#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Okla. Supreme Court Kills Race Riot Lawsuit, Ill. Cops & School Discipline, Pew Research Pushback

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

6.12.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Okla. Supreme Court Kills Race Riot Lawsuit, Ill. Cops & School Discipline, Pew Research Pushback   Oklahoma's Supreme Court struck down a lawsuit from the last known survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre who had sought reparations from the city for victims and their descendants. The Pew Research Center recently put out a report saying that Black Americans believe in "racial conspiracy theories."  Well, that report is getting some pushback.  We'll talk to the  President and CEO of JustLeadershipUSA about why using such terms can be dangerous.  Illinois' 3rd largest school district is accused of using cops for minor disciplinary actions against black students.  We'll talk to the attorney who filed a complaint alleging racially discriminatorily handling of those students. We'll tell you why a member of the famous Motown Group Four Tops is suing a Michigan hospital for racial discrimination. I'll share my thoughts about rookie WNBA player Caitlin Clark did not get chosen to be on the 2024 US Women's Basketball Olympic Team. And I'll give a recap of the Warrick Dunn Charities 11th Annual Celebrity Golf Classic I participated in on Monday.  #BlackStarNetwork advertising partners:Fanbase 👉🏾 https://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbaseMass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington, D.C. and to the Polls 👉🏾 https://vist.ly/37jmv Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. 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 Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war.

This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded 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. Thank you. Today is Wednesday, June 12, 2024, coming up on Roland Martin on Filtered Streaming Live on the Black Star Network. Oklahoma State Supreme Court, they've struck down a lawsuit from the last known survivors, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre,

who were seeking reparations from the city of Tulsa for the victims and their descendants. The Pew Research Center recently put out a report saying that black Americans believe in racial conspiracy theories. Well, that report is getting some pushback. We'll talk to the president and CEO of Just Leadership USA about why using such terms can be dangerous.

Illinois' third largest school district is accused of using cops for minor disciplinary actions against black students. We'll talk to the attorney who filed a complaint alleging racial discriminatory handling of those students. Also, we'll tell you why a member of the famous Motown group, the Four Tops, is suing a Michigan hospital for racial discrimination. Also on today's show, Ward Dunn held his charity golf classic on Monday. We'll show you what he had to say. And also one of the women who's been helped by him getting into a home. Folks, it's time to breathe the funk.

I'm Roland Mark Dunn Filcher with the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. I'm Roland Markdown Filcher with the Black Star Network. Let's go. With entertainment just for kicks He's rollin' Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin Yeah, yeah

Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin Now The Oklahoma Supreme Court says the grievances of the survivors of the Tulsa race massacre do not fall within the scope of a public nuisance. They have dismissed the lawsuit. This, folks, is likely the last effort these survivors have

of getting any reparations as a result of the race massacre in 1921. They allege the city and the chamber were explored in the 1921 race massacre by promoting tourism for the city's gain at the plaintiff's expense. They also sought reparations from the city in July 2023.

A Tulsa County judge dismissed their suit. Today, the Supreme Court said the plaintiffs failed to justify a public nuisance claim and quote a legally cognizable abatement claim. Of course this is an effort as that has been folks have been dealing with for years. I mean going back.

More than two decades. Johnny Cochran, Willie Gary and others representing these plaintiffs and folks have been doing all they can for them to be able to get reparations as a result of Greenwood being completely destroyed in this race massacre.

My guests, my panel today, Robert Petillo, host People Passion Politics News and Talk 1380 W AOK out of Atlanta. Rebecca Carruthers, Vice President Fair Elections Center out of D.C. Derrick Jackson, Georgia State Representative from District 68. Glad to have all three of you here. I'll start with you, Robert. You know, this is, it's been an ongoing deal. Here you had these cops, the city,

folks with the state destroying this black section. Tulsa refuses to pay up. The state of Oklahoma refuses to pay up. And so you sit here and go, how in the hell can you destroy property of all these black folks and never have to have to repay for the damage? And all these courts are agreeing with them. Well, as we know, the court system in this country is never a rantic reparation for black

folks and appears they never will. And we have to understand that, in this election year, this has to be part of our demands. It's great to have Juneteenth celebrations. It's great to have events around the country. It's great to talk about the legislative record. But we have to talk about reparations for African-Americans while we have this strength and this power. When you have both parties vying for our vote, even the Republican Party is having events around the country with Byron Donald and Hunt and St. Steel advocating to try to get the black vote.

This is our time to make it very clear that our single issue that we are voting upon is this issue of reparations. We've fought our way through the court system for over 100 years, trying to find a way through their means, through their courts, to provide some form of restitution for what we went through in this country, the same way the Japanese Americans, Jewish Americans, Native Americans have done so. But they will not come to the table and even talk about it. We're going to have to do this legislatively.

And this is the time that we have to put our foot down and say that as a community, it's either now or never that we address this issue of reparations. And this is about putting pressure on legislators and the city as well. Look, there's an election happening in August, Rebecca. You've got an African-American who is running for mayor there in Tulsa. I would hope black folks in Tulsa are voting in mass numbers and saying with him at the helm, maybe that will lead to the city doing something. Exactly, Roland. But it also takes more than just having black people in certain key positions. It also, like you said, it requires

people actually voting to take action. Here's the bottom line. This is the very reason why black Americans know that there are two systems in this country, and many of our institutions do not benefit Black Americans. I know we're going to get into this later. This isn't just that we think or we feel, but it's we know. And this is the latest piece of data where we see Black Americans are being denied something, that if it was a different group of people, if it wasn't black folks pleading this case in court, we know that they would be like, yes, absolutely, we need to pay y'all plus interest. So once again, this isn't just where we think or we have a conspiracy around it,

but it is an example of what we know and what we see. Look, it is always difficult. I mean, look, you've got these two survivors who, you know, 109 years old. They have been battling. They have been fighting for all this time, Derek. And the courts are pretty much shutting the door on them. You know, Roland, when you think about the two last survivors, right, there were three, but the third— Yeah, yeah, yeah, Uncle Red died last year. Yes, that's right, and he was 102. So just think about it.

Here we have a very profound case where you typically do not have surviving witnesses that's at the age of 109 and 110. I mean, put the legislation aside, because even if we have legislation in place, Roland, you know as well as I, that legislation is only as good as those who will enforce it. And so we have laws on the books already. And this is beyond just a public nuisance issue. People were murdered. Businesses were destroyed. Families were disrupted. And so this is beyond just a public nuisance. This is a call for justice, right? This is beyond just reparations. And there are going to be times, as we're going to get into, I'm sure, later on in your show, when we start talking about conspiracy, because Rebecca is right. There are two systems.

There is a white system and a black system, because we just watched an individual with 34 felonies did not show up in person to talk to the probation officer. He zoomed in. No one in the history in New York, and being a native New Yorker, Roland, you had to show up in person. And so we have concrete evidence that there are two systems in these United States. And it's just, frankly, the only, so from legally, Robert, there's no way to go. And again, that pressure has to be brought to bear on these elected officials. That's where it has to happen. Exactly.

This is the end of the road legally for these individuals. However, this is based upon the laws that are in place currently. There's nothing to say that new laws cannot be passed in the next term that can provide relief, even direct legislative relief. We had a situation in Columbus, Georgia, probably close to 20 years ago, when a young man by the name of Kenneth Walker was killed by police. And the family sued. The family went through every court apparatus possible to try to get relief. The city was legally not required to pay up. However, because of all the issues that Reverend Jetson and other leaders raised, the city,

or a group of business people, raised the money and were able to provide some justice to the family. There are always other ways to do things. And if we have laws that are on the books that are wrong, you change those damn laws. But this is the time in this election year. We always are talking on social media about getting young people to vote and all this messaging about not voting and why it doesn't matter. I think that we make our stand on reparations in 2024. We won't have an issue with getting people to the polls and getting people turned out, both on the local, state, and federal level. Indeed. So, folks, we'll be seeing what's the next move for DeMauro, Solomon Simmons, and the two remaining survivors. But absolutely sad news out of Oklahoma. All right, folks, got to go to break.

We come back more on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network when we come back. Hello, my brothers and sisters. This is Bishop William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival and president of Repairs of the Breach. And I'm calling on you to get everybody you know to join us on Saturday, June 29th at 10 o'clock a.m. in Washington, D.C. on Pennsylvania and 3rd for the Mass Poor People's Low-Wage Workers Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the polls and the post effort

to reach 15 million poor and low-wage infrequent voters who, if they vote, can change the outcome of our politics in this country. Our goal is to center the desires and the political policy agenda of poor and low-wage persons along with moral religious leaders and advocates. Too often poor and low-wage people are not talked about, even though in this country today there are 135 million poor and low-wage persons, there's not a state in this country now where poor and low-wage persons do not make up at least 30% of the electorate. It is time that the issues of poor and low-wage people be at the center of our politics. Living wages, health care, things that matter in the everyday lives. We will no longer allow poverty

to be the fourth leading cause of death in this country. We must let our voices be heard. Join us. Go to our website, www.poorpeoplescampaign.org, RSVP, get others to come, get a bus. Get a van. Get on the train. Come and let our voices be heard and our votes be felt. Lift from the bottom so that everybody rises. And we won't be silent. And we won't be silent anymore. I am getting old. Fanbase is pioneering a new era of social media for the creator economy. This next generation social media app with over 600,000 users is raising $17 million and now is your chance to invest. For details on how to invest, visit startengine.com slash fanbase or scan the QR code. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked

all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion- dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

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

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

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

and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more.

Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Another way we're giving you the freedom to be you without limits. ad council to our code. Another way we're giving you the freedom to be you without limits. What's good y'all. This is Doug E. Freshener watching my brother Roland Martin underpiloted as we go a little something like this. Hit it.

It's real. A recent Pew Research Center report describing widely held views that black Americans believed in the, quote, racial conspiracy theories is getting some pushback. Some say the wording is offensive and can be dangerous ammunition for right wing media and politicians to dismiss situations dealing with systematic racism. The center attached this editor's note to the report. Quote, this report is under revision. We use the words racial conspiracy theories as a shorthand and acknowledge that was not the best choice. Deanna Hoskins is president and CEO of the Just Leadership USA, and she joins me right now. So, Deanna, just first of all, explain your thoughts on this, why you say this is bad language by them. Thank you, Roland. Actually, when Pew released this report and they utilized the words conspiracy theory at a moment when

we have the narrative around election fraud theory, conspiracy, QAnon. The wording of that says that Black people just have a suspicion, and it almost gaslights our reality, systemic racism. And they utilized this word all the way throughout. They acknowledge these are, in fact, issues that have happened in the black community, but they titled each section of black America's racial conspiracy theory around criminal justice, around politics, which is harmful at a moment right now. So, and is your fear that as a result of this report, that it will just cause folks who are already paranoid to go,

oh, see, and start advancing, frankly, more conspiracy theories? Exactly. And not only that, that when we start talking about mass incarceration, when we talk about over-incarceration, systemic racism, people, Pew is a trusted reporter and research institution. You're going to have individuals say, oh, that's a conspiracy theory. Pew already. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, Deanna. Stop that comment over again because your signal froze. Go ahead. Oh, I'm sorry. But what it does is sets up the potential of the public, because of Pew's

reputation around research and surveying, to say when we start talking about mass incarceration, systemic racism, to have it really undermine and gaslight to say, oh, that's just a conspiracy theory Pew has already researched that. So even with the editor's notes that we're revisiting this, it's already out there in mainstream media. and we know people pick up the titles and highlights and keep running with it. Questions from the panel. Rebecca, you first. So my question is, who over at Pew decided that they wanted to spend time focusing on researching black folks did they actually have black folks involved or black data scientists involved or was it just a group of white people saying hey this is interesting about black folks so let's you know peek into the black communities and figure out

what was going on like i need to know like right that was my first question for this that was my first question and i asked my team to look at who is the author of this report. And it is a black woman. So I went to the theory of skinfolk and kinfolk because you must not have experienced the history that we have experienced in the black community. But there again, the quickness of their adding that note when we called them out made me feel as if you knew what you were doing, because you retracted it too soon. Robert? So on that same point, did they look at any other groups and call their valid concerns conspiracy theories? Did they look at Jewish Americans who were fighting against anti-Semitism and say that's a conspiracy theory?

Do they go to stop Asian hate and call that a conspiracy theory? Or is this, as you said, an intentional effort to undermine the plight of African-Americans in this country? I am with you that it was an intentional undermining of the plight of African-Americans and continue to allow the systemic oppression. There again, the way it was written, and even in a report, that interview she said, she said, well, the questions didn't come out that way, but your answers did. Why did you write it that way? Why did you use that language if we are saying the facts that African-Americans are over-incarcerated, African-Americans have been undermined through systemic racism, but you continue to ask the questions one way, but then you reported it with all of these topics. And each section in the report says Black America believes in the racial conspiracy theory around politics. Each title is deliberate in that utilization of those words.

Derek? Deanna, I appreciate your work in this space. And as a legislator, I read the report as well. And my question is, especially when she stated, aside from the historical events, right, the context. And I was a little, you know, I was stuck right there because if she would have included how we got here around the 13th Amendment, for example, and how the 13th Amendment set up mass incarceration. So my question to you, what can we do as a legislator to combat these sort of articles that mysteriously are popping up, you know, over a two-week period? She only interviewed 4,700, you know, of our cousins.

What can we do to combat this? Because this gets into our media consumption, and it becomes a little bit more challenging because we are in a 24-hour, seven days, 365 cycle. Right. I really appreciate that question because that was what I asked. How do we get this? This is already out. Your only stand is going to be revised, but it's already in people's thoughts. So how do we actually look at controlling what the media writes, actually pushing back on that, creating our own narrative? I think I shared this earlier with someone. I think we're in a critical time that we as black people have not created our own narrative because what is happening is institutions like Pew are trying to deliver our message and our narrative and utilizing our cousins to write the reports around that narrative. All right.

Well, again, this is why it's also important for us to respond when things like this happen. So the record is corrected. So people just don't take this and begin to run with it. So great job there. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you, Roland. All right.

Thank you very much. Folks, when we come back, Vice President Kamala Harris continues her Black Economic Tour, takes it to Charlotte. We'll show you some of what she had to say. Folks, don't forget, support us in what we do. You can join our Bring the Funk fan club. Of course, our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing on average 50 bucks each. That's $4.19 a month, $0.13 today.

Send your check and money over to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash Shop is Dallas Sign, RM Unfiltered, PayPal or Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM unfiltered paypal or martin unfiltered venmo is rm unfiltered zale rolling at rolling s martin.com rolling uh rolling at rolling martin unfiltered.com and download the black stud network app apple phone android phone apple tv android tv roku amazon fire tv xbox one samsung smart tv we'll be right back. A lot of y'all have been asking me about the pocket squares that we have available on our website. You see me rocking the Chibori pocket square right here.

It's all about looking different. And look, summertime is coming up. Y'all know, I keep trying to tell fellas, change your look, please. You can't wear athletic shoes every damn where. So if you're putting on linen suits, if you're putting on some summer suits, have a whole different look. The reason I like this particular pocket square, these shibori, is because it's sort of like a flower and looks pretty cool here versus the traditional boring silk pocket squares. But also, I like being a little different as well. So this is why we have these custom-made feather pocket squares. But also I like being a little different as well. So this is why we have these custom made feather pocket squares on the website as well. My sister actually designed these

after a few years ago, I was in this battle with Steve Harvey at Essence. And I saw I saw this at a St. Jude fundraiser. I saw this feather pocket square and I said, well, I got some ideas. So I hit her and she sent me about 30 different ones. And so this completely changes your look. Now, some of you men out there, I had some dudes say, oh, man, I can't wear that. Well, if you ain't got swagger, that's not my problem. But if you're looking for something different to spruce up your look, fellas, ladies, if y'all looking to get your man a good gift, I've run into brothers all across the country

with the feather pocket squares saying, see, check mine out. So it's always good to see them. And so this is what you do. Go to RollinusMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. You can order Shibori pocket squares or the custom-made pocket squares. Now for the Shiboris,

we're out of a lot of the different colors and I think we're down to about 200 or three hundred. So you want to get your order in as soon as you can because here's what happened. I got these several years ago and the Japanese company signed the deal with another company and I bought them before they signed that deal. And so I can't get access to any more from the company in Japan that makes them. And so get yours now. So come summertime when I see y'all at Essence, y'all could be looking fly with the Shibori pocket square or the custom-made pocket square. Again, rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. Go there now.

Now streaming on the Blackstar Network. It was my junior year at Georgetown, and Spike calls me and he says, Malcolm, what are you doing next year? Graduating, you know. He said, take a year off. Welcome, Malcolm X. I said, okay. First of all, for the folks who don't know, Spike is my cousin.

Spike is my cousin. The person watching, like, how the hell is Spike just gonna tell you... It's true. It's true. This is Reggie Rock. Thank you're watching. Rolling Martin. Unfiltered.

Uncut. Unplugged. And undamned believable. You hear me? Vice President Kamala Harris continues her Black Economic Opportunity Tour. She stopped today in Charlotte, North Carolina. The tour highlights the Biden administration's efforts to increase opportunities in Black and minority communities. Attorney, political commentator Bakari Sellers was joined by actor Michael Ely in moderating this conversation at Johnson C. Smith University.

Here's some of what was discussed. Indeed. Madam Vice President, it's an honor to be here with you today. I think this tour is such a great idea and I think just it's working, one. And two, I think it's always great for the people to hear directly from you what is happening, what is being done. I know an important issue for you is housing. Yes. And I know it's been an important issue for you throughout your career. Being in California the last 20 plus years, I know how much work you've done there. I know it's at the forefront for you.

It was at the forefront for you there. It's at the forefront for you now in this administration. The question I have is, it's a priority. So what is the administration doing to help ease the burden of homeownership right now? So let's start, as you know, Michael, and we've talked about this before, homeownership is one of the best ways to achieve intergenerational wealth. Correct. Right? I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

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

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

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

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

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

Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. So, and let's think about it this way. When you are able to buy a home, obviously for most of us with a mortgage, but when you are able to have a home that is yours that you own, you accrue capital, right? And that means that when your child says, you know, okay, now everybody, I think everybody in North Carolina can handle this.

When your child says you want to go to Howard University. I couldn't help myself. We know. When their child says I want to go to HBCU, such as the one that we are so privileged to be in right now. You can say, honey, you don't have to take out that loan. I'll take some equity out of the home. You don't have to take out that loan. I'll take some equity out of the home. You don't have to take out a loan. I'll take some equity out of the house to help you pay that tuition. Or if your child says, I want to start a business, you can say, honey, I can take some equity out of the home and help you with some startup capital.

Home ownership is one of the best ways that we achieve intergenerational wealth. We also know that it is one of the many issues where we have seen incredible obstacles for black families. We don't even need to go as far back as nobody got the 20 acres and a mule. Let's go to the fact that we recently celebrated D-Day. And we rightly celebrated what we have called the greatest generation. Well, there was a public policy, rightly in our country, that said about that greatest generation, you have brought stability to the world. You as American military members, most of whom are men, you have served your country and the world with such dignity to such great result. So we want to invest and reward you. And the federal policy then was to give them loans to help them buy homes.

