#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Juneteenth 2024; Verzuz to air on Elon Musk’s X; Willie Mays dies; World Sickle Cell Day

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

6.19.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Juneteenth 2024; Verzuz to air on Elon Musk’s X; Willie Mays dies; World Sickle Cell Day As we celebrate Cel-Liberation Day and commemorate the celebration of emancipation, we'll examine the loophole that enables schools nationwide to ignore Juneteenth's importance.  We'll also talk to the CEO of OneUnited Bank, the largest Black-owned bank in the U.S., who says emancipation has four economic benefits.   The "Grandmother of Juneteenth," Opal Lee, gets the keys to her new house this week, built where her family's Fort Worth, Texas, home was burned down by a racist mob 85 years ago. We'll pay tribute to baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays, "the Say Hey Kid," who died at 93. Today is World Sickle Cell Day.  We'll talk about the latest in finding a cure for this disease that affects primarily Americans of African descent. #BlackStarNetwork advertising partners:Fanbase 👉🏾 https://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbaseMass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington, D.C. and to the Polls 6.29.2024👉🏾 https://vist.ly/37jmvBiden-Harris 👉🏾 https://joebiden.com/ Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

We met them at their homes. We met them at the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

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

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Today is Wednesday, June 19th, 2024. Coming up on Rollerball, on Filter, streaming live on the Black Star Network on this Juneteenth. Fellow holiday will focus on exam exactly what's going on. One of the issues we're talking about is the loophole that enables

schools nationwide to ignore the importance of Juneteenth. Will also talk to the CEO of one United Bank, the largest black owned bank in the US, who says emancipation has four economic benefits. The grandmother of Jun United Bank, the largest black owned bank in the US, who says emancipation has four economic benefits. The grandmother of Juneteenth, Opalee, gets the keys to her new home in Fort Worth, built on the same land where the home was burned down

by a racist white mob 85 years ago today. Also, my man, Gerald Horne, Dr.. Gerald Horn, when I interviewed him for his book about the Texas Emancipation, he talked about a very little known fact about Juneteenth. We're going to play some of that for you. Also, we'll pay tribute to Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays to say, hey, kid who died at the age of 93. Today's also World Sickle Cell Day. We'll talk about the latest in finding a cure for this disease that affects primarily Americans of African descent. And Timbaland and Swiss Beats announced that they're going to be distributing Versus on Elon Musk's platform Twitter or X. All the stuff he had to say about black people, and that's what we're doing?

Is that for the culture? I got a few words. It's time to bring the funk on Rolling Mark Unfiltered on the Black Sun Network. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it blips, he's right on time. And it's rolling.

Best believe he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's rolling Martin Rolling with Rollin' now. Yeah.

He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Rollin' Martin now. Martin. Yes, we're live today on Juneteenth. Why? Because y'all know white media not going to properly cover this Black holiday, so that's why we do what we do. Of course, this has long been a state holiday in Texas since 1980.

Of course, last year was the first year Juneteenth became a federal holiday. It is the only day that actually acknowledges the end of slavery in this country. That is when, of course, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas on this day, 1865, to announce to all of the enslaved people in Texas that they were free. Now, keep in mind, the folks, they kept slavery going for

two years there because you did not have empowered folks there. And so the race has continued. The institution that took place there. And now, again, President Joe Biden last year, May, June 10th, a national holiday. Well, actually, the 2021 course, it was passed by Congress. And so all of this has been going on. And, you know, this is driving the folk crazy who can't stand CRT, DEI, and all that good stuff. And so the question then is, can Juneteenth actually be talked about in classrooms? Well, Chris Stewart is the CEO of EdPost, a network of education activists and influencers who demand better education and a brighter future.

Favorite child, he joins us now from St. Cloud, Minnesota. Chris, the thing that jumps out here when we talk about Juneteenth is how Republicans have been doing all they can to actually stop the teaching of Black history in this country. And so what is the impact of that on Juneteenth? I mean, the impact on Juneteenth is that there are going to be a lot of teachers that self-censor themselves. They won't teach it. Some of them didn't want to teach it in the first place, so it becomes a good excuse to not do it.

But for those that really do want to teach it, they have to fear that if a parent complains, if a community member complains—it could be even somebody not in the same community that can hear that it's going on in a classroom and complain to the state that teacher could be in big trouble. So that's one of the effects and impacts. Straight up by law, though, it can be taught. It can be taught by law in all 50 states right now. The thing that makes it tricky is that only 12 states mandate teaching black history, period. And many teachers say the reason that they don't do it is because it's not in state

standards. And the even more tricky part is, there are these really vague—you mentioned them—anti-CRT laws, anti-black codes written in the state laws that basically say if a white child is made uncomfortable by some of the teaching, if the teaching wanders into a way where it says that one group of people by their race oversaw another people by their race, that that could be a problem too. So teachers just actually just becomes more convenient, more easy to not teach it. And again, you know, we have seen these different attacks and I'm sure this federal holiday is absolutely driving the races crazy. Because of the holiday, you can't get that granted. Obviously, school is out. You still have summer school, but it's kind of hard to get around a federal holiday.

Yeah, I mean, listen, I called my bank yesterday, and the message that they had on the bank was, we'll be closed tomorrow for the holiday. Now, every other holiday that they're closed, they name the holiday. We'll be closed for Christmas. We'll be closed for President's Day or whatever it is. But on this particular holiday, they don't even want to offend their customers by saying that it's Juneteenth. That tells you the reason why we need Juneteenth taught, because if the majority population is going to be this ignorant about us, we can't be, too. So we need our black teachers, our black schools, our black parents and community members, and our black churches just making this an issue.

It's got to be part of everybody's agenda to make sure that black history gets fought for in the same way that other side fought for anti-black laws to be passed in their states. Well, also, I think it's critically important for people to understand that. Listen to those of us in Texas. Juneteenth was not just about, it's not, well, not about concerts and picnics, cookouts, barbecues, things along those lines. It was also about empowering. It was about freedom. It was about voting freedom. It was about, you know, economic freedom, all aspects. And so that's what Juneteenth was about. And so that's, so, you know, I need people to keep that in mind as you

now have nationwide Juneteenth celebrations? I think what you just hit on, Roland, is one of the answers, though. We put a lot on schools and we put a lot on classrooms. And what we have learned as black parents and black people over time is that we are turning our kids over every day to schools that don't look like us. They weren't made for us. They weren't made to help us reach our highest potential. And because of that, we can't fully rely on them to give us the full black education that we need. So, you know, I just want to give you your props.

You've been the only, like, relentlessly warrior type of person on the education part of this. It has basically made you a journalist and a public teacher. What you just said, what just came out your mouth is public teaching. And I just wish more people with a platform like yours at the size and the scale that you are at were kind of a warrior for us the way that you are on this particular issue, because everybody should be talking about it. We should be teaching ourselves and not waiting just for schools to do it. Well, the problem is that can't happen unless you own it. And the reality is when you look at a lot of the folks who are black, who have shows on networks,

they do not control the show. They don't own the show. Their producers determine what's going on. And very few of those hosts truly have the power to do so. And I think that's also part of the problem. Look, I had a black host on a network show say that this person would have loved to have had me on the show, but her white producers did not like the title of my book, White Fear. And I was like, hmm. And I sent some notes

and the person said to me, you know, you're preaching to the choir. I said, no, I don't need you to be the choir. I need you to be the senior pastor. Yeah. You know, again, it's great to talk to you on Juneteenth, brother, because you prove all that wrong, though, right? You made a way where there's not a way. You built your own. You own yourself. That is actually the freedom story of Juneteenth and that we all should be paying attention

to. Prince said it. Own your masters. Don't let your masters own you. He walked around with slave on his face for a period of time. I'm sure you got more stories than that. And also, Roland, you know, first of all, I just want to keep saying you play a pivotal role in this. But in your lifetime, you have watched how hard it is for us to get like the MLK holiday,

first of all. People think that that was easy. They don't remember that it took work to even get that passed. And to see these Republicans go, well, Reagan signed it, he also opposed it. He had no choice to sign it because it was overwhelmingly approved by Congress, but that was not at all something that he wanted to do. And so I like to keep reminding folk of that. You ain't getting no credit. In fact, I had some black woman on my Instagram page

actually say that, oh, Trump fought for Juneteenth, but Biden got all the credit. And I'm like, you out your damn mind if you think I'm gonna let you just get away with that, with that flat out lie. No, he did not. And, you know, it's like, so, yeah, we ain't trying to hear that nonsense from these black MAGA folk. No. And actually, you know what, it's just so good that you're there to call them out at a level in which we can be proud because for many of us, we see this in our daily lives. We have to encounter ignorant people that we work with, that we report to, that we get jobs from, that we have to get grants from if we're nonprofits, whatever. I do think our pathway

to freedom is taking your story to heart like be free own yourself teach yourself though teach your own children as much as you can because school should teach it but they're not going to and that's why i say to all our people don't just sit here and wait and rely on them to do any of this we take the lead as well chris we appreciate it thanks a lot appreciate you brother thank you so much folks this day, I cannot go without us recognizing this brother right here. Go to my iPad, Henry. This here is Texas State Representative Al Edwards. He is the father of Juneteenth.

It was Al Edwards who carried the torch in Texas for years to get this to become a state holiday. Let's be perfectly clear. If there is no state holiday in Texas, there is no federal holiday in the United States. And so to Juneteenth begin to spread all around the country. This is the, this is the statute of Al Edwards, that state representative Al Edwards, my good alpha brother that is, that stands in Galveston, Texas, of course, where those union troops came there. And so I just think it's important. And people need to understand,

this is not trying to say, oh, you're trying to take away from Opal Lee who walked and campaigned for the national holiday. But you have to, if we're going to talk about history and the roots of Juneteenth, do understand that it was a long fight in Texas for it to become a state holiday because Juneteenth originates in Texas. And it was State Representative Al Edwards. He died four years ago. It was during

COVID, you know, and he passed away. He had been ill for quite some time. But it's important on this day. And I posted something on Instagram and his son came and posted a comment and said, you know, appreciate you recognizing my dad on this day. So we all must understand what that particular history is. I'm going to go to my panel right now. Robert Petillo, host, People, Passion, Politics, News and Talk, 1380 WAOK out of Atlanta. Rebecca Carruthers, vice president, Fair Elections Center, Washington, D.C. You know, I made that point there.

