#RolandMartinUnfiltered - NAACP Blocks state control in MS, GA oversight to remove prosecutors, Exclusive with Gina Belafonte

Episode Date: May 6, 2023

5.5.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: NAACP Blocks state control in MS, GA oversight to remove prosecutors, Exclusive with Gina Belafonte The NAACP has won a significant victory against the Mississippi state government, temporarily restoring Jackson residents' voting power and voice in how justice is administered in the city. We will speak with the Executive Director of The Mississippi ACLU to discuss how this move helps hold the Mississippi state GOP accountable for their blatant attack against the predominantly black capital city. Controversy is brewing in Georgia as Republican Governor Brian Kemp signs a bill granting an oversight commission the power to remove local prosecutors and district attorneys from their positions. We will give you all the details in this developing story. New allegations have surfaced in the Clarence Thomas ethics scandal involving his wife, Ginni Thomas' payments. These revelations have led to calls for reform in the Supreme Court, and we'll be showing you a video that perfectly sums up why Thomas protects his wife even at the cost of his integrity and possibly his job. Also, the April 2023 United States job numbers have been released. We'll discuss how they have impacted black Americans with Professor Jane Smith, an expert in economics and race at the University of Massachusetts. This report is crucial in understanding the state of the economy and the job market. And finally, we'll be celebrating the life of icon Harry Belafonte with an exclusive interview with his daughter Gina as she discusses the impact of her father for the first time since he died. And Phillip Agnew, Co-Director of Black Men Build, will also share his memories of the legendary performer and activist. Stay tuned for these stories and more on tonight's news. Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox  http://www.blackstarnetwork.com The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.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. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face.

And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, know it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens.

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Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today is Friday, May 5th, 2023. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has won a significant victory against the Mississippi State Government temporarily restoring Jackson residents' voting power and voice in how justice is administered in the city. We'll talk with the executive director of the Mississippi ACLU to discuss how this legal decision helps hold the Mississippi State GOP accountable for their blatant attack

against the predominantly black capital city. Controversy is brewing in Georgia as Republican Governor Brian Kemp signs a bill granting an oversight commission the power to remove local prosecutors and DAs from their positions. We'll break it all down. New allegations have surfaced in the Clarence Thomas ethics scandal involving his wife, Jenny Thomas, and thousands of dollars of payments. These revelations have led to calls for massive reform, massive ethics reform at the Supreme Court. Also, folks, the April 2023 job numbers have been released. Black unemployment goes down to a record low. Also, we'll be celebrating the life of icon Harry Belafonte by talking in exclusive interview with one of his daughters, Gina Belafonte,

as she talks about the impact of her father for the first time since he passed away. It is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's Roland. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's Roland Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah

It's Roland Martin Yeah, yeah Rolling with Roland now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know He's rolling, Martez Martez A temporary victory in Jackson, Mississippi

as a Hines County judge halts the implementation of a section of a controversial bill that would expand law enforcement in the capital city. Chancery Judge Dwayne Thomas issued a temporary restraining order on House Bill 1020. The bill would expand the jurisdiction of a state-run capital police in Jackson and create a temporary court within a capital complex improvement district covering a portion of the city. That area is where most whites live in Jackson.

Yep, the restraining order will be in place until Wednesday's motion hearing. That motion was won by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund on yesterday. I attended their Equal Justice Awards dinner last night, and Janae Nelson announced that decision at the dinner. Joining us now is Jarvis Dorch, the Executive Director of the Mississippi ACLU. Jarvis, glad to have you here. Again, for folks who don't understand, Republicans in Mississippi, like we are seeing Republicans in Texas, in Florida, in Georgia, and numerous other states are using their legislative power, meaning controlling the state legislature, to determine what is happening on the local level. Exactly. I mean, when this bill came out, it was clearly an attempt by certain people in the city to take over power of their neighborhoods, their part of the city.

This bill was expansive and covered the most affluent, most white area of the city. These are people that are used to having political power over what happens in the city of Jackson. They don't think they have that power anymore. So they went to the state legislature to get, you know, their own police force, their own judicial system. And even some of these bills that passed this year gave them their own funding for infrastructure. And again, what I'm trying to get people to understand is that, and we broke the numbers down, this area, this Capitol complex, it's literally where nearly all of the white residents in Jackson lives. And I have yet to hear, and maybe you can share with us, I've actually yet to hear a rationale as to why this is needed.

Well, I mean, the rationale they give is crime. And you can cover just about anything by screaming about crime. And we have had an uptick, especially in murders in Jackson. But hold on. I had a state official on about that last week. And I get that. But here's the question that no one seems to answer. Has there been an uptick in this area or all of Jackson?

Because this doesn't cover all of Jackson. It only covers this Capitol complex. So have they shown any data of the crime in this Capitol complex? No, data isn't something they do in Mississippi legislature. So, no, they have not shown it. And you're right. The Capitol complex started off as an area around downtown, around the Capitol building, state office buildings. They've expanded it towards Northeast Jackson, which is the more affluent, more white part of the city. And it's definitely not an area where

we have seen an uptick in crime. And we haven't seen resources put into those areas. Actually, what we've seen with the Capitol Police expanding, we've seen police officers leave Jackson Police Department and go to Capitol Police because they get paid more. So, you know, it's not really even if your idea is to add more police to all the streets. You're not doing that. You're just shifting them down to another place. And look, if they actually want to impact that, how about this, Republicans? Give more money to the city of Jackson for law enforcement. Yeah, I mean, and specify it should be used for salaries. Exactly. I mean, every time the city of Jackson has

asked for funding or assistance, the state has said, we're not going to do it and if we do do it, we're going to do it in a way where we have control over it. You actually have people leading this bill saying, well, we don't give money to police departments. A couple weeks later, they were giving money to the local police departments. Millions

of dollars to build police stations in Pasagula, Mississippi, and other parts of the state. And these are people that were on the floor saying, well, we never do that as an excuse for doing it this way. But we've seen that with the city of Jackson for decades now, where the legislature is like, we're not going to assist you unless we get to control how the money is spent and that money is being spent in the most inefficient way. It would be much cheaper for the state to say we're going to help the city hire more police officers, be able to increase their infrastructure, improve the pay in the city. Those things would be much cheaper than creating something, you know, from scratch. So the hearing is taking place on Wednesday.

What and so, first of all, who the LDF was involved in this. So who actually will be leading the legal battle to stop this from happening? So we're a group of coalition of organizations, the MacArthur Justice Center, which is a justice center at Ole Miss Law School, ACLU Mississippi, the Mississippi Center for Justice, and LDF are all on board with this lawsuit, along with some citizens that live in Jackson that are serving as plaintiffs. And we're going to see next week an attempt to get more permanent injunction on this bill to stop these new courts from going into effect. All right, then. We certainly appreciate you joining us, Jarvis, to assist with breaking down this story. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

All right, folks. I've got to go to break. We come back. We're going to talk about plus what's happening in Georgia, where, again, Republicans are using their power in the legislature to dictate what's happening on the ground. Keep telling y'all what's happening. This is power. I keep telling you how they're using power. First, if you're watching on YouTube, hit that like button, folks.

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Lose Their Minds. We'll be right back. White fear, how the brown of America is making white folks lose their minds. We'll be right back. Up next on The Frequency with me, Dee Barnes, our special guest, Alicia Garza, one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement. We're going to discuss her new book, The Purpose of Power, how we come together when we fall apart. We live in a world where we have to navigate. You know, when we say something, people look at us funny.

But when a man says the same thing less skillfully than we did, right? Right. Everybody flocks towards what they said, even though it was your idea. Right here on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. Next, on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. We look at one of the most influential and prominent Black Americans of the 20th century. His work literally changed the world.

Among other things, he played a major role in creating the United Nations. He was the first African-American and first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And yet today, he is hardly a household name. We're talking, of course, about Ralph J. Bunch. A new book refers to him as the absolutely indispensable man. His lifelong interest and passion in racial justice, specifically in the

form of colonialism. And he saw his work as an activist, an advocate for the Black community here in the United States, as just the other side of the coin of his work trying to roll back European empire in Africa. Author Cal Rastiala will join us to share his incredible story. That's on the next Black Table, here on the Black Star Network. Black TV does matter, dang it! Hey, what's up, y'all?

