#RolandMartinUnfiltered - MS Man Tased To Death By Police, Stephen A. Smith & Affirmative Action, IM Marvin Arrington, Sr

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

7.6.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: MS Man Tased To Death By Police, Stephen A. Smith & Affirmative Action, IM Marvin Arrington, Sr A black Alabama man gets tased to death by Mobile police officers responding to a burglary in progress.  The people who made that 911 call said the cops went after the wrong man.  Now Jawan Dallas' family is demanding the release of the body cam video to find out what happened.  The family attorney will be here to give us the latest on the case where an innocent black man's life gets cut short at the hands of law enforcement. ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith sparked controversy during his interview on Fox News Tonight.  We will discuss what Smith said about Affirmative Action and why it matters to the broader public. Media companies are gutting their DEI divisions.  DEI disruptor Randi Bryant will be here to explain why the executives are getting the boot.  And we'll take time to remember the life and legacy of Marvin Arrington Sr., a Georgia political icon.  His son will be here to tell us how his father's impact helped shape Atlanta.  Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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

We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Today is Thursday, July 6, 2023. Coming up on Roland Martin,

unfiltered streaming live on the Black Star Network. A black Alabama man gets tased to death by Mobile Police officers responding to a burglary in progress. The people who made that 911 call said the cops went after the wrong man. Now, Juwan and Dallas' family is demanding the release of the body cam video to find out what happened.

The family attorney will be here to give us the latest on this case. Also, ESPN analyst Stephen A. Smith appeared with his former ESPN colleague Will Kane on Fox News talking about the Supreme Court's affirmative action decision. It's amazing a lot of stuff that should have been brought up was never brought up.

Maybe it's because Will Kane doesn't want to deal with his own history when it comes to white privilege and legacy. I will deconstruct that. Media companies are gutting their DEI divisions. DEI disruptor Randy Bryant will be here to explain why these executives are getting the boot. Plus, we'll take time to remember the life and legacy of Marvin Arrington Sr., a Georgia political icon. His son will be here to tell us how his father's impact helped shape Atlanta and about a new documentary about his life. It's time to bring the funk.

I'm Roland Martin on Filtered on the Black Stud Network. Let's go. Let's go. 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 Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Gro-Gro-Yah

Yeah, yeah It's rolling Martin Yeah, yeah Rolling with Roland now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's rolling, Martin. Now. Martin.

An unarmed black man gets tased to death by Mobile, Alabama police. 36-year-old Juwan Dallas died Sunday when officers were responding to a burglary in progress. Police thought Juwan was a suspect, but eyewitnesses say something totally different. Now Juwan's family demands the police release body camera footage of the fatal encounter. During a news conference outside Mobile's government plaza, Juwan's parents said although nothing could bring him back, they want justice for his death. Juwan didn't deserve to die like this. Innocent bystander, It's time for a stop. We need to stop it. Mobile Police Force.

We need to stop it. We need to stop the killing. We need to stop it all. Innocent man going someone we're going to miss for the rest of our life. We wish he was here today, but he's not here. Innocent man, yes,

taken away from to serve and protect, not I just want justice for my son because my son shouldn't have left here this way. If he was sick or something, I could understand it. But for him to be tased to death, beat or whatever, it's not right. It's unimaginable. It hurts. And I want something done about it. Harry Daniels, representing the family. He joins us now from Atlanta. Harry, glad to have you. So what happened here? There was a robbery.

Where? Was it at a home? Was it at a store? What happened? Roland, it was not a robbery, burglary. It was not even a crime being committed. In fact, it was some neighbors in a mobile home park made a phone call to police and said it was some loud voices, some people by the gate. Once police responded, three individuals ran from an abandoned mobile home trailer in a direction where Mr. Dallas was

at, approximately 200 yards away. The police, to my understanding, witnessed the statements that they gave chase after those people. And at some point they accosted Mr. Dallas, who was, like I said, 200 yards away from the alleged incident of the noise complaint took place. He got out of his vehicle. He was asked, the police spoke to him for a second, and I guess he refused to give his identification to him. Then they tased him. He immediately, to my understanding, fell on the ground,

complaining of pain, that he was hurting, screaming for help, according to eyewitness statements. And these are uninterested eyewitnesses who saw this whole thing, that Mr. Dallas was being beaten. In fact, the two individuals who made the initial phone call stated that he was being beaten, and they begged police to stop. He was subsequently tased, and Roland, he died. He died of being tased. First off, he was never a person of interest he was not a suspect he might

have been a suspect in the police mind but under the constitution under laws of alabama he was no reason suspicious believe he committed a crime so he had an absolute walk right to walk away but in alabama in uh in the moment alabama black man uh there don't have a right to walk away. And he was stopped, accosted, beaten, tased. And today this young 36-year-old, father of three, is gone. What has been the response so far of Mobile Police? Well, they initially gave statements that it was a burglary committed and two suspects. He's one of the suspects. Obviously, the eyewitness account's position is different. And, in fact, the people who called the burglary, who called law enforcement said they never

reported a burglary at all. They never reported a burglary. So the basis and the premise of what they initially said is false, is fraud, is fraudulent. I mean, at the end of the day, now that we have these eyewitnesses who refused to speak with them at the beginning, now spoke to the attorneys in the news and given their accounts and statements and stories. And these are uninterested witnesses. Let me be very clear. These uninterested witnesses, these people don't have a dog in the fight. These are older, some older Caucasians, young, don't have a dog in the fight.

Don't know Mr. Dallas from a can of paint. But they are stating what they saw, and they are consistent in their statements, which makes credibility high for all those witnesses. We do not believe the position of law enforcement. They have not released this video. We have asked to release this video. We are asking petition for the family to come in and review this video, and hopefully

we'll have information on that real soon. But Roland, this is bad. This man was an innocent bystander who's now dead simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and the Mobile Police Department is trying to cover it up.

Who was investigating this? Well, we don't know. We don't know. I don't know if they investigated themselves or the Alabama State Bureau investigation, but I know what we're going to do. We're going to ask the petition of the Department of Justice to come in for them to investigate it. This is the exact type of case where the Department of Justice needs to be involved,

be invoked, and work swiftly. We don't need a prolonged probe. We need a quick action from the Department of Justice to come in and do an investigation. You have a man who, for all accounts from all witnesses, had nothing to do with the initial call. He should not even have been approached. And the police, they have a right to approach, but they don't have a right to detain a person who was there no reason for suspicion. You have a right to walk away. That's what we call a first-tier encounter.

But when he chose to walk away, they chose to use a taser, a less-than-lethal force, and Roland, be very clear, it's less than lethal, but yet, nevertheless, it is still lethal. Taser killed a lot of people every year in the United States. Make no mistake about it. They used that less than lethal force at Taser, and here's the result we have today. So we don't know who's under investigation. We don't know if it's the city of Mobile or Alabama State Police or Bureau of Investigation, But we are calling on an independent investigation, at minimum, by the Department of Justice.

All right, then. Harry, we appreciate it. Just keep us abreast of what happens in this case. Hey, man, thanks a lot. Let's come on, Roland. Have a good one. Appreciate it. I appreciate it, Harry.

Thanks a lot. All right, folks, got to go to break. We come back. We will talk about a number of stories. One of the things that I'm going to really delve into this deconstruction of the Supreme Court affirmative action decision. Isn't it amazing how these white conservatives are gloating and they're like race shouldn't be used. Whenever it's dealing with race and white people, they're mighty silent. Yeah.

I wonder why. That other stuff we'll cover. Don't forget, if you're watching on YouTube, hit the Like button, folks. Also, 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 join our Bring the Funk fan club. Your dollars make it possible for us to do what we do. Send your ticket money orders to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash app, dollar sign RM Unfiltered.

PayPal, RMartin 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 Minds, available at bookstores nationwide, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. Download your copy in Audible. We'll be right back. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence.

You will not replace us. White people are losing their damn lives. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We've seen show. 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. 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. Black Star Network News. 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? I am Tommy Davidson.

I play Oscar on Proud Family, Louder and Prouder. Right now, I'm rolling with Roland Martin. Unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamned believable. You hear me? Him. Să ne urmăm în urmăm All right, folks, preliminary reports show that the jobs report tomorrow is going to show tremendous, tremendous growth. And all of these, remember the economists who kept saying we're going to recession? What the hell happened? The Biden folks keep calling this Bidenomics. Others are like, well, this is not actually catching on, but what really is going on with our economy and

how do Democrats take advantage of this when it comes to the election? Let's talk about it with my panel. Joining me right now, Dr. Greg Carr, Department of Advertising and American Studies at Howard University out of D.C., Rishi Kobud, host of the Rishi Kobud Show Series, XM Radio out of D.C., Candace Kelly, legal analyst, South Orange, New Jersey. Rishi, I'll start with you. So, again, all we've heard, this is now July. I swear all we've heard for the last year is recession, recession. Oh, my God, it's coming. And everybody's been cutting back. They've been yelling that it's going to happen.

And I swear every single month, jobs report come out, record, record low, increase, increase, stock market hasn't crashed. I mean, we could go on and on and on. So if you're Democrats, shouldn't they be taking massive

victory laps and not being cautious in this whole deal of, well, I don't know, because it might happen next month? I'm sorry. If this was Trump and, well, I don't know, because it might happen next month. I'm sorry. If this was Trump and the Republicans, they'll be thumping their damn chest every day. Absolutely.

I think what the Democrats should be doing is what Governor Gavin Newsom did when he completely wiped the floor with the interviewer, I can't recall exactly who. Sean Hannity? Yeah, there you go, with Sean Hannity. And he should just really, they should be out there doing a victory lap.

We have Republicans who are running on the Trump economy, which lost jobs like every other Republican president has done. The Democrats throughout history have always created more jobs and the Bidenomics is booming. Unfortunately, because we have things like inflation and you have some Democrats who do nothing but tout how today is a good day to cancel student debt or bemoan the fact that we don't have $15 minimum wage, the Democrats don't always take the kind of credit that they need. I do think that the Biden-Harris administration is strong on at least trying to tout these results. They're always sending out people to talk to different media outlets. But unfortunately, it's the inflammatory that gets the coverage as opposed to the success.

So I think that Democrats really need to figure out a way to break through that messaging and to take that messaging directly to the people. I want to see calculators. I want to see memes. I want to see graphs. I want to see video content. I want to see, you know, interviews with diners. 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. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Glod. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding

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

and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes

one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. set up goals don't worry about a setback just save up and stack up to reach them let's put ourselves in the right position pre-game to greater things start building your retirement plan at this is pre-tirement.org brought to you by aarp and the ad council at roscoe's house of chicken and waffles or something like that. That's what they need to be doing in order to tout the success. And yes, it's a mixed bag, but the reality is people ain't hurting for jobs these days. You know, Candace, I think for a lot of folks, again, especially when you talk about a lot of these Democrats.