I made that point there, Rebecca, about in terms of how how this is because this is in its infancy. I believe that we as black folks must do all we can to ensure that we are controlling the narrative of Juneteenth. At this not become this watered down, you know, holiday that just that we will talk about freedom. No, no, no, no, no, no we're going to talk about freedom. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to talk about black freedom. See, that's my problem with how folk, no, no, no, no. This ain't July 4th.

This ain't Christmas. This ain't Thanksgiving. This is not Veterans Day, Memorial Day. You can go on and on. This is a specific black holiday that celebrates people of African descent being freed from the shackles of slavery, which was the law of the land for 243 years.

And with those extra two years, 245 in Texas. Happy Juneteenth, Roland. We refuse to let corporations like Walmart sell Juneteenth ice cream, because that's not what this thing is about. I have to think about my ancestor, my great-great-great-grandfather, Henry Carruthers, who ended slavery in Navarro County, Texas. It is because of General Granger's order that my ancestor became free. Unfortunately, many of the Blacks who were enslaved in Texas in 1865 had to finish out through the harvest season. They weren't allowed to actually drop what they were doing and then go on to freedom. The thing about my great-great-grandfather, affectionately known as Graham Papp, he founded a town in Texas, which still exists. In fact, it is the first town in Texas that received a historical marker, the first black town,

black enclave, black freedmen's colony. In Virginia, some of those places were called maroon colonies. I say all that to say is it is up to us to tell the story of Juneteenth, especially those who are direct descendants of folks who became free because of Juneteenth, a lot of the Blacks from Texas. That said, I also want to highlight that when I think about the MLK holiday and the campaign to make that happen, it included our black creatives who used their skill, used their platform to make it happen. Many of us sing the happy birthday rendition that Stevie Wonder did. But do many of us know that that specifically, that happy birthday version that Stevie Wonder recorded was to honor MLK's birthday. And he used that to popularize the campaign to make sure that MLK became a federal holiday. So just like Stevie Wonder used his creative arts to do so, we need many of our black celebrities,

we need our black creatives, we need those with platforms to help elevate and to show understanding what Juneteenth is and that it is jubilee. It is about us understanding that we need economic rights. We need education rights. We need housing rights. We need voting rights. We need overall civil rights in this country if we are to be first class citizens in the country in which we built. So Juneteenth is an incredible holiday. I'm very excited that, at least on the federal level now, it is recognized as such. Robert? We have to stop depending on the people who used to own us to tell us the story about how we were owned. You're not going to go to Germany and have Jewish people being taught by Nazis about the Holocaust. You're not going to go to Armenia and have the Turks be taught by Nazis about the Holocaust. You're not going to

go to Armenia and have the Turks be taught, teaching them about the genocide. You have to control your own narrative. This conversation has to happen at home, because when we talk about these restrictions that are being put on education and Black history nationwide, just think about what Byron Donald said a couple weeks ago. I don't think he was being obtuse. I think that's what he really believes. There are Black folks in this country that the only version of black history they've been taught is the Ron DeSantis version of black history. Things were better during slavery. Things were better during Jim Crow. There weren't all these problems. The family was closer together. conservatives all over social media, they are posting June 10th is a holiday when we celebrate Republicans freeing the slaves from Democrats, et cetera, because they're separating the holiday from the history around it. And we have to take this, and this will be a point in time when civil rights organizations around the country are holding not barbecues, but town hall meetings, where black colleges and universities are bringing in high school students who are out

for the summertime and bringing them into the lecture hall so they can learn not just about Juneteenth, but the entire process of emancipation, the process that started at the beginning of the 19th century and lasted all the way through till today, because we are still not fully free in this country. It's one thing, it's great to commemorate and celebrate the freedoms we have had, but we can't stop and talk about the unfinished work of Reconstruction as existed, and the fact that we have still, until this day, not completed the work of being fully emancipated and then given the reparations that we deserve in this nation. And as we have both presidential campaigns running around the country, talking to black

voters, trying to bring in the black vote. You know, Donald Trump is in Detroit at a black church. He's dragging Byron Donald and Tim Scott around the country with him. Kamala Harris is in an Atlanta meeting with Quavo talking about gun violence. Then we have to put on the agenda that both parties need to understand that this is a fight for reparations. This is a fight to repair the damage that was done through chattel slavery, to repair the damage that was done through 200 years of being owned

as animals in this country, and the fact that we have never completed the process of rebuilding black communities and putting us back in the economic status that we deserve to be at within this nation. So, yes, we should commemorate everything that has happened. I don't begrudge anybody from taking a day off or barbecuing or line dancing or anything else. But at the same time, we as a community have to ensure that we are passing down the story and the legacy. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams,

and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

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

And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of

star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

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

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. What was stolen from us at the end of Reconstruction? When the Freedmen's Bureau was set up, what the actual view was and what the plan was to establish the Negro in this nation.

And they have stolen that history from us. When they teach it in classrooms, they literally go, Civil War, yada, yada, yada. We have to put our information and our history out there or else that history will be lost. Come back. I want to talk about black empowerment and then what happens when we also put our culture

in the hands of white nationalists. Yes, I'm talking about Timberland Swiss Beats cutting a deal to distribute versus on Elon Musk X. I'm going to deal with that next right here on Rolling Mark Non-Filtered on the Black Star Network, Juneteenth edition, 2024. Back in a moment. Elon Musk X. I'm going to deal with that next right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, Juneteenth edition 2024. Back in a moment. Hello, my brothers and sisters. This is Bishop William J. Barber II,

co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival and president of Repairs of the Breach. And I'm calling on you to get everybody you know to join us on Saturday, June 29th at 10 o'clock a.m. in Washington, D.C., on Pennsylvania and 3rd, for the Mass Poor People's Low-Wage Workers Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the polls,

and the post effort to reach 15 million poor and low-wage infrequent voters who, if they vote, can change the outcome of our politics in this country. Our goal is to center the desires and the political policy agenda of poor and low-wage persons, along with moral religious leaders and advocates. Too often, poor and low-wage people are not talked about, even though in this country today there are 135 million poor and low-wage persons.

There's not a state in this country now where poor and low-wage persons do not make up at least 30% of the electorate. It is time that the issues of poor and low-wage people be at the center of our politics. Living wages, healthcare, things that matter in the everyday lives. We will no longer allow poverty to be the fourth leading cause of death in this country.

We must let our voices be heard. Join us. Go to our website, www.poorpeoplescampaign.org. RSVP, get others to come. Get a bus, get a van, get on the train. Come and let our voices be heard and our votes be felt. Lift from the bottom so that everybody rises. -♪ And we won't be silent And we won't be silent anymore. I am getting old. We celebrate freedom. Freedom to live, breathe, play, choose, marry, and vote. We are one America.

And with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we're ready to face the future together. We can't stop now. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. Hello, I'm Paula J. Parker. Trudy Proud on the Proud Family. I am Tommy Davidson. I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder Paula J. Parker. Trudy Proud on The Proud Family. I am Tommy Davidson. I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney+.

And I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. Listen. So satisfied When you came into my life I never thought I'd find someone like you Lately you've been acting kind of strange Now I'm insecure And I gotta let you know today Yeah And I gotta let you know today Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Let me love you Let me love you

All right, folks, Juneteenth. We talk about freedom. We're not talking about just freedom from slavery. We're not talking about freedom when it comes to the right to vote, when it comes to being in our own homes, freedom to be able to walk and go where you are and not be accosted by crazy, deranged Karens and Kins around this country. It's also, when we talk about economic freedom, when you look at the numbers, the numbers are stark. Black home ownership has never hit 50%

in this country. Also, when you look at the home foreclosure crisis that took place in 2008, 2009, 2010, some 53% of black wealth was wiped out. Now, we spend money. We spend lots of money, but we also make a lot of other folk rich. When you hear me talking about the battle, even when it comes to advertising, okay,'all heard me say this numerous times, $340 billion is spent last year. It's probably going to be 350 billion or almost 400 billion this year will be spent on advertising. Black owned media gets 0.5 to 1%. So one of the reasons why you do not have a black owned media company of the scale of a CNN or a New York Times or one of those companies is because capital wasn't there. See, a lot of people talk about access to capital, say, oh, well, you need to be able to access capital to grow.

Well, that's not always the case. You also need access to contracts. And so we have to understand that we have significant economic power, not just in terms of how we spend our money, but also how we leverage our money in the marketplace. And that's something that we always should be thinking about on this particular day, whenever there are events. and I've done this, people who brought me in the keynote, I will ask them the question, is that videographer? Is that a black-owned company? The folks at the audiovisual, was this a black-owned company? Are y'all utilizing black-owned caterers?

Are y'all using a black-owned transportation company? See, I ask those questions because if black folks aren't doing that, well, then who is? Those of you who support the Black Star Network, y'all know the day we launched the network and I announced it, I had the people on the air. Look, understand, lighting system that's in here, black-owned company. Henry, give me a wide shot. You see this desk right here? This news desk right here was built by a black-owned set design company. That art down there, that's Leroy Campbell, the art you see there. That green screen over there, that was a black-owned drape company.

The artwork that you see in here, black artists. That control room in there, completely done by black engineering companies. And so the reality is, and we utilize black videographers, black editors. Now listen, there are other folk who work for me who are not black, but we make a concerted effort to actually talk to black people, use black people, invest in black people, and help their businesses grow as well. Joining us right now is Kevin Cohey, CEO and owner of One United Bank, the largest black-owned bank in the United States. And so he says emancipation really has to be looked at through four economic benefits. He joins us now from Los Angeles. Kevin, glad to have you on the

show. And so how do you outline what those four economic pillars are? Well, I'm not sure when you refer to four economic pillars what you're referring to. But when I think about the economic paradigm we as black people face today, I think it's a wonderful opportunity to take advantage of others in helping to build our own communities. For example, corporations as an example. Corporations are more willing than ever to help businesses by doing more business with them. And I think there's a real opportunity to use holidays like Juneteenth to remind America of its obligation to Black Americans going back to when we were enslaved. We continue to overcome the vestiges of first slavery, then Jim Crow, and now we're challenged by living in a country where financial literacy is simply not taught.

K-12, we don't teach financial literacy, even though that's one of the most important topics that affects our lives. Okay, so on that right there, when you say teach financial literacy, be specific. What is it that we should be talking about when we talk about financial literacy?