And as we know, we had plenty of black servicemen who served in World War II, but because of discriminatory practices in terms of how those loans were given out did not receive the benefit of that boost that occurred in our country to help people achieve wealth. So there were pre-existing disparities and then you had this boost. You think about it in terms of the history of redlining. You think about it in the history of what was called a whole federal policy around urban renewal, which basically resulted in freeways cutting through black communities and other communities of color, thereby dividing up communities around what otherwise

were thriving commerce communities. So what we have been doing as an administration to deal with this issue is to one, acknowledge the truth about the disparities. And to seek out and identify the disparities and the built-in systems that still exist that create those obstacles to homeownership. And I'm going to talk about one in particular, racial bias and home appraisals. So we decided to take that on. Many of you may know the stories about a black family that wants to sell their home and then has the appraiser come in and the house is appraised for what they know is less than its value. And you probably know the stories about how they'll then reach out to family friends who are

white and say, hey, we all come over, bring your family pictures. We're going to take down ours and you invite the appraiser. And the home appra is for higher value. So one of the issues that we are taking on is this issue and are now requiring that appraisers have racial bias training before they are able to do this work. We are also giving for people who are the first generation in their family to seek to buy a home, $25,000 grants for startup capital to actually be able to pay down on home ownership. $25,000 if you are first or you are the generation that is the first in your family to be able to buy a home. The other thing we are doing is for a certain tranche of folks, helping them first-time homeowners, $400 a month in credits toward paying your mortgage. And these issues are exactly the kind of issues that when you address them make a huge difference in terms of who's able to buy a home and um and that matters and and you know listen i this you

probably are sensing from the things that i'm describing we have been taking a critical look at the those specific pieces of the system that have long gone overlooked, that are, you know, the story about the princess and the pea, that seemingly small thing that makes all the difference, these specific aspects of the system that have kept people from achieving their dreams. Another issue that we have been dealing with is federal contracts. So if you get a federal contract, being very frank, unless you mess it up, it's yours for life. But what we know is that when you're talking about black entrepreneurs, black small business owners,

less likely to have the relationships or know the process for applying for a federal contract. When President Biden and I came in, we committed to increase federal contracts to minority owned businesses by 50 percent. And we're on track to get that done by the end of 2025. Rebecca, Vanity Fair dropped a story that I thought was quite interesting that said that if the Biden campaign was smart, they would be using Vice President Kamala Harris a lot more than they are. Now, look, we've been saying that for a long time. And so now you've got Vanity Fair saying this. So maybe since you've got some white folks here, these folks might listen. The validation of white press. Absolutely, because we have been saying this on this show ever since this administration has started. Now, I will say, you know, to my sore, Vice President Kamala Harris, it's 40 acres and a mule, not 20 acres and a mule, but I won't split hairs here.

But what she's talking about, she's talking about economic policy in a relatable way, talking about the direct impact, especially to black communities, and that's what's needed. So I would say to Ben and DeFair, you know, with all due respect, to start covering it, because Vice President Harris has been talking about this. You know, when she goes out of this country, she gets incredible press. But for whatever reason in this country, she's not getting that same press. So Vanity Fair, keep covering this. And then tell your other competitors, cover her.

Because she has a lot to say. Instead of spending all that time covering all of Trump's antics, actually talk and cover when people are actually pushing forward and talking about the vision of 2025 and beyond. Let's start talking about what these two potential administrations want to bring in into a second term if either administration were able to do so. Robert, this is the article in here. It says Biden is underutilizing Kamala. Vibes among voters suggest the president is losing black Americans. His vice president could fix that.

Now, one of the things that we have seen all this time, we've seen these various polling data that's being done and we've seen these other polls. You got Pew saying that one in five black men considering voting for Donald Trump. You've got other polls that the black polls that we've done that show something that's a little bit different as well. And but the bottom line is you got to get her out there, get together a lot more. And I have been saying and it's not just her, I have been saying it since last year. First of all, let's go back to 2021 when I said the reelection of Biden-Harris should have started the day after the inauguration. Let's just go there. But what we're seeing in terms of the data, we had Adrian Shropshire on with BlackPak.

And what they're doing right now, door-to-door canvassing in three states. And what they're seeing are people saying, I don't know what their accomplishments are. And you're dealing with lots of misinformation, which suggests then what you have to do is you got to have more forums like this here, where you're literally walking through policy, as in, we did this, this, this, this, this. What we did yesterday, Dr. Walter Kimbrough talking about specifically what they've done for HBCUs. What I, to me, would make sense is they should be saying, hey, we want black mayors across the country holding these town halls in their cities.

We want folks like, we want state representatives, state senators putting these town halls on. If you're talking about right there in Georgia, not sitting here just having these things in Atlanta, but saying, no, we're going to have it in Albany, in Savannah, in Athens, in Jonesboro, in Statesboro, all around. And so you should be utilizing people now, not in September, October. They should be in an information stage now. LeBron, the dirty secret about politics and Democratic politics in particular is

they don't like to pay black people. That's just the reality of the way these campaigns work. They want black folks to be the political sharecroppers. We want you to volunteer. We want you to bring your congregation. We want you to get your community group out here. Meanwhile, they have Chad, who's a student at Yale, making $250,000 to organize on college campuses at UGA, Georgia State, et cetera. What they're going to have to do is take that war chest that they have and, as they say, the old Negro spiritual, break bread. It's just the reality that they're going to have to pay to put these forums on, pay to put these ads on black media, pay to make sure that they're getting the type of attention

and events that African-Americans will be in. It's not going to be enough to simply show up for homecoming and do the cha-cha slide into the stanky leg this year. You're going to need to actually invest in those communities, invest in building those organizations, and not just simply pay everything to consultants and pollsters and your media people. You have to make sure that you are buying into black communities, spending the money necessary to get those things done. And as Rebecca said, these news networks on the left that report every time Donald Trump sneezes, every time Donald Trump takes a nap, every time Donald Trump sneezes, every time Donald

Trump takes a nap, every time Donald Trump farts. And that's not even hyperbole. They literally had live reports on that during the Trump trial. We need them to be at some of these events and actually reporting on it. Put a camera on Kamala Harris for two hours and just let her talk in prime time. Give them that free media space, as opposed to this continued infatuation they have with Trump. Every minute that Stephen Colbert spends speaking about President Trump is a minute that he's actually helping Trump because all publicity is good publicity. Here's what I'm talking about, again.

And listen, I don't know how they partition who does what and who controls what. So, for instance, you take Kamala Harris, her Twitter feed. Now you have two feeds. There's the VP feed, which is for official business. So today's event was actually, if I believe, I think today's event was a campaign event. I think, I think it was, or maybe it was part of the part of White House deal. It was a White House deal. So it was on WhiteHouse.gov. All right, so here's a perfect example. So let me just do this here. Y'all hold on one second.

So this is what I'm talking about in terms of how I see these things being done. So go to my iPad, Henry. So I'm on the Twitter feed right now. And so you see right here, the vice president made a statement regarding this being the eighth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre. Then you see her statement regarding the passing of Reverend James Lawson. I'm going to read that a little bit later. But then you have down here, and you have happening now, I'm speaking with Michael Ely and Bakari Sellers in Charlotte

during the fourth stop of my nationwide economic tour. Okay, so they got the link to the actual video. And then you got a photo right here of her saying I'm on my way back to Charlotte to highlight our administration's historic actions to take on medical and student loan debt, invest in small businesses, expand access to capital, and more.

Okay, so you got this video right here. Okay, that's fine. All right, so, okay, so you got that. And then I go down here. So that's all I got. So regarding what happened in Charlotte, I see two comments. I see two posts.

That's it. Now, if I go back over here to the Kamala Harris feed, and again, I don't know if the DNC is running that because typically what happens is when you go into the White House, so the DNC runs that. Okay, so here we go back to my iPad. So I'm on here right now. There's nothing about. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1 Taser Incorporated

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

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

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

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

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend.

At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Charlotte today. There's nothing. There's nothing.

And I'm sitting here going, okay, I see the Juneteenth stuff. I see all this other stuff. There's nothing. Okay. All right. So let me do this here. Let me, so let me go over, let me go over to Instagram. And so let me see what's popping over at Instagram.

Okay, so when I click here and I go to VP, now, all right, so I VP. So on the VP's page on Instagram, I see a post regarding the Post Nightclub. Got it. I see the Reverend James Lawson. I got it. I see a credit score post from a day ago. I see nothing about today in Charlotte.

Nothing, okay, all right, so that's, all right, so let me do this here. So now let me go over to Kamala Harris. So first of all, if I look at VP, but look at the VP, she has 16.4 million followers on Instagram. So if I go over here to Kamala, now I go to Kamala Harris where she has 14.4 million followers on Instagram. So if I go over here to Kamala, now I go to Kamala Harris, where she has 14.8 million.

Again, I see a post about billionaires paying their fair share. I see a post about gun violence from six hours ago. I see a post from her on Jimmy Kimmel from two days ago. I see a post from a couple of days ago from by gun safety. I see a post here about, I don't know where this, I don't even know where this is. It's just a caption from three days ago. Derek, I see nothing about Charlotte. So when you're in, when you're in a battle and just, I'm gonna do one last thing again and what I need people to understand what I'm doing is this is what we call a content analysis okay and so what often happens with these campaigns in the White House they're focusing on earned media they're hoping media shows up the question is do they show up so if I now go to the White House feed, okay, so here's a perfect example.

