#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Liberia's 200th, Bridgeport Families want DOJ's help, Black Women & Heart Health, Black Equity

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

2.14.2022: #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Liberia's 200th, Bridgeport Families want DOJ's help, Black Women & Heart Health, Black EquityThe families of two black women found dead in Bridgeport, Connecticut, are demanding the mayor take action. Lauren Smith-Fields and Brenda Lee Rawls both died on the same December day, and both investigations were so bad the two detectives who were in charge of them have been suspended. With no faith in the local police department, the families want the Department of Justice to step in. Attorney Darnell Crosland is here to give us an update.In Georgia, opening statements in the hate crime trial of the three white men who killed Ahmaud Arbery began today.Ya'll remember the school that had the petition to bring slavery back? Well, one of the teachers at the same school has been suspended for using the N-word in class.Plus, a black man in Kentucky has filed a racial profiling lawsuit for a traffic stop he says would not have happened if he were a white man.Racial equity. What is it, and will we ever achieve it. We'll be joined by a Cultural Architect who will shed some light on the topic.And, it's heart health awareness month. In our Fit, Live, Win segment, we'll talk about Black women and keeping a healthy heart.#RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: Nissan | Check out the ALL NEW 2022 Nissan Frontier! As Efficient As It Is Powerful! 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3FqR7bPSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfilteredDownload the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com#RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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You dig? Happy Valentine's Day to all of our lovers and friends. It's Monday, February 14, 2022. I'm Ray Baker in for Roland while our brother is in Liberia for its bicentennial celebration. We'll look at the day's events later in the show, but here's what's coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. The family of two black women found dead in Bridgeport, Connecticut,

are demanding the mayor there take actions. Now, two separate women, Lauren Smith-Fields and Brenda Lee Rawls, both died on the same December day, and both investigations were so bad, the two detectives who were in charge of them had been suspended. With no faith in local police departments, the families want the Department of Justice to step in.

Attorney Darnell Crossland is here to give us an update. In Georgia, opening statements in the hate crime trial of three white men who killed Ahmaud Arbery begin today. And y'all remember the school that had the petition to bring slavery back? Well, of course that school, one of their teachers at the same school, has been suspended for using the dreaded N-word in class.

Plus a black man in Kentucky has filed a racial profiling lawsuit for a traffic stop he says would not have happened if he were a white man. And racial equity, what is it? Will we ever achieve it? Well, we'll be joined by a cultural architect who will shed some light on the topic.

And it is Heart Health Awareness Month. It's why we wear red. In our Fit, Live, Win segment, we'll talk about black women and keeping a healthy heart for them. It's time to bring the funk here on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network.

Let's go. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the find. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. Yeah, yeah. It's Uncle Roro, yo.

Yeah, yeah. It's Rolling Martin, yeah. Yeah, yeah. yeah It's Rollin' Martin Yeah, yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah, yeah He's broke, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin Now Martin The families of two black women killed in Bridgeport, Connecticut, are joining together to get justice for their loved ones.

Lauren Smithfield and Brenda Lee Rawls died on December 12, 2021. The detectives on both cases are suspended pending investigations. Both families and a couple of Bridgeport council members are demanding the city take these actions. The Bridgeport acting police chief, Rebecca Garcia, should be removed, and Mayor Gannon and the police commissioner to formally join families, Attorney Crossland, elected officials, and the community in submitting a formal letter to the united states department of justice requesting they take over investigations the fields family attorney darnell d crossland is joining us and we thank him for joining us here today with us

mr crossland our first question that's most important is give our audience an overview about how two tragedies can seemingly happen simultaneously and yet have such little attention be paid to them. Thank you for having us and thank you for giving us these cases the voice that it needs. From the day that these women were found dead in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the city has failed to properly investigate their death. And by failing to do so, what we mean is the city failed to notify the families from the beginning that they were dead, which is a part of the city's protocol that both families should have been notified within 24 hours of their death. Since that time, no evidence has been preserved in either scenes. No proper interviews of the last known individuals who were with the deceased have been done. And what we know now is that the acting chief of police has submitted a letter explaining

to the police commission, who's over the police department, what her role is or what her views are. And I hope we can talk about that tonight. Oh, absolutely. But one of the initial things when we first heard this, Mr. Crossland, families weren't even notified. For those of us who may be very far removed from law enforcement, that seems like standing operating procedure.

How does something as obvious as that slip through the cracks? Yeah, we believe it's either a combination of incompetence and straight out racial insensitivity or just straight out incompetence because it's protocol and it's respect and it's dignity. If someone

dies, you notify the next of kin. Oftentimes, you would look in the media and the media would not report the victim's name because next of kin. Oftentimes, you would look in the media and the media would not report the victim's name because next of kin has not been notified. So we know it's just a standard operating procedure. In this particular case, they just they discarded these black women like they were garbage and just kept it kept it moving. And that's unacceptable. And so there was some of the initial request. Obviously, we know about the desire and the demand for the chief of police to step down or resign or be pushed out. But what are some of the other demands that those families and yourself are looking for out of Bridgeport, Connecticut?

Well, I can tell you this. The four page letter that the acting chief submitted to the commission, to me, it seemed like a letter that went from a child to the parent. And when you read the letter, it reads as though the commission is the parent of the mayor and the police department. And the chief is basically telling the commission that she did nothing wrong, that the mayor didn't tell her what the mayor was doing, and that it seemed like they were on totally different pages when you read her letter. And the commission is, again, the parent in the middle to decipher what happened here. And what they failed to do and what we're demanding is the chief of police should be telling us why didn't her officers collect evidence. When they finally did collect a condom with semen in it, lube, a bloody sheet, and a pill

that we think could have been used to kill Lauren Smith-Fields, why isn't the chief of police talking about where is that evidence now? It was collected on the 18th, and we made them collect it. Excuse me, it was collected on the 29th of December, based on the fact that we forced them to collect it. As we sit here today, we don't know where that evidence is. Why isn't Chief of Police writing to tell us where is that evidence? Why hasn't it been preserved? We don't care about their little infighting. We want to know where is the evidence, what investigation is being done, and even tell us why those two officers were suspended, not just the fact that they were suspended. The commission that you allude to,

for those of us outside of the Bridgeport or Connecticut area, how is this commission made up? Is this an elected commission? Is this an appointed commission? And we ask because these are public officials, and ultimately they're accountable and responsible to the public. So if the public isn't having meaningful input on how the official decision makers regarding the public are being chosen,

then we need to ask some serious questions as to how the powers are working in Bridgeport. How is that commission put together? So the commission is made up, from my understanding, of members of the community. And they're not, they don't run elections to be elected, but I believe they are appointed largely by the mayor. So once the commission is in place, the commission has to answer to the mayor in large part, and the commission is responsible and in charge of the police department. And so if there's any disciplinary action that needs to take place, it will go before the commission. So in this particular case, Maria Pereira, who's the city councilwoman who's been instrumental in this case, has made it clear that the commission is largely sitting without proper authority.

So it further highlights that Bridgeport as a city is in a shambles right now. If the commission is not properly seated, if the acting chief of police is not properly seated, if the acting chief of police is not properly seated and the acting police chief is at odds with the mayor, then we have more of a problem than we think. And from listening to what you're saying so far, it sounds like we have the acting police chief. We have this commission that's appointed by the mayor that seemingly is in flux.

The only publicly accountable office seems to be the mayor. And it seems as though you all are rightly directing some frustrations to the mayor's office. What have you guys been receiving from the mayor's office as you begin to make your, obviously, initially your petitions, but now that they've been stonewalling to a degree, more of your assertive demands? What type of response have you gotten? Well, and you raise a great point. So if the only person that we can go to is the mayor, then we have to look at how this week has played out.

Initially, when this four-page letter from the acting chief was submitted to the commission, myself, the media, city councilwoman Maria Pereira, requested a copy of this. And we were told that the mayor has a policy that no department head can speak to the press or anyone else without the mayor's permission. The mayor then later sent me a text stating that that's not true, and he immediately forced them to release the letter to the press, which did happen.

But now the mayor has still not told us where is the evidence that was collected from the apartment. The mayor still hasn't told us that these two officers who were suspended were suspended for doing X, Y, and Z. And we need to know that. Also, the mayor still hasn't told us or the family when we can sit down and meet with him and the police chief to go over the issues that we have directly. And we're waiting for that moment. I'm going to bring the panel in. We have a panel. I want to ask some questions. I'm going to bring them in in just a second. But I have one more question for you, Mr. Crossland, before I go to the panel. Bridgeport is a city that is about 40 percent white, about 35, 36 percent African-American, if I'm not mistaken.

Normally, when we have that type of ethnic or racial diversity, we can be more optimistic that justice is allocated along the lines of equity and fairness much differently than we can in what we're hearing from you. We also know that Bridgeport is under federal investigation or concern for the practices and patterns of their police department. What type of optimism can black Americans in Bridgeport or in the Connecticut area hold, knowing that even with such great demographic representation, we are still being treated as second-class citizens as evidenced by what you all are working through and the patterns of practice demographic representation, we are still being treated as second-class citizens as evidence by what you all are working through and the patterns of practice that the police department is existing

under. That's a great question. And I have to note that Bridgeport is the largest city in the state of Connecticut. And it is predominantly minority. It's the largest minority population. And what I think we have to be mindful of is the fact that just because you have more minority in a particular jurisdiction doesn't mean that the leadership reflects the population, doesn't mean that the police department reflects the population. In this particular case, it's the opposite. And we need to do better recruitment in police departments who police largely minority communities. So we're not optimistic for the fact

that there's more minorities in this particular city. What we really need is a change in government and a government that's reflective of the people that it serves. And so we're not optimistic right now. It's been months now, and we've been banging on the door of city Hall to do more. And the whole world has been looking at this.