That phrase is often used a lot by folks, but what does that actually mean? What does that look like? Okay, what it means is K through 12, that we receive a specific curriculum that teaches us all the basic principles of finance. So that as very young children in high school will know about real estate transactions children in junior high school will know about stocks and bonds children in high school will know about things like trust it's that lack of financial literacy that is probably the largest factor suppressing our economic growth right now. Okay, so here's the whole deal. We know that that's not happening in schools. Okay, well, what should then be happening

in terms of our community? Same thing we talk about black history. We know what they're not teaching. The reality is they're not gonna teach us financial literacy. The reality is when the Freedmen's Bank was set up after the end of the war, that actually was one of the role and responsibilities

of the Freedmen's Bank to provide financial literacy for the freed people of African descent who were slaves. But the problem is, we know Lincoln was killed two months later, that racist Johnson came in, and pretty much, and you had what modern day, some $3 billion in black assets was stolen out of the Freedmen's Bank. And so we keep talking about we need it, but waiting on them to do it ain't going to happen.

So from a community standpoint, organizations, explain to folks who are watching how you think that should be taught so we're not waiting on them, we can start doing it for ourselves. Okay, but specifically, it is happening. We're over 50% of the states in the United States have adopted mandatory financial literacy requirements as a condition of graduation. So it is happening. We, as black Americans, need to be the foremost advocates

of ensuring that the rest of the states adopt legislation that require mandatory financial literacy. It's one of the most important issues facing us as a people. So we are making progress. Their legislation is passing. We should just be behind it. It's one of those issues that Black America has not thrown the full weight of its authority behind, even though we're one of the groups that will benefit most. Rolling, just so I can be clear here, passing this legislation, it's been calculated, is worth $127,000 over a person's lifetime. So when you're talking about things like closing equality gaps, racial wealth gaps, income gaps, that kind of thing, the single thing is

worth over $100,000 to each child that receives it over its lifetime. So we are in a position to advocate with state and local government to say, look, we're not playing around with you, okay? We are entitled to this kind of education. It's the most important thing that our people are going to deal with in their lives. With all due respect, you're not going to solve very many chemistry problems, very many biology problems, but you're going to be solving financial problems

every single day for the rest of your life. Right. Teach us what we need to know. Teach our children what they need to know so we can be effective in society.

Right. We dealt with slavery. Then you put Jim Crow on us. Then we dealt with Jim Crow. Now you're sitting there and running a society where you're not teaching us financial literacy, the most important skill we need to have to be effective

as participants in this society. Well, look, I've long said in a capitalist society they want to keep some folks clueless on some of these issues compared to others. One more question for you before I go to my panel, and that is we talk folks clueless on some of these issues compared to others. One more question for you before I go to my panel, and that is, we talk about moving forward.

I also believe it's critically important that we also move as a collective. What I mean by moving as a collective, it's utilizing our collective power. What I've said to numerous black organizations is that when we're talking about weather, we're talking about advertising, and we're talking about venture capital, and we're talking about any, any, all these different areas.

First of all, when you talk about venture capital in this country, they depend, venture capital in this country depends upon pension funds. So we talk about where's the money coming from? That's a lot of black folks who are school teachers, city workers, county workers, state workers, federal workers. And so that money being invested, that's the money of a lot of those folks. And so we can change, I believe, private equity as opposed to trying to operate from the top, trying to hopefully they get religion, but then say from the bottom, no. If y'all don't have black investment folks, then you're not going to have access to these dollars.

Again, that's using our political power, our collective power. It's also what Dr. King said April 3, 1968, when he called it redistribute the pain. He made it clear, those who do not do business with us, we don't do business with them. And he said it. We don't need to throw a Molotov cocktail. We don't need to have an argument or a fight. He said, when we pull our money, then they will pay attention. Well, and I agree with you. I do think it's critically important that we motivate both corporations and governmental entities to do business with

Black people, period. Now, I do think that there's a real opportunity right now in this post-George Floyd environment. We are definitely seeing movement in corporate America, significant movement in corporate America, where they're doing much more business than they've ever done before, both in terms of providing capital, but also making their resources available to minority-owned companies to help them to improve the products and services that they're delivering. So there is progress being made. Our voices are being heard. We just have to, as you pointed out, we have to act as a coalition to speed. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding.

But the price has gone up, so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Businessweek editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and

consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

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

Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman

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

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

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. the advertising front and had a brother. He made a comment. He said, you know, these things take time. And I said, bro, you 78. Every year, every day over 70 for you as a black man is a bonus day. I said, I ain't trying to sit here and wait another 20, 30, 40 years.

And so I think it's important for us to be pushing and prodding in the sense of urgency. I made it clear after the death of George Floyd. I said that the failure of the first Reconstruction... First of all, the success of the first Reconstruction was legislative. 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments, the Reconstruction Amendments.

Then, of course, you go to 1877, you have then usher in 92 years of Jim Crow. Then you get the second Reconstruction Movement, which I call the Black Civil Rights Movement or the Black Freedom Movement. Well, guess what? That dealt with laws. Voting Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, Fair Housing Act. But the money was still never dealt with.

After the death of George Floyd, I said to folks, I said, if you look at the failure of the first two, they never dealt with the money, and there was only a three-, four-, five-year period where white folks did what was right, then all of a sudden it's kind of like, okay, we're clear. I said, let's not let that happen now. I said, this needs to be a sustained effort

for a minimum of 20 years. I said, don't let off the gas, don't let up, but a lot of folks did, and now what we've seen is the attacks on DEI, we see the attacks on the fearless fund, the attacks on law firms and other corporate programs, because folks are saying, let's attack the economic underpinning that has created these opportunities for African Americans. We've got to make sure that we don't let that happen.

You are a thousand percent correct. And we should do that. We should take advantage of things like Juneteenth Day. I mean, that's a holiday that celebrates our freedom. And as a byproduct of celebrating our freedom, it's a time for us to push for more diversity and inclusion in our economy. It benefits everybody. Getting rid of slavery was the best decision this country ever made from both a social and economic standpoint.

What you're talking about was what it takes to continue to build on that economic dividend that our society has. And what you're saying is that we have to represent ourselves effectively with the government and with corporations in order to achieve the things that we need to achieve. Here again, for us, it starts with give us the education, give us the knowledge, if you give us the knowledge that you should have given us, then we are so good as people and so effective that we're given a fair playing field that we will help to build America. We made America, America. The reason America is America's directly because of black people. This emancipation thing, that's why Juneteenth is a big deal.

It's a celebration of America is the greatest country in the world. Why? Because it freed the slaves. That's what made us have the best team, to use a sports analogy. Robert? Thank you so much for everything that you're doing and the conversation is so riveting. I do have this question. I used to live in Chinatown.

I lived in Chicago for a year. Right there, 28th and Wentworth. And I noticed that when you would go into each of the shops there, everybody there, of course, was part of that same community. But in addition to that, they didn't have to have community conversations and symposiums about teaching financial literacy. They just had a nine-year-old work in the cash register. And they made sure that everybody in their community was working towards that same goal. How can we move from kind of this obtuse

level of conversations about having the conversation about having the conversation about financial literacy and transition that into just direct action where people can understand, well, the best way to teach your kids financial literacy to put them on a cash register when they're 10 years old and have them work through the bills and how to found a business directly with you. How can we reintroduce that as opposed to very much these kind of academic conversations I feel like we often fall into. OK. Make it mandatory that the public school systems teach our kids the information that they need to teach them.

They owe us that. We're entitled to be—to receive the training that we need to be effective in life. OK? We dealt with slavery. We dealt with Jim Crow. We deal with a society that still has remnants of systemic racism. Let's make them teachers. Okay, once again, if mandatory requirement to teach financial literacy in school is worth over $100,000 over the lifetime of a person. The single thing, the single thing would change our ability to be effective. Of

course, once again, you're absolutely right. In families that have the benefit of being able to pass on financial literacy in a substantive way, those people have a clear advantage. There are numbers of communities, there's religious communities, you know, that are very good at passing on knowledge anecdotally from person to person. We need real training, better than the anecdotal passing around of information, which is important and it's a wonderful thing. And it will build in future generations, but we need the formal education process put to work to make sure that our children and our people have the knowledge they need to be effective in today's society. One more quick thing. Okay.

Our society has shifted, okay? Haves and have-nots have historically been determined by the kind of things we're talking about, race and religion and those kind of things. One of the phenomena that's happening today is the haves are now the people who are financially literate and the have nots are the people who are not. So that new bifurcation of society, we have to make sure that we're on the financially literate side of that equation because it affects everything. It affects your ability to get jobs. It affects your ability to do things like start businesses. And so we're at a critical point now. Legislation is already out there. As I said, about 50 percent of the states have already passed it. Yes, do we have, does it need, does it have things it needs to work on? Absolutely.

But the group that is in the best position, and it's one of the groups that will benefit the most from mandatory education requirement is Black Americans. We should make them do it. Rebecca? Say you're going to do it. We will not let

you not educate our kids. Got it. Rebecca? Thank you so much for being on the show tonight. So in 2020, a lot of corporations, including JPMorgan Chase, decided they wanted to announce equity commitments. So in 2020, JPMorgan Chase announced a $30 billion equity commitment. Since then, they've been partnering with minority depository institutions, namely Black banks, as a way to do like a joint depository or depository backing for Black banks. I have many questions about this program, but with you leading the largest Black bank in the country, is it in the best interest, in the best long-term interest for black banks to partner with a JPMorgan Chase in this type of venture, or is it better for black banks just to use federally backed funds in order to provide loans and other services to their customers?

Absolutely. Okay. I work with J.P. Morgan. I work with J.P. Morgan every single day. Okay. Now, the thing is, it's not just J.P. Morgan, but it's also banks like Citibank that have wonderful programs. Those types of companies are working toward fulfilling their commitments. They not only are providing capital to organizations, but they're providing their expertise more importantly. And that's something that cannot be replaced. That expertise is what

allows you to grow and prosper. But it's not just companies like them. It's companies like Google, companies like PayPal that are working with corporations, working with black-owned businesses to make them better businesses, to improve their technology and improve their sales techniques. So the program you're talking about is real. Those millions and millions of dollars and tens of millions of dollars that you're talking about are in fact being invested and you are seeing progress does it need to be more yes that's why i'm like hey we need to be out so we just go celebrate juneteenth we need to be in the streets there need to be large corporate celebrations so we can keep the issue of d and i in front of people

to let them know hey we're celebrating freedom we're celebrating the issue of D&I in front of people to let them know, hey, we're celebrating freedom. We're celebrating the fact that by people who were formerly enslaved to be emancipated, that that created this wonderful economic opportunity. Let's continue to build on that economic opportunity, which is taking the disenfranchised and giving them more opportunities to effectively participate in society. That was the bet on emancipation. Here again, as you all well know, during slavery, slavery was over half the economic backbone for over half of the country. We had to shed that

and make a big bet that by freeing the enslaved people, that we were going to have a stronger, better economy and we were going to have standing in the world. The social benefit is that as

a slave-based society, we would have no standing. We would have no credibility. We would be inhumane. We would be brutal. We would be cold-blooded as a country. We couldn't provide leadership. So that was the social part of it. The economic part of it was that if we free the people, that the contribution to the economic growth of our society will be bigger than what we have in this cotton-based, slave-based economy. And it has. It's the best decision the country ever made. Well, but it was not an easy one. And it has not been easy since that civil war took place.

