#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Miss. Black Voters, Dr. Bernice King Calls Out Amy Schumer, Building Black Wealth, Congo's Displaced

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

11.1.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Miss. Black Voters, Dr. Bernice King Calls Out Amy Schumer, Building Black Wealth, Congo's Displaced There are several redistricting and voting law challenges we have our eyes on.  We'll tell you what's happening in Michigan, Arkansas, and Kansas.  Mississippi's Democratic party and voting rights groups are making the last push to get black voters to the polls.  We'll talk to someone from Mississippi Votes about how they are changing strategies to mobilize voters.  Dr. Bernice Kings calls out Comedian Amy Schumer for implying her father would support the bombing of Palestine. It's being called one of the world's largest displacement and humanitarian crises.  Tonight, we'll discuss the decades-long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And New York Times best-seller Dr. Dennis Kimbro will join us to talk about building black wealth.  Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.     Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars.

Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war.

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

of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Să ne vedem la următoarea mea rețetă! Today is Wednesday, November 1st, 2023. Coming up, I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered streaming live on the Black Star Network. There are several redistricting and voting law challenges we have our eyes on. We'll tell you what's happening in Michigan, Arkansas. And we'll tell you what's happening in the state of

Michigan. We'll tell you what's happening in the state of Michigan. We'll tell you what's happening in the state of Michigan. We'll tell you what's happening in the state of Michigan. We'll tell you what's happening in the state of Michigan. We'll tell you what's happening in the state of Michigan. We'll tell you what's happening in the state of Michigan. We'll tell you what's happening in the state of Michigan. We'll tell you what's live on the Black Star Network. There are several redistricting and voting law challenges we have our eyes on.

We'll tell you what's happening in Michigan, Arkansas, and Kansas. Mississippi's Democratic Party and voting rights groups are making the last push to get black voters to the polls. We'll talk to someone from Mississippi Votes about how they are changing strategies to mobilize black voters. After Bernice King calls out comedian Amy Schumer

for implying her father would support the bombing of Palestinians. It's also being called one of the world's largest displacement and humanitarian crises in history. Tonight we'll discuss the decades long conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Plus, New York Times best selling author,

Dr. Dennis Kimbrough, long time professor at Morehouse with Jones to talk about building black wealth and how we must be changing our mindset. Plus, Isaac Ahaza-Thurge talks about the crowd funding for Fanbase. Plus, why was he kicked off of LinkedIn permanently? He'll break it down. And you know what?

I'm trying not to address this, but I've been seeing all of these videos talking about you're not a real man if you're not paying 100% of the bills and, oh, you are less of a man if you're paying 50-50. I think it's time for me to address this bull. See, y'all about to make me cuss. I'm trying not to. It's time to bring the funk.

I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered on Blackstar Network. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it blips, he's right on time And it's rolling, best belief he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks

He's rolling, yeah It's Uncle Roro, yo Yeah, yeah It's rolling, Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah Yo, it's Roland Martin. Yeah, rolling with Roland now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Roland Martin now. Martin! We've been telling you all about how Republicans are doing everything they can to make it harder to vote. There are several cases across the country we have our eyes on this week.

In Michigan, the federal trial will determine the legality of the state's two-year-old voting district maps, the outcome could upend Metro Detroit voting boundaries and cause a political scramble among incumbent lawmakers in 2024. A three-judge federal panel will hear arguments in Kalamazoo over whether the architects of the state House and Senate voting districts used in the November 2022 election diluted the black vote by drawing districts that stretched segments of the majority black city of Detroit into majority white suburbs. Today was a deadline for the Arkansas secretary of state to submit and respond to a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in a case challenging Arkansas's congressional map at issue. The state's map intentionally cracks black voters across multiple congressional districts to dilute their voting strength in violation of the U.S.

and Arkansas constitutions for the U.S. The second section two of the Voting Rights Act. County, home of Little Rock, were divided among three congressional districts rather than keeping the population in one district, the second congressional district, to discourage the incentive of the black voters of the areas to vote and to reduce the significance of their votes. Friday, the Kansas Supreme Court will hear arguments over whether a legal challenge against two voter suppression laws may proceed. The case claims the laws that criminalize individuals for giving voter assistance limit ballot collection,

restrict advocacy organizations from helping voters impose a signature purification requirement, and that it violates the Kansas Constitution by unduly burdening Kansans and their right to vote. Let's talk about my panel, Rob Portillo, he hosts the People Passion Politics News and Talk 1380, W.A.L.K. out of Atlanta, Rebecca Crothers, Vice President, Fair Election Center out of D.C. Bottom line here, Rebecca, this is the type of stuff that we have seen from Republicans because it is all designed, it is all designed to target and minimize the power of Black people. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, I would say anywhere where there's a sizable Black population in this country, we need to actually review some of those districts. Unless you are in a state which allows for a non-partisan

commission to draw legislative maps, right now our system with the very weekend VRA, Voting Rights Act, is our system is under attack. And we specifically see Black communities targeted. We do see some Latino, some Hispanic communities targeted, but because Black folks have an outsized turnout that supports one particular party, we see that Black-specific areas are very much aggressively targeted. And it's not just dealing with legislative seats, but it's also even dealing with census tracts, with determining what resources get to certain areas. But I repeat, Black communities are under attack in this country. You know, Robert, you talk about, again, Kansas, Arkansas, and even in Michigan. In Michigan, the problem there was the voters there approved a ballot initiative establishing a commission to draw lines, but here's the problem. When you still have political folks in

charge, they are going to try to get their advantage. We saw in Ohio where they flat out, Republicans there, flat out just ignored the commission and said, we're going to do what's right for us. We have to understand. Remember for the last 30 years or so when Republicans have been trying to

tell us that there's no such thing as voter suppression? The whole time they were doing voter suppression in the background. That's why they were telling you it didn't exist. And this is a perfect example of it, that they have been able to use the redistricting system in order to gain unfair political advantage. When we talk about Republicans over the course of the last 15 years or so, taking over 26 houses of legislature across the country, controlling those state and local ballots. That means that in 2010 and 2020, they were able to increasingly draw these gerrymandered districts to either, A, pack African-Americans together, thereby limiting the number of representatives

they should have within the Congress or also within the state legislative bodies, or, B, cracking those districts, taking a majority black district and cracking it directly down the middle and then splitting it in, let's say, two to four ways, diluting the vote power of those groups, therefore, disinterpreting us of seats in our elected bodies of representation. Understand, Republicans have not won the popular vote since 2004 in a national election. That's the only time they've won since 1988 in a national election. So in the last 35 years, they've won the popular vote a grand total of two times. They are not trying to be a majority party.

The 51 Democratic senators versus the 49 Republican senators, the 51 Democratic senators represent about 41 million more people than those 49 Republican senators do. We see similar numbers in the House of Representatives. They know that they have to go vote for vote they cannot win. Therefore, they have to play the referees. They have to change the lines. When the courts were ruling on the North Carolina lines several years ago, they said those lines were drawn with laser-like precision in order to disenfranchise Black voters. And this is not one of those sexy issues that sounds good on a T-shirt or on a slogan or on a yard sign or something along those lines. But we need to understand this is the most important issue, because if they're able to change your representation,

then that means they can effectively nullify your vote. That means that we have to vote in outsized numbers. We have to turn out at two to three times to rate some other groups just to have the same representation, because they were able to remove the number of people who represent our communities. And that goes down to the distribution of resources, the allocation of educational resources, where they put hospitals at, et cetera. So we need to start taking these issues seriously, particularly before the next election cycle, because if they're allowed to do this again in 2030, they might be a minority in this 1990s. This is how majority minority groups maintain power against the will of the people and seemingly democratic systems. Well, folks need to understand here, Rebecca, again, what this does is

this also limits power. And we say power, that means money. It means resources. We're talking billions and billions of dollars. And this is why the Republicans have been trying to get rid of Section 2. They weakened Section 4. This is why Clarence Thomas, who does not have the interest of black people at heart, wants to get rid of the Voting Rights Act completely. Without the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court would not have ruled in that favor in Alabama, in Louisiana.

And we're seeing the impact of this. And so what Robert just laid out is political gerrymandering where the Supreme Court said, hey, we got no fighting that up to the states. But racial gerrymandering where the Supreme Court said, hey, we got we got no fighting that up to the states. But racial gerrymandering, they still have to deal with the courts on that. Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to be clear, I don't want any party, whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans, controlling how these lines are drawn, because we need these lines to be drawn in a way that's in the best interest of our community. And the best way to do that is through having a commission that's nonpartisan,

that's adopting maps that have to be adopted by that state. And just like what Robert was saying, there are many real world impacts. I was just in Greensboro, North Carolina last Friday speaking and meeting with different groups who are currently suing in North Carolina because of the voting omnibus that got passed by the North Carolina legislature, which also is being kicked into the courts with redrawing those congressional seats. So instead of having even remotely proportional congressional seats, we're not seeing that. We're not seeing people actually truly represented on both the federal level with congressional seats, but on the state level with state senate and state

house seats. And the real world implications, for example, we could look at in Georgia, when we look at public funding of HBCUs in Georgia, we see that Savannah State, we see that Albany State are among several universities that have been systematically underfunded by the state of Georgia. So we saw the Carlos Moore law firm now step in and do a lawsuit to try to do something about that. We also saw that in Maryland, and it took a particular lawsuit in order to get better funding to these HBCUs. We're seeing these same issues even in Tennessee. And so we know and we can see where there's underfunding of resources that go into the Black community that supports housing, that supports education, that even supports economic success in the Black

community. And so it becomes very important to make sure that we have actual representation because it's how we get dollars back home. We're all taxpayers. We are putting money into the system, but we're not proportionally getting money back and out of the system. The only way for that to happen is if we actually have representatives that are truly representing our interests. And this, and again, what Rebecca just laid out for the people, Robert, who all was yelling, we ain't seeing this, we ain't seeing that, because a lot of that has to do with who's not representing

you. Exactly. And I tell people all the time, just think about it this way. Georgia is about to get another seat on the west side of Atlanta because of the court decision regarding the electoral, regarding the map for 2020. Alabama, same thing. Florida, same thing. North Carolina, same thing. That's four seats already.

It's a 217 to 212 majority for Republicans in the House of Representatives. That puts you right around 216. You take away George Santos' seat because he may be expelled from Congress and replaced by a Democrat. You get rid of Lauren Boebert's seat because she won that by about 600 votes in the last election. Boom, you have a Democratic majority, Speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, just like that. So it's not that these things don't matter. These things are crucially important because if you have a Speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, well, that means that now H.R. 40 is going to not only pass, but there'll be pressure on the United States Senate to actually pass a version of, to have a steady commission on reparations. That means that when we're talking about allocation of national resources, about whether or not

the U.S. government, when they're putting R&D into MIT, into Stanford and other schools to do research for DARPA, well, now that can be done at Jackson State and Pham State and Clark Land University. That means that when we're talking about where we're going to put military bases and the military industrial complex and contracting, et cetera, that can happen in black communities as opposed to other communities because you have the actual representation needed and those committees to push those things down. I got to sit down with Charlie Rangel years ago when he was chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. They explained just the power of having the gavel in those committees, the power of being able to set the agenda and to set the items that come before those committees. The American system is not built on

the flash of the presidency. It's built on the bureaucracy of the House and of the Senate. And when they order to control those bureaucracies, you have to have control of the vote. And that's why it's so important that we fight to maintain and actually expand the voting right to restore Section 4 and Section 5 to actually push forward legislation that will reform us to a 2024 version of the Voting Rights Act that would actually cover the entire nation. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

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

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

of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

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

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs

podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself

as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Not just the 16 districts envisioned in 1965, there's work to be done going forward,

but we have to stop the ball from rolling backwards. And there are groups out there that are fighting every minute of every day to roll us back. Indeed. Hold tight one second, folks. We come back from this break. We're going to talk about what's happening in the Congo. A lot of energy focused on Israel and Gaza. But there is a huge humanitarian crisis happening on the continent of Africa. We'll discuss that next right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the Black Star Network. If you're watching on YouTube, hit the like button, folks. We should easily be over 1,000, 2,000 likes every single day, so please do so. Also, support us by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. Senior check and

money orders to be at PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash app, dollar sign, RM unfiltered, PayPal, or Martin unfiltered. Venmo is RM unfiltered. Zale, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered Roland at Roland Martin unfiltered dot com. We'll be right back. on the next get wealthy with me deborah ow America's Wealth Coach, are you trying to figure out how to earn more revenue in your business during these volatile times? Learn how to tap into the largest marketplace in the world through government contracting. Our next guest, Akia Hardnett, will be sharing how you can get wealthy through government contracting. We've got a young lady, government assistance to government contracts. She literally was on government assistance when she came to us.

