#RolandMartinUnfiltered - MS Deputies Fired, Carlishia Hood Lawsuit, CA Hate Crimes Rise in 2022, Yusef Salaam Win NY Primary

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

6.28.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: MS Deputies Fired, Carlishia Hood Lawsuit, CA Hate Crimes Rise in 2022, Yusef Salaam Win NY Primary The Chicago Mom, Carlisha Hood, and her 14-year-old son were wrongfully arrested after she was viciously attacked, and her son defended her by shooting the assailant. Now the pair has filed a lawsuit against the city. We will show what they say happened to them after the arrest and why they are filing the lawsuit. Several Mississippi Rankin Officers have been fired after they tortured two Mississippi men. We will show you what the Rankin Chief of Police said about this matter and the steps to address the situation. California releases the 2022 Hate crime report revealing a startling 27% increase in hate crimes against black residents. We will give you all the statistics on this alarming trend. The Biden administration EPA has dropped an investigation into environmental harms against Black Louisiana residents. Tonight, we will speak with the co-founder of the Descendants project to discuss the impact on the community and what residents are doing to protect their rights. 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. Today is Wednesday, June 28, 2023. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfolded, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Several Mississippi Rankin County Sheriff deputies are fired for the alleged torture of two Black Mississippi men. The sheriff explains why the deputies were fired. We'll break that story down.

Also Chicago mom, Carlisha Hood, a 14 year old son, say they were wrongfully arrested after she was viciously attacked and beaten by a man in a hot dog restaurant. Her son, of course, shot and killed that man.

Now the pair has filed a lawsuit against the city of Chicago and the arresting officers. We'll hear from the mother about the night that changed her life. California releases the 2022 hate crimes report, revealing a startling increase in hate crimes against African-Americans. Folks, it is not good. The Biden administration's EPA has dropped this investigation into environmental harms against black Louisiana residents. Tonight, we'll speak with the co-founder of the Descendants Project to discuss the impact of this decision. It is time to bring the funk on Roland Mark Dunn Filcher with Black Star 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 breaks he's right on time And it's rolling, best belief he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's Roland Martin.

Rolling with Roland now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's Roland Martin now. The latest development in the case were two black men alleged they were tortured by sheriff's deputies in Rankin County, Mississippi. Well, those deputies are now out of their jobs after those black men filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging, again, six white deputies entered the private residence, illegally tortured them for hours. Rankin County, Mississippi Sheriff Brian Bailey announced the firings. The Mississippi Bureau of Investigations was requested by me to conduct an independent investigation into an incident involving deputies with the Rankin County Sheriff's Department on January 24th, 2023. We have cooperated with all investigation efforts related to this incident and have provided all information and data requested in a timely manner. This will continue until all investigative efforts are complete and justice is served.

We cannot, however, confirm or deny any specific facts related to this incident because of active and ongoing investigations. Deputies involved this incident were placed on administrative leave pending final investigative findings. Due to recent developments including findings during our internal investigation those deputies that were still employed by this department have all been terminated. We understand that the alleged actions of these deputies has eroded the public's trust in our department. Rest assured that we will work diligently to restore that trust. We have already taken actions to ensure that we serve and protect the public while making sure the rights of all citizens are protected. These actions include a detailed analysis of our policies, procedures, and training of all department personnel.

We've also retained a full-time compliance officer for monitoring of our daily operations and to ensure our department remains compliant with all state and federal law. It is my privilege to serve the citizens of Rundown County as sheriff, and it has been my daily goal to run one of the best departments in the state of Mississippi. I believe in my heart that this department remains one of the best departments in the state of Mississippi. I believe in my heart that this department remains one of the best departments in our state, and I'm committed to doing everything in my power to keep this department on the correct path moving forward. The men and women of this department are public servants who are committed to a bright future for this department and for public safety in Rankin County.

Well, it sounds to me like somebody did not want to really, really be sued. Of course, on January 24th, y'all, Michael Corey Jenkins and Eddie Terrell Parker were at a Braxton, Mississippi home. Deputies bust in through the front door. They were handcuffed. A deputy searched the residence. The six deputies falsely accused, as according to their lawyers, falsely accused the men of selling drugs and dating white women. When the officers found nothing, they reportedly held the men for nearly two hours, repeatedly punching, kicking, slapping, and shocking them with stun guns. Also, pouring various liquids over their faces.

Sexually assaulting Jenkins and Parker. You might remember, we at the Attorney On, Jenkins and Rankin, have filed a federal lawsuit seeking $400 million against the Rankin County Sheriff's Department. At Pan, I'm Robert Portillo, host of People, Passion, Politics, News Talk 1380, W-A-O-K, out of Atlanta. He joins us from D.C., Rebecca Carruthers, vice president, Fair Election Center. She's out of D.C.

Scott Bolden, attorney in D.C., chairman of the National Bar Association and D.C. Chamber of Commerce PACS. He joins us from Nashville where the N.N.P.A. is holding their conference. All right. Let me have all three of you here. You heard what the sheriff there said, Scott. Based upon our internal investigation, these officers are now gone. Sounds to me like they uncovered some stuff that they know was shady. And it's like, we about to go broke defending these fools. And it had to be bad because it was Mississippi one.

But secondly, he said he couldn't answer any questions about the investigation, but these cats are gone. So, of course, if you're a journalist, your first question is, well, why'd you fire him? Or why'd you put him on administrative leave and they didn't want to talk about it? But this case is really crazy. I mean, it sounds like something out of Training Day. They just bust in and just hang around

for two or three hours abusing black men, sexually and otherwise, and injuring them and beating them over drugs, white women, whatever your report was. And so there's more to this story. That corruption isn't just with these two guys or that one individual. You're going to find a pattern and practice of this, and the lawsuits are going to follow, and more importantly, criminal investigations of not only those police officers, but the other members in that gang of police officers, the bad apples, but also the supervisors that enabled them. So you should continue to report on this because it may dribble out.

It's going to be bigger, broader, and more severe than just this one incident. I think it's an appropriate phrase, Robert, that gang. When you listen to the allegations, that's what it sounds like these cops were doing. Absolutely. And as Nina Simone said, everybody knows about Mississippi. Everybody knows about Mississippi. God damn. What is that with these officers thinking at this point in time?

Because even if, let's just give them the benefit of the doubt that you thought that these men were indeed selling drugs and dating white women, which apparently is illegal in Mississippi, or at least a charge, at the point in time where you beat these men for several hours, sexually assault them, torture them, use Guantanamo Bay tactics against them, you use rendition and waterboarding against them, none of that evidence is coming in, even if they're guilty of all the things you accused them of. So what exactly was the root of this? What was the base of this? I understand the sheriff says he cannot talk about those things, but we need to find out, is this these individual officers or is this something that is systemic within the department? Is this something they

came up with on their own or Are they trained to do this? And when they're talking about the civil suit, the civil suit is the least of the worries of this department. You have serious civil rights violations. You have the Justice Department that should be stepping in to prosecute these individuals. This is going to go far beyond lawsuits. You're going to see many people in that department in handcuffs and orange jumpsuits. I think that's what they're worried about, and that's why they're trying to get out ahead of it. They better hope these young men just take $400 million and go away. They might have to bankrupt the city, and like I said last night, start naming buildings after their family, the way that this is looking. I think I'm hoping they take it all the way to trial and get every

penny of it, and that they're able to fundamentally reform policing in that city it sounds like that uh it sounds like that department needs to be blown up taken over by an outside entity and then reformed retrained and read uh and redistributed throughout the community because otherwise this will this is only a band-aid if you just think you're going to pay these men and go away um Look, here's the thing, Rebecca, that look, we ain't crazy. When we see these type of things happen,

you have cops who are acting in quite the thuggish manner. I think that's really what you can say right here. There's no way this happens and it's their first time. The difference here is the two guys survived and now they're suing. And now is when we find out what happens.

Because if you start lying, now you're providing in additional charges. I remember when we first reported on this, I think it was early February when we talked about this. Specifically, I believe it was Jenkins who was shot in the mouth. How do you have someone who is unarmed get shot in the mouth, point blank, because it's a gun to the mouth, and now it takes from the end of January to actually June, end of June, 9U, to fire that person. But instead, you put them on paid vacation. So we know a lot more has happened. And just like what Scott mentioned, the fact that they just said, hey, we're not even going to comment on the investigation. Hey, we're going to fire them.

But I do want to point out this would not have happened if it wasn't for a black attorney, a black civil rights attorney like Malik Shabazz, who said, you know what, I'm about to shake the damn table here and sue for $400 million. If it wasn't for that, then we never, I really doubt that we would have seen the firing announced today. But, you know, this is America. Money talks. And for all the viewers who are like, well, why, you know, shouldn't we want justice? Why are we doing all these lawsuits? Because it takes this in order to actually have

some type of criminal accountability by these thugs who masquerade inside of law enforcement. I've made that point numerous times to people who don't understand. And so when I hear the people who make critical comments about Ben Crump and others understand that, look, they're not prosecutors.