Can you imagine if this wasn't the case, how we would just be disregarded? So we want this to stay in the public light, and we're demanding that justice be served for Lawrence Smith-Fields and Brenda Lee Rawls. We are fortunately joined by two guests, our panelists as well, Dr. Omikongo Dibenga, a professional lecturer at the School of International Service at American University. We're also joined by the Reverend Jeff Carr, who is the spiritual leader and the founder of the Infinity Fellowship. Reverend Carr and Dr. Dibenga,

if you guys have any questions, feel free to offer you to Mr. Crossland right now. I'll start with you, Reverend Carr, if you have a question for Mr. Crossland. Sure, I do. First off, congratulations to you, Attorney Crossland, for staying in the struggle. And I want to thank you for putting yourself on the line. We talked on the show a lot about the large number of attorneys that are in the world. There are more attorneys in the world today than there are Sands on any given beach, but there are very few who will stand up and stand in the gap. So I want to congratulate you for that and let you know that your struggle is not going to be in vain. We're speaking victory to your cause here.

We talk about the resignation of the police chief, and we talk about the two council people who have come together to join with the community voices. Is that enough? Is it a short-term plan to say, here's a stair step? But what's the long-term victory that we hope to secure here, and how can we help, including mentioning the public hearing that's coming up tomorrow? But thank you for the question, and it's an honor to have you ask me that question, because I always watch Roland Martin and you're in the bumper where you said, open your eyeballs. And that always sticks in my head. So that's just such a catchphrase to me. So every day I wake up, I try to open my eyeballs and see what's going on around here.

And so to your point about the attorneys, you know, it's very valid because when this case first broke, I sat in my conference room with myself and the family, Chantel Fields. And we had an attorney that came in and I wanted that attorney to handle mostly the civil matters. It's a white attorney who I know for a while. And he was supposed to come to the press conference. And the family said he just looked shook when we discussed the kind of struggle that we had. And the morning of the press conference, he texted me and said, you know, it's Sunday. I don't think I want to come out. Plus, I have a practice to worry about in terms of my reputation, et cetera. And so what we find is that it's very incestuous in these towns. And so unless you have some semblance of courage, a lot of people don't fight this fight the way we've been fighting it.

So I thank you for your compliment. What we're hoping and by the way, I would say to you, if your audience doesn't know, the top prosecutor, Richard Colangelo, of the whole state of Connecticut, was forced to retire this week as well. So in addition to what's going on in Bridgeport, the prosecutor was forced to retire because he was engaged in some pay to play and some fraudulent behavior. And he's always been that way. So we have a real uphill battle when you look at what we're dealing with in terms of the landscape. But what we're hoping for is in this particular case is that black women like Lauren Smith-Fields and Brenda Lee Rawls, and there's another woman who

is missing up in Manchester, 22-year-old black girl gone missing, and the police is not doing anything up there. What we're hoping for is that these women all come together and we're trying to put them under one umbrella and we can at least start now making sure that this doesn't happen in the future. We also have to have them pay economically. So we filed a 30 million dollar lawsuit to say, well, we're done with the lip service. We need justice to look like an economic payout for us. And all week this week, we've been looking at an NFT for social justice causes. So we're trying to even start an NFT under Lauren Smith Fields and Brenda Lee Rawls' name, where money can go into a place for social justice causes like these. And when the city fails to

investigate or fails to do their job, that we as a collective, Black, whites, Latins, Asians, who believe in justice could have a pool of money where we can go out and do our own investigations if we have to. It's like the Black Panther days. Sometimes we have to police the police. And so we're really working hard in this particular case to go way beyond just, you know, asking the police to do something. We have to take control. Dr. DeBanger, I want to give you the space also to ask Mr. Attorney Crossan a question, should you have one. Go right ahead. Thank you so much, Attorney Crossan, for all of your tireless work on this. We've been watching you since you've come on and all of the statements that you made.

We really appreciate what you've been doing to bring this to the forefront. You've mentioned how the family wants this case to be taken over by the Justice Department, which we definitely hope happens. I'm also wondering, though, is there any role that the governor can play? And if there's any pressure that we can also put on the government, the governor, to also intervene in this matter? That's a great question. And I was on the Lisa Wexler show. She's a probate judge here in Connecticut. She also has an AM show. And we talked about that. And I said to the audience, which is largely a Connecticut audience, that this is the largest city in the state of Connecticut. The whole world's been looking at this city saying something went wrong there. Yet still, we haven't heard from the governor.

So we do need to put pressure on the governor to step in and say, this is unacceptable. So it's really strange to me that you have the mayor that took so long. When people were reaching out to us from Hawaii, from across the country, the mayor took a very, very long time to speak up. We had to march on City Hall before he spoke up. And yet still, now the governor who's in the state, if they can hear us from Hawaii, I'm sure the governor can hear us from Hartford, Connecticut, the capital. And I'm wondering, like, and he's from, he lives in Greenwich, office in Hartford. Why aren't you reaching out here? Why aren't you doing something here?

So you raise a very good question. And I haven't reached out to him. And but we're going to be pushing on his door as well, because it's unacceptable. Especially, Attorney Crossland, considering how much we are told nationally anyway that Democrats are our friends. We want to be sure that we are attuned. Attorney Crossland, you've been an advocate on this and you've been engaged on it. We appreciate it. But is there if there's any way that folks can find or follow or keep up with you if they want to get more information independently when they're not streaming Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Blackstar Network?

How would they go about that? Yes, they can definitely find my Twitter at... I think we might have, yeah, I think we might have lost some of the exchange with Attorney Crossland, but we're going to make sure that we get the information that you all need to support what we're trying to do in those women's legacies. Because not here, not anywhere, we allow black women to be missing, black women to be killed, black women to be harmed, and we not speak up about it. So we'll make sure that we get that contact information for how you can follow him. And we'll make sure that we'll keep you informed. And we'll definitely have Mr. Crossland back on the show. We're going to take a quick break.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Blackstar Network. We'll be right back. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА Don't you think it's time to get wealthy? I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show on the Black Star Network focuses on the things your financial advisor or bank isn't telling you. So watch Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. Pull up a chair, take your seat at the Black Table. With me, Dr. Gre Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in.

Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. Yeah, we know that February is Heart Health Awareness Month and that cardiovascular diseases disproportionately affect the black community. 50,000 black women die each year from heart disease. The American Heart Association estimates that 36% of black women know the risk that heart disease poses to their life. Also, however, only 52% of black women know the symptoms of a heart attack. Joining me now are Vice President

of Communications and Strategies of the American Medical Association, Stephanie Johnson. Also joining me, the founder of Release the Pressure Coalition, Dr. Aletha Maybank. The Chief Health Equity Officer and Vice President of the American Medical Association, Coach Gessie Thompson, Vice President of the American Medical Association,

Coach Gessie Thompson, the founder of the DetoxNow.com, of DetoxNow.com joins us as well. Ladies, I butchered everybody's title. Everyone knows that I did that. We can all touch and agree and smile that I did that. But I wore red and I wore a medium shirt so we could all be fit, healthy, and live. But what we're really here to do is profile you guys' expertise on how to keep us healthy and safe. Coach Gessie, I'm going to start with you. What are some important strategies about heart health that you want our women in our audience to know? All right.

So, brother, first of all, we love you wearing your red. I'm Coach Gessie. Sounds like giraffe because it's Coach Gessie. All right. So, you know, first and foremost, we're excited about having this conversation because February is it's a trifecta of self-love for black women. All right. We've got American Heart Month. We've got Black History Month. And we've got, of that, you know, more than ever, you already called the numbers out. It's a crisis, a crisis that we have to literally get everybody on board to prioritize right now. And because of the fact that more than 50 percent of Black women ages 20 and over are actually experiencing high blood pressure and they don't even know it, that is

a call, a reason to ring the alarm. I was actually one of that 50 percent because I suffered a brain aneurysm in 2020 that was actually brought on by unchecked high blood pressure, right? So what we realize is this is affecting our millennials and up. This is this is not an old people's disease. Right. And because of that, we need to educate one another. We need to become we need to make it our responsibility to become educated and empowered. Right. More than ever, because at home, we now can take responsibility for our heart health and we can track the numbers. we can get educated about it and now say, I'm going to take control of my BP. That's why I've got my friends from the Release the Pressure Coalition, American Medical Association here with me today, because we're on this campaign to educate and empower Black women with the information, the tools and the resources to track the patterns, to understand their numbers, to know what's going on so they can have very, very intelligent conversations with their primary care physicians

so that they can know and see the signs of what's going on in their bodies and take control to lower their blood pressure so we can close this health equity gap. Dr. Maybank, we heard Coach Jesse tell us exactly that you're seeing a range of heart disease from everyone as young as 20 to our older Americans. For some of us, though, hearing that those millennials and even the Gen Zers are going through that, that seems new or different or dangerous. Dr. Maybank, is there anything that's happening that is of particular concern that we should pay attention to our younger people for regarding heart disease? Well, I think what we're learning is just more

about heart disease in general. There's a huge study that just came out recently that recognized and noticed, and they followed people for a very long time, that folks who had high blood pressure, you know, in their 20s, you know, when they were showing up in their 50s, already showed, like, changes in their brain and their ability to kind of just process information. And so I think the more we learn,

the more we study about heart disease and its impacts, but specifically high blood pressure, we're just learning more about what is happening with our young people. And so this isn't any longer, you know, something that we pay attention to when we're older. You know, we have to pay attention to this at this point in time. And, you know, as Coach Jesse said, like, that's the power and opportunity that we do have. And, you know, for folks, and specifically about blood pressure, because, you know, we hear a lot, right, in our community, and we understand it means our pressure is high. But I think it's important sometimes to really break down, you know, what does that mean, right? And so when you take your

blood pressure, right, there are two numbers. There's a top number. It's called the systolic pressure. So we've all seen kind of our blood pressure written down, right? Systolic and the diastolic. Basically, that top number is the pressure of like when your heart pumps blood out into your body. And the bottom number is what like the pressure of when the blood comes back into your body. And we want that pressure to be normal. But oftentimes in our community, it can be high. And it's a high pressure that's like going against those blood vessels. And what happens over time is that your heart has to work harder and those vessels that you have have to work harder

to sustain that kind of pressure and to kind of keep the blood flowing. And so that can actually damage your vessels over time and damage your heart. And so that's why we really want to decrease our numbers. And the way that we do that is really just knowing our numbers in the first place. Ms. Johnson, the Release the Pressure Coalition is a fantastic name. It's a clever, it's witty, but it also strives to get at something that makes us a little healthier. What are you all aiming to accomplish by release the pressure, and how can we build upon the strategies or the work that you all are doing to ultimately get to those healthy blood pressures that we heard Dr. Maybank allude to? Fantastic question.