And in less than a year, she has been winning multiple government contracts and it has changed the trajectory of her family. That's right here only on Black Star Network. I'm Dee Barnes, and next on The Frequency, we talk to award-winning screenwriter and director Chanel Dupri about her film, You Think You've Grown? The Adultification of Young Black Girls. This is a conversation that all women can relate to. This woman was like, oh my God,

you know, I went through this when I was a kid. She wore something, it was a maxi dress, but the way it fit on her body, this female teacher

that she looked too grown and spun her around in front of a male teacher and said, do you think she looks grown, right? Oh my God. So that's next time

on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney+. And I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. Black Mississippi voters make up about two-thirds of the Democratic Party voting base in the state. Mississippi has the highest concentration of black voters anywhere in the country. Organizations are doing their best to mobilize voters for the upcoming election, especially for the gubernatorial race between incumbent Republican Tate Reeves and Democratic challenger Brandon Presley.

Joining me from Jackson, Mississippi, is the Mississippi Votes Policy and Research Director, Hannah Williams. Hannah, glad to have you here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Give us a sense of what the strategy is, because I was there on the ground both years when Cindy Hyde-Smith, when she was being targeted.

And Mississippi had the opportunity to elect an African-American to the United States Senate. The first time, he lost by 65,000 votes. And when we look at the numbers, you had more than 100,000 black folks who were eligible, but just who didn't vote. And so are y'all looking at that data and saying,

okay, where are our weak points? And let's go after those areas because that could make the difference this year absolutely mississippi votes is a non-partisan non-profit so our whole entire mission is to make sure that we're engaging mississippians year-round whether there's an election or not even though in mississippi we always have an election. When we look at our data research, we basically pinpoint areas or counties that we feel are having issues at the polls, are not turning out the way they should be. The young folks aren't engaged. People may not have enough information to feel like they can go to the polls and make an educated submission on their ballot. So we try to top to bottom, go throughout the entire state,

have these community conversations, do a lot of political education to make sure that people are prepared to go to the polls. What would you say are the areas that really need attention, concentration? It almost goes without saying that the Mississippi Delta is always a place that is going to need extra help, extra push. Even though the community front-facingly seems to be super engaged, they always turn out to elections. So for the people, just one second, for the people who are not from there, when you say Mississippi Delta, what does that even mean?

So the Mississippi Delta is that western border of the state that was like a really, it's like a really big agricultural community, really famous for its agricultural productions during slavery. It's a very high dense population of Black people, very underfunded. The schools are underfunded, the public schools, the universities in that area like Delta State and Mississippi Valley State are also experiencing not getting the type of money that they need. And so we have people in the Delta who may be registered to vote and are engaged and are educated about what's going on, but their polling place might not be a place that is convenient for them to go to because of how spread out. And so, and so I have a map up right now, I have a map up right now, um, that, uh, that, that, that shows that. And so this right here is the Mississippi Delta. So is it the pink area there or is it the green area? It's the green area.

Got it. And so what you're saying is there's a big concentration of black folks there who ordinarily are not turning out. Yes. So what are y'all doing? Is it door to door? folks there who ordinarily are not turning out? Yes. So what are y'all doing? Is it door to door? Is it media?

So what exactly are you doing to turn black folks out in that area? We are heavily geotargeting that area in terms of media. We have digital advertisements. We have billboards for folks who may not have access to see a digital advertisement. We are door knocking. We're text banking. We're charging our students in those communities. We have fellowships where college students can get involved with our organization.

And we charge our students with going out into the community, having these conversations with folks. If there are churches or anybody that wants to collab with us, we pay folks to go pick people up and take them to the polls. Like, whatever it takes, we try to eliminate all of the barriers from people actually going and showing up on Election Day. Questions from the panel. Robert, you first. So on this point, one of the issues that I've found, particularly when targeting young people, is helping them to connect the political issues as they exist right now with their personal issues. What do you guys do to help connect with young people and help them understand the importance of the elections that are coming up? Well, one thing that we do outside of going to campuses and talking to people face-to-face is that all of our programming is completely designed by young people. Our policy agendas are designed by young people. We ask, we do polls, we have focus groups,

just regular conversations where we may stop people on the street or before they're going into the cab, before they go to class, wherever. If they are a young person, we want to know, well, what issues do you think you're facing right now? And then we always find a way to connect that conversation back to voting because most people don't connect those conversations back. There are a lot of issues that young people are aware of that they don't understand how that goes back to picking their governor or picking their legislator. Rebecca. First, thanks for being on the program tonight. So outside of preparation for election and perhaps voter registration, what other types of civic

engagement do you all engage in, especially in the Delta area year round? Okay. So as I mentioned earlier, we do have a whole bunch of fellowships. We have three that are targeted to college students or college age folks and then we have one that is for high school students where we take them and we basically teach them civics because our school system in Mississippi doesn't have civics anymore so they get a basics of like how the government actually works and then they have they are charged with going down to the community having those conversations having conversations with their parents, and also volunteering with us, coming out in the field, door knocking, really just learning what it takes to be an organizer, but also learning about civic engagement.

And we also participate in the legislature every year. Our policy agenda is fully informed by the issues that young people want to see change in Mississippi, whether that's access to health care, a modernized voting system, just anything. Whatever they feel like is an issue right now, climate change, economic mobility, housing, we take on those issues and we try to either put policy out there that makes sense for us or we do our best to try to block harmful policies that will be detrimental to the people of Mississippi. Anthony, go to my iPad here. This is one of those laws we talked about was where more than 15 percent of black Mississippians

are permanently barred from voting. This goes back to the racist policy from the 1890 Constitutional Convention, which was called specifically to keep black folks from being elected. That means it's 130,000 people in Mississippi, 130,000 black voters who cannot vote. And so that is also what impacts the ability to win in Mississippi. Absolutely. We have a program designed for folks to help get their voting rights back as well. It's an online program. We go through the legislature. We help people become bills of suffrage, and we try our best to work with our legislative partners and allies to push those applications through.

Unfortunately, this year we submitted over a hundred bills of suffrage, and none were selected, which is absolutely historic for us. So there's definitely like a organized push to try to keep folks out from participating in elections. But then there's also this thing going on in the fifth circuit where

pretty much um it has already been decided that keeping someone who has committed or has been convicted of one of these disenfranchising crimes away from voting is considered cruel and unusual punishment but our attorney general has appealed it so it's gone back to the Fifth Circuit, so we're hoping for an outcome that really helps the people who want to be involved in politics pass whatever they've done in life. People have grown, people are older, and folks come to us every day asking how can they get involved in this process, if not for themselves, for their children's sake. Before I go to Scott, one of the issues you're dealing with is across the board

when it comes to voter participation in Mississippi. This is 2020 presidential election. You see the average of the United States is 66.7 percent, Minnesota at the highest at 80 percent. I mean, if you go down this list here, you keep going down. Mississippi is sixth from the bottom. And so you're talking about 60.2% of the folks in Mississippi vote. It was crazy to me. You're talking about a city, excuse me, a state that gets a significant amount of this money from the federal government. So you got people in Mississippi who simply are not participating.

And normally you would see a higher turnout in the presidential election than anywhere else. Yes, it's been a challenge these last few years to get folks to turn out. It's not something that we take lightly. Even though we have had some growth in a lot of different places, we would like to see growth all over the entirety of the state. I know over the summer when we had our primaries elections, it was one of the lowest statewide turnouts like we've had in like 40 years almost. So we're doing everything that we can. We're on the ground. We're pushing people really hard to turn out. We're trying to connect these issues to voting.

And all we can really do is just hope that people keep their promises that they make to us and head to the polls. Indeed, indeed. Well, Hannah, first of all, Scott, Scott Bolden joins us, attorney out of D.C. Scott, what's your question for Hannah Williams? Yeah, real quick, Hannah. I'm curious. You know, there's a lot of black apathy, many reasons why black folks don't vote. What's been the community response to you and your organization's efforts to push voter turnout for the November 7th elections? They've been pretty receptive. One of the major things that we do at Mississippi Votes that we value from our community is that we know that there are real world things that are happening to people. So we've come across people who want to vote or want to be interested in voting. But how am I going to feed my kid today or how am I going to get to work or how am I going to do, you know, all of these other things that may come before thinking about even going to the polls.

So as an organization, we try really, really, really hard to meet as many of those obstacles as people have to try to remove them out of the way. So once we're done having the conversation or once they realize, you know, like my kid can eat for the next week, we got school shoes, whatever. They'll come back to us and they'll say, OK, so what was it? What were you saying about voting? When is election day? How do I check my voter registration? So that's what we try to do. Good stuff. Thank you. All right. We appreciate it, Hannah. Keep up the good work and hopefully we will see a much larger turnout in a few weeks. Thank you, folks. We come back. We'll talk about a number of issues. First of all, of course,

Black and Missing. We'll also talk about what's happening in the Congo. Bernice King, she checks Amy Schumer when it comes to what's happening in Israel and Gaza. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

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

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

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

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working,

and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more.

Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Awesome. We'll break it all down for you right here on Roller Mark on the filter on the Black Star Network. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence.

You will not replace us. White people are losing their damn lives. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress,

whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at every university calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white people. sources. They're taking ou feet. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Ne

with me, Greg car immigra streets and shipped to places like Martha's Vineyard and Washington, D.C. Believe it or not, we've seen it all before. You people in the North, you're so sympathetic to Black people, you take them. Sixty years ago, they called it the reverse freedom rides. Back then, Southern governors shipped Black people North with the false promise of jobs and a better life. It's a part of a well-known playbook being brought back to life. So what's next?

That's next on The Black Table, a conversation with Dr. Gerald Horne about this issue of the reverse freedom rise, right here on the Black Star Network. This is Essence Atkins. Mr. Love, King of R.B. Raheem Duvall. on the Black Star Network. Jabari Douglas has been missing from Palmdale, California since October 25th. The 15-year-old is 5 feet 11 inches tall, weighs 130 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Jabari Douglas should call the L.A. County Sheriff's Department at 661-272-2412, 661-272-2412. Bernice King, the daughter of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has called out comedian Amy Schumer for implying that her father would have supported Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip. On Twitter, Schumer posted this clip of Reverend Arthur Martin Luther King Jr. talking about Israel. You must see that Israel must exist and has the right to exist and is one of the great outposts of democracy in the world.

My Jewish brothers and sisters said to me amid anti-Semitism anywhere, we don't need your support. We have enough Jewish power to deal with this problem ourselves. I would still take a stand against anti-Semitism because it's wrong, it's unjust, and it's evil. If my Catholic brothers and sisters said to me, amid bigotry toward Catholics, we don't need your support in this because we have enough Catholic power to deal with it. I would still take a stand against bigotry toward Catholics because it is wrong, it is evil, and it is unjust. Well, Bernice King responded by posting this on Twitter. Amy, certainly my father was against anti-Semitism, as am I.