This is the route that they can only take when it comes to seeking justice. All right, folks, hold tight one second. Gotta go to break. We'll be back. Roland Martin, Unfiltered, the Black Star Network. Don't forget, support us in what we do.

Download the Black Star Network app, Apple phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. You can also, of course, join our Bring the Funk fan club. Your dollars make it possible for us to do what we do. So please support us by sending your check and money orders to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash out, dollar sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RM Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. And be sure to get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning

of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Mind. 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 multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 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. unaudible. We'll be right back. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. White people are losing their damn minds. 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. La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punches!

I'm real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. 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?

Hi, I'm Joe Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney+. And I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. All right, folks. When we talk about stories that we often focus on, there are some really unbelievable, unbelievable stories that we see in here that even cause us to say, what in the hell is going on? I think it's safe to say that's the case for the story out of Chicago. It blew up on social media over the weekend. And that is, y'all saw the video where an Illinois mother was viciously beaten in a hot dog restaurant by a man who was there.

First of all, let me do this here. So control room, I've seen that photo on social media. Do not show that photo of her son. He's 14. So remove that photo. Do not show that photo. She's beaten by this man. He literally says, if you don't shut up, I'm in your face, and he begins to just go off on her. 14-year-old son sees this, goes to the car,

gets a gun, comes back, and kills the guy. The cops charge the woman and her son with murder. She's booked a $3 million bail. By Monday, cook county state's attorney, kim foxx, announced no charges against him. She's now suing. She's now suing, that's right, the city, as well as the arresting officers. Her name is carlicia hood. And again, this took place on june 18th.

The shooting death of jeremy brown. The lawsuit alleges malicious prosecution, false arrest, and And again, this took place on June 18th, the shooting death of Jeremy Brown. The lawsuit alleges malicious prosecution, false arrest, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Cell phone video captured this beating that Brown administered against Carlisha at a restaurant. Now, Brown again told Carlisha he would knock her out and proceed to punch her three separate times. Tuesday, Carlisha spoke for the first time about what happened the night her life changed. On June 18th of this year, my life changed. My son's life changed. I've experienced pain in many ways, many ways that I would never have thought, never. What happened to me was totally unnecessary.

Never in a million years would I have imagined being brutally attacked, beaten, and being arrested. I am thankful that the Cook County State's Attorney dismissed the case. I am also thankful to have my son with me and by my side and also his charges being dismissed. I thank my family for supporting me and the people all over the world. The people did not play. And I just thank God everything was revealed. And just everybody who has been praying and rooting for us, I just thank God for them.

That did not go unnoticed. You are all not forgotten. And we are praying for all the families affected by this horrible tragedy. I am now in the process of healing and putting my family's life back together. During this trying time, we ask if, you know, we can please have space to rest and recover from this life-altering situation. And that you all continue to keep us in your prayers. In the near future, I will be able to respond to outpouring of support. Again, I just need a little time to heal and to just get my life back with my baby.

Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Take your time. Take your time. Take your time, baby. That's it. All right, let's go to our panel on this. Scott, do they have a case? Obviously, when you look at what happened here,

man punches them in the face, kid goes get the gun, shoots him in the back. Officers, again, arrive on the scene, have to make a determination in terms of what to do. Then, of course, she's arrested.

But then charges are dropped. That's what prosecutors do. So, your thoughts here about, again, their decision to file this lawsuit against the city and the arresting officers. Yeah. You know, actually, this is a tough case. That family is going to be in counseling for quite some time. I mean, you can just feel the pain, including the 14 year old who observed this and then had the courage to go and get the gun out of the car and shoot the assailant. There's no doubt that that guy was going to beat her to death. I mean, I watched the video. Do they have a case against the city? I can tell you if she were white,

they would not have made that arrest. I'm sorry. They just would not have. They didn't have to make a decision that night, but they did because you had these black people on the south side of Chicago or wherever they were. Now, the judge, I'm sorry, the police and prosecution have a lot of discretion here. We don't know whether there was a prior relationship. We don't know what the argument was about. Not that it really matters at this point. But if the if the police follow procedure, made the arrest, the government dismissed the cases, if they were brutalized or beaten by the police or treated physically in a wrongful manner, that lawsuit has some legs to it. If you're suing them for

false arrest or bad arrest or anything along the lines of I never should have been arrested, I'm the victim here, then the prosecution and the police have the discretion to sort that out. They don't have to be perfect about their arrest, but if they handled it against policy in some way or beat or brutalize this family in some way or set things to them that were inappropriate, that part of their lawsuit, I think, has some legs on the Illinois law. Rebecca, your thoughts on this? I echo what Scott said. I really feel for the 14-year-old son to still be a child, but have to take this particular action to make sure that his mom still lived, to make sure that his mom still survived.

So, yes, there's a lot of trauma there. And I feel for the family. You know, I'm looking at some of the comments in the YouTube stream tonight and there are some folks who are saying, oh, no, well, she should have been arrested. That makes sense. But, you know, to Scott's point, and I'm sure that Robert's going to continue this, it's hard to conceive that if she was a white woman, if this 14-year-old boy was we all know is not standard procedure to arrest someone who is the victim in a particular situation, then Chicago Police Department has a lot to answer for. And once again, I applaud black folks for using the civil system in order to get restitution, in order to get justice in this country. Robert, and just continuing, the condolences for this family that should have never had to have gone through this, for the individual, the assailant, I think that it's going to be a difficult case against the city. I think the proper party to this case would be the assailant if you're going to file a civil suit because they're the person who committed the tort against the mother. You'd have to show that somehow the city diverged from what their policy was.

Now, if you're talking about the arrest in real time, think about it from the officer's perspectives. You're at the scene. You're having conflicting stories. I don't know if they saw the videos at the time. I know videos often trickle in over time. You have a dead body here. You're trying to find out exactly what happened.

And it's a judgment call that has to be made in real time, whether or not you're going to allow these individuals to go home or if you're going to take them into custody and sort things out later. They made the call to bring them in once they sorted things out they dropped the charges against them in a very expedited manner i would say i think that the level of social media outcry and the amount of attention around this probably was part of what vitiated them dropping these charges so soon but they're going to have to find some casual connection between some either malice on the part of the police or some divergence from policy in order to have the city as a party to

the case. So I hope that they get the justice that they're needed. I also pray for the family of the young man who was deceased. Despite his actions, he was still a father, a son. He was loved by many. And I pray for their family to have peace and calm going forward. But at the same time, we have to make sure when we're looking at this from a legal perspective that we're suing the right individuals and that we're ensuring that we're not bringing cases that are difficult to find. But as Scott said, there's going to be a fact-intensive inquiry. So as more facts come out, maybe there are some of the facts that Scott mentioned about actions of the police that were outside of policy that would give them some legs. All right, folks, hold tight one second.

When we come back, we'll talk about hate crimes on the rise in California against African Americans. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. My early days in the road, I learned, well, first of all, as a musician, I studied not only piano, but I was also a drummer and percussion. 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. That was all city percussion as well.

So I was one of the best in the city on percussion. There you go. I also studied trumpet, cello, violin, and bass, and any other instrument I could get my hand on. And with that study, I learned again what was for me. I learned what it meant to do what the instruments in the orchestra meant to each other in the relationships. So that prepared me to be a leader. That prepared me to lead orchestras and to conduct orchestras.

That prepared me to know, to be a leader of men, they have to respect you and know that you know the music. You have to be the teacher of the music. You have to be the teacher of the music. You have to know the music better than any. There you go. Right, so you can't walk in unprepared. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture. We're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people powered movement.

A lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it. And you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in black-owned media. Your dollars matter.

We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month. Rates $100,000. We're behind $100,000. So we want to hit that.

Y'all money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at Rolandsmartin.com. Hi, my name is Brady Ricks. I'm from Houston, Texas.

