#RolandMartinUnfiltered - NAACP sues Trump over insurrection; Winter storm wreaks havoc in Tx.; Black bank tackles injustice

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

2.17.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: NAACP sues Trump over insurrection; Winter storm wreaks havoc in Texas; Black bank tackles economic injustice; Actress Cicely Tyson who was laid to rest in Harlem; Crazy a$$ Florida teacher who tried to redefine the N-word to Black studentsSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Today is Wednesday, February 17th, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, we'll talk with Congressman Benny Thompson, who is with the NAACP suing Donald Trump and lawyer Rudy Giuliani for over the election and insurrection that took place on January 6th. Also, we'll talk with a professor out of Dillard University about reparations and the political viability of it. There was, of course, there was a subcommittee hearing today on the very issue. Republicans, they had folks like Herschel Walker testifying against reparations. We know what that idiot had to say,

so we'll talk about, hear from folks on both sides. Also, we'll talk with Paul Goodloe, meteorologist at the Weather Channel, about how long will this freezing temperatures last in Texas, leaving millions without power. Also, we'll talk about a black owned bank called Greenwood that aims to tackle economic injustice with Greenwood co-founder and rapper Killer Mike,

as well as Greenwood's chief compliance and risk officer, Lynn Tillman Cherry. Also, Cicely Tyson laid to rest in Harlem, for a course attended by the likes of Tyler Perry, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Valerie Simpson, and others. Plus, we'll show you crazy as white people, a white teacher in Florida, tried to redefine the N-word to black students

in the AP history class. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin. I'm Phil Chitt. 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 gigs He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's rolling Martin, yeah

Rolling with rolling now NWACP and Congressman Benny Thompson of Mississippi are suing Donald Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani over the insurrection on January 6th for violating the 1871 Ku Klux Klan Act, a Civil War era law that prohibits interference with Congress's ability to carry out its constitutional duties. Joining us right now is Congressman Benny Thompson of Mississippi. Congressman, glad to have out its constitutional duties. Joining us right now is Congressman Benny Thompson of Mississippi. Congressman, glad to have you on the show. First and foremost, why did you and the NAACP decide to file this now? You're the only member of Congress listed. Who are the others? Are you going to add other names to it? Why file this suit now? Well, thank you for having me on your show first, Roland. It's important that we file the suit immediately after the Senate refused to convict Donald Trump of his egregious activities as

president. We impeached him in the House. Senate didn't do what they needed to do. Clearly, Donald Trump needs to be stopped before he really get a lot more people hurt. Uh, as you saw what happened on January 6th, uh, he actually sicked that crowd on his vice president, members of the Senate, members of the House, uh, the House, the security people, everybody there. Clearly, he's at fault.

This is our way of working with the NAACP to hold them accountable for those activities on January 6th. Typically, when we have these type of deals, civil rights groups actually align together to join forces. And so what was that strategy behind it? Why not have, since obviously the law talks about interfering with Congress, not have 20, 30, 50, their entire black caucus or getting it, get as many Democrats as a part of this lawsuit? Well, you know, we will bring other people into the suit. or getting as many Democrats as a part of this lawsuit? Well, you know, we will bring other people into the suit. As I said, we felt it important as soon as possible. We had a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus today.

We'll have briefing sessions over the next 10 days. There's a lot of interest in joining the suit. It will go forward. I'm happy the NAACP is stepping up. And we can amend the suit. We have one opportunity to amend the plaintiffs in the suit. We plan to do that. We have several members who will join us who've called and said that. But again, this is the beginning. This is by no means the end, but it's a novel approach to hold a racist administration accountable for their dastardly deeds that they did on January 6th. So we'll have our day in court. As you know, this act was put

together right after the Civil War to protect Southern elected officials from the Klan and other people who didn't want them to come and work in Washington as members of this unified government. So we've had it all on the books since 1871. And here we are pulling the trigger on a 1871 Civil Rights Act, commonly referred to as the Ku Klux Klan Act. And the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, are also included in this because they were part and parcel to this insurrection. So we look forward to having our day in court in the District of Columbia. This is obviously, has been a very contentious issue. In fact, there's some people in so many different ways. And Senator Mitch McConnell stood on the floor and pretty much said that fine, you want to go to Donald Trump, do it in court. And so in essence, he was opening the door to civil or criminal action against Donald Trump.

Well, you know, we quoted Mitch McConnell in the suit as one of the justifications for doing it, because he acknowledged he didn't have the strength to vote for a conviction. But he said, if you disagree with us, then you can go to court civilly or criminally and pursue Donald Trump. And that's what we exactly plan to do by filing this suit. We think when discovery is put together and the questions are asked and the requests for documents are received, we will find a pattern of practice that Donald Trump orchestrated bringing people to Washington

on January 6th. If you know, he right after the election in November and said, I want you to come to Washington on January 6th. It's going to be wild. Now, I don't know what that means to most people, but after that speech and what we saw occurring on January 6th, and he told the crowd, go down to the Capitol where they are meeting now and tell them to stop the steal. Now, and you see what happened when they came to the Capitol. They basically created an insurrection. A lot of people, like myself included, had our lives at risk for these rioters who are no more than modern-day Klansmen. why we plan to take them to court if we're successful, especially with the punitive damages

that we want assessed by the court. We'll put them out of business. And our job and our goal is to do just that. This has been obviously a complete, a major, major issue. And we discussed this yesterday on my show. And Breeie Newsom said this, and I agree with her. She said, I don't think that folks in this country are taking what took place on January 6th seriously. That, she said, this was the greatest breach of the federal government since, since before the Civil War, since really the War of 1812. Well, you're absolutely right, Roland. You understand, in America,

since we are the shining example of what a democracy looks like, we see a lot of differences at the ballot box. And lo and behold, here's this loser who sicked those racist individuals that he assembled in Washington on the government that he's led for the last four years. But part of what he did was organize the right-wing domestic terrorist element in this country. And so what you saw on January 6th was the manifestation of that four years

of organizing by Donald Trump. Look at what happened in Charlottesville. The first comment from him said there were good people on both sides. That was an absolute lie. That was not the case. And so the fact that these same individuals wanted to kidnap the governor of Michigan, hold a trial, and execute her.

I mean, what kind of people are this? I mean, this is America, and we can't afford to have people like this running around loose under the name of calling themselves patriots of all things. Patriots, which is a code word that's been hijacked by the right-wing element in this country to signal that we have to take over or else they will start running things. And you and I, Roland, know who they is. Congressman Manny Thompson, we certainly appreciate you joining with us to discuss this. Obviously, it is a huge issue. Republicans continue to insist that this was really no big deal.

Folks like Senator Ron Johnson, when he says that it couldn't have been an insurrection because he didn't see weapons. Well, you know, we had five people to die. We had 125 law enforcement people get hurt. We had millions of dollars in damages incurred. It cost us about $500 million a month to keep the National Guard in Washington because of this act. Obviously, he's ill-informed and misinformed if he's continuing to say that. Or he's simply delusional and stuck in Trump land. I think that's probably more like it. Congressman Benny Thompson, chair of the Committee on Homeland Security,

we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, brother. All right, let's introduce my panel. A. Scott Bolden, former chair of the National Bar Association Political Action Committee, a nation across political analysts and democratic strategists, and will be joined later by Robert Petillo, executive director of Rainbow Push Coalition Peach Tree Street Project.

Scott, your assessment of this lawsuit. Any merit? You know, it's got merits because it's been filed. And I tell you, it hasn't, this statute hasn't been tried or challenged in just the 1800s. And so I like it. It's creative. It's outside the box. And it's under 42 U.S.C. 1985.

There's probably a provision that allows them to the plaintiffs to recover legal fees. But more importantly, I've always said the civil justice system is really the right court for a lot of these police brutality cases, as well as this type of case on the 42 U.S.C. 1985. You get depositions. You get testimony under oath. You really want to find out what happened and how they got organized and who did what and the danger to fulfill the elements of this statute,

as old as it may be. It's still on the books. You take depositions. You give them interrogatories. You ask for documents, right? And then here's the kicker. You request admissions. Do you admit documents, right? And then here's the kicker. You request admissions. Do you admit X, Y, and Z? Do you admit? That includes Trump. That includes the Proud Boys.

That includes all the defendants, if you will. And while it may take a year or two or three because of various delays that the defendants will want to put upon the plaintiffs, you can get to the truth through this process. And until a judge or even the Supreme Court says you can't sue them for this, they have standing. These are congressmen who were victims, right? So this case has staying power unless the Supreme Court says otherwise.

I'm excited about it, and I think it's a real bold creative opportunity to seek real justice in this country against those insurrectionists. Amisha, is this Democrats prolonging this, or is it smart to go after Donald Trump in this way? This is absolutely smart. I think that we saw, and many of us knew what was going to happen when the impeachment trial began, that Republicans were definitely not going to find any guilt in Donald Trump. But this is a very ingenious way to go about it. One, because we know who the targets were. We knew who the targets were before the insurrection happened,

but we definitely know who the targets are. Specifically, looking at the states that President Trump named out, the ones that he consistently tweeted about, the large Black voter participation in those states, what we saw with the voter intimidation, what we saw with the running of a specific campaign bus off of the road by white supremacists. We know what the call-outs to the Proud Boys were. We have all of the evidence of those tweets, even though Parler had been shut down at the time, even though many of these individuals had gotten blocked from Twitter, a lot of the QAnon folk. But we still have those. Those are archived. We also have many of the individuals who were actually involved on the day of the

insurrection, including the crazy shaman guy, the QAnon shaman, who instigated and said plain and simple that he was there because Donald Trump told him to be there. We have all of that evidence, and these witnesses will be called. And I think that as this plays out, we're going to see not only more of the video evidence that we saw during the impeachment, but we're also going to hear from these people. And at this point, they have absolutely nothing to lose. We know that the head of the Proud Boys was an FBI informant. That guy is going to squeal. He's already squealed in many cases. This is going to go up in flames very quickly. Yeah, Roland, one real quick point. The plaintiffs have the case already.

They put the case on the Senate. All of that is public information. And so discovery ought to be fairly limited. You've got the targets, you've got the defendant, you've got the witnesses, and you have the documentary evidence, the video evidence, and you've got the elected officials as witnesses. This case could be ready to go in a month or two if it wasn't for the court proceedings or certain delays that the defendants are going to try to do, and they're going to try to file motions. But you could try this case in about 30 days if you're the plaintiff. Is it also important with this particular case, the fact that you can finally get folks to testify?

Because, again, one of the complaints is, oh, there were no witnesses in the house managers at trial of Donald Trump. OK, fine. Now, y'all want to testify? Let's go. Yeah. Me or Misha? Don't matter. Anybody. Go ahead. Go right ahead, Misha. And this process is different because whereas you had to have a vote on every single potential witness during the impeachment trial, you don't have to have that here. This is an entirely different ballgame. And I agree with A. Scott.

