#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Jayland Walker Latest, VP Harris @ AKA 70th Boule, TX Abortion Suit, NY Shooter Federal Indictment

Episode Date: July 15, 2022

7.14.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Jayland Walker Latest, VP Harris @ AKA 70th Boule, TX Abortion Suit, NY Shooter Federal Indictment Jayland Walker was laid to rest yesterday. Yet the eight officers who fired 90 times and hit Jayland over 60 times have not been identified. Tonight I talk to Jayland's cousin and the Walker family attorney about the latest in the case, and we'll hear from the Akron police chief why he will not name those officers who fired those fatal shots.  The white supremacist who killed ten innocent black people in a Buffalo grocery store gets hit with a 27 federal hate crime indictment.  Texas' Republican attorney general asks a federal court to block the Biden administration's requirement that physicians and hospitals provide abortions in medical emergencies. The Department of Justice establishes a reproductive task force.  Vice President Kamala Harris made an appearance at the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.'s 70th Boule. You'll hear what she had to say to her sorority sisters.  Russia warns the U.S. about pressuring for the release of Brittany Griner, who makes her third court appearance today.  And show you my conversation with Johnson C. Smith University's President, Clarence Armbrister, with who I caught up when I was in Atlanta at the United Negro College Fund's conference.  Support RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Let's get it. Today is Thursday, July 14th, 2022. Coming up on Roland Martin on a filter. Streaming live on the Black Star Network. In Ohio, Jalen Walker was laid to rest yesterday. The eight officers who fired 90 shots that hit him 60 times have not been identified. Tonight, I'll talk with Jalen's cousin and the Walker family attorney about the latest in the case, and we'll hear from the Akron police chief why he will not name those officers who fired those fatal shots.

The white supremacist who killed 10 innocent black people in a Buffalo grocery store got hit with a 27 federal hate crime indictment today. Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton asked a federal court to block the Biden administration's requirement that physicians and hospitals provide abortions in medical emergencies. Speaking of that, Vice President Kamala Harris was welcomed by 12,000 AKAs in Orlando. She talked about the issue of reproductive rights, also voter suppression, and the midterm elections. We'll have that for you. Plus, the DOJ is establishing a reproductive task force, so we'll tell you about that as well. Russia warned the U.S. about pressuring for the release of Brittney Griner, who makes her third court appearance

today, and I will show you my conversation with Johnson C. Smith University's president, Clarence Armbruster, who I caught up with at the United Negro College Fund's Summit on Higher Education. That and more on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the find.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin

Yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Rollin' Martin Now He's real the best you know he's rollin' Martel now Martel! We are going to see the king

Hallelujah, hallelujah We are going to see the King soon, soon and very soon. We are going to see the King soon, soon and very soon. We are going to see the King soon, soon and very soon. That was a funeral of Jalen Walker, which took place yesterday in Akron, Ohio. A number of people, were there. Akron Mayor Dan Horgan and Police Chief Steve Milet resumed

their daily press conferences today. Chief Milet was asked when the names of the officers involved in Walker's death would be released. Of course, Jalen Walker was shot. 90 shots were fired at him, 60 hitting him. Here's what the Chief said. I was under the impression at the conclusion of the grand jury's findings that the attorney

general's office would release that. I have been challenged with that answer. So we're trying to get a clear direction from the attorney general's office. I am not releasing their names. Again, I've been very clear on this. Our officers have been threatened. Akron's officers have been threatened. And I'm not trying to hide anything or anything like that. But we all, the mayor, myself, the deputy mayor, we have a responsibility to provide a safe and secure place for all people in Akron. We also have that responsibility for our employees. And I believe based on the threats that have been made against our officers, releasing their names would only increase the level of threats against them. And I'm afraid people, you know, some people may act on those threats. And I'm going to do everything in my power to ensure that doesn't happen. So you protect the officers, but you don't protect Jalen Walker.

Gotcha. Joining me now, Jalen's cousin, Pastor Robert Bajernet from Akron, and the Walker family attorney, Bobby DiCello from Cleveland. Bobby, first of all, let me start with you. Is there any type of law in Ohio that says that the chief doesn't have to release it? So is he just choosing on his own not to release their names? Oh, he's choosing on his own not to release the names. He's using the excuse of a threat to an officer to do that. Look, no one involved in Jalen's case on our side, the family side, wants to see anyone harmed.

And so the most important thing to focus on right now is what you pointed out. They are protecting each other. They are not and have not been interested in apologizing, initiating immediate changes by installing dash cams, or doing any other immediate policy moves that would give this family, the family I love and represent, the kind of comfort in knowing that the city is serious about taking accountability for the over 90 bullets that they shot at Jalen and over 60 of which hit him. So, yeah, we're not happy about the situation with the chief making that excuse. When you hear that, Robert, just what comes to mind? Frustrated. Very, very frustrated because, you know, this is my family we're talking about. And, you know, and I work with the city,

you know, and a lot of work that I do. And I'm just so frustrated with this because I want to protect my family. Our family want answers. So whatever it is that our family, the resolution that our family needs, that's what I really want. I'm just the flesh right now, and the anger that I feel to come out in a negative way. This lack of information, Bobby, is obviously concerning to all. For folks who, again, who have not been following the story, what actually happened here? How did we arrive at this point where eight cops fired 90 shots at one man? What happened, Roland, is that the officers lost control, period. End of story. And the reason they lost control was they began to pursue Jalen and their adrenaline started to flow.

And then they issued a call of shots, plural, fired, which was wrong. At no time did Jalen fire a weapon at any officer and no video. And there are 13 of them. At no time do you see a gun pointed at any officer, and that is extremely important. We also believe that they sent out a code which suggests that an officer was in danger, which again was an overreaction to the circumstances. All they had to do was call off the chase, and Jalen would be here today. In any event, what they did was they pursued him, they then blocked off the streets, leaving him nowhere to go. He ran from his vehicle. And while he was running away, 10 officers used force, not eight. We've got to get that clear. The first two used tasers, nonlethal force. And they missed. And had they made their mark, Jalen would be here today. But they missed,

and Jalen continued to run. And as he continued to run, he faced over 90 bullets. And that's what took him down, over 60 of which wounded him and killed him. What is strange here, and this is one of those things we often talk about here, Robert, when someone is running away, I mean, first of all, you have someone's vehicle, you have someone's address, you have their name, you know how to find them. I mean, deadly force is deadly. I mean, you don't come back from death. And we keep seeing these things happen where officers choose deadly force when they don't have to?

Not just deadly force, but excessive deadly force. And, you know, that shouldn't happen to anyone, regardless of, especially Jalen didn't have a record. I would have thought they would look up his license plates, see that, you know, he's no threat. And he was, you know, we saw the video. I know he was scared. And he ran.

And, you know, regardless of what they say happened before then, no one deserves to be shot down like that. Have you heard anything from the DA, Bobby? Are they actually, I mean, is there a real investigation? Are they moving forward with presenting anything to the grand jury? Roland, we've not been contacted by any investigative agencies. We don't expect to. Here's what I expect. And let's remember, during the actual press conference that the chief put together, the

superintendent for the Bureau of Criminal Investigation sat in the front row with the officers from the city of Akron. So what do I think is going to happen? Well, I think they're going to do an investigation. They're going to end up blaming Jalen, and then they're going to end up either finding no reason to prosecute these officers, or they're going to try to come up with a neutral position for others to argue about. So we are going to issue our recommendations for this prosecution in the coming days. It'll be a multi-step plan that we would urge the governor to apply in this case and certainly the attorney general to follow.

We believe that the existing setup, which would put this case in the hands of the local prosecutor, is the wrong approach. All right, then. We certainly are going to continue to watch this case. Barbara DiCello, as well as Mr. Desjardins. I certainly appreciate it, Robert. Thank you so very much. And again, condolences to the family. Thank you so much, Roland, for continuing to do what you do. You do it well.

I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. I'm going to go to our panel here to talk about this. Erica Savage, founder of The Reframed Brain. Racy Colbert, founder of Black Women Views, Dr. Greg Carr, Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University. You know, this is a thing that we continue to say over and over and over again, Recy, when it comes to why you need the George Floyd Policing Act,

why you need to see that taking place. You've got to rein in these police departments. You've got to change these pursuits. We talked about yesterday about the cop who wasn't charged for killing a bystander in Houston as the cop was speeding 80 to 100 miles an hour. This guy was just going to get a haircut and he ends up dead. No charges against the cop as if nothing happened. 90 shots fired at this one guy, 60 of them hitting him. Really? Yeah, I mean, ultimately, that's not policing, that's hunting. And that's hunting a human being. And, you know, I don't think this is a matter of them losing control. I think they were very much

in control of their faculties and deliberate about the way that they were pumped up. They were pumped up on adrenaline and, of course, white supremacy and feeling empowered to obliterate a Black man from what started as a traffic stop. It's beyond excessive. And the only thing that one can really draw from this circumstance is that they wanted to send a message about who they believe is in charge, and that's them. And they have the power to take a life away from a human being, no matter how minor the initial encounter started over. And when you contrast this with, you know, the situation in Uvalde, when you had police officers stopping fully armed with full gear for hand sanitizer when a person was in, a monster was in a room with children

killing them for almost an hour. And yet they see a Black man running, nowhere to go, no, you know, no imminent danger, and they decide to have a firing squad. It's absolutely appalling. And it's even more disgusting how the police chief in Akron is using this as an opportunity to further shield all cops from any kind of accountability, you know, to be asking cops who sit up there and execute Black citizens for no damn reason for their name tags or call an officer on the scene or a supervisor on the scene to further escalate the police presence? It's intimidation, it's hunting, and it's just disgusting. And yes, the one thing that the George Floyd Justice and Policing Act, it will change the standard from fearing for your life or believing that you were in danger to it being actually necessary. And nobody can argue that this was necessary. Erica?

Oh, absolutely. I agree with everything that Recy said. And there won't be enough bloodshed. They are literally bloodthirsty bounty hunters. We have to remember the way that they brought Jalen's deceased body in. They brought his deceased body into the medical examiner's office with handcuffs. This is who they are. And to continue to have these conversations about, well, what is it? You know, we don't, we think that, you know, what happened was warranted or justified. And we see continual examples of white folks that are discharging weapons, killing people who are brought in peacefully, stopped by Burger King so that they can have a light meal before they go into the booking facility. We see a stark contrast there. And so with that being said, knowing who's in charge, which it is those public taxpaying

servants who are supposed to be law enforcement, and understanding who's their leader, the chief, who they're backed by, the mayor. And then when we think about overall Ohio as a state, they have a Trump-backed governor. This is where people have to exercise their voices and not sit on the sidelines as if there's nothing that they can do. They can raise the standard not only in their community, but in their state as well. And this is the importance of elections. This is the importance of making sure that people on the local and the state level match the energy of the people that are in that state.

Greg? I mean, of course, and we continue in this vein. It's been hard for me, and I said this a couple of times, you know, the last couple of months, to keep out of my music rotation, Jay Dilla's remix of NWA's F to Police. Dilla says, you know, now who protects me from you? All the brothers see on the news is cop corruption. Brothers getting popped for nothing. Sisters getting popped for nothing. Cops pull out the Glock and bust them.

You need to get shot for nothing. See, we don't hold back. We let go. We don't say damn. We just say. We don't say, damn. We just say, whoa. Now, what does that mean? How's that fit into Brother Steve my left? I like you, Steve. I love you for this. You see, because you

are pushing unintended consequences. We know that the hunters, the executioners, the paddler rollers are all the same. You take off a name plate, you know what you're reinforcing? That you're all the same. You take off a name plate, you know what you're reinforcing? That you're all the same. Nobody protects us from you but us.