My name is Sharon Williams. I'm from Dallas, Texas. Right now, I'm rolling with Roland Martin. Unfiltered. Uncut. Unplugged. And undamn believable. You hear me? A new report out of California shows a disturbing rise in hate crimes against black folks. The California Department of Justice found a 16.6% increase

in reported hate crimes. Specifically, hate crimes targeting African Americans rose by 27% in 2022 compared to the previous year. During a news conference in Los Angeles, Attorney General Rob Bonta expressed concern over these stats. So I won't lie and I won't sugarcoat it. These are not the numbers that we wanted to see. We were hoping for for better numbers and but the numbers

are the numbers and we take on the issues as we as we find them and we would confront them as we must and at DO, we don't shy away from the truth. We let the truth and the facts dictate where we go next. We examine the truth, we learn from it, and we use it to guide our way forward. This report affirms that we need to continue the work to take on hate crimes in California. That's across the board, certainly at the California Department of Justice, but in our communities with our community advocates, community-based organizations leading the way. From the hate crime roundtables we've held in the big cities across the state, in San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, Riverside, Long Beach, Santa Ana, San Jose, Stockton, Anaheim, most recently in Bakersfield,

we've been in circles and at tables with city leaders taking on hate crimes, identifying what works, what the challenges are, how we can scale those solutions, and how we move forward together. Each of those roundtables provided us an invaluable opportunity to listen, to learn, to engage in dialogue with one another in meaningful and productive conversations, and importantly, in collaboration to the ongoing commitment of our Racial Justice Bureau, which continues to take on racial injustice in all its forms. We've also been working with our community outreach, webinars, and presentations hosted by our community awareness, response, and engagement team, or CARE. We've also been working in efforts led by our hate crimes coordinator to assist state and local law enforcement efforts

across the state and to be a glue connecting the different efforts in different places across our state to address hate crimes. We've also issued guidance including urging prosecutors across the state to establish specialized hate crime units to work with and support impacted communities and to help victims heal. Today our work continues with the release of a new law enforcement bulletin for all district attorneys, chiefs of police, sheriffs, and state law enforcement agencies. It contains updated information about multiple criminal laws related to hate crimes and guidance on how to investigate and prosecute these hate crimes. We too often see what the community knows to be a hate crime not investigated as a hate crime,

not eventually identified or prosecuted as a hate crime. I also want to take this opportunity to urge victims and witnesses of hate crimes to come forward, to report what you experience or what you see, to report any incidents. Even if you're not sure if it's a hate crime, that's not your obligation or burden. Hate crime is motivated by racism, homophobia and anti-Semitism. All experience increases in California. Rebecca, I thought folks say, hey, America is wonderful and lovely. These things don't happen anymore.

Well, Nikki Haley just told us last week that she has never experienced or seen racism in this country. So I guess she needs to take a visit out to California so she could see firsthand. Because, you know, of course, racism has never happened in South Carolina. But that said, I would like to know, like, more examples of some of the hate crimes that have been reported, especially in California, because people make the assumption that just because parts of California is, quote-unquote, liberal or, quote-unquote, progressive, that that means racism failed to exist. But racism happens all over the place, whether it's a conservative area or it's a more progressive area. The final thing is,

you know, I would be curious of who some of the perpetrators of these hate crimes are. Is it private citizen to private citizen? And how many of these hate crimes or activities or things have been carried out by law enforcement against different vulnerable communities? You know, it is interesting when we begin to examine all of Trump, when you look at literally this notion of being unhinged, saying whatever he wants, the reality is what used to be, oh, my God, what are you doing? What are you saying? Oh, folks, now it's like, yeah, we're good. We can say whatever the hell we want. Then you've got this fake free speech fool, Elon Musk, who now

owns Twitter, who has now replatformed racists, white supremacists, white nationalists, people, some of the most vile individuals, all under the guise of, oh no, we should allow just complete open speech and let people say whatever they want to say and absolutely no conditions taken against them. This is the America we're in in 2023. You know, did Elon let Louis Farrakhan back on Twitter yet? I haven't seen that since he's a free speech absolutist, as they say. But, you know, Tim Scott already told us there's no such thing as racism in America. He said that he came up from the American dream and those sorts of things. You just got to

pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. And part of the reason we're seeing this rise in hate crimes is that kind of rhetoric. Every time someone says that, they're giving license to white supremacists. They're giving cover to white supremacists in order to be able to do these things and say, well, look, these people are the problem. It's not us. It's them. And as long as you have an entire political ideology in this country that decides to live in this fantasy world where there's no such thing as racism, no such thing as voter suppression, no such thing as segregation, no such thing as race-based hate crimes, it's very difficult to make the progress necessary. Think about the fact that at the same time that Nikki Haley and Tim Scott are saying

there's no such thing as racism in this country, you have a conservative Supreme Court that had to give black folks two congressional seats and then rule against North Carolina for voter suppression. So either I can believe y'all or I can believe that what the Supreme Court just had to rule on because I can look at statistics, I can look at facts, I can look at evidence, or I can listen to some idiots who are trying to make a political point. Scott, SBLC, Southern Public Law Center, they track this stuff as well. And what we saw took place in Charlottesville. Look, that's not an aberration. When you look at these militias, when you look at the recruitment of young white males through social media as well. I mean, it's the basis of my book, White Fear, how the browning of America is making white folks lose their minds.

It is real. Unfortunately, you have largely white Republicans or you have people like Nikki Haley who adopts their mentality, who act as if these things are no longer significant and don't exist. They're in denial. And those numbers in California, I bet if you went across the country, those numbers are going to increase and keep increasing and going to be full out by 2043. As we know that that white fear, that white rage, because white conservatives and white extremists are pitting poor whites against all black people. I mean, and then the Republicans are in denial about it. Well, what the hell do they think is going on in the streets with these statistics and stuff and voter suppression? It just amazes me.

But it gives them some type of solace to be in denial about it. And for Tim Scott, I pull myself up by the bootstraps. I'm at the top of my game in big law. I've experienced racism and police brutality in my life. Race is the tie that binds me to other black people. Economics may separate me, but as long as I can't change the color of my skin when the police show up, I'm going to tell you it's a problem for me. And then lastly, in the name of free speech, hate speech ain't never been free speech for black people and brown people. I'm going to say it again. Hate speech ain't never

been free speech for black people. Okay. And let me tell you, I go so far as to say, why do we let white right-wing extremists, racist neo-Nazi groups exist in this country under the First Amendment? Why do we let black and brown gangs exist in this country who have a reputation for violence? All of them, right? Because that's not First Amendment protection. That's First Amendment protection for violence against others. I say get rid of all of them and get rid of, do a carve out for the First Amendment because our people, black people, brown people, people of the African diaspora are suffering from slavery forward, 400 plus years, and yet no one's protecting us. And in 2043, when we get to be the majority in

this country, we're still going to be unprotected. All right, folks, hold tight one second. We come back. I do want to spend a little time talking about Nikki Haley. That tweet she sent out early this week where she talked about, oh, who misses the simpler times in America? Things where it was about family and faith and things were so just lovely in this country. She forgot her own history with her mama and her daddy?

That's next on Rollerbutton Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. On a next, aanced Life with me. 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 one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th.

Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Dr. Jackie, a relationship that we have to have. We're often afraid of it and don't like to talk about it. That's right. We're talking about our relationship with don't like to talk about it. That's right. We're talking about our relationship with money. And here's the thing. Our relationship with money

oftentimes determines whether we have it or not. The truth is you cannot change what you will not acknowledge. Balancing your relationship with your pocketbook. That's next on A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie,

here at Blackstar Network. On the next Get a balanced life with me, Dr. Jackie here at Blackstar Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach. I'm sure you've heard that saying that the only thing guaranteed is death and taxes. The truth is that the wealthy get wealthier by understanding tax strategy. And that's exactly the conversation that we're going to have on the next Get Wealthy, where you're going to learn wealth hacks that help you turn your wages into wealth. Taxes is one of the largest expenses you ever have. You really got to know how to manage that thing and get that under control so that you can do well.

That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network. My name is Lena Charles, and I'm from Opelousas, Louisiana. Yes, that is Zydeco capital of the world. My name is Margaret Chappelle. I'm from Dallas, Texas, representing the Urban Trivia Game. It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you're watching. Roland Martin on Unfiltered. Să ne urmăm. Martin! Thank you. Să ne vedem la următoarea mea rețetă! You know, Republican candidates who run for president have a very strange history where they love to pine for the good old days. Many folks may not remember when Bob Dole was running for president. He talked about the America that we used to be, and he was reminiscing about how we need to return back to those days.

Ronald Reagan did the exact same thing. Donald Trump ran with his make America great again. And so whenever these things come up, I always get a big kick out of them because you sort of go, what America are you talking about? It's the same one we're talking about that we experienced. So, folks, a few days ago, Nikki Haley tweeted this out. Do you remember when you were growing up? Do you remember how simple life was? How easy it felt? It was about faith, family, and country. We can have that again,

but to do that, we must vote Joe Biden out. Hashtag, I know the hell this hashtag is, RTM 2023. Got 32.8 million views on Twitter, and a lot of people, you know, were commenting about this

and commenting about how Nikki Haley clearly is brain dead, if you will, on these issues. This is how Karen Hunter responded. She goes, when was this? The 1950s? My grandmother couldn't vote. The 1960s? My mother couldn't vote until 1965. 1970s? Ehrlichman under Nixon flooding the black community with heroin. The 1980s, Reagan saying, hold my beer with crack. 1990s, Clinton with mandatory sentencing.