The case was laid out and all the evidence is already there. It's not like they have to do an extensive amount of digging to set this up. I think that at this point, there are many people who are going to speak. There are people who honestly wanted to speak during the impeachment trial. We just hadn't gotten there. And the case is there. The case is there and they're going to come and they are going to say the things that are going to, I think, help to convict this former president, as well as those who he actually instigated to commit some of these very heinous acts. And Roland, one other thing. No one on the defense side is going to want to testify and go under oath. None of them. And Trump would be witness number one. I wouldn't take one deposition without taking his deposition first, cross-examining him. He is not going to want to

go on the record because he may be running in 2024. They're going to fight that like a Dickens, but the reality is he either goes on the record and goes under oath, or as insurance coverage, they settle the case. Look for the possible settlement or resolution. The plaintiffs

won't want to settle, though, quite frankly. They'll get their legal fees, but they really want to put Trump on blast and the insurrectionists on blast and get a justice, a civil justice ruling here. What insurance settlement? Because he was, at the time it took place, he was president. Yeah, but he was also head of his businesses. He was also still ownership interest in his businesses. They could try to tap the insurance of Trump Enterprises to cover him. Plus, remember, he's got millions of dollars in a campaign finance fund as well. So wherever the sources of money are, I'd sell it. If I were Trump, I'd try to sell that case if I couldn't delay it or get it thrown

out, because I wouldn't want to go on the record with the very fine lawyers from the NAACP and from the Milstein law firm as plaintiff's counsel. I got to tell you, look for a lot of activity, because this case is going to put every bad actor on blast. And remember this, they can call the senators, Hawley, Cruz, and others as co-conspirators, or at least witnesses who they would argue were co-conspirators, and put them under oath. This lawsuit is going to make a lot of people, elected officials and otherwise, Democrats and Republicans, really, really uncomfortable in this country. This is a lawsuit to watch. Folks, speaking of watching, we're watching what's happening in Texas right now, where millions are without power as a winter storm continues to wreak havoc on the state.

More than 3 million people are without power after some of the coldest weather experience in decades tripped many of the state's power plants offline. Some local officials have issued boil water notices and have urged some residents to reduce their electricity usage. While some are struggling to stay warm, authorities warn power may remain offline for days because of heavy snowfall, ice storms, and bitter temperatures that continue to put an enormous strain on the state's power grid. Now, what's interesting here is Republicans are doing their best to try to put the blame

on the Green New Deal, which is sort of hard considering it's not even enacted. Joining me now is Paul Goodloe, meteorologist at the Weather Channel. Paul, glad to have you back. Let's talk about how bad it is. You, first of all, folks from Austin to Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, I mean, all around the state. It's as if there's this. So where does it even come from? It's as if the entire middle of the country all got the same Arctic blast. Well, Roland, it's February. It's something called winter. It's just that we have not had a winter like this in a long time. In fact, some in Texas have never, if you're perhaps 30, 32 years old, have never experienced this type of weather in the Lone Star State. In recent memory, last even 10 years

or so, we have not had this type of cold weather dominating the U.S. like it has. In fact, some of the coldest air on the planet right now is right over the central U.S. And people say, oh, what about climate change and global warming? It's still going on. In fact, there's well above average across parts of Asia and Western Europe and the Arctic as well. Here in North America, central North America, our temperatures are 20, 30, 50 degrees below average. And yes, finally in Texas, and this is going on now for its second week. Now, the problem with what's going on in Texas, part of that is the whole power grid. You can have an economist talk about the deregulation going on in Texas and how they don't have their own kind of state power grid outside the feds. Let's just talk about the weather part of this.

I remember years ago, probably in the 80s, late 80s, where there was actually snow in Houston. So this has happened before. It just hasn't happened in 20, 30, 40 years. So people have a very short-term memory. But we've never had this type of long-duration cold in Houston. And you know, you're from Texas. You spent time even in college. Look, born and raised in

Houston. I've experienced cold there before. The difference here isn't just that it's cold. The problem is the electricity grid in Texas. That's the big, that's the problem because folks are without heat. Well, part of that is how homes are built in Texas. They are built to withstand the heat. The three months of 100 plus degrees, they're not built to withstand three days of temperatures in the 20s or below freezing. I mean, Houston probably got above freezing yesterday. They're

about to drop back down tonight. They'll probably get out of this as we head towards, say, Saturday afternoon. Austin is still below freezing. They've been below freezing since Sunday. Homes are just not built this way. Once you head, say, south of Dallas on towards the Houston area, they're not built for this. And that's causing pipes to freeze. And even if you did let your water run, again, it's a physical process of water freezing. It expands and will burst your metal pipes, your plastic pipes, and then the water will leak. And then you can't stop that because there's no way to turn that off unless you turn it off at the curve. But maybe you don't have breast of price, but perhaps your upstairs neighbor does.

So, I mean, this is ongoing because it's been so cold for so long, something we have not experienced in for many people's lifetime. But, you know, this is winter. Winter does happen even in a warmer globe. We do still have these outbursts of winter. But in terms of us being humans, we have a very short memory. We just have not had this type of duration of cold air in Texas, certainly not in my lifetime or my memory being in this profession. This is certainly a remarkable type of weather pattern. But people knew it was coming. The utility companies knew this was coming. We've been talking about it at the Weather Channel, but this is the difference. You can't rely on your

phone to give you like numbers. You need people, meteorologists to tell you kind of impacts, that they're qualitative. You know, this is something people should have prepared for like a hurricane. And people will still be without power for a couple of more days because it's just going to take that long to restore power across the entire state. Now, granted, if you're out in Amarillo, yeah, you deal with that. You know, you're used to having snow. You're not used to having snow, even two, three inches around Houston or even College Station. You're just not physically equipped to deal with that and the sub-20 degree temperatures that have come across that part of the state as well.

So it takes a while to recover from a hurricane. It's going to take a while to recover from this kind of weather disaster, which has kind of moved all across the state of Texas. How much longer can folks in Texas expect this? Is it a day, two days, three days? Look, all my family is there texting back and forth. All my family members at different points lost power. Power is now back on. The lines, the food lines, you can forget going to stores.

Gas is short supply as well because people are literally sleeping in their cars because of the heat. So you have President Joe Biden who is sending in generators and gas into the state. I saw where Governor Greg Abbott is not allowing any natural gas to be sold or sent out of the state through February 21st. And so efforts are being made to try to keep as much of the power in the state as possible. The end is coming. It's coming. I think the coldest will start to move on out as we head on towards, say, Friday. But really, even Houston, once you get past Saturday morning,

it should be much better in terms of temperatures warming up. Now, again, average is around 66 for a high this time of the year. We won't get there until perhaps the early part of next week and then later part of next week, and then later part of next week into the week after that. We're back in the 70s, above average in Texas. So we do see a light at the end of the tunnel. We still have about maybe two and a half, maybe three more days of this tunnel to get through, although we don't think we'll get back to the actual depth of the cold air, at least in Houston and Austin, San Antonio, as we head on towards Friday and Saturday morning. But definitely by Saturday afternoon, most of the state, if not all

the states, should be well above freezing in terms of our daytime temperatures for sure. And even nighttime temperatures in Houston will be above freezing. So there's some abatement to this on the way, but we still have a couple of rough nights. And I feel for people, you know, it's just like hurricane season, but in the reverse. I do have a college friend of mine, even a frat brother of ours, he actually has a generator that he says is his most prized possession that he built into his house. It's something that people, if they can afford it, or perhaps, you know, have some type of installment plan, not just for these winter storms, but down the road, six months or so, even for hurricanes, because people realize how isolated we are and how basic we become if we don't have the lights on.

We don't have the ability to turn our computers on or charge our phone. So, I mean, generators, having your own control of your own power generation might be something, if you can afford it, something that a lot of people might want to perhaps look into making that investment into. You're absolutely right, because trust me, I have one of those generators here in my home in the DMV when that hurricane came through. Massive storms came through and knocked out power for several days. I said, oh, hell no, we're not having this. And so, yeah, I haven't had to use it, but it's there if that day comes.

Well, Rowan, I know you're in the D.C. area. There is an ice storm that will be coming your way as well. Hopefully it's more snow than ice, but, yeah, this system, which is kind of slowly moving out of Texas, is heading towards the mid-Atlantic as well. So we could see another power-outer situation across the mid-Atlantic. Hopefully the same as Texas because homes are built a little bit better to withstand these types of temperatures. But, yeah, freezing rain, ice storms, I mean, you can't do anything with it.

They will bring trees down, bring power lines down, and we'll have a whole other slew of people without power. Without power, you know, the dirty numbers are the whole, oh, customers. Think in Texas, 2.6 million customers without power. But customers are billing points. You multiply that number by probably four people per home. Maybe some might have more than that. So we're talking close to 10 million Texans, just Texans alone, without power, without heat in their homes right now. And I mean, this is a major weather disaster ongoing in that state. And hopefully we won't have this in the mid-Atlantic, but I know we will. Parts of North Carolina, Virginia, Delmarva will be dealing with power outages over the

next, say, 36 hours, more freezing rain heads that way. All right. Paul Goodloe, we sure appreciate that. Thanks a lot. See, Scott, that's what happens when you have Alpha Man on the show. He's an alpha? Of course. Don't hate.

I mean, I know it pains you. He's like a newt. Nah, you know you're very wrong. Amisha, here's what's interesting to watch Republicans just completely lose it. You have Ted Cruz who had the tweet, he had tweeted that he had no defense when some of his old tweets came up where he was criticizing California for rolling power outages. Then you have former Texas Governor Rick Perry. This dumbass actually said this here, that, you know what, it's a sacrifice for Texans to go days without power because if it means willing to keep the federal regulators out of the state's power grid.

The fool literally said that. But if you want to stay stuck on stupid, last night, this is Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Republicans love to talk about Democratic-run cities, how horrible things are, blue states. This is this idiot on Sean Handy's show last night, and we know Handy's an idiot and stupid. Listen to who he is trying to blame for the crisis in Texas. Gas, oil, old-fashioned oil, and coal. I'm not against nuclear energy either. I'm not against wind turbines. But my question is, if you have these rolling blackouts and you've got freezing weather,

I mean, and they're not reliable and it's used to lose it, what good is it? Sean, this shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America. Texas is blessed with multiple sources of energy, such as natural gas and oil and nuclear, as well as solar and wind. But you saw from what Trace said, and that is our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid. And that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power in a statewide basis. That was power that was spread out by that ERCOT organization that you were talking about. As a result, it just shows that fossil fuel is necessary for the state of Texas, as well as other states to make sure that we will be able to heat our homes in the wintertime and cool our homes in the summertime.