And when these young cats and these people who are not ministers and politicians and elected officials and folks who are out trying to organize to do this through public policy, you see, when you catch their attention, yeah, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to Della's after police.

We don't, you know, hold back. We just let go. We don't say, damn, we just say, whoa, you understand. So what you have done, Mr. Chief, you have now upped the endangerment of every cop on your force, because instead of trying to identify individuals and use the language of he wasn't a threat or he didn't deserve it, which is, of course, shifting from the killers to the people who are being killed, but take off the nameplate. Take it all off. The unintended consequences is going to be that we will finally eventually get down to the issue. You, sir, must be not only relieved of duty, the force that you have and every other force that is killing us daily needs to be dismantled, needs to be dismantled.

And that's not going to come from polite people in meetings and task force. That's going to come from them cats in the street who asking the question, who protects me from you bumping Dylan in a car? You didn't do nothing, chief, except take it one step closer to resolution. It is certainly one of those sad examples of what we continue to see in this country about out-of-control police. All right, folks, got to go to break. When we come back, we'll talk more news of the day, black and missing. Also, Vice President Kamala Harris goes to Orlando to speak to 12,000 of her sorority sisters, whether AKs are meeting for their boule. Also, the shooter in Buffalo who killed 10 black shoppers

hit with a new federal indictment. We'll tell you about that on Roland Martin Unpiltered. If you're watching on Facebook or YouTube, hit the like button, folks. We should be at 1,000 likes easy. Also, we want you to support us in what we do. Download the Black Star Network app, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, X-Box One, Samsung Smart TV.

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And on the next Get Wealthy, have you heard that it's not how much you earn, but how much you keep that matters? Well, the secret to building wealth could be hidden in our tax code. That's right. Joining me on the next Get Wealthy is someone who calls herself the gatekeeper to the IRS. And she's going to be sharing the secrets and strategies you need to know, whether you're a business owner or an individual, how you can get wealthy. That's right here, only on Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood-Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy.

Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. Hi, I'm Teresa Griffin. Hi, my name is LaToya Luckett missing from Little Rock, Arkansas since June 28th. The 16 year old is 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 110 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Jay Brianna has a nose piercing and braces. Anyone with information about Jay Brianna Turner should call the North Little Rock, Arkansas Police Department at 501-371-4829. 501-371-4829.

The white man accused of gunning down 10 black shoppers in a Buffalo, New York, grocery store is indicted today on 27 federal charges. Peyton Jenden is charged with 14 violations of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act and 13 firearms offenses in connection with the May 14th mass shooting. Attorney General Mary Garland said the Justice Department fully recognizes the threat that white supremacist violence poses to the safety of the American people and American democracy. We will continue to be relentless in our efforts to combat hate crimes, to support the communities terrorized by them, and to hold accountable those who perpetrate them. On June 1st, a Buffalo grand jury returned a 25-count indictment against Gendron. All right, so let me repeat that again for all the people out there who sort of missed that.

And that is he was indicted for violating the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act. Now, if you listen to a bunch of these people out here on Twitter, as well as YouTube, who keep yelling, oh, we need an anti-black hate crimes law. That's what the act is. Oh, but then they get upset because they say, oh, because the white guy who's gay is on the same bill. Y'all, they were killed in the same year. They were killed in the same year. So it boggles the mind, Greg, to listen to these people who go, I mean, last night, Luther Campbell had this Twitter spaces conversation

where they wanted me to come on. I was like, I'm not dealing with them, with them FBA nuts, but I'm sitting here and all of these people keep yelling. And I saw some tweets today how we need a anti-black hate crimes law when literally there are laws right now to deal with the very issue

so what do you make of all these people greg who keep saying no no no no it needs to be i even had one person tell me no it needs to be only for black people because they are convinced the as Asians got a hate crime law and they didn't. But it is the craziest thing to keep listening to these black people yell this constantly. I think you're on mute, Greg. My bad. Yes, sir. Thank you, Ronald. I will leave this, of course, to Recy, who has been preaching this from the rooftops to anybody who will listen to this question of weaponized ignorance.

I think that's one of three strains. One strain is the righteous, legitimate strain, the sentiment that we have not been served well in this state. We know that since we were brought here. So that feeling, I think, is honest. You know, we want something for us. We should be redressed. And I don't have any smoke for that. I mean, I feel it.

I share it. Then there is the strain that is a lot less difficult, I mean, a lot more difficult to grapple with, and that is the strain of miseducation. And, you know, as a teacher, I look at our young people and I just despair for them. And even as I'm with them all the time, daily, in trying to deal with this question of education, because technology and all the shifts in the society have basically overwhelmed us with ignorance. And so there's not even five seconds to read a bill or to know even

that a bill exists or understand even how the law works, as you, who have the patience of Job, did indeed dip into that conversation with Uncle Luke and them the other night and walked people through and said, we need a new schoolhouse rock. And even in that little engagement, Roland, I saw in the wake of it, there were people who echoed some of your talking points. And as you walked through it, I realized that can change minds. But then that leads to the third one. And again, I'll leave this to Recy. We have real enemies out there. We have real enemies who are elevating and amplifying the voices of some hardcore, straight up con men like Tariq Nasheed and others. And those who may have good intentions like Uncle Luke, but also might not have good intentions. Where's the revenue stream coming

from? But the open enemies are weaponizing it and overwhelming our people to the point where can't nobody tell nothing about nothing. And then in the middle of that, you drop some foolishness and the thing just grows like mold in the dark. This right here, Recy, that I'm looking at right now, let me go ahead and connect this to our Roku device so I can show the people on the screen. This right here that I am pulling up is remarks from Attorney General Eric Holder on the 10th anniversary of this particular bill. Now, again, for all the people out there who keep yelling, hollering, and screaming, we have to, we need an anti-black hate crimes law. This is what this actually says.

The Matthew Shepard and James Burt Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009 provides funding and technical assistance to state, local, and tribal jurisdictions to help them to more effectively investigate and prosecute hate crimes. It also creates a new federal criminal law which criminalizes willfully causing bodily injury or attempting to do so with fire, firearm, or other dangerous weapon when, one, the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin of any person, or two, the crime was committed because of the actual or perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person and the crime affected interstate or foreign commerce or occurred within federal, special, maritime, and territorial jurisdiction.

There are three subsections in here that he lays out. Y'all are looking at the subsections. I'm slowly going through this because, Recy, it is crazy to listen to these people who have read nothing, who refuse to read anything, who continue to advance this lie that, oh, the Asians got a bill. The Asians got a bill. They don't even know what the hell's in the bill. Oh, the Asians got, the bill has money just for Asians. No, it doesn't.

And they go through this, and then you take these simple Simons who run with it, and they advance it on social media. And then I even had one person come at me and say in one of those, I think it was in that Twitter space with Luke. Why can't we get a anti-police bill? This is no lie, Recy. He literally said, why can't we have an anti-police bill that only applies to black people? You know, this is like insanity. And I mean, to Dr. Carr's point, there is a righteous indignation. There's a righteous grievance that black people have within this country. The way that we are mistreated, black people are still the number one victims of hate crimes in this

country. So there is a righteous grievance with the way that we are constantly attacked, whether it be by the police state, whether it be by hateful monsters and people like the Buffalo shooter. That part is righteous. That part is valid. What's not valid, I love the way Dr. Carr said miseducation, is the disinformation and misinformation campaigns that are targeting and exploiting the pain and the trauma and the violence against Black people

to keep us dumbed down, dissuaded from doing anything to improve the situation and trying to fight battles that our ancestors have already damn won. And it's not even it's not even right to say ancestors, because a lot of those people are still living. Diane Nash, Fred Gray, people who were just awarded with the presidential meet of the meet him presidential medal last week. OK, these people are still here and it's disrespectful to their legacy and to the battles that have been won to disregard that. The blood that was shed for James Byrd Jr. was horrific. And for the people that say that Obama never did anything for black people, the Matthew J. The Matthew Shepard and the James Byrd Jr. act was under President Obama.

OK, and for people to say, well, they just gave the Blacks something so that they can give the gays something, that's ignorant as fuck. That's embarrassing that you actually believe that a Black man dying in and of itself isn't justification for saying we need to expand the hate crimes protections that we have.

So what happens with us, and this is something that the Mueller report detailed, this is something that Vice President Kamala Harris has talked about. This is something that is well documented. There are chaos campaigns that target Black people, not so that we can be converted one way or another, because the common thread from these chaos agents is that I'm nonpartisan. I don't like the Republicans either. But they know that their charge is to get Black people to not vote at all. And when that happens, you are not affecting any kind of change. You're just

sounding stupid as fuck on the internet complaining about something that we don't even have to complain about because that's already done. And I would like to add that under this administration, there has been millions of dollars for the first time to solve anti-lynching cases. It's called Emmett Till cold case money. It's millions of dollars that they put towards that. Who do you think were the victims of those lynching cases? It was black people. We passed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act after 200 attempts.

So it's really crazy to me that people say, look at what the Asians got. The Asians got a bill. Why the Asians got something? The got a bill. Why the Asians got something? The Black people ain't got nothing. And you sit up there and you ignore legislation that's so significant. It took 200 attempts to get passed. 200 times. 200 failed attempts to get passed. That was just filibustered by Rand Clampall in 2020 when everybody was out on the streets marching for George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. So we have to do better of actually recognizing the battles that we have in front of us. There are real battles.

We have to get better at recognizing the battles that we've already won and actually telling our energy in a way that's productive. And the last thing I want to say about this Asian bill, which is mind-blowing to me, that this is somehow the most significant bill in the history of Black social media, not the trillions of dollars that went into the American Rescue Plan, not the trillions of dollars that went into infrastructure, not the money for removing lead pipes, not the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, not I can go on down the line, not what's being done around homeowner appraisal bias, not what's being done around black maternal mortality, et cetera, motherfucking, et cetera. None of that is significant. But this so-called Asian bill is somehow the most significant bill, even though this so-called Asian bill has a period of one year. It was authorizing an expediter for hate crimes related to COVID for one year. So as we're talking about it, it's not even an issue. It's a non-motherfucking factor, as they would say on Basketball Wives. And y'all still talking about it and not all of the other things.

We need to focus on the very real problems that we have. There are a lot of very real problems that we have in this country. Hate crimes legislation is not one of them. It's just not. We don't need a black bill. We already have the black bill, the Civil Rights Act, the James Byrd Jr. Act. What more do y'all want? We need to start actually maybe doing something so that people feel a little bit less emboldened to come in our communities and shoot our asses up. I'm not saying, you know, rough justice, vigilante justice, and I'm not saying that the Buffalo people had to come.

I'm not blaming anybody, but what I'm saying is there are ways that we can put some fear in some hearts that don't need to be written into legislation. So, again, again, for the simple Simons out there who don't bother to read and for all of y'all lying ass fools who say we ain't never had a bill for us. Do y'all know when that was the first federal hate crimes law? Don't do it to him, Roland.

Don't do it to him. Don't do it, brother. The first federal hate crimes law was 1968. If this was... No, no, no. No, go back. Come back. See?

It was 1968. See, if we were still doing TV no, no. No, go back. Come back. See? It was 1968. See, if we were still doing TV One, News One now, I would say, Shelly, go to my iPad. And whenever I would say, Shelly, go to my iPad, that was an indication I'm about to get in somebody's ass.