He also believed militarism, along with racism and poverty, to be among the interconnected triple evils. I'm certain he would call for Israel's bombing of Palestinians to cease, for hostages to be released, for us to work for true peace, which includes justice. He said justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. We have much to correct. Here's a clip of my father talking about withdrawing from the Vietnam War and moral power. Dr. King, does the war in Vietnam could be stopped now without harm to this country?

Well, there are two ways to deal with it. One is a unilateral withdrawal. I don't oppose that because I feel that this is a possibility. After all, France withdrew unilaterally from Algeria, withdrew without a military victory, and this did not lessen France's prestige or influence in the world. If anything, it increased its prestige in the world. But France is not the power that this country is. Well, I think that's an even greater reason why we should restrain our power. There's always the danger that any nation will abuse its power, and I think our power must be much more than military power.

We don't need to prove to the world or anybody our military power. I think we've got to prove our moral power. Do you feel that this nation has abused, as you say, their power? Oh, I certainly do. Boy, it's always interesting, Rebecca, when these people love to quote Dr. King, but they don't want to talk the rest of Dr. King? Yeah, we have to talk about the full picture. And, you know, this

was really interesting, and I'm just holding my breath when it comes to January, when I see all sorts of people, everyone from Ted Cruz to DeSantis, trying to quote Dr. King, knowing that they do not espouse the views or even the moral integrity of Dr. King. And I do appreciate the King family upholding even the intellectual

property of their father to make sure that when people are taking quotations out of context, that it is properly addressed. So I definitely applaud the King family for making sure that Dr. King's thought leadership and moral philosophy is still integral to what his actual beliefs were. Scott? Yeah, you know, it's interesting. This whole issue of Israel versus Palestine, as well as the Hamas, mainstream America seems to struggle with being two-headed. You're either for Israel or against them. If you show any sympathy towards Palestine and what's going on in Gaza,

the death and destruction, I can support Israel and their right to be there as an important ally of the U.S., but I can certainly support a two-party state and believe that Palestinians have a right to be there, too, and to coexist. I can oppose Hamas kidnapping and killing Israelis as part of their struggle, if you will. And I can support Israel having the right to defend themselves. What I find hard to support is the collateral damage of 7,000 or more Palestinians being dead, whether Hamas is infiltrating them or not. There's got to be a better way. Israel's got to keep the higher moral authority. The U.S's got to keep the higher moral authority.

The U.S. has to have a higher moral authority. And if you look at the death and destruction and the lives, that's what America is seeing. And that's why you have the protests on the college campuses, because young people are seeing the death and destruction in Gaza. They understand the wrongful attack of Hamas against Israel. But to eliminate Hamas, there's got to be a of Hamas against Israel, but to eliminate Hamas there's got to be a way to preserve citizens, let them leave, find them a way out, right?

You can't move a hospital overnight, if you will. And so this is very complicated and difficult. And so I stand for peace, right? And I can stand for all those other things without being anti-Semitic. I can stand for humanity. And we meet we need that viewpoint, in my opinion, by our leaders and others to be to be more defined and talked about more. If we're going to be part of supporting Israel on a package to send more billions to them to protect themselves. Robert? Part of it is we have to, for our white brothers and sisters, the ones who have kind of been brainwashed by this American system of propaganda, and then you have Ron DeSantis and banning books and banning Black history. Part of what happens when you ban Black history and start calling it critical race theory is you start saying dumbass stuff like Amy Schumer did, because you don't

know the history. You don't know the history, you don't know the context around things. You can take anything out of context and turn it in and twist it for your own purposes. Just like Rebecca said, you know, we keep hearing Republicans and conservatives quoting Dr. King, just a content of character, not color of their skin. And they forget there's a whole 1,600-word, 16-minute-long speech that went around that, but they can take the part that they want out of it, and they perverted to their purposes. Of course, Dr. King will be against the bombing of the Palestinian people. We just saw the IDF admit to bombing a refugee camp yesterday, killed hundreds of people.

There was a caravan of people that the Israelis told to leave northern Gaza, go to southern Gaza. Before they got there, they got hit by Israeli bombs. There's been as many as 3,000 children have been killed since October the 7th. The death toll of civilians may be above 10,000 currently in Palestine. I was on Iranian TV a couple of days ago. Before my segment, there was an interview with a little five or six-year-old Palestinian boy. And he said, well, my father was killed

today in an airstrike. My grandfather was killed in 2005 by the Israelis. My great-grandfather was killed in 1987 by the Israelis. So what is that good thing that little boy is going to do, grow up to be a cab driver, grow up to be a baker? No, he's going to grow up to continue the cycle of violence that has been visited upon this region over and over again. And we have to stop with the, well, there's bad on both sides argument. We had lines drawn in 1947. We had lines drawn in 1967. When Netanyahu ran for re-election last year, he ran on a platform of the total eradication of Gaza. That is what he said in his speeches. He said you have to treat them like I'm elected in the Bible. He put in place the most severely right-wing government in Israeli history, all but promising

the war that we are seeing today when he put those things in place. He put in place judicial reforms. It had 18 months of protests by the Israeli people against Netanyahu, giving himself all but godlike dictatorial powers to execute this type of ethnic cleansing. We have to stop pretending the people of Gaza have not been living in an open-air prison since 2005, where every movement they make is being regulated. They don't have access to medical care. They don't have access to food, to water, to humanitarian supplies. And where with a flick of a switch, these railways can turn off access to the internet, the access to electricity, shut down hospitals, et cetera. So as long as we keep

pretending that these are even-handed actors in this situation, we're not going to make progress. The reason there's been no two-state solution is because of Benjamin Netanyahu. There are two things that have been consistent over the course of the last 30 years, violence in a continuous cycle in the region and Benjamin Netanyahu being in power. Netanyahu has been in power in Israel in one capacity or another longer than Vladimir Putin has been in power in Russia, but yet we don't call him a dictator. So until we are going to not just say, hey, Israel, we love you, but actually hold them accountable and say we need regime change in Israel just as much as in any other regime,

and actually say that our military aid is conditioned upon, one, a ceasefire, and two, the normalization of terms and relations between Israel and the Palestinian people, or else you're not going to get this $15 billion here, this $30 billion there, these F-35s here and there. Well, that's how you actually move towards peace and use the power of the United States government to actually affect change in the region. But as long as we simply try to act as if we are washing our hands of it and we're just spectators, we're going to keep seeing this violence taking place. And America does not have a moral leg to stand on, because if you think Gaza looks bad, think of what Iraq looked like after we got done with it.

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

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st,

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

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

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

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Issue that continues to befuddle lots of folks. And yeah, to the Amos Schumanns of the world, you can make your point. Don't pimp Dr. King to make your point. Because if you

want to tell about Dr. King, tell the rest of the story. It's sort of like all these people who try to sit here, these FBA B1 people who try to post Malcolm X quotes talking about Democrats. I'm like, oh, y'all going to skip over the rest of that stuff? Uh-huh, yep.

Y'all going to skip over everybody else too? Yeah, I thought so. All right, folks, got to go to a break. We'll be right back on Rolling Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Don't forget, support us in what we do. Join our Bring the Funk fan club. Your dollars make it possible for us to do the stories and travel around the country covering the issues important to African-Americans, please send chicken money over to the P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196, Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, RMartin Unfiltered,

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Go to News, and you can check us out. You can say Alexa, play News from the Black Star Network to hear the audio. You can also turn to Plex TV, which is on that 24-hour fast channel, as well as Amazon Freebie and on the live news grid on Amazon Prime Video, folks. And be sure to get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds, available at bookstores nationwide. We'll be right back.

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 a 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. សូវាប់ពីបានប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្� We'll be right back. about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people-powered movement. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it.

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My name is Margaret Chappelle. I'm from Dallas, Texas, representing the Urban Trivia Games. It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you're watching. Roland Martin on Unfiltered. The decades-long conflict across the Congo has displaced, folks, a record 6.9 million people. The United Nations Migration Agency calls it one of the world's largest displacement and humanitarian crises. According to the International Organization for Migration, at least 80 percent of the displaced people live in eastern Congo's provinces of North Kivu, South Kivu, Oturi and Tanganyika, which have long been overrun by dozens of armed

groups seeking a share of the region's gold and other resources. National security and foreign policy expert Asha Castleberry Hernandez joins me from D.C. to discuss what's happening in the Congo. So first and foremost, part of this issue, and let's just be frank, why this has not gotten lots of attention is because, like many countries in Africa, as far as this nation is concerned, if there is no national interest, meaning first oil or some type of resource, frankly, we don't care. Well, thank you, Roland, for having me today. And I must say, the last time we spoke, we discussed the North Korea issue involving Trump's historic visit to the DMC. So I'm happy to see you again. And also, too, I've worked on the Congo

at the Security Council during the Obama administration. Yes, unfortunately, the Congo crisis has been overlooked for quite some time. And let's be honest, because it's in the African continent, that's one reason why. And also, too, when you look at how long the conflict has been, which has been for decades, there's a sense of fatigue, too, with regards from the international community, as well as within the region, that how can we honestly bring sustainable peace to the Congo? And unfortunately, it's been struggling for quite some time. And as you could see just recently with the Tutsi-led group that has been able to make inroads in North Kibu and has been, and as a result of that, you know, there's been a failure of the Congolese government or military along with a regional force as well as the UN peacekeeping force that has not been able to push back or counter the Tutsi-led rebel group effectively. So you're seeing in-grounds coming from them, and as a result, it's creating the humanitarian crises and deepening it more and more to where

it's creating one of the world's worst displacement issues right now. So it does deserve more attention, but unfortunately, it's been this way for quite some time and it should not be a normative in the international community. Anthony, go to my iPad. This here is a map of Africa. We see the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is one of the larger countries. It's there in is there in Central Africa. And so who really has the influence, if you will, to impact this? Is there a particular African nation or leader who has the credibility to try to have an impact and stop what's going on? Well, it's going to definitely take the international community, more Tutsi-led rebel group that extends all the way back into the Rwanda crisis in 1994.

So it's going to have to take for some real authentic peace negotiations with these neighbor countries, along with the Congolese government and other significant leaders in the Security Council, to be able to effectively be just honest on what is the causation that's really helping to make the Tutsi-led rebel groups become more equipped, with better equipment, uniform, more support to be able to outperform the U.N. peacekeeping effort, the regional forces? What is causing that? And if so, if they're feeding into that issue, we need to come back to the table and address that. When it comes to the president of the Congo, this is who he is right here. Does he actually control the country or is it split? Anthony, go to my iPad. Does he control

the country or is it or parts of the country being controlled by rebel factions? Yes. So what we've seen over the past decade, we've seen that the rebel groups have been able to capture significant critical areas within the Congo. So unfortunately, he has struggled to be able to control significant areas within his own country. And so that's why you see a U.N. peacekeeping force there to help prop him up or be able to recontrol those areas. And what you're seeing right now is that these rebel groups are more and more controlling more areas to where he's not being able to control those areas, especially in the eastern Congo. So it's very unfortunate that, unfortunately, with regards to the entire sovereign state, he does not necessarily have full control of the entire country. Questions from my panel. Rebecca, you first. Sure. Can you talk more about the role that mining of certain

rare earth materials play into this? And even with Rwanda, Uganda and military groups that are being funded by the United States, by Britain, by France and even Israel. Can you talk more about some of those connections? Yes. So as just as mentioned before, in terms of the Tutsi-led group, rebel group, there is a lot of speculation that Rwanda, Uganda is supporting the Tutsi-led group, which goes back to 1994, the 1994 genocide crisis. And then when you look at the UN peacekeeping effort, which is paid by the United Nations Security Council, the United States supports these peacekeeping efforts. This is another avenue approach. The United States helps support the Congolese government

by providing equipment or support to these peacekeepers. Unfortunately, what you're seeing right now is that the Tutsi-led rebel group is more equipped and has better equipment than the UN peacekeeping effort, along with the regional security force that works with the UN peacekeeping force. So you're seeing this split, but you're seeing an outperformance from, again, the Tutsi-led group against this. And this was definitely noted by the security, excuse me, the Secretary General Antonio Guterres,

where he has specifically mentioned the Tutsi-led group is more equipped than the UN peacekeeping effort. How the hell is that allowed to happen? I mean, how? Right, right. Go ahead. Oh, you'd like for me to answer?