It's what we're doing here. We're coming together, right? We're bridging our organizations together. This is the American Medical Association. It's the American Heart Association. It's the Minority Health Institute. It's the Association of Black Cardiologists. It's the National Medical Association on a mission to unapologetically and by any means necessary, as Coach Jesse and Dr. Maybank so eloquently spoke on, do something to change the health outcomes in our communities,

and Release the Pressure is standing in the gap. So there are free resources available on the website at releasethepressure.org for our Black community to access while we, our organizations, work at the national level to break down the structural barriers that inhibit at-risk communities like ours from getting equitable access to high-quality care. So what can we do in the meantime? We're making sure our communities, some of the work we're doing, have people have access to validated blood pressure devices. Dr. Maybank can talk to you about that further.

All blood pressure devices aren Dr. Maybank can talk to you about that further. All blood pressure devices aren't created equal. That's part of our commitment when you join to make sure you're put into that ecosystem. We're also encouraging you, like Dr. Maybank said, to monitor and create a plan with your health care provider. These are the things that we are providing through Release the Pressure because we recognize that we need to hear from our trusted voices. We need people that are close in our community. We need a good grassroots game if we're going to make a dent because the numbers are staggering. We have more than 30 percent of Black America died from heart disease, more than non-Hispanic whites, and we have to change that. Now, we got two panelists, Reverend Carr and Dr. Dabanga, and with all due respect to them, because I'm not going to step on anybody's toes, we're going to box them out for a second because we're going to have a candid conversation.

I did the appropriate thing I'm supposed to do. I came to each of our experts, and we had very polite professional questions. Come on now. Let's all sit around. Just me and the three sisters we're talking with right now. Let's be honest. I sure love when my seasoning hand gets a little heavy when I'm pouring something. And man, I really like them salts and what I get. And every time I go to

the doctor, they tell me, ooh, be careful with all that. That's going to get a little much. So I'm opening it up to all three of you, whomever can feel comfortable answering. Obviously, we can eat better and drink better, but when we say that better, careful with all that that's going to get a little much so open it up to all 3 of you who never can answer is comfortable answering. Obviously we can eat better and drink better but when we say that better sound so nebulous the are you telling me now that I don't get to enjoy mac and cheese the way my grandma told me to make it you tell me that I got to go a

little light on my shaking when it's fried fish Friday, what you guys telling me when you tell me to do better and take care of myself with for. I can make bank get on. What are you guys telling me when you're telling me to do better and take care of myself? Tell them, Dr. Meg Bain. Get on it. Get on it. Well, yes. But, yeah, I mean, basically, this is the thing about salt, right? So, actually, most of the salt that we get or the sodium that we take in on a day-to-day basis,

it really comes from more so processed foods. 70% of the sodium that we take in comes from processed foods. So all the packaged, so whether it's, you know, potato chips or whatever it is that's going to be packaged, that, and the, sorry, when we go to restaurants, fast food restaurants, I'm so sorry, that's where we get most of our salt. That's actually before the salt shakers use. 10% of how much salt we get a day is usually from what we shake on. So it's actually not the major culprit. And folks don't typically realize now, and I'm not saying because of that, that you can put on as much salt as you want to.

I'm not saying that either. But what I am saying is that we need to watch the packaged and processed foods that we ingest, which is a lot out there, right? And so, you know, the other thing that I didn't say that I think is really important about high blood pressure, and this is the big thing, you mentioned about the 20s, you know, you don't really feel when you have high blood pressure. It's really known as the silent killer. It's like years of kind of beating up on your body, and then it's over time that as the blood pressure gets higher and it starts to really impact your body, then you's over time that as the blood pressure gets higher and it starts to really impact your body then you may start to see symptoms. You may start to have headaches and you

may start to have lightheadedness and we hear this from our family sometimes of the symptoms that they have that then can lead to either heart attack as well as stroke. So it's just important to remember that you may not feel it. So this is why it's important to, one, follow up with your healthcare provider. And also, as Stephanie mentioned, having a home blood pressure monitor that's validated and making sure that your level, so normal, is less than 120 over 80. Anything elevated from 120 to 129 and less than 80, that's elevated, but we're not diagnosed as high blood pressure yet. But high blood pressure is anything higher than 130 or higher or 80 and higher. And oftentimes, I hear numbers in a range. And this is really powerful for us, I think, as a community, because

I've heard doctors and healthcare providers tell people whose blood pressures are greater than 130 and say, that's okay, that's normal. That's not the case. And so it's really important that we have the information and that we're able to advocate on our behalf for ourselves and for our families. And so it's helpful when we're able to take our blood pressures at home and check them to see what they really are as well and on a consistent basis. Coach Jessie, when we hear or think about this idea

of detoxing, some of us might get intimidated because we think a detox is too heavy a burden to lift, too high a mountain to climb. What are some ways that we can detox in healthy ways, but we also don't ask ourselves to make a shift that we frankly just cannot make? Well, it starts by deciding we're going to use our food as our medicine, right, Brother Ray? So that mindset shift is the first step. And the second thing is understanding that, all right, what's my role here? Either, and I like to say that disease is an oncoming train, right? And either we're going to shift before it comes to us by virtue of just start to make a transition or we're going to be in a crisis where we're going to have to literally be in that all hands on deck.

Everything is an emergency mode. Right. So we need to become the hero in the story of our healing and stop being the accomplice in the story of our disease. Now, how does that work? So I'm going to give you a very easy example. My grandmother is 94 years old, right? And she was with me. She stayed with me for about five weeks. And unfortunately, her regular diet, she lives down south and her regular diet has been like Chinese food, you know, processed meats, the processed foods that Dr. Maybank spoke about are one of the highest culprits, right? As well as, again, sandwich meats and, as I said, Chinese food, et cetera. And when she came to visit me, she was on two medications, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, strong dosage in the

afternoon. And her pressure was running in the 160s, where Dr. Maybank would be like, oh my goodness, right? This is a high number. By three weeks in, we were monitoring her blood pressure in my house. And by three weeks in, her numbers were down below 120 over 80. In fact, they were so low, we were like, wait a minute. I said, listen, grandma, we have to call your doctor so that we can make sure you know the plan now because you can't keep taking this medication as if nothing has changed because you don't want your blood pressure to get too low because now you took medication to lower it when your blood pressure is actually normalizing right now. We called her doctor and he said, whoa, if her bottom number, her diastolic number gets under 60,

she should not be taking the blood pressure meds. All right. And her number was like 110 over 58, 108 over 57 constantly. And the only thing we did was eliminate processed foods. Right. Right. So depending on where you are on that spectrum, you may need to do one of our fasts. OK, we have Taj from and I don't mean just our fast. I mean a fast, right? Of course, obviously I love our fast. That's the way we created them, but you got to find with your health coach, with your team, what is the best plan for you? Taj from SWV came to us because she actually has had high blood pressure for more than 17 years.

And she started to work with our team and did one of our fasts and started taking our heart supplement. And for her, that was the right fit where she finally has regular blood pressure. But the key is communicating with your doctor, making sure that you know how urgent the situation is for you. So you know what kind of intervention plan that you need. And it starts by knowing your number. And that's why what we did, we collaborated on creating a free heart health kit that puts together all of these resources that Dr. Maybank referred to and that Stephanie referred to all in one place where you can see how to take your blood pressure at home and where the validated BP cuffs are from and all of that in our heart

health kit at the detox now.com for you because we know that you're going to listen to us because you know that we're this is i'm telling you from my own experience right i live this myself and i'm here to support you with that and the urgency depends on your situation but we won't know that if you're not taking your numbers at home and know what that number is and are communicating with your doctor and miss johnson i'm glad that we heard what we heard so far because they perfectly led up to where I want to come with you with this question. Because not only are you the founder of the Release the Pressure,

but you're the Vice President of Communication and Strategies for the American Medical Association. And when I hear Vice President of Communication, I expect a woman who knows how to effectively communicate. When we take some of these lessons back to our communities, when we try to tell folks, you have to look out for this silent killer. Just as we've heard earlier, people don't feel their blood pressure necessarily rising on them habitually. So how do we, we who may be attentive

to our health and wellness, we who may be attentive to the amount of processed food and what we're doing, how we're expanding our heart, how do we take this message back to ears who might not always be so willing to hear it? I love that you asked that question. It is great. I want you to say this with me now. Everybody listening, every day should be Valentine's Day for you and for your loved ones as it relates to how you think about your health and well-being. It's the whole old adage of put the oxygen on yourself first before you put the oxygen on the person next to you. Because if you don't take care of you, you cannot take care of your family. So the best way to do this is start loving on yourself and then taking each day to have a communication or conversation with those that are around you, whether it be text or social media or what have you, and remind them to RTP,

to take time each day just a little bit to make sure they make self-care that's good for their heart a top priority. That is how you can help. Each one, teach one. That's our job. Did I do good? Absolutely. Each one of us being a lived example. A last question I have, and I'm going to throw it out here to everybody because it's a little dicey, and I wouldn't say controversial, but new information. So maybe we may not be prepared with all the, well, you know. We know that COVID has triggered myocarditis in a number of young people and athletes. Particularly, we saw that when college football was coming back in 2020 and some of the other sports that college athletes are likely to play.