OK. Robert Pertillo joins us right now. Robert, I am not a trigonometry or geometry expert. But I can count. And if you tell me that wind and solar comprises 10% of the state's power, that means 90s left over. And Robert, where I come from,

it's a good bet that the 90 should be able to handle the failing of the 10. Abbott's lying. Abbott's flat out lying. The electric companies did not prepare or weatherize themselves for winter. This lie has been completely debunked. Fox News has been running with this whole lie for the last 24 hours, blaming the Green New Deal that doesn't even exist. And the reality is,

because Texas chose not to be a part, to remove itself from the federal grid, you had no oversight. And so you could have had this, you could have had the protections, but no, they chose to be smart asses. Republicans are going to have to own this. Well, look, Roland, it's time for one of my famous nerdy moments because I was in Atlanta for Snowmageddon back in 2014. And one thing that Southern states pride themselves on is about low taxes and a lack of governmental services. And what we saw in Georgia in 2014,

the same as we are seeing in Texas this year, which is the lack of governmental resources and the ability to respond to simple natural disasters. This idea of solar and renewable energy not being reliable during winter storms, do you know what they power the stations in Antarctica with? Wind turbines. Not with petroleum, not with fossil fuels, not with coal. In the Arctic Circle, they use wind turbines. Iceland, almost 60 percent of their energy grid is renewable energy. Greenland, the vast majority of their energy is produced by offshore wind turbines and geothermal power. If you look at Norway, they have one of the largest installations of wind turbines in the entire world in the Arctic Circle. And almost all their power is generated through those wind turbines

and also by hydroelectric power. And the same with Scotland. 60% of the United Kingdom's power comes from renewable sources. So this idea that Texas cannot use renewable energy when they're using the exact same technology in Antarctica, in the Arctic Circle, in Iceland, in Greenland, in Norway, in Scotland, in the United Kingdom, is one of the dumbest arguments I have ever heard being made against this concept. Just to say, we did not prepare. Very rarely do these storms come to the south, just as in Atlanta. We did not have salt. We did

not weatherize our power system. And this is what happens. Do you know in Germany, they have not had a power outage in nearly 50 years? Do you know why? Because they buried the utility cables because it's the 21st century and we should not have our power lines on little sticks outside. That seems like a dumb idea. So guess what? We have higher taxes when you invest in infrastructure, you bury the power lines, you weatherize your grid, and you don't have these issues,

and then you can still use sustainable and renewable power. But because Republicans are in the pocket of big oil and the fossil fuel industry, they will find any excuse to blame things on fossil fuels when in reality, the reason we're having these new weather patterns is because of climate change. We did not have ice storms and snow storms like this in the deep south when most of us were growing up. The weather and the climate are changing because of human action, and we refuse to do anything about it. Then you're going to have to buy more snow shovels and boots for Texas and more suntan lotion in Minnesota because our climate's completely out of whack.

The thing here, I'm being sure that's just laughable. My home state is the energy capital of the United States. The energy capital. I would think that if you're the energy capital of the United States,

you know how to output energy. You're absolutely correct. And to hear Republicans basically chase their own tails on this, meanwhile trying to find anything and everything to blame, has been amusing but also highly detrimental. On the one hand, we're literally watching people die

who are trying to heat themselves by sitting in their cars or letting their cars run, and they're having all this carbon monoxide poisoning. But on top of that, we're also seeing a state that has been warned multiple times. I've worked at the EPA. The state of Texas have been warned for the past 10 years that they need to innovate. They need to change their power grid system. They needed to have an understanding of what could happen because they're supposed to be here to mitigate this disaster. We knew that climate change was happening. Whether Texas you know, Texas Republicans want

to believe it or not. The science shows, the evidence shows that it has been happening for quite some time. And they were warned and they were given recommendations and they decided to basically, you know, wad those up and throw them away. What we're seeing from people like Greg Abbott, what we're seeing and hearing from folks on Fox News is basically trying to find anybody and anything that they can blame for their own cognitive dissonance. It's really upsetting and it's tragic because we're watching hour by hour people lose their power not knowing when it's going to come back on. Many of these people also have disabilities or people who have

young children, people who have elderly folks at home, people who are impoverished. Not everybody can afford or find a generator. That's not available to everyone. I think that there's a frustration that exists when you have a government that continually denies people access, but also one that ignores common sense, one that has been warned and given alternatives multiple times

and continues to go against it. And when everything hits the fan, they blame the Green New Deal, which is something that hasn't even been passed by Congress and does not exist. It is. It's just laughable that you have folks who just can't accept it. Congressman Dan Crenshaw, Republican, was again, one of those folks busted for all these tweets complaining about the rollouts in California. Now he's embarrassed when they're pulling those receipts out. Well, we're going to got to get this thing fixed in Texas. Yeah, because you look like a damn fool complaining about California.

All those liberals in California. And then guess what? Republicans have been running Texas for the last two decades. Yeah, you know, Roland, you're absolutely right. Now you watch what's going to happen here. Just like in New Orleans years ago, we're going to move on from this, right? The snow's going to melt. They're going to move on. And they're not going to allocate any money to fix that grid or to put power lines underground or to do what they need to do for the next big snowstorm. The problem with that

or ice storm, the problem with that is, is that because of climate change, right, and because they don't listen to the science, then it's dangerous because they're going to have more ice storms and more snowstorms. And if they don't fix it, if they don't build these homes better, if they don't make the adjustments, whether they believe in fossil fuels. By the way, the Biden administration is going to gradually move away. That's another point. You know, they're not trying to take your power lines or your natural gas lines out. They're going to gradually move away from this.

And so you're right. It's not even, the Green Deal is not even in play, any parts of it. But you watch. They're not going to invest the money because Republicans run taxes, and we're going to be seeing this over and over again over the next five or ten years until they allocate funds for it. I just get a kick out of the folks who are like,

yeah, like a club on the lips. You've been running it. You've been running it. You've been running it. All right, y'all. Today on Capitol Hill hill they had a subcommittee hearing dealing with the issue of reparations that were in this took place in the house judiciary house judiciary subcommittee on civil rights to examine hr 40 the bill introduced

by congresswoman sheila jackson lee that will create a commission to study propose a path forward for reparations a former n football player and House Republican idiot, Hershel Walker, and of course, fellow idiot, conservative radio host, Larry Elder, among those who testified and shared their thoughts on slavery reparations. Then, of course, you also had supporters of reparations. Check this out. If we're sincere about repaying Black Americans for our loss,

let's give us back our history. That includes the history of we the people, whose Judeo-Christian values have granted every generation the opportunity to look at each other better from inside out, not outside in. In doing so, you'll ensure pride within our race as we accept our lineage as victors. The same history will command the respect for our fellow Americans, an example of how to overcome the most overwhelming odds. I need you to take a look at what I offered to put into the record. This was our life, the back of a beaten slave.

This was our life, into the 20th century, hangings of African-Americans, men and women. This was our life. This was our life. When we were in public display, brutalized, our life was also the Tulsa riots, where 300 African Americans were buried in an unmarked grave. And so, Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent for those pictures of lynching that continued into the 20th century and offer to say that I conclude my remarks by saying this is a potent and powerful hearing today and I'm glad that we're responding to the majority of Americans who see the value in H.R. 40, the commission to study and develop reparation proposals.

For us in California, we are very clear that we need not ask whether or not slavery has had an impact, but instead illuminate the extent to which it has had an impact. We are, through AB 3121, which is law in California, are establishing the task force to study and develop reparations proposals for African Americans. It will consist of experts who study slavery's impact, educate Californians, compile a report of their findings, and provide information and recommendations to our legislature as to what we need to do to repair the damage done as a result of slavery. Out of all due respect, Californians can no longer wait for the national government to do its job.

We believe that we must do what is necessary for Californians and be an example of what can happen in this nation when there is serious discussions and research done on African Americans and the impact of slavery. We hope that the nation will join California in forming a task force to be able to address the issue of reparations and the damage that has been done and continues to be done as a result of engagement in slavery. By no means does this mean that there should not be federal reparations in any sense. The law clearly states that. In the United States, the history of transatlantic slavery has left an indelible mark. The continued presence of racism, racial discrimination,

ideologies of racial superiority in U.S. legal, political, social and economic structures underscores the interconnection between the historical wrongs of slavery and contemporary injustices. I have joined other UN experts in noting that reparations are not just useful mechanisms for fulfilling moral or political obligations. Rather, reparations for slavery are an integral part of fulfilling the international legal mandate to eliminate racial discrimination. The United States is not exempt from these responsibilities, and H.R. 40 would represent important progress in fulfilling its obligations under international law. The Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress, NCRR, and Nikkei Progressive supports

H.R. 40 and the Black community's demand for reparations because one, it is the right thing to do, two, it is long overdue, and three, because we know it is possible. We won reparations in 1988, but Japanese Americans were not the first to make that demand. The Black community has long demanded reparations in 1988. But Japanese Americans were not the first to make that demand. The Black community has long demanded reparations. America is the greatest country in the world to me. It melted a lot of great races, a lot of great minds that have come together with different ideas and make America the greatest country on Earth.

Many have died trying to get into America. No one is dying trying to get out. Reparation. Where does the money come from? Does it come from all the other races except the Blacks' taxpayers? Who is Black? What percentage of Black must you be to receive reparation? Do you go to 23andMe or a DNA test to determine the percentage of Blackness?

Some American ancestors just came to this country 80 years ago. Their ancestors wasn't even here during slavery. Some Black immigrants weren't here during slavery, nor their ancestors. Some states didn't even have slavery. We as Black Americans have always wanted what the Constitution stated, all men, black, white, and today Latino, Asian, Italian, et cetera, should be guaranteed the aliability rights of life, freedom, and the pursuit of happiness. Years later, after slavery ended, Dr. King, I have a dream speech, said, the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was a great beacon of light, but hundreds of years later, we're still not free because of segregation and discrimination.