On the White House feed, you see it right here. This is the video, okay? Seven hours ago, 2,600 views, 2,669 views. That's the number. That's the number. Okay, 2,669 views on the White House feed. Now, I'm not sure who else covered this event. I'm not sure what other folks actually streamed the event. We did, and so I'm looking right here. I'm just trying to see what did it do. So we streamed it one time. It did about, let's see, 1,000 views.

We're going to restream it several more times. So the point I'm making here is this here. Very few people are going to sit down and watch the entire 51-minute or one-hour-and-nine conversation. But they have got to be operating with speed. They've got to be sitting, dropping out clips immediately, literally as it is happening,

while it is going on. It is not, you've got to have a, the Biden Harris campaign, the DNC has got to have a strong social media team that's sitting here kicking that stuff out, that's watching it, that's grabbing clips and posting it literally as it is happening.

And so what I should be seeing on Kamala Harris on Instagram, what I should be seeing on Kamala Harris on Twitter, what I should be seeing on the VP's Instagram and Twitter accounts are multiple clips going out. And that literally means having somebody sitting in the White House watching it happen and going, boom, clip that, 60 seconds, kick it out, clip that, two minutes, kick it out. That's the world we're living in. Not an analog

world. We're now living in a digital world. So, Roland, just for the record, I want everybody to know that I'm saying it's not Roland Martin. The Biden-Harris campaign needs to

hire Roland Martin. Nope, they can't afford me. I know, but listen, hear me out, Roland. Here's the reason why I say that. See, because you cannot have a John Doe and a Jane Doe to tell the black narrative. You have to have someone like a Roland Martin that understands the narrative and what to do with the narrative. Because that's like, you know, we talking bilingual here. If you hire John Doe, Robert says somebody up in Yale, right? Somebody up in Yale don't understand the language of Clark Atlanta University. You cannot be bilingual.

You just cannot take the 87% Black men and the 98% Black women and just think that because they always voted democratically that you're going to constantly give something that they're going to consume, which is the reason why, Roland, every time I go to the barbershop, they keep saying, hey, Representative Jackson,

what is it that the Biden-Harris campaign doing for black people? They're doing a lot. It's just that it's not on their story feed. Right. And you're hoping they're hoping media shows up, but they're not. And so if they are not going to show up, but they're not. And so if they are not going to show up, what you then have got to do is utilize your own existing platforms. And you've got to also, again, I don't know who traveled with the vice president. And for all the people out there who don't understand when I'm always

talking about why folks have to invest, why we got to have advertisers, because here's the reality. The reality is we don't have the resources to just to travel in the pool. First of all, let me read for people who understand. There is a pool feed that cost anywhere to three to five hundred thousand dollars a year. That's separate from Associated Press. That's just the pool fee, okay? So if we were getting fair share of dollars, it could be me or I could actually pay somebody

to go on this trip with the vice president and whether they ride on Air Force Two or we can actually fly them to Charlotte ourselves and you know what happened? They're sitting here kicking stuff out. And see how I, now again, just people understand how these things work. When you do that, when you all of a sudden are thinking about how you drive content, it's very similar to frankly what happened when I went to Detroit.

So because I was there, guess what? Sure, the feed was going, we streamed it, but I'm doing interviews with other people who were there. In fact, I was actually ticked off because I was in the pool, and they pulled us out, and I was like, hey, there's other folks I could be talking to. And so I'd rather not be in the pool and they pulled us out and I was like, hey, there's other folks I could be talking to. And so I'd rather not be in the pool, I'd rather not actually, it's great traveling on Air Force Two, but it actually limits

what I can actually do in terms of garnering content. What they have to have is, if she's talking in Charlotte, who are the students in the audience who've got student loan debt? Where are the videos? Where are them thanking the vice president and the president for student loan debt?

Where are the black owned businesses that were in the audience in Charlotte talking about it? Where are the black state reps and the black state senators and the city council members and the black mayor of Charlotte and the county execs and the others who are sitting in the audience, where are the clips of them talking about

her coming and those things being important? It's called having a media strategy and I'm sorry, I don't see it. And if you wait until tomorrow or the day after, you've already missed the news cycle. Derek, go ahead and finish your point.

Yeah, so, Roland, two points. That's the reason why we constantly are encountering the question, what is it that they're doing for the black communities? The second point is great to have celebrities. I get that whole strategy. But it would have been more powerful that you're talking about economic opportunity for all and have Arianne Simone, the sister for the Fearless Fund, up there on that stage, right? Because we know what's happening with the Fearless Fund. And talk about, so when you're talking about economic opportunity for all, you have someone, a small business owner, that's trying to do those things

for women of color and can talk about a real situation that the administration can deal with and now that resonates a little bit differently. This is, the thing for me here, Rebecca, again, what drives me crazy

is you're in a messaging war. We have the data from polling, Rebecca, that says African-Americans are getting misinformation from two major sources, Instagram and TikTok, which means what you have to do to counter misinformation is to provide clean information that's factual. And what you can't do is you can't hope local media shows up and national media shows up. You've got to have a strategy that gets that information to them. And it's just, it's just constantly, this is the fourth stop. And I'm now saying this for the third time. And the only reason I'm not saying it for the fourth time, because I was on one of the stops and I did what I'm actually talking about. So, Roland, before my current position, I've worked in

campaigns for 20 years. And so from a pure campaign perspective, from being a campaign manager, I've been campaign manager in governor's races, congressional races, city council races, did work on super PACs. There are four things that are missing here. It is your advanced team, your outreach team, your communications team, and your strategy. So what needed to happen is the advanced team hits the ground, meets with local leaders, meets with different community groups, and meets with different businesses that have had positive impacts from the policies that came out of the White House. Those are the first people you were talking about. So then when you now have your comms team there,

they are now working the crowds. They're talking to specific people who have testimonials of the positive impact that they received from some of these policies. And then you're actually able to record it and then push it out. The third area that you're missing is an outreach team where they're now working in the community, working with community groups, helping to make sure that folks on the ground, so everyday people, grassroots people understand this is how this specific policy directly impacts my life and not just the grass top leaders or the grass top business owners. And then finally, you have the strategists. I'm going to reveal a campaign secret here. So what you put on your social media feed and or what you put on what a campaign or a candidate puts on their website, that signals

to the outside groups, those who do what's called independent expenditures, independent from the campaign, not coordinating directly with the campaign, but the order of what you preface is you're signaling to all these outside groups who are going to be spending hundreds of millions of dollars on this campaign cycle for Trump or for Biden-Harris. You then signal what is important, and you want them to start pushing out and talking about. So it is campaign malfeasance not to have these specific economic tours and these clips. Even back to my second point with the comms team, there should be a rapid response group

that is traveling with Vice President Harris. This is what a competent campaign does. And let me be real clear. The comms team, it's only a couple of people when she's on the road. Okay. So here's the piece. So here's again how I look at it. If you know that this is the and they're doing the best that they can do, which then means what you have to do is, because I don't believe, I don't believe

there's anything wrong if you're the DNC national or you're the state Democratic Party in North Carolina to still be at the event, Robert. And then what you do is, you're getting that out. And this is real simple. What I'm talking about,

there are young people who literally, and hell, I'm 55 and I do this. There are people who literally kick this stuff out with efficiency, who grab it, who can edit, who can put these things together. But again, you cannot be living in a digital world and you're operating in an analog system, you have to be able to be able to sort of drive your own messaging and use your own tools on Instagram, on TikTok. Her stop,

if this was a White House event, there should have been clips on it on her VP page and on the POTUS page on all of their social media accounts, and I guarantee you, you would have had more impressions than the 2,600 that watched the feed on whitehouse.gov. Robert, final comment before I go to break. So I'm going to give a very strange example because the people I know in the campaign

have said that it's because of Vice President Harris's low poll numbers that they feel like they can't put her out there as much as we think that she should be out there. Numbers came out this week for female rappers. So the sexy red is not the number one stream female rapper. She's not the second. She's like fifth or sixth. She has a quarter of the stream to people like Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj. Album sale numbers came out. She sold 28,000 albums in the first week. What does this tell you? Ain't nobody listening to her music. But she has a team behind her that makes sure that everything she does is in the press, that everything that she does, whether people like the music or not, is showing up in your news feed, on your television.

There's no reason for me to know who Setsi Redd is, but her team makes sure that I can't turn on social media or television or any piece of black media without finding these things out. Hire whoever the hell that is to work for Kamala Harris. Make sure that you're pushing that information out there. That's how you change public opinion around an individual in an event, by making sure that you're putting the right people in the right place to push that messaging outward. All I'm saying is this is very simple. When you invest in with advertising, God, this is very simple. When you invest in advertising, then you're able to hire more people to actually cover stuff. Simple as that. But when you don't invest, can't do it. That's how this thing works.

And there's a reason why the CNN and New York Times and these people are the size that they are. And there's a reason why black-owned media is not, does not have scale. And that's why nearly all of these black-owned media outlets aren't doing any real news coverage out here on any of this stuff. They're just repeating what other people say. And what I'm saying is

you have to understand how this is done. But I'm telling you, I don't know what they, when they unveiled the blacks for Biden Biden Harris, which I which I thought was a weak rollout again right now in cities, in Milwaukee, in places in Georgia, in North Carolina, in Arizona, in Georgia, and other places as well, and guess what? Utilize technology, have that stuff streamed out, content going out, and take questions. If people are gonna sit here,

and you might not like the question, but still, you can now give the answer. You did nothing for HBCUs. That's not true. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. That's where we have to be at. And so I don't know what the strategists are thinking, but I'm telling you, this is why your black numbers are so low.