When? Karen makes a great point. about this is that this is the same Nikki Haley whose daddy, let me say it again, whose daddy could not get a job in South Carolina. Whose daddy had to go get a job. Matter of fact, let me just go ahead and just read this one here. Who gave Nikki Haley's dad first job opportunity as a college professor when he immigrated to America? It was Voorhees College in Bamberg, South Carolina, historically black college, founded by African-American woman

named Elizabeth Evelyn Wright in 1897. Of course, Nikki never mentions that. True point. And then Nikki doesn't mention, doesn't mention, okay, her mama making dresses in largely the black clientele. Wajah Ali tweeted, Nikki's own immigrant father experienced racial discrimination. She has talked about this, but apparently all is forgotten when courting the vote of racist. But apparently all is forgotten when courting the vote of racists.

Sound about right and sound about white. When you start breaking this thing down, what often happens is these candidates, again, want to create this whole different other world that we had simpler times and things were wonderful. You know, Nikki, you're absolutely right. I remember when we could actually go to school and not get shot. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. The simpler times. The thing for me here, Rebecca, is these folks are delusional. But the reason we have to deal with this is because, and again, this is what I lay out in

my book, White Fear. What we're talking about here are there are largely white Republicans who hold the worldview. For instance, the Mercers who fund Breitbart. Robert Mercer actually has said and believes that the downfall of America began with the Civil Rights Movement

in the 1960s. There are people who actually believe that, oh, America, we were a great nation, a wonderful nation before those women and feminism came along. We were perfectly

fine until the blacks, until they got their rights. Now, what's crazy here with the Nikki Haley, she's pining for a, she talks about faith, family, and country. It was black folks who changed the law that led to the immigration bill

that allowed her mama and daddy to come to this country. This same nation wanted to keep folk like Nimrod Haley out of America. The hell is she talking about? You know, Nikki Haley is just as delusional as that white Baptist Southern pastor who's going viral now because he's talking about, oh, well, slaves didn't march in the streets. Slaves didn't go to Washington, D.C. and demand their rights. That's not what the slaves did. They built a church and they worshiped God and that got them out of slavery, right? She's just as delusional. And that's the lowest common denominator that she is actually campaigning towards. Because what Nikki doesn't want us to know is the small town in South Carolina that she was raised in

was a segregated town. You had the black side, you had the white side, and was separated by railroad tracks. She also doesn't want folks to know that she tried to participate in a pageant growing up, but instead was told, well, it's segregated. We got the white awards for the little white girls. We got the black awards for the little white girls. We got the black awards for the little black girls. Which one are you going to choose, Nikki? So for Nikki to now act as if that racism wasn't where she was when she grew up or things were just A-OK, it is such a cognitive dissonance. I mean, that itself should disqualify her for being so disconnected from her actually lived experience. It's very sad. And it's also unfortunate when you have racial and ethnic minorities in this country who choose to cast their lot with those who are anti-black.

And quite frankly, Nikki and Tim Scott are the latest examples of that. I just I sit here here and I watch this interesting little dance these folks do. I watch Scott, how they say things, and you literally look at them going, girl, what you talking about? What America are you talking about? What America are you talking about?

And look, black folks, we had faith. We had family. We had country. During Jim Crow. During lynchings. But it ain't like it was simpler times for us when we couldn't get jobs, couldn't eat,

were attacked. We got the food scraps from the master's house, though. We wouldn't have sold food if it wasn't for that rule. I mean, this you got to be thankful for, right? I mean, I think Nikki Haley and Tim Scott and even white politicians who run for office on the Republican side, I think they're not just delusional. I think the black and brown people running on the GOP side have convinced themselves that this colorblind society has accepted them because they've reached a

certain level, and therefore racism and oppression and racial violence hasn't touched them, nor can it, because they are either exceptions to the rule or the rule that should be. They've convinced themselves of this, and as a result, that's the story because that's how they get elected. And they can convince white Republicans that it's OK to be East Indian. It's OK to be black from South Carolina because I'm just like you. I just happen to be a little darker than you. They really believe an electorate is going to vote for them because it's OK, because we can identify with one another other than on the race piece. And I'm not going to talk about racial oppression in the history of black people in this

country. And as long as I don't want to talk about it, then white America doesn't want to talk about it. So then I'm an acceptable Negro or acceptable East Indian, and I want your vote. And if I get voted in, then the GOP can say, let's celebrate diversity because this isn't Black Lives Matter. These are people of color who have pulled themselves up by the bootstraps and made the American dream work for them. And they can make it work for us because other than that color issue, we're the same. And our experiences have been the same. And therefore, it's OK to be the acceptable Negro, to be accepted and to be integrated into white people and to get their vote and to love America for all it is, not what it promised or its broken promises, but for what it's been to white America and our efforts to be just like them. Therefore, vote for me. It's complete bullshit. Yeah, and his body of robbery.

Look, I understand you're trying to be aspirational, things along those lines. But don't be so stupid where you act as if we did not have racial terror in America. Right. Right. Where we literally had laws that were... 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. targeting black people on the local state federal level school board i mean we could go on and on and on but the simpler time lynching the simpler times robert the simpler times in the life where was life so simple for black people robert go go ahead. Look, look, Roland, I'm going to do this. I'm going to go over to India.

I'm going to run for prime minister there against Modi. I'm going to say, don't you miss the simpler times under British rule when there was a Raj that separated us, when they partitioned us between Pakistan and India and Bangladesh, when they stole all of our resources. Don't you miss the good old days of the monarchy, the East India Trading Company, the East Netherlands Trading Company, where we had no rights and we were fighting for just simple humanity? Nobody would try this anywhere else. This is that Republicans tried to go back to this conceptualization of nostalgia, nostalgia, the Greek word meaning longing for home. This idea that time papers over all of the rough edges and all people will see is apple pie, baseball, picket fences, and their mom calling their name to the

yard. That's why they call it the grand old party. They have old ideas. And it doesn't make any sense to be conservative if you ain't got nothing to conserve. Black folks are coming from a place where we don't have things we want to conserve. We want to progress and go forward. We want to go from where we were to where we don't want to go back to where we came from. I'm not trying to go back and be Jackie Robinson again. That doesn't sound like a fun administration to me. And I think Republicans are going to need to come up with better ideas, better thoughts, better plans. Nikki Haley was the U.N. secretary. Why the hell isn't she running on foreign policy? Why is she doing this whole nostalgia, you know, Betty Crocker, apple pie, baseball thing? It's not effective. It's not working. And then Tim Scott, of all people,

they're running around here. Why would you debase yourself like that to be at 1% of the polls? Why would you be saucing across the stage to have 99% of Republicans saying we will not vote for you? You have somebody who was impeached twice, who is currently facing 70 felony charges, and he is beating your ass by 50-plus points. Why would you sell yourself out for that? I understand if you're winning, but let's say you're like neck and neck, I might win this thing,

I just got to go sauce you a little bit. Okay, fine, we'll go do a little man-town sleep and eat. No, you are doing all that now, you are at 1% in the damn polls. Imagine you have already sold everything that you have, including your very blackness and your soul, and you get 1% and you're still out there. It's a ridiculous idea.

Yeah, but Roland, this is the problem with black people. Scott, Scott, Scott, Scott, 20 seconds, Larry. Scott, 20 seconds, quick, go. What are you black people so mad about? This country's been good to you all. Why do you always have to take the negative in America versus the positive? And these black people in the GOP are thinking about positive white America and not the negative. This country's been good to you all, and all you Negroes do is complain.

What's your response to that, Roland? I ain't even wasting my time responding to that. Let me go to a break when I come back. Folks, several things we'll talk about. First and foremost, judges issued a ruling in the lawsuit against the Black Lives Matter

Foundation. We'll tell you about that. Also, the EPA dropping an investigation in Cancer Alley, Louisiana. Folks are not happy about that as well. Lots more to talk about the news of the day right here on Rolling Mark Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Back in a moment. Up next on The Frequency with me, Dee Barnes. She's known as the Angela Davis of hip hop. Monet Smith, better known as Medusa the Gangsta Goddess,

the undisputed queen of West Coast underground hip hop. Pop locking is really what indoctrinated me in hip hop. I don't even think I realized it was hip hop at that time. Right. You know, it was a happening. It was a moment of release. We're going to be getting into her career, It was a happening. It was a moment of release. We're going to be getting into her career, knowing her whole story,

and breaking down all the elements of hip-hop. This week on The Frequency, only on the Black Star Network. Next on The Black Table, with me, Greg Carr. Succession. We're hearing that word pop up a lot these days, as our country continues to fracture and divide. But did you know that that idea, essentially a breaking up of the USA, has been part of the public debate since long before and long after the Civil War, right up to today? On our next show, you'll meet Richard Crichton, the author of this book, who says breaking up this great experiment called America might not be such a bad thing.

That's on the next Black Table right here on the Black Star Network. Hello, I'm Jamia 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. Folks, the Biden administration is dropping its investigation into Louisiana's allegations of racial discrimination

and the increased cancer risk black residents face. In a federal court filing on Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency says a resolution was not feasible by the July deadline, despite initial evidence of racial disparities. The investigation, initiated last year, aimed to address environmental justice concerns. The EPA took several significant actions against the polymer plant, including a lawsuit and tightened regulations. It did not, again, compel Louisiana to commit.

