protest there. or we got to go to the chief's house we're going to

protest there so we want you all to continue in the meantime one look at the graphic we want you guys to call the chief of police office it's there we want you guys to email and call the prosecutor office of the prosecutor's office keep on with the action items. They have a very limited time, guys. And then we're going to have to turn back the mood. We will. Positive AF, your final comment. Yeah, I just want to say actually two things. One thing about the segment you had before about Ziggy, that's nothing new. As far as black creators on TikTok, they are definitely suppressed.

And as far as Ziggy personally, I don't know him, but I couldn't even follow him. Once he posted his videos, you couldn't duet, you couldn't stitch, you couldn't comment half the time, and you couldn't follow him as well. And as far as Tara Rowling is concerned, TikTok currently has me on a ban because I posted a video about a sexual offender that was on their app that's been banned several times. As soon as that ban comes up, if nothing's been done with Tara Rowling, we're going in again. We're just going to keep making noise until Fort Wayne does anything. Because as far as I can see it, they're not doing anything at all to solve this problem. Well, what you could also do is you can also just send us a video because we're on TikTok,

Roland Martin Unfiltered. So, hell, we can post it. Absolutely. I'll get something and I'll send it right to you. That's how we do it. All right, folks, I appreciate it. Let us know how this thing ends up. Thank you. Great work. Thanks a lot. All right, folks, going to break when we come back.

Essence Festival, the second weekend, took place last weekend. We'll talk with one of the editors about that and show you also some of what took place for our recap of the 2021 Virtual Essence Festival. That is next on Rolling Martin Unfiltered. When you study the music, you get black history by default. unfiltered. A rapper, you know, for the longest period of time, has gone through phases. I love the word. I hate what it's become, you know,

and to this generation, the way they visualize it. Its narrative kind of, like, has gotten away and spun away from, I guess, the ascension of black people. Black women have always been essential. So now how are you going to pay us like that? And it's not just the salary. I mean, there are a whole number of issues that have to support us as women.

Yeah, but that's what we deserve. We shouldn't have to beg anybody for that. I think that we are trying to do our best as a generation to honor the fact that we didn't come here alone and we didn't come here by accident. I always say every generation has to define for itself what it means to move the needle forward. I'm Chrisette Michelle. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Unfiltered. Thank you. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, Thank you. All right, fam! Fam, fam!

If y'all want to watch the 2021 Essence Virtual Live Loud experience, go to essencestudios.com or essence.com. Folks, there were a lot of star-studded performances and guest appearances, including India Arie, Ray, Lisa Ray, Fat Joe, Busta Rhymes, Waylay, and many more. Here is a recap of this weekend. I made it on for a go-go, and I made it with that dope flow. This one right here for DC, this one right here for Polo.

See my PA palace flow, Hugo Boston palace flow. Here they keep that practical, tip the trigger, I said no. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I get like 80 of them, they clapping, and we balling. How fitting, we at stadium. You're actually about to get a scoop, because I've never really talked to anybody really about my skin story, but I have an interesting one. Okay. Because when you said my skin looked good

and glowing and clear, this has been a long journey to get to this point with me and my skin. When I was young, I had very, very, very troubled skin. I would say my skin stayed troubled until I was probably 19. And so what I learned as I got older

was that I had allergies that I didn't know I had. I was eating what everybody else ate, but it was affecting my body different than it affected everyone else because I'm she trolling. That girl is a real crepe. Small world, all the friends know me. Young boy living like an orgy.

Quick release the cash, watch it fall slowly. My mom loved makeup, and I would just always look at her in the mirror and be like, wow, you know what I'm saying? And her sisters and stuff, and her sisters that have eyes like me, I would feel like, like, wow, you know what I'm saying? And her sisters and stuff, and her sisters that have eyes like me, I would feel like, ooh, when I get older, I'm gonna wear green. And I'm gonna put those patches on too,

and I'm gonna wear a wig too. And look at me now. Look at me. There you are. The face is neat. And like what Claudia said, the older that you get, the more I like the fresh face look. We did a show of Cocktails with Queens

with a spa face, fresh face, and we all looked incredible. Essence Festival. I've been waiting my whole life for this. I go by the name of Fat Joe. Shante. Daryl. Daryl Swart. Let's get it.