It's your boy Jacob Lattimore, and you're now watching Roland Martin right now. Yee! Să ne urmăm în următoarea mea rețetă. In Georgia, Republican Governor Brian Kemp signs a bill creating an oversight commission with the power to remove local prosecutors and district attorneys from their jobs. Kemp says the measure would create an oversight mechanism to ensure accountability in upholding constitution and statutory duties. The commission will consist of eight members, five will be responsible for investigating any alleged conduct

constituting grounds for discipline. The other three will be for an adjudicating arm that issues out the punishment. Critics say this timing is really suspicious, especially with Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis seriously weighing charges

in connection with former President Donald Trump's actions in Georgia after the 2020 election. Democrats are concerned the commissioners will misuse their authority to punish or remove local prosecutors unnecessarily. Let's go to my panel

who joins us today. Matt Manning, Civil Rights Attorney, joining us from Corpus Christi, Texas. We have, of course, Michael Imhotep, host of the African History Network show. Of course, he is joining us from Detroit. And Candace Kelly, she joins us right now, legal analyst from New Jersey. Glad to have all three of you here. So let's get right into this here. So when you look at Jackson, what's happening in Mississippi, you look at Georgia, you look at Governor Ronis Hedges in Florida

going after prosecutors he doesn't like. Candace, this is absolutely Republicans using their power to silence progressives, using their power to exert control over black elected officials, the black population. It is an absolute abuse of authority by the GOP in numerous places around this country, Georgia, Texas, Florida, Mississippi, you name it. Rowan, you're absolutely right. And in fact, we have a violation of power and authority from people who've already spoken. In other words, we have people who've already voted the GAs into office. We have people who've already voted for a certain system in Jackson not to be separated and have their equal rights violations, equal rights be violated. So here you have people who have already voted and heard their voices heard, and those voices are being taken away,

which is why the NAACP is filing that lawsuit in Jackson. And one thing that we have to remember about the power that is being exerted by the Republicans in Georgia is that they're doing this, as you said, in preparation for the charges that are coming down on Donald Trump. This is something that the DEA has been preparing for for years. And she is not just preparing for these phone calls. She's preparing for the fake electors. She has been doing this for years. She has trumped up her security.

She is death threat. She is all over white supremacist websites. This is someone who is going for the gusto. They know she is coming, and they're using the power and actually legal power so far, because it has not been protested. They're trying to go through a route that they know Trump has already laid down. He did this already in terms of voting in and making sure that the federal courts were built up with everyone who is a Republican. He's doing the same thing, and so are his political allies, by saying we're going to use the system and the power that we have to work in our favor.

But we know that that DA in Georgia is not going anywhere. And that is what they most fear down there in Georgia. Matt, the point that Candace makes is a crucial one. These are democratically elected people. The voters decided who they want to represent them based upon what they said as they were running. And so here you have Republicans who are saying, ah, damn that. We don't care what the voters decided. We are going to be the judge and jury to determine whether they're doing their job. You are so spot on, Roland.

And what's especially interesting with this timing is last week, I literally got appointed to represent our local DA in a removal lawsuit where they're lobbying the same kinds of accusations against him. And I used to manage that office under him, and I was appointed by my local county to defend the lawsuit to remove him from office. And politically, that exact conversation is happening here in Corpus Christi as it is across the country. This is a political attack on him, and it's a political attack on anyone who's been duly elected, especially multiple times.

The DA here, Kim Gardner in St. Louis, across the country, these people have won multiple times and in landslides. And irrespective of that, you see Republicans directly attacking those offices, and they're doing so with the dog whistles that they know will be effective. Crime, failure to do their duties, all of those things. And what's especially problematic about that is, at least in Texas and presumably everywhere else, these offices have great latitude, great discretion to do their jobs. Their job is to seek justice, not convictions. So the idea that somebody would be removed because somebody Monday morning quarterbacking, you know, at the state house

thinks that they're not getting enough convictions or are too lenient is not how the system works. And I think Candace hit the nail on the head with all of her comments. But one thing I would add to that is that I think that we're really in a constitutional crisis because what you see is a separation of powers issue where the legislatures across the country are deciding that duly elected public officials should not be able to do their job in a way that they disagree, irrespective of if it's within the bounds of the law and the discretion that they're given. So this is a huge issue. And this is a testament to what we talk about on this show every week, the idea that the Republicans are playing chess, not checkers, and they're looking at every way to exert power, particularly in the local offices where that has the greatest meaningful effect on people's lives.

What happens at the school board affects your child's curriculum. What happens with your D.A. affects, you know, the policies and whether those policies are rooted towards justice and rehabilitation or rooted towards deterrence and retribution. All of these things on the local level are very important. And that's why the Republicans have a full on onslaught across the country against duly elected people using the dog whistles and the fake rhetoric that we see, we know is not true, right? Because the reality is the law gives them this discretion. But if you know your base is not listening to that and your base is energized by the anger, then it's easy to foment that kind of support that we're seeing in these state houses in Texas and Mississippi, Florida, and so on.

Well, Michael, I'll expand this. Matt brought it up in terms of how Republicans are targeting Kim Gardner, the circuit attorney there in St. Louis. They also are trying to take over the St. Louis Police Department. No different than then the governor controlling the Kansas City Police Department. For all of these people who love talking about Big Brother getting rid of big government and local control. It's amazing how they want to meddle in local affairs of locally elected individuals. Yes, Roland, but it's local affairs when it comes to largely African-American elected officials, when it comes to African-American, Iran, and police departments. If we look at—I think it's important to note that both of these states are in the South.

Both are former Confederate states also. Okay, I think it's important to note that Mississippi and Georgia. With Mississippi, when I first heard this story in Mississippi, when the story came out April 23rd in Mississippi Today, reported on it. And I said, oh, I said, OK, Governor Tate Reeves, it looks like they are doing this so they can have more control over police and African-Americans. But as I got deeper into the story, the Capitol Complex Improvement District is largely the white, more fluent area of Jackson, Mississippi. No, no, no, no, no, not largely. Nearly all whites in Jackson live in the complex.

Yeah. So what this sounds like is the white governor, Tate Reeves, through the state legislature, this passed the House and the state House and Senate, they're taking power away from Jackson, Mississippi, led by Chokwe Lumumba, an African-American man. And the state government is going to have more control over, it sounds like, protecting white people in Jackson, Mississippi. When you look at Georgia, Brian Kemp, and I have to take it here, I told African Americans in Georgia back in 2018 when Stacey Abrams was running that Stacey Abrams' policies

were better for African Americans. So many of them said, oh, Stacey Abrams doesn't have a black agenda. I said, Brian Kemp has a black agenda. He has an anti-black agenda, okay? And an anti-black agenda is worse than, quote, unquote, not having a black agenda. He has an anti-black agenda. OK. And the anti-black agenda is worse than, quote unquote, not having a black agenda. But you look at this here. This it appears that this is designed to take away power for someone like Fannie Lewis, who is going to prosecute Donald Trump. Well, again, again, what we're looking at here is very simple. And that is Republicans not liking any policy or a leader that they don't like. What this is about is them saying to the voters, the hell with who you elected. We don't care who you chose. We are going to determine how they do their job. When the folks in Texas want to control, again, to order a new election, you pass a law that only applies to one of the 254 counties in all of Texas. One. Harris County. Again, that's targeting democratically elected folk

who happen to be largely Democrats in Texas. That's how they're using their power. And so I'm going to say it again. A lot of y'all can, a lot of y'all and some of the people who y'all know, some of your family members and friends, y'all can listen to these yahoos, these so-called new black media people, folks who don't know jack about politics. Y'all can listen to them talk all day. Y'all can listen to them talk about not voting. Y'all can listen to them try to call

somebody a shield, whatever you want to call them. What the Republican, listen to me very clearly, because those yahoos are not going to tell you what I'm about to tell you. The Republican Party is absolutely focused on limiting and eliminating black voices. Fundamentally clear what they are trying to do. When you see the attack on Soros funded DAs, they do not want to see the sister in Florida who we had on the other day. They did. They did not want to see the sister in Florida who we had on the other day. They did not want to see Marilyn Mosby. They don't want to see Alvin Bragg. They don't want

to see Fannie Willis. They can't stand the white guy Larry Krasner in Philadelphia. They don't like any, they hate Kim Gardner. They don't like anybody. They hate the white progressive DA in los angeles they led what i'm trying to get y'all to understand is if you sit in your ass on the sidelines

but you're talking about how you want certain policies how you gonna get them how are you going to get the policies you claim you want if the very folk who are put in office to give you the policies you want are stopped? When you have Aramis Ayala, elected state prosecutor in Florida, no, I am not going to prosecute death penalty cases. Matt knows this. Any lawyer knows.. Matt knows this. Any lawyer knows. Candace knows this. The district attorney has the prerogative to determine what direction they're going to go in. This Brian Kemp law, the DA, let me be real clear.