The decision to halt the study raises concerns among advocates and environmental groups who fear it's a dangerous precedent and could curtail future civil rights investigations. The state argued the administration weaponized civil rights law and improperly pursued the investigations. Joining me now from Wallace, Louisiana, is the co-founder of the Descendants Project, Dr. Joy Banner. Doc, glad to have you here. So how are folks taking this EPA decision? Well, as you can imagine, we are very disappointed by the EPA's actions.

We, let's be honest, I mean, it's not like we are not used to fighting alone and fighting without, you know, state agencies and federal agencies being in support of us. But with the presence of the EPA in our communities, you know, the EPA has visited twice. There's been, you know, press conferences. There, you know, was the EPA accepting, you know, our complaint. So it really felt like, you know, for the first time in a long time, you know, if ever, that people really were listening and taking our concerns and the fight for us, you know, to literally, you know, we're fighting for our lives, we're fighting for our communities. So we really felt hopeful about it. And, you know, we are very, you know, very disappointed at the EPA's decision to drop this. We feel a bit left high and dry by it all.

And yeah, we just, we believe that the EPA could have done so much more. We as a community, you know, there are all of us, so many of us that are fighting, you know, from little kids to, you know, our seniors, our elders in our community

with health issues and mobility issues. And we're out there, you know, our seniors, our elders in our community with health issues and mobility issues. And we're out there, you know, protesting and resisting. And we have the courage and the bravery and the creativity to stand up against, you know, Louisiana and LDEQ. And to think that EPA can't or won't do it is just disheartening. And it's very frustrating for us. What's next? You know, we have, we'll continue, we'll certainly continue to fight. This is not, you know, the last strategy.

We have other irons in the fire, because like I said, we are used to, you know, things not going our way in the short term, but we believe that we have enough attention. And that's what's good about what has happened, is that at least it brings a lot of attention to our fight. And already we're getting outreach from people who, even as bad as we say it is in Louisiana

and as bad as the politics are, they still don't quite believe us. And so when things like this happen, it really opens their eyes and they realize like, wow, you know, people in Cancer Alley, they don't have anybody fighting for them. So I will say that Michael Regan, you know, the administrator for the EPA, he's actually going to be in town for the Essence Festival. And he needs to, we, you know, me and a group of people that were actually part of that lawsuit will be there at Essence. We, you know, have a panel and he should make it a point to come to that panel and meet with us all personally. We have a lot to talk about and, you know, he has to be held and he should be held accountable for leaving us hanging high and dry.

All right, then. Well, it is certainly a story that we've covered. Hopefully, you all will continue to get some action because the stats are absolutely devastating for African-Americans there in Cancer Alley. Yes. And, you know, the report, the report from the EPA. 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 one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. They found that the discrimination is there. I was talking to someone earlier today and I said, it's like going to the doctor and having them give you a diagnosis with all of your problems, but then say, oh, no, but I'm not going to. I'm refusing to help you. And that's how we that's how we feel. And unfortunately for us, like literally sometimes that is the case where our health and our lives are compromised.

But, you know, the EPA can, there's still a lot of work that they still can do for us. You know, for us, we are still fighting against the Greenfield grain terminal here in Wallace. And so the EPA needs to step up and, you know, make sure that the environmental impact is being properly assessed and adequately assessed for that permitting. All right, then, Dr. Banner, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Thank you. Folks, Scott is there in Nashville where the NNPA is meeting the Black Press of America for their annual conference. He's now joined by Dr. Ben Chavis, who is the CEO of NNPA. One of the things, Ben, I want to ask you is that we talk about where we are in media.

There's a significant number of, I mean, the world has changed, moving away from magazines and newspaper, moving towards digital. It was a couple of months ago, we were all in D.C., where NNPA announced an initiative that deals with world news and others. And so exactly what is happening when it comes to today's black newspapers in order to now begin to operate in this whole new world that we're living in? Thank you. That's a very good question, Roland. First of all, salute to all of what you continue to do in the digital space, in the media space. Give you a succinct answer. Our newspapers are content producers, but we're now taking that content to distribute it in different media formats, and not only in the United States, but around the world. That's why we launched the NNPA

World News app, which is available. It's a free app. But actually, you know, to tell you the truth, Roland, you come out of the black press, you know, to go through digital transformation means that a lot of the staffs of our newspaper have to be retooled. We are hiring young people, millennials and Generation Z. That's the focus of our convention here in Nashville. So I just wanted to come on and give you a shout out and looking forward to not only the digital transformation of the black press, but how we all work together. Because at the end of the day, black media should be getting more advertising dollars from corporate America. We got a lot of corporations. We're going to be here in Nashville and we're going to make the challenge as you do, uh, all over the country to make sure

that corporate America doesn't under, not just undervalue, but under do business with a black owned media in America. Uh, I'm going to be speaking about this a little bit later. But one of the things that I have long maintained is that there needs to be a consolidation and transformation in black-owned media. And what I mean by that is, when I was in Dallas, when I ran the Dallas Weekly, to me, it was utterly illogical to have seven and eight black newspapers. Houston, same thing. Now,

why am I saying that? I'm saying that because when I look at what's happening in mainstream, I get the importance of diversified voices. But I believe, first of all, you talk about 40 million African-Americans, 13 percent of the population. We're talking about a finite number here. And we have many small outlets, small publications, small digital outlets. We do not have large media entities to achieve scale. We were in Houston for Juneteenth and Rodney Ellis, who was a commissioner, Harris County commissioner. He said the exact same thing when it comes to comes to other businesses. He said we need black firms partnering, merging to be able to go after the multimillion dollar contracts.

I long said the exact same thing in the black owned media space at your conference, or y'all having those conversations to talk about how do we compete in a different environment. When you see Fox selling their entertainment assets to Disney for $70 billion, when you see these other deals, and then when you see the partnerships, when you see how Fox, Comcast, and Disney got together, they launched Hulu. When you saw how Disney and Comcast launched A&E. And I don't believe there is enough collaboration in the black-owned media space. I just think we've got a bunch of people who are operating their own individual silos, and that's also one of the reasons why we still are small.

I agree with you 100 percent. And it is on the agenda. We're talking about doing more than aggregating content. We're talking about how to what is the definition of black collaboration? What is the definition of joining partnerships together so that we can get scale, but also distribute the resources? You know, media is a multi-billion dollar market and we should not be playing low balling in the market because separate and apart. So presupposes the question of unity.

It presupposes the question of finding new ways how to work together where the technology can help us bring together and make more resources together to create sustainability for the future of the black press. All right, then. Well, Ben, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. And good luck with the conference. God bless. Thank you. All right, folks. Hold tight. We'll say we come back. I want to speak on that more because I really, really do believe that that's where we are at. And if we don't address it, if we don't confront it, then we're going to be in the same position we're in now in the next 10, 20 years. And that, I believe, hurts black America. I'll unpack that next on Roland Martin and Filchard on the Black Star Network.

I'm Faraji 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 Black Star Network. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. You will not. White people are losing their damn minds.

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 wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. There'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. Hello, I'm Marissa Mitchell, a news anchor at Fox 5 DC.

Hey, what's up? It's Tammy Roman, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. Many of you know my history in the black-owned media space. First intern and worked at the Houston Defender in 1990. Later, of course, became managing editor. First of all, wrote for the Dallas Examiner, became managing editor of the Dallas Weekly, Houston Defender. Later, managing editor, general manager of the Chicago Defender, news editor of Savoy Magazine. Of course, founding editor of Tom Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com. Produced a special for Major broadcasting cable network, played a huge role in the building of TV one of a period of 13 years. Also, 11 years with Tom's on a morning show. I mean, so you name it.

I launched the I created the first black news source audio podcast and video podcast at the Chicago Defender have worked on numerous again in every facet of black-owned media television newspaper magazine look I've look I've worked for Essence magazine wrote for Ebony magazine and so we could go on and on and on and so I understand this space intimately because I've been in it. And I'm going to say something right now that a lot of people are going to sit here and tell me, oh, my goodness, you must be out of your mind. Right now, there are too many black owned media outlets. I want to let that sit in. Right now, there are too many black owned media outlets.

Right now. Now, you might be asking, man, what are you doing? Why are you saying that? I'm saying that because you literally have a significant number of outlets. Who are fighting for crumbs. And so when you're approaching this thing from a very small standpoint, meaning these small outlets, then you're not able to lock up to do major deals. Now, why do I say that? This year, anywhere from $322 to $400 billion is going to be spent on advertising in this business. Black-owned media gets anywhere from 0.5 to 1%.