Myocarditis, for those of our audience who might not be aware, is the inflammation of the heart. And there's so much concern about how COVID could have effects on the heart. If some of us are active or if we have children, nieces, nephews that are very, very active, but yet we're still in this world where we're trying to safely engage each other and not threaten ourselves with COVID, what are some concerns around COVID and our hearts that maybe any of us

want our audience to make sure they're aware of? Perfect question for Dr. Bain. Well, yeah, you just elevated one of them, right, is the concern around myocarditis. You know, it's not large in numbers, but it's still a concern to a certain level. I think what COVID has elevated for us is that there's still a lot to be learned. We still don't even know the full-time long-term effects of folks who have gotten COVID. You know, we know there are

long-term effects potentially, and we've heard of long COVID, and it affects many aspects of the body because it involves inflammation. COVID causes an inflammatory response in the body, and that can impact almost your entire body in many different places and plays out in different ways. So what I'll say during this time, and I think COVID has also elevated, is just the importance of being so diligent as it relates to our health and making sure we're paying attention. I think we are paying attention in ways that we haven't before to our own health and our family's health, but really keeping track of that and then also making sure that we're connecting with our health provider to elevate what is happening, when it's happening, as it's happening. And so we want to make sure, and we've seen this happen in parts of COVID, it's starting

to get a little bit better, but we saw a lot of folks not connect with their health care providers, not seek health services for many different reasons during this time of COVID. So there are moments of where high blood pressure and blood pressure has been, you know, elevated or uncontrolled in many communities because they just haven't been engaging with physicians or health care providers. They haven't been checking. They haven't been able to get their medications for so many different reasons. And so it's really a critical time, I think, for us now to really kind of, you know, hunker down, per se, a little bit more and a lot more to really focus on many aspects of our health,

but especially as it relates to heart disease, because we know it's still the number one killer in this country, especially for us as Black people. And there are things that we can actually do about it that are actually in our control. Coach Jesse, I know you wanted to jump in there. I want to give you space in case you'd still had something you want to share. Thank you so much. You know, one of the other things that COVID exposed is the health inequities on a huge level that really traced down to the the key thing that differentiates our the impact on our communities. And specifically, one of them is the stressors, the trauma of racism that affects and disproportionately causes the negative influences influences the negative outcomes in our health, right? So that's another reason why releasing the pressure is so important. It is what you eat, but it's also what we consume mentally and emotionally and how we care for ourselves in

those areas. And that's why what Stephanie talked about in terms of the self-love, the self-care, is taking time to create those release valve opportunities in our lives to care for ourselves. Everything from breathing properly, you know, taking deep breaths throughout the day, scheduling our time throughout the day so we have what we call breathing room. Making it important that whether it's self-care time is actually built into our schedules throughout the day. It's very important because we carry with us that stress where we're in this constant inflammatory state. Cortisol is actually a chemical reaction, right? It happens when we're in this fight or flight mode.

And as black people, unfortunately, we're constantly in a fight or flight mode. And that makes us walk around in this radical inflammatory state on a regular basis. So even more, this is why for us it's even more imperative to take control of our heart health for ourselves and say that loving on ourselves is not just our birthright. It's our responsibility. And it's a non-negotiable. And that's, again, why we want to make sure not only are we giving away these free heart health kits, but we're also going to be giving away BP cuffs. There's a whole campaign where we're looking to give upwards of 100,000 BP cuffs by 2027, getting them into the hands of black women nationwide. So definitely make sure to download the free heart health kit at

thedetoxnow.com. We're here with you you release the pressure is not playing we're making sure that you put your heart first coach jesse thompson dr aletha maybank stephanie stephanie johnson thank you so much for joining thank you so much thank you wait before you go look raise your hand right like the church hand if you know someone who's been impacted by heart disease right raise your hand, right, like the church hand, if you know someone who's been impacted by heart disease. Raise your hand if you know someone, what have you. That's all four of us. That means we all have a job to do. God is giving us the assignment.

And now that I know I got y'all with me on my squad, I feel good about saving some black lives. I just had to throw that in there. Yeah, yeah. Thank you so much. Yeah, we love to hear it. We love to see it, and we thank you for it. And we think about heart disease.

Heart disease is the number one killer of all Americans in the United States. So we know how it's doing for black folks as Reverend Joseph Lowry taught us, when America stubs its toe, black America done broke its foot. Thank you so much ladies for all the work you guys are doing. We're gonna take another quick break.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered here on streaming on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood-Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie.

We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives, and we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. There can be no true Black political liberation without religious and cultural liberation.

Minister and academic, Garrett Wilmer. 15-year-old Aisha Rivera has been missing since February 10th, 2022. The Bronx native is approximately 5'3'' tall and weighs 137 pounds with brown eyes and brown hair. She was last seen wearing pink pajamas and gray Uggs sneakers. Anyone with information should call the New York Police Department at 1-800-577-8477. The federal hate crimes trial of the three Georgia men convicted of Ahmaud Arbery's murder is underway. Today, opening statements began in the trial of Travis and Gregory McMichael and their neighbor, William Bryant. The state trial did not focus on race, but the federal hate trial will. Assistant United States Attorney Bobby Bernstein told the jurors the case, quote, does not require proof of hate, close quote, but they will prove the three white men acted because of race. They are all charged with interference with rights and attempted kidnapping.

The McMichaels also face weapons charges. The three men are currently serving life sentences from their state murder convictions. A black man in Kentucky who says he's a victim of racial profiling is suing the LaRue County Sheriff's Office. Anthony Freeman says Sheriff Russell McCoy pulled him over for illegal headlights after McCoy took Freeman's license and registration. McCoy told Freeman the stop was complete. Two more men claiming to be detectives came to the scene and asked to search Freeman's vehicle. When Freeman asked about a search warrant, he was violently grabbed out of his vehicle, thrown to the ground, and detained for nearly an hour. Canine dogs sniffed his car several times and found nothing. Freeman believes he survived the

incident because he was on the phone with his wife and attorney who heard the ordeal. He is seeking a jury trial and financial compensation for a shoulder injury and post-traumatic stress from the violent encounter. And Maryland's Anton Black lawsuit has been upheld. The grieving family of a Black college student who died in police custody

got a small victory when a federal judge declined to dismiss their lawsuit. Anton Black was playing with a family friend on the basketball court when someone called 911 to report a child abduction. When now-fired officer Thomas Webster IV arrived, he began questioning the boys, and they ran. Webster got help from other off-duty officers who chased Black to his family home. Black was then tased and pinned to the ground for several minutes. He lost consciousness while his mother watched, unable to intervene. A state medical examiner ruled the death accidental due to cardiac arrest. The family is suing the state of Maryland, the town of Greensboro, the officers involved, and the chief medical examiner for Black's death.

Roland Martin Unfiltered will be right back, right here on the Black Star Network. Stay tuned. soon. ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА Nå er vi på Norske Norske. Don't you think it's time to get wealthy? I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show on the Black Star Network focuses on the things your financial advisor or bank isn't telling you. So watch Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. Pull up a chair, take your seat. The Black Tape with me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive

into the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network. The last vestige of racism in the West will be intellectual racism. Scholar and critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. The conversation surrounding racial equity continues. As public outcry grows about the lack of racial equity, quite honestly, so too do the questions. But before we unpack the lack of equity, let's go back to the beginning and define racial equity.

According to the organization Race Forward, racial equity is the process of eliminating racial disparities and improving outcomes for everyone. It is the intentional and continual practice of changing policies, practices, systems, and structures by prioritizing measurable change in the lives of people of color.