Today, I call that reparation. Thank you for this opportunity to speak on reparation, which has been spoken about many times over my lifetime, but over the past year has become a hot topic. I ask the question, why? There's been many surveys show that a large percentage of black and white teens would say racism is better today than yesterday. We use black power to create white guilt. My approach is biblical. How can I ask my heavenly father to forgive me if I can't forgive my brother? I never want to put any one religion down,

but my religion teach togetherness. Reparation teach separation. Slavery ended over 130 years ago. Until the year 2021, still talking about reparation, not equal education, I feel it continues to let us know we're still African American rather than just American. Reparation or atonement is outside the teaching of Jesus Christ. Black people are a race of overcomers. And it talks about the fact that despite all the problems that have been brought up in this committee about racism, about slavery, about Jim Crow, Black people have overcome to the

point now where only 20 percent of Black people are below the federally defined level of poverty. Still too high, but in 1940, that number was 87 percent. And 20 years later, that number had been reduced to 47 percent, a 40-point drop in 20 years. That is the greatest 20-year period of economic expansion for the history of Black Americans. And notably, that came before the Brown v. Board of Education decision. That came before the civil rights bills of 1964, 1965. Despite all of this racism, all of this prejudice, Black people still overcame. I also find it ironic we're having this hearing 13 years

after we elected and then re-elected the first black president of the United States. And my dad always told my brothers and me the following, hard work wins. You get out of life what you put into it. You cannot control the outcome, but you are 100% in control of the effort. And before you complain about what other people did to you, go to the nearest mirror and say to yourself, what could I have done to change the outcome? And my dad always told us this. No matter how hard you work, no matter how good you are, sooner or later, bad things will happen to you.

How you respond to those bad things will tell your mother and me if we raise demand. And my father always said this about the Democrat Party. They want to give you something for nothing. And when you're trying to get something for nothing, you almost always end up getting nothing for something. HL40 purports to establish a commission to do a comprehensive investigation into the wide scope of harms committed and the range of injuries still being suffered by 48 million Black people in America. The highest standard of reparations

is needed to adequately address over 400 years of atrocities and compounded and concretized injuries that this community endures. No quick fix, no singular action, or tweak here or there in existing policy would do. America must engage in full reparations. How can a nation truly heal if it takes no action towards acknowledging the full scope of pain and dressing the punctured wounds of racism? The U.S. government has created commissions in the past, like the one proposed by H.R. 40, to document and remedy violations. Rather than asking why at this stage, Congress should be asking how. How can we provide comprehensive repair for our grave and systemic failures connected to slavery? And what steps must we take to get there? I urge Congress to account for and repair systemic racism rather than to ignore it and embody it.

We are at a defining moment in U.S. history, and reparative justice for the legacy of slavery demands facing the fierce urgency of now. I'm here today to let you know of our strong support for H.R. 40, originally authored by the great John Connors, as we've mentioned, and presently shepherded by you, Congresswoman Jaxley. This legislation is long overdue and should be put into place this year. My hope is that as the 117th Congress gets underway, that you will sign on to this bill as co-sponsors, everyone who hasn't joined so far, and do all that you can to ensure its enactment. This legislation is an important step in acknowledging the inherent cruelty, brutality, and humanity of slavery as practiced in the United States and would help millions of Americans begin to heal the subsequent emotional wounds that have been festering for centuries.

When you think about where slavery began, where segregation, where Jim Crow, there's always the Democratic Party. Earlier, we mentioned the 40 acres and a mule. That was ended by Democratic President Andrew Johnson. We talked about the KKK. That was a Democratic terrorist organization that actually was ended at the end of the 1880s but brought back again by Woodrow Wilson in 1915. And by the way, the lynching that we're talking about, horrendous, 4,700 people died by the hands of mobs. 1,300 of those were whites, Italians and Catholics, because we're looking at

a people that were just angry, evil people that hated anything that was different to them. So I think it's important to keep that in mind. And if we want to talk about reparations, let's look more specifically in terms of the people that actually did it. It was not Americans. Americans fought against that. That's why we ended up winning and defeating slavery, because so many Americans have decided it was an evil thing to finish up. So I wanted to make that point. And I say, you know, the hard truth is, and I say this, and I don't mean to offend anyone, but I say the African-American community have to come together as a group to take care of our own.

That's one of the biggest problems we have. We will not take care of our own. Boy, that's a whole lot of comedy in there. Joining me right now is Dr. Robert Collins, professor of urban studies, as well as a public policy at Dillard University. And of course, I still have my panel here. Doc, one in five Americans support reparations. And from a political standpoint, that's where it is. Look, math is math.

You need 218 in the House to get it. You're going to need 60 votes in the United States Senate, and you've got to have a president that's actually going to sign it. How should those who support reparations, what is the political pathway to get it? Because again, we can have hearings, we can have conversation, we can have dialogue, but you've got to be able to get the votes. Well, I think the current path being pursued where you're going to have a commission to study it first is the correct way to go. Because if you can have a study and then you can come forth with evidence, you can gradually build support over time.

But, you know, but Roland, I mean, you know, we all understand the politics here. I don't think anybody's under any illusion. This is going to be a generational fight. This is not going to happen, you know, overnight. This is, you know, you've got to build the support in the individual congressional districts to put the appropriate pressure on the members of Congress, you know, before you could get it passed. So it's going to be a long time. Isn't it also, if you're, again, putting your pathways, that you don't entertain any conversation about cost? Because again, if you're creating building blocks,

you're creating building blocks where what you're saying is go through the study, establish that. What always happens is folks go, how much is it going to cost? Folks love to jump to that. And to me, you haven't built any sort of momentum to get to that point. And then the moment you throw a cost out there, it's like in business. Somebody goes, oh, how much that cost? Oh, no, we're not going to do it. You shut it down. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, you you you you have to gradually build the political support. And I think as far as costs, we don't, I mean, I've seen some estimates. We've all seen some estimates. But really, you know, until you have a comprehensive study of, you know, like you said, build block by block showing what the

cost is, then I think gradually over time people will begin, you know, to come around. And yes, part of the study is going to have to be just talking about how we pay for it, where the money comes from, you know, is it going to be, you know, and of course exactly where the money's going to go. You know, is it going to fund programs? Is it going to be direct payments to people? You know, these are all issues which have to be specified and codified, which have not been.

And I think that's what brings up part of the, or at least, you know, a lot of the opposition. People are like, oh, we're just going to, you know, tax, you know, raise a bunch of taxes and give people a bunch of money. That's not going to help anybody. So, you know, so those are all issues that I think have to be, you know, have to be meticulously examined and explored. I've got to ask you this, Scott, when you listen to Congressman Burgess Owens and Hershel Walker and Larry Elder, are you like me?

Do you just want to slap the hell out of some black people? I can't really understand Hershel Walker. I don't think he speaks English. He do something else and it teach him something else. And I'm not making fun of him. I really can't understand him.

On the other two, let me just say this. You know, they're talking apples. This bill is talking oranges. They're talking about pulling yourself up by the bootstraps. They're talking about overcoming. They're talking about economic expansion for black people. But they're not talking about overcoming. They're talking about economic expansion for Black people. But they're not talking about slavery. Because if they can't, it's a false equivalent

that because Black people have overcome, somehow they're not damaged by slavery. Slavery, a part of it, lives in each of us as Black people. We can't get past slavery because we can't have a race reconciliation dialogue about it. Nobody's ever apologized to us for slavery. We're not even getting to the money part, right? And because of white privilege and white supremacy in this country,

despite 2043 coming where we're going to be a country of color, we still aren't comfortable with the race question, let alone the slavery question. And so this bill is about doing a study. Race reconciliation dialogue ought to be part of it. The study ought to be talking about how we would pay for it, but doing the assessment of those costs. But the black Republicans who testify, they're not talking about that. They're talking about socioeconomic issues within the black community, which is quite frankly, in a

weird way, irrelevant to studying the impact of slavery on this country. The bill's got to pass. The reason I laugh, Robert, the reason I laugh at them, Robert, because when I hear folks say, see, all this happened and despite we overcame. The basic point is, why in the hell did we have to overcome? I mean, the argument that you lay out is, why do we have to endure all of these barriers in order just to be American? That's the point.

Well, the interesting thing is, the arguments that they were making actually support the passage of this bill. Because think about it. All the questions that Herschel Walker was asking would be answered by the commission. All the questions that Larry Elders wanted to address would be addressed by the commission. So the way to get the answer to the questions that they had was to have a blue ribbon commission that would really put these things down. That would have the numbers. That would have the facts, the data, the statistics that will work on these issues.

I do, however, think that I remember speaking to Congressman Congress about this bill maybe nearly 20 years ago at this point. And he made the point then, and I think many people have made the point now, that you don't have to go through Congress to set up a commission of this nature. The White House, the president, by executive order, can create a blue ribbon commission to do all these same things that this legislation would do. All that is needed is the political will on the part of the president. So I think that in order to make this easier, particularly for Democrats who are in swing districts, you know, Warnock, for example, had a very close race, and David Perdue has already filed to run against him. Instead of putting this pressure on Congress, do this by presidential decree. Have this come directly out of the White House.

It will be free from all the political pressure, and then we can at least get the study results in so we can start talking about how to turn that into legislation. Let's be clear, Amisha. It's not going to be free of political pressure at all, even if you do it out of the White House. One of the reasons why folks have presented it for the Congress is because it would be the Congress that would have to handle appropriations. That's why folks want it done. And the piece is, if Congress does it, then it doesn't go away if you change presidents. Absolutely. And Roland, it's ironic to me that we've reached this place in history where now people are questioning how Black Black people are, especially when white people were the ones who created the one drop rule to begin with. But the interesting part about this that continues to

be both interesting and baffling is that we are one of few nations that have experienced such a heightened level of supremacy that has resulted in slavery, but also mass deaths and intimidation. And we see it at the systemic level. However, it becomes so difficult to even have the conversation about reparations where, you know, Jewish people got reparations. Nobody saw a problem with that. We've seen reparations given to Mexico. We've seen reparations given to multiple countries over time. However, when it comes to African Americans in this country, the conversation is, oh, do you need to do a 23andMe? Who gets it? How much do they get? And because Black people, there are some Black people who are successful, that means reparations aren't needed. I will tell anyone who believes that, one, it's a crop, but two, this only speaks to the agility, the strength, and the fortitude of Black people.

That doesn't mean that it erases a nation that has consistently diminished, beaten down, and bloodied African Americans for such a long time. It doesn't eradicate the issues that And to make some of white America feel good by not acknowledging the slave past, by not acknowledging the reparations are needed in this country to move Black people forward, to make finally a certain level of amends for what has been done to Black people in this country, is quite frankly astonishing. And we really need to work towards moving beyond this ridiculousness and even buying into the rhetoric of even Black people and black Republicans who believe that reparations are something that are undue to African-Americans. That's just

ridiculous. But Robert, what we do have to do, and this is where, for me, it's all about information that you get, and that is not having bad information. I've had folks, when I've been talking about this and laying out facts, there were people who have been upset with me since our conversation on Thursday. We had the gray car on talking about it. And they were like, yeah, but this happened for the Japanese. I had to explain to them, this was the specific legislation that was based upon the specific act that took place.