Everybody listening and watching. The district attorney does not have to pursue the death penalty in cases. They have an option. They don't have to pursue. That's why you have first degree murder, second degree murder, third degree murder, manslaughter one, manslaughter two. But you have different variations of murder. It's their judgment. Republicans are saying is we don't like your judgment.

We are going to judge and decide what you should do. So therefore, if the people work their butts off to go to the polls, to put Fannie Willis in, to put Kim Fox in, oh, we're going to remove them. And we don't really care what you think. We're going to remove them. DeSantis removed a white prosecutor in Florida. Andrew, was it Andrew Weber? I forgot his last name. I think so. He's going after the

sister, Monique. Y'all, this is real. And so when you sit out the gubernatorial race that's how the Ron DeSantis's win

when you sit out the gubernatorial race in Georgia that's how Brian Kemp wins when 75% of young voters 18 to 30 in Texas don't vote

that's how Greg Abbott gets re-elected. And so if you're sitting here now going, well, this is a damn shame. What did you do about it? What did you do about the state Supreme Court in North Carolina?

Folks, we're laying these things out to you because you need to understand the game plan that they are executing is completely focused on limiting and eliminating black representation unless you are a black Republican. Y'all better recognize, because they're not stopping. They're going full steam ahead. And we had better respond accordingly.

You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered 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 minds there's an angry pro-trump mob storm to the u.s capital 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. 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 Whitefield. 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.

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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 Dr 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. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

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

It makes it real Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 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. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown.

Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late.

And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens.

Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not. From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives. And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapy. Hi, I'm B.B. Winans. Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Să ne urmăm în următoarea mea rețetă. All right, folks, the black unemployment rate in America is now a record low.

April job numbers came out today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and it shows that the black unemployment rate is now 4.7%. It was 5.0% in March. Now, remember when that black conservative was on the other day, Stacey, what's her name? And she lied about, oh, how great the economy was for black people under Donald Trump and caught in a record low? Stacey, this is what a record low looks like. So you were lying then, and you're still lying. This is the first time in U.S. history that the black unemployment rate has fallen below 5%. While the overall joblessness rate for black people failed three-tenths of a percentage point. The unemployment rate for black men dropped along with the unemployment

rate for black teens. But for black women, the unemployment rate grew slightly following a March jobs report in which they also reached a historic jobless low. The overall U.S. unemployment rate at its lowest point in 50 years at

3.4%. Dr. Patrick Mason, author of The Economics of Structural Racism, Tratification, Economics, and U.S. Labor Markets, and a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, joins us right now. All right, Patrick, glad to have you here. So when we look at these numbers, when the Larry Summers of the world was like, oh, we got to lower inflation, which means we got to

cause unemployment to go up, which is still stupid to me. And the people are yelling, oh, how awful the economy is. Just explain to me, if the economy is so awful, how do we keep setting unemployment records? Well, the economy is not as awful as people like Summers might want to make it. I mean, he's looking solely at inflation, and that's all he's worried about. I am much more worried about whether or not African Americans have jobs. I mean, the best way to keep people out of poverty is to make sure that they have a job. The best way to make sure that people can pay their mortgage is to make sure they have a job. The best way to make sure that they can keep their children in college is to make sure they have jobs. Health insurance is tied to a job.

So I am ecstatic to see these low employment numbers. And my hope is that the Fed will not keep pushing interest rates up so much till it choke off the jobs. I mean, why choke off the best economy we've seen in a long time? I mean, yeah, that's why I'm just sitting here. I just sort of laugh when I see these people run around and talk about, oh, my God, the economy is just so awful, and things were just so amazing for black people under Donald Trump. No, hardly. Actually, things have begun to improve. And

the good news about these unemployment rate numbers is that they are true reflections of the level of joblessness. Another number that I like to look at is the employment to population ratio, which is just the probability that a person has a job. That number is now higher for African Americans than it was in March of 2020 when the pandemic shutdown struck. So it was about 57.8%. Then the employment population ratio is about 60% now. So the probability of having a job is higher.

Sometimes the unemployment number will go down just because people will stop looking. But that's not what's happening in this case. The unemployment number is going down because people are getting jobs. And I think it's a fantastic thing when people are getting jobs. And I think it's a fantastic thing when people are getting jobs. And it puts to lie another myth that's often heard about African Americans is, we don't wanna work.

Well, we work when there are jobs available and people hire us. And right now, you're seeing the unemployment numbers are low. That means that people who might not otherwise have jobs, they're working and improving things for their families.

Well, and again, this is just what this is just what just befuddles me when we see, again, how the economy is being described. And now we're seeing also inflation coming down. We're now seeing supply chain stabilizes. So all of the stuff before, all the empty shelves and, you know, waiting six and nine months for furniture, we're seeing how after two years, two and a half years of COVID,

how all of those things that impacted the supply chain, which impacted inflation, but really it was also the greed of many companies that was causing inflation. We're seeing how these forces are moving together. And so it's just wild to me how these people are assuming they're just assuming that that this is just a terrible awful like i said we had some black conservative on who was like oh my god this biden economy is just the worst it's just destroying the entire country. And I literally travel around the country and I'm like, what world are you living in? Well, I mean, there are these people out here who just have crazy ideological beliefs.

Now, they'll say anything, but the numbers don't lie. The unemployment rate is historically low. The employment population ratio is up higher than it has been in a long time. The earnings have gone up. So, and if you look at for most households, especially for most African American households, income is mostly earnings, wages, paycheck income. There's not a lot of property income. So earnings are higher. More people are working, men and women.

This is a very good economy. And inflation, from my perspective, is not out of hand. It's not an outrageous number. And I just hope the Fed does not keep raising interest rates and raising interest rates to the point where we choke off this economy that's trying to go to what would be full employment for us. Now, I think the current rate of 4.7% sort of shows you how bad unemployment is for African Americans. I mean, typically when white American unemployment

is at 4.7% or 5%, that's a recession number. But our numbers have been so high for so long to when we get to what is really a recession number for white Americans, we celebrate. Well, I wanna see that unemployment number get down even lower, right? So that everybody out there who wants a job will have one. And also, the good thing about a low unemployment rate

is it gives bargaining power to workers, right? To workers who have a job paying enough, this low unemployment rate puts them in a position where they can go in and ask for a raise. If they don't get it, they can go somewhere else. Yes, sir. All right. Patrick Mason, we appreciate it again, folks. He is the author of The Economics of Structural Racism and Stratification, Economics in U.S. Labor Markets. We certainly appreciate you joining us. Thank you so very much.

All right, folks, got to go pay some bills. We'll be right back. Roland Martin and Phil Stitt on the Blackstar Network. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture. We're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people powered movement. A lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it.

And you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks.

We want to hit 2,000 people, $50 this month, rates $100,000. We're behind $100,000, so we want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month. Rates $100,000. We're behind $100,000. So we want to hit that. Y'all money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered.

Zelle is Roland at Rolandsmartin.com. On a next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, what does it mean to actually have balance in your life? Why is it important and how do you get there? A masterclass on the art of balance. It could change your life. Find the harmony of your life. And so what beat can you maintain at a good pace? What cadence can keep you running that marathon? Because we know we're going to have, you know, high levels, we're going

to have low levels, but where can you find that flow, that harmonious pace? That's all next on A Balanced Life on Blackstar Network. What's up, what's up? I'm Dr. Ricky Dillard, the choir master. Hey, yo, peace world. What's going on? It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devon, and you're watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Kalia Gilchrist left her Brandon, Florida home on April 19th.

The 13-year-old is 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 102 pounds, with black hair and black eyes. Anyone with information about Kalia Gilchrist is urged to call the Hillsborough County, Florida Sheriff's Office, 813-247-8200. 813-247-8200. Folks, in a stunning turn of events, St. Louis, Missouri's circuit attorney Kim Gardner resigned from her position amid allegations of negligence. Gardner faced intense scrutiny in recent months with Republican leaders in the legislature, including Attorney General Andrew Bailey, calling for her ouster. Bailey launched a legal effort to remove Gardner from office in February, citing too many cases, including homicides, going unpunished under her watch. Gartner, the first black woman to hold the position of circuit attorney in St. Louis, has endured massive criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Some have praised her for her efforts to reform the criminal justice system and her commitment to prosecuting police officers

accused of misconduct. However, others have accused her of mishandling high-profile cases and failing to prosecute violent criminals adequately. Her resignation will be effective June 1st. No word on who will replace her. Matt, I'm going to start with you. We've interviewed her several times on this show. I mean, they have been going after her from day one. Yeah, they have.