Be about us. Be about us. Be about trust. What's love? Got to do. Got to do with it, baby. What's love? It's about us. It's about trust.

Come on. What's love? Got to do. Got to do with it, baby. What's love? It should be about us. It should be about you. Woo! Bitch, you with the Dylane.

So what you saying, yo? Silly with the 9 milli. What the deal, yo? When I be on the mic, it's just I do my duty, yo. I ride up in the club like we wild in the studio. You don't want to violate. Nigga really is Julio. I mean, stop.

Nigga named Julio. He Mulio, ay. Slappy nigga did the sloppy with the Julio. Bitch, skip to that. Act Fulio, X-Stack.. Hey. Slappy with the Julio. Uh-huh. Bitch, get to that. Act Fruity-o, X-Stack. Looking shorty, see a little cutie on the waist. He say it make me want to get up. Hit the booty-o top.

It's just the penguins, missus, and videos. Hey. I wear my freak like we up in the freak shows. I hit you with the shit, make you feel it on your toes. Hey. Hot shit, got on my people in wet clothes. Now style up my malefauce, run out for my lady, my flows. And if you don't, then you fucking with me, my bad bros. I want to thank everybody out there for representing, showing love.

It's all love, and it's always going to be love. All the fans out there, we love y'all. We appreciate y'all. Y'all make some noise for Wale, Fat Joe, Ray Sherman, Busta Rhymes. Come on, legendary. Peace and love. Bless up. That's right, the Eston Festival of Culture.

We the biggest. All right, joining us right now is Eston's entertainment editor, Brandi Victorian. Brandi, how you doing? All right, I said again, I want to make sure all of y'all can hear you. Oh, can you hear me? There we go. There we go. All right, then. So certainly being virtual is a lot different from all of the in-person energy and excitement of New Orleans. Annually, 400 plus thousand people travel to the city. Any preliminary numbers in terms of how y'all did

in terms of viewership over the two weekends? No, we're still counting our numbers because the streams are still coming in. The great thing about having a hybrid virtual festival is that people are still streaming now. So this happened over two weekends, the 25th through the 27th and the 2nd through

the 4th this past weekend. But people are still streaming on Essence.com and EssenceStudios.com, so we don't have final numbers just yet. So there were a lot of obviously moving parts here to put all of this together. And so how many different venues were things shot in different cities? Three different venues in New Orleans alone, or four actually. In New Orleans alone, we were at Crescent Park and Wellesley Barrel Stadium doing our concerts, having our panel conversations. And that was a really amazing experience because residents of New Orleans could be live for those live-to-tape activations there.

So that was a really special way to just thank them for letting us come to their city every year, take over year after year there. And then we also taped, you know, Jasmine Sullivan, our headliner. We had her in Philly, you know, DJ Khaled in LA. And so we had, you know, things going on in every single city, which is what you can do when it's virtual for this amazing experience that we had online. So, but now you had it on Essence.com, EssenceStudios.com, but then, was it also on your Facebook page, YouTube

channel? How many different platforms were you on? Yes. Essence.com, EssenceStudios.com, Facebook as well, Instagram. You know, we had our Instagram live with Versus that happened this past Thursday, Bobby Brown and Keith Sweat, which is an amazing experience that we have. And then Twitter. So we had watch parties this past weekend when you could see DJ Callen and all his friends there.