Then they cited something else. I said, this was the specific thing. Part of the issue that you're going to have to deal with here for all the people who are yelling reparations for for descendants of of enslaved people people african descent you have to also get over the hurdle of the specific the specific incident which is why when others have talked about uh when you talk about those who were directly impacted by federal housing, Jim Crow laws, with federal housing policy, who are still living, applying it that

way. When you still talk about the folks who, of course, survivors of Tulsa, and of course, they've been dwindling since this thing started 20, 30 years ago, even longer. And that's also part of the deal here. What I keep saying to black folks is don't let other folk, these what I call these YouTube historians, get you so wrapped up in misinformation without understanding how other settlements and bills became reality. Look, that was a black farmer settlement, billions of dollars, but that was

specifically for black farmers and certain acts that took place. That's also part of this. And so I think a lot of times folk just jump on information thinking, oh, well, they gave money to this group and that group, but you've got to ask what actually happened and why was it given?

I think this is why... That was for Robert. I was for... I'm sorry. Professor Collins, go ahead. Okay. I thought it was for the... No, I'm going to go to you, then I'm going to go... I'm going to go to you,

then I'm going to go to you, then I'm going to go back and go to Robert. Go ahead, I'm sorry. Okay. So, yeah, you know, I think each one of those situations

that you just talked about was, you know, were reparations for a very specific set of circumstances, a very specific historical act. And in those situations, you actually did have studies. You did have studies done, and things were specified and codified. And so I think the best thing to do when you're talking about slavery reparations, even though, of course, you're talking about a much bigger group and a much more complex group, is to

follow what has worked in the past for reparations and to do the study and to set out the specific circumstances, the specific history. As you said, you mentioned housing policy. We can look at the very specific set of historical federal policies that have kept a large segment of black folks in poverty, you know, just set out the historical argument and then, you know, specify where the damage was done and then specify where the benefits have to go. So I think we can follow those models, which, you know, while they were politically problematic

as well, were successful. But, of course, we're just going to have to, because the level of complexity is high, we're successful. But of course, we're just going to have to, because the level of complexity is high, we're just going to have to do it on a much larger scale when we look at slavery reparations. But sure, let's look at the models that have worked and how money's been dispersed in the past, and let's learn from that and follow those models. Patillo. Well, one of the things I try to impress upon my conservative friends is you could not be pro-Israel and anti-reparation for African-Americans because the entire argument

was exactly the same against the creation of the state of Israel, which is this is an ancient wrong which was done against the people. How do we do this, that, and the other? But the state of Israel is there. So the same way that we were able to work that out and figure that out, how to make that a thing, you can do the same thing. We'll figure out reparations for African Americans in this country. And frankly, we do not need to wait for Congress on this. We have so many HBCUs in this country, so many philanthropists. One well-funded study that

would harness the power, the intellectual knowledge, and the institutional ability of our higher educational institutions could put this report together for Congress and work out these issues for them and then simply call the hearings on it. So we need to pass this legislation, but we should not let that be the end all be all of what we do as we fight towards this end goal. The thing here, again, Scott, what is interesting, when you listen to the debate, when you listen to folks on multiple sides of this, it still goes down to how do you create a non-black strategy? I mean, you can sit here and look, you got Burgess, you got Herschel, you got Larry Elder, whatever. Bottom lines is here,

218. That's what you got to get in the house. You got to get to 218. You got to figure out how to get to 218. Yeah, and to do that, you got to be able to count one, and you got to make them do it.

You know, the other thing, you talk about 2-1-8. What about if the bill does pass and it gets past the Senate and it gets to the White House, right? Are they going to sign it? There's no guarantee they're going to sign it. You've got to make the president do what you want him to do, simply because he supports it or is giving lip service to it. I mean, you've got 600,000, 700,000 disenfranchised people in the District of Columbia who don't have a vote in the Senate or the House. And the Democrats support that, and the Republicans don't, and we continue to suffer in the District of Columbia. And so I think that the Congressional Black Caucus, for one,

I think hitting people who are financial supporters of those 218 and then committing to them that it's the right thing to do, I don't think it's a good comparison to the Jewish state versus African Americans because we are of the darker you. But my point is that given this racial consciousness to a higher level, there's no better time to push this right now because you have a lot of white people

who believe that black people have been oppressed and that black lives matter. And so it's got to be a full court push. If you take a day off from it, it's not going to happen. And then you got to make the president sign it once you get that 218 as well as the Senate. But I do think, Amisha, I hear Scott's point, but I do think he's wrong in this respect. What Robert is suggesting is that when you're making the argument, you have to make the argument with regards to how money is being distributed by the federal government. And so when I was talking about the specific examples, Japanese and Japanese-Americans internment camps, the settlement with the black farmers, Native Americans.

What Robert is saying is, wait a minute. Y'all critics, y'all say bootstraps. Pull yourself up. No handouts. What he's saying is, why are we giving Israel billions of dollars a year? They're their own country. You got your own money. Do it yourself.

Hershel Walker was in the videos that black folk need to do for themselves. Okay. So what he's saying is use America's largest against that argument to say, so that's cool, but this isn't. That's fine, but this isn't. That's fine, but this isn't. So tell me why. No, and I think that to Robert's point, that was a really good application,

not only in terms of how much we give Israel, but how much we give large private sector corporations as well. When it comes to handouts, America seems to have no problem doing it as long as it's to everybody that's not black. So the handout issue isn't conservatives' problem because, hell, they've been doing that for years. Their issue is looking towards why and how, and they just cannot understand or come to grips with the fact of what has happened to African-Americans. And it's not because it's not blatant and it's not in front of their faces. It's because they just don't want to see it. It's because they want to ignore it.

It's because they feel as though Black people should be able to do everything on their own, of which we have been doing for hundreds of years. And another point that Robert made that I thought was intrinsically very, very smart was that HBCUs can do that research and produce the information that is needed. And I think that Congress is going to, Democrats in Congress are going to have them do it anyway. Many have already been working on it for years. That's just one step. The next step is getting over that hurdle of actually getting the votes and support needed to push those appropriations. And I think that that's a much more difficult process. We're watching that go down the pipe with COVID-19 relief. We saw that even though the majority of Americans are highly affected by COVID-19,

Blacks and Latinos specifically are affected at the highest rates because of the types of jobs they worked before the pandemic hit. With that being said, we saw that this round of COVID relief, the Republicans were trying to diminish the sheer amount of stimulus check that was going to be provided and who was actually eligible for it. So if they can do that with the backdrop of a pandemic, what is to say, or how would anyone believe that they wouldn't try to extremely diminish or totally eradicate anyone, any Black community member actually receiving reparations of any kind, even those who would be eligible based upon the studies and things that we've seen or are forthcoming? I think that there's a lot to be said there. And I just don't see this going without a major fight akin to the Civil War itself. Professor, final comment. Yeah, it's going to be a long fight.

I don't see it happening during the current congressional session. And so this is going to be, you know, we have to dig in because this is going to be a many years fight. I do agree with that, which is why, you know, all these folks who said they got mad at me because they said, somebody asked me on Twitter, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago, what I think, and I said, pipe dream. And I said, show me where you're going to get the votes from. And that's why some people are like, well, why aren't you fighting for it? I said, what I'm going to do is, I said,

I'm going to maximize my opportunity right now to fight for the billions of dollars the federal government spends currently to make sure we're getting a part of that. I said, now, look, if this is if you want to make this your primary thing, go right ahead. I said, but somebody got to fight for the money right there right now. I said, so that's one battle. This is a battle. And right now there are billions. The federal government spends several trillion dollars a year with this federal budget. The question is that when it comes to all those contracts, how's that growing black businesses? Who's going after that money? How are we going after the pension money? That's black and brown dollars right there. And again, you have to have a multi-pronged strategy. And so I said to the folks who want to make it their mission to fight for reparations,

go right ahead. But I'm not going to ignore the money that's sitting there right now. That's our taxpayer money. I'm arguing not with white folks on how to get taxpayer money over there. I'm saying I'm where the money right now, right now for media spending. Where's the money right now for the Pentagon? Where's the money right now that black people are getting when it comes to COVID vaccine? What about the black firms that are trying to launch testing companies?

What about the what about the dollars being spent in commerce and health and human services and being spent in the USDA and on and on and on? There are billions sitting there right now. Right now. We don't actually have the megaphone to yell and scream to make sure that we're getting our fair share right there. And so that's also my point. Professor, I appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.

Tell my fat brother, Dr. Walter Kimbrough, I said, what's up? That's right, Scott, another album. Scott, Professor, I don't know if you're in a fraternity, but Scott gets a little upset because he's a Kappa. And, you know, Kappa's on. We have five speakers, too. That's prejudice. Scott, y'all don't do much in terms of quality work. Professor Collins, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All right, y'all. Gotta go to a break when we come back. We're gonna keep

talking money. We'll talk about the new Greenwood Bank. We'll discuss that. And we got our Crazy Ass White People segment as well. Plus, it's Tech Wednesday. We got all that. There's a whole bunch left. Before I go to break, let me do this right here, folks. I want y'all... I told y'all

what we're doing right here is on. I want y'all, I told y'all what we're doing right here is on Roller Mark, on the filter. We are providing a megaphone, okay? While these other mainstream people are talking about Rush Limbaugh dying, there you go, he died. So what I'm talking about are the issues that matter to us, the people who represent us. And so I keep telling you this, we've got to have a program that speaks to our issues where we are centered, where we are front and centered

and advocating for these issues. That's what's critically important. So we want you to support Roland Martin Unfiltered. Please do so by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. We've got lots of people who are members of our fan club

and we thank all of them for being members of our fan club. We've got lots of people who are members of our fan club. We thank all of them for being members of our fan club. Folks, my fan base, y'all have been amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing, supporting all that we do. Amazing with your giving because you understand why all of this matters. You understand what it is that we need to do to build a strong community. And let me be clear. I've had a lot of people blow me up and like, you know, stars and Netflix. They all been sitting, sending me stuff to put their entertainment stuff on the show.

And let me say this here, y'all. I don't mind entertainment stuff, but stars, y'all ain't spending money on media. Netflix, y'all not spending money on media. So why am I going to sit here and spend all my time with my audience talking about just entertainment stuff? We've got to have black news and information where our issues being front and center, where we are talking about what's happening in our community.

Because if we don't do that, we're going to have uninformed people who are walking around, who are going around. And let me say this here. And my guy, Kenan, he's working on this right now. We're pulling the video of that reparations hearing. How many of y'all even saw it? Well, we're going to stream the whole deal. Why am I saying that? Because this is about us being able to speak to our issues in these particular platforms. And so that's why we're doing it. So please support us. Cash out, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered, paypal.me forward slash rmartinunfiltered, venmo.com, rmunfiltered. Of course, Zell Rowland at rowlandsmartin.com. Don't forget when you give to us on YouTube,

we only get 55% of your donations. So give to us direct via Cash App, PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle. That way we get 100% of your support because your money is going to support the things that we are doing. Got to go to a break. We'll be back on Roland Martin Unfiltered. I'm in the world of fiction. I mean, that's what I do. I'm an actress.