They weren't happy at all about her being elected. And what you see with prosecutors that, you know, the powers that be, if you will, don't want to get elected, is they start out never giving them the benefit of the doubt, not allowing the policies to work, picking apart every little data point that they can to show that they're either ineffective or incompetent. And that's what's happened with Kim. And it's especially the truth when you have somebody like Kim, who is internally very strong and is not going to cower and is not going to back down, irrespective of whoever is opposing her. So, you know, that didn't help her in terms of necessarily making friends. But this is precisely the kind of politician that you should want, a person who says what they're going to do and then does what they

said they were going to do. And that's been the problem is, you know, there are people who cannot deal with her strength, I think, realistically. Now, I think there are some objective questions about the office and whether it's working the way it should be. As you said, both sides of the aisle have had criticisms, but that's inherent in a job like this, particularly one where a prosecutor is given a lot of latitude to make the decisions that she thinks are appropriate. You know, everybody reading headlines first never knows how the criminal justice system works, and two, ascribes to that prosecutor all of the responsibility for things, quote, going wrong, when in reality there are a lot of other players in the criminal justice system

that don't always get that same focus. So it's unfortunate what we're seeing with Kim. And I hate to see that she resigned, but I do appreciate, you know, the strength and the fortitude that she had, even in indicting the governor. I mean, I know those charges were ultimately dropped, but that takes a great deal of courage to say, we think we have the evidence on a person that's powerful and we're going to bring an indictment. And, you know, I'm just glad that she served the citizens the way she did. And the final point I'll make is I do like that this is really a sacrificial move. My understanding is she brokered a deal that she would actually resign so that the people of the city of St. Louis might still have the opportunity to popularly elect their DA. I understand she's in battle, but that's a really important part that cannot go unstated here,

that she's resigning so that the people still have the opportunity to choose their prosecutor. And that should be the most important part here, because it's the people who determine who's in that office, not other representatives who want to make their names on the political headlines, including this attorney general who seems to be trying to steal every headline he can anytime something comes up. And presumably, he's, you know, got his sights on some higher office. So I think there's more at play here and questions about her, you know, performance. Candace, we had her on a couple of months ago talking about this very issue with the attorney general. And again, it has been a constant, constant attack on her repeatedly. She said today that you had judges,

you had judges who were literally telling lawyers to leave her office, what's good for your career. I mean, so she was dealing with a whole lot of stuff from various quarters. She was. And Roland, here's what's key. Like Matt said, they were nitpicking at her and they're not done. They will more than likely bring her up in charges in the future for failing to carry out and perform her duties. I think one of the interesting things, and you just touched upon this, is that as the judges were telling attorneys to leave the office, they were following that advice

and they were leaving the office. When you have an office like Kim's that doesn't have enough money, what happens is that all of the attorneys, they get bogged down with these cases. So people have to understand that the strategy was not just with Kim, the strategy was with everybody who worked with her. Because with you give an attorney too much of a caseload where they really can't perform or carry out their duties in a way that rises to the way that they were sworn in by the American Bar Association.

Then you fall into the arena of malpractice and malfeasance and nobody wants that. So if your case work, if your caseload is too much and you don't have people helping you, you now your mentors have even gone that have been helping you on your caseload because you might be some new attorney by two and a half years. You get out of there because you might be brought up on charges for not doing your job because the workload is just too much. So their strategy was get her people out, get Kim out and just create havoc in the office. And that's exactly what they did. Michael, she also complained that they were essentially defunding her office, making it difficult for her to actually hire other people as well. And she said that that's what was going on. And so she's like, it just happened over and over and over again. Yeah, Rowling, you know, I remember under the Trump administration, St. Louis Circuit attorney Kim Gardner was attacked basically by Attorney General William Barr. So she has,

Republicans have been after her, as they have been many other progressive DAs, especially African-American female progressive DAs as well. And when they are trying to utilize the law that is perceived as being fair, somewhat fair to African-Americans, and not trying to over-prosecute for low-level offenses and things of this nature. You get this huge backlash, especially at the state level, largely controlled by white people. And here you're controlled by white Republicans. So the recurring theme through these few segments, Roland, has been power when it comes to politics,

understanding power and how to utilize power to vote the people in the office to bring into existence the policies that we want. This is the interview. We have to remain vigilant on this. This is the interview when she was on our show two months ago. This is something that, to me, is shocking. But at the same time, we know what it is. This is a politically motivated attack by the unelected Attorney General and the actual governor who who from day one

since he's been office has tried to take my duties as the elected prosecutor in the city of st. Louis so first of all what authority does he have to, quote, fire you? You're elected. Well, that's the problem. You know, right now in Missouri, we're participating with. So, again, if y'all want to see the interview we did with Kim Gartner on our YouTube channel, I was trying to show you right there. You heard some of that. Again, five days ago, she was saying, Matt, she wasn't going to resign.

But clearly, things had simply gotten out of hand there, and she was literally left with no choice. I just sent her a text. And so hopefully she'll be joining us. In fact, she actually just hit me back. And this is what she just texted me. It's to keep, to what you said, Matt, it's to keep the ability for the people to be able to elect the circuit attorney

and local police control. The Republicans have a super majority in the House and the Senate, and they had the votes. We currently do not elect our judges. The governor appoints them. We would never be able to elect our circuit attorney. And so she, of course, submitted that letter of resignation as well. Matt, go ahead. Well, here's the problem with that, Roland.

As I was reading about that, I was concerned. I mean, I don't know how you can actually enforce that deal. So, I mean, I like it. I like the spirit of it. And I'm a supporter of Kim Gardner. I think we need more Kim Gardner's leading us around the country with the fortitude that Kim has always shown. But the problem is, if they do have a Republican supermajority, I don't know how she can prevent via her resignation them just, you know, implementing the same plan they were trying to implement. And that's what concerns me. I appreciate her sacrifice here, but I don't know if it's something that will be enforceable. And that's what concerns me. And the thing about this that is so disingenuous and so dishonest is these Republicans are the same people who sit in DA's offices and say that their

daughter, Muffy, just had a lapse in judgment and she should get the leniency that they don't like if some kid across town who lives in the part of town they don't care about has the same offense, he should have the book thrown at him. And that's what disgusts me about this, because these are the same people who will find a way to one-off any kind of criminal offense or accusation if it's advantageous to them. But if it's us, we're mongrelized and made to seem as criminals. Case in point, Ken Paxton has been under indictment under Texas law for seven years, seven years for securities fraud. He hasn't been it hasn't been prosecuted a day in his life. But if you pick up a simple offense down the road and the case gets dismissed, now the D.A. is not doing his or her work.

And it's a shell game and it's all a sham. But the problem is, you know, in the state houses, they have this power. And a lot of these legislatures have specific laws that allow them to implement these kinds of things. And what's scary about it as a voter and as a citizen is the idea that, as Candace said earlier, you elect a D.A. and then the powers that be in the state house don't like her and they just decide that your decision does not matter. Right. At which point, I mean, I don't know where, and they just decide that your decision does not matter, right? At which point, I mean, I don't know where you stop it, but it becomes a slippery slope, because when do you stop, basically, if they decide we're not going to have elections anymore, right, or we're going to change the term limits unilaterally?

The more of this kind of thing happens, the more we should be concerned as citizens about the longer effects of that and how that affects democracy in general. I think we're in a democratic crisis right now in this country, and we're seeing that play out. Yep. Well, indeed we are. Candace, Matt, Michael, I certainly appreciate the three of you being with us today on today's panel. Thank you so very much, folks, when we come back. Exclusive interview with Gina Belafonte, one of the daughters of Harry Belafonte. She joins us next. Of course, her father passed away

on April 25th. And she will share her thoughts and reflections on an amazing, amazing life from the perspective of one of his loved ones, Philip Agnew, also with the Dream Defenders. Been in Cuba for the past week. Will join us as well.

And so we will continue our appreciation, our tributes to the great Harry Belafonte. Next, I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network. When you talk about blackness and what happens in... I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for

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

I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. 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 Be 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 it really does it makes it real listen to new episodes of the war on drugs podcast season two on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content subscribe to lava for good plus on apple podcast

you say you'd never give in to a meltdown never let kids toys take over the house and never fill your feed with kid photos you'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. We have one aisle six and aisle three.