Now, again, for all of y'all simple Simon ass fools who listen to ignorant people, let me walk you through, and I'm sorry, y'all might be asking me,

well, Roland, where are you giving your information from? J-U-S-T-I-C-E dot G-O-V. Right there. Not Wikipedia. Justice.gov. What is Justice.gov? That's the website of the Justice Department.

Can we go to my iPad. Y'all can see for yourselves. For all of y'all who are wondering where I'm getting my information from, what does that say right there? The United States Department of Justice. What does it say right here? Since 1968, when Congress passed and President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the first federal hate crimes statute, the Department of Justice has been enforcing federal hate crimes laws. The 1968 statute made it a crime

to use or threaten to use force to willfully interfere with any person because of race, color, religion, or national origin. vacation, employment, jury service, travel, or the enjoyment of public accommodations or helping another person to do so. In 1968, Congress also made it a crime to use or threaten to use force to interfere with housing rights because of the victim's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In 1988, protections on the basis of familial status and disability were added. In 1996, Congress passed the Church Arson Prevention Act. Under this act, it is a

crime to deface, damage, or destroy religious real property or interfere with a person's religious practice in situations affecting interstate commerce. The act also bars defacing, damaging or destroying religious property because of the race, color or ethnicity of persons associated with the property. Now, let me walk through this for y'all to understand. For those of you who are watching, and you may say, well, if the first hate crime law was 1968, well, who was that for?

Hmm. There was a housing bill that was being filibustered for two years in the United States Senate. It was Republican Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts who helped broker the deal to break the filibuster in the United States Senate in February of 1968. The problem is the bill was still being filibustered in the South. Calm down, Republicans. Y'all might get all excited about saying, ooh, we saved the bill. No, Southern Dixiecrats aligned with conservative Republicans

because white folks did not want black people living in their neighborhoods. On April 4th, 1968, Dr. King was shot and killed in Memphis. On April 5th, 1968, President Lyndon Baines Johnson sent a letter to the House Speaker Mike Mansfield stating we should honor the life and legacy of Dr. King by passing the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Oh, I'm sorry. It's known as the Fair Housing Act of 1968, but that's not actually what it was. It was actually called the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Hmm. What is embedded in the Civil Rights Act of 1968? The first fucking hate crimes law. So for all you simple Simons out there who are sitting here going, oh, my God, we've never had a hate crimes law for us. The first federal hate crimes law was a result of black people demanding it. Oh, 1996, the Church Arson Prevention Act, it's not called the Synagogue Arson Prevention Act.

It's not called the Mosque Arson Prevention Act. Why is it called the Church Arson Prevention Act? Oh, because that was in response to black churches being burned. For black people. So just like the basis of the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act were the attacks on Asians the basis of the first federal hate crimes law was black people the basis of 1996 hate crimes that was based for black people then when you go to the Matthew Shepard James Byrd act, the reason you have that is because

they included the fact that he was gay, sexuality in the act. So for all y'all running around, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, we haven't had. And then when, yes, simple Simon Tariq, I heard what you said after Buffalo or Biden invited that group, the Asian group, to the White House to discuss the Asian Hate Crime Act. No, actually, that's not what happened. Because the week after the Buffalo shooting, Erica, the House, led by Congressman Jones, Congressman Bowman, passed a white domestic terrorism,

a domestic terrorism bill that was in response to Buffalo. It was passed in the House. So for all the simple assignments, the CBC ain't done shit. It was passed in the House. It died in the Senate. So here's my question, FBA, B1, ADOS,

how many of y'all were lobbying your senator to pass it in the Senate? I'll wait. See, this is what happens, y'all, when y'all listen to people who are full of shit, who don't want to give you actual y'all are hollering data. I dare any one of y'all to refute what I just laid out. I dare one of y'all to refute that the bill that was passed, by the way, Republicans, one Republican voted for it in the House. One. It got stalled in the house. One. It got stalled in the Senate.

So when y'all say tangibles, is that not one? Is a domestic terrorism bill directly in response to Buffalo not one? How many times have I told these people,

Erica, that somebody can promise you something, but that one person promising you something don't mean it's going to get passed because you got to convince other folk to make it happen. So when we say, man, y'all talking about vote, you got no vote, no voice. Because if Sheryl Beasley is elected in North Carolina, if Mandela Barnes elected in Wisconsin,

if Fetterman is in Pennsylvania, that's three votes right there. That means the Senate is now 53-47. That means that Sinema and Manchin can't block a damn thing. Because now you might have some other Democrats who show themselves, but the reality is

that domestic terrorism bill could actually pass because now you might have some other Democrats who show themselves, but the reality is that domestic terrorism bill could actually pass because you now have gone beyond cinema and mansion. Throw in Demings in Florida, 54-46. Throw in registering black people in Louisiana, could get Gary Chambers, could get Booker in Kentucky. See, this is what happens. Again, tangibles, tangibles, tangibles.

It comes down to also voting. So I'm just sick and tired of the lying. And this ain't shilling for no Democrats. This is called presenting factual data for the simple Simons, Erica. Yeah, you know, this is a successful chaos campaign. And when you have people that are more interested in platforms, performance, and really riling up their base the same way the son of a Klansman did, this is what you get. There's no real difference between them and the Republicans and how they're advancing their talking points.

It's pulling on language that's become mainstream as far as social media goes. And when I opened up Twitter and I saw that that was trending, I quickly closed it up. I was done with that. You know, one thing that I would challenge folks around, especially folks that talk about tangibles. I'm living and I'm eating from the fruit of trees that I did not plant, which are tangibles. So that's first and foremost. We all are. We all are definitely beneficiaries of a penniless Fannie Lou Hamer who in a jail cell, right, who was pulled over on a bus because the cop said that the bus was too damn yellow, who was then taken to a jail cell and who sheriff pumped behind

gave two black jailers a blackjack and beat her, beat her soul while this woman singing worship, singing praises, asking this person to please stop doing this on the authority of a white sheriff, that the injuries that she had, she sustained while she went to the Democratic National Convention. I believe it was in Atlantic City. So we are really the fruit. We are bearing witness to tangible. So shut that shit up. Secondly, if people want to

actually do something, last night I had the pleasure of sitting at the feet of our very own library and luminary, Dr. Greg Carr, as he sat in Sankofa Library in Washington motherfucking D.C.

And for three hours, freestyle, drop bars. We went from bookstores. We talked about fruits of movement. All of that was happening there. And it was no charge. I didn't see anybody from the tangible committee there. But people who were there were people who were concerned about gentrification. There was a woman there that had a plea about a senior building in Washington, D.C., the Lombard building. And Dr. Carr can share a little bit more around that, tell me the name of the building. But she said that, listen, I need help. I need someone who knows somebody

on the council who has some attorneys because our attorneys that we have are really working against us. Guess what? In that room of people who were there sitting at the feet of the establishers of Sankofa, D.C. at Dr. Grant Carr, the answer was in the room. So you've got to be in the room. Get your ass off of social media hollering about stuff. When Recy has laid out environmental issues that our people are placed in, there was an infrastructure bill by this administration so that you wouldn't have to drink dirty ass water. The same water that folks in Flint are still drinking. determinants of health. Well, we Black people suffer more with asthma, all of these chronic illnesses, because plants are always putting their stock and trade into our communities. Roland has covered Cancer Alley. He's covered Black Farmers, all of that. Get your ass to the

platform where work is actually being done? It's happening here. So for the social justice Twitter-ticians, is what I call them, for those social justice movement folks that are all about keyboard, all about platforms and performance, all you are doing is advancing the cause of a son of a Klansman. And they're not going to stop you. They're going to continue to line your pockets of your leaders, and they are absolutely going to continue to elevate your voices because you, my friend, are advancing the call of the detriment of your own people.

Swallow those tangibles. All right, so, oh, I know what's happening right now. See? See, somebody right now, I know what y'all doing. I know what y'all haters doing. Y'all saying, yeah, yeah, see, but the Asians, but the Asians, but the Asians, they got mentioned in the bill. I've heard, we ain't never been mentioned in the bill. I've heard, we ain't never

been mentioned in the bill. You've heard that, right Greg? Yes, sir. I've heard that. See, the Asians, they got mentioned in the beginning of the bill. They haven't read the bill. Now, here's the deal.

I showed it on the show. Yes. And they're correct. They're like, but the Asians, we've been here 400 years, we never got mentioned. Background and need for the legislation. Since October 1st, 1991, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, the primary federal agency with jurisdiction to investigate arson, has investigated 147 fire incidents at churches across the United States. Of these fires, 115 have proved to be arsons.

53 of those 147 churches were made up of predominantly African American congregations, many of them located in the southeastern United States. Recy, why don't you go ahead and pick up the next paragraph for me? Why don't you just read the next paragraph right there? The number of fires. The number of fires involving African-American churches reported to federal authorities has increased dramatically in recent months. In 1992, three African-American church burnings in the southeast were reported and investigated by the BATF. Two were reported in 1993, four in 1994, and six in 1995. So far, in

1996, there have been at least 26 such fires reported. Hold it right there. Grant, pick it up as in six incidents. Go ahead, Grant. In six incidents. Let me see here. I had to put it back on the

big screen. They moved to me. Here we go. In six incidents. Let's see here. I had to put it back on the big screen. They moved to me. So they, oh, here we go. In six incidents, the perpetrators were prosecuted and convicted. Four under federal statutes and two in state prosecutions. Of the 31 currently pending investigations where arson or suspicious circumstances have been discovered, six are in Tennessee. Remember Reggie White, Roland? He was a minister. I remember that.

Five in Louisiana, five in South Carolina, five in Alabama, three in Mississippi, five in North Carolina, one in Virginia, and one in Georgia. Arrests have been made in connection with six of these incidents, and most of the defendants are being prosecuted in state court under arson charges. Hold right there. Erica, why don't you just read that next sentence? If you can.

Praise the Lord. Two of these are in South Carolina, where two arsonists who set two separate fires are acknowledged members of the Ku Klux Klan. Hold it right there. So for all of the simpletons who said, we ain't never been mentioned in no bill, there ain't never been no bill that Do y'all see Asians

mentioned anywhere in here? Do y'all see Latinos or any other group mentioned in here? Nope. In fact, if you actually even go down, what you will see, it says,

according to the Department of Justice, there are three principal statutes under which the Civil Rights Division could attempt to prosecute the person responsible for a church burning that is found to be motivated by racism. Ronald, before you go on, though, brother, this is where I thought you were going with this. Remember, before the 13th Amendment, Lincoln was killed in, what, April 65. The 13th Amendment had been drafted. Johnson comes in, and the 13th Amendment is passed in December. But the first civil rights law after the 13th Amendment was the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Yep.

That's what those laws they're talking about. And that civil rights law of 1866 said you cannot deprive anyone of their full civil rights based on race. Race is explicitly mentioned. So I'm surprised. It's interesting that the Justice Department doesn't even claim credit for that law, which came during Reconstruction. And of course, four years later, under Ulysses Grant, as you walked us through many times, what federal bureau did they create to go after the Klan in part? Merrick Garland said it at the announcement of him as attorney general, the damn Department of Justice. So these people, I thought that's where you were going, but what you just read, one of those laws they're referring to is the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which does mention race. That's interesting. See, the reason I'm sitting here trying to walk y'all

through is because, again, you're listening to people who ain't read Jack. They lying to y'all. And they getting you all riled up. They getting you all upset. Man, they ain't nothing mentioned us in the bill. The Asians got a bill. Y'all, we just walk you through specific legislation that Congress has passed that specifically mentions black people. Now, tell me what your simple Simon is going to tell you now.