I spent 35 years in this business i've been in the business since i was 14. i was discovered in a basement theater in philadelphia basement called freedom theater and that's what i do i play for a living and i look and see that we're in a world that i mean i mean that it's it's bizarre when you can't tell the fake from the real. These people are not faking it. That's what they're going to do. They're willing to put their whole lives, their family's lives, everything they've accomplished around looking pathetic and weak around a table

because this man showed up and told them that he was the one and everybody should follow him. He didn't even have a good argument. He's not Martin Luther King. He has no, he has no, no words. He has no, he has nothing. He's just rich and white and male. And so people want to see that power on display and then tell us that we are not, you know, that we're crazy. They can't do it anymore. That's the good news. Hi, I'm Vivian Green. Hey, everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond, and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, Unfiltered.

All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. Well, of course, you know, one of the things that we have been talking about on this show, and we've been talking about the idea of where's our money in black economic justice. First of all, y'all should have that intro. Let me know where it is. We've been talking about that because what it speaks to, it speaks to our future. Now, there are some people who have said, well, Roland, I don't understand. How is that going to get to the people? Well, how has it gotten to the people beforehand? See, let me just get real calm. Okay.

I'm just... There's some people who really piss me off when we start having these conversations. Because there are some folk in our community who are so good and adept at whining about problems, but literally having no plans for the problem. I'm a firm believer that if you have a problem, then you have a solution and then you're able to offer the solution. And so I find it interesting when we talk about where I hear these people holler, yell, scream about reparations but then they love to whine

the black elite, the black business class well who the hell do you think is going to fund stuff? who? who do you think is going to fund stuff? Who? Who? Who do you think hires? Who? Who?

And I love, I get a kick out of these fools who post on my Instagram page, Twitter, a roller, you remember of the boule? Which I joined five years ago. Same dude.

So when I was fighting for black folks before Sigma Pi Phi, so what the hell was I then? Oh, you wanted them alphas. Then I hear the same fools. Oh, see, they all masons go.

Please explain to me how black people have been able to do things if you do not have institutions. I got some fool on some dude on YouTube, Dre Smith. Where are you going with this? Well, if you pay attention, Dre, you will understand where I'm going with this. And if you listen, you will understand how I'm unpacking this. What I'm laying out to you is that the pathway forward for black America ain't a collection, ain't, oh, the individual, this person, this person, this person, this person. We have been able to survive

because we have had institutional power and infrastructure, which I define as pillars in our community. So when the people, Robert, run their mouths and complaining about, well, that damn Reverend Jackson, you can't act like Operation Breadbasket didn't exist. You can't act like Rainbow Push wasn't significant. Scott, I love the people

talk about, we knew black media when you standing on the shoulders of the black press, NMPA. That's right. When you're standing on the shoulders of Charlotte black press, NNPA. That's right. When you're standing on the shoulders of Charlotte Abbas and A.I. Scott and Robert Abbott and John H. Johnson and John Sinstack, and I can go on and on and on. institutions in order to advance agendas and not what I call these YouTube historians with these made up groups of a collection of individuals who just run their mouths and they're not actually moving people down a proper path. So we talk about. Black power, black business. Oh, support black banks. But are you actually doing it. My next guest are speaking to what we're talking about because they founded a

black-owned banking system called Greenwood, a mobile banking platform inspired from the early 1900s Greenwood district where the recirculation of black wealth took place regularly in a place where black businesses thrived. Creators of Greenwood aim to tackle economic justice. I'm going to talk to them in a moment. But I'm setting this up for a reason, Amisha, because if we as black people, let me just

be as just clear as possible to anybody who's on YouTube, who's on Periscope, who's on Facebook. If these stuck-on stupid fools keep shitting on your black institutions, how in the hell do you think you can leverage power? If you're trashing the black frats and the sororities and the boule

and the links and the masons and the eastern star and you're trash in the black church you track well just explain to me please how the hell you think you're gonna be able to leverage something if all you do is trash all of the various black entities that make up the black infrastructure. Any one of y'all can start. Well, Roland, it comes down to a large portion of sadly younger black people being a part of this new woke. And new woke means that you get to rip apart institutions. And many of those are institutions that help black people get to the advancements that we have gotten to, like what we've seen from HBCUs and the graduates that exist, like what we've seen in Black press, like what we've seen in a lot of our early Black

economic centers across the country. I think that it's frustrating, but it also goes to show something you somewhat explained a little bit earlier, just a strong lack of historical context. In this push to shake things up and basically lighten institutions on fire, they lose the understanding of how we got here, why it's so important to elevate these individuals who came before us, who actually paved the way. But also they lose a lot of the knowledge base of what they designed and how we're able to still utilize a lot of those things. We talk about that in the context of the NAACP. We talk about that in the context of all of our legacy organizations, the National Urban League, the Rainbow Push Coalition. We talk about it in terms of the sheer amount of civil rights

leadership and strength that was built out of the Black church. I can't name a single civil rights leader or forebearer who did not get their start in that church, who did not get their start by building their leadership and understanding how to organize communities from what they learned in that church, how to speak to from what they learned in that church. How to speak to individuals who were in peril and who were downtrodden and who felt as though all of their options had been exhausted. That is the type of historical understanding that is necessary to be able to move America forward, specifically within the black community. And it's very depressing to watch time after time a lot of these new wave black people come about and totally diminish the main sources of social empowerment and justice.

Misha, I think it's more than that. I take it a step further. It's that self-hate, you know, new and old. Stop talking. Hold on. Well, I didn't hear you tell me not to talk. Because you're running your mouth! First of all, here's what happened. Amisha wasn't even finished and I heard you sitting there trying to sneak in at the last second.

I ain't done. Listen. Robert Patil, I'm going to go to you. This is a perfect example. This fool Michael Coates on YouTube. What have those groups done for our communities, Roland? Nothing. See, if you can't even acknowledge that black America doesn't even get to 2021 without those groups. When people say, what have those groups done?

Those groups are made up of black people. So when somebody says, what have those groups done for our community? What you're saying is, what have those millions of black people done for millions of black people? Well, Roland, there's a dialogue between Plato and Socrates where they discuss the critic in this role in society where they say they are as numerous as they are fickle. There's always going to be critics. There's always going to be critics.

There's always going to be those who complain about everything. If you look at some of the writings back and forth where you have Garvey addressing Du Bois and the power structure there, they called them Diti Negroes, ones who cannot be trusted, who are split in their allegiances. There's always going to be these dialogues and these conversations. The point that has to happen is where people have to finally come together and decide that regardless of what the rudder is, the apparatus is, we have to be facing one course and decide to move in that one direction. And any amount of tearing down and destruction and arguing against

your own people is not going to be helpful. So you're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution or you're part of the problem. More people seem to want to be part of the problem than want to be part of the solution. And I really laugh at all of these super conscious, super conscious fake-ass people, Scott, because

Stokely Carmichael, Kwame Ture, says you can't show me any black leader who accomplished anything without being a part of a black organization. Yeah, you're absolutely right. But I think it's deeper than that. It goes back to slavery. It's that self-hate, the ramifications of slavery and discrimination and Jim Crow and Ku Klux Klan have taught us as a people to hate on each other, to hate each other, and be honest with you, to hate

ourselves. That's the real root of it. And so, you know, the people who complain about these black organizations or about black people or black leadership always ask, what you going to do? You know, you're going to talk. I tell you what, put it in writing. You'll never hear from them, if you will, because they have to be led. They want to be led. And the leaders for them are folks like you and the people on this panel and other leaders of those civil rights organizations and those black-owned organizations that make up the black middle class who believe that leadership is an act. It's not a statement or a speech. And they're doing most of the acting

over the last hundred plus years or so. And so I know that's not an answer, but what is the answer to black hate, black self-hatred, crabs in the barrel? Until we work out that as a community, psychologically or otherwise, whatever advances we make with the reparations, whatever we do as far as giving black businesses

more business and making them more money and uplifting them, that piece of self-hatred that we found in slavery that lives in each and every one of us is still gonna hold us back as a people. You agree or disagree, Roland? Here's why I'm going to out-split the difference. At some point, someone has to acknowledge their own sheer stupidity. At some point, someone has to say, you know what?

I'm just tired of being dumb. Right. I'm looking for the comment. And ignorant. And ignorant. I'm looking for the comment. And ignorant. I'm looking for the comment. Some fool, and I'm really looking for it. And this guy was like, we need to get rid of NAACP and start something new. But what y'all at?

First of all, let me just unpack that level of stupidity. No, maybe what needs to happen, and I'm really looking for the person, because y'all, I ain't even looking up at the camera. I'm really looking for the person's name, because I just want to name check that eating ass. And the reason I want to name check them because are you even a member? See, when somebody says they ain't doing anything, so have you joined? Have you brought others over to take over a chapter? Right, exactly. Then take over the state branch? And to take over a chapter? Right.

And then take over the state branch? And then take over the region? And then change the country? I've done that. I've done that in organizations where I've literally taken over. See, that's the thing. That's the problem for me. So folk want to say, start

something new. Okay. Start it. You start it. Where's the meeting? Right. Where's the meeting? Where's the meeting? See, it's smarter to actually say, how can I take over something that's existing? I told y'all, I didn't want to start. I didn't want to start Roland Martin Unfiltered by myself. Amisha, I really did not want to start this show from the ground up.

I did not want to have this show from the ground up. I did not want to have to bootstrap it. I didn't want to. So I went, I talked to Essence, Ebony, and The Source, Black Enterprise, Urban One, Radio One, BET, Byron Allen, Blavity. I talked to all of them. Nobody wanted to partner. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to go ahead and do it.

So see, so that's the piece. I tried to join something existing and bring my talents and expertise to it to say this is what we could create. Folk didn't want to do nothing. So I said, I I'm going to go do this myself. But when we're talking about organizational infrastructure, you just can't recreate 100 years of history that has relationships and alliances and things along those lines. That, to me, is what we have to understand. And I just think that we are living in a moment where we can no longer just allow the usual talk. We've got to support people who are literally saying, we're not going to just waste our time talking. We're going to move the ball forward. Joining me right now is a couple of folks, Michael Killer Mike Rinder, as well as Lynn Tillman Cherry.

She is the Chief Compliance and Risk Officer. Glad to have both of y'all with us. Mike, I'm going to start with you. And I just throw out this way. What was he talking about? I just really get tired of black folks who bitch and moan about what we need, what ain't happening, who ain't doing this, who ain't doing that. Somebody need to do this. Somebody need to do this. Somebody need to do this.