So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSa and the ad council black culture we're about covering these things that matter to us uh speaking to our issues and concerns this is

a genuine people-powered movement a lot of stuff that we're not getting you get it and you spread the word we wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them

to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month. Weigh it to $100,000. We're behind $100,000, so we want to hit that. Y'all $50 this month, wait to $100,000. We're behind $100,000, so we want to hit that. Your money makes this possible.

Check some money orders. Go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RMartin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Up next on The Frequency with me, Dee Barnes, our special guest, Alicia Garza, one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement. We're going to discuss her new book,

The Purpose of Power, how we come together when we fall apart. We live in a world where we have to navigate. You know, when we say something, people look at us funny. But when a man says the same thing less skillfully than we did, right? Right. Everybody blocks towards what they said, even though it was your idea. Right here on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. He's found a way to do it. He's inspired, like, generation after generation after generation, you know, to continue in his footsteps.

He also challenges artists. Yes, he does. He is not one to be shy. You can't be down with Mr. Belafonte if you're not willing to do something. You know, it's just the way that he is. It's the way the whole family is, you know, and I'm here gina and just the entire family and just really really genuine good people who are maybe in hollywood but hollywood's not in them you know so so just he knows what's important and he's instilled that in his legacy that will continue to carry on and

i think what's the most important is that he his legacy is not just singing it's not just acting but really putting it on the line that frankly has been deemed by many people to be far more important than the artist piece. It's the activist piece. Sure, sure. I mean, but that's the piece of humanity that's the most important. I mean, sure, it's important what you do, you know, as a career, as

your art and everything like that, but he injected that into his art and he injected, you know, life and humanity of social justice in the world and just making the world a better place. He never shied away from that at times when many other people did and he could have and probably benefited from it a lot more, but he didn't. That's a very bold, bold man. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 It was April 25th when the world found out that Harry Belafonte passed away at the age of 96 at his home in New York City. It was four years ago when he retired from public life.

And he, of course, led an amazing, amazing life. Interviewed him numerous times, talked to him, and he was just engaged in so many different areas all across this country and across this world. Very few people knew him as well as my next guest, Gina Belafonte, one of the daughters of Harry Belafonte. Of course, co-founder with him with Sankofa. She joins us right now. Gina, glad to have you here on the show. Certainly our condolences to you and the Belafonte family with the loss of truly a true, true giant. For us, he was an artist. He was a singer. He was an actor. He was an activist. But for you, he was dad. Yes, he was. Thank you so much for having me today. If you hear any other little background noises, I have some dogs, so just ignore them.

It's all right. It's all good. Thank you for having me, and thank you so much for spending so much of your precious airtime on celebrating him and his life and his legacy and all the amazing work and art that he was able to create while he was with us. Well, we were, of course, in New York last year for his 95th birthday. So many people came out for that celebration. He wasn't there physically, but was watching the stream as well. And it really was a great celebration that you and others put together. And just take us through just the family perspective of who he was,

as opposed to what everyone else knows from the public persona of Mr. B? Well, I mean, all of us, his children at least, we all have different relationships with him. And the way some of us have worked with him quite intimately and others just sort of, you know, walk through the world with him as dad. He was certainly a force of nature for us all. We understood very clearly that he was busy at work. There was lots to do. There still is lots to do. And he made very specific and strategic choices for himself and his life. And as a father, he was an incredible mentor. He was a wonderful support system. all of us can say. We had wished that there were ways in which we could have had him more in our lives personally. But I, you know, I was gifted with the opportunity to work with him on a couple

of different levels. When I first started working with my father, I was his acting coach. So aside from him coming to all of my shows and guiding me and mentoring me through my, um, you know, navigating the entertainment business and my career as an actor at the time, he asked me to come on board as his acting coach. And I worked on four or five different films and television shows with him, you know, guiding him through the different characters. We would work very hard on those. My father was a very serious, um, kind of method actor. And so he took a lot of time and care in trying to figure out all the nuances of the characters. And so I had the gift of having that kind of intimacy with him.

And then later in our lives together, in our careers, we worked in, uh, doing the founding of Sankofa.org, where we were able to really pull together art and activism and use art as a tool to educate and to motivate and activate folks to participate in their civic responsibility and also inform them of what was going on in the world. And we used art to do that. And in many cases, art has a way of sort of opening up your heart, opening up your mind so that you could actually hear the issues and make some informed decisions for yourself. It has to be, though, difficult when, and this is not just for you and your three siblings,

it's the case for the children of entertainers and other public figures, to have to share your dad with the world. The number of people who he called, who called upon him, he was, before he retired from public life, was extremely busy traveling, doing those different things,

was always doing something, engaged in something, working on different projects. And that's, I mean, look, I mean, we all like, love to, as you say, do spend more time and do more with our parents, but you literally had to share him with the world. Right. Well, depending on, you know, what your belief is, mine is that I somehow, you know, came into the world with that contract. It might not have been a conscious understanding as a child growing up, but as an adult, I have done a lot of work in my own journey as a human being, being on this planet, to understand that, you know, there are a lot of people that needed him. There are a lot of people that needed him so that they could be validated. There's a lot of people that needed him so that they could be uplifted and so that their platforms could rise. And yeah, I mean, certainly, you know, the humanness in it all, you know, you want to, you know,

not only protect your parent, but you also want them to see you and to recognize you and to, you know, think and be proud of you and all those things. And luckily for me, I got that from him. I, you know, walk through the world. There's lots of other organizations that are doing very good work on behalf of him and his name. And, but, you know, but he's my father, so that never will change. The kind of intimacy that we had that no one can ever take that away from me. And so, yeah, you know, I think, I think that what he was able to gift the world and how he was able to empower people, how he was able to, in some ways, be an example to admire and to aspire to, I think, you know, I'm glad that we

had to share him, you know. I can't unwrite his own journey and his own path in the way he chose. I mean, he made very conscious decisions to do what he did. He knew what he was doing. So and I think part of that was for me, my own growth as a person to more deeply understand his choices. I don't make necessarily the same choices that he makes as it relates to my parenting skills in the way of my relationship with my daughter. But I do appreciate that he walked his talk and he did what he needed to do for his journey. And I am deeply appreciative that I, growing up, also gravitated to what he was interested in. Not everyone in my family wanted to do things the way he wanted to do them.

I personally really dug the way he did the things that he did. I liked the way he had a strategy around something. I liked the way in which he chose what he wanted to do and what he didn't want to do. You know, it's interesting because I came to my father many times with many different ideas and things that he just shot down. I mean, it could have ruined me, you know, but instead what it did is it reinforced in me that there must be a better idea inside. And with all the things that he shot down, there were more than double the things that he said, yes, let's do that. That makes sense. That's exciting. You know, so I, you know, he, he's instilled in me, um, a way to look at walking through the world in a strategic and very intentional way. And I'm grateful for that. Um, got to go break. We come back. We'll continue our conversation with Gina Belafonte with celebrating the life and legacy of her father, Harry Belafonte.

Folks, YouTube folks, be sure to hit that like button. Also, be sure to download our Black Star Network app, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. If you want to see the other tributes that we have paid to Mr. B, you can always catch that as well on the Black Star Network app. And then, of course, you can also support our work and what we do by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. Check your money orders, PO Box 57 five seven one nine six washington dc two zero zero three seven dash zero one nine six cash shop dollar sign rm unfiltered paypal r martin unfiltered venmo's rm unfiltered zail rolling at rolling

s martin.com rolling at rolling martin unfiltered.com we'll be right back 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. 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. 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.

You say you'd never give in to a meltdown. Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You'd say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late.

And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, know it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car,

always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. On that soil, You will not. 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 and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white people. Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punch.

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? ¶¶ Of course, to the folks who are watching who may not realize when we dedicated our studios here in Roland Martin Unfiltered, we unveiled this portrait of Mr. B. This was actually It was an artist who did this when the Gathering had their fundraiser, the Apollo Theater. I think it was in 2017, I think. Maybe it was earlier. I actually emceed that event. And so I remembered it and had it commissioned for our office. And Gene, it was interesting.