Yeah, I should go ahead. How are the rebels better equipped? Yes. Well, when it comes to peacekeeping efforts or, you know, just the government itself, African militaries have always struggled in terms of being able to be more equipped in fighting in these constant armed conflicts. And then, you know, because they're not necessarily funded, they don't receive enough money in terms of being more robust in its military posture. Over time, that's what you see. And then at the same time, simultaneously, these security challenges just continue to exacerbate.

So they're sometimes considered as combat effective because they can't keep up with the ongoing deepened security challenges that are happening. So it definitely goes back to the lack of funding, a lack of leadership, a lack of just being equipped to serve in these conflicts. May I ask a follow-up? Yeah, go ahead. So when you have a destabilized DRC, does it make it easier for different outside interests to come in and to take some of the materials, some of the resources out of the region. I'm talking about some of the

specific, I think it's Colton, is the specific rare earth mineral that's being extracted. Thank you for mentioning that point because looking at this situation, many experts have said that one of the driving factors of why this conflict is happening is because of the economic interest in terms of the rich natural resources like gold and additional resources where these neighboring countries have an interest in being able to control. So with that being said, because the Congo, especially along the eastern province, is looked upon as being porous, it is a lot easier for external forces or groups to come in and to be able to take advantage of the destabilization or the fragility of the country, and more specifically, to target towards these markets or these natural resources.

So there's definitely a big economic drive or factor here that plays into this conflict. Who is Scott Bolton here, if I may, Roland? Go ahead. Who's driving the peace process? I mean, the videos show chaos. You've got these various interests and so forth and so on. I got it. But the U.N. is there as a peacekeeping force. Is the U.N. driving peace and negotiations between these various factions, whether it's power sharing or ending the chaos or ending the war against these 80 percent of the population that's being displaced? Thank you for the question.

Yes. So the U.N. has played a significant role in trying to, you know, achieve a sustainable peace there in the Congo, but unfortunately it has not been able to reach that goal. Going back to the CNDP in 2009, where there was this power sharing point that you just mentioned between the Tutsi-led leadership along with the Congolese government, where both were combined, come together as far as a sharing power. But unfortunately, in 2012, when the Congolese government arrested one of the top Tutsi-led rebel group leaders, that created a friction or a divide or a wedge between the two. And then that's when you start to see the Tutsi-led

representation or group just branch away from the Congolese government. And then it happened again. Another agreement occurred, but unfortunately that peace deal did not meet its expectations. And, in fact, the Tutsi-led group says we are fighting back because we're not seeing that the Congolese government is meeting our expectations with regards to these peace agreements. So there is definitely a failure with regards to these peace agreements bringing sustainable peace subsequently, because that's exactly what they've mentioned, that it's not achieving peace within this area. So there's been just a lot of failure in terms of after meeting or after a peace agreement has been established.

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

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

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

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

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

season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves.

Arapahoe, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Following up on Rebecca's question, thank you so much for joining us.

We have seen that there have been massive oil deposits found both in north and southern Kifu, as well as Tanganyika, including on one of the world's largest gorilla preserves. The foreign national organizations, including China, have attempted to extract oil from, as well as a massive lithium mine in the southeastern region of the Congo, which Australia is attempting to exploit, in addition to the cobalt tritium that Rebecca mentioned earlier. What role does China play in providing international leadership and peacekeeping in these areas? Because it seems that the regional partners, which normally would have a security interest there, seem to have basically washed their hands of the situation.

Kenya, which is directly next to Uganda, is sending peacekeepers all the way to Haiti, as opposed to sending peacekeepers to Congo to deal with those issues right on their doorstep. But what role does China and other international organizations outside of NATO, the UN, the U.S., what role are they playing in attempting to achieve peace? Yes, thank you for the question. So China is unfortunately all over the continent when it comes to, you know, matters that relate to peace, security, economics, infrastructure developments like the Belt and Road Initiative. So what you're seeing in terms of China is they play a role with the UN where they support, they fund the UN in terms of peacekeeping. They even are like one of the only P5 permanent representatives that have peacekeepers or deploy peacekeepers to these type of peacekeeping missions in Africa.

So there's some sort of like, you know, boots on the ground representation with regards to China. Now, then also you have this UNILAT or BILAT effort that China is doing where they work closely with these countries as far as, you know, saying, hey, we will work closely with you in terms of security, in terms of building the infrastructure development, you know, that you always needed for more than 90 or 100 years. But in exchange, China always has an interest in terms of economics, especially when it comes to oil. Now, in terms of oil, yes, China has a strategic interest because it has to accommodate over 1.3 billion people that demands a high consumption of energy needed there. So China definitely has a strategic

interest when it comes to this oil industry within the Congo. And just real quick, a follow-up. We've seen other African nations that have been dealing with similar issues partition. We've seen North and Southern Sudan partition. There's a proposal to partition Libya directly, bilaterally, directly down the center. Has there been any conceptualization of redrawing lines to potentially stop this ethnic violence? With regards to this, as far as partition, I think that is a potential, especially if you start to see where the country is struggling to be able to control the entire state. So just like what you said, as far as Sudan, I used to actually work on that issue in at the United Nations, where we successfully were able to establish South Sudan compared to Sudan. And that helped at that point bring more peace between the two countries. But there is definitely a potential here with regards

to the Congo, especially when you see there's a huge difference in terms of experiences looking at the Eastern Congo versus Western Congo. But once again, in order to do that, we have to bring in those neighboring countries and the rest of the international community to come up to a consensus on is that realistic? Would that actually bring peace with regards to the DRC? Final question I would like for you to answer. And this is for somebody who's watching right now who's saying, look, man, I don't care. It's other stuff that we could be talking about. It's stuff happening in the United States. A lot of these people who are very isolationist who say, I don't care about what's happening in Africa.

I don't care what's happening in the Caribbean. Why should this matter to African-Americans? Yes. Thank you for the question. Well, you know, what's interesting is that I was really happy to take to participate in this interview because just yesterday, Vice President Harris initiated her presidential advisory board, well, President Biden's advisory board for African affairs. So they're spending a lot of time, money in terms of how to help bring peace and security effectively in the continent.

And that requires Americans being involved, utilizing our taxpayer money to help bring peace and security there. Why is that so important? or even right now in Israel involving Gaza, when you have destabilization, you have groups like terrorist groups, for instance, whether it's Hamas, ISIS, et cetera, et cetera, especially ISIS in southern Africa. Those type of terrorist groups breed there. And once they have the opportunity to build on strongholds and reemerge, that becomes not only a threat to that specific state, the region, but also to the United States. So it's a—so helping to develop Africa, it's not just involved with, okay, we have to be able to push back on China with regards to strategic competition, but also it helps

fight back terrorism. And that was clearly stated by the vice president when she actually pursued her trips there. She saw that it's very important that we stay engaged with Africa and help develop it because it fights back against terrorism. And to your point, this is the press release, excuse me, the White House sent out, go to my iPad, please. Lays out the inaugural members of the President's Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States. There are 12 members of folks in here. So the members for 2023-25, you see them here, including Rosalind Brewer, who recently stepped down as the CEO of Walgreens, actress Viola Davis, Helene Gale of Georgia,

Patrick Gaspard, former legislative director under Obama. And so you see all the names right here. Asha Castleberry Hernandez, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks for joining us, giving us this important perspective that will not get talked about on mainstream media. Thank you so much, Roland. Thanks so much. Look forward to having you back. Folks, got to go to break.

When we come back, I'm Roland Martin, Unfiltered. A lot of things we want to talk about on the show. We'll talk about, first of all, we'll talk with Dr. Dennis Kimbrough about the creation of the building of black wealth and how this, the mindset of African Americans, must change. That's not Where's Our Money segment. Also on the show, we're going to talk with my man Isaac Hazen III, the founder of Fanbase.

Why has he been banned from LinkedIn? Could it be that he pissed off the people of Clubhouse and they were upset with him? We'll talk about that. And, y'all, I gotta deal with this crap that I keep seeing all on social media. I'm sick of these people talking about you not a man if you don't pay 100% of the bills.

Yeah, I got a couple things to say about that. And I got a little surprise for Scott Bolden. You're watching Rolling Bar None Filter right here on the Black Star Network. I'm Faraj Muhammad, live from LA. And this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation. You and me, we talk about the stories,

politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together, so let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into. It's The Culture, weekdays at 3, only on the Blackstar Network. I'm Dee Barnes, and next on The Frequency, we talk to award-winning screenwriter and director Chanel Dupree about her film, You Think You've Grown,

The Adultification of Young Black Girls. This is a conversation that all women can relate to. This woman was like, oh my God, you know, I went through this when I was a kid. She wore something, it was a maxi dress, but the way it fit on her body, this female teacher thought that she looked too grown and spun her around in front of a male teacher

and said, do you think she looks grown, right? Oh my God. So that's next time on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. Immigrants lured off Texas streets and shipped to places like Martha's Vineyard and Washington, D.C.

Believe it or not, we've seen it all before. You people in the North, you're so sympathetic to Black people, you take them. Sixty years ago, they called it the reverse freedom ride. Back then, Southern governors shipped Black people North with the false promise of jobs and a better life. It's part of a well-known playbook being brought back to life. So what's next?

That's next on The Black Table, a conversation with Dr. Gerald Horne about this issue of the reverse freedom rights, right here on the Black Star Network. Hello, I'm Jameah Pugh. I am from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, just an hour right outside of Philadelphia. My name is Jasmine Pugh. I'm also from Coatesville, Pennsylvania. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Stay right here. Să ne vedem la următoarea mea rețetă! We've been frozen out.

Facing an extinction level event. We don't fight this fight right now. You're not going to have black on you. All right, folks. Welcome back to Roller Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Glad to have you here. We have this section of our show, Where's Our Money? Because our focus oftentimes is what's happening in our society when it comes

to building wealth creation. And you keep hearing this. People keep talking about, oh, building wealth creation, building wealth creation. Oh, how these things are important. A lot of times I hear these conversations. I see these panels of people talking about building wealth creation. I sort of laugh at many of them because when I see the people on a panel, the first thing I go is, any of them wealthy? Any of them actually got money? Any of them actually own businesses uh it sort of drives me crazy uh when i hear uh a lot of these things take place uh and and i know somebody's sitting here saying uh man i think you're being too hard, I'm not being too hard because if we're going to be honest about what is needed and required is I believe there has to be a fundamental change in mindset. Look at a lot of the discussions, panels that we sit on.

I've done this at Congressional Black Caucus. And I remember speaking before U.S. Black Chamber, Inc., Ron Busby's group. And I said to them, y'all should never allow a conversation to be had about wealth creation if you're not on the panel. This is no slight. Let me be very clear. I'm going to say something. This is not throwing shade at any group or anyone. But I said to the U.S. Black Chamber, Inc., how can you allow there to be conversations about black wealth creation? And I see the NAACP and the National Urban League on the panel. And you're never on the panel. I said, that makes no sense to me. I said, because they're not experts at that.