Dr. Kerry Mitchell Brown is a cultural architect and joins us to break down the subject. Dr. Brown, thank you so much for taking time with us, joining us here for the conversation. Racial equity, it's a word that so many of our advocates that we believe in have been using, but some of us may not be able to practice it quite as well as we think. Given the definition we heard from Race Forward, I'd start with you as a cultural architect. Is that a definition that you support and one that our viewers can move forward as an understanding of racial equity? Oh, thank you so much for having me this evening. I absolutely support that definition that Race Forward lays out for us to follow, begin to understand, and to put it into practice. So when we try to put things into practice for racial equity, so often what we find in the United States is we will change individuals at the head of institutions,

but we will not work to change the way those institutions function. If we're changing the individuals but not the institutions, that does not feel like we're making any dents toward racial equity. Am I reading that correctly or am I perhaps bringing some false information? You are absolutely correct. And changing individuals is not enough. Changing the seats is really changing the systems, the practices, the culture within the organization. Organizations dealing with their own history in the way that they engage and treat black people. What does racial inequity actually look like within their organization? Make it plain and take some action. One of the things that we hear whenever we think about this, though, Dr. Brown, is so

much pushback we get of, well, that's anti-American or you're changing the fabric of America. But it seems in those instances, the people who would say something like that are putting justice on one hand and whatever the United States of America is on the other, and then asking justice in the United States to fight it out. Is there a way forward where those two things can work harmoniously? There is a way forward where those things can work harmoniously. And we do have some history of it working. It's been a long time since it had worked, but we do have some history since it was working. If we think about it, the Reconstruction period, where Black people were at the height of our citizenship

during that period, there was extreme active participation of black people, including formerly enslaved persons in political and social life in the South. And they actually went to work within government and within organizations to work for the betterment of black people in this country. To be fair, to be fair, Dr. Brown, we saw the violent pushback that we saw after Reconstruction. So at Reconstruction may have been the time where the United States may have been at its most inclusive, but the byproduct of that was amongst some of the greatest evidences of violence, citizen to citizen, that we've ever seen. Frankly, we feel like we might be on the doorstep of that now, even as we're only giving lip service to greater inclusion. Again, I don't want to be a pessimist, but is your studies telling you the same thing?

Yeah, I mean, all the markers and signs are there. There was extreme backlash from from reconstruction and we did not see that through, so we have still been fighting since 1865 for the racial equity that we desire, that we deserve. I want to bring in our panel here. We're joined again by Dr. Omikongo Dibenga, a professional lecturer at the School of International Service at American University, and by Reverend Jeff Carr, the founder of the Infinity Fellowship. Dr. Dibenga, I want to come to you. You work at American University, so you engage a number of different minds.

And we saw our African-American word of wisdom was from Henry Louis Gates about this question of intellectual racism. Even before we get to the collegiate level of intellectual racism, Dr. Dabanga, we see that at the K through 12 level, there is white backlash to resistance of teaching accurate retellings of history, let alone getting into any meaningful theory that asks us to wrestle with definitions and questions of equity and the systems in which we engage in. How do we begin that educational process if we're getting the backlash at the K through 12 level? And that must mean that we're going to get the resistance at the higher education level. It's really a great question. And what I found at the higher education level is that I have students who are mad

at what they didn't get at the K-12 level. That's why classes like mine and other teachers and professors who do what we do and what we talk about on this show are so popular because they're getting real history. The way we challenge this on the K-12 levels, because I work in a lot of these schools, public, private, and charter schools on this very issue, is we have to focus on getting back to common definitions.

I can't argue with somebody about critical race theory if they actually don't know what critical race theory is and all they got is their favorite talking point from Tucker Carlson. So what I'm doing when I'm going into these schools is I'm saying we have to have basically, as simple as it sounds, Ray, a glossary of terms that we can agree on. Because when we have common definitions, we can actually start to build common conversations. Now, it's not going to heal everything instantly. But if people can realize that, oh, when they mean critical race theory, they actually just mean not teaching black history. When they mean that you can't

talk about gender studies, it means that you can't talk about someone who might be gay. Then we can start to build from there. But I will say this as well. We need to double our efforts to fight back this ignorance and this hate, because many of the parents who are getting involved in these school systems now, all they're coming in with is talking points from their favorite talk show. But those of us who are educators and those of us who are parents who know better,

we need to step up, because as Dr. King said, all it takes for evil and ignorance, I would add to prevail, is for good natured people to do nothing. And that's why we're getting the book bans and the like that we're seeing today. Reverend Carr, I'm coming to you because you work at the center of intersection of spirituality,

where you don't put names on it in the ways that we otherwise assume. But if we listen to what Dr. Dabanga said and we take that as our governing structure to move forward, we also found that there's opposition, folks like Chris Ruffo, who said himself, we can muddy up what this definition of critical race theory is. So if we need a uniform glossary of definitions to all work from, but everyone's ascribing their own meaning to this, perhaps similar phrases, I'm coming to you because of spirituality, we might do the same thing, right? What does holy mean in one context? What is sacred in another context? How have you taken perhaps a lesson from spirituality that we can use here on consistency of definitions and understanding the same things when we use different or same terms?

Oh, surely, surely. Excellent question. First off, thanks, Dr. Mitchell Brown, for the work that you're doing and that you're putting into the world as a cultural architect. I always love it when people say, I am going to practice Kujichagalia. I'm going to practice self-determination. I'm going to define something. If it's not out here, I'm going to make it up. I remind people that everything that we see and everything that we touch was made up. That's what creativity is. Even diversity, equity, and inclusion were made up terms. But what I've seen in spirituality is pretty clear. I try to give an example like this. Let's say you get three people together. You get a Christian, a Muslim, somebody, maybe a Jewish person. Put them on the side of a mountain

and you watch a sunrise. You start talking about the sun and you say, do you like the sun? And they said, yeah. What do you like about it? Oh, it's fructifying heat. Oh, it gives us, it gets our melanin going. Oh, it feeds the crops. It feels so wonderful. What does it look like? Oh, it's beautiful. I love the golden rays. All of these things are commonalities. Then you ask the question that's dangerous. Well, who made the sun? Somebody says, Jehovah. I said, no, no, no, no, man. No, no, man. Allah made the sun. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Jesus made the sun. And all of a sudden, people who were in agreement are now fighting based on terminology and not on essence. If we can begin to create a common glossary, as we do in spirituality, and I say spirituality, not religion,

I make that quick little designation there because it relates to something I'm going to say in a minute. Vine Deloria Jr., First Nations activist, he defined the difference as religion being for people who are afraid of going to hell, spirituality being for people who've already been there. So most of our people would fall into the space of spirituality, right spirituality because we've lived through some hell. So we have to find ways to make diversity, equity and inclusion actually be that and focus on the middle part. When I've been asked to come in and have these diversity dialogues and Dr. Dr. Brown, you know, Dr.

Omikongo, you know, we've done all of this diversity talk. But what I found is people want to talk diversity. They want to talk inclusion. And the four to six friends that I had in the aftermath of the Breonna Taylor protests and the George Floyd protests who ended up being tapped as the new chief diversity and equity inclusion officer of the company, not because they had experience in diversity, equity, and inclusion, but because they happened to be one of the only few black people there. So in a panic, they got tapped to lead these departments.

But then when it came time to showcase diversity, they were put out front. When it came time to showcase inclusion, they were put out front. But then when it was time to bring in a speaker and the speaker says, here's my honorarium, they say, oh, I can't pay them. I got to pay somebody to come in and talk to us about this. Really? Oh, yeah. Because the equity part is about economics.

It's about equalizing the playing field economically, and it's about investment. So if we don't have the investment of the resources, and if we can't create a space, a common language that we can talk about how are the resources equitably invested and distributed, then we're not talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. It becomes, as Dr. Jerome Morris and I joke about, it becomes chief officer for diversion from equity and inclusion. So I would ask you, Dr. Brown, because you're an expert in this, we have this language. We know that, as Dr. Obengomakongo was you know, people don't care what critical race theory is. They just find a way to use the term to advance their own prejudice agendas. How do we now begin to

circle the wagons, Dr. Mitchell Brown, and create this terminology that's going to allow us to put pressure in these spaces to actually show us the money and the resources. Dr. Brown, I have so many, I have so much, I love this topic and I only got one minute and me talking right now is taking up some of that time. So let me come back to you because something I wanted to ask that I'm curious how our audience might interpret this.

When we understand what we're searching for, it is to improve the outcomes of people of color. But famously, our language in the United States is equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. So when I ask the question about U.S. norms and justice living in the same house, when we consider what Reverend Carr just told us about the honorarium looking for economic equity, when we think about

the glossary of terms that Dr. Omokongo just told us about making sure that we're all uniformed, because that uniformity gets us to outcome equality. But outcome equality, or even outcome parity, is really, it's a poisonous language in the United States. So those of us who care about equity, racial equity, gender equity, sexual orientation equity, ableism equity, those of us who care about this equity,

how do we make the case to those who care so much about the rhetoric of the United States that even the mere idea of equality of outcome is a turnoff? Yeah, I would say that making sure that we are clear on the terms is correct and making sure that, you know, we don't get lost in a debate or, you know, war on definitions and really get at doing the work that is required. Seismic shifts are necessary, not just individuals, not just organizations, not just government. It all comes together. And it's not a zero sum game. Right. So people are holding that, you know, in order for black people to get something, then we have to give up everything else. How about just treat us like human?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That is a lovely line to leave folks with. How about just treat us like humans? Right. The belief in limited resource means that one has to take from another to get. When we don't have limited resources, we don't have to hoard from one another. Dr. Carrie Brown, how can folks find or follow you? How can they stay in touch with you for all the work that you are doing if they want to keep up? Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on all social media, Dr. Carrie M. Brown, or you can go to my website, CarrieMitchellBrown.com.

We appreciate that. If it were up to me, Dr. Brown, we'd be having this conversation a lot longer, but we are going to celebrate Liberia, so I do want to make some time that we can have our conversation for our folks there. But whenever Roland has me again, check out for your inbox. I'm going to email you so we can keep this conversation going some more. Absolutely. It would be a pleasure. Thank you so much. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to take a quick break and when we

come right back, we'll have much more of Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Blackstar Network. Coming up. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood-Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Blackstar Network

for Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Blackstar Network, A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives.