The data shows you didn't tell a good story in 2021, 22, 23, so now in 24, folk don't actually know what the hell you've actually done in order to make the country better. So that's just some free advice. All right, got to go to a break. I'll be right back. Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Lots more stuff we got to talk about and cover, folks.

And so you don't want to miss that. We'll be chatting, showing you what took place at Warg Dunn's golf tournament. Of course, he's raising money to help single families get into their own homes. And so we're going to show you some of that. Can't wait for that. Also, we're going to talk about what's happening in Illinois where cops are ticketing students. The hell is going on there?

You're watching the Blackstone Network, back in a moment. Hello, my brothers and sisters. This is Bishop William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign, a national call for moral revival, and president of Repairs of the Breach. Campaign, a national call for moral revival, and president of Repairs of the Breach. And I'm calling on you to get everybody you know to join us on Saturday, June 29th at 10 o'clock a.m. in Washington, D.C. on Pennsylvania and 3rd for the Mass Poor People's

Low-Wage Workers Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the polls and the post effort to reach 15 million poor and low-wage infrequent voters who if they vote can change the outcome of our politics in this country. Our goal is to center the desires and the political policy agenda of poor and low-wage persons, along with moral religious leaders and advocates. Too often, poor and low-wage people are not talked about, even though in this country today, there are 135 million poor and low-wage persons.

There's not a state in this country now where poor and low-wage persons do not make up at least 30% of the electorate. It is time that the issues of poor and low-wage persons do not make up at least 30% of the electorate. It is time that the issues of poor and low-wage people be at the center of our politics. Living wages, health care, things that matter in the everyday lives. We will no longer allow poverty to be the fourth leading cause of death in this country. We must let our voices be heard. Join us. Go to our website, www.poorpeoplescampaign.org, RSVP, get others to come, get a bus, get a van, get on the train, come and let our voices be heard. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

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

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

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this

quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

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

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more.

Brought to you by AdoptUSKids us kids the u.s department of health and human services and the ad council voices be heard and our votes be felt lift from the bottom so that everybody Please, I'm rolling with Roland Martin. Unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamned believable. You hear me? Illinois School District is accused of allowing police to target black students when handling discipline unlawfully. The 25 page complaint filed against

the Rockford Public Schools that was filed with the Youth Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. The National Center for Youth Law and the MacArthur Justice Center alleged that Rockford police officers have been addressing minor behaviors that should be handled as an educational matter

by parents, teachers, and school leaders, and not as a law enforcement matter by police officers. Joining me now to discuss this, Jonathan Smith, the legal director of the MacArthur Justice Center, Nina Monfredo from the National Center for Youth Law, and Zoe Lee, one of the attorneys handling the case. Glad to have all three of you here. So, Zoe, I want to start with you. So, how long has this been going on? In Rockford, to our knowledge, it's been going on for quite a long time.

We've tried to ask communities about when they were aware of this issue beginning, and they've said, the ones that I've been able to talk to have all said that this has been going on for as long as they've been aware of. And it's only recently come to light, though, since 2019, when some reporters in Illinois discovered that this issue was happening in Rockford, in fact, all across the state of Illinois. And we've said quite a long time, what are you talking? One year, two years, five years, 10 years? We can't really say because we only have data for,

I believe up until 2019. But we believe that it's been happening based on what communities have said for however long before then. Jonathan, what are the tickets? What exactly are they? What are they actually doing? What type of behavior?

Yeah, well, first, thank you, Roland, for having us on this evening to talk about this really important issue. And if I could, just take a moment just to describe for your viewers a little bit about the Rockford School District. So this is the third largest school district in the state of Illinois.

We're talking about a district of nearly 30,000 students, over 41 schools. About a third, I think 26 percent, are white, 32 percent black, 33 percent Latino. So, pretty equally divided among those racial categories. But what that school district has done is bring on school resource officers, which are basically just a fancy name for police officers. So they've brought these police officers into these schools, and they have outsourced discipline to these police officers. So, if you are a child in one of these schools in Rockford and you, you know, yell at a teacher

or do something that kids do all the time, the response is not the teacher calling your parent or, like, when I was a child, being sent to the guidance counselor or detention, the response is for a police officer, a Rockford Police Department officer, to come and to intervene and to handle the situation. And what we've seen is that not only are the police officers intervening, they are issuing these municipal tickets, which are basically court citations to children, saying, because you have done an incident in school, because you are a child—and children, like my own children, misbehave all the time—because you've

done that, the response is that you're going to get a citation, that you have to go on a Wednesday to a courthouse and have a proceeding. And if you are found liable, you could be responsible for paying hundreds of dollars to the school district for simply being a child and acting like a child. This sounds absolutely insane. I mean, what I'm confused by here, Nina, is, wait a minute, if a kid yells at a teacher, hold up, call the cop, cop comes in, all right, come here, here's a ticket. What the hell? Nina, go ahead.

No, that is exactly right. It is absolutely outrageous. And, you know, that is, we have seen that kids in Rockford have gotten tickets for showing up at school and Rockford, when they are maybe suspended or something else and they just they go to school and then they get a ticket for that. And we, you know, we see that, as you said, like kids will get tickets for, you know, just really normal behaviors that happen in classrooms and that we see in Rockford that black students are targeted by RPS staff for these referrals to the police that are in the school.

Okay, so do y'all have how many tickets? Any idea how many students, how many tickets, who's tracking this, anything? So I think- Yeah, so- Oh, go ahead, Nina. No, no, no, you go ahead. So yeah, I was going to say, to Zoe's point earlier, part of the challenge is that we just don't have data, that it's hard to know exactly the scope and the scale of what's happening. But we do know, based on the data we have so far, that the tickets—and this is not going to be surprising to you or to your audience—that, you know, I said the district is about a third

white, a third black, a third Latino. It's not going to shock you to know that the tickets are a third Black, a third Black, Black, a third Latino, that Black students are disproportionately and exponentially more likely not only to be disciplined, but to be ticketed and to be fined when they go to these proceedings. And I wanted Zoe to speak a little bit, because Zoe has actually gone to these hearings in Rockford, and she has seen firsthand the ways in which Black students are targeted, are profiled, and are really impacted by these tickets. Yeah.

So, first, I wanted to say that, with regards to the number of tickets in Rockford, we do have data for the recent years. We don't have data for the recent years. We don't have data for years before 2019. We know that this year, however, and this year alone, as of March 24th of this school year, there were 590 tickets issued in Rockford. 590 tickets? 590 tickets as of March 24th of this school year alone. Right. So just imagine all the tickets that have been issued before that,

tickets four years prior that we don't have the data for. The scope is, it's pretty huge. And I don't think we fully understand just how big it is yet, because we've only been able to get data for the recent years. And I have gone to these hearings. They happen on Wednesdays, in the middle of a school day, at 1 o'clock. So, when a kid gets a ticket, they have to then leave school on a Wednesday to attend these hearings. And they—I have seen—I want to say I've

gone to at least a dozen of these hearings. Between the months of March and May, I went almost every single Wednesday. And every single time I've gone, when there's a student that gets ticketed, they're always a student of color. I've never—in the times I've gone, I've never seen a white student ticketed. And they're there without counsel. They're there. A city attorney tells them they have the option to either pay the fine or to go to trial. And it's often framed in this sort of coercive way

where it's like, if you pay this fine, things will go away. So these families and these kids, they feel pressured to pay these fines, sometimes very big fines. I'm sorry, when you say very big fines, how much?

So default, if a kid doesn't show up, is $750. And many kids don't show up. So many kids have. $750? $750, yeah. So this is what this sounds to me like. This literally sounds to me like what happened in Ferguson, where essentially this was a money-making operation.

This is a money-making operation. That's what this sounds like. No, I think that's right. I will say, you know, I actually worked at the Justice Department at the time that we issued our findings in Ferguson. And you are exactly right, that what we see is not only are these policies targeting and discriminating against people of color, but these are actually money-making schemes. They try to pay for municipal services off the backs of low-income communities and people of color. And it's not just in policing. It's happening in schools. It's happening far too often.

And this is not just a Rockford story. I mean, this—we brought this complaint against Rockford. But the reality is that, like, give me a district in this country, in any state, and I think you will see similar practices happening. And so, this is a district in this country, in any state, and I think you will see similar practices happening. And so this is a nationwide problem. I think it's a crisis. I think it's something, as Zoe said, that people are not paying attention to, because

it's often happening, you know, on Wednesday at 1 o'clock, where people are working. But the reality is that this is happening. It is having a devastating impact on families of color, on kids of color. And the reality is that if the goal of school is to educate our students, to make them into the leaders of tomorrow, having them interact with police, having them get a ticket, having them go to court unrepresented, having them miss school in all of this, does nothing to further the educational outcomes of these students and of the entire school community in Rockford.

Wow. Nina, final comment. Nina, go ahead. I think we got you. I think you're on mute, Nina. Not sure what's happening with Nina. Not sure what happened with Nina's audio. We can't actually hear her.

Nina, can you hear me? Let's see if we can. Yeah, I think you're on mute okay let me there you go there you go you were there whatever you just did okay can you hear me now now we got you go

okay great I'm so sorry what was your question your final comment oh my final yes so you know I think that was really important to emphasize is just that, you know, we know that all students can succeed when they feel safe and connected at school. And we know that students who are experiencing this police interaction at school feel less safe and less connected. And especially that's true when they receive these tickets for school-based behaviors. And what we really want to achieve through this complaint is

we, you know, what we want is we want all students in Rockford to feel, especially Black students, to feel safe and connected at school. And we're hoping that this complaint is the, you know, a first step in helping students, helping the environment be a place where students can feel that way and can succeed. Absolutely. This is, again, unbelievable. Last question. What's been the response of the school district? Well, when reporters reached out to them from comment, they said that they had no response and would not have a response until OCR, the Office for Civil Rights, reached out to them to initiate the investigation.