So the other day, I was on social media, and I came across this clip here of my man, Dennis Kimbrough. And let me get the clip set up. And I saw it, and I started laughing. I mean, I've heard him speak. We've chatted many times before. And those of you who had more house have known him as well. And so I saw this clip and I said, let's get him on the show. Go to my iPad. Black America, you are the only group. You are the only group that don't profile your

wealth creators. You got six black billionaires out there. Can you tell me the six? Oh, I don't know. Well, that's the problem. That's the problem. Black America, how do you get up and look in the mirror in the morning knowing you only got 35,000 black millionaires? You almost got the same number of millionaires that Qatar has. You got about 35,000 millionaires in Qatar. You got 34 million African Americans in the United States, and you barely have 900,000 people who live in Qatar. What are you doing? Black America, you are the only group. You are the only

group that don't profile your wealth creators. You got six black billionaires out there. Can you tell me the six? Oh, I don't know. Well, that's the problem. That's the problem. Black America, how do you get up and look in the mirror in the morning knowing you only got 35,000 black millionaires? You almost got the same number of millionaires that Qatar has.

You got about 35,000 millionaires in Qatar. You got 34 million African-Americans in the United States, and you barely have 900,000 people who live in Qatar. What are you doing? Black America, you are the only group. So, joining us right now is Dr. Dennis Kimbrough. He is professor. He's author. He's lecturer.

He's done all of that. He is, of course, a good man of distinction. Scott, I don't think you can claim him your frat, Scott. I don't think so. He's a good Kappa man, right? He's a good Kappa man. I know Dr. Kimbrough. He's a good Kappa man, right? He's a good Kappa man. I know Dr. Kimbrough. He's a good Kappa man, right?

Nope. Nope. Of course not, Alpha man. Nice try. Nice try, but you came up short again. Doc, the reason I thought this was important to talk about is because I can't tell you how many times I'm attending events

and people are having these conversations. And the first thing I do is, do they own anything? Have they had any P&L responsibility? Have they hired anybody? And I just think we have lots of conversations that are nothing more than rhetorical masturbation. It only pleases the person talking. Doc, you there?

Yeah, I'm here. No, no, no. That was a statement that he can respond to. Go ahead. Well, yeah, you're asking me a question. And thank you very much, Roland, for giving me this platform. I'm eternally grateful. And yes, you and I go way back and we come way forward. And speaking of going way back, that clip that you showed, that was at the beginning of my data search in terms of black millionaires. So it's got some age on it. And thankfully, at the time when I was writing that book, thanks to Federal Reserve, U.S. Trust Survey, IRS, Census Bureau. When I put all that data together,

there were only 35,000 black millionaires, according to the Fed. Now, that was almost 20 years ago. And to go back even further, which got me on this path after I got my degree from Northwestern, I read an old issue of Time magazine that profiled Martin Luther King when he led the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955. And they said in that issue of Time magazine that when he did lead that boycott, there were only five black millionaires in the United States. And as lo and behold, and thank God, four out of the five were still living. Now, I knew that my dissertation at Northwestern and what my area of focus was, was just to categorize wealth, because we didn't have that

many books at the time. And so when I saw that article, I made it my business. Four out of the five were still living. I hopped on a plane, got in a car, did whatever I had to do to go ahead and interview these gentlemen. I can say this now unequivocally. Here we are in 2023. There are 62 millionaires, 62 million millionaires across the globe. Of the 62 million millionaires across the globe, 22 million can be found right here in the United States. Of the 22 million in the United States, 1.79 million are African-American. So we have made some changes. It looks like we're getting the memo. So again, for the person listening, you said of the 22 millionaires in the United States,

there are 1.79 million African-Americans. Now, for the person who, again, because I think part of the problem here, Doc, is when people think millionaires, they're thinking the bling, they're thinking the massive houses and stuff. No. When you say millionaires, we're talking about people with what? I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

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

really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1 Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and

6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way.

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

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

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position.

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I use the same formula that's used at the Fed. Assets minus, excuse me, assets minus liabilities, minus primary source of residence. If you threw the residents in there, then of course, everybody out in California, everybody in New York would certainly walk up to the starting line. But the fact of the matter is that we are getting the memo, but we're not getting the memo on the level that we should. Why? Because, Roland, I'm a Johnny-come-lately.

What I've done isn't anything special, because Black America, your most prolific scholar, W.B. Du Bois in 1879, or actually 1877 through 79, he wrote the seminal work, The Negro in Business. Now, how did he do that? Okay. He was teaching at Atlanta University, arguably the same school that I teach right now that has now become Clark Atlanta University. And after school in the spring semester, after spring semester, he would hop on a train as far south as Jacksonville, Florida, and travel as far north as Boston, Massachusetts. And every step along the way, he would get off the train and interview black business owners. Well, you're fortunate if you get a chance to read that book,

Only Your Better University Libraries. And I don't even know if any public libraries would have a copy of that more than 800-page book. And the book is called again what? The book is called what? Only your better public library and university libraries would have a copy of that book. And I'm saying the name of the book again is? The name of the book is

The Negro in Business. Got it, go ahead. Okay, The Negro in Business. If you don't get a chance to read the complete compendium, that book, just read the first 30 pages because he has two profound quotes within the first 30 pages. Number one, he says the man or woman who won't control his or her finances won't control anything else. Now, what in the world does that mean?

If you don't care about the money in your pocket, what do you care about the level of black on black crime? What do you care about the scarcity in terms of high school graduation rates within the community and the like? And then number two, he says, nothing positive will ever occur in a community that fails to circulate its dollars. Now, he wrote this in the late 1890s, and those two quotes are applicable today. So in 1897, Du Bois writes The Negro in Business. Fifteen years later, in 1913, Booker T. Washington writes his book, and he uses the same title, The New Row in Business. Now, that book that Booker T. Washington wrote, they only had 25,000 copies printed of the hardback. Now, here you are in my study and I can turn around right there and look behind me. I keep, I got rows and

rows of books back in my study, but here I am by my computer. I have the 30 books that had a profound impact on my life. Booker T. Washington's book was one of those books. So the days are gone in which we can say the white man, this white America, blah, blah, blah. No, you've got to be a participant in your own rescue. And I'm not saying everybody's got to be a millionaire or billionaire. Hell, I'm telling you, right now, you've got about 3,000 billionaires across the United States. And on any given day, you would have anywhere from 12 to 15 African-American billionaires. I've been blessed to interview four of the anywhere from 12 to 15. That's not my stick. I want you to be completely and totally fulfilled. But the fact of the matter is you have got to change your mindset in the environment that we

are right now. The economy that we have right now, we've gone from agricultural to industrial to information, technological, whatever. Right now, we are in the creator's economy. And what does that mean? That means you create your own economy. In the next year, year and a half, maybe two years, there'll be 8 billion people on this planet. And what in the world does that mean? That means 8 billion sets of ears,

8 billion sets of eyes for you to share your product, for you to share your service. So what in the world are you going to do? Now, what I found out writing the wealth choice and I've been blessed. It was a lot easier to write the wealth choice than think of real rich and black choice or what makes a great, great. Because a little i guess um you know i had a little brand equity at that particular point but the folks number one i used a full-blown survey when tom stanley wrote the millionaire next door and i'm not saying it was easy for him than it is me research is research okay yep and as you know that this i'm not going to make this an MBA class, but there's two types of research. There's what we call applied research and there's theoretical research.

And I was looking for the applied research. I wanted to talk to folks who did this for a living and who were seven figures. So if I profile anybody in my book and if I surveyed anybody in my data, they were seven figures. So I used a full blown survey in which I asked these black millionaires 118 questions. And the survey was divided into four different factors, everywhere from demographics to success factors. Number two, I held six focus groups around the country. If you were an African-American and you weren't seven figures, you did not get into the focus group. Not because I didn't want you, not because

you didn't have anything to say, but you weren't my target demographic. So where were those focus groups? I had three in Atlanta. I had one in Washington, D.C. The focus group that I had in Washington, D.C., there were more than 110 black millionaires in that focus group. Carla Harris, the most powerful black woman on Wall Street, Morgan Stanley, she was in that focus group. Bob Johnson, one time owner of the Charlotte Hohners and BET founder, he was in that focus group. Michael and Steve Roberts, the Roberts brothers, your billionaires, OK, out of St. Louis, they were in that focus group. Michael and Steve Roberts, the Roberts brothers, your billionaires, okay, out of St. Louis, they were in that focus group. And again, I had a small focus group in Omaha, Nebraska, and I had an even smaller focus group, a boutique focus group with only black females

out in Las Vegas. And the reason why I held these focus groups, I wanted to see how black millionaires interacted with each other. And that's what we get wrong as a race. There's no bling bling. There's no beating on the chest. There's no look at me. There's no latest fashion, folks showing up in tatter jeans, folks showing up and, you know, work shirts and this, that. That's what I wanted to see. Right. And that's what we get wrong. When we think of black millionaires, we think of high-priced athletes. We think of entertainers.

We think of cryptocurrency. That's the wrong vibe. These aren't those individuals. And I can give you, you know, I can give you the demographic on what the average black millionaire looks like. The average black millionaire is 52 years old, lived in the same home for more than 20 years, bought that home more than 20 years ago for one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. And now the appraised value is close to five hundred thousand dollars. And yes, they have burnt the mortgage. They drive four cars and neither of them are brand new.

Some just might be a little bit more newer than the others, but two of those four cars are really going to have some miles on them. So that's what we get wrong. And the sooner that we take a look at it, and here's the good news. Go ahead. take a look at it and here's the good news go ahead well the the reason the the reason first of all you you're on point and and and the reason that um this i also wanted this because i was watching this i was watching this video and it was the brother he was described as being rich another brother uh you know you know working man they were having this conversation and the rich brother was telling this brother you, you ain't a real man

until you paying 100% of the bills. And I was like, this is the stupidest shit I ever heard in my life. And the reason it pissed me off, it was stupid, because we got folk who are walking around with egos. We got men who are saying that. We got women who believe that.

And I'll say the common denominator, if anybody's walking around saying that, those are likely people who don't know any wealthy people whatsoever. Because, and I'll give you the perfect example. I will use the example. I'll tell somebody today. Paula Madison. So Paula Madison, her husband Roosevelt is a makeup artist, and he did makeup for Tom Brokaw. Well, Paula and Roosevelt sat down and they said, all right, out of the both of us, you, Paula, have the greatest opportunity to make the most amount of money over the next 20 years. So Roosevelt said, no matter what I'm doing, if your job moves you somewhere else, we going.

Now, what happens? She goes from being news director at a television station in Houston to become the news director at WNBC in New York. She then becomes the general manager at WNBC in New York. She then becomes the general manager at WNBC, leaves WNBC to go to the general manager at KNBC, becomes head of diversity for General Electric, then, of course, gets on the board, retires at like 57, 58,

was a multimillionaire beforehand, and her and her family, they used to own the LA Sparks, they own the Africa Channel, and so she's got multiple millions this was a perfect example of a man and Roosevelt chilling driving a Rolls Royce of a man saying hey my woman has an opportunity for all of these different things. We going to ride that till the wheels fall off. She ain't sitting here tripping like I'm the boss. I'm making the most money.

I make all decisions. He's not tripping. They said we going to do this thing together. And so here they are. Paula just turned 70. Hell, they've been sitting on millions for the past 15 plus years. But they made a millionaire decision. They wasn't tripping on ego over who made the most money. Yeah, well, that's a great metaphor right there. You know, what I found about millionaires is that it's a team effort.