Those of us in the Black-owned media collective have been putting pressure on a number of other companies when it came to forcing them to raise their numbers. We did this. General Motors, McDonald's, Target, and others, some volunteered, they're going to increase their numbers. What we discovered is that many of them weren't even spending 1% on black people. Now, black people were spending a hell of a lot of money on various products. We spend a lot of money with Procter & Gamble, a lot of money with Clorox, a lot of money with Coca-Cola and Pepsi and General Motors and Ford and Toyota and Walmart and Target and Burger King and Popeyes, Taco Bell. I mean, you name it. We could go on.

I mean, we could just start just Apple. We could go on and on and on. But then when you start unpacking, well, what is happening in return? So one of the things that they often talk about is, well, how do you do a scale? Because the reality is you got to reach a significant number of people. And what my experience has always been is that we have a lot, a lot of small outlets. When you talk about major black owned media, major black owned media that targets African-Americans. Allow me to unpack that. You can be black-owned, but not target black people. Meaning you could have mainstream assets. Okay? That's pretty much what Byron Allen has. Byron owns the Griot. He bought HBCU Go. But if you look at his company, he ain't targeting African Americans.

Targeting the mainstream audience. He's black, so therefore his company is black owned. But typically when we say black owned media, we're talking about black owned media that's specifically targeting African Americans. And so then you have Urban One. It used to be Radio One. So they own the Radio One stations. They own TV One. Then they have Interactive One, the digital assets. And then we start talking about legacy black media, which I hate that phrase, but fine, whatever. So we say legacy black media.

We're talking about Black Enterprise, Essence, Ebony, NNPA, newspapers, that's legacy black media. So then you start now looking at different digital companies that have launched. I mean, so we could go on and on and on. But the reality is we're talking about, do you have scale? What assets do you have? Now, usually you look at Shade Room, Black Home You look at Baller Alert

You look at Hollywood Unlocked, Hip Hollywood But when you start looking at, well, what are you actually owning? Well, in many ways, they have significant social media following But not necessarily owning media assets So people are getting information from Instagram, from Twitter, from Facebook media following, but not necessarily only media assets. So people are getting information from Instagram, from Twitter, from Facebook, but not necessarily from your products. And so those companies are growing whatever. But again, we talk about it's still scale.

And so what's happening, and again, in that group, Jasmine Brand's in that group as well. So what I have long advocated, and let me know where y'all found the Rodney Ellis clip so I can play it. What I've long said in this space is that we and not just media, even with other black companies, we've got to be having what we call M&A conversations, mergers and acquisitions. We can't, you're not going to be in a situation today, folks, where you're a John H. Johnson and you can launch a magazine and build it over 65 years and become this dominant company because that actually caught up with Ebony. You know why? Ebony did not use its power, use its largeness, use its influence to go into radio. Ebony didn't launch a television network.

Now Ebony used to have syndicated shows. There used to be Ebony award shows. They had the Ebony jet showcase. But the reality is they didn't go there. So what ended up happening? As the internet came along, the internet supplanted Ebony and Jet. Used to be a time when, oh my God,

you waited for Jet Magazine every single week. A lot of guys waited for the Ebony Jet Beauty of the Week. Today, you're going to get a black beauty on Instagram every five seconds. Doesn't matter. Internet has changed the game. And in many ways, black-owned media, even in 2023, is still operating as if this is 1970. And so what I have long said, we talk about Black-owned businesses. We are small, small, pre-COVID.

I'm using pre-COVID numbers. There were 2.6 million black-owned businesses in America. 2.5 million had one employee. One. Doing average revenue of $54,000. That means out of the 2.6 million black-owned businesses pre-COVID, 2.5 million had one employee. So when we saw the stats that said we lost 41% of black-owned businesses during COVID, we didn't actually lose black-owned businesses.

Those were sole proprietors who went out of business. Those were individuals. Those were not businesses where you had actual, again, the number of people. And if we're talking about how do we compete, it has to be scale. Which means that we have to confront some hard truths, and that is, in a lot of our cases, we're dealing with ego. We're dealing with folk who want to be the one in charge, who want to own everything. What's interesting is that you see mainstream companies, they ain't got a problem merging, acquiring, buying, building, growing scale.

That is a problem for us. I've said this, and I have no problem repeating it. In 2018, 2017, December 2017, when TV1 canceled News 1 Now, I began to meet with nearly every major black media, black-owned media company

talking about what I'm doing right now, what I was launching, and what I was launching, Roland Martin Unfiltered, My Vision, Black Star Network, none of the other folks were doing. Literally. None of them.

I gave a proposal to Urban One. Not interested, no response. I sat down with Rich Dennis at Essence several times. Nothing transpired. Met with Black Enterprise, nothing. Talked to Blavity, nothing. Met with others, nothing happened. Now ask yourself, ask yourself from a business standpoint, someone like me with my pedigree, my background, my relationships,

create something that you don't have. Why not say, how can we partner to now be bigger and take down more and be able to grow and scale? When I look at this landscape out here, folks, we see this all over the place. We literally see in every area, legal, accounting, engineering, banking, architecture, the exact same thing. Is it that we as African Americans don't practice working and partnering together? Why do we only focus on staying small? Because we want to own it. Let me tell you all something. Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world. Him and Elon Musk, whatever. Bezos don't own 51% of Amazon, but they have scale.

You can't be enamored with saying my business card says CEO. Let me tell y'all something. I do would not want a business where I'm making where my total revenue for the year is $54,000. If you said I could have a business doing average revenue of $54,000 or I could partner with somebody and we're doing 500,000 or $5 million, which one do you think I'm going to do? So you've got to remove ego from this. I gave a keynote speech in Houston, and it was at a black chamber of commerce event. And so before I spoke, they gave some awards out and they gave some awards out to three different black PR companies.

All of them were run by black women. Now, which I don't understand. I'm sitting here and I'm going. I can guarantee you, I can guarantee you that combined those three PR companies ain't doing combined $500,000 in revenue. They probably are sole proprietors taking on small clients. So I'm sitting there at the table going, why don't the three of them meet and merge to create one mega PR firm to then go after more clients?

Oh my God. That's a brilliant idea. We see this all the time. And so if we are going to change the economics of our community, it is... 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 six on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Going to require us to think so much larger and bigger than ourselves to put our egos aside to learn how to work with others as partners to build something major. Otherwise, y'all, we're going to stay small.

We're going to stay small. We're going to sit here and not be able to take down more revenue. And let me explain something what happens when you get more revenue. You can hire more people. You got more revenue. And let me explain something, what happens when you get more revenue. You can hire more people. You got more assets. In the news business, you can now cover more things. You can be far more expansive. I don't want us to simply have a control room

that's operational during my show. I want that control room to be buzzing 24 hours a day, which means multiple directors, multiple audio folks, multiple graphic designers, multiple video playback, multiple producers. Folks, that's where we should be. But if we as African Americans never sit down and actually say, how do we change the game,

we're going to be small and ineffective. What I'm speaking about is literally in every single area of our community. We had our Juneteenth Economic Forum in Houston. Harris County Commissioner Roddy Ellis literally talked about it. He told the story when they even started their firm, they had an argument on what to name the company. Whose name was going to be first.

This is what he had to say. Happening with African Americans economically, and there are a lot of people who are out here who talk about reparations. What I keep reminding them, that there are literally billions and billions and billions of dollars that are being spent right now that we are not necessarily accessing. Federal government spends $560 billion a year on contracts. Black folks get 1.67%. And so you are one of the commissioners in Harris County.

What is happening with the county to ensure that black folks are participating economically in the billions being spent? Roman, happy Juneteenth. It's good to see you back home. And Juneteenth is an appropriate time to talk about economic opportunities for black people because some of us still haven't gotten the word that we're free. I see Sonny Messiah out there with the Houston defender and her husband Jody Giles. You know, in a lot of ways, we attribute Maynard Jackson in particular with being the father of minority business enterprise programs on the local level.

Perrin Mitchell, obviously, on the federal level with all that he did, former congressman out of Baltimore. In terms of Harris County and Houston, a lot is going on, but not nearly enough. We did get to word a little late. The city of Houston established a program for minority women-owned businesses in 1984. I'm proud to say that under the current mayor, Sylvester Turner,

the numbers for the city of Houston really are off the charts, higher than they have ever been. He's joining us in the next hour. We're going to have that conversation. He's joining us in the next hour. We're going to have that conversation. In every category. And I want to give him praise for that.

It takes a lot of effort to do that. In order to have a program focused on minority women-owned businesses, you have to go through some hoops. We're in America now, just as the story of it. You have to do something called a disparity study. I always give people this background. It came story of it. You have to do something called a disparity study. I always give people this background. He came out of Richmond. So Maynard Jackson stopped the airport from being built in Atlanta, Georgia. He was elected mayor but didn't have control of the council.