I called him when we unveiled it and did not realize it was actually, when I called him, it was actually the same, I believe, the night when Sidney Poitier passed away. Because the news came out the next day. And obviously, being you know, I thought tremendously about, a great deal about your father and what he did. Because he truly was, as you said before we went to the break, somebody who did what he said. Yes. Yes, he did. Absolutely, he did. He was not afraid to, you know, make his point clear. But, you know, moved. He really

heeded to Dr. King's Kingian nonviolence. He suspended his first judgment, and he tried his best, I think, to lean into listening to different perspectives and understand more deeply what people were trying to convey, what they were doing, before he then put his own brilliant strategy or spin on it. I mean, he was an expert strategist. A lot of people know that not only was he a big funder of the 1960s civil rights movement, but a deep strategist within that movement, liaisoning between elected officials and the movement, certainly being an intermediary between different movement fractions and factions during that period, very closely in line with his dear friend, Dr. King. And he also, to this day, in this more modern movement, you know, continued to be a strategist and a mentor

for young people who were looking for the roadmap, which he pointed them in the directions. And many of them deeply understood and understood that they needed to get an education in the history of the movement and before the 60s, you know, movement as well. We needed to have a deeper understanding of how we got to where we were so that we could have a deeper strategy on how to shift and change, you know, things. We're still working on that. You talked about him being a listener. It was, I guess when he got honored at the National Action Network, I think that was 17.

So I walk up to him, and he turns. And anybody who knows me knows I'm not one who uses the N-word. He goes, he turns. They go, what are you taking me to lunch? Yeah. I looked at him and I went. I said, we're going to talk about this N-word thing. Oh, I thought you were going to say to me that you turned to him and you said, nigga, where you want to go?

But I did say, I did say, so where you want to go? He was like, I said, you don't let me know. So we worked a date. I got on the train. We came to New York. We sat on Ruth Chris Steakhouse in Manhattan. Nice. And so we're sitting there, and he was working on a book.

Yeah. And so we're talking. And I'm trying, I want were it's a we're talking and I'm trying I want to listen to him he's like no one listen to you. He's like I want to hear your thoughts. Yeah, I know he was not a person who just wanted to run his one is now he wanted to really and I said no I want to hear like he said no I want to hear what you think it says so I got some questions for you. Now when he will you think

about all these things I'm like I want to hear what you think about all these things. And I'm like, I'm not trying to say that. I want to hear what you, so we like going back and forth. I'm like, okay, fine. Ask your question. Yeah. I mean, you know, he was, he was interested in what other people thought and what their perspectives were. And he wanted to see if there was a way in which he could support not only what they were doing, but maybe offer them a different strategy or a different way to look at, you know, whatever it is that they were trying to accomplish. He was so fond of you, Roland. He, you know, really believed in your platform, your work. He believed in the way in which you wanted to be unapologetically black in this space and really give us a platform where we can be who we truly are and speak the way we speak and say what's on our hearts. And

that is something that I hope you know. He was very, very, very fond of you and really appreciated you. Probably one of the funniest things. So he calls me. So this is before the Many Rivers Festival. So he calls me. And so he's trying to drive attention for the event. And so phone rings. And it was always hilarious because he always blocked his number. So it was like no caller ID. So I was like, caller id so i was like

who the hell so i answer hey this is roland martin uh hello i was like mr b how do you know it's me i said who the hell else sounds like this nobody else sounds like this and he just busts out laughing he just cracks up laughing and that was the thing that people, I don't think, again, people would see him speak and they would just do all this, but had no idea he had an absolute ridiculous sense of humor. Yes, he did. He did. He liked to tell jokes. He liked to definitely uplift people and make people laugh. And he was a very, very, very funny and very witty person.

And thank goodness, because he was so articulate about the issues and about his conviction of them and his conviction of what it was that he wanted to accomplish. So he was very funny and always, you know, found a way in which to, you know, have his humor come through. And he absolutely understood in terms of when the race is finished. What I mean by that is, so we made that phone call, so we come to New York and we sit down and do the interview. And when the interview was over, we're sitting there and we're, or maybe it was before they were setting up.

It was after, it was after. And we're talking, he said that he had just gotten over a bout with pneumonia. He said, I almost canceled this interview. And he was talking. And I saw at a former producer who was talking about that at this discussion, he was talking about death. No, he wasn't. He was not talking about it.

What he was talking to me, because first of all, I'm like, he was talking to me. We're talking to him. He, he said, this may be my last interview of this type. And he was preparing the withdrawal from public life. Uh, and, and he was, and we, we talked about the different things that he was working on. And, in fact, two years later, when I went to the XQ America event in New York, they actually played this video. And I reached out to them. Because I remember watching it then and was just blown away by it, but also what he had to say about what he did in his life, but even in that, the call to action. I want to play that and then talk to you on the flip side.

Y'all go ahead and play it. I'm very sorry that I'm not able to be with you in person. This is a matter of fact, maybe my last hurrah, but I want to welcome all of you here to tell you that I think everything I've done with my life, all that I've tried to do with the many people I've encountered from Paul to Nelson Mandela and others. I've walked my journey, and I don't think that there's much more left for me to say. If you happen to catch me on the street with a camera

or you happen to catch me in some public place, then I'm going to be sure I don't do anything that will embarrass anyone. But I do think that I've made the last walk. I think I've done my turn. And I just want to get out here and... observe the unisys, the universe that I am leaving behind with a sense of satisfaction that... I've done all I could do and wanted to do and was able to do, and now it's time for those who have inherited the history of the Civil Rights Movement, the history of the struggle, it's now your turn to get out there and bring a rewarding closure

to this endless struggle for equality in this place that calls America the land of the free. I've often reflected on that statement, the land of the free. Free to do what? free to be what free to say what it's not been that free for many of us but before this is all over it will be and a lot of that is dependent on where you take it. Thank you.

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

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

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

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

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corps vet, MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things stories matter and it brings a face to 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 iHeart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast and to hear episodes

one week early and ad free with exclusive content subscribe to lava for good plus on apple podcast you say you'd never give in to a meltdown never let kids toys take over the house and never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face.

And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, know it can happen. One in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out. Never happens. Before you leave the car, always stop, look, lock. Brought to you by NHTSA and the Ad Council. I said, I've done all I could do and I want to do, and now it's your turn. Yeah, you know, I think that, you know, different people age differently. You know, you look at a person like Norman Lear, you know, and then you look at, you know, communicative. If you ask him a question, he could answer it kind of a thing. But I think that, you know, it just became more difficult for him to pull for the words and

more difficult for him to struggle to articulate. You know, he's such an articulate person. And I think he wanted to leave the world with an image of himself that was intact that you know you know we didn't think of someone who was diminished and um you know he like I said he's you know he's a high school dropout and such an articulate person he was able to pull uh from his own you know, study words and sentences, phrases and sentiments that, you know, and so had such a beautiful, you know, use of language. So I think that, you know, I think he wanted to pass the baton quite specifically to a lot of people, you know, who need to carry it forward. It's going to take a lot of us to get this work together and done. And, you know, he did. He did all that he could

do. I mean, at that point in his life, what more could we draw from him that he hadn't already put forward for us to carry forward um what there were you know it's interesting because i think he also understood that in some ways um whatever new models or approaches we might come up with moving forward they were not things that were at his own imagination or disposal. You know, he was a craftsman for much of the architecture alongside some of the most brilliant minds of the civil rights movement. And he learned from his peers.

He learned from Dr. King. He learned from Fannie Lou Hamer. He learned from Bay. King. He learned from Fannie Lou Hamer. He learned from Bayard Rustin. He learned a lot from all those people and did his best to take their legacies and continue to move it forward and instill it in all of us and challenged all of us to learn and understand the deeper truths of all of them and i think that you know he was speaking his absolute truth that you know it's time and it has been time for some time for us to you know carry the mantle forward and trust in each other and really do the work hold tight one second uh gotta go to a break uh we come back we'll continue our conversation with uh gina belaf, one of the children of Harry Belafonte. Of course, the actor, singer, activist, humanitarian, philanthropist, you name it.

He had lots of titles. A true renaissance man who passed away April 25th at the age of 96. You're watching this continuing tribute to him on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. We look at one of the most influential and prominent black Americans of the 20th century.

His work literally changed the world. Among other things, he played a major role in creating the United Nations. He was the first African-American and first person of color to win the Nobel Peace Prize. And yet today, he is hardly a household name. We're talking, of course, about Ralph J. Bunch. A new book refers to him as the absolutely indispensable man. His lifelong interest and passion in racial justice, specifically in the United States as just the other side of the coin of his work trying to roll back European empire in Africa.

Author Cal Rastiala will join us to share his incredible story. That's on the next Black Table here on the Black Star Network. Up next on The Frequency with me, Dee Barnes, our special guest, Alicia Garza, one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement. We're going to discuss her new book, The Purpose of Power, how we come together when we fall apart. We live in a world where we have to navigate.