Please, by all means, show me what they're going to say to you now to refute what we've just laid out. And then for all y'all other simple Simons who have the audacity you can switch it back Henry, to have the audacity to say, Roland, why you ain't covered this stuff? Because your punk ass don't watch. Right.

I walked through all this stuff. I walked through the so-called Asian bill. Showed the whole damn bill on the show. I had some fools trying to, some fools going to hit me with the Newsweek article

on HBCUs. I bet you ain't covered this. I said, you dumbasses. I said, we debunked that stupid article nine months ago. But see, this is what happens when y'all keep following behind people who, first of all, ain't real journalists.

Former pimps. Come on Come on Folk who hide their face Folk Who got bad lace fronts Folk Who ain't never Been to journalism school

But they want to call themselves new black media. This is what happens when you are real black-owned media. When you got journalistic credentials. When you know how to research. When you know how to lay things out. And by the way, there's nothing that we've done today that is in defense of Democrats. That's right. Today is in defense of the truth. It is the truth. And so if you're sitting out there right now and you holler intangibles and you say you want a bill that specifically mentions black people, the House has already passed it. So what you should be doing is trying to get Representative Val Demings elected in

Florida. Lieutenant Governor Mandela elected in Wisconsin. Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman elected in Pennsylvania. You should be trying to get Representative Tim Ryan elected in Ohio. You should be trying to get Charles Booker elected in Kentucky. You should be trying to get Sherry Beasley elected in North Carolina. Because just imagine what happens. Oh, oh, and again, for all your simpletons. Oh, you're

out here, you're shilling for the Democrats. Can you tell me who's running? This is real simple. For all y'all, for all y'all, again, this is for the FBA B1 ADOS crowd. Who running for Senate in Georgia? Warnock or Hershel Walker? Which one y'all want?

Who's running in Pennsylvania? Democrat Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman or New Jersey resident Dr. Oz? Republican. Which one y'all want? Who's running in Wisconsin? Mandela's likely going to win the Democratic nomination running against MAGA Senator Ron Johnson, Republican. Which one y'all going to vote for? In Florida, Representative Val Demings, Senator Marco Rubio.

Which one y'all going to vote for? Which one? Again, Beasley, Bud. Beasley, Democrat, Bud, Republican. Which one y'all gonna vote for? Y'all keep hollering tangibles. Okay, One Republican voted for the domestic terrorism bill in the wake of Buffalo. One in the house.

In the Senate, 47 Republicans voted against. But your ass want tangibles. Okay, you tell me which path is the way to get the domestic terrorism bill y'all say y'all want. Show me which one. You going through two doors. You're going through the door that Donald Trump is holding open. Or you're going through the door that Biden is holding open. It's two doors you're going through.

Now, let's be real clear. And we're going to talk about it next I love how y'all say Oh you know make demands Oh I've been making demands Well look some of y'all I ain't out here telling folks not to vote

Right Cause I can't make a demand and then don't vote to ensure that person wins to then be able to go ask them to do something so all I'm saying y'all is don't come at me with the bullshit and you ain't read nothing we just debunked all your lies

that black people have never been mentioned or named in a hate crimes law. That has been debunked. It is a lie. What y'all got next? And, Roland, can I point out one more thing? Because, you know, a lot of people are trying to make the point in light of the Buffalo Massacre, why don't the black people ever get anything?

Where's our hate crime bill? I want to point out that Congressman Jamal Bowman passed or put forth a resolution in the House. It passed by 218 to 205 votes. All of the 205 no votes were Republicans. And this was a condemnation of the great replacement theory, which was the theory that animated the Buffalo terrorists. It condemned the Buffalo massacre. It condemned anti-Black racism and hate crimes. Specifically, if you look in the bill and you do a search on the word Black, because some people have a problem with the word African-American or whatever the word you want to use, but the word Black is

specifically mentioned nine times in this resolution. All of the no votes were Republican and all of the yes votes were Democrats. So when we talk about the facts, this is not a pro-Democrat thing or anti-Republican thing. It's a pro-facts situation. And if you want to talk about Black people being acknowledged and recognized and the horrors against us being recognized, I want to see some smoke for these Republicans that could not even vote against the gray replacement theory and cannot even vote to condemn the Buffalo massacre, because they know good and damn well that their base wants to see Black people massacred. Those people are the enemies, not us, for trying to tell y'all the truth. And for those of you who are angry and who are disillusioned, who are upset, we hear you and we see you, but we want you to channel your energy towards something

that actually needs to be done, not refighting the battles that we've already won. That's right. That's right. Can I follow up with Recy just a second? I know we're going long, but this is so important. You're right, Recy. I mean, thinking about the other end of the spectrum, and thank you for reminding us all, people who weren't there, Erica, last night. We were at Sankofa, and the elder was Glenda Richmond

that you're talking about, and she lives at the Paul Lawrence Dunbar Homes, which is public housing here in D.C., and the developers want it. And that sister was sitting outside of Sankofa last night trying to work on a lawsuit because she's got a hearing in August coming up. And in the wake of some remarks that Erica made, powerful remarks on the power of silence, the power of sitting still, which a lot of us could use a lot more. In the wake of that, Holly Garima, the co-owner with his wife, Shrigiana, brought this elder up to the microphone. She made a plea for help, and as you say, Erica,

this sister in the back, whose mother was one of the founders of the Paul Lunsden Bar Homes, unbeknownst to anybody in there, except Holly, who asked her to come, said, oh, no, sis, you come with me right now. And that elder started crying. She broke down crying because she finally found somebody who will get her some help because those are senior citizens in D.C. who are being displaced by gentrification. Marcel for Congress in South Carolina. All the black rappers. I'm going to say

something for all y'all over here, because all the brilliant Marxists and leftists for whom the Democrats and Republicans are the same, I agree with you philosophically in terms of capitalism and how this works in terms of neoliberalism. But let's be very clear. Let's be very clear. You see, the problem with abstract intellectualism is very plain. It's very easy to stand outside of the work, outside of the work Erica's talking about, outside of practical activity and build a utopia and offer a smoke for everybody to have hate and criticism because it's all wrong. And guess what? If you're standing in utopia, if you're judging something against utopia that doesn't exist, literally means no

place and says this falls short, this falls short, this falls short. You're absolutely right. Everything's going to look bad. Everything's going to look bad. But guess what? Once you step into the reality, you're going to look that elder in the face and tell her, well, yes, it's bad, but the Democrats are no different. Well, are you going to give her a place to sleep tonight? Are you going to get those people going to be disciplined? Or are you going to fight? Are you going to run for office? Are you going to get in the street and get everybody to vote so she can stay in her house? The answer to that, of course, were the geniuses. Some of whom are my friends. Geniuses who have everything figured out and then

open their computers and every day wax eloquent on what's wrong with everything and are reading and discussing everything. But don't step a foot outside to be in the real world, of course everything is flawed. And guess what? Because everything is flawed, you get to be right and an elder doesn't have somewhere to live or somebody can't terminate a pregnancy or somebody can't get a pap smear

or when they call, there's nobody to give them service and they have a heart attack or they're stressed out or they're getting minimum wage. You don't live in the real world. I'm talking about people who do read. And so, Roland, you know, as you're talking about the folks who have been victims of weaponized ignorance, who have embraced that by the pimps and the bad lace fronts and everything, on the other end of the spectrum are the geniuses who stand outside of the battle and critique all the battle strategies. And those people, they tend to have a beef with you, too, because they love taking clips out of context and saying,

see, see, see, but they wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit salad. Would you say that? Folks, we're going to go to break. We come back. We're going to talk about Congressman Hank Johnson, who is staying on the wall Fighting for media dollars For black owned media We're going to explain next

On Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network Y'all want to support what we do And I told y'all, y'all want real journalism Not these fools with a phone And sitting behind a wall in a living room on YouTube or the folk who hide their faces. If y'all want real journalism, then support us in what we do. First, download the Black Star Network app. All platforms, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV.

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Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr, we connect the dots and reveal a big picture you absolutely need to see. We'll explore how all the recent Supreme Court decisions fit together, like hand in glove, with the long-standing and very patient agenda of the GOP. As one of our guests tells us, conservatives are playing chess while the rest of us are playing checkers, and we're getting really close to checkmate. A black table you won't want to miss. That's next, only on the Black Star Network.

We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day, right here on The The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Eric Nolan. I'm Shantae Moore. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. 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 on. All right, fam. Glad to have you back on the show. So I saw this tweet a little bit earlier, which came from Congressman Hank Johnson. And

this is what he sent out. Black owned media outlets tell our stories, reach our communities. But black-owned media like Roland S. Martin get only 1% of federal advertising. I'm proud that the House passed my fiscal year 23 NDAA amendment to study the Department of Defense efforts to advertise with minority-owned media. Now, what he laid out, he sent a previous tweet out, which has, and this is what he says, today, the House approved my amendment to the fiscal year 23 NDAA to raise the cap on the U.S. DOT. Okay, again, I need y'all to see all y'all out here. All your cats will be yelling, hollering tangibles. And the CBC ain't doing shit.

I've been dealing directly with Congressman Johnson and his staff on this. He says today the House approved my amendment to raise the cap on the U.S. DOT, FTA DOT, U.S. DOT DBE program so more minority and women-owned businesses can qualify for and take advantage of the historic infrastructure funding. Now, let me give y'all, you simple Simons, the history. Last year, when we were in Tulsa, I'm sitting there joking with Congressman Hank Johnson, and we having a battle between alphas, really wasn't no battle, alphas, capas, and omegas. We all sitting there joking with each other. Congressman Barbara Lee was sitting right there. We're waiting for Biden to come out. While we were there, I started telling Congressman Johnson about the reality of what black owned businesses are facing in our inability to get

federal advertising contracts. He was unaware of the issue. I told him about what Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton did when she commissioned the General Accounting Office to do an assessment, to do an assessment on the lack of spending. So as a result, again, as a result, he said, we got to do something about that. So I began to talk to his staff. They sent a letter earlier to the White House demanding to know how much money was being spent when it came to COVID. But what I've been saying to Congressman Johnson, as well as Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, the chair of the CBC, is every single department, every federal agency should be opening up opportunities. I've said to Congressman Joyce Beatty, there should be a black

up front for all black-owned media. Now let me explain to y'all what up front is. The ad agencies do this all the time. So what they do is, they have these up fronts where the media companies come in and they say, this is my show. This is our new content. This is what we're doing. And they cut media deals.

Well, I said we should have a black media up front. So we know exactly who are all of the agencies, the ad agencies that are handling federal government money in all agencies. Now, some of y'all watching me right now, and some of y'all are like, oh, you're just trying to benefit you. No, I said black-owned media. Because, see, I believe we all can eat. See, not one of us can eat all the money. So the reality is, if I grow, and HBCU Lead Pass grows and Black Enterprise grows

and Urban One grows and Essence grows and Blavity grows, then Black-owned media grows. When we grow, we build capacity. When we build capacity, then we're able to hire not 15 people who I have on my payroll. We're not going to have 30, 50 or 100. Right now, there is not a single black owned media entity. Listen to me clearly, y'all. There's not a single black owned media entity that has a person assigned to cover Congress. Now, April Ryan with the griot Ebony McMorris with American Urban Radio Network, their White House correspondents, I'm talking about Congress.

I told Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, we literally can't afford to do that. So when stuff is happening at the Department of Education, Health and Human Services, Department of Transportation, labor, I can go on and on and on. Guess what? We're relying on what mainstream media is reporting to be able to come back and tell you. Now, for all y'all watching, what did I tell y'all? The federal government spends every year 560 billion on contracts. Black-owned

businesses get 9 billion of the 560 billion, which comes out to be 1.67%. And so what I've said, that if you are demanding cut the check, don't you think you should be demanding the existing money that is being spent? I'm sorry. It's our tax money. Boom!