So all our social networks and our sites. There was now in terms of curating all of this, that was also that also that had to be a challenge. Huge undertaking, you know, shout out to our team. You know, last year, obviously, we had to pivot to be fully virtual because of the pandemic. And this year, you know, we are still in a pandemic. Things are opening up a bit. And so that's why we were able to do some of those live activations on the ground. But the great thing about virtual, again, everyone, no matter where they were, could experience the festival and they can keep experiencing it now. And so it was a lot of moving parts, as you said. But we're so grateful to the talent also, which is excited about getting back out there, excited to be performing again and just work with us to have a safe experience,

but an amazing dynamic experience. And obviously everyone is thinking that you're gonna be back in New Orleans for 2022. Has that decision actually been made or is it still gonna be driven by COVID? Yeah, we wanna keep everyone safe as a priority. So we definitely are gonna keep waiting out, see how things happen with COVID, just to make sure we're taking care of everyone.

But obviously the hope is that we can be back in New Orleans with everyone in the city like we've been for the past 27 years. And so in terms of how you also are now going to curate the content, you certainly posted clips and things along those lines on your different platforms. But are y'all going to be doing any restreaming or is it simply all going to be VOD? Yes, we have VOD. And then the streams are now on, again, EssenceFestival.com. You can watch.

We have Beauty Carnival. We have Wellness House. We have the Gospel Celebration. We have the Wealth and Power Stage. And so whatever you're interested in, you know, we've had Michelle Williams, the Afro Minimalist, Adrienne Bailon, all these great

speakers come out. And so if you go to essencefestival.com, you can click on those different conversations, stream it now, and tap into whatever interests you, as well as the concerts. So you can see those full performances there as well. And so one of the things that, so out of all different things that both weekends, yeah,

I'm going to actually put you on the spot, which was a better weekend, the first or the second? I don't know. Yep, yep. Sorry. Suck it up. Got to answer. They were different. Nah, suck it up. Got to answer. They were different.

You know that? Ah, okay, okay. Go ahead. But we have to shout out, I mean, our headliner, Jasmine Sullivan. You know, she's an amazing vocalist. She's our headliner this year.

She's also our cover star for our July-August issue. And we actually had a special New Orleans to L.A. watch party during BET weekend. And audiences were glued. You know, we're in person, but we're watching our screen and watching her sing. So I have to give my props to Jasmine there.

But DJ Khaled and his friends did his thing this past weekend, too. So that's a tough one. All right, then. Well, look, we certainly appreciate it. We hopefully did our part for the last three weeks, partnering with Coca-Cola, promoting it every single day, pushing people to check it out. And so hopefully the numbers were through the roof.

And I can't wait for us to be back in New Orleans because we dipped into our personal archives, pulling out a whole bunch of stuff from the past decade, different Essence Festival moments. Yes, we can't wait to see you on the ground either. All right. Brandon, Victoria, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Take care. All right. Thank you so very much. Folks, I think we have, do we have another Essence throwback? All right. Roll it. Thank you. All right, folks. And so we've got so much stuff.

We're going to actually be sharing more of our content over the next couple of days. So we're going to do it through Friday. Folks, some sad news. Yesterday we got word that actress Suzanne Douglas, you might remember her from the show Parenthood with Robert Townsend, also star in the Inkwell and How Stella Got Her Groove Back. She passed away at the age of 64.

Not only was she an award-winning actress, also was an amazing singer as well. Also very much involved in her church in New Jersey as well as in Delta Sigma Theta. I got a chance to meet her at their convention, I think it was in 2011 when it was in New Orleans. And so she was very much involved in some of the community endeavors. Yesterday and last night had an opportunity to communicate with a lot of her co-stars, Phyllis Javon Stickney,

Joe Morton, Inkwell director Maddie Rich, also communicated with just others who just shared, Robert Townsend as well. These are some of the tweets that people put out. Robert Townsend, he and I talked last night. He posted, my heart is full because yesterday I lost my amazing dancing partner on TV for five years, Suzanne Douglas. We did work on the parenthood.

I just remember a lot of laughter and a lot of tears. Her regal bright light will be missed. Next up, Jada Pinkett Smith. She also, I reached out to Jada last night talking with her people, letting them know about the passing as well. Because it wasn't actually a passing. It was a passing. Jada Pinkett Smith. She also, I reached out to Jada last night talking with her people, letting them know about the passing as well. Because it wasn't actually shared with a lot of folks.