It's just, there's just sort of this just unwillingness to go hard and to take credit. I go back to when Obama was president. The White House sort of had this attitude of, oh, the folks will figure it out. No, they're not going to figure it out. I mean, you have to tout.

You have to trumpet what you've done. And you have to be, you know, unwilling to, you know, unwilling, like I say, to take credit. I mean, you've got to fight. And you've got to be willing to take folk on and expose their lies. Recy made a point about California Governor Gavin Newsom going on Sean Hannity's show. And this is exactly how you swing against these fools. But you know what? Wait, wait, wait. Hold on one second. Here's a video.

Guys, pull the video up. Here we go. I have great confidence in his leadership. I don't want him to fail. I don't want him to accomplish. I think his policies are failing. Chipsack Science Act? Do you oppose that?

I will tell you, on every measure, from the economy, inflation, borders, energy, national security, he's missing in action. Let's talk about them in order. Let's hang on. Wait, I want to challenge the premise. You said the economy, 13.1 million jobs. He's created more. These are post-COVID jobs. You know that. That's an artificial number. No, no, no, no. Then let me just let me stipulate this as an as an opportunity to engage civilly on this. Okay. Fair point. Your president, Donald Trump, lost 2.6 million jobs during his four years. We've created 13.1 million.

Fine. You can maintain a COVID frame. How about the fact that Joe Biden's created more jobs, six times more jobs than the previous three Republican presidents combined? Are you going to tell me that the average family where we have two thirds of Americans now living paycheck to paycheck? It was 70 percent under Trump. That was 70 percent. It was 70 percent under Donald Trump. We had the lowest unemployment rate for every demographic.

We have the lowest unemployment in history. And you and I are living with the lowest unemployment in our lifetime. We had it for every demographic and the economy. Black unemployment's record low under Joe Biden. OK, we had historic low after historic low under Donald Trump. Donald Trump. I mean, here's what I don't want to have Trump's clock Biden in terms of the progress and job creation. You look at what he's done on jobs. You great. That's how you do it, Candace. That's how you do it. That's how you do it. But here's the difference. Unless I've missed something in the headlines, he's not running for president,

right? And I think that that's the key. I'm a PR person. I'm a strategy person for Joe Biden, for the Democratic establishment. I'm thinking what happens if the economy does take a twist, does take a turn? Who's going to be there to be the first person to tweet about it, talk about it, get on Fox about it and make a big deal about it to where it could go way against the grain of what I'm doing? And that's Donald Trump. So at this point, it's hard to predict the economy. That's why every month we're trying to figure out what jobs are gained, what jobs are lost, what happens when it does take in a way that we could not have expected.

Then it becomes a firestorm. And that's why it's important for Gavin Newsom and people like him to do interviews like that and really kind of mop up the floor, as Risi said, to make the case that what the Biden administration is doing is working. So that's where we are now. Everybody's afraid. Even the Republicans are afraid of Trump. Everybody is afraid of the backlash

if they say anything about themselves that could be proven wrong at any time. The bottom line is I think that the Democrats are scared. They are, you know, Biden has his hat in the race again. He's scared. And if I was a strategist, I might be scared, too, and give him that advice. But see, Greg, I wouldn't be scared because, first of all, if I'm measuring the economy, I'm not going to measure it based upon what happened yesterday, what happens tomorrow. I'm looking in its totality.

Again, here's another excerpt of that back and forth with Gavin Newsom, I've always said you've got to go into the belly of the beast and be willing to fight them on their turf and you embarrass them with their lies. Watch. Now my question is a serious one. All right. Okay. Is Joe Biden up to the job of being president?

And as a little reminder, take a look at your president in the monitor. And there's an awful lot of stories that are told, probably a bunch of apocryphal about the former prime minister. Like you think, bass. Wondering around at three in the morning. By the way, I met with those guys that fly over shortly. You heard of them, haven't you? And the cheer for Muslim athletes like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

I know him, and I mispronounce his name. So I'm trying to think, where was the last place I was? It's hard to keep track. Ireland! Yeah, you're right, Ireland. That's where it was the last place I was. It's hard to keep track. Ireland! I mean, yeah, you're right, Ireland. That's where it was. E-I-G-H percent. He said, you're too much, you're too much like that guy who led the revolution.

He said to the guy who was the prime minister, he said, you've got to be less like the military guy. They shot him. God bless you all. Let's go. Let's go lick the world. Let's get it done. And then you got Joe Biden

who's having a hard time standing up. Take a look at that one. Take a look at that one. I want you to tell me that you think he is cognitively strong enough to lead this country against China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and a new axis of evil, and that he's the guy, he cannot articulate the economy the way you just did. Yeah, but I don't think he's capable. I know he's capable. I see results. I've seen a master class in results the last few years. Z. Greg, again, what you don't is you don't entertain the stupidity. And I think, again, there has to be a

constant state of being on the offense. You don't play defense. You play offense. And you hit, and you hit hard. You do what Vice President Kamala Harris did at Essence Festival, where she said, oh, we had infrastructure week every single week under Trump. We got it done. Here are the buildings. Here are the bridges. Here are the roads.

$600 billion. That's how you do it. And so you can't be scared to tout what you've done because frankly a lot of folk simply don't know no that's true a lot of folk don't know and many folk it wouldn't change uh how much they know or not in those conversations i mean you gotta have money to go to essence fest or borrow some And therein lies the problem. Sean Hannity knows what he's doing. The white nationalists know what they're doing.

The midterm elections in 2022, the voter turnout was a little over 52 percent. Fifty-two percent of the people who were eligible to vote in the United States of America voted. So what about that other 48 percent or 47 point percent? Is it going to make a difference if you run out those numbers? If you if you if you show the logic, it probably would. Would it be enough to win? Well, clearly, the Democratic Party doesn't think so, because they are putting all their eggs in the basket of a propaganda war that they're afraid to get into with the white nationalists, because the white nationalists understand that it doesn't matter. Yes, unemployment is at a very low. For the first time since they've been taking numbers, the way I understand it, black unemployment

was under 5 percent in April. This is when, by the way, we could use our good friend Bill Spriggs. And I know you and I and a bunch of other folk are going to be on Howard University's campus, the law school, for his memorial on sanity. But I'd love to hear what Bill or economists would have to say about the difference between unemployment and inflation. And while people may have everybody who wants a job can have one, how many jobs do you have to work once you look at the prices in the grocery store? Economics is about more than having a job. Economics is about how you feel about your life. And what the white nationalists understand is that there are people who are gainfully employed who will vote against their class interests if you can just run the red flag of race up there. And logic has very little to do with it. When you add that to the

fact that everybody who can vote doesn't vote, what the Democrats have been doing, and they've been doing it for many years, is trying to figure out some kind of calculus, the center of which is the idea that people are disengaged politically. Now, yeah, you've got to go on an all-out assault. You've got to engage in a propaganda war. As W.E.B. Du Bois said over a century ago when the Atlanta white riot took place in 1906, he said, I thought the world was thinking wrong about race. And if we run these statistics out of here, it'll change everybody's mind. Then I saw a black man's knuckles in the butcher shop, in the window of the butcher shop where they had killed him. And I saw the white boys with guns and I realized this ain't about information. It's about propaganda.

Hannity understands that. Well, and I think also, again, you challenge folks and you let those know who don't know, especially when it comes to the economy. Here's another exchange here between these two that I thought was perfect, and that a lot of these broke-ass politicians from these red states seem to keep forgetting. This is the honest way to be the fourth largest economy

in the world. What are you arguing for? I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was

convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

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

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

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

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family.

They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Mississippi's economic policy? I mean, literally, that's what you're asking for.

If you're asking me if I want a great San Francisco tax. If I want a Texas policy? I mean, it was a debacle. No economic growth. 71% of the GDP in America are in blue counties. I would take their 1% of the GDP in America are blue counties. Progressive policies, okay, that are paying high taxes. And 71% of the country's wealth, seven of the top 10 dependent states are your states.

Let's say you're right. We're subsidizing your states, Sean. It's because you're right. Let's say you know we're subsidizing your state. Not because of your policy in New York. You're not subsidizing anything from your philosophy. I'm getting the hell out of New York, though. Mississippi, Alabama. I'm all for it over over New York or California. Yeah, I love Mississippi.

I'm sure it's not personal. This is the honest way to be the. I thought that that was so great because, again, it's not personal. This is the honest way to be the fourth largest economy in the world. I thought that was so great because, again, he's like, oh, I'm getting the hell out of New York. You know, I'm going to Mississippi. No, you're not. You know why Sean Hannity is not going to Mississippi? Because the health care sucks. He's not going to Mississippi because, frankly, he knows the educational people there suck as well. And again, when I talk about the infrastructure bill, right now, you've got all these Republicans who are claiming credit for the billions and millions and billions of federal dollars

coming because of broadband, and they voted against it. This here is Jessica Tarloff on The Five. Again, this is how Democrats should be responding every single day. But I think it's wonderful that there are new boom towns and boom states. And I think that that should be celebrated. I also think that it would be great then if there are these southern Republican-controlled states that they start paying their fair share and take care of Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Kentucky, because I'm sick of taking care of them from up here in New York or in California, because blue states pay the highest taxes. And then those federal dollars get shipped down south

to make sure that they have decent schools, they have health care, they have good roads, etc. So by all means, South Carolina, Nancy Mace, who wants to take credit for things she voted against, please give some money to Kentucky. Help them out. Tommy Tuberville, talk about you all the time. You should be paying more and taking care of your own people instead of feeding off of Democrats that pay higher

taxes. But I think it's wonderful that Now, see, Reesie's smiling. That panel was real damn quiet. It was real hard for them to counter that. And again, that's the thing that, look, I've said this when I see Nikki Haley tweeting and Tim Scott. I'm like, yo, y'all talking about Big Gromit, California, all the places. Without, as Gavin Newsom said, without blue counties, they broke. South Carolina, they need the money from the federal government.

Mississippi, Alabama, all of these places. My deal is, hell, you Democrats, you ain't going to win them anyway, so punch their ass in the mouth yeah but they're not going to cut them off they're not going to cut them off see understand this is the problem we have they're not going to cut them off we understand the white nations are playing for keeps this is the end of their funky experiment rolling please we have to understand this very seriously you saw that ruling that judge dowdy in Louisiana gave out on Tuesday about this. They are blocking the Biden administration's ability to interact with these social media companies because they understand weaponized

ignorance. Recy's been trying to teach us this for years. These people are fighting for keeps, and you know how you fight them? You've got to fight them. But guess what's not going to happen? They're not going to shut off Mississippi and Louisiana, Alabama. They're going to pretend like we're all in the same conversation. So you can have a subliterate punk ass former football coach in Alabama say whatever the hell he wants. Hell, you can even be the president of the United States and have your damn Republican National Convention on the South Lawn of the White House. And nobody's going to put his ass in jail for violating the Hatch hatchet these people don't want to fight these white boys but we are the ones who are going to suffer because they will not fight and that's and that's why reesey i've i've said

when obama was there affordable care act go to the brokest whit, reddest state and say, I passed this law because you're the brokest, you're the sickest, you're red, and now you go ask your senator why he voted against it. Biden should be sending Kamala Harris all around the country. She should be doing a tour of Alabama saying, hey, why did your senator vote against the broadband money he's now taking credit for? I'm telling you right now, I love, Henry, go to the wide shot. I love that scene from Jungle Fever. Remember when Wesley Snipes was leaving, when Flipper was leaving, and he was like, mine,

mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. He was going through all the architecture stuff with mine. That's what Democrats should do. They should say, we passed that shit, that one, that side was. And they should have big-ass signs made possible by President Biden. Trump put his damn, he signed checks. That's what you do. You take credit for everything.