And we continue to have, of course, the 90 years of Jim Crow. And we still are battling to make this a more perfect union. And so that's what our aim is. Kevin, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Well, I appreciate you having me. All right. Have a good one.

Folks, we come back. I'm going to talk Swiss beatsats, Timberland versus. Why couldn't they do this with a black platform? A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up. so now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. But guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull will take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

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

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

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

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

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'll explain when we right back. This is a genuine people-powered movement. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it. And you spread the word.

We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in Black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month.

Rates $100,000. We're behind $100,000. So we want to hit that. Your money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RMartin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered.

Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Bruce Smith, creator and executive producer of The Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. We'll be right back. All right, folks, on this Juneteenth day, I was on social media after I played a round of golf, and I saw this story right here. And I thought it was very interesting. Versus co-founder of Swiss Beats Timberland secure distribution deal with Elon Musk X.

The duo maintains full 100% ownership of the platform with X claiming exclusive distribution rights. And so you see the photo here that Linda Iaccarino, the CEO of X and Timberland and Elon Musk and Swiss Beats, everybody all smiles right here. And so I saw this story. And so when I immediately saw this story, what immediately jumped out to me was, hmm, here you have a black entertainment platform, if you will, came about during COVID, was all about the culture, features black people, black people, black artists, celebrating black culture,

not just in the United States, but around the world. And it's going to now be distributed on a platform owned by a man from South Africa, who, after he bought it, replatformed white supremacists. This is the same Elon Musk who consistently promotes, retweets, and responds to racist content. This is the same Elon Musk who questions the intellectual ability of black pilots.

The same Elon Musk who questions intellectual capability of black doctors. The same Elon Musk who frequently attacks DEI. So is this what we mean by doing it for the culture in 2024? See, this is the issue for me that it always bugs me. When I often see these type of deals, I often ask the question, hmm, I wonder what it would look like if Versus decided to say, you know what, we're gonna do this on Fanbase,

a black-owned social media app. But let's say it's not Fanbase. Chris Mabuse is spoutable. Spill. You've got Nate Parker, David Oyelowo's Mansa streaming service. Now, I hear this all the time. Black folks will say, well, you know, do they have the capability to do those things?

Well, guess what? When you get more followers and you get more resources, then you're able to build capacity. I've often wondered why when I look at present-day artists and I look at how many of them talk about black empowerment and talk about doing it for the culture, and I'm always asking, well, who's doing it for the culture? Are they cutting deals really where they get rich?

Or is it actually for the culture? If Versus did this with a black-owned platform, let's say you take Fanbase, 5,700,000 subscribers. Let's say all of a sudden they did a deal with them. Here's what would be interesting. I can guarantee you Isaac Hayes III would have given Timbaland and Swiss Beats

equity in fan base. That means that not only would they be owning the entertainment platform, they would be owning the technology platform. And they would be driving hundreds of thousands

or millions of new users to, let's say, fan base, or Spill, or Spoutable, or Mansa. And now all of a sudden, the value of the platform exponentially grows. I know some of you might say, well, you know, who's done that? Well, I'll give a perfect example. Tyler did that.

When Tyler cut a deal with OWN and he brought his shows to OWN, OWN's ratings went through the roof. When that deal ended and he went to BET, and he still has a BET deal, oh, trust me, those deals are going, are doing well because eyeballs are following. See, this is the thing that I'm always saying.

Black people, our eyeballs go. But how often are we actually saying, let's bring black eyeballs to something that we own, that we control? Why make Elon Musk's Twitter slash X bigger and make him richer? See, at some point, consciousness to me has to enter into this conversation. To me, at some point, I would think and I would hope that you would have entertainers today who would be along the lines of Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Diane Carroll. When I think about Melvin Van Peebles,

I can go on and on and on. Dick Gregory and others. It's called not just having a conscious, but being conscientious. And see, what we have to do is go beyond this idea of for and no more, or it's just me. You know, a guy asked me this question, which I thought was interesting. We were having this discussion, and he said, know, a guy asked me this question, which I thought was interesting.

We were having this discussion, and he said, well, let me ask you a question, Roland. He said, if you could do a deal where you made $500 million or you and nine others who you know who are in this ownership space could make $50 million each, which one would you take? I said, easy decision.

He's like, what? I said, $50 million. He's like, what? Are you serious? I said, yes, I'm very serious. I said, see, what you don't understand is I understand collective. See, if I make $50 million and my boy makes $50 million and my homegirl makes $50 million,

that's nine other lineages. That's nine other families. That's not one person keeping it all for himself. I say this all the time. I've told Byron Allen this. I've told other black-owned media owners this. One person can't eat it all. Literally. In the advertising space, Disney can't eat all of it. Comcast can't eat all of it.

So why should we operate that way? I just really wish we had more black entertainers today who are thinking about their leverage, power, and influence. And actually using it to build black-owned institutions. And here's the deal. Fan base is not only for African-Americans. But if we have the ability, if you have an individual or individuals who have enormous following, how hard is it to say, you know what? I could do this deal over here.

And we could do this deal and make a lot more money up front or we could shift our following here and build something that goes way beyond versus. That's a platform. Last point, I'll say this before I go to Rebecca and Robert for comments. White America has always been fine when we were the show. If we singing on stage, if we dancing on stage, and if we hitting the ball, if we making baskets and we running the ball, y'all, that's the show.

They've always focused on the business of the show. And this to me is a perfect example of where I wish those two brothers, Timbaland and Swiss Beats, had said, no, we're not going to bring this unique black cultural institution to a platform owned by a man who literally degrades black people on a regular basis. I'm sorry. You simply cannot get that. And I don't care if he put a bunch of money on the table. Because you know what? Wherever black eyeballs go, the money follows. And I can guarantee you, if Versus was on Fanbase or some other black platform,

and it blew up like it, of course, we saw during COVID, the money would be there. The sponsors would be there. The advertisers would be there. They would be all there. Hopefully, more of us will learn that one day. One day, will we learn to say, no, I'm good. I'm going to pass up the short money. I'm going to build something that could actually make me a... A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways.

Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up, So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's going on, why it matters, and how it shows up in our everyday lives. With guests like Business Week editor Brad Stone, sports reporter Randall Williams, and consumer spending expert Amanda Mull,

we'll take you inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

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

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

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I have a lot more money than what you're offering me today. Rebecca.

You know what, Roland? Not every black person understands how to build for the culture because quite frankly, what Swizz Beatz and Timberland did was so iconic during the pandemic, but I don't think they ever had a plan for it once it blew up. This is not the first time that, in my opinion, that they entered into a bad business deal when it comes to Versus. They tried to do a deal with Triller, that that fell apart. That didn't work out. The thing that makes this so heinous is that not only is Elon Musk a racist, he is anti-Black. He is anti-Black culture. So to take something that is inherently built on Black culture, put it in an environment

that is anti-Black culture, it will not be successful, because it will not be able to thrive in that type of environment. The other issue is that Elon Musk, he's down over 20 percent of X formerly Twitter subscriptions or membership because people just don't like what he's turned X into. So if these two, Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, would have leaned in for the culture, partnered with Fanbase, it actually would have grown the number of users on Fanbase, which is the point, which is why social media platforms try to figure out exclusive licenses with different popular entities. The other reason why I don't think Swizz Beatz and Timbaland really understand what to do with Versus is that they could have turned it into a multi-billion dollar music festival, which is what a lot of people screamed at them from the culture, like, hey, you should

do this thing, because this thing has the ability to even outgrow and eclipse even the Essence Festival. That's how popular Versus was across multi-generations. It wasn't just exclusively to Black women, but it also had equal, if not more, appeal to Black men. So once again, this shows me that neither of those two understand what to do with Versus. And then it is just dog. like on Juneteenth, you're going to make this announcement that you're partnering with a racist who lets it, lets it be clear that he does not like black people. He does not value black people. Like that's not for the culture. There's someone that's lost here. There is a disconnect here. And it simply doesn't make sense. Ultimately, I don't think this joint venture will be successful because it's going to miss that missing ingredient.

It's going to be missing the culture. Robert. Robert, this is a Socratic experiment. I want people to think to themselves, how often have you seen a black soul food restaurant in a Jewish neighborhood next to a synagogue. How often have you seen a black barbershop in Chinatown right next to their restaurants and their businesses? You don't see those things, because those communities keep their neighborhoods, keep their business, keep their economics to themselves. And so the first generation, they come in, they open a cleaning service or a restaurant or a daycare, something like that. Then the next generation goes to college, and then they're running those things. And the next generation,

after that, they become doctors and nurses and lawyers. And the next generation after that becomes congressmen and lawyers and politicians, et cetera. And that's how you keep building generation after generation. You can't build a society giving away your intellectual property. You can't build a society investing in other people, giving half your money away to other groups. That's exactly what they're doing right here. The depths of Elon Musk's racism, I don't think people can fully quite understand. And let's break it down a little bit. Before the pandemic, the headquarters of Twitter, or sorry, of Tesla, was in California, same with SpaceX, one of Elon Musk's other companies.

The reason he left California and moved to Texas was not just the tax breaks, but the regulatory breaks. He did not want to have to comply with diversity, equity and inclusion standards that they had in the state of California. He wanted to be able to hire who he wanted, when he wanted, and just so happened to be all white guys that he was friends with. So he moved to Texas, where he had less civil rights laws in place. He has supported politicians and making sure to trumpet this message of being anti-DEI. He has said the DEI is D-I-E, die. He is under the sincere belief that every black person who's in a position of power or authority is there because of affirmative action, that no black person can be qualified for any position of power and authority. Remember, he grew up and his father owned an emerald mine

where he would throw emeralds around like baseballs, watching the black workers dig into the ground to their deaths in order to make his family enriched. So this idea that you would go and literally work for the, ostensibly, the South African grand wizard in order to get your message out there, to get your music out there, is why we don't have nice things. When you want to wonder why you have so many biopics about artists and singers and black musicians from 30, 40 years ago, and they all went broke, this is why. Because you signed a deal with the devil. And guess what?