And so he could not set up a program that was enforceable. So he essentially just stopped the a program that was enforceable. So he essentially just stopped the trucks, the bulldozers. He actually said, tumbleweeds will roll down these runways before I allow it to be built without black participation. A bold black man. I enjoy pointing out that's why when he left office as mayor of Atlanta, he had to get a job as a bond lawyer with a firm out of Chicago. They wouldn't hire him.

Chapman and Cutler, I think. So when he, before he became mayor, blacks in Atlanta were getting.0012% of all city contracts. Not one, not half a percent, not a quarter of a percent,.0012. .0012. Now, why is all of this important? Because if we're talking about how do we build a better black community, it's not going to happen if we're not confronting the economics of our community. And what we cannot do is sit here

and wait for the ship to come in for somebody, and I hear a bunch of people like, cut the check, write the check. Okay, that's great. The black farmers right now, after Congress passed that bill, are still waiting on the check because they got sued but when we talk about contracts that money being spent right now so the question

is how do we use our leverage and power and influence to be able to change this economically we understand and let me be real clear, y'all. I need y'all to understand what I'm talking about here. The work that Reverend Jackson and Rainbow pushed and before that Operation Breadbasket did was critical. The work continues right now. Reverend Sharpton, he's meeting with different companies as well when it comes to contracts for African Americans.

But what we are talking about, folks, is externally, yes, putting pressure on companies to be able to provide contracts. But if we are not of scale to then do that, cannot take advantage of it. And so although I am specifically talking about black-owned media, the same conversation must be had everywhere else. I've spoken at numerous black chambers of commerce events. And, folks, do you know what's never on the agenda? Mergers and acquisitions. Because, unfortunately, we only actually think about selling, not acquiring. A few years ago, Obama was president and I spoke to the Department of Transportation.

And I was talking about this very issue. And when I got done, a black woman came up to me and she said, Roland, for the last two to three years, my business partner and I have been preparing our company to be purchased. She said it never dawned on us that we could go buy somebody else. We could go merge with somebody else. She said, after your speech, I immediately called my business partner and said, stop what we're doing. Let's now go acquire. We're not going to be able to build unless we do that.

I'm going to go to a break. I'm going to come back. I want to play with Rodney Ellis, that's to say. I'm going to go to my panel and talk about this here. Because what I'm talking about here, y'all, is the future of our community. I got no problem with the brothers and sisters who are out there hustling, the vendors selling shirts and hats,

the folks who cut hair, the folks who are doing all the different things in our community. But we, as a black community are never going to be the force that we need to be as long as we remain small

business wise. Which means that we've got to stop thinking small. We've got to stop acting small. We've got to learn to begin to trust one another. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Black Star Network is here.

Oh, no punches. A real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All the momentum we have have now we have to keep this going the video looks phenomenal see this difference between black star network and black own media and something like cnn you can't be black on media and be scared it's time to be smart bring your eyeballs home you dig eyeballs on. You dig? My early days in the road, I learned, well, first of all, as a musician, I studied not only piano, but I was also drummer and percussion.

I was all city percussion as well. So I was one of the best in the city on percussion. There you go. Also studied trumpet, cello, violin, and bass, and any other instrument I could get my hand on. And with that study, I learned again what was for me. I learned what it meant to do what the instruments in the orchestra meant to each other in the relationships. So that prepared me to be a leader. That prepared me to lead orchestras

and to conduct orchestras. That prepared me to know, to be a leader of men, they have to respect you and know that you know them. You have to be the teacher of the music. You have to know the music better than any. There you go. Right? So you can't walk in unprepared.

Hi, everybody. I'm Kim Coles. Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. Yo, it's your man, Deon Cole from Black-ish, and you're watching Roland, Unfiltered. This is an audience. Jody and I were in business together. Remember, I used to have a little investment banking firm. It was not little, but go ahead. Here's what a lot of the firms in here do.

Everybody wants to be the chairwoman, Mr. President, the CEO. You know, we got to argue about the name. When Jody and Richard Ramirez and I, we arguing, well, what are we going to name the firm? Well, it's real simple. It ought to be RJR Securities, Rodney, Jody, and Richard. Then Jody going to go tell Sonny, no, no, no, no, uh-uh. This needs to be Jody, Rodney, and Richard, Richard Ramirez. Then Richard Ramirez going to argue, tell this, well, no, no, this is going to be Richard, Jody, Rodney, and Richard. Richard Ramirez. Then Richard Ramirez is going to tell this,

well, no, no, this is going to be Richard, Jody, and Rodney. So I said, no, no, no, here's what we're going to do. RJR works. I'm going to go tell my spouse it's Rodney, Jody, and Richard. Richard, you're going to tell your spouse it's Richard, Jody, and Rodney. Jody, you're going to tell Sonny, your wife, is Ron Jody Run. I was thinking about Jesse and they'd be like, Ron Jody Run. But here's the point. We spent all that time arguing about the name. Who'll get the credit before we get the money? Then R.J.

Nabisco blocked us. All that arguing and nobody thought. R. RJ and Nabisco said, no, you can't do that. This is when you had to go to the Yellow Pages to get a name. They didn't have internet. Jody, was that 1985, 86, whenever we started? I'm in Atlanta and I saw that Apex Museum. You know you go through the Yellow Pages. That's why so many firms, AAA, 4A, 2A, AB this, you know, trucking company, Apex, securities. And it was clear that we did it.

Jody left to get a good job at First Boston. Had it not been for that black and brown-owned firm, he wouldn't have gotten that job at First Boston. Richard eventually left and ended up at Goldman Sachs. If it hadn't been for that little black and brown firm, I had to stay because I was in politics. Then I sold it eventually. But look, some of these folks got emerged. We were hustling a deal once, Jody, in Jacksonville, Florida, Jackalack, trying to do a bond deal. And we knew our competitors had more people for the presentation. I see some, one of them said he had about five people. We had done a listening to people's conversation. So I said, how are we going to walk in here

and there's Richard, Jody, and Rodney? And other folks have five people. I go buy some suits, get some students at Florida A&M, dress them up. You know, back then, you could say your business is scalable. Now with the internet, you can't do that. Here's the point. Some of these black law firms, you need to merge.

Some of these black, the reason the biggest black construction firm used to be Thacker out of Atlanta. Thacker Construction from Main and Jackson era at the airport. Merge these firms. You got to figure out how you put all of them.

Most people who make money, you know what they do when they're rolling? Spend it. Yeah. Folks, I'm going to bring my panel in here. And this is the people just don't. And Scott, I want to start with you. I mean, look, you're in law. Law firms do this all the time.

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.

White law firms merge, they acquire, they build, they grow. And the reality is, when you think about Akin Gump, when you think about these big names we always hear, these national law firms, look what Johnny Cochran did. When Johnny Cochran, Johnny Cochran was an L.A.-based attorney. When he decided to make the Cochran firm a national firm, that's literally what they did. And so they achieved that level of scale leverage his name and even though he's now gone it's still the cochran firm because the power of

that name and it just drives me crazy scott and so many of our black businesses and our ceos many of us and i can say this because I've had the conversations, are caught up in some ego BS. And as Rodney just said there, whose name, who's going to be the lead, who's getting all the credit? No. How can we take down all the money? Right. Well, you know, I think about the law firm space, Reed Smith and others, we're always looking to get bigger, better, and brighter, and it's part of our big law. It's just, you hear about mergers and acquisitions all the time, so

you're right about that. When I think about big, large black law firms, I'm sure we have some out there. I can't tell you which ones. Right there, hold up. But the fact that you off the top cannot name one of scale, it proves my point. Yeah, and I'm going to get a lot of tweets and emails now saying, how could you say that, blah, blah, blah.

I should know. But I'm making your point here. One of the things I want you to consider, Roland, and I know you and I go back and forth, but I want to be very, Roland, and I know you and I go back and forth, but I want to be very thoughtful with you about this. On one hand, I don't disagree that we need to get scale in whatever industry. On the other hand, though, many of our entrepreneurs who are in law or accounting or construction or business, architecture, what have you, are entrepreneurial in their spirit, in their thought process. And the toughest part for being an entrepreneur is to know when you've grown your business beyond your level of management and competence. It is the biggest

challenge of any entrepreneur. I've represented hundreds of them over the years and stuff. And so if you look at your business ownership from an entrepreneurial standpoint and not a scale standpoint, it's very unlikely that you're going to purchase or merge or do what you're supposed to do to get to scale. Because if you're a successful entrepreneur, you're making good money, if you will, and you're paying your bills, you may be making great money. And psychologically, entrepreneurs don't think always about getting bigger. They think about getting better for themselves and their families. And so there's a psychology change that you're going to have to begin to lecture on and present on that addresses that piece. Because they're not wrong to be entrepreneurs and just kind of like running their own stuff. And so that's a big part of or challenge of what you're saying here,

not to disagree, but you've got to consider that in your equation as you present on this issue. Oh, I'm considering all of that into my equation, Robert, but I also understand what the complaints are from these very same people, the complaints about what they're not receiving and what they're not getting. And the point of every business matures, every business. If you are a mature business, you have to know when is the point when we have to now go to go to another level. And unfortunately, and the other issue that I have, which is even a greater issue, is that what happens when we have these one generation black owned businesses and then we don't prepare them for the next generation, even if it means our family members are actually selling them.