Absolutely. If you don't take credit for everything. Absolutely. If you don't take credit for it, the other side is going to act like it never happened. And the mainstream media is not interested in reporting results. They're interested in perpetuating narratives that keep people engaged. Even that, though, is failing. Look at CNN flailing. Look at numbers down across the board, including for Fox News. The reality is that the Democrats are scared

shitless. They're scared of being dragged on Twitter. They're scared of being dragged in the op-eds. They're scared of being dragged by the commentators. You're going to get dragged anyway. I think to Candace's point, they are scared about what if the numbers turn? If the numbers turn, even if you've predicted it right 100% of the time beforehand,

they still going to drag your ass. Why are you acting scared? I think that they need to just boss the fuck up. They need to man up, woman up, whatever it is, punch a couple people in the mouth rhetorically and let people know that what's at stake if you

get this party versus that party. And the receipts are the receipts. I agree that we're not in an information war because people have the attention span of 16 seconds. If we posted this clip on Twitter, people would watch it for 16 seconds at most, some of them six seconds. So we're not in a way that we can win the information war. But cumulatively, I strongly believe this, and this is what my work is rooted in, and I believe what your work and all our work is rooted in, is that cumulatively, you can connect the dots for enough people to at least win on the margin. See, we don't have to get everybody. We never are going to get everybody.

Republicans know that they aren't going to get everybody. And so they have, like, with laser-like precision, tried to knock off the margins, knock off a couple of college students, knock off a couple of elderly people, knock off a couple of black people, gerrymander here, do this, that, and the other, and they can get over the finish line. That's what we need to understand. We're not going to get everybody. Every message is not going to resonate with everybody. Everybody is not going to read a fucking fact sheet, a PDF that's a hundred pages. Everybody don't need a hundred talking points. But if you reach enough people cumulatively, consistently, relentlessly, with enough force, you can make the difference. The problem is the Democrats want to be on this fake-ass high horse that they're so

much more civil, they're so much more inclusive and above the fray, and that's all fine and dandy, but it's the economy, stupid. And it's malpractice that you have this booming economy by every metric, and yet people still feel like the economy is in the toilet. So there's a propaganda where I totally agree with you, Dr. Carr, that we're losing. And it's just spectacular the amount of things that they have accomplished in such a really dysfunctional government with the Supreme Court and the Republicans blocking everything. I would be singing my own praises. I would be tooting my horn every damn chance I get. And the one last thing I want to say is to Candace's point about Gavin isn't running. We used to have a party where you didn't have to run for president to get your ass on TV and talk about how good the Democrats are doing. The Republicans don't need to be running for president.

All the people that are running for president still tout the Trump economy. And so what we need to stop doing is stop. We need to get out of this. Well, it's going to be my turn in a couple of years. So I don't want to amplify President Biden. I don't want to amplify Kamala Harris. I want to just make sure that everything else is minimized so that I can take credit and come in and be

the savior for eight years. We got to deal with the election that's coming up next year. It's Biden and it's Harris. And so everybody get in formation and get your ass on Sean Hannity, on Joy Reid, on Roland Martin unfiltered, on shit out my show. Hello. And let's get the message

out to the people and connect these dots. And let me real clear, former First Lady Michelle Obama said when they go low, we go high. Damn that. When they go low, punch their ass in the knees. When they get you in the shin, punch their ass in the ankles.

Damn that. I ain't with all that. Nah, nah, we gonna go hot. No, no, no, no. I'ma bust yo ass straight like I'm about to do next after this break. I'ma bust Will Cain's ass for that embarrassing segment he did with Stephen A on Fox News last night. That's next on Roller Martin Unfiltered. Y'all might want to buckle up on the Black Star Network.

Early days in the road, I learned, well, first of all, as a musician, I studied not only piano, but also... I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and

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

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

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

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

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early.

Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispretirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. I was also a 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. 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. It prepared me to lead orchestras

and to conduct orchestras. It prepared me to know to be a leader of men they have to respect you and know that you know them is 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 We 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

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All right, folks. So in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision preventing race from being used in college admissions. Oh, my goodness. These white conservatives are just loving this. They're beside themselves. And I love it when they talk about merit, merit, merit. It shouldn't be about race. It's about merit. See, whenever it involves black people or Latinos or Native Americans, in some case Asians, they always go, look, we should not, this cannot be about race. Yet whenever it involves folks who are white, they are stunningly silent.

Silent when it involves them. It's sort of like, and I say it all the time, I say it all the time. You'll see a story and they'll say, the president meets with a group of black pastors. But when it's a group of white pastors, they don't say nothing. They just call them pastors. And so, it's always curious when that happens.

And I sort of crack up when they do that. And so, I've been watching all these takes in the past weeks of the Supreme Court running through a decision. And one that caught my eye was last night. On Fox News, Will Cain, formerly of ESPN, had on his former colleague Stephen A. Smith they were on

the show together and because Stephen A. had discussed this on his radio show so I just got a kick out of this almost eight and a half minute interview not because of what was said, because of what wasn't said.

Press play. Host of the Stephen A. Smith Show and first take on ESPN joins us now. Stephen A., great to see you, man. What's going on, buddy? How you doing, man? You want me to just go right at that clip? Is that how we should do this? We just start right there?

Feel free. Okay. Let's go. Let's go. I'm here. I know you are. The problem is, Stephen A., in truth, when it comes to justice, there is no such thing as black America and white America. There are only individuals. Okay. And so when you assign Coppola. See, it's already, already that boy starting lying. He already starting off lying. Will you lying? See, I love the utopia when they say, no, there are no, see, that's sort of like the Obama speech. There are no black, there are no black Americas. There are no, there are no red Americas, no blue Americas. There's

just the United States of America. That shit sound cute. It sounds cute and wonderful. It's so like the people when they respond to kings, I have a dream speech. They always like, oh, it's the content of character. And oh, why can't all little boys, little girls hold hands? But they are silent when it comes to redlining. They're silent when it comes to redlining. They're silent when it comes to discrimination. They're silent when it comes to home values in black, in census tracts, largely black.

They're silent when you talk about the health disparities between whites and blacks. They're silent about all of those things. But, no, they're just a collection of individuals. That has always been a lie in this country. Press play. Ability to individuals of the past, to individuals of today. There's simply nothing to hold anyone accountable for. Why do I pay the pay the price for the sins of the past?

And you reap the benefits in the case of the affirmative action. Why do I pay the price for the sins of the past and you reap the benefits? I want y'all to remember those words. I want you to remember those words. Press play. You had affirmative action, but you as a black man would reap the benefits of affirmative action for the sins committed on someone of the past. We are only in the end, Stephen A., individuals. Well, first of all, I get where you're coming from and I can understand how you would look at it that way. You have to respect the fact that I have a different cultural background, a different experience than you, and I might feel a bit differently about it. What I would tell you is this. There's so many people and the people that have been supportive of the Supreme Court's latest ruling are of the mindset that blacks were getting an unfair advantage. What black people would

contend to you is that it wasn't an unfair advantage. Remember, race was a consideration, one of many considerations that would be taken into the equation when you talk about college admissions. And I think ultimately diversity, equity and inclusion is next. Personally, when you think about some of the things that have been taken taking place in corporate America. But it wasn't that it was an effort to sort of make an effort to even the playing scales to some degree because of the iniquities exacted against the African-American community in this country. It wasn't about giving them an advantage. It was about highlighting the fact that they were discriminated, meaning we were discriminated against at that particular moment in time.

And that's why the policy was instituted to begin with. So when folks are walking around acting as if there is a reason to celebrate, and I'm looking at folks that are feeling like somehow, some way, they've been shortchanged. My mentality is, wait a minute, the policies were implemented to begin with because the African-American community was being shortchanged and they were being denied the same privileges or the same opportunities that were accorded to white folks in America. What I would say to that is you do not solve past discrimination by present or future discrimination. And there were certainly injustices under the banner of affirmative action inflicted upon individuals, whether or not they be white

or Asian American. Stop right there. Really? Will just said there were injustices inflicted upon white people and Asian Americans. And when it comes to affirmative action. Will Kane, let me ask you this question. Who has been the greatest beneficiary of affirmative action since its inception? White women. White women. Across the board. In college admissions, in contracting, it is without a doubt white women and the white children they have bore and their white husbands and their white parents and white grandparents have been the greatest beneficiary of affirmative action since its inception.

That's a fact. But that's what happens, Will, when you actually read and you seek true information. Press play. Harvard, in the situation at Harvard, an African-American student in the top 50% of his academic class, Stephen A., had just as good a chance as an Asian student or a white student in the top 10% of their class. Is that just discrimination?

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. 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 i'm clayton english i'm greg glad and this is season two of the war on drugs by sir we are back in a big way in a very big way real people real perspectives this is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher.

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

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

See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org.

Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. No. And by the way, if you, you know, and I'm sure you did listen to my podcast and I appreciate you doing so. If you recall, I did not say, you know what, I did not say that it wasn't discrimination. I acknowledge the fact you didn't see me. You didn't hear me speak against, you know, anyone from the Asian community that have brought that case to the justices. I understood where they were coming from. My argument was against folks in white America that would say even, you know, presidential candidate Donald Trump talking about. Now we get back to our merits, you you know a society based on merit ignoring what brought affirmative action policies into play to begin with we have people in white America acting as if they don't know how it came about so if somebody from the Asian community or the Latino community they had an issue and they

felt that they well they were they do denied an opportunity that's a different argument than white America coming up and saying, we don't feel that we've been treated fairly in all of this, when the unfairness was exacted by white folks in America. Well, that's where you and I go full circle and get a little bit stuck in the mud, because I will refer to talking about individuals. Individuals, whether or not they be white or Asian, can be the victims of injustice and discrimination.