You never win a deal with the devil. And they're going to see that this venture is going to fail, because the people who are on Twitter are the people who are fans of David Duke, Turning Point, Mimos, the Tucker Carlson show aired exclusively on there. Those are the people, that's the audience you're reaching out to. So if you think you're going to put versus right up next to the Nick Fuentes clan hour, you're going to miss out. So they're going to learn the hard way just as everyone else has. You cannot build your business and build your society on the back of anybody else. You're going to have to do the work and build it from the ground up. Indeed. All right, folks, going to

break. We come back. We will pay tribute to the say hey kid. Willie Mays who passed away yesterday at the age of 93. You're watching roller Martin unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Support the work that we do. Join the bringing funk fan club

senior checking money order. PO Box 57196 Washington DC. 200037-0196 cash app. Dollar sign RM unfiltered. PayPal or Martin unfiltered. Venmo is RM unfiltered. We'll be right back. We are the culture. We blaze trails. We define our future.

We are the heart and soul of America. This Juneteenth, we celebrate freedom. Freedom to live, breathe, play, choose, marry, and vote. We are one America. And with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, we're ready to face the future together. We can't stop now. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. Me, Sherri Shepard. I'm Tammy Roman.

I'm Dr. Robin B., pharmacist and fitness coach. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Thank you. Willie Mays was called the greatest all-around baseball player ever. The say-hey kid had a professional baseball career that spanned four decades, beginning with the Negro Leagues in the late 1940s and ending with the New York Mets in 1972. In between, he spent 21 years with the New York Giants, who would later move to San Francisco. Folks, he was, of course, known for his stellar play in center field. And again, he could do it all. He could hit.

He could run. He could catch. He could throw. He was indeed an iconic baseball figure. Howard Bryant, sports journalist, author, joins us right now. Howard, glad to have you here. When we think about baseball players of yesteryear, they're these mythical figures, largely because back then you had newspapers and newspaper columnists in terms of how they wrote about them and their exploits. And people often hear the games via radio,

you couldn't actually see it on television until until until years later. And we and a lot of times people throw around the phrase the goat or great or iconic. For me, there are a few people who sort of fall into that category. Willie Mays was definitely one of them. Yeah, no, no question. And I think that it's a tough day. Yesterday was a really hard day because when you think about Mays, he's a generation. He's the guy. He's the standard. He's the standard in so many different ways. One of the things that I love about Mays, in addition to his ability, is he really is the first guy, when you think about

professional athletes, whose legacy was in his number. I mean, you think about running backs. OK, there's a generation of running backs who followed number 32 after Jim Brown, whether it was OJ and the rest of them. But the first guy was number 24. Everybody wanted to wear 24 because they wanted to be like Willie Mays. Ricky Henderson wears 24, Mays. Griffey, Mays. You know, Bobby Bonds wanted to wear—Barry wanted to wear 24 in Pittsburgh and then wanted to wear it again when he got to San Francisco. 24 was the number that you wore when you were especially a black outfielder, because you wanted to be like him. You wanted to follow him. He was, you know, he was the guy that

everybody was in awe of in terms of being able to do all of the things. And yeah, when Willie played from 51 as a rookie, goes to the World Series, and then retires in 73 at 42 in the World Series with the Mets. He was the standard for everything about being a superstar, about being a generational star. In a city that already had the Yankees and the Dodgers, he's the standard. And he always will be, as far as I'm concerned when we're talking about play what's interesting is that and I've read several books

on Willie Mays and his story people talk about again what happened on the field when you think about that generation of athletes if you're talking Jim Brown if you're talking Bill Russell if you're talking Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, if you're talking Kurt Flood, we can go on and on and on in terms of players during that period. For Mays, it was all about baseball.

He wasn't necessarily this active figure in the civil rights movement, things along those lines. He was focused on the game. Yeah, he was focused on the game, but that's not really accurate, Roland. It's hard for Mays. And we talk about this a lot when you think about the history of Willie Mays

because he was the guy in a lot of ways who made it easy for white fans to love him because he was so focused on the game, to your point. He was the guy—he was the anti-Jackie Robinson in a lot of ways, where Robinson wanted to know your politics before you cheered for him. He didn't want you to cheer for him if you didn't have the right politics. He wanted you to understand that rooting for him, that supporting him also meant supporting him as a man. And he put that right in your face. And he put that in your face for the 10 years that he played. And there were people, both black and white, who were tired of the fact that Jackie Robinson was so intense about being black. And the contrast

to that was, well, why can't you be more like Willie? Because Willie just made you feel good. Willie made you want to copy his batting stance, even though people copied Jackie's batting stance. Willie made you want to run around and do the basket catch. And Willie was uncomplicated in that way, or Willie appeared to be uncomplicated in that way, because Willie didn't put that on you specifically. But Willie Mays came up the same years as Jackie Robinson did. Willie was born in 1931. Willie was passed over by the Boston Red Sox the same way that Jackie Robinson was.

Willie trained in spring training in Scottsdale, Arizona, which was a sundown town with the Giants, with the New York Giants, which meant that no blacks were allowed after sundown in Scottsdale. So Willie had to stay 17 miles away from his teammates in Phoenix. So Willie went through all of it. Willie was humiliated. When Willie went to San Francisco, liberal San Francisco, he couldn't buy a house down in the peninsula, even though he was Willie Mays. And everybody cheered for Willie, and everybody wanted to be like Willie, but they didn't want Willie to live next door. And Willie held a lot of that in, and Willie didn't carry it the same way Jackie did, because Willie was here to entertain you. And when Jackie wrote his second memoir, not really a memoir, but he wrote another book called Baseball Has Done It in 1964, he criticized Willie for it.

You're the guy that everybody loves. You're the best player in the game. Maybe you're the best player any of us have ever seen. Why aren't you using your power? Why aren't you using your influence to get people to also cheer for you and recognize they've got a responsibility that comes with cheering for you. And Willie was in a real difficult spot because it wasn't Willie's way to be like Jackie. So I understood it. I mean, everybody carries it differently. Right. And it doesn't mean that Willie didn't carry it. He just didn't display it the way Jackie did. So

I'm not going to name the famous baseball player. But one of the things that he said was he said that if you look at the major records in baseball, this person said Willie didn't hold any of them. So how could he when I tell you offline, you're going to crack up laughing. Then again, knowing you, you probably already know. So when you hear that, when you hear that stated, but he was considered all around greatest baseball player ever. How? What made him so

easy? Well, number one, this is one of the reasons why it's so difficult in baseball today, because baseball has turned selling the game into selling math. They sell analytics. They sell numbers. They sell all these things, and Willie was not defined by any of those things. Willie Mays, when you saw—Willy Mays was eye test central. You watched him. Youtest central. You watched him. You saw electricity. You wanted to emulate him. You saw—if you were a baseball person,

you knew the difference between the guy who put up numbers and the guy who could play. You saw Willie do things that guys couldn't do. When people talk about—you just showed the clip of Willie making the catch in 54 in Game 1 of the World Series. But what that clip doesn't show, if you ever want to show it again, watch how far back Willie's going. Deep center field in the polo grounds was 485 feet. That's how far he's running to make that catch. I mean, he's, the ballpark doesn't go that far anymore.

It shows you what an athlete, what a ballplayer he was. This isn't about numbers. This is about what you're seeing and how this man is making you feel. This is what sports is supposed to be all about. You know, we don't, it's not an algebra test, launch angle and exit velocity and all the stuff that they sell the game on now. Willie was kinetic. Willie made you want to go outside and play baseball.

He made you want to go out and watch baseball. And also, he did put up the numbers. He did hit.345 one year. He did hit 51 home runs one year. He did hit 52 home runs one year. He also missed two years to the military in 52 and 53. So if you add, nah, about at that, those years, he was hitting 40, 45, 50 home runs a year. He breaks Ruth's record before Hank Aaron does. So it's not like Willie didn't have the numbers. So let's face it, Willie also had 500 home runs and 3,000 hits, 32-83.

So as much as you may want to look at those numbers and go, okay, Willie didn't end with all the numbers. He was absolutely the leader of a lot of those numbers when he was playing. I think it's hilarious you were talking about that catch. This was an old-timers game. So, for a lot of people who don't know, they used to literally have these games, but then too many of these old-timers were getting hurt in these games. And because they were athletes and they –

the brain was like, go catch that ball. This is an example. This is Willie Mays at 50 years old playing center field. This is, and so he chases this down, makes, you know, falls down, and he was like, damn, like, what the hell was I thinking? But you put him out in the center field with a glove,

he is going to go after it because the fans are watching. That hamstring. That hamstring hurts. But again, that's I mean, again, when you put a guy like that on the field, they are going to perform.

Well, and that's the thing with Mays is that he's also representative of the greatest generation, that golden era of New York baseball. You had the Giants, the Dodgers, and the Yankees all in the World Series during those years. You had Jackie Robinson. You had Roy Campanella. You had Willie Mays. You had Monty Irvin. You had all these guys playing in New York. And it really was the moment where baseball, this was when baseball was the sport that was leading in race relations as well, not because

everything was great in the sport, but because it was the sport that did it first. And if you wanted to see black competition against white competition, you didn't go to the NFL for that yet. Yep. You didn't go to the NBA for that yet. You had to go to Major League Baseball. And while you're saying that, this is a video here of Ernie Banks, Frank Robinson, Hank

Aaron, and Henry Aaron, and Willie Mays all together at an All-Star game. That's a hell of a lineup there. And don't forget that those black players, because you look at those guys, you see Mays came up in 51. You see Banks came up in 53. Henry came up in 54. Frank came up in 54. Those guys took those All-Star games seriously because the American League didn't integrate as quickly. They refused to integrate. Outside of the

Cleveland Indians, most of those teams didn't want to integrate, including the Yankees and, of course, the Red Sox. And so the black players took the All-Star game very seriously. And they dominated the American League as a message to say, hey, you guys kept us out, and we're going to show you the mistake that you made by keeping us out, by killing you every summer during the Midsummer Classic. This is a video we've seen a lot, Willie Mays playing stickball with the kids in New York City. I also think what is so different about, obviously, players back then, and not just baseball players.

I think when you think about Muhammad Ali, when he would be walking the streets of Harlem, when you think about Joe Louis and all this. I mean, here's a piece I think people forget. They couldn't live any places. So they were living right there with everybody else who was black. So their interactions with kids and adults in restaurants and stores because they could not live in the suburb, in the mansions.