You don't want your money back? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay, okay, I'm sorry. No, but that's the whole point. And so folks sitting here, oh, oh, Roland'm sorry. No, but that's the whole point. And so folks sitting here, oh, oh, Roland, you out here trying to line your pockets. I just literally, see again, for all y'all, I told y'all I ain't got a problem being transparent. Today I just approved $64,000 in invoices for people

who were there helping us covering Essence. How in the hell y'all thought we got all that content? It wasn't when everybody was walking around with iPhones. But again, these are people who have families who are paying rent, paying car note, buying food, paying for schooling and daycare with the money they make working on this show. Well, how in the hell do you think

they going to eat if ain't no money? And hell yes, I'm demanding some of that federal advertising money because as Greg said, it's taxpayer money. And yes, Reesey, I sent a text to Cedric Richmond, who's now the DNC, left the White House. But I sent one to Susan Rice, who we met with in the first 60 days saying, I hope y'all do what Hank did to all federal agencies

because she's supposed to be over race and equity. Because here, oh, oh, oh, FBA, ADOS, B1, we ain't got shit or we're buying in there. Have your asses asked? Have you met with somebody? Are you petitioning your government for it? That's the whole point of this, Greg, is we see where we lack.

And me and others are pushing our government to make sure that we are getting stuff in return. But these other folks want to yell, holler and scream. Oh, and by the way, I told you dumbasses that fake ass platinum playing for Trump. When Angela Staten King was running her dumb ass around, yeah, Trump was going to give us 500 billion in contracts. Dumbass, the whole federal contracting program is 560 billion. And we were getting 1.67%. He wasn't never giving black folks 500 billion.

Y'all some simpletons. Greg, go ahead. No, man, I'm just laughing because as you're talking, all these images are playing into my head. The last one I see is what used to be the Trump Hotel that has now, of course, been passed off to another. The guys are griffin. But, you know, I just came back this weekend from Houston. They had the 43rd Conference of the National Black United Front.

And everybody rolling. Everybody stopped me. They want to know about the rural mobile. They say they're in the Bring the Funk fan club club. They said it's the only thing they watch. And I mean, just person after person after person after person. And as you're talking, you know, I'm thinking about, I was, it's changed text a couple of days ago, my brother Mark Lamont Hill, our brother, who, you know, he was just checking up, you know. And, you know, one of the things that we remember, of course, is the BNC imploded.

And, you know, a lot of people, not Mark and not Charles Blow or some of the folks here, but the people who needed those jobs, like your staffers who do the tech, they had to scramble and many of them still looking for work. And, you know, thinking about you, Recy, and working at Sirius and sitting in, spreading the word, moving things around, you know, it takes effort. It takes great effort. And then, Erica, as you built out, and then you sustained just a thing that would have broken so many people, and your faith and power just brought you through that. And with the intellect now, you continue now to build that platform

and move and deal and grapple with this. And here we are, got to fight our own people? No, because... And we're not fighting our own people because they're against us. We're fighting our own people because, in the words of Malcolm, they've been hoodwinked, led astray, run amok, bamboozled. And so,

you know, I'm just laughing because I'm saying some things should be obvious. I mean, every two weeks at my little check at Howard University, they take them taxes out. Meaning what? You got my money over there. Meaning what? Give my money to my people.

We shouldn't have to fight this hard. Anyway, that's all. I mean, I'm just... The thing for me here, Erica, is I listen to all these fools. Man, the CBC

ain't doing shit. Representative Hank Johnson is a CBC member. He is there fighting, trying to ensure that black-owned media is getting our fair share of dollars. Again, pull the tweet up, y'all. If you have it up, y'all. If you have it up, pull it up.

All y'all talking all... That's the black-owned media. Show the other one. When it comes to... With the caps. Y'all, I just need... Come on, FBA, B-1-8-Oss. Yes, I'm specifically calling y'all ass out. I need y'all, all of y'all tangible folks.

I need y'all to explain to me how that CDC member ain't doing shit for black people. Oh, I know y'all going to say, well, he said minority and women-owned businesses. Why didn't he say black? We in there? That's just what trust—Erica, go ahead. And then I would ask, how many members are there of the CDC? Did you know that there is a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation? And did you know that through the foundation that they offer a political boot

camp training to help people learn the mechanics of political office and encourage those folks to then run for office? I would ask them, have they been to their annual conference where they have brainstormed, where you can see, touch, and converse with those members of Congress. This is the thing that really is very disheartening to me. You know, when we were growing up, and I've shared that my father was active duty military, so we moved every three years. My mother was an educator. And one of the things that we were always challenged with is when we would come home and we would have dinner, we would all sit around the table. Our parents would always make us read a current event and then discuss it and watch the news and discuss it. And so in the morning, like if we turned on the television, it either had to

be the news or it had to be some type of sports news. And so I leaned towards the sports news and then the news in the evening, reading the current events. All of that to say that whenever we were having these discussions at home around the table, if there was something that was mentioned, the first thing that my parents would ask, well, how do you know that that's true? Did you just listen to what you heard and then you're repeating what was told to you? Or did you go back and research it? And then if it was proved that we didn't, they would call us bum scoop. So nobody wanted to be called bum scoop. So it was always kind of like this really good challenge that happened. So we were really being sharpened and developed to have critical thinking skills.

So now we enter the age of the Internet where the Internet has a low entry bar. It's free. Anybody can be on. And with that low barrier to entry, that means that anybody's ideas, anybody's decisions on what a fact is can be materialized. But I challenge us as a community, as a people, whomever folks identify and to understand it. has discussed in length as she contributes on SiriusXM around her disinformation campaign, talking with experts to make us aware that this apathy and this dissuasion campaign to vote was specifically targeted to the Black community and has been ongoing for years. And what pains me is that we're not seeing it. It'll be 16 months tomorrow since my accident and brain injury. And in that time of being in the cocoon, I was released from social media, from all of the rigmarole of just being bombarded by information. Re-entering this space,

it has been so difficult because it seems that from where we were at the time of my accident in March of 2021 to where we are entering midterms elections now in the summer half of the year in 2022, more apathetic and that people have become very, very comfortable with passing along information and issuing arguments that are ultimately false. They're lies. And people are eating lies for breakfast, brunch. They're making charcuterie boards of lies. They're drinking lies. It is all day and all night long. There has to be a recapture of the mind. There has to be a recapture of that, especially since the average adult, and this is just adults are spending two hours and 25 minutes on social media. My urge and my anger and my angst is around if this is the continued temperature moving into midterms and beyond. And you've already had a son of a Klansman who said that it's not a matter of fact if he's going to run in 2024, which we've already known.

But when he's going to announce and then there's the foolish argument around who should run for the Democratic ticket. Like, y'all, we don't have time for some of these conversations. Recy, you and Greg continue to lift the things that really are daily issues, that are really meat and potato issues that are at our table every day. You don't turn on Roland Martin and filter and get fed every day. You sit at the table of Dr. Carr on the weekends and you sit here during the week. Recy is always doing the work of dismantling disinformation and coming back with that. What more do people want? If you want to live in the space while all you're doing is complaining, well, damn it, just say that. But what's really happening is that you're actually a part of the apparatus that has its neck

on our people. And just like a Klansman had his hands around the clavicle of the driver of the beast, you're actually tightening it. And I need people to actually realize that. And if you're looking forward and

backwards at the people that have to continue to live that. And if you're looking forward and backwards at the people that have to continue to live, including ourselves, you're actually taking food off of the table. So really, you know, it is really in the best interest of people to please, please, please form your own healthy opinions and don't spend so much time with people that really are, all they do is live for fresh chaos campaigns. It's not healthy. Recy, I've never said don't ask for nothing. I have never said that.

I've never said don't make demands. I've never said don't petition. I've never said don't critique. I've never said don't make demands. I've never said don't petition. I've never said don't critique. I've never said don't harangue. What I have said is you can't just vote and go, oh, I'm done. No. The fact of the matter is, what did I tell Diddy? What did I tell ISQ?

I told them directly. You can't just make demands with no infrastructure. You can't just say, I want this, but then when the election is over, you don't have the infrastructure to then go to government leaders, go to other folk to get it done. This ain't just me making demands. This ain't just Roland. There are literally multiple

other black media owners who are part of the collective who we're involved in. And that's the thing that people don't understand. And so what I am arguing is for the folk who keep yelling and hollering tangibles, anybody can promise you something when they're running They can say, I'm going to do this, this, this, this, this But the question is, when they get elected Then what you going to do? Oh, what happens if your person don't get elected? Then what do you do? You got that fool Marcel in South Carolina

Running around like he in the movie Get Out Who came in third to Clyburn You got that fool Marcel in South Carolina running around like he in the movie Get Out, who came in third to Clyburn. He out here talking trash. And I said, why don't you simple ass take the 100,000 you got left over, and why don't you figure out who of the 1,200 people who voted for you, he came in third. He got 1,200 votes, y'all. And then say, how do we now build political power? How do you now identify issues?

No, your ass trying to be cute and famous on Twitter. See, this is all about how do you build something. And so I understand that the work that I'm doing with Hank Johnson, hell, I didn't get all y'all talking all that bullshit. I didn't get COVID money. I got zero COVID dollars. Oh, you must be out here pushing the vaccine. No, we didn't get COVID dollars.

We damn sure tried. We petitioned. We didn't. But the point that I'm trying to get people to understand is you have to be organized and mobilized in order to get redressed. You can't just sit your ass on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and say, cut the check, cut the check. I want the check. If you ain't putting in the work to get the damn check. You're absolutely right.

You know, and knowledge is power. opposition is organized and well-funded on dumbing us down, on misdirecting us, miseducating us, and dissuading us from utilizing the power that we have. That's really what all this is about. If people really understood the level of organization that we're up against, then there would be no question about how much more resources we need to be making sure we empower our Black media outlets with, like yourself, Roland. And, you know, so what a lot of these people want to do, and I, listen, I'm a loudmouth Black girl on Twitter, too, okay? I've become more mainstream. I have more legitimate gigs now. But I started off as a loudmouth black girl on Twitter.

But you know what I was doing? I was bringing facts where there was disinformation and where there was chaos. And what a lot of these folks want us to do is to be focused on their 1,200, on their 3%, on their losing, not coalition, but losing chaos. The only thing that they have to offer is chaos, disruption, and obstruction of progress. But the reality is there are far more of us that are rightfully and understandably disillusioned. And so that's what we're trying to reach. This program is not about converting this alphabet soup. No, no, no, no, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I want to stop right there.

I'm going to stop right there. I'm going to let you finish. Okay. But you just said something that I think is important when you said disillusion. And I gotta go ahead and say this right now because there's somebody I got to go ahead and do this right now because folk talk about

y'all want to talk about disillusion? I know. Now if y'all want to talk about disillusion? I know. Now, if y'all want to talk about, all y'all people are talking about disillusion. Put it up. Put it up. Come on. Put it up. Okay. Okay. Okay If y'all want to talk about disillusion

You don't know what disillusion Is Well the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Travels to Atlantic City To try To fight the all-white Mississippi delegation.