And I mentioned in terms of home ownership, the average black millionaire has been married anywhere between 15 and 20 years. So the fact of the matter is they look at it as a team. All right. So you look at me. I've been married close to 50 years. And me and my wife, we were seniors in college when we got married. We got married by a justice of the peace, but we had one thing in mind. We wanted to do a little bit better than our families, because when you look on my wife's side, neither of my in-laws finished high school. When you look on my side, yes, my father did finish high school, but my mother had a seventh grade education. So we knew that, hey, listen, we're

not only going to succeed, but we're going to succeed for our family. We're no one's Jonathan living seagull and no one flies alone. And unfortunately, I think that's what Generation Z doesn't really capture. But that's a sermon for another Sunday. But as I said before, Roland, you know, we are in a creator's economy. Yep. And every dollar bill is up for grab. And you have got to decide. And when I talk about decide, I found seven laws of wealth and two rules of wealth that black millionaires always abide by. The number one law of wealth is knowledge. And people ask me all the time, you know,

there are 10 different forms of wealth and money is only one of them. As a matter of fact, money is not number one and money is not number two. Money is number three. Now, I stand before students every Tuesday and Thursday at Clark and Lane University, the School of Business, and I tell my students that I get some pushback. Dr. Kimbrough, money is not number one now. The number one form of wealth, OK, is consciousness. The mind can't, excuse me, the pocketbook can't grow till the mind grows. And that's the number one law of wealth is knowledge. Prosperity begins in the mind, but ends in the purse. Unless you have a mindset, unless you're going to be an active

participant in your wealth creation. Now, before you ask me that question, thanks to data analytics and the Federal Reserve, they came up with a new category for millionaires, and it's called micro millionaires. And what is a micro millionaire? You may not be able to see that one day, oh, man, you're going to go ahead and crack the code on seven figures, blah, blah, blah. But when you assay it down, when you assay millionaiership down, again, I asked them 118 questions. The one question that came back, and I didn't have to perform multiple regression to get this answer. The one question that came back 99.9% of the time, I asked them, I said, how old were you

when you broke six figures? And 99.9% of the time, they said by age 30. Wow. So I tell folks, be very particular where you are at age 30, because you might be there for the rest of your life. So thanks to data analytics and the Wall Street Journal

and the Federal Reserve are doing the same thing. For white America, you may not be able to see that one day you're seven figures, but somewhere between the age of 35 and 42, 43, shoot for $250,000.

And if you do that and you change nothing else, you will find yourself standing in a pool of liquid gold of seven figures or more. Now, why is that critical? Because I can see it walking up and down the streets of Petrie. Yes, here I am in Atlanta, Georgia. And what do we know about the demographics of African-Americans in Atlanta, Georgia? The average household income, black America here in Atlanta, Georgia, is about forty five thousand dollars a year. OK, close to 35 percent of African-Americans here in Atlanta, Georgia, are either unbanked or non-banked or below banking. What in the world does that mean? That means they don't even use a financial, you know, they don't even use your bank, or they don't even use a financial investor, whatever,

for their financial or banking needs. That means to go to the post office, and I can tell you right now, Roland, even today, here we are in 2023, the number one bank of black America is Walmart. We still have. Yes, we still haven't captured that. So we got some changes to make. But thankfully, all the information is there. And you can be you can have you can do if you're willing to put the time and effort in. Hold on one second. I'm going to break. We come back. My panel, I know they got some questions. Can't wait to get in on this conversation. We're talking with Dr. Dennis Kimbrough, folks.

We're talking about the idea of wealth creation, what that really, really means. How do we attain that? And y'all heard me talk about this all the time. Because when you have that, then you also have that freedom to be able to support our institutions and to also be able to build and grow. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Thank you. hatred on the streets a horrific scene a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence white people are losing their damn lives there's an angry pro-trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance.

We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear.

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

when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really,

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

We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means

to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

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

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

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Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Roller Martin on the Filter. We're talking about our segment. It's called Where's Our Money? We're talking with Dr. Dennis Kimbrough, author, professor. Books include The Wealth Choice and Think and Grow Rich, a black choice among them. I got this one question before I go to the panel. Doc, you talked about cars being owned.

And I got a kick out of having this conversation with a brother I know, and he was just baffled. Because I remember when I ran, I go back to, actually I'm going to put that conversation aside. When I ran the Houston Defender, we're talking, this is 2000, so this is 23 years ago. So it was a young brother of my staff. He was a graphic designer. He owned a Ford Explorer. So he gets a raise. Then he goes out and he buys a Ford Expedition.

Now, he had already put in a sound system in the Explorer. And so probably about six months after getting the Expedition, man, he was whining, complaining about the note on the Expedition. And I remember asking him, I said, I said, I'm curious. It's just you and your girlfriend. Why did you go by Expedition? And he's like, well, you know, I wanted a bigger view. I said, but it's two of y'all you had a ford explorer that was just perfectly fine the reason i'm laughing at that because i bought my lincoln navigator and the only reason i bought that because six of my nieces came to live with

us and i literally needed a bigger vehicle to carry eight people around but got a cashier's check the day i bought it off the lot. I said, I ain't paying no damn interest. Y'all can go to hell. Crossed the 200,000 mark last month. So I've had that. So it'll be this month, November. It'll be, what, 15 years since I got it.

That's the only car I've owned since 2008. My whole deal is I don't give a damn what nobody else think. I don't care about no Mercedes, no BMW, whatever, and it gets me to where I need to go. I think part, that's a different state of mind. Here

he was, he got a raise and he added more debt in his life when what he had was perfectly fine and he's complaining six months later. I'm like, that's illogical. That's not how millionaires think when it comes to their lifestyle. You're exactly right.

And my research shows that they pay cash and they only go as far as their cash will take them. And when I say only go as far as their cash will take them. And when I say only go as far as their cash will take them, the cash that they have in their pocket at the time on many circumstances. During the course of my interviews, I've never been in so many what I would call, I won't say raggedy cars, but old cars talking to them, following around wherever they're going, work, handling their daily affairs and the like. And that's true across the board. Now, I'm not saying I haven't been in Mercedes and nice Lexus cars and the like. But they, you know what, they don't like being in debt. And outside of the mortgage, outside of the mortgage, less than $10,000 total debt and certainly less than $5,000 in credit card debt. Because one of the questions I asked, would you have difficulty paying an unexpected $5,000 bill?

Of course, no. Would you have any difficulty paying an unexpected $10,000 bill? No. How many times and who balances your checkbook over the course of the month? And that answer came back usually twice a week and nine times out of 10, if they were married, the wife handled the finances. So they're a different breed of cat. And because we don't have that much information about our wealth creators. We're left to our own guises to think how they really act and how they behave. And many times we're on the wrong track.

Absolutely. And I like to say debt, I call it invisible shackles because it limits your ability to make certain decisions and to move and flow in a different way because you're constantly thinking about, I owe this private school tuition, I owe this, I owe this, I owe this, I owe this. And it's sort of, to me, it frees your mind to be able to move freely because that's not holding and weighing you down. Panel is waiting for some questions. Rebecca, you first. Thanks, Dr. Kimbrough, for being here tonight. You mentioned Omaha, Nebraska, and doing a panel there. I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. And what's interesting, at one point, Omaha had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the United States.

One of the benefits of growing up in that type of environment, I am used to seeing millionaires and the billionaires that are there who live a very quiet or simple life. Like they have lived in the same home, like you mentioned, for the last 20, 30 years. I'm thinking about Warren Buffett, who's lived in the same house. I think he bought that house in the 60s. I'm used to seeing them drive around with pickup trucks and see them not being too good to go to Applebee's or to go to Cheesecake Factory if they're going out to eat. Otherwise, they're cooking at home. However, because of my work, I've spent a lot of time in Black communities across the country and the majority of Black communities. And one thing that

I've noticed is that it appears that within our communities, we want the appearance of what we think it is to be wealthy versus the actual being wealthy. So how do we start to change that dynamic so folks understand it's not about what it looks like in our mind to be wealthy, but what it actually means to be wealthy? Great question, and I appreciate that, and thank you so much. Yes, you're exactly right, and I've said it on a number of occasions that the individual looks like he's wealthy and has all the trappings of success. Chances are not all the time, but chances are, no, they're not wealthy at all. So the fact of the matter is that and, you know, going back to Omaha, Nebraska, when I held that focus group, there were car dealers in there, franchise owners that I had in that group and the like.

But I was about to say something else, and I'll get back to a second in terms of millionaires. But this I definitely want to say, OK? Because we think of millionaires as when we see rap stars and we're looking at entertainers and we're looking at individuals who we think got it going on and the like. The average black millionaire has a stealth mindset, completely, totally under the radar. Now, I'm not saying they don't get out there and have a good time. But when they do have a good time, they're around their peer group. Now, you ask the question, what causes that?

I don't know. You might go to college and major in marketing, but we know something about the world of marketing. There are about five to seven different marketing or advertising type of behaviors that they use on individuals. Now, when you look at Black America, the number one marketing or advertising behavior that they use when they're trying to lure African Americans is recognition. Why? Because we've been, as a race, we've been starved for recognition. And if you close your eyes and you listen to the ad, you know the demographic that they're going after. Be the first on the block. Be the envy of the neighborhood.

Call in, sign your name on the dotted line right now and be the talk of the town. Well, you know who they're going after. They're going after black America. When you look right now, there are 14 to 15 different sectors that make up the economy. Education is a sector. Health care is a sector. Construction is a sector. But when you look at all these sectors and aids in that sector, that's about a

$700 billion health and beauty. It's about a $700 billion sector. Well, who is the number one buyer or consumer of that sector? Well, it's black women. Black women are 6%, 6 to 7% of the population, but they're 24% of that sector. Now, I have no problem with that. I mean, I got three grown daughters, all married, all college educated, all mothers, all homeowners, and I got three granddaughters. So believe me, I have no problem with that. But we have got to learn to do what every other group does, and that's leverage their consumer behavior. If East Indian women were buying on that particular level, if Jewish women were buying on that level, if Hispanic women were buying on that level, Wall Street would know it. Now, how would they know it? Well, I told you I teach at Clark Atlanta. So if we are number one in the beauty industry, a $700 billion industry, and we have some black hair care and black cosmetic companies and blah, blah, blah, they get less than 7% of that industry, or 24% in terms of consumer behavior,

wouldn't you expect to see some Revlon scholars in my class? Wouldn't you expect to see some of the young ladies in my business seminar class on full-ride L'Oreal scholars? Every other group does that. Why not us? L'Oreal,olar. Every other group does that. Why not us? L'Oreal, Mac, keep going. There's a carrot at the end of the stick, and they're reeling the carrot in based on our consumer behavior

because the buying emotion is recognition. Boom. You know what? There's a book out there, Apocalypse on the Hill, Why People Buy. I bring in books all the time to my students. I said, all right, so you're a marketing concentration. You've got to buy this book. And what is the book? It's called The Go-Getter. Or you got it. It's called Hit the Sweet Spot. All right. Here I am. I teach at Clark Atlanta,

only four miles from Coca-Cola. You go up on the 10th floor of Coca-Cola, where all the executive vice presidents are, and you look in every office, and you'll see that book, Hit the Sweet Spot. Why? It's all about buying emotion. And the same thing occurs in terms of our consumer behavior. Now, you may not want to be an entrepreneur. You may know how to own a side hustle, whatever. But one aspect you cannot escape, and that's consumer behavior, your credit score.

So when it comes to you buying and your credit score, don't score. Don't think of yourself as a consumer. Think of yourself as an investor, as an investor. Look at your credit score as an investor. Why? Because the rich always pay less for their items and accessory. So you go into Best Buy, you go there and you see a flat screen and they got, you know, the nameplate, you know, what the price is on there. Put them aside.

I'm paying cash. What's the cash price? If they don't have a cash, if you did have a cash price, what would it be? What type of discount can I get? Why? Because they know and people know it's called in economics, it's called velocity. And Roland, what in the world is velocity? OK, so I got a 17.