And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Hello, everyone. I'm Godfrey, and you're watching... Roland Martin, Unfiltered. And while he's doing Unfiltered, I'm practicing the wobble. Thousands filled the Samuel Canyon Doe Sports Stadium for Liberia's Bicentennial kickoff celebration. Today's ceremony included speeches, concerts, and dancing. Our own, the namesake of this program, Roland Martin, is there,

and he shows us the warm welcome he and the Roland Martin Unfiltered crew received when they arrived in Monrovia. Roller Martin here. Again, it's Samuel Doe, Sports Complex, where the Liberia Land Overturn Latino Celebration is taking place. Yesterday, he was our arrival at the airport. They had a special greeting for us. I want you all to check this out. Thank you. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Bati! Oh! Bati! Bati! Zekwe! Zekwe! Zekwe! Zekwe! Rola mati zekwe!

Zekwe! Zekwe! Zekwe! Zekwe! Rola mati zekwe! Zekwe! Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, Mwia, রেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরেরের� Ladies and gentlemen, we want to welcome you, Roland, to Liberia. We are very happy. We are excited. We love you. As you were coming down the plane, we saw a light for Liberia. And so we know that traditional leaders are here. This is just the beginning to welcome you on this soil and tell you that Liberia awaits you.

Be free. Our traditional leaders, please give the polandat. Well, on behalf of the traditional people, Chief, the Chiefs, this is my issue. If

there's going to be a woman, I will present the point. But in my own name, ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ ਸੇ He is the chief, they call Chi Kofi, he speak for all of the chief of the public of Liberia. So Chi Kofi, we come to welcome our brother. The men that are part of Liberia, we make you to believe that you are not stranger. So, you please welcome him. Thank you. Make you to believe that here we are not strangers. So, you please welcome me. Thank you. Sina Georgia!

Ya! Sina Georgia! Ya! Sina Georgia! Ya! Sina Georgia! Ya! Sina Georgia! Ya!

On behalf of the chief and elder council of Liberia, I'm on your mouth. chief that's it this cola is for you that your purple we make sure that you work with your people you make sure that the labyrinth people they love you coming here even happy for nothing you're coming from here to go back God bless you. Long life for you. The program today you can't do. That your cool name will go. Traditionally, culturally. If you look in the thing, in the caraba, I think you know

that our old people used to drink incense. That was the caraba our people used to drink in fast. That was the kind of bad our people used to drink. The rest in here today, you say no. Rest is life. It's purity. There is Dakota North. Thank you. Thank you, Ruti. Thank you.

Well, let me introduce myself to you. I should have done it, but I was so excited. I am the traditional queen of Liberia. My name is Julie Endy, the cultural ambassador of Liberia. These are my traditional people. This is the governor of the governor council. She's the president. This is the national coordinator of all chiefs and elders of Liberia. This is the speaker. These are all travel governors. And then of course, a Liberian working with me. And this is Mother Veronika Smith from the Christian community. We have come to honor you and we want to start you in the name of the Father, the Son, and

the Holy Spirit. This is a fabric made in Liberia by Liberians and we want to put Saju on behalf of His Excellency Dr. George Manawiyah, President of the Republic of Liberia. We want you to be at home the past centennial 200 years. We are telling our story. So we want to Saju first, like this. We want to give this to the Chief, and the chief will start you again, and then we'll go together in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Blessed Holy Spirit. Then you will just stand, and the troop will just do one song for you, and then you take your rest. That was, again, yesterday's arrival here in Liberia. And so, so many different things are happening. We arrived yesterday.

We'll be here for the next 10 days. They really kicked off this year-long celebration last month in January. But this is really the first major, major program, as I said. More than 100,000 tickets were distributed. And so this is going to be a day-long celebration, actually extending until almost 10 o'clock tonight. And so the program here is going to be supposed to start at 10 o'clock Liberian time, 5 o'clock Eastern. And then, but obviously it's running late. Delegations are still arriving, the various delegations for different leaders from across the world they are here including delegation representing

the United States and so this program here is supposed to last about four hours and being they're gonna be a cultural festival we're gonna still be covering that broadcasting that and so that's what that's what we're doing and so it's really great to be here, an opportunity to really experience the culture and really delve deeper into this relationship between Liberians and African-Americans, people of African descent. This country was founded, again, in 1822 when the American Colonization Society bought land here and resettled people of African descent.

And so we're going to be talking about that over the course of the day and the week, giving you a really understanding of this close relationship, joined again, as we said, with Reverend Jeff Carr and Dr. Omokongo Dabanga. Dr. Dabanga, I'm going to start with you. We see what we saw our brother Roland over in Liberia, and for those of us who have the Pan-African instinct, Liberia can in ways be challenging

and complicated, as Roland identified the history being one with the American Colonization Society, yet we still have the love of our people who are there, who decided to make community there, who decided to put their two feet on that ground and say, this is the place where we will be. So when you see some of the cultural exchanges that Roland engages in, when he takes these trips over to the continent, what are some of the takeaways that you have, Dr. Dupenga? Well, first of all, always good to see Roland still got those moves, man, because he just keeps it moving.

And it's awesome. But it really gives real even more meaning to Reverend Carr's awesome words from the advertisement. You know, bring your eyeballs home. I mean, he brought our eyeballs home, home. You know what I mean? And so for me, you know, my dad, you know, rest his soul. And, you know, my mom as well. We were raised as staunch Pan-Africanists. We were raised to believe that if you're African-American, you're from the Caribbean, you're from the Congo, where my parents are from, that we are all Black people, that we are all one people. And it always pleases me, makes me so happy to see us embracing each other from one side to the other. Now, look, I'm American-born. I know all the struggles as it relates to not

feeling accepted by the African-American community. And then going over to African countries, I've been to 20-something African countries, I believe, and feeling that whole thing about you're not African enough. I've written poetry on that, so I know that. But so when I see these experiences, examples like this, when we're embracing each other first and then going into the discussions, the debates, the conversations, the issues, you know, American librarians, traditional librarians and African-Americans have that conversation later, but embrace first as family. And then let's build from there. So I truly can. No other news network is doing this in the United States that I know of. So I truly commend Roland not for just going there and saying this is going to be a vacation for me. I want to go see this. He is bringing an important part of the African continent into the hearts and minds of black people in the United States,

as well as around the world, which is so important because we know that in 2022, we are still getting negative images and perceptions of Africans. But with a Black Star Network, you get the balanced perspective. Absolutely. Thank you for noting that. I want to also make a programming note that the events from Liberia will be streaming all week right here on the Black Star Network. So if you happen to miss any part of Roland's package just now, feel free to tune back in to the Black Star Network, and they'll catch it there. Reverend Carr, Dr. DeBanga made the similar mistake as our attorney Crossland earlier.

They mistake your brother Greg's words for your words, but because what you've offered so far has always been so poetic and poignant, it's been some medicine that we can take back with us, I can completely understand why they would assume that whoever gave us that drop of a gem earlier is here giving us this gem now. But I would also invite you to offer your reflections and thoughts about seeing the Pan-African display of unity, affection, care, and concern. Thank you.

Thank you. Look, I also want to clarify, Dr. Omikongo was actually correct on that particular quote. So my brother and I are both in this crew home. We're talking about our eyeballs. And he said, bring your eyeballs home. It's that moment where I said, bring your eyeballs home. So it's in there. But it's in concert with what my brother, Dr. Carr, said.

It's in concert with what you've been saying, Ray. It's in concert with what Roland says, with Omikongo, our. Carson, it's in concert with what you've been saying, Ray. It's in concert with what Roland says, with Omi Kongo, our wonderful sister, our Monday night sister, who we send wonderful vibes to, Dr. Julianne Malveaux. It's in concert with what we've all been saying. And it's this concept of what is home. I was watching that homecoming from Roland. I thought about 1821 and the first settlers that arrived there on Mesurata Island or Providence Island on the Mesurata River in 1824, becoming the continent of Liberia. And yet I still see the Americanisms on the clips we were just watching. Brothers getting it hype on the microphone, just like they're in Brooklyn or the Boogie Down or they're in Severe Park or at Easley Center in Nashville. We see the same energy. Roland rolled up out of that car, and I was like,

hey, they got some American, they got some North Nashville rims on that car. Something is here, you know? And yet, we see that familiarity there, and we connect with that. And we say, hey, we're on the other side of the world. And yet there is something that is centering us and bringing us home. I thought that the most wonderful words that I heard, I wrote them down. My son, you are home now. That concept of there is no place like home. It removes all of the stereotypes that you hear about Africans don't want you.

They don't want you over there. You can't go over there. Listen, if you've ever done any international travel, if you've been the places that many of us have been, you'll see that this world is a very large place. But there is an honor in being welcomed home. Two things happened in that clip from Roland. and we send this shout out to your brother over there. We know that you're still on the job as we celebrate this liberation. One thing, he was offered the kola nut. So whether you're in Liberian culture, whether you're in the Igbo culture or the Yoruba culture, this offering of the kola nut, this is something that we use in naming ceremonies.

It's something that we use in weddings now. This breaking of the Kola Nut as a sign of mutual respect and admiration and hospitality. That is something symbolic. We break it out. You don't go into a house and expect people to welcome you just because you're from the big bad USA. But for them to offer you the Kola Nut and to ritualize it by touching it on your palms and pulling it back and forth, weaving that connective energy between those who are here on the homeland and those of us who are in the diaspora, it's a powerful moment. And the next thing they did was to give the brother some fabric.