And so their connection to the community, and it's not a diss on players after them, but it's just a different relationship because you actually could see them, touch them, talk to them. Well, and not only that, but this is what happens when the game becomes a business, when it becomes an industry. Back then, Willie Mays signed his first contract. He was making $5,000 a year. And so—and, yes, he could only—you know, you're living in Harlem.

The polo grounds are in Harlem. And you're looking at this guy as a member of the community. He's a part of you. His kids and Jackie Robinson's kids, they're going to school. They're in the school system. They're in the school district. You watch them and they are, these are the things that we lose when we talk about all of the money and the changes in the game and everything else. And that's why people have so much nostalgia for it. Because when you watch a player like Mays, you're not just thinking about him. You're also thinking about yourself. You're thinking about your time and you're thinking about the games on the radio. And that's the difference that baseball, it's the power of baseball. You're thinking about your time. And you're thinking about the games on the radio. And that's the difference that baseball, it's the power of baseball. You're thinking about your family and, you know, listening to the games on the radio with your family. You know,

my dad and I used to watch the games or we used to go to the games or whatever. And Mays represented so much of that. And he represented it on two coasts. And once again, when you think about the people that make you want to care about sports, you don't have that in baseball today. There's no LeBron James equivalent in baseball today. There was a time when Willie Mays is the most famous name in sports. Those days in baseball are long over. It's all gone. And so when you think about, when you think about as we get older, we protect our own time. We're thinking about our time as well in the years that we've traveled and the people that we love to aren't here anymore. And how much I remember listening to the old timers when I was in my twenties telling me, yeah, you know, if you never saw Mays play,

you didn't know baseball. And if you didn't see Jim Brown, you don't know football. And so it all of it, especially for black people during that period, because this is the it's the integration era in the 20th century of sports. It's that second age from the immigration to integration to economics. This is the... A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding, but the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek. I'm Max Chavkin.

And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at what's boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? or wherever you get your podcasts. called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there, and it's bad it's really really really bad listen to new episodes of absolute season one taser incorporated on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts binge episodes one two and three on may 21st and episodes four five and six on june 4th and Episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

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

player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug

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

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Period where black people become front and center in the culture. It didn't happen with the doctors and the lawyers and the professors.

It happened with the athletes. And Mays was one of the first guys that we saw. Robert? And we talk about this all the time, the lack of the black participation in baseball today. And, you know, my dad grew up or lived in Harlem at the time. He went to the Polo Grams. He went to Ebbets Field. I grew up kind of immersed in that culture.

What do you think has to happen for this new generation to have that same connection to the sport that they used to have? And then I think about all the times watching the UFL championship game this weekend, thinking to myself that there's a kick returner who's never going to make it in the NFL, but who will make a hell of a center fielder and can make a half billion dollar playing. But they just don't have the focus to actually build that as a skill. What do you think will get us back to being the baseball culture? Well, I think what's been lost is the money. When I talk about baseball, baseball is a white suburban sport reinforced by foreign labor. That's what baseball is. Baseball used to be an American game. And that American game was always looking for the cheapest source of talent. Back in the day,

it was the Negro Leagues. That's where you went for your talent. Today, baseball has billions of dollars of infrastructure in the Dominican Republic and in Venezuela, and that's where they look for their players. And the fact that the game, that the money is so big now, baseball does not develop its own players anymore. So baseball is going to college. College baseball is less than 2 percent African-American. So the reason why there's only 6.3 percent black participation in the sport now is because you're not looking for black people to play your sport. The reason why you had so many black players back in the day was because baseball didn't have to compete for them. Now baseball has to compete for that African American player with basketball, with football,

because the other sports will pay for you to play. The college will pay for you to come play basketball. They will pay for you to play football. will pay for you to come play basketball. They will pay for you to play football. But baseball is a non-revenue college sport. So nobody's paying for black people to develop their baseball skills. And now that that infrastructure has shifted to the Dominican Republic, black players are disappearing. And I've always said that it's such a cop-out to say, well, you know, black kids would rather

play football and they'd rather play basketball. Not true. You put a ball in front of a kid, he's going to play with it. There's no question about that. The question is, is that baseball has priced itself out of the black player. It's not looking for the black player. It doesn't want to compete for the black player. And that's why they have all these initiatives now to try to get those players back. Rebecca. You know, earlier, you talked about Willie Mays numbers and how it isn't as comparable to others. I think that was your point. So if we were to add his numbers from playing in the Negro Leagues and add it to his numbers playing for MLB, what is his overall numbers

and how does that compare with other greats in baseball? They wouldn't be that different because Mays was only in the Negro Leagues for not even a year. He played for the Birmingham Black Barons, I think, in 1948. Well, in fact, he was quoted last week, Howard. He was like, hey, that's pretty cool. I had, what did heons, I think, in 48. Well, in fact, he was quoted last week, Howard.

He was like, hey, that's pretty cool. What did he say? I had 100 hits added? Exactly. When they brought the Negro League records, he was like, okay. He said, that's pretty cool. Yeah, exactly. But Willie, you know, he was in the tail.

And the Negro Leagues wouldn't have made a difference for him in terms of his numbers. His numbers were enormous. Let's not, you know, OK, Henry put up huge numbers. Bonds put up huge numbers. He would have, I think, I do believe Mays would have gotten to 714 homers had he not missed two years in the military. But Willie Mays put up enormous numbers. Right. 3,000 hits, 500, 660 home runs, so 500 plus home runs, 1,900 RBIs. This man played 13 straight years in center field at 150 games or more. He's a giant.

And no matter how you, however you want to cut it, if you want to do it by the numbers, go ahead. If you want to do it by the eye test, go ahead. However you want to do it, just by name recognition and reputation. One of the things that I always tell players is that we think that you're going to survive time, but time replaces all of us. It hasn't replaced Willie Mays because he was that big. And there are certain guys that are the, you know, they're the Mount Rushmore, they're the Everest of the game. And he was one of them. He is still the guy that everybody compares when you're looking at 5'2 players. Can you hit for average, hit for power, run,

catch and throw? He could do everything. I do find interesting though, and I saw this clip, and I want to get your thoughts, because he was asked, hey, who do you think is the greatest player of all time? And look, it's very few people say, hey, me. But he said this here, listen. Who do you think was the best player other than Willie Mays in New York? I mean, of your teammates. Well, I hate to say this, Joe, but my best player, the guy that I picked, wasn't my teammate.

He was Roberto Clemente, who played with the Pirates. I first saw Clemente in 1954 down in Puerto Rico. I had to go out and help him in many ways as far as ground ball was concerned, but he could throw, he could run, he could hit. He could do just about everything. And I think he was pretty close to anybody that played baseball-wise. He didn't hit a lot of home runs, but he will carry downtown. You know, he hit 25, 26 right now.

And today they call that a superstar, a 25 home run. But in those days, he was just a mediocre home run hitter. He wasn't a home run hitter then, but the reason I didn't pick my teammate is that maybe I look at things differently when it comes to players, and I think Clemente was...

He was... Clemente was a hell of a baseball player. And once again, go talk to my late great friend Henry Aaron. He's our friend. Oh, and once again, and go talk to my late great friend, Henry Aaron, our friend Henry. And Henry got, what did he win? One gold glove or two gold gloves? And then Clemente won them all in right field. And I think that's one of the other things about that time period, Rowan, is that because baseball was so far ahead of the other sports and because integration had taken so long, you had this unbelievable glut of talent. I mean, let's not forget Frank Robinson

was out there in right field, too. So you had Henry Clemente and, you know, Mays in the outfield. You had an Aaron in right field. You had all of these players. You had so many of these great players. And the beauty of it was, was that they had something to prove. They were not detached from the black struggle. They were involved in the black struggle. And that includes Clemente, because one of the things I love about Clemente was that he's one of the few Latino players who identified as black, saw himself in the black struggle. Today, there's this, you know, the story of Pan-Africanism in sports, in baseball especially, doesn't really exist. You talk to a black player in the Dominican Republic, they want to fight you. They're not black, they're Dominican. And so this is one of

the things where you make a concerted effort to mention the black players for being black, because those players at that time, they, you know, as much as Mays got criticized for not being as vocal as Aaron or not being as vocal as Jackie, you know, you talk to Mays. I remember when I first time I interviewed him, he told you all about what he went through as well and how much it hurt him that people looked at him as though he wasn't committed to black people simply because he was out there making everybody enjoy themselves, too. Willie, Willie had a lot of scars. Indeed. And, you know, one of the things that drives me crazy when I and I really do look at some of these baseball writers and think, what the hell were you thinking? And I look at the numbers.

Ninety four point seven% of the ballots. How in the hell was Willie Mays, along with so many others, not a unanimous selection to the Hall of Fame is just beyond me. Well, as a Hall of Fame voter, you know, it doesn't bother me nearly that much. I mean, I know. I mean, Aaron got a pretty,you know, Tom Seaver was, what, 98.3? I mean, a little higher than that. You know, Mariano Rivera is the first unanimous and probably not the last, because people look at it differently. Back then, it was old school. It was just different. There were some guys on the—you know, some voters just wouldn't vote for you on the first ballot, no matter what. So—but once again, there was no—I jackie robinson got 77.5 percent first ballot

hall of fame he had to get 75 so he squeaked right in and he's jackie robinson well well let's also keep in mind uh the uh baseball press box was extremely racist as well was is well you're you're in it so you can speak to today. So 100% right. There you go. Brian, always good to see you, my brother. Look, you always got some book you're working on. So what was the most recent book that came out? Oh, you mean the most one I'm working on when I'm about to log off right now? I've got two weeks to finish this next book. I am doing a, I'm writing the story of July 18th, 1949. And that was when Jackie Robinson testified against Paul Robeson on American Activities Committee. It's a story of these two gigantic black men being pitted against each other in service of white America during the Cold War.

I cannot wait to read that. That's not just. I cannot wait to finish it. That's not an athletic book. That is a that's a that's a history book. Cold War, all that stuff combined. And so, yeah, that is, I definitely can't wait. So we're going to let you go so you can go finish that book. Hal Bryant, my brother, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All right, now, thank you, Roland.

Folks, got to go to a break. We'll come back. World Sickle Cell Day is today on this Juneteenth. We'll discuss that next right here. Roland Martin, Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Hello, my brothers and sisters. This is Bishop William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival and president of Repairs of the Breach. And I'm calling on you to get everybody you know to join us on Saturday, June 29th at 10 o'clock a.m.

in Washington, D.C. on Pennsylvania and 3rd for the Mass Poor people's low wage workers assembly and moral march on Washington and to the polls, and the post effort to reach 15 million poor and low wage infrequent voters who, if they vote, can change the outcome of our politics in this country. Our goal is to center the desires and the political policy agenda of poor and low-wage persons, along with moral religious leaders and advocates.