So the school has been pretty quiet about this so far. All right. Go ahead. We're really hoping that once OCR initiates their investigation, this is a thorough investigation and that they will be able to work, hopefully, with Rockford to identify and solutions to the problem that's ongoing. All right, then. Well, look, keep us abreast of what happens next in the story. Thank you. All right. This here, what we just heard there, Derek, again, I go back to what I said about Ferguson. I mean, this is a way to make money.

And when you give people no option, and then one of you know students are not showing up, and they're like, boom, 750, 750. I mean, hell, right right there 20 kids don't show up y'all just made 15 grand um and this plunders people deeper into debt uh and you know i i get first of all i get the federal investigation where's governor pritzker where are state officials you know i you know this is, you know, I wonder, where's the Attorney General coming role? Where's the head of education in Illinois on this issue?

You know, Roland, you know, I had so many questions that came to mind. I ran and got my calculator because when they said $750 and there were 590 tickets since March, that came up to $442,000. And I was asking, the other part of my question was, what are the infractions? What are the infractions? What can be, you know, what is the, what could be worth $750? And when you think about those infractions and they mentioned the demographics breakdown, and I'm just saying to myself as a father of seven children, you know, I can't, I would be appalled as a parent. So you're right. It's not just the Department of Justice

Civil Rights Office, but the local community. I mean, it should be an uproar. And so I appreciate you bringing this story to light, because now I have questions right here in Atlanta as it relates to the SROs and what that legislation looks like here in the state of Georgia in terms of what are the infractions? Do SROs get involved in every scenario, every situation? Because I only see this as increasing the pipeline to prison. Because what happens if that child or that family do not pay the $750? Does it get escalated? Are we talking about jail time? There are just a plethora of questions that come to mind as a father.

And so I appreciate you bringing this story to light, because we do need to follow this and and yes to the guests that mentioned um i'm sure this happening across all the united states because it's just appalling when a child is being penalized for an infraction and that price is 750 dollars robert you know this is a epidemic around the country that this is just a test. So you can look at almost any district as normally along socioeconomic lines, that the poor schools have this sort of enforcement against them, where poor students have a minor infraction. They're basically indoctrinated into the criminal justice system at a young age versus the wealthy schools, where they would never put Barron Trump into

handcuffs because of something he did, or Chelsea Clinton or any of those children. This is only something that's done to poor kids in this country. And we have to start reforming our system to stop considering our schools to be almost holding tanks and holding areas, but rather institutions of education. And this is a place where we're going to have to have some federal guidance coming into place when we're talking about other things the administration can do that will put some national standards on how to treat children instead of treating them like they're the future inmates of America. Rebecca.

You know, Robert and Derek are right, but I will also add this system isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. Anytime you have an institution that was designed in racism to figure out ways to take the formerly enslaved black folks and make them free, and then now you have a system designed to round them up, stick them in prison, make money off of basically slave labor in prison, then it's literally doing what it's designed to do. So even from a public policy perspective, why in the hell would you put SROs into public schools? It does not make any sense at all because it further entrenches the school-to-prison

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

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

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

We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. people real perspectives this is kind of star-studded a little bit man we got uh ricky williams nfl player hasman trophy winner it's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves music stars marcus king john osborne for brothers osborne we have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug fans. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family.

They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. So I would never say the system is broken. I'm saying it is efficiently

and very fast doing what it was designed to do, which is to further incarcerate Black people in this country. All right, folks. Hold tight one second. We come back. The Virginia NAACP is suing a school district that wants to bring back Confederate names on some of the schools. We'll tell you about that when we come back. Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network.

On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, Dexter Jenkins is a faith-based financial mentor with more than 20 years in the financial services industry. He's passionate about helping families build generational wealth. Even though I'm talking about things like prayer, I'm talking about things about reading the word, I'm talking about things like fellowship, I'm talking to members who are dealing with losing their houses or I'm talking to members who, because of a lack of handling finances, they're working two or three jobs. And so what I'm finding is that they're not coming to church because they don't have a handle on their finances. We're talking how to get wealthy through faith and our finances on the next Get Wealthy right here, only on Blackstar Network. On a next A Balanced Life, we talk about how to get in touch with your feelings, emotions, how to find your North Star and how to move your life

along. Because oftentimes what we'll do is we'll accept what the world says about us as the truth and how we see ourselves, which that can be completely contrary to what the Word of God says about who you are. That's on the next A Balanced Life here on Black Star Network. Hello, I'm Marissa Mitchell, a news anchor at Fox 5 DC. Hey, what's up? It's Sammy Roman, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Isabella Cordero has been missing from Philadelphia since May 20th, a 12-year-old. She's 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighs 140 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Isabella Cordero should call the Philadelphia Police Department at 215-686-8477. 215-686-8477. The Virginia NAACP is suing the county school board for rebranding schools with Confederate names.

A lawsuit alleges that the Shenandoah County School Board violated the U.S. Constitution Title VI, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Equal Education Opportunity Act by renaming the schools. On May 10th, the Shenandoah County School Board reversed a 2020 decision by a previous board to rename two schools after Confederate generals. In 2021, the schools on the Division South campus, which included North Fork Middle, were renamed Stonewall Jackson High School to Mountain View and Ashby Lee Elementary School to Honey Run. The plaintiffs seek to remove the Confederate names, mascots and relics and to prevent any future school naming, including Confederate leaders or references to the Confederacy. And so you have this school board who makes this decision. You get elections that actually took place as well.

And what's crazy to me here is they actually think this is a good idea. And in fact, you know, you've got so many other leaders who have spoken out on this. And this goes to show you right here, Rebecca, what I keep saying, who are the folks today? Did Republicans love talking about old Democrats built the KKK and Democrats were again with support in slavery? Who are the people today that's full throwthroated support of the Confederacy? Republicans. Better not tell that to Byron Donalds. You know, so where is the Pew Research Institution with this?

Like, I'm still tripping off of being told that it's all conspiracy theories in my little black head, because I understand that there's certain institutions and mechanisms of power in this country that do stuff to the detriment of black folks. This is crazy. We know what it is. And shame on that school district for thinking it's okay, because it's been, what, four years since we had the racial awakening to think that we're going to forget that we demanded for all these Confederate flags, Confederate statues, and other Confederate, like, weird memorabilia to come down. It does not deserve a place in modern American society. Robert? You know, it's interesting to me because it's only these Confederates

that have this certain fetish for the losers of history. They're not trying to—you're never going to see them have a Hitler high school or Stalin high school or Pol Pot high school, but it's because they have this fetish that somehow the South will rise again in their minds, and they'll be able to

restore the great days of Dixie. When all you—when the blacks were on the plantation happily singing, and they were just on top of the world. They have to keep hearkening back to this time. You see this in dying empires often, this reverence for what they consider to be the Pax Americana, when the South was truly a place where white Southerners believed they were in complete dominion above African Americans. I ask these people, why? Why is this so important to you? Why are these Confederate generals so important to you? Why is it so important to harken back to this time?

And it comes down to one thing. They want to believe that one day we will return to that period of white supremacy. And so it's important to continue to fight against these symbols, because once you begin to normalize it, once you begin to allow them to change the story, as we're already seeing them begin to change the story of history right now, that is how you allow these things to rise and metastasize again. Have you noticed for Jewish Americans and the Jewish community internationally, they don't let anything slip when it comes to anything regarding the Holocaust or Nazis or what happened to them. We have to be just anything slip when it comes to anything regarding the Holocaust or Nazis or what happened to them. We have to be just as vigilant when it comes to our history and our legacy, because the past has a habit of repeating itself.

Derek? You know, one of the things—two things I would add. You know, today, news broke that how the Republicans going to use Georgia as a test for this year's election. And I'm like, well, why Georgia? Well, because in Georgia, they have a Republican governor. They got a Republican lieutenant governor that is indicted. He's one of the fake electors. And already in Fulton County, they tested this whole thing about the system is rigged. And so while they're doing something in Virginia, they try to, you know, basically, Roland, you know, distract us on what they're really trying to do as it relates to Project 2025. They're trying to make sure that they undergird all their infrastructure around our voting, around all

things anti-black, from DEI, CRT, banning books. They're just trying to keep us distracted because we're galvanizing, and we can see them for who they are. We understand this misinformation and disinformation and how we galvanize, you know, one of our brothers in our beloved fraternity. He's calling on a march later on this month around the Poor People Campaign. And they're seeing how this growth of 15 million of us coming to Washington, D.C. and speaking our truth. And so that's the reason why they're just trying to enshrine all those things of the past. They don't want to talk about the past because it makes their grandchildren see them as a very ugly creature.