What y'all have done is like, well, hell, we ain't just going to keep waiting on somebody else. We're going to do it. And that's what y'all created. Yeah, we are. Can you hear me? Yeah, we got you. Go ahead.

We got you. Well, I think it's important. First of all, let's acknowledge that Greenwood was a part of Tulsa, Oklahoma, that existed. It was by blacks for blacks. It was that way because segregation and apartheid of what they call Jim Crow did not allow for us to be fully a part of this country, to be fully a part of this country in the way we deserve to be. So we created our own. And because of that, terrorism, aligned with the government at that point, destroyed that part of town.

Greenwood is a spirit, it's a spirit of Black self-reliance. And it not only helps our community, it helps the greater community through helping the unbanked get banked, whether that's Black or Latino or poor and working class white folks. It helps take your checks out of the liquor store hands, out of the out of the check cashing places and out of the places that are that are predatory lenders. And it allows you to start banking. Greenwood as a community was resilient and self-reliant. And this banking platform is welcome to all, but it is definitely for black people and it's for the unbanked. So I'm happy to be a part of it.

I'm happy to be a part of this banking platform that is going to I'm happy to be a part of this banking platform that is going to help us radically change for working class people's lives in this country. Lynn, explain to folk exactly what it is, because some might think, oh, OK,, oh, this is a physical bank. Lynn, they might think you're going to be building buildings around the country. And so for the folk who have not heard about Greenwood, explain, Lynn, exactly what is it? Sure. Thanks, Roland, for having me on. Greenwood is a digital bank, which means there will be no brick and mortar branches. Those are essentially faux pas at this point in COVID times, in the digital advancement that is occurring globally. Digital is the way to go. People have more efficiency interacting at their convenience 24-7, 365, without having to depend on a branch being open. We can deliver the

same plus some additional service digitally that would not be available in a branch. And when we talk about a digital branch, what are the services, Michael. And so what will people be able to do? Is it a banking card? Is it a credit card? Can they make deposits, withdrawals? So what are the banking services for them? So the banking services are held in your hand traditionally like a regular bank, right? So most 65% of people are banking now on their hand. My 13-year-old daughter banks on her hand. What we have, and when I say on her hand, it's on her phone.

My wife checks our accounts on her phone. So you're going to be able to have a traditional account. You're going to be able to make deposits. You're going to be able to draw. We are partnering with other banks, Black and Large Bank, to be able to make sure that your deposits are covered. Beyond that, though, what Greenwood gives you the ability to do is instead of having to say,

when I worked at AutoZone, I made about $200 a week. When I would cash my check for a month, when I had lost the bank account for a month, my check went from me being able to cash my check at about $200 and a half, $200 in my account, from having to go to a liquor store. That liquor store took 20% of what I cashed my check for. So that means instead of having 200 bucks and being able to save 40 or pay for my daughter's nursery or things of that nature, I now have 160 to try to work with. That crippled me for a month. So imagine having to live like that a year, two, three years. So what it enables the unbanked to do is to actually have a bank.

It also is going to grow into a loan center, meaning people who want cars and houses. And beyond that, it's going to be a capital injector for businesses that are considered nontraditional outside of our community. If a black man comes and says, hey, I want to open up a barbershop and have a concept for 10 barbershops, then you have to understand that this bank is going to be uniquely prepared to deal with that versus saying, I go to one of the big four who have no understanding of what black barbershops are. They only understand maybe super cuts and gray clips. So, okay. What is the status of it now? So I just literally just went to bankgreenwood.com and I clicked get access now, ask for my email. Then it said my current position is

number 511839. Does that mean that 511,000 people, 838 are waiting? So is the bank active? What's going on right now? You want to take that one?

Sure. I'll take that one. Sure, I'll take that one. So because there is a perception in our community that if black people are attached to something, it won't be right. We are making absolutely sure it's right. We are building the best product that we can put into the market. We want to be the example for any who follow. The executive team at Greenwood is a phenomenal team built with people who have expertise, the knowledge and experience in banking and technology to deliver a product that we can be proud of that will be world class. Absolutely.

So right here it says full service digital banking in your hands, digital savings and spending accounts, Apple and Android pay, peer-to-peer transfers, mobile banking, two-day early pay, no hit and feed, global ATM network, community reinvestment. Okay. So when I popped on as a, I own this media company, I'm a black business. And again, you have folks who obviously banks depend upon deposits. And so I was sitting here like, okay, let me go on. I want to be able to say, fine, we're going to open a $25,000 account on Greenwood. When? What's your plan? When do you plan for folks to be able to,

like, what's your timeline? Yep. So we are planning the launch for the first half of this year. We know that people are getting a bit tired of waiting, But again, in order for us to bring the best product to market, unfortunately, there is time involved in that. You don't get a second chance to make a first impression. So if it's garbage when it comes out, we will never redeem ourselves. And we are not going to absorb that reputational risk. This has to be right. Michael, are you surprised? Were you surprised that, like someone just popped on, that

511,000 people have already signed up and are waiting for information? I'm more surprised we don't have a million yet. I so appreciate the half million people that have signed on. I appreciate them not only for signing on and having faith in the process. I appreciate them because they understand that if I can wait to get in the club for NBA All-Star, if I can wait to get in the club for Super Bowl,

if I can wait on freedom, which we've been promised is coming in 57 years of freedom we still haven't gotten yet, I can wait on a banking platform that is designed for me by people like. So I appreciate the 500,000 that are waiting. And what I appreciate more is the next 500,000 and 500,000 that are going to come after that because the first 500,000 are truly pioneers and innovators.

Just like we built Chime, just like we built Apple Pay, just like we had built Twitter, just like we had built Instagram and now Clubhouse, black people's influence in dollars has the ability to build damn near any institution in this country. And we're going to prove that. So with this and I appreciate the 500000, including you that are on board. And we're going to march forward and about Lynn, about the point about, you know, in terms of wanting to how it look and how it works and operational. Because, look, the same thing, the same thing when we did this show. There are people I had somebody was quite interesting. I had a brother who said, damn, man, you know, your show looked pretty good.

Come on, Rowan. And I went. They thought you was going to lose the ascot. They thought you was going to lose the pepper, man. No, sir. And I was like, what are y'all, like, what were y'all thinking? And, in fact, I was on a panel. I mean, this is 100% true story.

I was on a panel. Procter & Gamble invited me. Speaking at Procter & Gamble, y'all need to be advertising. Procter & Gamble invited me to be on a panel, and it was around the commercial they did called The Talk. And it was at the National Underground Museum in Cincinnati. So we're on this panel, and this young brother, I think he owned a barbershop, and I understood his heart.

He said, you know, y'all, you know, we got to support Roland Martin Unfiltered. He said, it may not look as good as CNN. And I went, wait a goddamn minute. Come on now, talk to him. And I said, bro, hold up. No, I said, my shit look good. And I had to, so for the people who are watching,

I need y'all to understand what Michael is saying, what Lynn is saying, because here's the reality. I said, no, bro, my graphics look good. I said, we got 4K cameras, robotic cameras. We got lighting. I said, we got 65 inch monitors behind. So we go put on a professional product because the reality is this to what you're saying, Lynn. And this is just real.

And we were just talking about this with my panel, is that the psychological self-hate of black folks is that man that shit don't look good it uh it look raggedy well you know it is black and we literally have to overcome that in our presentation because if it does not look as equal as as slick, as professional, as on point, black folks will rip it apart and will bypass bugs of somebody else, but then hold us to a higher standard. I totally understand exactly what you're talking about. Exactly.

Like France, we're not a wretch of the earth. It's like France founding, you know, wretch of the earth. You have been trained not to trust yourself. And we are here to help you get on the pathway. That doesn't mean we fix everything. It means we do our little part. Because if all of us do a little, no one has to do a lot. And let me tell you one of the littles I'm most proud of with Greenwood.

You were talking about the NAACP before you got to us. I tell people oftentimes, there's nothing wrong with starting a new organization, nothing wrong with planning, strategizing, organizing, mobilizing something new, but do not abandon a hundred-year bank like Citizens Trust that I brought you here. Just like you support the new Greenwoods. Do not abandon the NAACPs that I brought you here,

no matter what you create new. With that lawsuit the NAACP is bringing up, it really showed you the power of that org. Well, with Greenwood, when you upcharge with your black card from Greenwood, two organizations that benefit directly are the NAACP and the

United Negro College Fund. So we get to send more black kids to school to become our financiers, our lawyers, our doctors, our engineers and architects, and then we get to support a 100-year-old organization that now is supporting us as they come coming out and bringing a full legal squad out to make sure that suits on our behalf to and against all tyrannical governments and leaders of those governments to make sure that we're treated well in matters of Fulton County's

election and others. So banking with Greenwood also supports the NAACP and United Negro College Fund, and I'm very proud of that. Lynn, go ahead. No, I was just going to add that it's not just the look of the product, the look and feel. Financial services is heavily regulated,

so the last thing that we want to happen is that the back office is in shambles, but you have a shiny new card and the regulators come and shut it down because of that. And so that's really what my role encompasses, to make sure the business activities are in line with federal and state regulatory requirements so that that does not happen.

And so you said the goal is for you to launch the first half of this year. So obviously this is February. So really between now and June, of course, Juneteenth might be a great start. Being a native of Texas, we were the first state that actually, we the ones who found out late. So everybody running around hollering Juneteenth. Y'all, keep in mind what it was all about. We found out late. Okay, that's what Juneteenth was.

But at least the late Al was my frat brother. He was the one, the godfather of Juneteenth that actually made a state holiday in Texas. But what this is, it is about breaking the chains. And, Michael, you just said something I think people just looked over. And I say it all the time. We make shit sexy. We make stuff hot. Clubhouse has a billion-dollar evaluation because of black people.

When it comes to social media platforms, when it comes to everything, we make it hot, we make it sexy. And I've always said, if we're going to make something hot and sexy and rich, it'd be us. And I posted on Instagram a few weeks ago, I said, everybody has monetized black culture except black people. This is about saying, we're already banking, we're spending money, why not

do it with something that's black-owned? Absolutely. And not just because we're black-owned, we're providing pop here. I can tell you, I'm just not a tech guy. I'm not as into tech. But as they walk me through behind the scenes, this is what it's going to do. I honestly now understand how I'm going to be and see how easy it is going to be to bank from my phone. My wife is just much more technologically savvy and financially savvy than me. So I lean to her. So I'm glad that finally I have something that I can have in my hand.