And that black woman, Fannie Lou Hamer, with her purse sitting right next to her, gives testimony describing how she was beaten. And President Johnson, fearful that all the Southern Dixiecrats would leave, jumps out and gives a BS news conference to pull the cameras away. But see, I know some of y'all are saying, oh, see, that's that racism. But yeah, but y'all get in line, we're going to pull y'all money. And it was Dr. King and Bayard Rustin who then went to Fannie Lou Hamer, Bob Moses, and others and said to them, y'all need to accept this compromise. And they cussed out Dr. King. and said to them, y'all need to accept this compromise.

And they cussed out Dr. King. And King said, I would rather take small progress than none. That was 1964. They left Atlantic City disillusioned. But you know what happened in 1968? Greg, go ahead and tell everybody they were disappointed in 64. That's right. But what happened in 68, Greg? Well, in 1968, between 64 and 68, a white man rose from the dead out of California by the name of Richard Milhous Nixon. And the Democratic Party, which had reformed some of its rules as a result of what happened in 64 because of freedom

Democrats, found themselves overwhelmed. And of course, we know what happened after 1968. There were no segregated delegations at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. No, no, there weren't. But I'm saying, to your larger point, this is not a sprint. This is not a sprint. Understanding that if you go back to 1960, of course, where Jack Robinson, who was a member of the Republican Party,

found himself at odds because Richard Nixon was running against John Kennedy. And he, Robinson writes about this in his memoir. I never had it made. He couldn't really come out for Nixon because on the race question, the Republicans had already started moving toward white nationalism. And Robinson was no Democrat or Republican. He was a black man first. And what the Democratic Party did after 1964, of course, Vietnam got them tied up, really. Johnson decided he wasn't going to run. Bobby Kennedy is assassinated. And while the party is opening up because of those protests, Richard Nixon and Kevin Phillips writes about this, the so-called solid minority, the southern strategy.

They are able to rally and seize the White House. And never forget, four years later, the white nationalists, the parents of the ones now in the South, run their candidate who wins five southern states. And that would be George Wallace. I just want to, and again, Reese, you better finish your point there. I just need people to understand. And look, I'm with King while we can't wait, but I know what I can't do,

what I can't say, well, nothing got done in 15 months, so I ain't gonna vote. Hell no. Exactly. Right. Hell no. Right. Because my black ass cannot be sitting In this 5200 square foot studio

If some previous folk were like Damn we ain't getting nothing We ain't getting what we wanted in 15 months So we gonna pack it up and go to the crib No they stayed on the battlefield Rishi go ahead and finish the point before I go to break Yeah and listen I'm not personally

disillusioned. I mean, I'm annoyed with some of the ridiculous shit we have to deal with, even with our own people. But I recognize that half of the country doesn't vote. Forty-something percent of Black people don't vote. And so that's what we're here on Roland Martin trying to do, is we're trying to reach those that, for whatever reason, if you want to call it disillusioned or maybe distracted, Erica talks about the fact that we're in a pandemic and there's trauma that happens on a daily basis with that. Whatever your circumstances are, that's who we're trying to reach, not make enemies or make friends out of people who have whatever opinions that they have. We're trying to educate.

We're trying to empower. And in order to do that, you know, we need resources. Black-owned media needs resources. And so stop this crab in the barrel mentality. Stop this always thinking somebody's trying to get over on you mentality when the quality of programming that the Black Star Network puts on, thanks to Roland Martin Unfiltered, is unmatched. And a lot of the stuff that people want to tweet that goes viral is shit that we done said 50, 11 times on this program.

You better say that. All day, every day. Thank you. But then when Don Lemon says, or whoever, ain't no shade to any of them, then all of a sudden, ooh, ooh, ooh. Or even when the white people say it. Crystal Ball on the Young Turks. Y'all like to share them as well. So this, like I said,

I don't care about Alphabet Soup Group, this, that, and whatever. I don't care about the chaos because I'm not going to be able to ever reach them and convince them. And to be honest, they got a lot of demonic energy and I don't want to be even associated with that. So I just tell them to fuck off and get out of my face.

I'm not even arguing with them. But they're reaching people that we have to also reach. And the, the, the, the chaos and the message is really, really messing with too many of our people. And it's not just when it comes to politics that happened with the COVID-19 response as well. And so please people like Erica said, like Dr. Carr said, like Roman said, we have to come together, but let's come together on the facts. And once we know what we're up against, then we can hold people accountable because all of us on this platform are Black first, we love our people first, and we hold the Democratic Party accountable. And one thing that we do that a lot of people that want to

criticize us don't do is we hold Republicans accountable as well, because the Republicans don't get a free pass to white nationalism, to destroy the environment, to destroy our citizenship, where you're gerrymandering places in Louisiana where 30 percent of the population has one congressional district, thanks to the Supreme Court now, or in Florida, where they got rid of two congressional districts, or even hell happened in New York York where they're getting rid of black congressional districts. So we hold everybody damn accountable on this show. Absolutely. All right, folks, got to go to break.

We come back. We're going to show you what happened in Orlando today when Vice President Kamala Harris, you can go ahead and roll it, Vice President Kamala Harris, she spoke with four Sorority sisters in Orlando, 12,000 AKAs cheered her on. We'll show you what she had to say next on Roland Martin on the Black Star Network. Black-owned, 100% unapologetic. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach.

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What's going on? It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devon, and you're watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. All right, folks, there's a whole lot of skewing going on in Orlando today. Vice President Kamala Harris, this is her touching down right here in Orlando. Erin Haynes shot this video. She was in Orlando for the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, Bule, taking place there. Some 12,000 registered attendees there. Yes, she's dressed in her all white. And as you see, when she got to the convention center,

they were all in there. They were loud and proud. Turn the volume up, please. That is Dr. Glenda Glover. She is the international president of Alpha Kappa Alpha and president of Tennessee State University, Dr. Greg Carr's alma mater. And so in her speech, the vice president talked about reproductive rights as well as GOP voter suppression and the importance of the midterm elections. So-called leaders who are in the process term elections. and we must demand they have the courage to renew the assault weapons ban.

We have lost too many precious lives. I attended the funeral in Buffalo of an 86-year-old grandmother. And you know her story, and if not, I will share with you. She was going to the grocery store after having left her husband, who she'd been caring for, who was in a nursing home. She was just going to buy some groceries. A matriarch of a family. So in Buffalo, in Uvalde, those babies and their teachers.

In Highland Park, I went there within 24 hours of that massacre that was supposed to be a parade route. And in communities and cities across our country. Listen, as we applaud, and we must applaud, our President Joe Biden for signing the first federal gun safety bill in 30 years. He signed it. And there is still more work to do to see it through. It's not going to be easy. It's never been easy. And there are, as there have always been, forces that stand in our way. Forces that oppose even the most on this issue of gun safety, even the most common sense gun safety proposals. Forces that include extremist

so-called leaders who instead of expanding rights, work to restrict rights. These so-called leaders who, after we fought and marched, members of our sorority being among the greatest leaders fought for the right to vote. These so-called leaders right here in this state and in other places in the country making it more difficult for people to vote. So-called leaders. in neighboring states, making it even illegal to give folks food and water as they're standing in line to vote. And we know what we need to do. One of the things we need to do is pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. Many of you have joined me in different places in our country to talk about the longstanding, very serious problem of lead pipes, where our babies are being forced to drink toxic water, having well-documented then health consequences, including consequences

to their ability to learn. So together we did the work to remove lead pipes. We are in the process of doing that to ensure that no child has to drink water poisoned with lead and to make sure that we again are doing everything we can, understanding our children. God has given them so much capacity, but we here on earth must do our part to make sure they are protected and can live in an environment that allows them to thrive, which is why together we also have addressed the issue of high-speed Internet. Because I know there are a whole lot of folks here right now who know what that pandemic meant to your child's ability to learn and go to school. And what that required in terms of you having access and being able to afford high-speed Internet.

I travel the country. I can't tell you how many parents I met who would have to go and drive the kids to the local fast food restaurant or library to have access to the public Wi-Fi there, the kids would be in the backseat of the car trying to do their homework. We know what an education means in terms of what it allows for the future of one's ability to grow and succeed. She also met with some foreign legislators regarding the issue of abortion. Here's some of that conversation. This is not an issue that requires any particular person to change their faith or their belief system. It is simply that we should agree that in a democracy in America, the government should not interfere with certain decisions.

Let the woman make that decision with her doctor, her loved ones, her pastor, her priest, her rabbi. But the government should not be doing that. We'll go to our resident VP Harris booster, Recy Colbert. Recy, the AKs are meeting this week for their boule, the Sigma Gamma Rho. They're meeting in Indianapolis for their 100th convention. You've got NAACP coming up. National Urban League is in D.C. You've got

National Bar Association, the National Association of Black Journalists, National Association of Hispanic Journalists. They're going to be meeting together in Las Vegas. Look, if I'm this White House, I'm saying, all right, Joe, wherever you can't go, we're sending Harris to every single one of these conventions. I would have her on the road every single week speaking somewhere. And what I don't understand for the life of me, I just checked and I did not see. I went to the White House website, excuse me, their YouTube channel. And again, maybe I missed it, but I'm looking right now under videos. I don't see her particular speech, which again, makes no sense to me.

That's really where they should be. They should have her, because today, Florida, battleground state, Val Deming is running. Now, again, I don't know if it happened today. I'm going to check with Aaron Haynes, who was there. Yes, Val Deming is a Delta. But to me, that's one of those things where you have the vice president, and that didn't even happen in New Orleans. I know Deming was backstage.

They should have had Harris bring Deming out, say, glad to be with her, fine, let her go back out. But that's how you actually utilize this. When we meet in NABJ in Nevada, battleground states, you got to hold on to that Senate seat there as well. This White House should be a lot more proactive in using the vice president speaking to these critical constituents. Well, I totally agree. I mean, I know that she personally requested to go to Essence Fest. I know that I'm going to safely assume that she requested to go to see her beloved sorority sisters. And I could tell when she came out that she was very much overjoyed and emotionally overcome by the significance of that moment for her to be

addressing her sorority in particular. But I know that she has a history of going to all of these Black organization events. She did the Q Convention back in 2019, and she does a lot of these events. So, you know, they don't normally do a lot of advertising about her presence in advance. And sometimes she addresses these conventions virtually as opposed to in person. But she's a she's a huge messenger for the Democratic Party. If you ignore the chatter on Twitter and all the other kind of stuff in person, she's actually a very incredibly popular. And I think that she has her she she feels most at home and most comfortable in front of a black audience. I'm going to be honest. I've seen her at Essence multiple times.

You know, this is her second time doing it. And I think she just feels a lot more at ease. And so if they don't take advantage, that's going to be a missed opportunity. Some, you know, people who are running, that could be their choice whether or not they want to have her be involved. I know that she in particular has always been an advocate for Black candidates in the primaries as well as in the general election. So my assumption would be if she's not deployed by them that perhaps they didn't reach out, but I do hope to see a lot more of her. And, you know, the other last thing I just want to say is I want them to do a better job of really highlighting her work specifically for the black community. I mean, she talked about her work around lead, but she's also been a leader in terms of appraisal home bias and rooting that out.

That specifically has been related to black people. I was at the White House covering that event where there were several black families that talked about their situation. Black maternal mortality is another one, which also impacts black infant mortality, HBCU bomb threats, et cetera, et cetera. So she has a very vast portfolio of black-centered issues that don't get enough attention. And being in front of these audience gives her the opportunity to highlight those. And again, to me, again, Erica, in terms of how, in terms of, again, how I look at this whole deal, you look at the incredible work that Kristen Clark is doing in the Civil Rights Division, the Department of Justice. If I'm the White House, I'm sending the vice president to the National Bar Association Convention and talking about the great things

happening in the DOJ. They never talk about it on the White House podium, which is beyond me, but you have to be laying these things out. I mean, in fact, I get the emails. I get those things today. In fact, when you look at what happened, and the DOJ has really been going after these correction officers. There was a Kentucky correction officer who pled guilty to covering up the assault of an inmate. That took place just a few days ago, actually on Tuesday. Also what happened, another story that's out of Texas, where a sergeant in a Texas jail pled guilty to federal civil rights offenses for assaulting a detainee. Again, I don't know what the hell they doing. Look, I get it.