But I do want to ask you a sincere question. In the 1970s, when the program of affirmative action was implemented, Stephen A., at that time, the Supreme Court of the United States said there would be a day when it would no longer be required. When they re-upped it in 2003, they anticipated another 25 years of affirmative action. Well, we came just short of that. It's been 20, 21 years since that decision was made at the Supreme Court. The question is, even if you're making up for past sins, Stephen A., when does it come to an end? Hell, Will, that ain't hard. It comes to an end

when you have actually seen substantive change. On the federal level of $560 billion being spent every single year, African-Americans receive 1.67% of federal contracts. 1.67. You've heard me say before, when Maynard Jackson became the mayor of Atlanta, African-American businesses in a majority black city were receiving.0012% of city contracts. It wasn't they could not do the job. It wasn't they were not qualified. It was because they were being frozen out because of a white-led system that controlled the money. Maynard Jackson changed that, Will Kane. That's why when Maynard Jackson left the mayoral office after his first two terms, he literally could not be hired

by what is called a white shoe law firm in Atlanta because they were angry and he dared to challenge the very system. We'll love to sit here and talk about, oh, my goodness, affirmative action. And how much this thing, how much longer we wait. Taking into account this right here. When you talk about this issue of private equity in this country. Nearly 99% of the trillions of dollars that are in private equity are controlled by white people, mostly white men. Yet, when you look at studies, the studies actually show, and if you actually go to this study right here, this is from 2017, examining the returns, the financial returns of diverse private equity firms. This report shows that diverse firms, black being led by black folks and others, they outperform white led firms. Yet the black and minority firms are capped and not able to

access more dollars. Will Kane kept talking about merit. Where I come from, if you actually are doing better than somebody else, then you should be able to get to manage more money. That's not how they actually do it. They cap them. When President Obama was president, I was called to a meeting at the Treasury Department. I was told that black and minority firms, when it came to the management of TARP funds, outperformed white private equity firms.

Rowland said, I guess that means the black and minority firms are about to access more money from the Treasury Department. The two brothers talking to me went quiet see again will if y'all want to have a merit conversation oh brother we can have a merit conversation all black folks are saying it was what james brown said just open the door and i get it for myself but y'all don't want we to have a merit conversation, do y'all? I don't think you do. Press play. Do we stop discriminating on the basis of race? When people in positions of power have proven that they're exercising fairness, come hell or high water.

It's really, really that simple. I'm so glad that you asked that question. But that's impossible to define. Well, again, but again, when you're looking at numbers, for example, why do we say, why did Yale in the 70s sit up there and say, we want 10 percent of our student populace to be made up of minorities? You know why? Because they knew without those rules, those laws in place, they didn't anticipate that that would be allowed. In today's corporate America, you still have folks. You have black folks being paid less than white folks. You have black women being paid less than white women. You have white

women obviously deserving a lot of opportunities that they obviously richly deserve. They're getting paid less than white men. Everywhere you turn, there's a level of unfairness that's being exercised. The only thing that changes that is the law as opposed to somebody's conscience. But you're ascribing all those differences to race when there's so many different contributing factors into why corporate America may look a certain way. You and I both love it. Oh, oh, my God. You're describing those things to race. Really?

Go to my iPad right here. Study reveals how white households headed by high school dropouts are three times wealthier than black families led by a college graduate. A shocking new study reveals white American high school dropouts three times likely. The study also found that white college students receive more free financial handouts from their parents than their black counterparts. Black families overall are also less likely to receive a healthy inheritance payout. See, I love how Will Kane tried to do a little dance like, oh, no, no, no. There are other factors. Yes, Will, there are other factors because it's likely white boys like you who are in power who then are providing and giving jobs and opportunities to folk who are non-black.

Uh-oh, did I actually just say that? Did I say earlier that Stephen A. is a former colleague of Will at ESPN? Here's a perfect example. Will Cain keeps talking about merit. He keeps talking about merit, what gets you there. If merit is actually used, Will Kane should have never been hired at ESPN. Oh, I'm sorry. Shall I break it down?

Will and I were at CNN together. Was Will Kane ever a reporter? Nope. Columnist? Nope. What was he? A lawyer who bought a couple of media companies. Did Will Kane do what Rowland did?

And that is appear for free for four and a half years on CNN and MSNBC and Fox and BET and Court TV? Nope. He hires an agent that gets him a job. The white people at CNN in Washington, D.C. were mad that he got hired. How do I know? I overheard them say, where he come from? Who hired him?

Oh, how did Will K know they said it? Because I told Will. Oh, yeah, I said, Will, the D.C. folks wonder how you got hired, where you came from. They questioning why you here. I told him that while we were shooting a pilot in D.C. So when his time at CNN ran out, all of a sudden, you look up Will's on ESPN. Wait a minute, hold up. How is Will Cain on ESPN? Has Will Cain ever played sports?

Hell no. Not as a professional. Has Will Cain ever reported on sports? Hell no. So how did Will Cain get a job at ESPN? Oh, y'all might say I'm hating. I'm not. We got along. I destroyed him all the time with his silly arguments. He was a nice guy.

He went to the University of Texas. I'm going to Texas A&M. But here's the whole deal. Go to my iPad. This is Will Kane's bio. Go to the bottom here. It says, Kane has served as a contributor for the National Review, guest hosted ABC's The View and MSNBC's Way Too Early.

He has appeared on Fox News, MSNBC, Morning Joe, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. He's a licensed attorney in Texas, resides in New York City. It says right here, before entering television, Kane financed, bought, and sold two digital and print media companies and explains what that is. Nowhere in here does it say Will Kane has any sports experience whatsoever. So how did Will Kane be hired at the worldwide leader in sports? Because his agent was Nick Khan. And who was Nick Khan? The most powerful agent at CAA who now is the CEO of the WWE. So let me explain to y'all how this system works in television. See, when you really ain't

got no talent, but you got an agent, the agent represents other people. And the agent tells the execs, yo, listen here. If y'all want to re-sign my person, you got to pick this person here up. That's how Will Kane got hired at ESPN, because Nick Khan got him hired. If we're talking about merit, Will Kane should have never been hired to host anything at ESPN, because he had no background. He had no history. He had literally no expertise in sports. So how was he sitting across from Stephen A on first take? He did ESPN

and left ESPN and got signed to Fox News. Well, how did that happen? Because he got the ESPN job. He got the ESPN job because of CNN job. Well, how'd you get the CNN job? Because you got the hookup. No experience whatsoever.

But now, we want to talk about talent? And now we want to talk about, well, how do these things change? When do they change? Well, black people, Will, would love to ask, when does the world change when black people

who are mediocre get great opportunities, Will, to host national shows. You got a great head of hair, but let's be honest. Your resume does not say you have the requisite experience to be discussing national politics. There's nothing in your resume that says that. Nothing. But we know how this works. That's how Abby Hun resume that says that. Nothing. But we know how this works.

That's how Abby Huntsman got hired at CNN. That's how Abby Huntsman got hired at MSNBC. That's how Abby Huntsman got hired at Fox News, because her daddy was the governor of Utah. No talent, no skill set. Same with Meghan McCain. No talent, no skill set.

But my father, my father, my father, my father, my father, my father, my father, my father. Do me a favor, Will Cain. Show me a black person with no talent, no experience, who all of a sudden gets hired for all of these major jobs. That's how you have a disparity in this country when it comes to income. That's how you actually see how white privilege works in America, Will Kane. Because you can't point to anybody black with a similar resume who had the same rise as you.

Or Tucker Carlson. Or Abby Huntsman, or Meghan McCain. And I can go on and on and on and on and on. I can even go back to the days of Catherine Cryer, who CNN hired as a news anchor sitting next to Bernie Shaw, and all she was before was a Texas judge, had never worked in a local market, was a one-man band, had never gone out to report, but all of a sudden she became a main anchor because she was cute and the execs liked her. Press play.

Of sports, we both debated in sports. I could play turnabout as fair play and go, why aren't there more white NBA players? 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. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

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

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

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

of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early

and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before.

I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. That must be discrimination. But we both know the answer is because merit has dictated who's in the NBA. And whatever's happening in society, and I would never say every decision made is purely based upon merit.

But we aspire to that. We aspire to that. And I think that the Supreme Court's decision has been a big leap forward in getting to where we judge things based upon merit. Stop right there. See right there. Okay, see, here we go again. So he decides to bring up the NBA. I could flip it and say, you know, why you don't have as many white

basketball players? Because it's real simple. Reverend Jackson has made this point for years. Reverend Jackson has said, if the rules are clear and they're published and we're all on equal footing, black folks ready to roll. He said, do you know why black folks are able to compete in the NBA? He said, because the goal is 10 feet high, whether you're in Madison Square Garden, whether you're in the Forum, whether you're in the Toyota Center, whether you're

in a high school gym. The distance from the free throw line is the same everywhere you go. From the three-point line, it's the same. You get the same timeouts, I get the same timeouts. You get five, I get five. Traveling is traveling. Double dribble is double dribble.

The rules are clear and the rules are published. So when y'all talk about merit, the bottom line is this here. Black folks say, oh, we gonna kill that when it's clear. Why singing in the same way? Hey, you either can sing or your ass can't sing. You can be off key, you can be on key. We understand that when the rules are published and the rules are clear and we absolutely can go one-on-one, yo, let's roll. That's why we can compete in track, basketball and football and baseball

But see here's what happens that wheel doesn't want to deal with here. Let me use baseball as an example It's a lot of black kids with baseball talent, but they don't have the resources to hide the private coaches They don't have the resources to play essentially professional ball on the traveling teams. They don't have the specialized coaches. And so even though you say, oh, no, no, no, no, but the rules are published. The rules are clear. We're all equal. But we're actually not equal because when you start talking about resources, we're not in the same ballgame.

When we talk about education, the Will Canes of the world do not want to own up to the reality that even the education system is rigged differently. Will Cane is a graduate of the University of Texas. There were some white University of Texas folks who were angry when black students were going to be first admitted. It was uncovered a few years ago in the documentation where they found the president of the UT said, y'all, don't worry about it. We've discovered our secret weapon.

We ain't got to worry about these black students populating the University of Texas. And they said, what are you talking about? We know what the law is. Brown versus Board of Education being desegregated. What are you talking about? He said, we don't have to worry because we've got standardized

testing. He literally said, we know that they're going to be limited because of the implementation of standardized testing because they do not do well on standardized testing. I dare you to look it up, Will Kane. It's right there. So when y'all talk about merit, the rules are clear. The rules are open. And that's

why a Will Kane could get hired at an ESPN because his agent hooked it up. Because the rules ain't clear. The rules ain't published. Because you got no skill set. You can't even carry the sports bag of a Stephen A. Smith or Jamel Hill or any of the black folks who are there because they're actual journalists. on ESPN even though you did not have the requisite credentials to be able to sit in that chair. So here's ESPN elevating you, yet we're barely seeing Howard Bryant when Howard Bryant has

authored numerous sports books, written numerous stories, is one of the most profound sports writers of our generation. Yeah, you sitting there hosting the show right now on Fox News, and you want to talk about merit? Press play. Well, you would say that, and I would say to you that the power structure in the United States of America is still predominantly white. And so as a result, what white America is asking you to do is ultimately to trust that your heart is going to be in the right place.