You know, when we say something, people look at us funny. But when a man says the same thing less skillfully than we did, right? Everybody blocks towards what they said, even though it was your idea. Right here on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. One of the things that, Gina, I always thought it was interesting is that your dad did not just want to hang around people his age. It was always interesting where he would, he would, he wanted to be in the mix where the young folks were, where the next generation was. In the documentary, he talked about calling the meeting of the elders in Atlanta and saying in the midst of it,

basically, the issues that we need to solve ain't going to be solved by the people in this room because they ran their race. And so he then said he had to go beyond that room and go out and talk to the others and seek the others and communicate with the others in the next generation. And one of the folks who he did that with was Philip Agnew, co-director of Black Men Build, also with the Dream Defenders. Phillip has been in Cuba. We couldn't get him there until we could actually finally reach him today.

He joins us on here. Phillip, you were with the Dream Defenders when Mr. B heard about what y'all were doing, and he didn't just send you a video saying, hey, great job. He said, no, I want to be with them and literally travel to Florida as y'all were there sitting in the state capitol.

Mm hmm. You know, one, thank you for having me. Even in Cuba, the name Harry Belafonte was spoken in high regard from the president and from a number of folks there in the government who remember his contributions a world away. Mr. B always had a way of wrapping us up in history, wrapping us up in an inescapable arc of justice that he was a part of. And he came and he was with us in the Capitol. He wasn't just a person, as you said, who spoke from afar, who talked from afar. Mr. B was always there on the ground as often as possible. And what he did was he not only was there as a symbol of the long arc of justice that we were all a part of, but he gave you a level of encouragement and a level of belief in what you were doing and what

I was doing, what we were doing, that nobody else could. You thought to yourself, Mr. Belafonte has been there with Nelson. He's been there with Martin. He's been there with Malcolm. He's been there all over the world at different points in our history to create this moment. And if Mr. Belafonte thinks it's that important that he will come to Florida or he'll come to wherever you are, you knew you were on the right path. You were on the right track. And that's just a testament to his spirit, to his smile, to his indomitable charisma. And it is a great honor of my life that I've been a small part of the journey that is Mr. Belafonte's life. Gina, Philip made the point about Cuba. I mean, the hip hop community in Cuba is absolutely indebted to him because Fidel Castro would not allow rappers to do what they do.

And when your dad traveled there, he told Fidel Castro, let the artists practice their art. And then he comes back the next year and they thank him because it was him intervening directly with Fidel Castro that allowed Cuban rappers and Cuban hip-hop artists to be able to do what they do in that country. So he wasn't afraid to even tell Castro, hey, man, lightning. Right. Right. Because I think I mean, first of all, hello, Philip. It's such a pleasure to see you. Let me just say that. And also, yeah, you know, I think my father really, you know, believed in humanity and he was dealing with humans. And so I think that, you know, he understood that, you know, the Cuban Revolution had places to grow. And he did his best to maintain relations through culture and bring art and culture to the island and

reciprocate a cultural exchange. And I think that, you know, when he heard the young people rapping, you know, a lot of people don't know that Harry was the producer of Beat Street, and he was very much in tune and up to date with our own current, like, scene, music and cultural scene. And Harry was sort of like, when you think about hip-hop, when you think about what hip-hop means, and it sometimes means a different thing to different people, but one thing about hip-hop is authenticity and originality. And Harry was all those things. And so he understood the importance of how culture needed to not be suppressed and that he wanted to ensure that young people everywhere had an opportunity to express their identity and express themselves. And so, yeah, he told Fidel that there were some young artists that he came in contact with that had no place to cultivate their craft and really work on their craft.

And that it is important, especially if you want to, as he always used to say to us, win them to your cause. So in some ways, he may have counseled Fidel to say, listen, if you want to, as he always used to say to us, win them to your cause. So in some ways, he may have counseled Fidel to say, listen, if you want to win them to your cause, you need to help support their work and what they want to do as well. So I don't know the exact things that he said to him, but I know, because I also have been to Cuba. And when you say that name, Belafonte, there are a lot of young people and artists who say, oh, you know, you know, he was so instrumental in giving us our own liberation within the confines of our movement here. And yes, he was not afraid. He was just not. Philip, that that just for folks again, what was the the light when he literally shows up?

And I remember other media outlets started doing interviews. They were kind of like, what is this old black man doing here with all these young kids? Because the Dream Defenders really, really became nationally prominent in the wake of the death of Trayvon Martin, the murder of Trayvon Martin. But for you, this young whippersnapper down there making all this noise and to see this figure come there to stand with y'all had to be quite surreal. Absolutely. Once again, you, as a young person in the movement, what I recall was always feelings of unsurety, uncertainty. Yeah, we had the youthful exuberance. Yeah, we knew we were doing what was right and we were standing up for what was right. But consistently, the doubt creeps in.

Are we in the right moment? Are we doing the right thing? Are we making our folks proud? Do we know what's going to come next? Mr. Belafonte coming there quieted all doubt internally that we were in the right moment, that we were the right people for the moment, that no matter what happened next, that this moment was ours, and that once again, we were a part of a long trajectory of freedom fighters, the world over. And it's interesting. So he did. So he did what Gina said earlier. He validated y'all work or gave you the stamp. He gave you the hair Belafonte seal of approval. Yes, because I want to, I want, I want this to be known. Yeah. There were people saying, why is this old guy coming?

But overwhelmingly people were wondering, what are the who are these people? Who are these kids? And when he came in, people understood that we weren't just loud, but we had a level of thought and analysis and that we had a plan and that we were legitimate actors in the in the in the in the long arc of history, that we weren't just young whippersnappers, that we had connections, frankly, that we were connected with somebody who, you know, who had stood with Malcolm, stood with Martin, stood with Ella, stood with folks the world over, over and over and consistently was on the side of good. And so for us, he was that stamp of approval. And really to this day, we are still emboldened with that stamp. You know, I'm still incredibly grateful for the private conversations that we've been able to have and will carry those with me

for the rest of my life. And it was that public standing alongside us that burnished our reputation and allowed us to continue to do our work. Gina, you saw that take place with Philip and the Dream Defenders and then just so many other people. But also speak on how he also challenged these younger artists, these actors, these musicians to say, you can be doing a hell of a lot more than what you're doing right now. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, he worked in very mysterious ways. And sometimes, you know, I remember I remember the work with the Dream Defenders in the very, very early days when he came back from that trip. And we were just also at the same time forming Sankofa. And, you know, the Dream Defenders came to us for their support. And we immediately said, you know, let's let's why don't we do this?

Let's send you all to Highlander. You know, let's finance an opportunity for you all to come together to actually create that strategy that Philip was discussing and talking about. And also give a political education to some of the other folks that are around you that may not quite be as hip to what's happening so that you can educate your peers so that you guys can take that deeper dive. And he wanted to do that same thing with artists. Many artists looked at Harry like he was just an anomaly, like they didn't get how were you able to be so outspoken? How were you able to do what you do and did what you did and still maintain your career and still maintain your level of celebrity?

And I think, you know, there are a couple of things to be said about that. Certainly it was a different time. We did not have the same kind of technology. The cancel culture, so to speak, was not quite as hot as it is here. The cancel culture came from the government predominantly. And, you know, while my father was in some ways blacklisted and fired from jobs that he no longer wanted to participate in if they had to be of a certain way, you know, he was able to be authentic and true to his voice. to engage young artists in an opportunity to understand that there are strategic ways that you can use your platform to educate your audiences and that you can bring your audiences in to let them know about some of the things that are happening around you,

whether it's through your lyrics, whether it's through the music you choose to sing, whether it's, you know, documentaries or the films or the stories you choose to tell. You know, not everyone has to be on a front line. That's not for everybody. But there is a space and a place for all of us to show up and to participate.

And I think that he wanted to really let young artists and all artists know that there's work to do and we all have an opportunity to participate. Philip, you talked about a lot of those conversations. Obviously there were a lot of things that you can remember, but what's that one thing that stands out the most? Oh, that's hard. You might stump me here.

I wouldn't be a good alpha if I didn't. You know what? You know what? You're right. You're right. You're right. And now I've got to be a beta new alpha here. Fam you alpha and respond.