I got an 18-year-old granddaughter who's a junior at Savannah State. She's a biology major. And I love her to death. And on my tape, I try to help my grandkids out if they need a little change and this, that, and everything.

But if I gave that child right now and I said, here you go, here's $100. In terms of velocity, that would have a quick effect on her lifestyle. But as her grandfather, and in terms of generational wealth, I got to school this child, so 10, 15, 20 years from now, if I gave her $1,000, it would have no effect on her bearing a lifestyle at all.

Why? Because right now her velocity is fast. Look, you're in my global classroom this evening. You want, when it comes to wealth, you want your velocity to be slow. Scott! You don't want it to have a huge impact on your life. Now, why do I say that, Roland? Because more than one half of my race, as soon as we get up in the morning, we got one goal and one goal only.

To get through this day by any means necessary. Right. They are in complete survival mode. And we have got to change that behavior from a poverty mindset to a wealth generation mindset. Scott? Yeah. Hey, Doc. Love your research. Quick question for you. Of your research of those black millionaires, right, how many inherited their wealth? How many gained it through real estate or entrepreneurship or multiple streams of income? And how many lost their millions and were able to generate it back? I know that's a multi-capacity. Thank you.

That is a great question. How many lost it and generated, but I don't have a number, but yes, I know during my research, here's the thing. All right, so I asked them 18, 118 questions, surveyed more than a thousand, simply because I wanted the data to be valid and I wanted it to be reliable. Number two, I told you I had the focus groups. But number three, I had more than 60 face-to-face interviews. And when I set out, I didn't want any athletes and I didn't want any entertainers. Not because I had anything against athletes or entertainers, but we were over represented in that area. We knew information regarding those two demographics. I want to folks that flew under the radar, that we didn't we would hear these stories and the life folks who didn't bounce, who didn't bounce or catch anything. Yeah.

But obviously there was some there were some individuals I had to interview. I had to interview Steve Harvey. I had to interview Damon John. I had to interview Tyler Perry. I had to interview Damon John. I had to interview Tyler Perry. I had to interview Kathy Hughes. I had to interview. I mean, so I spent a day with Kirk Franklin. I spent I mean, the list can go on and on, folks, me they had to make the wealth several times. Case in point, Kirk Franklin. Okay. Case in point, although I didn't interview Usher, his mother, Janetta Patton, came to my class and spoke to my students. So she told me, you know, the stories about that.

These are folks who made, to answer your question, who made their earnings over and over again. Yeah. Thank you. Robert. You know, I always love it when Clark Atlanta University is properly represented. I'm using the minority here, but it's absolutely outstanding to have you in this conversation. While I was a student at Clark, one of my economics professors said that money is spent in the light, but wealth is built in the darkness.

He kind of, you know, everybody in Atlanta and all of a sudden wants to start a boutique or, you know, the next trending restaurant to be the next slutty vegan. He can kind of talk about the real way that wealth is generated in our community and real types of businesses that really grow and expand.

I have someone who was a student with me at Clark Atlanta. They started a business where they literally picked up waste from restaurants and just took it to the landfill for them during hours that the city couldn't do it, et cetera. Dumpsters couldn't do it. He was a millionaire before 30, picking up garbage and trash. But that's not the shiny, bright object that gets you on a reality show on social media. So people don't really think about it. They can talk about the hard work in the industry that people don't think about that actually leads to generational wealth.

Good question. And the reason why, because the millionaires who I surveyed and interviewed, they didn't see it. They didn't get in this game for the money. They got in the game as a labor of love. Yep. Something that they were completely engaged in. And that is the difference.

Because I remember a couple of times in my focus groups, I asked the question, did you know the day or the week in which you crossed the seven-figure threshold? And no one can answer that question for me. Why? Because their head was down and they were completely engaged in what they were doing at that particular time. So here, here's the key. Here is the mindset. And these are the questions that you've got to ask yourself in this creator economy. Question number one, where have you been? Now, what do I mean by where have you been? If you are just getting the email now, you're 40, you're 50, you're 60 years old,

you got to account for your time. What in the world have you been doing? Do you know your area of excellence? And if you don't know your area of excellence, I need to know why you don't know your area of excellence. Why? Because you can't repeat the same behaviors over and over. Question number two, you know, why are you here? Well, that's a great question. We're all here to serve somebody. Service is the price you pay for the space that you occupy. And anybody can serve.

And the bottom line is not, look, in terms of money is not the bottom line. I tell my students all the time, and they give me pushback and say, Dr. Kimbrough, you're the only person I know who writes books about wealth and this and that and money, but your books have nothing to do with money. No, money is not the bottom line. Well, what is the bottom line? Love is the bottom line. I don't care if you're working for a living, you're employed for a living, you love your job, you're going to get the parking space closest to the building. You love your coworkers, you're going to get the parking space closest to the building. You love your co-workers, you're going to be manager in no time. You love, you know, you love your co-workers or you love your job or

you're an entrepreneur and you love your customers. Guess what? You're going to get more customers. Love is the bottom line. Number three, where are you going? Where are you going? In other words, do you know your area of excellence? And you've got to ask yourself three critical questions to uncover your area of excellence. throw your whole heart and soul into. I remember when I was with John Johnson, I'm probably the last individual to interview the godfather of black entrepreneurship. I interviewed this man several times, and there I am, 820 Michigan Avenue, up there in his office,

sitting right across the desk while he's signing contracts, looking at makeups of new covers of Ebony and Jet magazines. And I said to him, I said, Mr. Johnson, if you weren't a magazine publisher and you weren't publishing Ebony magazine, what would you be doing? And he picks up a mock interview from an upcoming issue of a magazine and he goes just like

this. I love magazines. I love the colors. I love the feel. I love the textures. How are you going to beat an individual like that? You can't. So what do you love to do? Question number two, if you weren't rewarded, if you weren't compensated for your work, what would you do for free? Now, I've been at Clark Atlanta close to 30 years. And I mean, when my wife was still with me, you know, even before we had direct deposit,

the same way the dean would hand me the check, you know, I would place it in my wife's hand and blah, blah, blah. I never knew. Yeah, I had an idea in terms of my finances, but she was an accountant by trade and she took care of all the finances and this, that and everything. But I was I was engaged because that's what I was called to do. So what do you love to do?

If no one ever paid you a dime, if no one ever gave you financial reward for your efforts, what would you do for free? Because when you're doing what you love to do, when you do it for free, your work is your play. And if your work is your play, you'll never work a day in your life. Now, here we are

in 2023, and what Generation Z has got to understand, instead of quiet quitting, this is the gold standard that you've got to judge and gauge your career by. How many people have called you and tried to lure you away from your present employer. Yep. I get phone calls. I get text messages. I get emails all the time. Dr. Kimbrough, you still the Clark Atlanta? Yeah, I'm still the Clark Atlanta. Oh, OK.

We're just checking, blah, blah, blah. And last but not least, if you can't answer those two questions, go to somebody who you respect and admire and ask them, what do you see me as? What do you think I would be good at doing? Roland, when I was a sophomore at the University of Oklahoma, you know what my frat brothers called me? They called me the professor. And I said to him, I said, man, what do you guys call me, the professor? Kimbrough, you always got a book under your arm. We can't find you on campus. We know that you're always in the library. Well, this is what I was called to do.

And then last but not least, as Steve Jobs says, when are you going to poke a hole in the library. Well, this is what I was called to do. And then last but not least, as Steve Jobs says, when are you going to poke a hole in the universe and prove you were here? Jobs says, don't build a business, build a movement. Build a movement. And what did Antonio Reed tell me? One half of baby face. There I am. I spent a couple of days with him in the Bahamas. And he said to me, I said to him, I said, Antonio, what's the story about you going to Harvard and staying up at Harvard for 10 weeks and taking an executive management class? I said, if you and Babyface live five lifetimes, you wouldn't spend all the money that you've earned over those five lifetimes. He said, well, the reason why I went up to Harvard is because everybody wants to get into the entertainment field, the music business.

But number one, it is a business. And the moment that you cease to grow and develop, you begin to die. And then number two, he says, he says, look, and I put this on I put this on a sign in my classroom. They just painted my classroom. So they took the sign down. But Roland, the sign read, if you don't read, if you don't study, if you don't grow, if you don't develop, if you don't go to the seminars, the conferences, the workshops, if you don't sit in the front row in the first seat, another student will. And the day that you meet that other student, you lose. So what in the world am I saying? You've got to take time to get the information in. Never forget, the bigger the house, the more books they have in the personal library.

But the smaller the house, the bigger the television set. You've got to change the narrative the house the bigger the television set you gotta change the narrative and change the behavior dr dennis kimbrough always a pleasure folks one of his books the wealth choice think and grow rich a black choice we appreciate you joining us uh and uh we'll certainly have you back uh because it all starts right here appreciate it frat Fred. 06, love you, brother. I appreciate it. Folks, when we come back, we're going to talk with Isaac Hayes III. He is the founder of Fanbase.

They're closing this race. But also, why did LinkedIn kick him off of their platform for doing nothing? We'll explain next. You're watching Rolling Martin Unfiltered right here on the Boxster Network. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture, we're about covering these things that matter to us,

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

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

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

Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes, rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council.

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Trudy Proud on the Proud Family. I am Tommy Davidson. I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Proud. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney+. And I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. massive amounts of wealth has been generated in the past uh decade or so in the technology area isaac hayes the third uh the founder of fan base out of atlanta joins us right now they are in the final stages of uh their race to close out this period.

Before I get to that, I got to ask him this here. I saw you post this. The folks at LinkedIn have booted you from their platform for what? I'm back. I actually got back. Really? Yeah. Okay, what happened?

The app went viral. Roland, come happened? The app went viral. Roland, come on. The app went viral. And in the midst of this going viral, there was this little spat that was going on with Clubhouse. And right when that happened, I got kicked off the platform for a simple post that I always post, which is updating the raise, the amount of money we've raised. So I think somebody was just trying to give me a little hiccup. But it took probably about six weeks to get back on there. Yeah, but you also are calling them out. And because you've been, look, it's the mother folk like Clubhouse being a little upset because you've been checking them.

And they're mad because you went on in a conference on their platform talking about fan base. Like other people don't go on Clubhouse talking about their stuff, and like Clubhouse, not on other social media platforms touting their app. Absolutely. It's a competitive space, and I understand that a lot of people are going to look to see, you know, if fan base, you know, continues to dominate in the way it's been dominating. And I say this, this, we're not going anywhere. We're growing. The app has over half a million users now rolling. We are worldwide.

And we are getting ready to close this raise. The most important thing that I want to tell people too right now in competition is that what I'm doing with equity crowdfunding has never been heard of before. No one has ever raised $10 million in reg CF crowdfunding ever. I'm the first black man to do that. And that's an accomplishment. And it's really giving the opportunity for the users and anybody that's watching your program right now to actually own a platform that's gone from a $20 million valuation to a $50 million valuation to an $85 million valuation last year. So that's why this is all an issue. It's very disruptive. We are closing this final round on StartEngine in five days. So five days is your last chance to invest in fan base before we close this round and go to Series A.

And the value of the company is going to increase significantly because we have an amazing year. We've had a record year in growth. And so get ready. But I tell everybody to go to thestartengine.com and invest. The minimum to invest is $245. And I think about that. You know, the people watching this program right now could close this raise today, right? So let me explain to the people who are watching. When you invest now, you invest in Fanbase now, and then it grows to $100 million, $250 million, $500 million

valuation, a billion dollars. That means that your initial two hundred and forty six dollars that the value. Let's say let's say that's one share. The value of that that also grows. And so what you pay for two hundred forty six dollars could be double that or triple that or five times that, depending upon the valuation, depend upon it going public, depending upon it being sold? Well, look, let me tell you something. I posted a post today about Orrin Michaels. And I talk about Orrin Michaels every time I'm on your program.