And so these same folks who want to relive wherever they want to go back to Jim Crow or back to reconstruction period, they're trying to hold on something that's slowly but surely slipping away because the browning of America will continue to grow. And that's what it is. Folks, let's go to Arkansas, where a Lawrence Act is being challenged by a new lawsuit claiming it violates the state constitution. The four planes violates the state constitution. The four plaintiffs from across the state filed a suit against the Department of Education and Secretary Jacob Oliva, Department of Finance and Administration, as well as the Secretary plus Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders,

the eight members of the State Board of Education, with the intent of stopping the Educational Freedom Account Program. The program, often called vouchers, is designed to allow the state to use public tax dollars to pay for kids to go to private schools in the name of school choice. The plaintiffs contend that the funds for the vouchers will be taken from public schools going against the Constitution's requirement that the state maintain a system of free public schools and that school funds under the state can be used for anything other than public schools. What we're seeing here, we're seeing Republicans all across

the country, Robert, do this. They're focused on, you see it in Texas, you know, Governor Greg Abbott held up funding public schools to force him to pass his voucher bill. It failed. What he then did, targeted those Republicans that voted against it, and a number of them lost for re-election. We see it happening in Tennessee. We see it happening in Pennsylvania and other places. And look, I'm somebody who supports school choice, but I believe school choice, I believe programs like this should be for the least of these. It should be for the people who are in schools that have the highest failure rates, as opposed to allowing, frankly, white suburban parents whose kids don't even go to public schools to get more of that money for them to go to private schools. That's what we're

seeing with these Republican-led voucher scams across the country. Absolutely. And as the representative just said, if you look at Project 2025, they are making a direct assault on the educational system. They say the first thing they will do is get rid of the Department of Education. They want to destroy the teachers unions. They want to destroy public education, because they're now understanding that education is the ephemeral causeway to success. And you let these poor black and brown kids start getting an education, now they start competing with them for jobs. They start competing with them for resources. I understand there's a few too many of them on college campuses, and they're showing up on boardrooms. That's why they're going after

diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. That's why you saw the Supreme Court come down against affirmative action programs and higher education. They are making a full frontal assault on the educating of the next generation of young children, and they believe that they can keep them dumb. They get to maintain their position of white supremacy in this country. Don't think these things are not all intertwined and interconnected. It's part of a larger plan to dumb down black America to make us easier to control. Derek? You know, Roland, I mean, Robert is spot on. The only thing I would add to Robert's point is this, Roland. The other thing that they're also coming after is our vote.

And so they're trying to put a narrative in our communities and saying, your vote doesn't matter, right? They don't—they don't—they're not doing anything for the black community. And the reason why we know that that's not true, because they realized when we showed up in 2008 and 2012. And oh, yeah, by the way, when Georgia showed up in 2020 and got not just the first Jew, but a first brother that represents the United States Senate. And we are the reason why in Georgia that we have a Katonji Brown Jackson. And so we realize what they're trying to do. It is a full frontal attack on every aspect that we demand for them to do for us. And that is simply you hold the same laws towards us against everyone else.

And so while they try to do this false equivalency rolling right now with Trump being a convicted felon, and now they talk about Hunter Biden and how black men can relate to him because he has RICO charges, we know that's a lie, right? And there's no black man that I am aware of associate themselves with anyone that broke the law. But that's a narrative that they're trying to put in our community. And so they want to use 50 Cent or whoever else and think that we want to take on that mindset. Folks, let's go to Michigan.

The lead singer of the legendary Motown group, the Four Tops, claimed he was put into restraints and denied treatment for a severe heart problem after Michigan medical personnel did not believe that he was a member of the group. Alexander Morris, who joined the Four Tops in 2018, filed a lawsuit in federal court this week accusing Ascension Macomb Oakland Hospital

of racial discrimination and negligence. Morris was taken to the hospital's emergency room in April of 2023 with chest pains and difficulty breathing. When he told a nurse and a security guard that he was a member of the Four Tops and had security concerns over fans and stalkers, the lawsuit contends staff members assumed he was mentally ill. Morris was placed in restraints and referred to a psychiatrist.

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

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man.

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

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

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care.

Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. After showing a nurse a video, a recent four-tops performance. That is flat-out insane. All right, folks, when we come back, Warg Dunn is doing the work of helping single mothers get into homes.

I was in his golf tournament on Monday, and we're going to show you some of that good work that he's doing here for him as well. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. A lot of y'all have been asking me about the pocket squares that we have available on our website. You see me rocking the Chibori pocket square right here. It's all about looking different. Now, look, summertime is coming up. Y'all know, I keep trying to tell fellas, change your look, please.

You can't wear athletic shoes every damn wear. So if you're putting on linen suits, if you're putting on some summer suits, have a whole different look. The reason I like this particular pocket square, these shiboris, is because it's sort of like a flower and looks pretty cool here. Versus the traditional boring silk pocket squares. But also, I like them a little different as well. So this is why we have these custom-made feather pocket squares on the website as well. My sister actually designed these after a few years ago. I was in this battle with Steve Harvey at Essence. and I saw this at a St. Jude fundraiser.

I saw this feather pocket square, and I said, well, I got some ideas. So I hit her, and she sent me about 30 different ones. And so this completely changes your look. Now, some of you men out there, I had some dudes say, oh, man, I can't wear that. Well, if you ain't got swagger, that's not my problem. But if you're looking for something different to spruce up your look, fellas, ladies, if y'all looking to get your man a good gift, I've run into brothers all across the country

with the feather pocket squares saying, see, check mine out. And so it's always good to see them. And so this is what you do. Go to RollinsMartin.com forward slash pocket squares. You can order shibori pocket squares or the custom-made pocket squares now for the shiboris we're out of a lot of different colors and i think we're down to about two or three hundred so you want to get your order in as soon as you can because here's what happened i got these several years ago and they and the Japanese company signed a deal with another

company and I bought them before they signed that deal. And so I can't get access to any more from the company in Japan that makes them. And so get yours now. So come summertime when I see y'all at Essence, y'all could be looking fly with the Shibori pocket square or the custom made pocket square. Again, rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. Go there now. Hey, yo, what's up? It's Mr. Dalvin right here. What's up? This is KC.

Sitting here representing the J-O-D-E-C-I, that's Jodeci, right here on Rolling Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks. Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Glad to have you here. First and foremost, I did before I was going to break telling you all, be sure to. We are almost there, folks, about 10,000 away from hitting 100,000 downloads of our app. So we want you to make sure that you actually do that so do me a favor uh and actually um actually download the blackstone network app okay we're on all different platforms you can see our content so of course we're on

youtube but you can all and we stream on facebook we stream on twitter we stream um all over but we can you can check this out again Again, download on the Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. So you haven't done that, absolutely do that. Okay? So download the app. Alright, folks.

On Monday, I was in Atlanta where Ward Dunn had his 11th annual Celebrity Golf Classic. And that's why I wasn't at the Juneteenth concert at the White House, because I was there. And so it was an opportunity to, of course, raise money for his charity. A lot of people know the story, but maybe they don't, when it comes to how he, over the years, has been really helping out single families, get into homes,

helping them with resources, things of that nature. And so here was one of the folks who told her story about how Ward Dunn really helped her and her family out in 2018. Good evening, everyone. So I'm Rakita. I got into this program with Ward because of what happened in my past.

I want to speak a little breakdown real quick. I was living in an apartment. I was broken into twice in one month. They came back, they sold some stuff the first time, however they came back because they left the power cord to the game console. So they came back to get that and at that point I told the complex, you know, I'm done. So we moved out back with my mother. I applied for Habitat for Humanity with

Stubble Crescent in 2015. While going through the program I did a lot of volunteering, helping, application workshops, painting homes, cleaning, working at the restore that they have. I wanted somewhere stable for my kids and I to have to put roots down and start to make great memories to last a lifetime. We're blessed to have our home built. At the time my kids were 8 and 12. They're now 19 and 15. While in the building process, unbeknownst to myself but my mother knew, Word on Charities had chosen my home, which is their 151st home for the holiday recipient in November of 2016. So on the day of, I got a call to go back to the office instead of going straight to the house for the home dedication that I knew was happening.

I'm like, why am I going here instead of just going there? I don't even know what that paperwork to do. I'm like, okay, more paperwork, okay. So then I'm like, okay, we're ready to go. We're just sitting here not doing anything. Okay, we're going to go. So I didn't know that there was another way to get into my subdivision. So I was like, where are we going? So as we pull up, I see cars lying down the road. I was like, somebody's having a big event this time of morning. So I was like, what's going on? So we get close and I'm like, wait, that's my yard. I don't know about going on? So we get close and I'm like, wait, that's my yard. Like, who are those people?

So we get close and so Jennifer, she no longer works with Habitat. She's just smiling and carrying on. And I see this little, this person walking through the yard. I was like, oh my, I said, that's where it ends. She was like, you know him? I was like, I'm a football head, yes. So he comes to the car and he was like, you know who I am? I'm like, yes.

I said, you used to play for the car and he was like, you know who I am? I'm like, yes. I said, you used to play for the Falcons, but you went to Tampa. It's okay. He was like, am I retired or still playing? I said, no, you're retired. I know a little something. But that's how I introduced with him my love of football,

too, so I thought that was cool. So we did the dedication and everything. I was saving my money, giving this to my mom like I was still family because I wanted to buy furniture, brand new. I gave everything in my storage away because I felt like somebody else could use that more than me. And so when I, when we were getting the keys and I opened the door, it was a river flowing because I didn't know that every room was done That's a details that I wanted a little fireplace with the TV console to

Food and refrigerated the cabinet is I can't have to buy some items for like a year And during that process there was one person I always said, oh, you can't ever hold water. You always tell me something before something happens, which is my mom. She didn't say anything. So that was her biggest challenge. And so when it finally happened, she was like, I told you you were blessed, and you

know how blessed you were. My two favorite animals are butterflies and elephants. So they took that and hid. My silver ass butterflies on it. And my bathroom is decorated with several elephants. So in closing, I would like to thank God for letting Word.net's charities and supporters to help me make having my first home an amazing experience, even though I cry like a baby. To this day day I can call

him or Nancy ask some questions get ideas he come came to my son's graduation and he came to my son's coming home party using the National Guard so she came to that so they keep in touch with us to make sure that we're still doing good so from my little family Coll Colleen, my son, Zari, my daughter, who's over there as well, we thank you for everything that you do and continue to do. And of course, the next day we were playing and I caught up with Ward, got a chance to talk with him

about the foundation and the work that he does so if you are starting on hole six through nine my head golf professional already probably talked to you hole six through nine is going to exit to my right to your left if you are not starting on hole six through nine any Any other hole, just head right out of the staging area. We've got a GoPro there that will direct you from there. So once again, thank you for supporting the WDC event and being out here today to help along the community. So thanks again.