They gave him some clothes, man. When we talk about what has been taken from us, I think about the biblical story of the Good Samaritan. The Good Samaritan was rolling on that road. He was riding from that road to Jerusalem, to Jericho, and thieves came upon him. They hit him in his head. But the most important thing they did after they robbed him of his self-knowledge is they removed his clothing, because clothing identifies us. Clothing becomes a uniform that speaks to who we are. So when they take your clothes away, here we have Roland on behalf of not just Roland, because it's not about ego, and Roland understands that he represents black men and women in the United States and globally. He represents the Black Star Network. He represents people who are willing and ready

to put their clothes back on and be who they truly are. He is accepting that on behalf of all of us. So it's a joyful celebration. It's a joyful moment for us to be able to not only celebrate throughout the world, but to be able to do it digitally on a station where people like us call the shots. So yeah, I'm trying to keep from doing a backflip and turn it to a splits because the producers will say, tilt that camera up and down a little bit more. But I'm so pleased that we get a chance to celebrate this, brothers. And I'm so pleased that Roland is out there and that Liberia is connecting. And even with all the troubles, where people will say, well, what about the political upheavals

and what about everything that's going on there? What about where we are right now? Every country has its struggles, but we are here in alignment, in celebration for the good that we see. Two things. One, Dr. Dabenga, I owe you an apology sincerely. You're absolutely correct. Reverend Carr is

in that promo. He is echoing the words. I am sorry about that. I want to offer you that. Second, Reverend Carr, you go ahead and backflip. I'll take care of the producers and the tilting of the camera. Don't he? Listen, we're here to educate, inform, but we're also here

to entertain. And if we can get a good spiritual leader doing a backflip in an office, oh, yeah, we're going to go ahead and let you do that. We're going to make some space for that. Give me about 30 minutes with Omicongo. We're going to a hot yoga studio. I've got to warm that back up. I've got to pull the wheel up, man. At 34, I've got to warm up.

You're going to need it just for stretching alone. Just like we see all the stretching. Just like we see all the preparation our Olympic athletes are doing before their big competition. They spend four years for maybe 10 seconds of a sprint. We're going to give Reverend Carr 30 minutes just to get that backflip together. When he land, we want, look, the Infinity Fellowship going to get mad at us. If they come next worship service that they don't have. They won't be mad.

I threaten it every Sunday if I'm excited. I say, look, I'll do that. But what I do know is I got my two youngest are into gymnastics. So I'll bring them on at some point and say, OK, y'all ready for the flip? Stand in for me. I was just about to say the proxy flip. And they'll come to celebrate. The proxy flip.

The proxy flip. Yeah, the proxy flip. Well, look, Reverend Carr touched on a bit of joy, but here back in the United States, there is admittedly some sadness. Pivoting over for a second, we see that dozens of high school students in Missouri staged a protest last week

demanding a white teacher be fired for their use of the N-word. The teacher used the word several times, saying he was only repeating what the student said. The student told him not to use the word several times. Another student captured the exchange on video. Take a look at this. And a question mark. You don't say that shit, nigga. You don't say that shit, nigga. You don't say that shit. You don't say that, nigga.

You don't say that shit. You don't say that. Bro, keep playing. Who's playing with who? Who's playing with who? When I drop your ass. When I drop your ass. You laughing right now, bro. I'm talking, bro. You laughing right now, bro.

I'm talking about you laughing right now. What are you doing? You laughing right now, nigga. What is your point? Bro, don't call me a nigga. I did not. I questioned you. Nigga, don't put that in your sentences, nigga.

I repeated you. Don't put the fucking N word in your fucking sentences. You put it in your sentences. Yeah, because I can, nigga. I fucking can. You fucking can in your sentence. Yeah, because I can, nigga. I fucking can. You fucking can't. That's illogical. Explain.

Explain. You explain it. Explain. Explain your fucking bullshit, nigga. There it is again. I can fucking say it. As I say it. As I say it.

I can say it. I can say it. And so I questioned you. So don't put it in your sentence. Don't question me that word. That is And so I questioned you. So don't put it in your sayings. Don't question me that word. That's ridiculous. The teacher is on administrative leave while the school investigates the matter. This is the same school district where a student created a start slavery again petition.

Yep, yep. Reverend Carr, sorry to end with so much joy and then turn back around and ask you to comment or opine on this. Before I come to you, though, Reverend Carr, I do want to say this, and I try not to make it a habit of opining. The reason we have panelists is because you guys are really highly qualified to offer your opinions. But one of the things that's remarkably striking to me, and Dr. DeBanger, you talked about this glossary of definitions. Americans need to begin to define the word freedom because the lack of a clear definition onto what the word freedom is has so many Americans

asserting an opportunity to do something merely because they can. And they are told time and again that they have the freedom to do things, but our functional existence in society demands our participation that we have to give of ourselves sometimes and others will give of themselves. Functionally it's collectivism.

That's a little bit about Kwanzaa. Reverend Carr already said that. We ain't going to do that right now. But ultimately Americans seem not to understand what freedom means or have misperceived or misidentified perceptions of what freedom is, particularly because in their real lives, and this is gonna get into capital and labor, there's so many ways that we as Americans are unfree. So when a white person finally has the time

to offer the dreaded N-word, now they wanna flex their freedom. No, it's not standing up against to your boss on an Amazon plant who's gonna ask you to come back to work one day when a tornado may kill you. But it's when I get to say the N word. Now they want to exercise this so-called freedom when we want to do something that might jeopardize the health and safety and welfare of others. No, it's not standing up to join in signing a union card to ensure that you guys get more collective benefits so you get more than a

15-minute smoke break. This is where you want to exercise your freedom. My apologies, indeed, for opining. But Reverend Carl, when you see something like such, what is your takeaway? Because our young brother there, we saw him fighting for the language to communicate his anguish, and perhaps he may not have had it

as delicately or articulately as we would have wanted it in that moment, but the authenticity of that expression should have had nothing else told our instructor at that point. This ain't what you want. Oh, yeah, because, you know, at that point, the young man is there for every piece of the smoke and every bit of the smoke. And when it gets to when it gets to that point, I mean, we've all been there. And I say this to you, Ray, and on the Congo. Listen, man, we're this dialogue tonight is important.

It's powerful. We're all sending energy into this dialogue. So we're opening. The floor is open. The energy is flowing. It's absolutely awesome. I'm reminded of the 1974 Gordon Parks film, Three the Hard Way. So I don't know who Fred Williamson and who Jim Brown and Jim Kelly are in terms of us three, but I can say that we're dropping some things that people need to hear.

That young man, that encounter was disturbing on a number of levels. On national public radio, I did years ago probably 100 commentaries, and one of them is called the N-word redux. And I was exploring how we have this is called the N-word redux. And I was exploring how we have this conversation around the N-word. We hear it. People say it all the time. I've got kids, my youngest kids are in high school and middle school. When I pick them up from school, whether it's on the back steps or near the football field or near the basketball gym, you hear our kids going in with that. And it's just every other word, depending on the day, depending on the stress,

depending on the level of comedy that they're discussing, it's become a part of the language. They see nothing wrong with it. But it's also a stark moment when other people then begin to use it, because then you're in a conundrum. And when the logic comes back and they say you're using it, we see the young man is actually using the word over and over again to tell the white man he can't use it. But then the white man's logic is you're using it right now. It's a difficult situation because we have to deal with things on two fronts. When I'm teaching young people in our Performing Arts Academy or we're doing Rites of Passage, we talk about this N-word thing.

It's interesting because we use N-word so much to replace the actual word that younger kids say, what is an N-word? What are you saying when you say the N-word? So we have to almost use the word to say that this is why we're not using it. So that's how many contradictions there are with this piece. When I look at this situation, when I look at this interaction here, it took me back to an experience I had in high school. And I always say, when you look at me now, I tell everybody, you're seeing a work in progress, but I am surely not where I used to be. I'm not the kid in high school who was playing around, making straight Fs.

I'm not the kid who was section leader in the choir, drum major of the band, all of those wonderful things when I did get myself together. But there were important moments at that crossroads. One of them was when I I did get myself together. But there were important moments at that crossroads. One of them was when I got expelled from high school. I got kicked out of high school two weeks before graduation. If you haven't figured it out, I'm kind of the experiential off the beaten path member of the family. So when I got kicked out of school, I had a white principal who everyone loved and everyone thought was the greatest benefactor of children in the world. And I remember at the disciplinary hearing, I had an opportunity to get into school and she came to my parents and she said, your brother, your sister, your daughter, your son, they have just been awesome. They have been an asset to this school.

So if they ask me my recommendation, which the board rarely does, I'm going to recommend that Jeffrey be allowed to get back into school, finish his final exams, and be able to graduate with his class just because he did turn his life around and he's done some good things. Fifteen minutes later, we went into that hearing at that board of education. They turned to that principal and asked what her recommendation was. And she said, I recommend that you put him out of school. And if there's any way we can prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law, that's what I recommend. It was as if someone poured scalding hot water on my face. It was a rude awakening, as my father would say. But in that moment, it was the moment that I decided that I was not going to waste my life,

that I was going to devote my life to not only uplifting my community, but also making a mark in the world, to not just report on the news, but to create the news and to stand proud and strong. That's what I saw coming out of this exchange with this young man. I think there needed to be a reality moment. And with young people, there needs to be that reality moment where you recognize this is real. How do I work out my contradictions? How do I now stop being flippant about the use of the language that I have? How do I stop being flippant about the use of the language that I have? How do I stop being flippant about allowing things to happen to me as opposed to being the cause of what my destiny should be? This is a moment. It's a teaching moment for all of us. Regardless, we haven't seen anything new.

We know teachers have been doing this both in the teacher's lounge and in front of us for about 400 years. But hopefully for this young man and for other people who will feel this anger, it gives them that crossroads moment where they make the decision to move forward with their life and take control of their destiny too. Dr. Dabanga, I want to think about that contradiction that Reverend Carr told us about because I think that youthful expression, that youthful experience, life demands tension sometimes.