And there are a plethora of people throughout minority communities in this country who would challenge that and would say, no, we don't necessarily believe that to be the case, which is why we need the laws to help us. When you bring up sports and you and I have argued back and forth as friends and brothers talking about the world of sports and some of the iniquities that have taken place. You can bring up the NBA, for example. I can point to something called the meritocracy because I see their performance on the court just as much as you do. There isn't some curtain. There isn't some proverbial glass ceiling. We're literally witnessing it. But when we look at the NFL, for example, the Rooney Rule was still in existence.

This is the number one professional sports league in this country. Why is the Rooney Rule still in existence? Because we've seen one opportunity after another after another where capable, qualified black individuals were bypassed because of the system that was in place, primarily run by white individuals who asked us to trust them, but then prove they weren't worthy of the trust that they requested. And so those are the kind of challenges we have to deal with as a country. And there's just no way around that. The only way we can make it better is people like yourself and myself talking about it honestly and openly. I agree. And I will say that I think that the mistake that we often make and where you and I find our debate is whether or not we ascribe all those differences to the big factor being race. Listen, next time we're together, I want to have a conversation. See, I'm done. So,

here's where we get to the whole meat of this whole deal. He sat here, and you know he didn't want to address the Rooney Rule. See, because Will Kane didn't want to have to address. Wait a minute, hold up. If black folks are so successful on the field, why did that opportunity is off the field? See, he didn't want

to deal with that. So, you notice how he got real quiet. Because see, they don't want to have to confront that. Now, I sat there and listened to eight and a half minutes of that debate. And what's interesting to me is I sat there and I listened to Will Kane talking about merit, merit, merit, merit, individual, why we got to use race, and this never came up. Study on Harvard finds 43% of white students are legacy athletes related to donors or staff. The numbers drops dramatically for black, Latino and Asian American students with less than 16%

each coming from those categories. The study find. So Will, if you want to talk about why are we focusing on race, why do you ignore race here? Why are you so silent on race here? Oh, could it be that those white students, if it wasn't for legacy, 75% of them would never get in? And since you want to talk about race, or you don't want to talk about race, the same legacy says that if your daddy or your mama or your grandfather or your grandmother

or your great-grandfather, your great-grandmother attended the institution, you get points for legacy. Well, guess what? How many black people were able to attend many of these schools? So that means a significant number, thousands, millions of white kids across America, Harvard, Yale, in the past at your alma mater, Will, University of Texas, at my alma mater, Texas A&M, legacy was allowed. So white students today are benefiting from Jim Crow and getting credit and black students are unable to do so but you want to talk about merit. Why did you not bring up legacy and why are these white conservatives silent on legacy? Oh because the beneficiaries of legacy are white students, are white kids who are grossly unqualified. And then he goes, well, you know, I don't quite understand, Stephen A., you talk about these things,

and then we talk about, you know, but what's the impact? See, this here. See, remember y'all, he started off talking about, no, they're individuals. We're individuals. They're not groups. I don't see Greg and Reesey and Candace and Randy coming up. I don't see them as four black people, three black women

and one black man. I see them as individuals. Well, guess what? The home appraisal industry does not see us as individuals because it's amazing how we still have widespread racism in the housing industry. New York Times article for November 2nd, 2022, widespread racial bias found in home appraisals. Researchers found evidence of a persistent practice that gives

higher values to homes when the occupants are white and devalue them if the owners are people of color. That's a fact. Why is it that black people in this country will have never had home ownership hit 50%? It's because it was the home industry. It was the folk, the mortgage brokers, who created redlining. And black folks were unable

to buy in areas. And then they were able to sell their home for values far less. And so therefore white folks were able... See, Will, this is what happens when you're dealing with a smart brother, okay? And this is why this story is so important right here. It's because,

see, the housing story from the New York Times is affected by this story here. Because, see, Will, when the white students get legacy and get a leg up to go into colleges, and the black folks don't, they're able to get college degrees. Then when they get a hookup like you did to get hired at the ESPNs of the world where they don't have the skill't, they're able to get college degrees. Then when they get a hookup like you did

to get hired at the ESPNs of the world where they don't have the skill set, they're able to then make a large amount of money in those jobs. So your black journalists, they don't make the six figures and the seven figures like you are making. They make in the low six figures or make the five figures, which means they can't buy larger price homes. And then when you get to sell your home, you sell it at a higher value. You get to pocket those proceeds and then invest that money, which allows for you to then be able to buy media companies and to do more if that black person isn't able to do so. And so then it's the same case when a black person can't get that high job,

yet they have a college degree, but that white high school dropout is making more money than them. But then you say, I see individuals. And this will is what we call systemic racism. And we were talking about how do we correct the wrongs of the past? What you want is for us to continue the system of we're now on the same field, playing field. No, we're not. because if you even look at your own story,

if you were actually honest with yourself, Will Kane, you know you had no business being on ESPN and no business right now being at Fox News because it wasn't merit. So the day y'all want to have a merit discussion, please, by all means, let's have a legacy conversation. If y'all want to have a merit conversation, please, by all means, let's talk about how white folks in Silicon Valley can go pitch an idea on a napkin and go raise $100 million, or when this firm could raise $200 million for a messaging app and 95% of the users are fake, but somebody black can't even raise $5 million in the same system. You want to have that conversation, Will Kane?

You can call me anytime, any day to have that conversation, Will Cain, you can call me anytime, any day to have the conversation. But I don't think, Will, you nor Fox News have the courage to call a brother like me to have that conversation. Because see, if I have that conversation on Fox News, I'm going to enlighten your white viewers. And they're not going to be living in a cave where they somehow got a blanket over their head and they somehow completely clueless about the reality of what's happening here in America. when I would have to force you to answer the very difficult questions that speaks to how you got to where you got. And it wasn't because of your race. You might say, oh no, I got here because of merit, because I worked hard,

because I made the right connections. Could be. But the record shows something totally different. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

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

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

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

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Here's the deal. We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them.

Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. Let me know when you want to have that conversation. You got my number. I'm ready anytime, any day. Any day that ends in D-A-Y.

Let a brother know. I'll be right back. Next on A Balanced Life, we're talking everything from prayer to exercise to positive affirmations and everything that's needed to keep you strong and along your way that's on a next a balanced life with me dr jackie on black star network on the next get wealthy did you know that the majority of households headed by African-American women don't own a single share of stock? No wonder the wealth gap continues to widen.

Next on Get Wealthy, you're going to hear from a woman who decided to change that. I have been blessed with good positions, good pay, but it wasn't until probably in the last couple of years that I really invested in myself to get knowledge about what I should be doing with that money and how to productively use it. Right here on Get Wealthy on Blackstar Network. This is Essence Atkins. Mr. Love, King of R&B, Raheem Duvall. Me, Sherri Shebron, and you know what you watch. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. I want to bring my panel in here.

They've been listening to that whole segment, listening to all the stuff I had to say. Greg, I want to start with you. Oh, well, I mean, you broke it down. I mean, you know, will is the product of affirmative action. Affirmative action in the settler colony called United States of America, the settler state, is whiteness. Global white supremacy is the affirmative action that built the modern world system.

It has the speaking English. It is the foundation for the capitalist system we live in. And it simply is not going to be reformed. It's going to have to be replaced, ultimately. You know, Stephen A. Smith, the concessions he made, I don't blame you, brother. Sports is his area. So he says, you know, I agree with that, with that absurd number that Sandra Day O'Connor

apparently pulled out of her ass in the Grutter case, where she said she'd need it in 25 years. Don't agree with something, brother, before you know where it comes from. But I just want to, you know, again, you've laid it out, and I just want to, you know, co-sign. Looking at the complaint that the Chico Project African Community Economic Development of New England and Greater Boston Latino Network filed with the Department of Justice on Tuesday, reading that complaint where they talk about legacy and donor-related admissions at Harvard being essentially a proxy for whiteness,

somewhere about just about half of the white students who go to Harvard received no preference. But half of them did. As when it comes to black students, about 2 percent of black applicants received a donor preference, and under five received a legacy preference, and the numbers are lower for Latinos. Clearly, as you said, it's a proxy for whiteness, donor and legacy. Shout out to Jared Kushner, of course, whose father gave all that money, and he got into Harvard. Wouldn't have been there otherwise.

But I just want to mention one thing, though, Roland, I think, and this is the value, again, of the Black Star Network. The conversation that you started last week when the SFA decisions came down and you've carried through to right now are really reframing how we should think about this. Let's be very clear. There was an article in yesterday's Financial Times that was run, Ed Luce wrote an op-ed about this affirmative action issue in higher education. And you, let's be very clear, let's make the distinction. What you just got finished doing is laying out the signal, which in some ways is much more important that the Supreme Court gave to all the institutions outside of higher education.

Right. Businesses. And that's very important because they are not governed by what the Supreme Court did. But this is really about that. But when you go to higher education, let's be clear, there are about 31 million people in the United States of America between 18 and 24 years of age. Only 68,000 of those young people are at Ivy League schools. Nineteen million of that 31 million will not go on beyond high school. Of the 12 million who will go on beyond high school, the vast majority are not at Ivy League schools. The affirmative action countertop, the real dust-up that's going on in higher education

isn't about access to Harvard. Them bourgeois Negroes, the ones who right now are at Martha's Vineyard, some of them anyway, are really fighting over a tiny sliver of the population. What you said last week, what Derek Hamilton said in the New York Times yesterday,

what Natasha Warwick, who we had on the black table months ago, said in The New York Times yesterday, is this. We need to now build a floor under higher education, which includes debt forgiveness, a much bigger issue, by the way, that the Supreme Court kneecapped those student loans than the affirmative action getting into Harvard and UNC. We need to now put a floor under the HBCUs, expand access to community colleges, make it affordable. What they did last week is a fight among 0.5 of 1 percent of the people who are going to go to college. But what you did today is shift the conversation to where it really matters, which is what?

Access to capital, access to wealth and that kind of thing. And that's the danger of that decision. And see, that, Candace, is what these folks, what the game plan is. Why did I write my book, White Fear? How the browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. I said in the book, Candace, I ain't just talking about white conservatives. I'm talking about white liberals, too. We're going to discuss that next with Randy Bryant on these DEI positions, how all of a sudden they're being cut and black women are leaving positions in Hollywood because you got

white liberals who, let's be honest, they don't mind us being in some jobs, but then it's like well, hold up, you're in a C-suite? What's going on? See, that's what's going on here. And so the next battlefront is going to be DEI and the diversity and stuff that's happening in corporate America.