Too often, poor and low-wage people are not talked about, even though in this country today, there are 135 million poor and low-wage persons. There's not a state in this country now where poor and low-wage persons do not make up at least 30 percent of the electorate. It is time that the issues of poor and low wage people be at the center of our politics. Living wages, health care, things that matter in the everyday lives. We will no longer allow

poverty to be the fourth leading cause of death in this country. We must let our voices be heard. Join us. Go to our website www.poorpeoplescampaign.org RSVP. Get others to come. Get a bus, get a van, get on the train. Come and let our voices be heard and our votes be felt. Lift from the bottom so that everybody rises. And we won't be silent. And we won't be silent anymore. I'm going to go. Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder in which the red blood cells are shaped like an S or sickle. This incurable disease causes pain, fatigue and infections. It also increases the chances of a stroke or heart failure.

It disproportionately impacts people of African descent. With about 100,000 Americans living with the disease, it occurs in one out of every 365 African Americans, about 1 in 13 black or African American babies born in the U.S. have the sickle cell trait. There's been lots of groundbreaking research in this area. Joining us right now, Dr. Katani Lemieux, an associate professor from Xavier College of Pharmacy, Dr. Katani Lemieux, an associate professor from Xavier College of

Pharmacy, Dr. Ivan Jubilee II, a sickle cell researcher from the Louisiana Cancer Research Center. Glad to have both of you here. First of all, you know, I remember, I mean, there used to be a lot of attention on sickle cell. I remember in the 70s and early 80s, there being a national telethon for sickle cell because I remember we were going door to door raising money. And so that was emphasis, again, 70s and 80s. Do both of you see how that is, that it is lesser known today and less focused today than it was in the past? So good day to you, Roland. And I would say yes. I believe what happened during that time, or when you're talking about the genesis of

awareness and fundraising, there were six centers, what they call comprehensive sickle cell centers, established around the country. And as a result of that, these were funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health. And so what has happened over time is that those centers are not, they don't crosstalk. So where they may be servicing, and there are only six of them. So they're in Atlanta. It's in Nashville. It's in the L.A. area. And one is in Dallas.

So they're in specific areas, so they don't service everybody who needs this type of care. And also one of the things, and so they're not well-funded. While they did get funding, they weren't well-funded to fully support and continue to engage with and educate and improve the care of these patients long-term. So the long and short of it is, yes, these centers were established. But if you give a center money and you don't give them enough money and then you don't give them continual support and then you don't give them the infrastructure to crosstalk and to share and engage in that way. Then there are some things that are going to be lost. And so that is what is happening. And over here in the more recent past, there's been an evolution and a resurgence and discovery in the field.

And so it's a really exciting time to be able to talk about new discovery in sickle cell disease. Is there a, because I know I've met different people, is there a national sickle cell foundation or is part of the problem that there are different groups and so you really don't have sort of this central organization that's focused on this? That's correct. So there is a central, so there is an organization, but there are six, if you will, established centers that don't have the synergy to crosstalk. And so that's a part of it. But also advocacy, and I'm going to yield to Ivan and ask him to talk a little bit more about the advocacy component, because that's a big part of it too. Galvanizing your elected

officials to support legislation and policy to generate funding for this area, that's a huge part of it too. So he spent some time doing an internship last summer that opened his eyes to a few things that I'll allow him to share. Hello, how you doing, Roland? Very glad to be here. So during my internship, it was with a company called Global Blood Therapeutics, and they specialized in sickle cell disease. They had one of the four FDA-approved therapies on the market, and it was titled Oxbrida. And during my time at that internship, my eyes were really just opened up to the inequities that characterize sickle cell disease, everything from lack of funding, right? Bad Medicare policies, the fact that a lot of patients, while they have a doctor, yes, their doctor isn't all the way

qualified to actually thoroughly deal with sickle cell disease. And, you know, it's just things like this where, you know, if you get this information into the hands of people that can make a difference, you know, it can make the world of a difference to these patients. Because a lot of the times, people just aren't aware of these, they aren't aware of these issues. So that's the whole point of advocacy is bringing light to issues so that while you personally may not be able to fix the issue, you can get the information into the hands of someone who potentially can. Questions from my panel, Rebecca.

Thank you so much for bringing awareness to this. I'm thinking about growing up in the 80s and hearing a lot more about sickle cell. In fact, I'm thinking about my cousin Keith, who's now in his 70s, learning he had sickle cell and then learning that there was a connection to premature death with those with sickle cell. So for our audience, what are things that the audience need to know about sickle cell, living with sickle cell, and even understanding like the testing to determine whether or not someone carries that trait? I can take this. So with sickle cell, right, it really spawns from a genetic mutation, right? And so we have what's called a sickle cell trait. All right, hold tight one second. Looks like you're...

There are about 2.5 million... Hold on one second. Your video is breaking up. So go ahead. Now start again. Go ahead. So we have what's called sickle cell trait and sickle cell disease. There are about 2.5 million people that are living with sickle cell trait. But however, to have full-blown sickle cell disease, you need two copies, one from mom, one from dad. So when you have these two copies, right, that's when you have full-blown sickle cell disease. And this is where you see the, you know, everything

from your pain crises, right, a decreased life expectancy. So the only way that you really can know that you have sickle cell is to get genetically tested. All right. Robert? Thank both of you for all the work that you do in raising awareness around this. Again, I also feel like I heard a whole lot more about this in the 80s and early 90s than we do today. What are some things we can do to help raise awareness around this? Because I feel almost as if the treatments have gotten too good to the point that people don't take this seriously as

being an issue and kind of push it off as being just kind of a life annoyance as opposed to being something that really impacts our lives. What are things we can do in our own communities to make sure people better understand the dangers of this and the treatments and resources that are available? Sure. So I'll start by saying. A lot of times the big economic forces we hear about on the news show up in our lives in small ways. Three or four days a week, I would buy two cups of banana pudding. But the price has gone up. So now I only buy one. The demand curve in action. And that's just one of the things we'll be covering on Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Businessweek.

I'm Max Chavkin. And I'm Stacey Vanek-Smith. Every Friday, we will be diving into the biggest stories in business, taking a look at inside the boardrooms, the backrooms, even the signal chats that make our economy tick. Hey, I want to learn about VeChain. I want to buy some blockchain or whatever it is that they're doing. So listen to Everybody's Business on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute season one, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod.

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

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet. MMA fighter Liz Karamush.

What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week

early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Our approach to actually research... Hold tight one second. Hold on. We need to begin your thoughts again. We have some video interference. Go ahead. Sure.

So our work stemmed from using an NIH research program, COF All of Us Research program, that's seeking to enroll one million people. With that, as diverse as the nation, this initiative allows all of these people to enroll and actually be synergistic in one data set. Now, by having one data set is when we were able to ascertain, we were able to see certain trends and patterns as far as opportunities to better treat patients so that was one of the things we were able to say so synergizing the data being aware one of

the things that I would be funding to actually allow these six sickle cell centers to crosstalk and actually be better engaged where they can actually share information, because that's a huge gap that is going on so that one can improve treatments and actually share best practices and evidence-based medicine. So that's one thing. There are some new treatments on the market, and I would say that both Ivan and I are at Xavier University of Louisiana. So I'm a professor there and he's a recent graduate doctor, Dr. Jubilee, who is a pharmacist. And so he will

talk about some of the newest treatments that were just approved by the FDA in January of 2024. So this is really important information. So then when looking at the new treatments that we have there are hold tight one second again we're getting lots of interference okay i think you're back go ahead go ahead we have two therapies now. We have two therapies now. We have Kat Geby and Liz Fenney. And so with these therapies, they actually cure sickle cell disease. But the issue is cost. They're upwards of $2 million. So when we look at sickle cell patients, a lot of these patients are on Medicaid. So, these patients aren't high income patients. So, while yes, you know, we caught the headline, sickle cell disease is cured, when there's a cure for it, who's going to pay for it? And that's what it comes down to. So, funding is such a big issue because a lot of these patients,

they rely on government funding for their treatments, but who's going to pay for it? So that's, you know, a big push for advocacy groups as of right now is trying to, because while yes, these treatments are great, it doesn't matter. No one can take it. So that's kind of where we are now. All right, then. Well, look, we both appreciate both of you for coming on today. Thank you for your work. Thanks a lot. Thank you. All right, folks, got to go to a break.

We come back. A couple of more Juneteenth items to talk about right here on the Black Star Network. Back in a moment. Next on The Black Table, a man Cornel West calls the greatest Democratic theorist of his generation. Adolph Reed joins us to talk about his eventful life and his book, The South, Jim Crow and Its Afterlives. Somewhere between an electoral sweep or an out-and-out coup or a putsch, I think the danger is quite real. Join us for The Black Table, only on the Black Star Network.

We are the culture. We blaze trails. We define the culture. We blaze trails. We define our future. We are the heart and soul of America. This Juneteenth, we celebrate freedom. Freedom to live, breathe, play, choose, marry, and vote. We are one America. And with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,

we're ready to face the future together. We can't stop now. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. This is Essence Atkins. Mr. Love King of R.B. Waheem Duvall. Me, Sherri Shebret, and you know what you're watching. You're watching Roland Martin unfiltered. Folks, the grandmother of Juneteenth, Opal Lee, received the keys to her new home,

built on the same lot that her family was driven from by a racist mob when she was 12 on June 19, 1939. Habitat for Humanity gave the 97-year-old Opal Lee back the land her family owned in Fort Worth, Texas. Here's Lee talking about the home. I don't know how to describe how happy I am and how I plan to have an open house and invite all the neighbors in. I'm looking forward to meeting my neighbors. My parents bought a house here at this location in 1939 and we moved in we were only here five days and on the 19th of June people started gathering across the street and the paper says it was 500 people. Those people drug the furniture out and burned it. They did despicable things.

I just so want this community and others to work together to make this the best city, the best state, the best country in the whole wide world. And we can do it together. Our Bible says that we are brother's keeper. All right, so congratulations to Opal Lee. Folks, Dr. Gerald Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, has written about a number of topics. And one of his books dealt with the issue of the Texas Civil War,

which predated the United States Civil War. And in the interview with his book, he talked about this interesting, what he discovered, interesting facts regarding black troops in Juneteenth. Watch this. Can I add a video about some new revelations about Juneteenth? Yeah, go ahead. So, you know, I'm working on this book that would have been published now, but for the pandemic.