We talk about Ukraine. I get it. We talk about inflation. But you you have if you don't tell your story, ain't nobody else going to tell your story. Use the vice president effectively to tell your story. Yep. Absolutely, Roland. And I mean, you just laid out before the importance of having black media in specific spaces that we do have black reporters that do report out from some Black entities. But when you talked about there are zero Black media companies that are stationed at Congress where legislation happens, right? So thinking about having the presence of a Roland Martin, your incredible team, they are absolutely amazing.

All the people that work behind the scenes, Think about that being multiplied. So the things that you talk about on this platform with regard to why it's important that those dollars are assigned to Black-owned media, you've got Black Women Views Media, who's there providing coverage. Just think about if we could multiply the number of Rolands, if we could multiply the number of Reese's and have those hands raised that are really asking questions specific to things that are happening in our community, I think that that would also be something that would be a benefit to combat a lot of the Internet chatter that happens around, well, what's happening with us? You know, what are the things that are happening specific to our communities where it would actually be lifted

and you could just run the tape when those present bodies were there to ask those questions and have them responded and then have that really infiltrated in Internet spaces. So with regard to MVP Harris, my mom's an AKA. Shout out to her. She and my dad are both a part of the divine nine. So I know folks like her are very much so laser sharp on the things that Madam Vice President Harris does and where she is. And so it is these types of important issues that people have to hear not once, not twice, but over and over again. That is how we learn. We learn by repetition, hearing it over and over again. So these are the type of stories, the things that Recy shares with regard to what the Biden-Harris

administration is doing, but especially with Madam Vice President Kamala Harris in terms of Black maternal health. If we're thinking about reproductive care, emergency services, thinking about the difference in a woman who has a ruptured ectopic pregnancy, that medical service that she's going to need to save her life because that fetus did not attach inside of the uterus. So putting that in front of people to know that these are things that not only impact women, but they impact Black women disproportionately and why that's important to talk about over and over and over and over again. So definitely agree with you, but this is why it's important to attach the dollars with the bodies within what people are seeing on the internet

and making it gospel. And again, Greg, when we talk about what happens when, again, when you send folks out, when you utilize your assets effectively, someone just posted this. This was the vice president today when she was meeting folks there in Tampa, where you had one of this sister here, U.S. servicewoman who was on the verge of tears just being able to meet the nation's first black vice president. I remember when we were in Selma and she was shaking the hand of staffers there as well and other members of the military, what that means. These are moments that you don't see in Washington, D.C.

It only happens when you get out of the nation's capital. No question. Nobody has more smoke for black or left officials than I do or the black petty bourgeoisie. But let me be very clear. That image you're showing right now, you know, I'm not naive about that. I'm not naive about the politics.

And it's not being cynical. It's being clear-eyed. It's been a student of history. But that means something, Roland. And by the way, folks who may not have known, this time last week, I was scrambling to put on some of my afro clothes, get down there to the Mayflower Hotel. I want to thank you publicly, brother, because Fred Grace signed both my books. And his wife, they were there.

And that was a meeting of the National Bar Association, Sigma Pi Phi, the boule, and Omega Psi Phi, his fraternity. And I'm the first in my family to go to college. I'm a member of Alpha Phi, Alpha Pri, I'm a member, as are you. And then the governor is the president of the university I went to, Tennessee State.

I will die having a deep suspicion of class politics in the black community. But I also understand that it's a complicated thing. And that our people created those organizations, created those spaces not to separate themselves from the community, but to represent and fight for the community. That has become even more complicated after the end of apartheid, after the end of Jim Crow, because we have seen some Black folks separate themselves from Black folk. But I'm coming to this point. You know, Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, it's almost as if they want to lose. You're chasing something that doesn't exist, that white worker for whom whiteness is more important than anything.

Black people are not loyal to the Democratic Party. Black people are loyal to black people. And whether you like it or not, whether it be Delta Sigma Theta, my dear sister, when I go with her to Delta meetings and I come in, there's a thousand Deltas in there. And I'm like, good. Oh, there it is right there. Man, I was so happy to see. I mean, that dude was a Q. It don't matter. I want to know. And I had on my African clothes and I stood in the back. You were sitting on the desk. Y'all had finished y'all's conversation, which, by the way, you should look at the Black Star Network and look at that conversation that Roland Martin had with Fred Gray. Please. I stood in the back and I listened to him. And I'm looking in an audience of lawyers. You know, I decided I wasn't going to practice law. But, you know, as a student member of the National Bar Association, these are the people I would have been with. I'm looking at Sigma Pi Phi.

I saw our brother there, the director of the Joint Center of Political Studies. Spencer Overton. Spencer Overton, of course, who you have on TV one at a time. Hey, Spencer, man, I ain't seen you in a while. That is a world. Of course, we're both in Prince Hall, Prince Hall Masons. That is another world. And I'm saying that

Joe Biden, I didn't you know, Joe Biden, I didn't even say no Joe Biden, Democratic Party. You see, when you walk in a room, and it's 1,000 deltas, each one of those women is involved in organizing in the community. When you walk in a room with that many AKAs, each one of those women is involved in all kind of civic organizations, same for S.G. Rose. Same for the Zetas. Same for everyone. I don't care whether it's groove by groove. And then you named all of the organizations, the

NABJ, the NAACP. Class politics aside, Democratic Party, you need to understand something. You cannot, you cannot galvanize without engaging those groups. And that sister right there, and I'll end with this, as an alpha, I'm watching her walk into a room full of AKAs,

and I got 30-some years of memories of Alpha Kappa Alpha. And if you are black, then you have to understand what that light-skinned girl right there is hugging that black-skinned, dark-skinned woman right when you see them two together like you. If you're not black, you don't understand. And the Democratic Party, y'all don't understand. So the best thing you can do, as Prince might say, give up the car keys this very night. If you're going to get us involved, you need to get the hell out of our way. Turn Kamala Harris loose.

Set aside the criticism. Set aside the very legitimate political arguments. And just go straight to the heart of the culture and get the hell out of our way. Because when these white Nassas win, we the ones that are going to suffer, y'all. So all you working class people, all you poor people that say, are you bourgeois Negroes? Can't none of y'all get no smoke to the bourgeois Negro better than me. And I'm a member of the bourgeois Negroes, can't none of y'all get no smoke to the bourgeois Negro better than me. And I'm a member of the bourgeois class.

At the same time, these are the contradictions of black America, but these devils are playing keeps. And they gonna take us and then you're gonna talk about, oh, now, then you're gonna be begging for the AKAs and the Alphas. You're gonna be begging for the Prince of Africa. You're gonna be begging

for the NBJ and the LACP when they come at your damnphas. You're going to be begging for the Prince of Persia. Right. You're going to be begging for an APJ and an LACP when they come at your damn house. So, hey, man, thanks for getting my book signed. I didn't even get out of there. But that does something to me to see that sister walk in there with all them sisters because I know what it means, a.k.a. the serial matter. But see, and again, I trip out of these people who,

I love it when these old loud mouth fools talk about, oh, Roland, you the boule, and your point. What's your point? Because, see, what's so stupid is they holler, well, you the boule. So is Secretary of defense, who's in my chapter. Can you talk to him? See, that's what the folk don't understand.

And then I love the people, first of all, it's about 5,000 Boulay members across the country. That's it. We ain't talking about 300,000, 400,000, five hundred thousand deltas, three hundred thousand AKs, one hundred twenty-five, one hundred fifty thousand alphas, any other black fraternity. Y'all, you don't even understand the numbers of Prince Hall of Masons or Eastern Star. We can go on and on and on. We talk about numbers. So I get a kick out of these

people who complain about black institutions. They say, oh, you're the bourgeois, but you don't mind them scholarships. Come on, brother. That's right. You don't mind it when there are catastrophes and folks show up with resources and goods. That's right. And as Greg said, oh, I challenged the Boulay directly. Yes. I was at the National Convention in Cincinnati when I challenged them, and I said

I only came here one day because I didn't come here for partying. I only came here for the public policy session. Oh, I'll be at our convention in the Bahamas, but they already know where I'm coming from. And if we ain't dealing with public policy in the election,

y'all gonna hear me from the Bahamas. Roland, let me interject before you. 1934, the most smoke I've ever seen given to the boule was by a member of the boule in New York City in a speech I got in one of these books back here named W.E.B. DuBois.

Lift the boule up. He said, y'all got to be doing more. He said, you know what he said? He said, it ain't even a talented 10th. He said, the families in this room, he redid the talented 10th. That was a speech where he said, the best we could probably hope for is a guiding hundredth one percent he said but y'all trying to separate from the black community he was a member of the boule he couldn't get in the room to do it if he wasn't in there so yeah you're right roland it's complicated brother see and so the the point is what i have been saying and

i said to alpha i said to alvin at our convention that was in Baltimore, I said it to the AKAs at the regional conference in Shreveport and when they honored me at the national convention in Houston. I said it to the Deltas in New Orleans when I was there both times in New Orleans. I said it to Sigma Gamma Rho when they were here in Washington, D.C. So y'all, don't get it twisted. See, when we say hashtag bring the funk, we don't just bring the funk to Republicans.

Oh, we bring it to Democrats. That's why I get a kick out of y'all folk who say, oh, all y'all do is just do Democratic talking points. Y'all can't find no other show that brings the kind of hell we rain down on Democrats on this show from Erica, Reese, Greg, and our other panelists. But we also are smart enough to understand who's pure evil. That's right.

And see, that's the difference. So when these fools start saying don't vote, you're helping pure evil. That's right. You're empowering pure evil. And then we all say, well, we ain't got nothing.

What you ask for? What you petition for? What did you lobby for? What you petitioned for. What did you lobby for. Who you been talking to. See again. It's one thing to hold a rally. It's another thing. When you are strategic enough.

To say. We want two individuals. From each congressional district. to set an appointment with their congressional member, and we're going to visit all 435 House members. See, for some of y'all who want to know how this game works, when the Senate wouldn't approve Loretta Lynch, when we called together 200 black men to go to the Capitol, Jamal Bryant, Jeff Johnson, and myself, you know, we did. We went to go see,

we went to Thad Cochran's office. He's now deceased, but we went to Thad Cochran's office. But see, I ain't from Mississippi. So we had a brother from Mississippi step to the front of the line. He walked in as a constituent. So if they were going to turn us away, they were also turning away a constituent. When we went to John Cornyn's office, I stepped up, pulled out my Texas driver's license. So y'all say no,

you're turning away a constituent. See, I'm just trying to explain to some of y'all, it's real easy to yell, holler, and shout, but it's a whole lot different when you are strategic in how you lobby to get something. Why don't y'all go ahead and read that book, The 101st Senator, about Clarence Mitchell, who worked for the NAACP, who that's what he did. You don't get the Civil Rights Act, you don't get a 64, a Voter Rights Act of 65, and a Civil Rights Act of 68 without Clarence Mitchell and the lobbying he was doing in the halls of Congress.

That's why I think we need a schoolhouse rock 2.0, because a whole bunch of y'all clearly never saw that. Time for HBCU Connect. Let's go. Come on. Today. Today? All right folks, here's my conversation with the president of Johnson C. Smith University at the recent UNCF Summit on Higher Education.