Trust me, it's coming. You already see in Wisconsin, they're not trying to go after the minority scholarships because they don't want to contend with the reality. I laid out how black and minority firms are frozen out of private equity. Yeah, we give y'all a sliver. Yeah, y'all did great with a small amount, but you ain't getting a big amount of money. That's why a black private equity firm is suing BlackRock in New Jersey for freezing them out of the private equity dollars. That's why these things are happening. Everybody need to understand this Supreme Court decision is about the money. It is about that access to the money if I can limit that access to education I can limit

that access to the network I can limit that access to the money, but with the access to the money that I live with the access to your power. That's right and it's all connected. We can connect the dots. When we look at what Will's point that he was trying to make that I see is that we have this kind of macro level of understanding of systematic racism

that is out there. And what he is saying is that, hey, on paper, these things don't exist. We are not a racist country because there are laws on paper. But that micro level is what you're talking about when you go for the home loan and you can't get the home loan. And that home loan, once you get that home or you're able or unable to get it, where you live determines the type of education that you have. So we're talking about individuals that may have the mindset

that they're not paying attention to the laws. These are the people who are voting for Trump. These are the Karen's that are going to stop you in your own home at your front lawn. These are the people that aren't going to give you credit at the bank. So education has much to do with housing as housing has to do with education. So if you can't get that loan, if you can't buy that house, and as you said, if you can't have access to money, you're not going to get the house, then you're not going to get the education, and then you're not going to go on to higher education and have the opportunities that you should in order to be in a position to be at an equity firm to get that money. So I'm saying the same thing that you are, just connecting a few more dots in there in terms of how it's all related on this micro level of individual. Remember, the Bakke decision, Candace, was grad school.

They are going after the, what did Stephen Miller already say? Law schools, we gonna sue you if you do anything. They want to go after the black lawyers. That's right. That's right. And you're right. DEI is not just coming, it's already here. Look what's going on in Florida.

This is why, you know, all of the DEI programs, some of them are being eviscerated. Question, what do we need them for? Because DEI and affirmative action, they're close first cousins. Right. So it is coming. Just like you said, it is coming. Recy, when we was talking, oh, you know, why do we have to pay for the sins of the past? And you get to benefit from all of these different things. And they love quoting Dr. King, Recy. But why, Recy, do they never want to quote this M.O.K.? At the same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress, our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant that it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor. But not only did they give the land, they built land-grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm.

Not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farms. Not only that, today many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

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

Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.

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

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. It is not the fault, and they are the very people

telling the black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And this is what we are faced with. And this is the reality. Now, when we come to Washington, in this campaign, we are coming to get our check. Recy, when we start talking, again, the money.

Coretta Scott King said they killed Ma Martin when he started talking about the money. And that's what all of this is. Congressman David Scott, who became, when Democrats controlled the House, became the chair of the House Agriculture Committee. He was told, he was told, he told me the story. That was a previous congressman, a member of the CBC, was told by a white southerner. If there's one thing that we can guarantee, no black person will ever become chair of the house agricultural committee i know somebody watching at home trying to say well i mean i don't understand what's the deal it's because the agricultural department reesey has the second largest budget in the government

behind the pentagon the The Agriculture Department has its own bank that funds billions of projects across this country. They understand. That's why when it comes to that's why Congresswoman Marsha Fudge she wanted to be the Agricultural Secretary

not the HUD Secretary because she understood where the power was. You wasn't going to have two black folks running the two largest federal agencies, the defense and agriculture. And so she settled for HUD. That's the reason she wanted agriculture, because that's where the money is. Right. I mean, it all boils down to the money.

And it's not a matter of them not wanting us to even make gains. They don't want us to have shit, because I'm trying to figure out where my black woman benefit card is. Last I checked as a black woman, we are collectively make 58 cents on the dollar of a white man, three times more likely to die in childbirth. I can keep going on down the damn list of all the fucked up shit that we are, the lot that we're handed to us as black people. We talked about homeownership appraisal bias. That is something I have to give credit to Secretary Fudge and Vice President Kamala Harris, who are trying to champion that appraisal bias. But the reality is that these

folks don't want us to have a goddamn thing. They don't want us to be educated. They don't want us to have housing. And this affirmative action is one of the opening salvos. They are going after fair lending. They're going after every kind of civil rights under the sun. They want to ultimately get rid of the Civil Rights Act. I mean, we've had on the show, Roland, you brought a second person on there, but I remember interviewing the one guy from whatever the black little project that Republicans have, the conservative group. Project 21.

There you go. Their platform was to eradicate all civil rights. So this is what's right around the corner. And to Candace's point, they've already gotten rid of DNI in public institutions in Florida and in Texas. The Republicans are doing exactly what they said they're going to do. But to your point, Roland, you do have to watch out for these white liberals too. And I've been saying that for years, that there's a white supremacy problem on the left as well. The reality is the next steps for us isn't establishing a floor in what is already out there. The next steps for us is self-reliance. We have to get to a point to where the money people, capitalism is not going to save us. I'm

not saying Jay-Z and Beyonce are going to save us. Oprah's going to save us. But we have to get to a point where the people who have the money can invest that money and validate and put infrastructure in our communities and our education. And not just the, what's her name? The Bezos, her ex-wife, her Mackenzie Scott, one of the most influential women in the world now because she threw some dollars around from her ex-husband. We got to start investing because the floor is already gone as far as I'm concerned. So the more that we can start investing in our own institutions and our own organizations and our own infrastructure, the better we're going to be insulated from all of the things that are coming down the pipeline. I'm going to close this out with this here. I need everybody to understand.

This Supreme Court decision is not the final say-so. Remember, Stephen Miller's group went after the black farmers. The money was budgeted. And let me say this again, especially to all you simple Simon punk asses out there who refuse to understand politics. Democrats in the House, Democrats in the Senate, Democratic president passed the bill for billions to go to black and Hispanic farmers. Stephen Miller, that white supremacist, and his followers filed a lawsuit. The money is being upheld because of that lawsuit. Those of you who say voting doesn't matter, if there's no House Democrat control,

no House Democrat Senate control, no Democratic president, bill doesn't get signed. But then you will say to me, well, Roe, but they still ain't got the money because they're being blocked by judges. Who appoints federal judges? The president.

Who approves or rejects federal judges? The Senate. And so when we talk about why elections matter, there are three branches of government. Executive, President, Legislative, House, Senate, and Judicial. There are three. So it's not a situation where I'm saying in order for us to get what we desire, why must you have control of all three? Because if they control one, if the oppressors of black people control one,

they get to block anything from happening. And so for those who, these fools, oh, you shilling, you shilling for the Democrats. How you going to get money for the farmers? How you going to get student loan debt relief? How you gonna get reparations if you don't control the courts? Because you can pass the law. You can have the law signed. But you gotta control the courts.

Voting still matters there as well. You must understand why 2024 is crucial. They fight so hard to keep us from voting because they know our power. Let's show them our power. All of it.

And then let's see how they respond. When we come back. We're going to break down the attack on DEI. Candace mentioned it. Florida, Texas, Georgia, all around the country. Now we're seeing how corporate America is backing away from it as well. And watch out. Because they are coming after corporate America next. You're watching roland martin unfiltered on blackstone network

up next on the frequency with me d barnes the shooting of megan Stallion and the subsequent trial of Tory Lanez. Megan has been treated like the villain. The experience that Megan went through is something that all Black women face when we are affected by violence. This is something that's called Massage Noir. There's a long history of characterizing Black women as inherently bad in order to justify our place in this society. Next on The Frequency with me, Dee Barnes. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Cox. The United States is the most dangerous place for a woman to give birth among all industrialized nations on the planet. Think about that for a second.

That's not all. Black women are three times more likely to die in this country during childbirth than white women. These health care systems are inherently racist. There are a lot of white supremacist ideas and mythologies around black women, black women's bodies, even black people that we experience pain less, right? Activist, organizer, and fearless freedom fighter, Monifa Akinwole-Bandele from Moms Rising joins us and tells us this shocking phenomenon, like so much else, is rooted in unadulterated racism. And that's just one of her fights. Monifa Bandile on the next Black Table

here on the Black Star Network. My name is Lena Charles, and I'm from Alphalusis, 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 watching. Roland Martin on Unfiltered.

Four black executives at media companies in the past month have left or been fired from their DEI jobs. Disney's chief diversity officer, senior vice president, LaTondra Newton, Netflix's first ever head of inclusion, Verna Myers, leaving at the end of September. Warner Brothers' late office DEI executive Karen Horn and Janelle English will be leaving her role as Executive Vice President of Impact and Inclusion of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts, and Sciences. DEI Director Randy Bryant joins us right now. Randy, we have seen a significant retrenchment, if you will, in the past year.

A lot of these jobs came open after the death of George Floyd. I keep reminding people, I kept saying to folk that we should have looked at the death of George Floyd as part of the third Reconstruction. But I reminded people in the first Reconstruction, in the fact that about five, six, seven years, white folks were like, all right, we done enough. So if you go from 1865 to 1876 election and the great compromise of 1877, which ushered in 92 years of Jim Crow, then you begin to have those Supreme Court decisions. Plessy v. Ferguson, you have all the invalidating the Civil Rights Act of 18, was it 1875, Greg? I think that's what it was. When you begin to have all of that, I say, y'all, be weary. These white folks are not going to be down with it.

I said, this has to be a 20, a minimum of a 20-year focus to right the wrongs and deal with economics. Here we are, three and a half years. They're like, yeah, we're good. We're good. We're moving on. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. B 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 i'm clayton english i'm greg glad and this is season two of the war on drugs podcast sir we are back in a big way in a very big way real people real And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way.

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

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers.

But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. Right.

And even when they were doing something or they claimed to be doing something these last three and a half years, what they did was performative, was completely inconsequential. What I will say, and I have worked for a lot of companies for the last 21 years in this field, is that what companies try to do is what makes them look good. It's more of a marketing effort. They want to give some money to the Essence Festival so we feel like, oh, wow, so this company's down because they donated some money. Not that they're doing anything to help the employees that are actually working for them or to ensure that they're bringing in Black people to get jobs. It really is performative. Let's do a Martin Luther King luncheon or, you know, something like that. But they are not trying to make real change. And, you know, I just talked about this recently. We were silly to even think that they would.

You know, I am, of course, an optimist and I want so much for my people and you hope things will change. And I've dedicated my life to this industry, which is why, though, I had to just kind of veer to the right or veer to the left. I just veered off that path. And that's why I call myself a disruptor, because DEI is is is fake. It's phony. When you think about it, this is what I talk about being naive, is that why would white people, the ones who are in charge, if we're talking about 72 percent of management are white men, essentially, why would they change a system that favors them? Why would they change a system that is making them rich in all ways? Why would they change a system that really they designed to keep us behind since the beginning of this country. You know, it's our whole system of being enslaved was based, you know, was to start and justify capitalism.