So we all know about Juneteenth, June 19, 1865. Supposedly General Granger shows up and tells the Negroes that they're free. But what's downplayed is that he was accompanied by 75,000 so-called colored troops. And why did he need so much backup? He needed so much backup because the settlers in Texas, which was the Confederate state least damaged by the Civil War, and was the Confederate state in which slave owners from Louisiana and Arkansas were bringing their enslaved during the Civil War, because you saw the Black population increase exponentially, they had this idea of resuming slavery in Texas. And not only that, but recall that Mexico,

the southern neighbor of Texas, was then under French rule. They were supporting the Confederacy. And so many of the black people were going to be deported into Mexico to continue slavery. Jefferson Davis, the head of the Confederacy, he was captured after the fall of Richmond, trying to escape to Texas so he could lead this rebellion. So these 75,000 black troops then became a hammer against the French troops in Mexico, against the Confederates in Texas, and helped to save the United States from resuming the U.S. Civil War under a different guise. Wow. And I actually had not heard that. Where did you discover that? I've been spending

a lot of time doing research in the past few months during the pandemic, reading microfilm on lockdown. The U.S. State Department reports from Mexico, for example. Also, you know,

excuse me if I'm going on too much about this. No, go ahead. Go ahead. I keep telling you, Gerald, it's a'm going on too much about this. Go ahead. I keep telling you, Gerald, it's a black-owned show. We good. Go ahead. We can talk about black stuff. We good. Okay. So the French in Mexico had brought African soldiers from Algeria, which they had colonized in 1830, and also from Egypt and Sudan, which they deeply influenced, thousands and thousands to Mexico as backup. And that's why General Granger needed these 75,000 so-called color troops, because this was going to be, pardon the expression, another battle royal that was going to unfold. And the man in charge of the Confederate effort, Matthew Fontaine Morey, M-A-U-R-Y,

who until last year had a statue in his honor in Richmond, Virginia, he was the mastermind of this plot to continue slavery. And by the way, even before then, he had this other diabolical plot of deporting all the black people. This is before the U.S. Civil War, deporting all the black people to Brazil. And that plot was also thwarted, which helps to explain why we are now in North America speaking English and not in Brazil speaking Portuguese. Wow. That is some deep history, some deep history right there. Folks, if you want to learn more about that, this is the book that you should check out by Dr. Gerald Horne. It's called The Counter-Revolution of 1836, Texas Slavery and Jim Crow and the Roots of U.S. Fascism. And trust me, it is a fascinating read.

Gerald did some amazing research there. And this is one, that book is one of the reasons why when they have Texas Independence Day, I don't celebrate that. I don't acknowledge it. I think it's a trash day because for people who don't understand the history, the white folks in Texas were trying to, the reason they fought Mexico was because Mexico, they abolished slavery. And the Alamo, oh, remember the Alamo? If you black, don't be shouting remember the Alamo, because the Alamo was a battle over slavery.

That's what it was all about. This is also why our final comments here, why history is critically important, Rebecca. And so we must, again, make sure that on this particular day here, it's not a focus, as we started the show off, with parties and concerts. No, we must deal with the actual history, the real history, and what Gerald laid out there. Those federal troops, the reason they were important, because those federal troops actually went plantation to plantation, freeing folks, because the racists in Texas,

if left to their own devices, would have never done it. That's why it was two years late. There were people in Texas who were aware of the Emancipation Proclamation, but they made it perfectly clear, uh-uh, we ain't stopping this. This is making too much money for us. You know, this is why history matters.

And I'm going to call out something that Robert said earlier that I think is super important. It's the reason why inside of our Black families, we need to be teaching this history because we can't expect for this to be taught in schools. Many of your audience know that I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. Nebraska is very white. Teaching Black history wasn't the top of the curriculum list in Nebraska. But one thing that I appreciate about my mother is she made sure that every single Saturday we were learning something about Black history, understanding that the reason why both sides of my family ended up in Nebraska

was because of racism and Jim Crow heavily prevalent in the South. They got it in the North too, but they went to the North because of opportunities. My mom made sure that by the time I was seven years old, eight years old, 9 years old, I watched Eyes on the Prize multiple times. The Black History Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, my mom not only would make us go, she would even volunteer. So, I spent a lot of time there, and my dad, too. So understanding how it is important in our black families to make sure that we're teaching

history, because it's not going to happen in public education, in public schools. It's not—quite frankly, it's not going to happen in private schools. You know why? Because it doesn't make money. It's not in the best interest of this very racist colonial state, as Dr. Carr says, this white—I think he calls it the white settler colonial state that we live in. It's not in their best interest for black folks to understand their history, understand that we're not powerless. We are powerful. We have overcome, and we literally built this country. We demand reparations because it is owed to us, not because it is a handout.

So firmly understanding where we came from gives us a blueprint in which where we should go going towards the future. So once again, this is Juneteenth. This is Happy Jubilee Day. This is liberation. This is freedom. But it's also a call back to the strength of our ancestors propelling us to move forward. Robert? We live in a day and time right now where every piece of information is accessible. It's only a question of whether or not we are willing to go out there and get it. We have to start thinking of ourselves as African-Americans as part of the larger African

diaspora and part of the civilization state that that is. There's a difference between a civilization state and a nation state. Nation states are like America, Great Britain, France, that are built upon these national ideas and conceptualizations. A civilization state, when you think about the Indus Valley culture, which is contained today in India, the Chinese culture has been around for 8,000 years. The cultures like the Slavic cultures in Russia, they're descendants of those same people. These are civilizations that last and have continued throughout time.

We are the progeny of exactly that. And when you start seeing yourself as part of this larger African civilization state, you stop being subjugated by these trivial pursuits and ideas put upon you by these trivial nations of Western Europe and start seeing that we are part of a bigger project, a part of a bigger culture, part of a bigger civilization. And we have to start thinking of ourselves in that way and building upon that. So as we're celebrating Juneteenth, it's not simply enough to honor those who came before and to celebrate what we have achieved. It's about rebuilding that civilization that's been destroyed through 500 years of European colonialism, subjugation, slavery, rape and destruction. And how do we put ourselves back in the position we were previously and that we were in for millennia before that? When we see ourselves as a civilization, we are strong. When we see ourselves as subjects, we are weak. Reparations is just the start to rebuilding our civilization. Folks, history is important. And so that's why we focus on that on this show,

having great voices as well, giving you the kind of information you're not going to get anywhere else. Robert, Rebecca, I appreciate y'all joining us today on this Juneteenth. Thank you so very much. Folks, I will be broadcasting live tomorrow from a whole lot. Go back to Rebecca. Rebecca, you look like you were late with the flag. Rebecca, you got to show that a little bit early. All right, Ted.

All right. So I appreciate that. All right, folks. Tomorrow, I'm broadcasting live from Los Angeles. I'll be there for the Beverly Hills Cop sequel airing on Netflix. I'll be interviewing Eddie Murphy and others associated with the movie. So look forward to that. We'll be bringing that to you soon.

So definitely tune in. Hey, if you missed the Gerald Horne interview, you know what? Kenan, let's restream that later so people can actually check that out so they can see the full interview because, again, it's a fascinating discussion, that book that Gerald wrote. And so we appreciate that.

Folks, your support for this show is critically important. Listen, you heard what Chris said at the top of the show. You don't have shows out here doing the kind of work that we're doing. I'm just telling you that right now. We talk about building something that's black on and building it where we control it or we're not asking anybody's permission. That's why it matters.

I can guarantee you, I can guarantee you, there is not a single show on any of those networks that dedicated not the full two hours to Juneteenth, not an hour to Juneteenth, not 30 minutes to Juneteenth. I guarantee you they didn't dedicate 15 minutes to Juneteenth. Not an hour to Juneteenth. Not 30 minutes to Juneteenth. I guarantee you they didn't dedicate 15 minutes to Juneteenth. And so when we center us, we matter. And that's why this show matters. So first, all the folks who are on YouTube,

hit the like button. I know y'all playing around over there. Hit that doggone like button so we can be easily at a thousand likes. So let's do that. Also, join our Bring the Funk fan club. Your resources make it possible to do the work that we do. You can see your checking money or the PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C. 20037-0196. Yeah, I see 848 likes. Y'all, we should

be at a thousand. So you two folks, y'all need to hurry the hell up. We need 152 more likes to hit a thousand. So let's go. OK, let's get it done right up. We need 152 more likes to hit 1,000, so let's go, okay? Let's get it done right now. Click right now. Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal, RM Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Download the Black Star Network app, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Also, be sure to get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds. Available at bookstores nationwide. Ben Bella Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, IndieBound, Bookshop, Chapters, Books A Million, Target.

Get the audio version on Audible. Folks, that's it. Y'all have a fantastic Juneteenth. And also, hold up. Let me show this real quick. Y'all can keep playing the music. And you know what? I totally forgot.

You know what I totally forgot, y'all? When we signed off last Friday, I totally forgot to wishall when we signed off last Friday. I totally forgot to wish everybody Happy Father's Day. And so we don't focus on no day. We focus longer than that. So big shout out to all the fathers out there. So this is our week. So, you know, you know, we don't get the kind of love other folks get.

But we're going to keep doing our thing here with Father's Day. But give me one second. I got to find a quick photo here. Let me see if I can find it. It was posted. Let me see if I can find it, y'all. I got to give a birthday shout out. So let's see here.

Y'all know I got 1, thousand. Okay, that ain't it. That ain't it. Okay, let me go over here. Give me one second. Give me one second. And while I'm doing this, YouTube people, I'm watching y'all. Y'all again, y'all playing around. Y'all are not sitting here. Hit that doggone button. So y'all need to go ahead and hit that hit that like button so we can sit here and hit a thousand likes. And so I'm buying y'all some time for us to hit a thousand likes. So here we go. Shout out to my sister Kenya on the left. Today is her birthday. Her birthday is Juneteenth. So happy birthday, Kenya. She's there with my with the older sister, today is her birthday. Her birthday is Juneteenth, so happy birthday, Kenya. She's there with the older sister, my sister Levita. She's right behind me, so shout out to Kenya on her birthday.

All right, folks, that is it for us. I will see you guys tomorrow right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Yes, and we got to 1,000 likes on YouTube. See, so all that time, it worked. Thanks a bunch. Y'all enjoy the rest of the holiday. Keep it real. Keep it black.

Because this day is ours. Holla! I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1.

Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir.

Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that in a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself.

Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.