Orrin Michaels put $5,000 into Uber in 2010. When the company went public in 2019, his $5,000 was worth $25 million. That is a 5,000x return. That means for every dollar he put in, he got $5,000 back. And so to imagine being able to put that type of capital into a company, and for that to happen on Fanbase, Fanbase would have to go from a $20 million company to a $100 billion company. Now, let me remind you, the market cap of Facebook right now is currently $800 billion.

So I'm not even thinking about, you know, getting as large as Facebook or Instagram's market cap or TikTok's market cap is like four or 500 billion. I'm talking about $100 billion social media platform that you have a chance to invest in at the very, very beginning. I ask everybody, if you could have invested in Instagram or Facebook or Twitter or Snapchat when you first heard about it for $245, would you?

Yes. The answer is you didn't hear about it because it was illegal. And nobody wanted you to know because they want the wealthy investors to have the best opportunity to invest in these startups over people like you, me, anybody that's watching that just wants to put their money into something other than gambling and lottery tickets and BS, right? And so Dr. Kimbrough got me pumped up. I was listening the whole time because he was talking about building movements.

When he mentioned Steve Jobs and talking about building a movement. Fanbase is a movement. It is a platform that is founded in the belief of building community and allowing anybody that wants to monetize their content to monetize their content. So that's what I tell everybody. So this guy put five grand into Uber. Yeah, look it up.

He put five grand into Uber and that five grand later turned to 25 million. Yep, nine it up. He put five grand into Uber and that five grand later turned into 25 million. Yep, nine years later. And he was already a millionaire though. He was already a millionaire. And Rowling, you and I know people with $5,000. We know people with $500, right? If 10 people put $500 into Uber and it turned into $2.5 million, would you have done that?

Hell yeah. Exactly. The reason we're doing this segment is because what I'm trying to and also why we had Dennis Kimbrough on, I'm trying to get folks to change the mindset because if the people who are watching step back

and ask themselves what have I spent $246 on? And not necessarily I spent $246 one time. It's like when I had my nieces in the car and we were leaving church

and they were like, Uncle Roro, where we going to eat? I'm like, uh, we taking our ass home. And I'm like, is six of y'all? Well, normally when we, you know, at the church, Aunt Jackie, we go out to eat. I'm like, no, we ain't doing that. I said, because she ain't here. It was one of the rare weekends I was in town.

And I had to walk them through. So I was doing math. I said, okay, if the seven of us go out and the average meal for each person is going to be $25, how much is that? I said, plus the 15% tip. How much is that? I said, multiply that times 4 times 12. That's how much money we spend going out to eat. Your ass

has got tutors. You got individual computers. You got all this sort of stuff. I walk them through. And I think for a lot of us, we don't step back and say, but wait a minute. If I spent $50 on five different times eaten, that's the $246 you're talking about for Fanbase. Absolutely. And more than that, there are users that have used Fanbase since its inception and have already made their money back by using the app. They've already made, there's one user that has made, that has invested in Fanbase,

but has already made $10,000 in revenue from monetizing their content. They put $245 in, but they've made $10,000 by simply using the app. And they still own it. So if anything happens, that investment still grows. So they're making money twice. Yeah, because they're making money on the front end, and then their equity is growing on the back end. Rebecca, question? Thanks so much for being here again tonight. I just got the email the other day that you're looking for your investors to approve authorization to increase future Class B shares for the common stock.

Are you looking to go into like a fourth round of investment? Yes. So that share increase is so that so many people want to invest in this final round that we actually have to increase the share amount to accept the dollars for this final round. And so we're about to go ahead and make that approval. But yes, Series A is next. For companies to scale like Fanbase, we need to raise tens of millions of dollars,

hundreds of millions of dollars to scale these companies. Take, for instance, Clubhouse. And I think that's an example. Clubhouse raised $300 million. Think about that app or Patreon is another platform. And they're not even a household name.

They've raised $300 million and are valued at $3 billion, right? And so fan bases combine all of these tools and these sets with monetization and then the ability for people to invest. And right now, once we complete this raise, the total amount of money that I've raised will be $10 million. So you think about $350. I was like, do you know what I would do with $350 million? We're making the most happen with the least over at this company in a way that is remarkable. It always goes out to the tech team. I have to shout out Romero and the development team because we're taking all these functionalities and then in real time, watching all these other companies copy what we do the the good fortune is they can't pivot in our lane because 97 of facebook's income comes from advertising

we are not built on advertising so for them to flip a switch and say we're going to go to subscriptions and everybody watching right now how often have you heard people talk about subscriptions in the last three or four years you never heard people talk about subscriptions in the last three or four years? You never heard people talk about subscriptions. Dog, everybody. I bought like Filmic Pro, Adobe. There are now apps that used to be free. Everybody. Hell,

the car wash got, dude, the car wash got monthly subscriptions. There are restaurants that are literally now charging a monthly subscription. Yes. And subscriptions are the future. It's recurring

predictable revenue, right? You take that to individuals like you and I that can monetize their health content, their cooking content, their financial content, their comedy, their dancing, their acting, their singing,, their financial content, their comedy, their dancing, their acting, their singing, their love for sports, their passions, right?

And turn these into businesses. Like we know the average American salary is between 40 and $60,000 a year, right? But again, I say 5,000 people, right? 5,000 people paying you $2.50 a month is $12,500 a month. That's $150,000 a year. That's more than 97% of Americans. So the money is there. It's not in your following, which all these platforms want you to have a large following so you make content so they can run ads. The money is in your subscriber base. And so us saying, look, go to startengine.com slash fan base, buy some shares in fan base, then download the app and use it.

And then watch your money grow. Because again, the valuation of fan base, and I'm just being candid, the valuation of fan base was $85 million over one year ago. That is before we had a user spike of 100 plus thousand users in 60 days. Our MAU is up, you know, four or five hundred percent. I fully expect that the valuation of fan base when we do series A to be double what it is now, close to double what it is now. And so that means for every dollar that you put in, you know, four or five months from now, it would have been worth more to do it today. You have to put in two to match what you would have put in today. And so that's why I'm telling everybody to invest and be part of these movements, man. This is, this is a movie. This is unheard of. Like again,

the app that was black founded, that was this successful was black planet. And that came out in 2000. It's 2023. We've gone 23 years on another platform really breaking through. And to make that even more important, there've been tons of people that could have built apps and haven't because this is very, very hard. And so this is a special moment for us because this is an opportunity for all the culture that we give, all the culture that we give, all the creativity that we give, all the things. Think about this real quick. Think about all of the impressions

and content that have been created just off Keith Lee coming to Atlanta and going out to eat. Yep. Think of somebody saying, oh, Cheesecake Factory is not good enough. But nobody owns these platforms where all this content is being made or all these advertisements, all this engagement is going. That money is going in the pockets of people that don't look like us. And we're the ones making the platform value. But nobody at the top looks like us. And let me say this, how some people just say some stupid stuff, like this sports actuary filter just said on our YouTube chat.

He goes, Roland, what you're doing is not fair. Hindsight is 20-20. For each success story similar to Facebook or Uber, there are 1,000 in which the investors never receive the penny of their investment. Well, guess what? It's a whole bunch of y'all who spend money every damn day buying Nike, Adidas, Puma, and you making them rich, all you doing is walking around talking about you got the latest pair

of Air Jordans and LeBrons. It's a whole bunch of us walking around every day touting our BMWs and Mercedes and we making them rich and all you do is have high-ass interest. So that's a dumb-ass comment to make because part of the problem right here is everything is a risk.

It's all a risk. And a bunch of folk take their ass to casinos every damn day or they go into the convenience store and buy a damn lottery ticket. And you know what that is? It's a damn risk. And so the likelihood of you earning anything back is null and void. And so I don't give a damn what you've got to say, sports actuary. It's real fair because black people have got to start teaching black people to invest in ourselves, invest in things like fan base so we are not constantly being consumers and we actually own something.

Isaac, final comment. Let me respond to that comment, right? Think about this. Number one, there's limited risk when you do equity crowdfunding, meaning no one's telling you to put your pension on your life savings. Right. These are small investments. You can invest up to one hundred thousand dollars at one time in a round. Right. That's the max. The minimum is two hundred and forty five dollars. So you think about two hundred and forty five dollars. That's a bit different. That's the price of a pair of shoes. That's steak dinner. That's going out with your friends. I think if you I think you could probably not even remember the last time you spent two hundred and forty five dollars five times in a row over the over the course of the year, because that's how often we're spending money.

And so here's something else. By buying Nike or by buying lottery tickets, you can't increase the value of your winnings at all. You can't increase the value of your shoes by wearing your shoes. By investing in Fanbase and then coming to Fanbase and using it with the other half a million people that use it now, then you're increasing the value of the assets you own because the users are what make the social media platforms valuable. If everybody left all these, like this is real talk. If everybody left Facebook today, Facebook will be worth zero dollars and zero cents. If everybody left Instagram today, it will be worth zero dollars and zero cents. And so my point is, is that the same power that we have collectively that we give away for free on social media, we should we can also apply that to platforms that are free to use. It doesn't cost anything to use fan base. You can monetize and you can own a part of it.

So there's limited risk. And I don't want somebody to say, like, people have lost their investments. People lose $250, like I said, playing the slot machine or whatever or gambling. Or staying in a hotel room. Yeah, so, yeah, exactly, at the minibar. So go to StartEngine.com, and I'm stressing this the most, StartEngine.com slash Fanbase and I'm stressing this the most, startengine.com slash fanbase and invest now. This race closes in five days. After that, you won't be able to

invest anymore. It's going to be over with. We're going to close this round, and we're moving on to Series A. And so we want people to be part of this movement. I want everybody listening and watching who sees this to be part of this movement, invest now. This is your last chance before we go to Series A. And when we go to Series A. And when we go to Series A, that's when the big investors come in, where the people that are like Orrin Michaels come in, and they do put their capital in the platform. And then you're like, well, wait, how come I can't get in now?

Because you had your chance today. There you go. Go ahead. There you go. Isaac, I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Folks, that is it for us. Tomorrow, I'll it, man. Thanks a lot. Thank you, folks. That is it for us tomorrow.

I'll be broadcasting live in Richmond, Virginia, the campus of Virginia Union University. Y'all better have some swag there waiting on me. I'm wearing my own stuff. We're going to be in the Alex B. James Chapel at Colburn Hall. Looking forward to that. Want folks to come on out, pack the joint out. We're going to be talking about the Virginia elections and the impact on African Americans. As we speak, y'all, right now, there is a debate,

the only debate going on in the Mississippi gubernatorial race between Brandon Presley and Republican Tate Reeves. Reeves has been running from Presley for the longest. It is a tight race. It is neck and neck. And so let's sit here and do what we can to get Tate Reeves out. He ain't done a damn thing for Jackson, Mississippi.

He ain't done a damn thing for HBCUs. And so let's throw him. He damn sure hasn't done anything for Medicaid expansion that health is needed in Mississippi. And so he needs to go. And so you can go check out, is it WPAT or BAT? that health is needed in Mississippi, and so he needs to go. And so you can go check out, is it WPAT or BAT? It's WAPT-TV. It's a one-hour debate.

It started at the top of the hour. It's been going on for 26 minutes. All right, folks, that's it. I'm going to see y'all tomorrow live from Richmond, Virginia, right here, Roland Martin Unfiltered, on the Black Star Network. Holler! Folks, Black Star, right here. Roland Martin unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Holla! Folks, Black Star Network is here. A real revolutionary

right now. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roland. Hey, Blake, I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN.

You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? big? 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

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And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

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