You know what? Because right now I've got to be genuine and authentic with what comes to mind what i will always remember about every conversation that i've ever had with mr b was how intently he listened to me i'm trying right now to recall some pearl that he told me and i actually have a bunch of stuff recorded on my phone, Gina, from conversations that I've had with Mr. B and Danny. But the biggest thing that will always stick with me was sitting in a room with Mr. B and watching him look me in the eyes and listen to what I had to say intently, intently. He would lean over wouldn't, you know, he would lean over Gina, you know about this and he would just be listening. And I remember I would get done with a rant and I would get,

get done with saying something that I thought was smart, but really didn't feel quite sure about. He would always look at and he would ask the most insightful questions and he would want to pull more. And he, he made me know and feel that there was a brilliance inside of me that's the biggest thing that i will remember yeah there were quotes him always saying i'm better than i deserve and him giving us the quotes from paul roverson that artists are the gatekeepers to truth and you know all the different things that at some point almost

became repetitive because it was just a part of who he was. But it was how much he listened and how much he really edified the words that each one of us said. And some of us might have been saying some silly stuff. I know I might have been saying some things that weren't the most well-researched and didn't come from a whole wealth of experience. But he listened and he told us that what we had to say meant something and it was worthy. And even if we weren't always precise, we had to say it. It had to be said.

And so that's the big thing that I can recall for you that is genuine and authentic is the biggest thing that will always land on me is I knew when I spoke with Mr. B, he wasn't gonna talk the whole time he was going to require that I spoke up and he was going to listen and he was going to respond with the level of insight and questions and interrogation and curiosity that may him who he is and who he was.

I appreciate my brother thanks a lot. Yes, Sir. Thank you very much. I love you Gina. Love you back brother. Thank you go into a final break, Gina. Love you back, brother. Thank you. Going to our final break, we will come back, conclude our conversation with Gina Belafonte. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. On the next Get Well. 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 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 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. You say you'd never give in to a meltdown.

Never let kids' toys take over the house. And never fill your feed with kid photos. You'd never plan your life around their schedule. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like, uh, less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store.

So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there no it can happen one in four hot car deaths happen when a kid gets into an unlocked car and can't get out never happens before you leave the car always stop look lock brought to you by nizza and the ad council with me deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, nurses are the backbone of the healthcare industry. And yet, only 7% of them are black. What's the reason for that low number? Well, a lack of opportunities and growth in their profession. Joining us on the next Get Wealthy is Needy Bardinilli. She's going to be sharing exactly what nurses need

to do and what approach they need to take to take ownership of their success. So the Black Nurse Collaborative really spawned from a place and a desire to create opportunities to uplift each other, those of us in the profession, to also look and reach back and create pipelines and opportunities for other nurses like us. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network. Black Star Network is here.

Oh, no punch! I'm real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All the men 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? © BF-WATCH TV 2021 All right, folks, welcome back for the final segment with Gina Belafonte, one of the children of Harry Belafonte, who became an ancestor April 25th. And so, Gina, this is a photo here. You, yours, your father, your sister

leaving Capitol Hill after a lobbying. And the thing that I thought that was great, first of all, with that photo is that, one, the smiles on the face of you, your sister Sherry, your father. And we mentioned Fidel Castro, but this is a man, he was a man who had no problem challenging power and pushing folk to do right. My first actually encounter was when I had to edit a piece in Savoy magazine, a Q and a Roy Johnson was editor in chief and I had to whack some stuff.

And I was like, man, I run all of it. This is pre-internet. So we couldn't do that. And he, look, he had no problem challenging president Barack Obama. And so it didn't matter. Didn't matter what your position was. He fully expected more of political leaders. Our democracy is an experiment. I feel like the capitalist American experience is an experiment. And we're all sort of in the Petri dish together. And I think that he wanted to ensure that we were using our democracy to our fullest and making sure that, you know, if we are now considered humans, along with other people, then the laws need to reflect our rights. And he, you know, wanted to push those boundaries. But, you know, it's important to note that, you know, Harry was asked to run for office. He was asked to run for Senate. And he knew that he could be far more effective in the private sector than as an unelected official.

So, you know, he maintained his, you know, private citizen status. And he used his platform, he used his space, he used his intellect, he used his relationships and his network to do his best to not only assist in getting people elected that he thought shared his own personal mission, but that were people, you know, getting people elected that were, you know, our neighbors, our people who live down the block. You know, he made it very clear that we the people, or power to the people, meant that we needed to infiltrate the system and that we needed to, once we were in the system, tear down the machine

and instill a more human approach to our existence. And we're still working on that. You know, we have the confines of our government to work within a structure that was built, as people say, the founding fathers. I say, you know, the founding, you know, misogynists. But anyway, it's important just to understand that our human existence needs to evolve. We need to grow and we need to grow from our humanness, not from what the Constitution states. The Constitution is a guide for us. It's a jumping off point. And, you know, for the most part, it did its best to be inclusive in what it knew at that moment. But now it's important for us to take our moral

center, our ethics, and our humanity and really create a world where there is true equity and there is true love and there's true, you know, caring for thy neighbor. And I think he was hopeful that we would continue to work and chip away at this experiment to make it better for future generations. If we can hold on to the planet long enough that we can have future generations. Last question here. Sankofa, obviously there were so many things that he was involved in, but clearly creating that with you is also part of his lasting legacy because that continues, that will continue to move forward. Absolutely. Sankofa.org is an organization that really sits at the intersection of art and activism. And so it continues to do that today. We have incredible programs. We have civics programs in the arts with young people making films and educating themselves peer-to-peer on different civic issues. re-entry program that we work with formerly incarcerated and incarcerated men and women,

and we give them virtual reality experiences that help quell some of their trauma triggers upon coming home so that they don't recidivate. We are always working with new talent and finding new stories and new plays. We're hopefully taking our wonderful lyrics from lockdown to Broadway soon. And it'll all be in the legacy of my dad and the mission forward. You know, we came up with that mission together, along with Raoul Roach, who was the son of another great, you know, very progressive musician, Max Roach. And we built Sankofa in the belief that it could be eternal, that really it is culture that really leads in very many ways,

trends in the way in which that we, you know, work with one another moving forward. So Sankofa is really moving along. We're strong and we're excited to continue the work. Well, Dana, we appreciate you joining us and sitting and chatting with us for this hour to celebrate and talk about and share with the rest of the world your father. Andrew Young said something to me about Dr. King that I think certainly applies. He said, Martin may not physically be with us, but the reality is he's being talked about every single day. One of the things that we've seen over the past 10 days is that so many people have been posting photos and memories and sharing thoughts with regards to your dad, what he meant when they

crossed paths with him. And there's no doubt that the things that he was involved with will continue to be talked about from here to eternity. That's what it means to have a life of impact. And it's a whole lot that he did in those 96 years. That's true. That's true. And also, let me just say, you know, there are a lot of spaces and places where my father has embedded his mark. Sankofa.org is one of those places. The Gathering for Justice certainly is another. My sister has a foundation called the Aner Foundation, which is an incredible foundation. My brother is soon to launch his own personal Belafonte family foundation. My other sister, while she doesn't have her own, she does a lot of work with

the Lily Clare Foundation. So we're all, you know, whether he's literally founded the organization with us or whether we are just extensions of what he instilled in us, of the Dream Defenders or, you know, wherever it is, I think of all of the places where he sat on boards and whether it was actual boards or advisory boards, whether it had to do with AIDS, HIV crisis, or whether it had to do with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, or there's just so many places. The Advancement Project.

He really, really wanted people to know and understand that he supported many different movements for the civil rights movement, many different roads and avenues within the movement itself. He wanted to ensure that people had opportunities and spaces and places where they could choose what was most authentic to them to support, to help continue to rise, to raise up, and to be a part of. So my thing is always to encourage other people to get involved and to find something that is authentic to you, to find a way that you can also participate and carry the legacy forward. Well, that is certainly the case. And he definitely,

I enjoyed our time together, having fun. And this is one of the photos of the last sit down we had in his office where we had way too much fun cracking jokes and having a good time. And so he certainly will be missed. But we absolutely will remember him. And as long as this show is here, as long as I am here, that portrait will always be in our studio where we repay respects to your dad and what he meant to me, but also to African-Americans, to this country and to this world. Thank you, Roland. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Give our condolences to your family. Gina Belafonte, thanks a lot. Peace. Folks, that is it for us this weekend. We're going to live stream, we're going to restream the two one-on-one interviews that I did with Mr. B

when I was at TV One. We'll have that for you. And also, I've not shared with you some other videos when he accepted the award from the RFK Foundation. We're going to have that for you on Monday. And also at the Many Rivers Festival, he actually sang. He actually sang. And I recorded the video on stage. He sang that night. And that was the first

time he had sang publicly in a very, very long time. And then we'll have that for you as well. Folks, that's it for us. We appreciate it. Thank you so very much. We'll see you on Monday right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Support us in what we do. Download our app.

Also, you can also join our Bring the Funk fan club. And so you can join us right there. And when you support us, you get your name on the list that we run every single Friday. Thank you so very much. I'll see you all on Monday. Holla! Holla! Thank you. Thank you. The The The

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