And sometimes we need this hostility and tension to answer some of the contradictions that we face in life, particularly as young people. The story obviously starting around the use of the N-word in Missouri. But it feels like, particularly with you two, you guys, we're qualified here to have larger philosophical conversation about this, which is, so Dr. DeBanker, where do you see the role or the purpose of the creative tension in young people and all of our lives to help us resolve various contradictions we live with? Well, I think that Dr. Cornel West said it best when he said, you know, black rage cannot be destroyed or contained. It can only be redirected. And when you see the rage in that young man, he didn't know where to place his anger. And in that situation with the teacher and the student, it was a situation of the uneducated leading the uneducated because the teacher clearly didn't

understand what that student thought was the nuance between the A versus ER. But I'm going to keep it real. We as black people need to stop using that word at the very least publicly. And I'm talking about in the music, I'm talking about in everything. Every group has these types of slurs in their culture, but they keep it internal, which is why we saw what happened with Michael Jackson

when he made They Don't Care About Us and he had that Jewish slur in there, even though Michael Jackson was like the most anti-racist person we knew, right? But he had to take that song out and completely redo it because it had that Jewish slur, even though he was using it as a statement against racism. But with us, we feel comfortable throwing it out there for everybody to hear, and we try to make a difference between the A and the ER. I don't make a distinction, and I know Tupac said it means never ignorant, getting goals accomplished. But then on the next song, you're talking about

killing them. So, you know, anybody who you call that N-word. So that contradiction, I'm not feeling it. I'm not feeling it. But that young man, he doesn't know that history. We, as the older people in our community, we have let our young people down to just basically synthesize it into something that they can say versus we can't, but we haven't given them the real history of it. And I tell my white students, I'm like, you all who come in here and y'all just say the term N-word, the N-word itself is actually worse than the real word on some levels, because you say N-word and you feel like you're absolved of living in a society that treats us like the real word every single day. But just because you feel like you're absolved of living in a society that treats us like the real word every single day. But just because you said N-word, you think that you've done your part.

So really, at the end of the day, we got to understand that our young people, they need real education on this. My sister has a dance company, and we take students all around the world every summer. We took some students from the hood of Boston, Roxbury, Massachusetts, other parts to South Africa. And we had a conversation with the kids and they talked about how they let their white friends call them that. Then the next day we went to the apartheid museum and there were white students from South Africa in there who harassed my black kids all around the museum, calling them names and dogs and all of this type of stuff when they got outside my kids try to rush them we had to hold them back when they got home back to

the hotel they said now we know now we know not to use that word again not to let anybody else call us that again especially outside the race when are we as the adults, regardless of whether you think using the word is fine, going to pull our kids and educate them about the use of this? Because he couldn't even find the word. He couldn't even stop saying it. He was so enraged. But the premise of what he was saying is wrong. So we got to snatch up our kids. Maybe we got to snatch up ourselves first, Ray, and have this real conversation, because I feel like we got to, you know, the teacher's wrong, all of the consequences he needs to get not absolved at all. And that's why people like our cultural architect, Dr. Brown, and I do this type of work in our schools, right? But we need to do some community building to pull our kids aside, because like Reverend Carr said, he's seeing it in the playgrounds and in the backyards and the schools

and stuff, to let them know the history. The English language is beautiful enough that we can find other words to use as terms of endearment. Dr. Dabenga, and I hate to box you both in with this with only about a minute and a half, two minutes to go. If I respond, though, that every group has in-group communication and every out-group understands how that in-group communication, and every out-group understands how that in-group communication is policed and works. There's an adage that's on a TikTok or whatever. It was a little song, you're doing a good job. You're doing a good job. And there's a word there that in a community of women, they would sing with each other. But the three of us know better not to say. We can still enjoy the song and go, we're doing a good job. So what then

do you say about why don't black people get the same space to have in-group communication in the same way we acknowledge other people do, but just because some people use that word and weaponize it against us, now we're offering that we have to not only police our young people, but police our speech for the convenience of someone else. How would you, Dr. DeBanger, respond to that? Well, I would say it's not about policing. I would say it's just about educating. And it's like KRS once said, that mic you speak through goes from here to Mogadishu.

And how you represent us is the issue. I've been in some of these countries where people are greeting me by that as soon as they hear my accent. And so my thing is not about policing. It's about educating people on what the proper terminology is and can we

come up with other terms, hockey, brother, sister, to use different words because I don't believe in policing. I just believe at the end of the day we need to teach ourselves the true history. And I believe that when we're fully exposed to it, none of the kids would even want to use the word. Reverend Carr, I want to hear what you have to say about this. I saw you nodding to

what Dr. Devanga was saying. And I do kind of position the, I don't want to say the opposite approach, but an approach that asks less of, or it looks less critically on the young people in the back by the football field and the playground who are using this term, particularly in community with one another. I don't want to do the whole thing of of endearment, but it is communal in its usage. And so why then, even if we have this education, is there still space for us to have a communal term that we in group understand without concerning ourselves with the effect of the white gaze on that? You know what? I'm going to say something. Everybody may not agree with this and it's okay because Bella G.C. Howell has a quote that I use all the time and I accentuate the end, but it says, never explain yourself. Your enemies, never explain yourself. Your friends

won't ask you to, your enemies won't believe you anyway. So we can get into the weeds with a lot of this conversation, but let's just be honest. You know, we hear the word. I've been around places with professionals, with PhDs, with events and social events and in suites after the conference is over. And as soon as, you know, there are three or four shots of single malt or some tequila or something comes out, it's in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in, in. And it's fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. However, because of education, as Brother Omikongo said, we tend to know when not to use it. I've worked in communities with people who I encourage to be themselves.

Like, I want you to see me. I don't want to have to disseminate. Call me by my African name. If you know what, I have white friends who call me by my African name. I got black friends who try to slaughter it just for fun. So it's about respect, right? I have people who I work with.

I have mechanics, I have repairmen. I've had people in the theater community and the spiritual community. And they'll come up to me and they'll say, Rev, you know, I don't know how to do anything about this race thing because I'm just an old country redneck. And that's all I am, man. And, you know, I love people. And if I can help you out, I will.

But I'm just an old redneck. If you need me to move that wood for you, you call me, I'll bring the truck. Now, he will say that. I'm not going to call him that, though, because I know better. So like you said, there are internal words that we all have and we all use, but it doesn't mean that external people get the right to use that family language. That's the conundrum there. With the young man, it's important that we don't get caught up on the word and that we see and feel the rage. There is something inside that young man that knows that something is wrong about that circumstance and

situation. He just doesn't have the language. He doesn't have the space that will hold space for him. And we all know because we've been in those shoes to express himself and to find agency and control in his destiny. We know it's wrong, and I know why. Because when my kids are late coming out and I have to walk through that group of kids who are going on and on and on, when I get out of my car and I walk through and I say, how are your young people doing? They say, oh, we're fine, sir. We're fine, sir. They know to culturally shift, and they stop using the word then. But it's also because I'm in the family and they also can detect from me that I'm not an antagonizer. I'm not an antagonist. I'm not there to put them down. whether we're running a program, whether we're running an institution or a network, to always be mindful to bring our young brothers and sisters in when we can and be there for them, be there for them in our families, be there in our institutions and our communities,

because without the guidance, they don't have a way to make that transformative crossroads choice that we all did when we were at that age to say, how do I channel this rage into putting a down payment on my freedom? And I think if anything else, if we take that with us from this moment that we witnessed, then we're going to see another level of success for our young people who are out there and need us. And it's lucky and we're lucky that they have people like people who watch this program who are invested in making sure that we're not just getting ours, but the future is getting theirs. And even after all of my logic and my theory, I add in an MF.

So you entering in words, hear me, hear me. Reverend Jeff Carr, founder of the Infinity Fellowship. Thank you so much. Dr. Omokongo Dabenga, professorial lecturer, School of International Service. I'm telling you what, they're going to fire me for getting these folks' titles wrong. We got some important well-to-do Negroes out here, and I am bashing their titles. Dr. Dabenga, thank you so much. Reverend Carr, it's always a pleasure.

Thank you, guys. Thank you both. Thank you. And before we go, here's a reminder for you. HBCU juniors or seniors, that's a shout-out to all my Howard folks, my Bowie State, UMES, Morgan State, Coppin State, had to put on for Baltimore one time. Time is running out for you to apply for that scholarship

from our brother Roland and McDonald's. If you attend an HBCU and Thurgood Marshall College Fund members institution, you can submit your application for the chance to receive a $15,000 scholarship. The deadline is February 28th, 14 days from now. So go to tmcf.org. Again, that's tmcf.org for details on how to apply. Now, in addition to the free money,

scholarship recipients will also have the opportunity to engage with McDonald's executives working within their respective fields of study. Well that's been a long one. And that does it for us here at Roland Martin Unfiltered. I wanna thank all of our guests, our panelists, Dr. Omokongo Dibenga, Reverend Jeff Carr, and we wanna send a special get well soon, send love, vibes. Omokongo Dibenga, Reverend Jeff Carr, and we want to send a special

get well soon, send love vibes and vibrations to our dear sister, Dr. Julianne Malveaux. And I want to thank all the production staff for putting together a fantastic show that was informative and above all, entertaining. We wish Roland well over in Liberia. I'll be joining with us later this week, but you make sure that you stay tuned.

And in parting, let us remember the words of the Yoruba proverb, that if we stand tall, it is because we stand on the backs of those who came before us. God bless, good night. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.