One last thing, we're going to flip our cart key to the off position, back to the on position. We got lithium batteries. They just go to sleep when they're parked for a while. It's the only time you'll have to do it today. And at this time, y'all can head out to your starting holes. Have a great day. Thank you. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank Appreciate it, man. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, man. Enjoy. Thank you. Appreciate it. You going to find me a cart today? You going to find me a cart today? I mean, where you been?

Where you been? I was on time just to hear your speech. . I was on time just to hear your speech. Come on. Calm down. . All right, Ward, real quick, just talk about the work that you're doing and how it really,

really impacts these families in a huge way. Well, everyone knows about, well, everyone thinks I give away houses and I don't, but I do help single parent families who are becoming-time homeowners by giving them $5,000 down payment assistance. Down payment assistance to help create a more balanced, stable life for themselves and for their kids. Thank you. And I grew up in that environment, and that was my mom's dream of homeownership and never having an opportunity to achieve that dream. I started this program almost, it'll be 27 years in November,

and we've been able to help 223 single-parent families who are becoming first-time homeowners. Hi, babe. Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Yes, sir. Thank you. How you doing? Yes, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah, yes, sir. Thank you. Yeah. How you doing? Appreciate it.

Now, how does it feel when you see the look on the face of these kids and the adults? Oh, yeah. I agree. Yeah, I agree. No, it's life changing. Once you hand the keys over to the recipients, I mean, you see their reactions.

They are like so thankful. You know, we always try to do a surprise. Some people know about the program, but when you hand those keys over, that is a life-changing moment. And when they get to walk through that door, I mean, you're speechless. I mean, it's one of those opportunities and memories that no one would ever forget because now you've gotten the keys to your home but you get to open that door and you walk through and see all the things that we have done in their home and we've tried to tailor the home to those individuals so we're trying to

personalize more things and just create a much more stable environment long time for families so that the outcomes of kids are performing better in school, much more engaged in their community. It's better relationships with the parents. It's just a lot of benefits to having a stable house that kids can grow up in and create memories in. So it's just definitely special. Last question.

A lot of people really don't understand a lot of the things that current and former athletes are doing out in the community. I cover a lot of this stuff, and people just don't really understand their impact. It goes beyond sports. Yeah, well, everybody just looks at us as athletes and not as human beings a lot of times. And for myself, you know, I love sports. I mean, I grew up playing sports and all those things, played professional football. But my passion is really the people. I was passionate about football, but it wasn't my life. And my life is really about how do I, you know, impact, take care or give people an opportunity.

Because I don't believe in giving anything to anybody. We all have to work for the things that we have. So if we could help people help themselves, I mean, that's what it's really about. There's a lot of athletes that are doing a lot of great work, and I think they need to get that notoriety and really show that we can be great athletes and we can make some money, but we do care be great athletes and we can, you know, make some money,

but we do care about our communities and we do want to get back. We do want to help people. And I'm just thankful that I do have other athletes that have come out and seen the things that I'm doing. My passion is a lot different than other individuals, and we find the things that we're passionate about, we do that. And I'm definitely going after being much more holistic when it comes to home ownership and those services that help families be stable long time

all right sounds good i appreciate it i appreciate you coming out of course you know absolutely i know you're not an athlete but you know you you you know your personality so there you go i appreciate you uh coming out and supporting organization absolutely appreciate that. So it's great being out there and so the two journalists who are of course celebrities in tournament my man Mike Hill with Fox Sports and myself as well.

And so yeah, folks like Sterling Sharp, who was out there, Bo Jackson and so many others. And the reason it's called Home for the Holidays is because folks may not know the story, but Warwick's mother was a police officer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And she took extra shifts. She always wanted to own a home. And in 1993, in a robbery, she was shot and killed when he was a senior in high school. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app,

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

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

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

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

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. And so that's why it's called Home for the Holidays. That's the program that they do.

And the thing I asked in there, Derek, which I think was important, again, we spend so much time looking at professional athletes and talking about their exploits on the field, but people really have no idea the type of work that a lot of athletes are doing in our communities across this country. Yeah, listen, I think you did an outstanding job, Roland, covering this work done event. And of course, living right here in Atlanta, I know his story as well. But you can't help but to recognize those athletes who are making a positive change in our communities. Just recently, again, I was in a barbershop and someone asked a question, well, who's doing something in the black community? And I use LeBron James as an example, all right? LeBron James learned to do in the community from role models like Warwick Dunn, right? Warwick Dunn took a very tragic event in his life and turn it into something positive to

over 200 families. And so we need to do more coverage around this space, like what you're doing, because a lot of folks just look at these athletes as athletes. They don't look at the aspect that they're human beings and that they're instrumental in our communities and making positive change. You know, Rebecca, you know, folks always, they always like, man, you playing all these celebrity tournaments. They don't realize whether it's this one, Anthony Anderson's tournament, Cynthia and the Tanner, Helps Boys and Girls Club, Anthony Anderson's tournament, said the entertainer helps Boys and Girls Club,

George Lopez's tournament, providing kids to go to Kidney Camp. I look at the work that Dwayne Wade does and Longs on Morning does. Used to be Longs on Morning Summer Groove, now it's the Winter Groove. And I just think that it's important for us to know what a lot of these Hall of Famer superstars are doing

because they are impacting and changing lives. I mean, this mother here, I mean, they moved to their home six years ago. And Warwick said when he spoke at the parents' party, 92% of the people that they've helped get in homes are still in those homes. You know, it's very important to see when we see athletes, when we see entertainers, those who have a certain economic wealth to give back into communities, very communities that they came from. It's very good. So like a couple of years ago, when we heard a lot of pushback with LeBron James, so you need to shut up and dribble.

Absolutely not, because we can go and look at the funding of the civil rights movement, understanding it was a lot of our Black stars who funded to make sure that King and other people could travel and actually have money to do the things that they were doing. I think that is the type of ecosystem that we need in the Black community. Many times we talk about being beholden to other people outside of our communities. So if we don't want that to happen, that means that we have to raise the money and put the money behind these good things that is in the best interest of our communities. Robert? You know, it's a great thing. And I'm glad that people like you can actually cover these events because otherwise they'd get no coverage on media. Well, absolutely.

And, you know, when we go there and, you know, in terms of, like I say, players out there and, you know, we're sitting here, you know, there was a local radio station out there, a sports station. They were broadcasting them out there as well. Again, when you see the likes of, like I say, Bo Jackson, Sterling Sharp, Marcus Allen. You had some really big names out there, these guys who were, of course, supporting what Wark is doing.

You know, Gary Sheffield also out there as well. And so some of the other players, give me a second, because I want to give them a shout out as well. Let me see if I can find the list here of the names that they had there. Will Allen, Ed Reed was out there, had a good chance, opportunity to see Cordell Stewart, DJ Shockley, William Floyd, Harold Green, Carolyn Moose, WNBA player, Algie Crumpler, Brian Finneran, Fred McRae, Ray Buchanan, Terrence Mathis, who's now the head football coach at Morehouse College, to K.O. Spikes.

As I said, my man Mike Hill, Sterling Sharp, Bo Jackson, his team, they came in first, Sterling's team came in third. So it was great, again, to see all the folks out there. And so we appreciate the three of you all being on the show, Derek, Rebecca, and Robert. Thank you so very much, folks. That is it for us. We're going to see y'all tomorrow. Don't forget, later you'll be seeing the live restream of Vice President Kamala Harris in Charlotte.

We'll have that for you as well. Oh, I said that I was going to, hold on one second. I was going to read her comment, her post regarding the passing of Reverend James Lawson. So give me one second. Where is it? Give me one second. So where was the post? Was it on her VP page? Was it on? Yeah, it was on the VP page. Give me one second. I want to go ahead and read that. We actually read President Biden's tribute to James Lawson. This is it.

Reverend James Lawson was a titan of the civil rights movement, an architect of nonviolent protests, and a mentor to many of our nation's young organizers for more than 60 years. He shared his wisdom and faith while inspiring us to work to build a more perfect union. Doug and I sent our prayers to his family and all who loved him in his honor. We continued our fight to realize the promise of America. And she posted this photo of her sitting with Reverend James Lawson. That's a pretty great photo there.

All right, folks, that is it for us. Don't forget, support us in what we do. Join the Marina Funk Fan Club. Send your check and money order to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash app, dollar sign, RM Unfiltered. PayPal, RM Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered.

Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Download the Blackstone Network app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung, Smart TV. YouTube folks, y'all messing around. We should be at 1,000 likes. We're 70 away.

Hit the damn like button before y'all sign off. Y'all been commenting for the past two hours. Hit the like button. Again, download the Black Star Network app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV, and of course, be sure to get a copy of my book,

White Fear of the Browning of America's Making White Folks Lose Their Minds, available at bookstores nationwide. Ben Bella Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Indie Bound, Bookshop, Chapters, Books A Million, Target. Download your copy on Audible. Folks, I'll see y'all tomorrow.

Holla! Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punch! A real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All the momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal.

See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family.

They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. 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, I get right back there and it's bad. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod.

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