All right, let's talk about the university. Let's talk about how you have dealt with the last two or still in the midst of just this crazy moment. I'm not talking crazy. We were here, and Monday, our team went out to eat, and we walk into the hotel, and all of a sudden, an alert pops up on my phone, and the alert says that you have been for 15 minutes, 59 minutes in the vicinity of somebody

who tested positive for COVID. It was like, oh, hell. And I'm sitting there, and we were there together. Like, well, all of us, who the hell? And so it pings the phone. And so it was just this stark reminder of just still this moment that we're in. So even though we're at this conference and people are walking around and a lot of people don't have masks on, people are vaccinated, COVID is still real.

Well, Roland, first of all, it's a pleasure to be here. You're absolutely right. COVID really, really took all of our attention for the last two years. It was the first item on every cabinet agenda I had, and it was the most discussed item we had. At Johnson C. Smith University, where I'm plowed to serve as a president, we actually sent our students home in March 2020, and we did not bring our students back until August of last year. So we were one of the few schools that took the entire 2021 academic year. I tried to come back in the fall.

It was interesting because I was on social media, and I was telling everybody. I said, y'all, I'm telling y'all right now, schools should give up until fall 2021. They were like, what are you talking about? I said, I'm trying to tell y'all. I said, one, we don't know where this is going. Folks got to get vaccinated. I said, you're talking about cleaning protocols and everything. I said, I'm telling you. I said, if y'all try to rush this thing, I say, wink. The whole thing was like, fall 2021. I was kind of like, okay, I'm telling you. I said, if y'all try to rush this thing, I said, wink. The whole thing was like, oh, it's going to announce. Kind of like, okay, y'all go ahead and try that. Well, Roland, Roland, it sounds like you were in our meetings because we attempted to open up.

We had announced in June that we're going to open up, and we were in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we saw those numbers start rising, and we had made a commitment with our board. We had set up a set of principles that were going to guide our decision. And one of the things they said, we have to be flexible and be able to make pivots. And so we had said we were going to open up, we were planning to open up, and then we decided not to. Hopeful that we could open up in the spring in terms of January. Same thing. You know, when everybody went home Thanksgiving, everybody said, people came back, and in January, we're scheduled to open and those numbers start increasing again and we decided to close. It was a very difficult decision and it cost us a lot of money. It cost

our students a lot of angst, as you can imagine. But we think it was the right decision. And in fact, I've talked to a couple of college presidents who said even though they opened up, the experience that the students had in the fall, because they were so on lockdown, wasn't the kind of experience they wanted anyway. Right. So it was a challenge. If you're going to be on lockdown, might as well be at home. Yeah, it was a challenge.

It was really a challenge. You talk about the lost resources. I really try to explain to people this all the time, who really don't understand that the loss of tuition for HBCUs is far greater than any other institutions. And now we're talking about COVID. Even if all of a sudden there is a drop of 50 or 100 students, I'm like, you've got to multiply that two-inch number times 100 to then realize that the building still exists. Faculty and staff are still there. Benefits are still being paid to health care.

That kind of enrollment drop could leave a huge hole in budgets. I'm going to make you an honorary college president because you have it down right. For every 100 students and decrease in enrollment for Johnson C. Smith, that's about $2 million. So and our enrollments have decreased significantly from pre-COVID to COVID days. And we're slowly building that back up. Where were you before COVID? We were about 1,400 before COVID. And what's been the university's highest? Well, the university's highest in my tenure, and I've been there since January 2018, we were about 1550. So that was in the fall of 2018. This past spring, we ended with just under about 1,100 students. That's 400. That's $4 million. And that's $4 million.

For every hundred, $8 million. $8 million. $8 million, right. And again, off the top. Staff's still there. Faculty's still there. You still have buildings, you still have infrastructure, but you still have those hard costs. Exactly right. And but for the advocacy of UNCF and others, the Thurgood Marshall Fund and others who went to the federal government and got those resources for us, we would be in trouble. But those resources helped us cover that big, big, big valley of expenses for us. And so we're slowly coming back. But it's going to take a while for us to get back up to the enrollment that is sustainable for our institution. Now, how have you all advanced, if you will, your online capacity?

Well, we actually were very fortunate. We actually had an existing online capacity at the time. I've talked to a couple of college presidents that said they didn't have online, but when you had to shift, they had what they call distance learning. They said whether we were online, whether we were doing it through phones, but we actually had an online capacity that we could quickly pivot to and a platform. The challenge was trying to upscale the professional development of some of our faculty because everybody wasn't used to teaching online.

And so that was a challenge, but we did have an online capacity. I mean, folks were like, yo, Rowley, you were perfect for COVID. Because, you know, when I ran Chicago Defender, I launched the first black news source audio podcast in 2005. Mm-hmm. First black news video podcast 2006. So I've been doing digital going back two decades. And so when COVID hit, I mean, I'm talking about university presidents, faculty, pastors,

organization leaders were calling me, man, what camera to buy, what lights to buy, what's your green screen, all of that, because it means everything changed and they had no choice. And I think that, and I've been saying that, I've been talking to other university presidents, for all of the difficulty with COVID, all of the pain that we've experienced, the silver lining is that it did force a lot of black institutions who had been resisting technology, who had been resisting this new way of educating. They had no choice. You either did it or died. That's absolutely right. And as an institution, one of the things that we're going to take away from COVID is that we have now an institute within the university that's helping faculty learn how to deliver instruction in different modes.

So you're never going to see one single mode where there's a professor standing in front of a class, and that's the only way they deliver instruction. They're going to have to be able to deliver it virtually. They're going to have to deliver it synchronistically. In fact, when we did come back, Roland, we had a situation in which, because we were trying to decrease the density in our classes, we had a situation where only half the class was meeting in the classroom while the other half of the class

was at home in their dorm or doing, and the faculty member had to teach to both of those simultaneously. So they had to teach to the kids that were in the room, they had to teach to the kids that were in the room, they had to teach to the kids that were online, and it was very, very difficult. The faculty graciously asked us if we would end that, and we did that for the first semester,

and this last semester we eliminated them. I'll be honest with you. I would have loved that. I would have loved that. Because I would have. Would you have been in your room rolling? Yes, absolutely. Or I would have. Would you have been in your room rolling? Yes, absolutely. Or I would have been somewhere else.

I mean, see, that's the thing. First of all, I've always been a disruptor. So going back to elementary school. So this ain't nothing new. And for me, I'm all about how do you, one, there are multiple ways a student learns. That's true. And it is the flexibility of that. And so that's always the thing for me.

Professionally, I said I want two things, flexibility and freedom. And so then if I'm not locked into this one thing, oh, absolutely. I might be at a park. I might be in a class. I might decide to show up on that class that day because depending upon what the assignment is, what that does is for me, it allows for me to be able to do more. Because if that class, let's say, is an hour, well, if I've got to drive, be there, now coming out of it, go somewhere else, I'm actually losing that front-end time

and that back-end time because I'm having to go to that place. I could be doing something else at class at 10, do it all the way up through 9.58, click on, participate, and as soon as it's done, click, go right back and do what I'm doing. So I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different in that way. So I guarantee you I'll be one of those students. You would have had a good experience at John C. Smith then.

Yeah. I mean, because it's sort of like what we do. I mean, the ability now, it used to be in this business for us to do this, for us to live stream that, for us to live stream conversations. We would have to park a $25,000-a-day satellite truck outside running cables where literally what's right back here is a unit that's about this tall that that serves the exact same purpose and so i was here in atlanta uh i was playing golf with my fraternity brothers and um we ended up probably about four four forty five four fifty and he said man with traffic you're

not gonna be able to get downtown to your hotel i I was like, ain't a problem. I don't need that. He's like, what do you mean? I said, is you the corner of that porch? So it was the clubhouse. They had an outdoor seating. I said, I'm going to sit up right there. He's like, are you serious? I went to the car. Got your stuff. Grabbed the live view unit, my camera, my tripod, my lights, my microphone,

set that suck up on the porch. And he said, what did you do, the backdrop? I said, golf course suck up on the porch, and he said, what did you do, back job? I said, golf course. I broadcast the show. Did you really? I broadcast the show from the corner of that porch for two hours, and it took me 20 minutes to set it up, packed it up, put it in the cart, then we checked my hotel.

Well, that's the beauty of technology today. It is such a disruptor, and if we don't continue to change with it, we're going to be left behind. It is such a disruptor. What are your dominant majors in terms of what are your top three or four majors for students that are attracted to Johnson C. Smith? Well, at Johnson C. Smith, we have 23 programs and majors, one graduate program in social work, which is a very, very popular program. But in terms of our undergraduate education, business, you know, being in Charlotte is a great place to be these days. It's the second largest financial center in the country. We also have biology, and a lot of our students go on to pre-health programs, and then in the STEM area, also in computer science. And we

were very fortunate recently. We have a great mayor, I want to give her a shout out, Vi Lyles, who challenged our business community and our civic and philanthropic community in the wake of George Floyd to really step up and do something to eradicate this racial, social, upward mobility. And she named four initiatives, and

one of those initiatives, thankfully, was Johnson C. Smith. She put a clarion call out to the business community and asked them to commit to $250 million to do something about racial inequality and social upward mobility challenges. And of that, she designated Johnson C. Smith for $80 million. And this is one of those times where preparation meets opportunity. We have been in the process of developing a new strategic plan. It's called the Gold and Blueprint, a little play on our colors, gold and blue. And we took that to the

business community. And the business community fed into it and supported it to the tune that on November 1st of last fall, for the first time in anybody's memory, the business, philanthropic, civic community came to Johnson C. Smith in our chapel, and it almost felt like a Baptist service where people were coming up, giving their pledges, and they made their commitments to the mayor. And on that day of the $80 million, we had received over a $70 million commitment that day. And we've now gone over the $80 million claim, and we just made our first draw of about $5 million. So we're going to be doubling down in those areas that I just mentioned, business finance, medical pre-med programs, as well as digital analytics.

So you're going to see a lot of students coming out of John C. Smith, going into those Fortune 500 companies that are in Charlotte. We're really excited about that. All right. Well, sounds good. Congratulations with that. Now, out of all of the HBCUs that I've been to, I have not been to John C. Smith. Well, you have an open invitation. So if you, that's why, no, y'all got to invite me.

Okay, we are coming. That's why, because I have a standing, I tell everybody this here. So I always rock different HBCU gear on the show, supporting HBCUs. But I only wear gear places I've been. You're coming. Consider the invitation extended, but you'll get a formal invitation from us. We'll rock that.

And usually what happens is when I come, we do the show from there. Charlotte ain't too far from D.C., so that's down the street. Hop, skip, and a jump. Look forward to it. Thank you, sir. Good luck. Appreciate it.

All right. Thanks so much. Bye-bye now. All right, y'all. It's time for us to go, but I heard some of the people who we called out tonight were a little unhappy that we chin-checked them. And so I hit my man Plies, and he said, Ro, I got you. I got you. Allow me to respond to all of your haters. you You may.

You man. Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung, Smart TV. And of course, if y'all want to join our Bring the Funk fan club, every dollar you give goes to support this show. Checks and money orders, PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash app is Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered.

PayPal is RMartin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinunfiltered. Venmo is rmunfiltered. Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. Roland at rolandmartinunfiltered.com. I'll see y'all tomorrow. And don't forget, we got our last Essence Fest 2022 recap. Crazy man, Guy Torrey. Y'all don't want to miss this interview.

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