Again, her family posted items on Facebook page. She's a Chicago native, was an Illinois State University graduate and earned a master's in music degree from a Manhattan School of Music, also NAACP Image Award winner for the movie Tap. She also played Sissy Houston, Mother Whitney Houston, in the 2015 biopic Whitney's School of Rock. She also was in various face series.

And her last show was, of course, she was in Ava DuVernay's When They See Us by the Central Park Five. Let's again go back to, here's the tweet from Jada, first of all, from Niecy Nash. RIP Suzanne Douglas. She was not only a class act, but a gentle soul. So talented. Grateful for having the chance to work together on When They See Us. Too much fun when Kaepernick came to set. Take wing, queen.

Let's pull up the Jada Peekinsmith tweet as well. First of all, this is Reagan Gomez. I'm at such a loss. I was a Philly kid straight off the Greyhound bus who took a lot of things for granted. Watching you work and move gracefully from scene to scene made me love and respect the business, our talks we had, lots of them. You taught me so much. I will never forget you. J.D. Pinkett Smith, I woke up this morning to the news that Suzanne Douglas passed away. I worked with Suzanne in the film Equal. She was an elegant, gentle, warm spirit.

My deepest condolences to her family and loved ones. May she rest in love. And also, let's see, Viola Davis, Aw man, I remember being at a party with you. I was just about 10 of us. We talked about, first of all, I'm trying to read this monitor, y'all. Let me just actually pull up Viola's Instagram here. We got it in very small print,

so that's why it's a little hard to see the monitor. Let's see here, Viola. And like I said, if you actually go to all the social media platforms and type in her hashtag, you will see a lot of the posts that have been made with regards to Suzanne Douglas. This is, of course, is one of them. Let me just pull it up on my phone here, folks. Viola Davis, all right, here we go.

And so this is her post. She said, oh man, I remember being at a party with you. It was just about 10 of us. We talked about life, race, the world. We laughed, ate, shared. I'm so happy I got to tell you how much I loved your work. R.I.P. Beautiful, talented, dancing queen.

As I said, I got a chance to communicate with Jo Morton, who played her husband in The Inkwell. We talked about how amazing she was as well. And Phyllis Siobhan Stickney, she and I text earlier, and she said this. And Phyllis Yvonne Stickney, she and I text earlier, and she said this, she said, yes, she is my sister from before Hollywood. I loved her, her spirit, her talent, her style, and grace.

No word when there would be funeral arrangements for Suzanne Douglas, again, the actress and the singer, passing away at the age of 64. Let me thank our panel. I appreciate y'all being with us. Thank you so very much, Bernarda, Kelly, and Faraji. Thank you so very much for a great conversation that we had today.

Folks, if y'all want to support what we do, we gotta create our own platforms to speak to our issues, to celebrate our own like Suzanne Douglas. They're likely not going to get the kind of attention on mainstream media, but that's why we do what we do, to show our appreciation. So please do so by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. Our goals, they have 20,000 of you. Contribute $50 a year.

Average $50 a year. $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day. You can do so by going to Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered, paypal.me forward slash rmartinunfiltered, venmo.com forward slash rmunfiltered, Zelle is rolling at rollingusmartin.com or rolling at rollingmartinunfiltered.com.

And so there are folks who have given less than people who have given more. We appreciate every single dollar because it goes a long way to contributing what we do. Tomorrow on the show, we'll be talking about, first of all, before tomorrow's show, tomorrow morning there's an unveiling of a Crown Act mural here in Washington, D.C.

We're gonna be live streaming that at 10 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning. So be sure to check that out. We'll have coverage of that on the show as well. So looking forward to that. So I'll see y'all tomorrow right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Holla! So be sure to check that out. We'll have coverage of that on the show as well. So looking forward to that. So I'll see y'all tomorrow right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Holla!

Thank you, everyone. We'll be right back. 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. 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.

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