So they are not going they don't want to make real change. I mean, it really was naive for us to think that they would to be quite candid. And then it's interesting when you talk about liberals. And I saw the segment before. The only difference I say between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives will deny that they have benefited from privilege. Liberals will say, yes, we've benefited some. And so here is something to help not you feel better, but me feel better. And it's going to be more like a program. I cannot tell you how many programs I have seen companies roll out to expose students. And I'm like, they

don't need exposure. They need a freaking job. They need a guarantee of a job like you do on Wall Street for a lot of these white people. They don't want exposure. They know it exists. They've been watching you from the sidelines for years. They need actual job training. They need actual opportunities. They need an actual paycheck. But it makes them feel good to give them exposure.

So what's at play here, and I've said this across the country, and I said it in front of a whole bunch of DEI people, I said most of your jobs are bullshit because you've got no power, you've got no budget. And I've said, and before any of y'all take these jobs, don't just be happy because you're getting probably the biggest check you've ever gotten in your life, and you're the only person that benefits. It has to come with something.

Now I'm about to sit here and channel Greg when I say when it comes to this, we got to keep the foot on their necks. Right. Because again, these companies are never going to do right unless we keep our foot on their neck. They are never. It is the rare white CEO who

actually gives a damn. There are very few Al Newharts of the world who said when he ran Gannett, we are going to be the most diverse media company and if some of y'all don't like it, y'all can leave the company and they did. He tied their

bonuses to diversity. There are very few guys like him. And so the only way this is going to continue is if we put that level of pressure on them and make it clear what MLK said April 3rd, 1968, y'all don't do right by us, we will redistribute the pain. Absolutely. And but the problem is when they hire DEI professionals, they put them in a position that you don't report immediately to the leader of the organization. Because that's telling you right off the bat they want you to have no power, no decision-making, no access to the decision-making. Right? But most DEI professionals don't have a direct line of access.

It tells you right there that you don't matter. Right? you right there that you don't matter, right? So what a DEI professional has to do is risk their jobs, literally, to get the information out that they want people to know. They need to have people like us, people that are watching now, pay attention and say, hey, how many people are on your board? How many black people are on your management team? Stop telling me that you are diverse and you care about DEI because I can look at these stats myself and call them out because they will move only if it affects the bottom line. And the bottom line for them is money. If we are waiting for them to do it because of their good heart, it's not going to happen. Right. I was looking when you were talking when Stan Smith was having that conversation,

and I'm like, if we are dependent upon the kindness of white men to save us, then we should just forget it today. We have to save us, like Sister Recy just said. We must save us and take our power back and pay attention, not just absolutely to voting, but to every corporation and hold them accountable. And when they don't, shout them out. Let everybody know. Make it a trend. Recy, we've had advertising meetings

and we'll be in the meeting and they'll bring the DEI person into the meeting and then they'll bring the head of the foundation. I'll be like, why they here? And I'll literally tell them. and they'll bring the DEI person into the meeting and then they'll bring the head of the foundation. I'll be like, why they here? And I'll literally tell them. I said, I don't want to disrespect y'all, but when y'all meet with Disney,

do y'all bring the DEI person in? Nope. Do you bring the foundation person in when you meet with Comcast? Well, if they ain't in those meetings, why you meet with, oh, oh, so I'm black-owned media, so you got to bring the black people in or they'll find the black. So if it's a white person who's in the DEI job, they'll find the Negro whisperer to actually be in the meeting.

I'm like, no, no, no, no. Where's the CMO? Where's the chief marketing officer? To the ad agency, where's the chief investment officer? Where's the person who's over the team with buying decisions? Don't send your DEI people to me when you do not send them to your Disney meetings. Right. I mean, what DEI has turned into is humoring black people.

It's putting a face in front to convince us that something more impactful is being done than what it really is. Because if there's no money behind it, then I just don't need to look at your little black pretty face. I'm happy that you're there and I'm glad you got a job, but what's in it for the rest of us? The reality is that when we're talking about black consumers, and I noticed this at Essence, I had a good time at Essence chair. I wasn't booked for nothing, but I was still down there enjoying myself. Now what we're shifting to, particularly when it comes to the black consumer is where we're shifting more towards an influencer culture where people are willing to throw five, $10,000 at people who have a bunch of followers and let them have open bar and brunches as opposed to putting money into a

Roland Martin and filter and organizations that are actually reaching the people. They're cutting out people like yourself. They're cutting out the consumer and direct access to the consumer. And they're just handpicking and curating a couple of black people that have a certain aesthetic, that have a certain following, and they're putting money behind that. So this is actually a regression in terms of the amount of investment that's truly going into the black community, that's truly going into black institutions. You've talked about it before. Subcontractors, vendors, organizations, businesses like yourself, those folks are getting cut out for what looks like an investment in the black community through the influencer, through the DE&I position. And even that's going away because what they figured out is they can use these racist moms for liberties and these other bigoted organizations as a cover to say, oh, we can't get too black.

We can't get too gay because then there's going to be a backlash to that. And so all you black motherfuckers got to go. And who's going to check them? Certainly not us. Randy? She's saying it. That's exactly it. Because really, DEI, what it's turned into is to a marketing effort. I mean, 70% of all DEI heads are white people. So already that shows that things aren't as they should be. White people are the heads of DEI.

So they're running a program, and they see it as they should be. White people are the heads of DEI. So they're running a program and they see it as a charitable effort. Let's just show people how we care about them, but actually do nothing. It really is just to make them feel good, right? And that's why they're bringing in the DEI officer along with the charitable person because they want to be a foundation person because that's how they view us. They don't respect our businesses. They don't see us and respect us or their efforts as a business consideration. They just see it as let's just give something to them and they'll be quiet. Let's look as if we. And one of the things that they do, Candace, especially on the media side, they don't want to give us

advertising money. They make black media do events. They make us do parties. They make us do award shows. Guess what? That's labor intensive. Yeah. Why don't media companies, they get advertising, well, they simply press a button. Folk need to understand the difference. Go right ahead, Candace. Very labor intensive. And you know what I've been seeing over the years from people who I know who work in DEI, whether it's nonprofit, whether it's a public university, is that DEI has simply become an intellectual talking point.

That number one, they use it in order to get money from the states or grants that require them to have somebody in a DEI position. Number two, you already mentioned this, Roland, the DEI programs, they're not funded enough so that you get to a point where you need to do something and hire five people in order to carry out DEI efforts, and there's no money there. And number three, there's just no follow-up. And that's where we are right now in terms of the follow-up phase and trying to figure out you committed these monies or you hired this person for this position at Walt Disney or Netflix, and now they're gone. There's no accountability in terms of monitoring whether these DEI positions stay in place. And then what is the work output from the DEI person that's been put in place?

Where are the numbers? What's changed? In fact, nothing probably has changed because they've gotten rid of those people, finding that they're not needed. Again, an intellectual talking point. And as you said, when they look at Black people, when they look at advertising and we look at these execs that were removed or restructured at Netflix, for example, we have to understand that, as you said, they look at Black people in a different way. We do events, Essence Fest, over 100,000 people. Target was there. McDonald was there. Everybody was there. But that was a big undertaking, like you said. It's not necessary for us to have an event just to bring out people, to have a good time in New Orleans, in order to

get advertising out to the people. We should be treated just like everyone else. And why is that not the case? The same thing that we were talking about earlier, that micro-racism system that's in place where individuals are making decisions about you and me and seeing us as something totally different than the white boys that are out there. Randy? Yeah, and I was going to say, you know, you make really good points. Candace makes really good points. The average DEI professional stays only two years. And the reason why these people leave is that they don't

have any power. They're in there, a lot of them really caring, wanting to make a change. And then they get in there and they realize that they are just merely a figurehead that has no power whatsoever to change anything and at best may be able to get some money to go to a festival, like you say. And so it's very frustrating to these people and they get burnt out. They get completely frustrated because they realize the truth of what's happening. And that DEI is just for show. We see by how quickly that as soon as that affirmative action verdict came out, we're seeing, I mean, they didn't wait a day. It literally was the next day that we see that powerful professionals in the DEI field are being let go, are suddenly leaving, right? And that's

because they say, oh, we don't have to pretend anymore. We don't have to pretend that we care at all anymore. And the second thing I wanted to hit on is the sham. I think one of the biggest shams in corporate America is that you have marginalized groups, right, that are not being paid the same, are not moving up, don't have the same, you know, escalation opportunities, running your DEI efforts in addition to their jobs, their real jobs. They're not getting paid for it. So you have the people who are already underserved, underprivileged, underrepresented, underrecognized, underpaid, taking on a second job to try to get some sort of change at their organization. And I would say that you see that across the board.

So if you don't see, if no one can recognize that as a remnant of white supremacy and that, you know, we got to pull our own selves up, even at your company, just to get some food, and don't be afraid for it. I mean, I'm telling you, zero dollars. And we do it. We're so desperate, understandably so, to get treated fair that these underrepresented, marginalized groups

are working for free to say please see us. And then what's happening is it's a whole bunch of black folks throwing events at Martha's Vineyard in the next month for a small, finite number of black people.

And it's sort of like, well, I got a little budget. Let me do an event. And I'm sitting there going, masses ain't benefiting from that. I'm just stating the fact, Greg. It's not. We ain't even talking

2,500 black people. No. Greg, go ahead. No. In fact, Randall Robinson called it Vernon Jordan disease. You have critiqued this many times, Roma.

Two, three Negroes get on a corporate board, get $3, $4 from Coca-Cola or Delta Airlines, and we made it. critiqued this many times, Roland. Two, three Negroes get on a corporate board, get three, four dollars from Coca-Cola or Delta Airlines, and we made it. Randall Robinson called it Vernon Jordan disease. I'll never, yeah, three years ago,

when these white boys thought we were going to tear up the whole damn world, they threw through jobs in the street to try to stop it, along with the statues and, you know, some of the apologies. And once they realized that those masses that you're talking about weren't going to tear up the street, they just took it back. Listening to you, Randy, and listening to this conversation again, I'm glad that you've

reframed yourself as what you've always been, a disruptor. You know, I'll never forget the day in my hip-hop class when, this is when Nick Cannon was still in school. He was in that class actually when Nick would come. I'd say, man, you talk to them. I'm going to sit here and listen. And he walked us through how the A&R components of the recording industry disappeared. Because once these white boys figured

out, all they got to do is sit back and see what's trending in social media, who's uploading what. The masses are the A&R. We don't need y'all ass no more. And those kids were looking like, what the hell? And then we got into a conversation about what you just said, those internships. What they're doing is getting the free labor that you were recently talking about. And now they know what the trend is and what the hell.

We ain't got to hire none of you Negroes. And what are we doing on the other end? Lil Nas X starts out as a barb. He gets on social media of it. And then they flip it. Then he goes with the country boy. And then you got a bunch of three-year-olds singing, I'm going to take my horse down Old Town Road. And ain't nobody get paid. The bottom line that we're talking about is when you are the descendant of a slave.