I won't frustrate her with questions all day. So we're going to bring you top tier. It's going to look good. It's going to feel good. It's going to look cool. But more than that, it's going to give people that deserve to be banked the opportunity to bank without having to jump through the hoops of the big four banks, without being given accounts that will skim, that will take from them like the big four have without being given um um accounts that will skim that will take from them

like the big four have in the past and it will make sure that they don't have to um live in the desert that is like a food desert in the bank desert in communities they are so i'm very proud to be associated so i i gotta go ahead because you know and i gotta throw this out and i really I really do a very good job of hating of ignoring haters of dismissing trolls but I do sometimes have to smack the shit out of these YouTube historians

and so I was a couple months ago we actually ran the commercial y'all can finally let me know we ran the commercial and just for all the people who are watching, when they rolled out Greenwood,

they did reach out to us. And we actually ran for two weeks their commercial. So they actually were a sponsor. So for everybody out there, when we talk about supporting Black, because I know somebody like, Rola, you said you're going to sit here and deposit money

in the county of Greenwood, but they're going to support you. They already have, y'all. So y'all need to understand that the check actually cleared, so don't even try to front. But Lynn, I see the folk out here. Greenwood is not a bank. Killer Mike's Greenwood

is a boule grift. I didn't realize Killer Mike was in the boule. I didn't realize that. Killer Mike, I didn't see your name on the list. I mean, you know,

me and Scott Bolden, we in. But, but, but, so, so Scott, because, first of all, I guarantee y'all Killer Mike ain't in the boule. Because you got to wear, they, matter of fact, I almost didn't get in because I had my ascot on at the initiation and it's mandatory you got to wear a bow tie. And they almost didn't let me in because I didn't have a bow tie on.

So I'm like, y'all, Killer Mike ain't going to be in no bow tie. So I'm just letting y'all know that. It's because I met with Mr. Farrakhan that day and he told me to e-mail. I'm not. I got to people. I'm just a working class kid

who grew up in a neighborhood called Atalia Heights in Atlanta, Georgia. It was founded in 1948. It was founded by black people for black people. So everybody lived there from regular working class black folks like my grandparents to Cynthia and Billy McKinney to Martin Luther King's parents to Herman Russell. So I got a chance to see people who were members of the Jack and Jill Club

and people who were influential and powerful in Atlanta. I certainly was just a smart kid who was a blue-collar kid. And what I was smart enough to know that my grandparents' way of life was right. At five years old, my grandparents took me and my sisters to start bank accounts with Citizens Trust. I've had numerous black bank accounts through my life. At eight years old, my grandparents bought stock for me

in Coca-Cola and Delta. So what I am is a product of a man and woman who grew up in the rural South, who understood that if I don't take care of myself and my coin, then no one else is going to take care of me. I am not a product of the bootleg. I'm a product of Tuskegee, Alabama and Edenton, Georgia. And two grandparents that made sure that I acted as a responsible black man, that I married a black woman, and I created a legacy with black children and family. I absolutely have that. I have joined no fraternity or social clubs, even though I know a lot of homeboys that are Qs and

Tappas and Alphas and even Crips and Bloods. I have joined nothing. And guess what? Bottom line is, we need our institutions to do stuff. But Lynn, speak to that, whoever this fool is saying and first of all it they really don't matter to me because they video got 15 views um i mean i get 3 000 dancing on periscope in the car but i do want you to answer that when

somebody hollers greenwood is not a bank it's not a real bank it's not a real bank. It's not real. How do you answer that? Well, my answer to that would be what have real banks done for you to this point? Tell me. Greenwood is not brick and mortar. The building means nothing. It is what Greenwood represents and the institution that Greenwood portrays and what it is giving to the community. You can't deny the deposits that we're sharing with Black-owned banks. You can't deny the donations that we're giving back to the causes, NAACP and UNCF. So help me define what a bank is. It is not the Webster's Dictionary definition. Absolutely. And that, and the last point here, Mike, that people have to understand is

we're not operating in a different world. I use Square. I use, now, literally, I was just talking about people who want to support the show, support us via Cash App, PayPal, Zelle, Venmo. Those are all financial instruments that have completely changed the game. It used to be if my mama called me and I get those calls, hey, the AC unit went out. Ten years ago, I had to sit here, go to they bank, go make a deposit. The money show up the next day, and then I got to get there before 2 p.m., or I can do a transfer.

Hell, now, I'm like, who you paying? They got cash, yeah? I can send them the $500,000, done. I mean, so this idea of, oh, it's not a bank, hell, people tell me, we'll get you a TV

show. You can watch my ass on YouTube on your TV. That's a TV show. It's a show on a TV. Yes. Funny story, I was amazed the first time I saw somebody buy a bottle and pay

for lap dances with a PayPal account. So one of the dancers, she said, Mike, I signed up for Under Blue Flame. Shout out to the Blue Flame and Michael Tato. Black on right there in the car in high school. But one of the dancers said, Mike, I can't wait for y'all to open up Greenwood because that way they can just send it to my car and I'm proud of picking up money out the flow. And I said, boy, liberation coming a lot of different forms. Look, look, look.

I'm about to end the show. My barber literally is downstairs. He got rid of his shop. He now comes to you. For the last four years, I'm like, Dave, dog, I'm tired of having to go to an ATM to get some cash for your ass. I'm like, Dave, I need you to get a cash app or something. I said, bro, I'm sitting there driving like, damn, because I don't carry cash.

We're going to have him back in Greenwood. Dave, we want you at Greenwood. That way we pay electronically, and we can definitely curb it for Rona. He just got cashed out two months ago. I was like, praise the Lord. I said, otherwise, I got to be running around like a crackhead looking for an ATM.

Lynn and Killer Mike, I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Y'all, GreenwoodBank.com and I'm going to end the show. We're going to play the commercial. Again, this is a freebie. So again, this is a freebie for y'all. I'll hook y'all up. But Mike, as well as Lynn, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

All right, I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, guys. Bye-bye. All right, y'all. This is the commercial that we ran a couple months ago, announcing the launch of Greenwood Bank. Watch this. Black self-reliance. It's central to our legacy. From inventions we use every single day to Silicon Valley or the

Silicon Savannah, black innovation has always made this world a better place. Greenwood's namesake, founded in 1906, built directly from the intelligence and discipline of black dreamers. Looking to create a safe, productive, self-sufficient society, looking for real freedom. So they built it. Imagine a black neighborhood with its own transportation systems, its own grocery stores, cafes, hotels, barbershops, banks,

doctors' offices, newspapers and schools. A black economy so rich that the dollar circulated 36 times within the community before leaving it. Whether you had a little or a lot, your black dollars had an impact. You know, the year 2021 is going to mark 100 years since the lives and life's work of the Greenwood community was violently destroyed. That still hasn't stopped us. Black ingenuity has continued to astonish and inspire the world. So what are we going to do? Grow with it or keep giving it away?

There's no question that black and brown people have laid the foundations of this nation. We have never participated fully in the green. We think if we can get some of that money to you, you will know what to do with it. Today's Greenwood is a coalition of everyday people. Citizens, entrepreneurs, entertainers, politicians coming together with a singular mission, strengthening and circulating the black dollar, using the same savings and community reinvestment strategies of our ancestors to shrink the black wealth gap. We've all heard the phrase,

a rising tide lifts all boats. Well, we're rising now. Are you ready to live out your ancestors' wildest dreams? I know we are. And that's what Greenwood is ready to share with you. All right, that's it, folks, for us. I was going to get the crazy-ass white person, but I don't want to do that. But, Robert, I really want to just get you to weigh in.

I mean, what this is about is using our what was at our fingertips. We were already doing it. We're using the instruments. It's a matter of us and now we can use it ourselves, use it for us, by us. You're absolutely correct, and people have to understand that it's called collaboratively building that you work with each other. You bring your expertise to the table. you build the community brick by brick, the entire thing does not develop at one time. And as you were saying earlier about the schism

between new organizations and legacy organizations, if you are going to go anywhere, you stand on the shoulders of giants, you build from there. So I think it's important to support each other, support like-minded organizations, join them, figure out how to build them up from the inside, and then that's how we develop the beloved community that we all hope to have. That is absolutely it. And so, again, it's all about building.

I want to thank you. I want to thank Amisha and Scott for joining us as well on our panel today. Thank you so very much, folks. We'll do Crazy Ass White folks tomorrow. I'm going to be in St. Louis tomorrow. On Friday, I'm going to be moderating a town hall for Tashara Jones. She is going to be in St. Louis tomorrow. On Friday, I'm going to be moderating a town hall for Tashara Jones.

She's running for mayor of St. Louis. While we're there, we're going to be doing a series of interviews with Kim Gartner, with Wesley Bell, both prosecutors there. In addition, talking with Michael McMillan, who heads the Urban League there, and my man, Tev Poe.

So we're really looking forward to all of that in St. Louis. And folks, if y'all, again, y'all want to support what we do, Black-owned show, speaking to our issues, having that kind of conversation we did on with about Greenwood Bank, please support us via Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal.me, forward slash, forward slash, RMartinUnfiltered, and then

Venmo.com one second folks are sitting here texting me later doing a show and so Venmo.com 4 slash R M unfiltered ZL Rowland at Rowland S Martin dot com so we'll certainly appreciate it

let me do this here let me try to find it let's see here I'm going to read some names of some folks who have supported it, y'all have been doing them, and y'all have been doing a great job, a lot of you have also been giving, supporting us on Zelle as well, and so we appreciate that, I'm just looking for the names right now, let's see here, give me a second, give me a second, because I am backed up with names. I want to go ahead and knock some of these out if I can quickly find them. All right, I can't find the names right now. I will have it tomorrow. Oh, let me do this here.

So a lot of y'all out there support the show. Y'all rock the Roland Martin unfiltered gear. Man, yo, my man Pope, I saw this on Twitter today. He sent this in saying he got his Roland Martin unfiltered gear. I said, oh man, check this out. My man looking good in the Roland Martin unfiltered. Pope Lonergan, he calls himself a Quaker fundamentalist. But man, I appreciate that, Pope.

Listen, any of y'all out there, any of y'all out there who get Roland Martin unfiltered gear, I want y'all to take a photo and then send it to me and we will actually show it on the air. We'll show y'all some love if y'all rock the gear. So no matter what it is, take a photo, put it on

Instagram, put it on Twitter, Facebook, but send me the link so I can see it and then we'll show it on the air as well. Tomorrow, I'm going to read all the people who give 50 bucks or more. You get a personal shout-out. I'm going to read those on the air tomorrow when I'm broadcasting from St. Louis. All right, y'all. I got to go.

All my folks in Texas, y'all stay well, stay safe, stay warm. Check out your neighbors. Let's look after each other because we certainly are our brother and our sister's keeper. I got to go. All right. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes.

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

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

Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.