What's the whole point of busting your ass to build this thing? And then all of a sudden, when you pass away, it just goes away. Again, if you don't have a family member to take it over, fine, sell it to somebody else. That way it continues. Again, if you don't have a family member to take it over, fine, sell it to somebody else. That way it continues. I mean, that's the thing that is issue here. And what concerns me is when I start looking at the numbers, Robert, this is a metrics game. I look at the numbers.

Again, 0.5 to 1% in the advertising space. Federal contracts, 1.67%. So looking in other areas, 0.5 and 1 and 2%. Black folk, we cannot grow as a community if we're getting 1.5, 1, 1.5% when it comes to contracts. We've got to learn to use our leverage as a people to say, no, no, no, no, no. That number should be going. We should be going from one to four to five to eight to 10 to 13 to 15 percent. If people understand that now means billions, billions. And when billions are coming back to black owned businesses. We're hiring largely African-Americans.

What are those people doing? They're buying homes. They're sending kids to college. They're acquiring things. And so this what I'm talking about is not, oh, man, you just want to get rich. No, it's literally how do you create opportunities for folk as a collective? Well, I've got to take it to the space that I'm most familiar with, the activist and nonprofit space. Think about the number of civil rights and voting rights organizations that we have. It seems like if you go to a meeting and you feel like, well, I didn't get to be in the front of the march, I didn't get to speak at the press conference, I didn't get to be on camera, somebody runs off and starts a brand new organization. And it's organization

after organization after organization, each becoming even a smaller and finer niche organization. And because of that, it becomes very difficult to have collective action. That's why whenever we have these marches and protests and rallies, you've got to have a dang 20-foot long banner to get all the logos on, because that's how many

organizations you have to bring together to get enough people to actually make some noise, versus being under one umbrella, under one roof, going in one direction. When you think about the Jewish community, you think directly about the Anti-Defamation League. You don't have to worry about this alphabet soup of organizations that are going to be representing their rights. So you know when the Anti-Defamation League says something, that is the voice of the Jewish

community. When you're talking about the gay community, you're looking at the human rights campaign. When you're talking about gay marriage is an issue, human rights campaign says it, then I know that that's the official word from that community. In our community, everybody who starts wearing a dashiki and going to some burning incense that calls themselves an activist, now they're starting a new organization. So you got five people, you got five people, someone else has 15 people. So instead of having one unified fist that's closed, they can actually punch at power. We just got all these disparate fingers kind of waving in the wind. And that's why it becomes very difficult to get the collective action necessary to really move

policy forward. And I think here, Rebecca, you're in the political area. Here's the reality. When we are able to have larger businesses, we now can fund our own candidates, fund our own campaigns, fund our own initiatives, and not have to rely on others because those who control the pocketbook to candidates control the politics of our community. Roland, in addition to my day job, I own a business, and I've owned a business for years, and it wasn't until I hired a business coach where I was really able to figure out, OK, how do I actually create a plan to actually scale up? How do I make sure that it doesn't require my blood, sweat and tears, but my business can still make money even if I'm not active in that business? And so it took me blood, sweat and tears to even get to that point to realize that was an aha moment.

That's something that I needed to think about, because where I grew up in Omaha, the majority of black businesses I saw were nonprofits, were C3s. C3s aren't real businesses. You can't sell it. You can't spin it off. You can't put it in your will or in a trust and bequeath it to your kids or to other people in your family. And so what's unfortunate, a lot of quote unquote businesses that within the Black community that we've seen haven't actually been the type of corporations that you can actually scale up and do something with. So one of my clients that I've had in the past, one of the things that they focus on is how do we take a business that might be making

$2,000 a month because they're doing food plates on Instagram? How do you actually get them to the next level where they're now in a ghost kitchen, where they're able to actually get bonded, get insured, to be able to get on platforms like Uber or DoorDash and beyond just like Instagram plates? And how does it now generate 10,000 a month? How does it generate 15,000 a month? So I hear what you're saying and your frustrations, Roland. I do want to say not all businesses are going to scale up and be million-dollar businesses, and that's okay. But all businesses can scale up and can go to the next level. But specifically talking about Black media, one thing that I would say, once again, my hometown newspaper, I had to find it,

the Omaha Star, was founded 85 years ago by Mildred Brown, who I think you know, is now owned by Terry Sanders. Some folks know her as Simone Sanders' mom, but she's the publisher of the Omaha Star. One of the things I committed to do that I can do for a very hyper-local black media outlet is to be a subscriber, to make sure that I'm paying yearly and that I'm supporting them, and even with other drives that they have to build up revenue so they could cover and do more. You're absolutely right about in terms of not every business is going to scale to be a million dollar business. But let me, I'm going to give some numbers to the audience because I want people to understand something.

In the United States considers a small business to be 499 employees or less. That's a small business in America. That's literally the classification. What did I say earlier? 2.6 million black-owned businesses,

2.5 million one employee. The day we launched Roland Martin Unfiltered, September 4th, 2018, we literally were in the top percentile of black-owned businesses in the country because we had seven people. Right now now we got 15. Here's the other number that people need to understand. 95% of all black-owned businesses in America do five million million or less in revenue. 95%. So what I am suggesting is that if we have, and I said it to Ben, and I'll say it right now,

there are black newspapers in this country where you have multiple papers in one city that need to it needs to be one. When I ran the Dallas Weekly, Jim Washington, who was the then publisher, Jim would say, he said, Mr. Martin, why do you always want to put my friends out of business? I said, Jim, I don't want to put your friends out of business. I said, but here's the problem, Jim. You're charging $5,000 for a full-page ad, and you might get it, but you typically are getting $2,500, $2,800. I said, and then what's happening is these companies, they're not giving you advertising dollars. They're giving you community relation dollars. I said, so they're putting an ad in the Dallas Post Tribune, in the E-Lite News, in the Minority Opportunity News, in your Dallas Weekly, in the Dallas Examiner, in Levita. It was all these black papers in Dallas.

Dallas didn't even have the black population of Houston. But it was like seven, eight, nine, ten papers. And I said, Jim, there used to be two papers in Dallas. Dallas Times-Herald, Dallas Morning News. Times-Herald went out of business. It's only Dallas Morning News. I said, so guess what? Imagine if you had one black newspaper

in Dallas that wasn't serving 20,000 people that was serving 150,000 people. Instead of now getting 25, 2800, 3,000, 5,000 for a full page ad, you now can be charging 15, 18,000 for a full page ad. Y'all, that's what I'm talking about. So imagine if we now have larger black owned media companies, larger black owned law firms, larger black engineering firms, larger. All of a sudden, we're now talking

about millions and billions of dollars. We're now talking about not, hey, can I have, I have one or two interns from HBCU. Now I can have an internship program and I'm bringing 25 and 30 in. Now versus, hey, I can offer a job to one person. Then, oh, you know what? I've got 20 job openings. That's what I'm talking about. And so I would hope black folks in the black-owned media space will listen to what I'm saying and let's put egos aside. Put egos aside and say, how do we grow bigger and stronger? That has to be our priority. I want to thank our panel, Robert, Scott.

I want to thank Rebecca as well for joining me. Folks, I appreciate y'all joining on the show. Thanks a lot. Tomorrow, folks, I'll be broadcasting live from New Orleans. I'll be going there for Essence. And so if I run the folks there, I'm gonna say the same thing there, because what is needed, what is needed in our community, and this is in every facet,

is for black people to stop thinking small. When we think big, when our vision is big, and all of a sudden we change things in a huge way. So there comes a time when you're small, you got to get bigger. You got to grow. We hit our fifth anniversary in September. The last thing that I want is for the next five years of the Black Star Network to be the same as the last two. That ain't growth.

That's stagnation. And unfortunately That is the history of black folks In this country And that simply should not be the case Folks, I'll see y'all tomorrow Don't forget, download the Blackstone Network app Apple phone, Android phone

Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV Join our Bring the Funk fan club Send your dollars, make it possible to cover the news that's important. We're not getting the advertising dollars, but your money is crucial to helping us continue to do what we do every single day with our six shows on the network.

Senior Check and Money Order at appeal box 57196 Washington, D.C. 2007-0196. Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal, RM Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

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. I'll see you tomorrow. Halt! Folks, Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches! A real revolutionary right now black media he makes sure that our stories are told thank you for being the voice of black america rolling i love y'all all momentum we have now we have to keep this going the video

looks phenomenal see this difference between black 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? Pull up a chair. Take your seat at the Black Table. With me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network.

Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network. 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 that's 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're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of

our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, and my new show, Get Wealthy, focuses on the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you, but you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Blackstar Network. this is an iHeart podcast