I'm going to talk about these Adas Negroes for a minute. When you're the descendant of a slave looking for your master to free you, to repair you, what you end up with is getting hoed out for the rest of your existence. Now, I want to talk about, you say those four, what were those four positions that are being phased out? Disney, Netflix, Warner Brothers and the Academy, what are they having? 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. I'm Clayton English.

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

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

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

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

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. They are now curating, whether it be reality shows, whether it be people uploading videos, they don't need y'all to get that market. And unlike when Dr. King and them were there, we had black institutions that could actually exercise some power, like the Black Press. When Time Magazine, everybody else was excoriating him on his position on Vietnam, and the Amsterdam News

and the Chicago Defender came out to support him, we now are trying to get jobs at those white places, and scared that if we say something, they'll get rid of us. We don't have an institutional base. Let me end with this. Disney, one of those four. Look for this on Disney+.

This year it's projected. And by the way, I think there's still a writer's strike, right? Organized labor plays a role in this. That's a story for another day. But Disney+, is going to have a series that is debuting this year. It's supposed to be slated for this year. An animated series called Iwaju. Iwaju means future in Yoruba. It is a partnership between

Disney and this, I think Kigali is the name of it, which is a Pan-African animated studio out of Nigeria with African people from different places in Africa. This is the first time in the history of Disney that they're going to partner with an outside studio. Nollywood, like Bollywood, about to eat the lunch of these white boys. That's why you see all these non-white people in these Disney things. They're going to the global market. That's where you see Shang-Chi. That's what, don't get me started on all these movies. We said, where are they coming from? Spider-Man. And if you go see that Spider-Man in the multiverse, the latest one, they got the Afro-Latinos, they got the Indian

Spider-Man. I'm talking about the Indian subcontinent. Why? Because Disney knows they're going global. But guess what? This is what that African studio said. If you want to dance with us, bro, we got Nollywood. You're going to dance, we're going to have a partnership, and you're not going to own our intellectual property. This is the problem when you're the descendant

of a slave. When you cut yourself off from the world. When you think a job with your master is going to save you. You have now basically said to them, do whatever the hell you want. Our institutions are down. We can't redistribute no pain. And my dream is to sit sipping a little champagne on the island while we have a film festival of movies that we made with you. And somebody comes and says, this is our progress. When you cut yourself off from solidarity politics, there's no dead end.

And the masses don't care because they're trying to get the job you're trying to get, too. And three years ago, when they thought we were going to come together and tear up the street, they threw a few jobs at us. Them jobs are symbolic of a deeper problem. Final comment, Randy. Now you got me riled up. You know, I was just thinking about Pharrell and the work he just did for Louis Vuitton and how everyone was like, oh, this is so fantastic.

He collaborated. I said, no, Pharrell brought his intellectual property. He gave the Louis Vuitton house credibility in the black community because we buy brand and he's gone. There was not one black designer on that whole thing. There's not one black board winner. And the owner of Louis Vuitton or not is worth two hundred and twelve billion dollars. Right. And so I don't think that we understand that just because we have one Negro that looks like he escaped or he's working right there, it's the same thing.

And we need to realize that. Randy Bryant, DEI Disruptor. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Appreciate you having me. Folks, coming up next, we'll talk with the son of a legendary political figure in Atlanta who passed away yesterday, a documentary, is out documenting his influence on politics in Atlanta as well as in the South. That is next, right here on Roll the Button Unfiltered

on the Blackstar 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 three, only on the Black Star Network. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. White people are losing their damn lives. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University

calls white rage as a backlash. This is the 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. We 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.

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Zill is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Marvin Arrington, Sr., the retired Fulton County Superior Court judge and former member of the City Council of Atlanta, who's the president, died peacefully in his sleep Wednesday morning. Arrington Sr. graduated from Emory University Law School in 1967 and has been a political fixture in Atlanta since then. In 1969, he was elected to the Atlanta Board of Aldermen, now called the Atlanta City Council, and became president in 1980. In 2002, Governor Roy Barnes appointed him to be Fulton County Superior Court Judge.

He retired in 2012. A documentary was released in February showcasing the life of Arrington Sr. His son, Marvin Arrington Jr., serves as District 5 Commissioner of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. He joins us right now. Marvin Jr., our condolences certainly to you and your family for the loss of your father. Quite a fulfilling life and someone who was integral in terms you know, integrating Emory Law School, saving the Atlanta Zoo and helping to bring Muhammad Ali back to the ring. Talk about that part right there. Folks may not be aware of the role that he and Black Atlanta played in reviving the career of Muhammad Ali. Well, yes, he and State Senator Leroy Johnson. Leroy Johnson was the one that was primarily

responsible, but he had been put on the Utilities Committee. My dad, Marvin Arrington Sr., by then Mayor Sam Masell, and it was, you know, supposed to be, you know, it was not the best committee to be on. However, it turned out it was the only committee on council that did not need a full council vote. So the way he was able to get Muhammad Ali ring and they were able to issue the permit was that he got his committee to pass it and the utilities committee. And that is how Muhammad Ali got back in the ring. When we talk about present day Atlanta, obviously a lot of the attention is focused on Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson. But he needed the help of many folks to get a lot of that work done, including your father. Yes, absolutely.

You know, we all love Maynard, and he was Uncle Maynard to me in 19. But my dad, Marvin Arrington, was elected in 68, four years prior to Maynard being elected as mayor. And they and other city council members at the time worked well together. My dad served as Maynard's floor leader leading up to the time that he ran for city council in 1980. But so they were responsible. And the thing is, you know, he served as city council president under Maynard, under Andy, under Maynard again, and then four years under Bill Campbell. So he was kind of the glue that helped keep the city together despite the transitioning mayors. And, of course, he ran unsuccessfully for mayor against Bill Campbell, who was later elected.

But panelists, questions. Greg Carr, you first. Thank you, Roland. And again, condolences. Condolences to you, brother. I was just moving some books, and I tell you, the ancestors are insane. This was the day before yesterday, and I picked up my copy of Making My Mark, of course, your father's memoir. And, you know, I guess my question is, how are the politicians of his generation and now the politicians of yours different?

And I want to just maybe as a point of entry ask that question in the context. Of course, a lot of people know he went to Clark, Clark Atlanta University now. And there may be some folk watching who, of course, he's talked about at Emory, one of those first black law students. But we know he spent, you know, as you know, he spent his first year at Howard Law School. And he tell he tell people I hadn't really intended on going to Emory, but I'm over there and the dean calls my name and I become a pioneer. How important was the difference between politicians of his generation, Sweet Auburn, Big Bethel, black institutions and politicians of this generation, maybe in terms of their commitment to the community and how and how community shapes their politics? Do you have any thoughts about that? And again, condolences, brother, on your father's transition. No, thank you. Thank you. Well, you know, I think the difference is, you know, obviously at that time, there were really only, there was only one black or minority

running for those seats, right? and so then the entire community was able to rally and support behind that one person right that's how my dad got in that's how Maynard got in uh and so now today we're more splintered right we have more people running everyone's running for the same position uh and frankly you know we're worried in Atlanta that they're going to be you know too many of us in the mayor's race and that we might lose the mayorship. Right. So we've got to, you know, we've got to stay vigilant. But I think at the end of the day, it's all about being goal driven. Right. Having a purpose and working towards that purpose consistently on a day-to-day basis.

Candace? Your father and his very successful law firm. What do you recall as some of the cases that kind of resonate with you or maybe resonated with him just along his career that he really felt empowered by and passionate about in general? So, you know, I guess one of the first cases I would have to speak on is the Arthur Langford case. He and his partners represented then Arthur Langford and were successful in getting him off. He was the United States versus Arthur Lankford. And his daughter and family have gone on and been, you know, star wars of the Atlanta community.

His daughter was married to Mayor Kasim Reed. And so our families have been linked together. I think that's a case that Andrew young, mayor, ambassador Andrew young talks about in a documentary where Michael Jackson had been detained in a jewelry store in Buckhead and they called Andy and Andy called my dad and they were able to resolve it and bring it to closure without, you know, putting a bad scar on the city. Wow. Racy. My condolences and the loss of your dad. My question is about local politics and just the

importance of getting started somewhere. I know a lot of people are kind of disillusioned and people don't feel like just voting is enough. So for people who are interested in maybe taking that first step or the importance of taking that first step with your father being an alderman, can you talk a little bit about that? 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

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Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Dr Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

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

That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. It's so important. You know, he ran in 68 after the November 68, after the death of Dr. King in April 68. And so it was kind of like the segment you guys were talking about earlier, all of the action around the country. Everyone was looking for ways to get involved and be active. And so it's so important that people go and get involved. And obviously, we're in a younger age.

A lot of these state representative positions are actually designed for younger people. And so we've got to do a much better job of getting people involved, you know. and I think a lot of this generation is waiting for the old generation to turn it over, turn the reins over to them. And I think, you know, it's incumbent upon us as the next generation to go grab the reins, right? But do it in a respectful and tactful way, but to grab those reins and not just wait, sit by and wait idly for the reins to be passed. Well, Marvin Arrington, Jr., we appreciate it. Where can people actually see this documentary? So the documentary is on Apple TV, Tubi, YouTube, Google, iTunes and Apple TV. So it's virtually streaming everywhere.

Certainly invite people to see it. We could not tell the story of Marvin Arrington without telling the greater story of Atlanta. And he's just one of the prominent figures, one of the forefathers, one of the founders of the new Atlanta. And the name of the forefathers, one of the founders of the new Atlanta. And the name of the documentary? The name of the documentary is Bowlegs, Marvin Arrington Sr. and Atlanta Story. Why is it called Bowlegs? His nickname is Bowlegs. He has been Bowlegs ever since he was young.

And, you know, in fact, it's even been shortened down the boat. You know you got a good nickname when your nickname has a nickname. Well, absolutely. Marvin, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much, Roland. Folks, that is it for us. Let me thank Candace, Reesey, and Greg for joining us on today's panel.

We went a little long, but we had a whole lot to say about a whole lot of stuff, as we always say. So, again, Greg, thanks a lot. Recy, thanks a lot. Candace, thanks a lot. Thank all of you for watching as well. If you're on the YouTube channel, y'all, hit the Like button. I keep telling y'all, when you hit the Like button, it has a dramatic impact on the algorithm, y'all. That's critically important because YouTube is the largest source of our

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Cash app, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, RMartin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. And then we also would love for you to get a copy of my book, White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds. Look, you buy that book, that money goes right back into the show. And so we would greatly appreciate you doing that. Again, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Ben Bella Books, Bookshop, Chapters, Books A Million.

You buy that Target, you can also download a copy on Audible. That's it. I'll see you all tomorrow. Y'all have a great one. Holla! Folks, Black Star Network is here. Hold no punches! real uh 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

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

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves.

A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.